There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.-Peter Drucker

Effect

The Effect is how much effective your action will be at accomplishing each outcome of a roll.

The Effect of the each outcomes decided by a roll is usually set by your level of Peril. If you’re in No Peril, you’re getting No Effect. In Lesser Peril, you’re getting Lesser Effect. Standard Peril is Standard Effect. With Great PowerPeril comes Great ResponsibilityEffect. And Extreme Peril is…not somewhere you want to be, but if you are there, you’re accomplishing a hell of a lot.

#EffectPerilHarmClock Segments
0NoneNoneNone0
1LesserLesserLesser1
2StandardStandardStandard2
3GreatGreatGreat3
4ExtremeExtremeExtreme4

Somewhat obvious, when you see how it works. If you’re in Standard Peril, you will be doing Standard Effect, and will take Standard Harm.

What changes the default effect?

Sheer mismatch of skills

Just sheer mismatch of scope between your skills and what you’re trying to do.

For example, if you’re one person trying to fight ten other people. Or one person trying to fend off a small child who has attacked you. The GM can use their judgement and just change it.

Circumstances

Basically, the GM will just decide that ‘The circumstances of this situation make that particular outcome easier or harder than normal.’

This is called Potency.

This is not because you are good at something, that would be the previous two things mentioned. Potency happens because the environment or situation is uniquely suited or unsuited for something. For example, you’re trying to sneak around while loud distracting music is playing, so you’re less likely to be spotted. The GM will sometimes spot those, but you can try to point them out yourself.

This is also what at The Odds Look Bad does, change the circumstances and thus the Potency.

Devil’s Bargain

You can always do a Devil’s Bargain and ask for this.

The GM can even decide that the the Effect is so trivial compared to your skill that you do not even have to roll anything and can just do it, and what you should be rolling is things that might happen during…or maybe you roll nothing at all, even if other players had to roll for the same thing. You’re just a lot better at that thing.

No Unstated Negative Effects

The GM, under no circumstances, can trick you into directly negative Outcomes. If you succeed in an Outcome, that success cannot directly be to your detriment, unless it is very explicitly said in advance ‘This will be a bad thing if you succeed at it’, or even ‘This has the potential to be a bad thing depending on how other things go’.

This is just the Outcome of the roll, of course. They don’t have to warn you that the room you are lockpicking your way into has enemies in it. The roll is for the lockpick, the defined outcomes are ‘Door is no longer locked’. Anything you do after that is up to you. This is only if the Outcome itself is directly negative, like if there is security alert that will go off on the lock being picked.

The GM is allowed to do the inverse, however, where players are trying to avoid something that all logic, and the GM, implies are a negative outcome, but it’s actually not important once they realize is going on. However, the GM shouldn’t abuse this or let people spend resources on this. This sort of thing should produce a laugh when revealed, not real annoyance.

Automatic Benefits still are Outcomes

This also means you can Invoke a Distinction for Drama on that non-roll, and get a Partial Success instead of a Full, which means you slightly screwed up something that you should have been able to do with your eyes closed.

Even when you you’re making a roll but don’t have to roll for benefits, just roll to avoid negative consequences, the benefits are still technically an Outcome and thus have an Effect level, you just are magically going to get a 6 in it without having to assign a result dice to it.

This means you still can alter the Effect.

For a practical example, if you have a Aptitude in in that thing, you can put that Aptitude, and hence increased Effect, on either the ‘how long it takes’ Outcome that you are actually rolling for, or the ‘how well do I do this’ automatic Outcome that you are getting a 6 in. Same with someone doing a Setup Action.

Although ask the GM before doing this, because often times there will not be a way to increase the Effect of something that the GM says ‘you’re just able to do that, no roll’, the GM is likely assuming you’re doing it perfectly, that’s why they’re letting you do it automatically. They likely have already taking your Aptitudes into consideration when figuring the Outcome.

This is even technically true when the GM makes you not roll at all, not even for possible consequences. There was an Outcome, and thus an Effect. However, at that point they definitely already took into consideration how good you are.

No Effect, aka, challenging them to a dance off

The GM might sometimes tell you that something isn’t going to have an Effect, aka 0 level of Effect. Sometimes, you will be be able to increase Effect from No Effect to at least Lesser Effect.

Alternately the GM will say you can’t increase it. They have decided that what you’re trying to do will not accomplish what you want it to, at all, no matter how well it is done. Don’t take that as a rebuttal, take that as ‘The GM is very nicely telling you that before you waste time and effort and possible resources on something that will accomplish literally nothing, something other GMs might let you do before laughing at you’.

This game does not have negative surprises with regard to player actions, and thus you learn something is not going to accomplish what you are trying to do before you try it.

Tip

A GM is only human, though, and it’s entirely possible for you to screw up your own plan, that they do not know about, by ‘successfully’ doing things. So maybe tell them what you’re planning, so they understand the effects you are trying to get.

But there’s weird fact: When the GM is telling you how much Effect you’re going to have, at least for the benefit, it’s Effect in the thing you said you are trying to do.

Sometimes, it’s going to have some other effect.

So often the GM will say ‘And you absolutely should not try to do it, that would be very bad’. You will want to listen to them.

But sometimes the GM will instead say ‘But you may want to try anyway.’. And not tell you what it is. The game doesn’t have negative surprises, but it can have positive ones. Or even just funny one that are not going to accomplish anything either way. So if they are hinting ‘Well, it’s not going to do that, but maybe it might do something’, that thing is probably going to be useful or at least interesting, and can’t be harmful. So you might want to try it anyway.

Sometimes you can figure the situation out yourself, but if you can’t, you or someone else can always try do some sort of gather information ‘Setup Action’. Either with Understanding or the Action you were about to use.

This is one of the few cases you can essentially do your own Setup Action, and that works because it’s not technically a Setup Action, because you’re not making ‘that specific effect better’, you were about to do an Effect accidentally, which meant the Potency was likely decreased, and if you can figure out what it’s going to do and aim for Effect on purpose, Potency won’t be decreased.

Sometimes this is something even the GM didn’t realize until you started talking about doing it, they thought about it for a second, and realized ‘Huh. Wait..’

Extreme effect, aka, oh crap

And there’s extreme effect, which means it is absurdly good if it’s something you want, or absurdly bad if it’s not. Notice that extreme harm is level 4, which is death. Try not to be in a position where you’re making that roll to start with, if you do have to, try to not be filled up on Stress so you can resist it if you fail, because that is basically the only way you will die.