Dice Rolls – Alpha/Untested

Attribute + Competency + Specialisation (ACS)

Most rolls will use a character's Attribute, Competency and Specialisation (ACS).  
The character's Attribute decides how many dice are rolled in the dice pool. From those dice rolled, the player will pick the highest value and add their Competency and Specialisation values to the result.

The type of dice rolled is determined by the difficulty.

Attribute

The character's Attribute determines how many dice to roll in their dice pool. A character with the relevant Attribute of 3 will roll 3 dice in their pool and pick the highest.

Competency + Specialisation

The character's competency and specialisation stats used for the roll are added to the result of the dice and then, after any bonuses or penalties are applied, the level of the character's success or failure is determined.

Difficulty

Most of the time the difficulty will be set by the GM, while occasionally it will be set by character stat and environmental influences.

Difficulty	Die Used
Certain	Automatic Success
Very Easy	D12
Easy	D10
Normal	D8
Hard	D6
Very Hard	D4
Impossible	Automatic Failure

A rough guide for setting difficulty is to start all difficulties at normal, then adjust based on circumstances.

Exploding/Imploding Dice

When the unmodified result on a die is the highest possible for the roll, it explodes. Each exploding die is added to the ACS result and allows for an additional roll of that die.

When the unmodified result on a die is a 1, it implodes. Each imploding die removes the highest result from the dice pool. If there are only two dice in the pool, only the 1 is counted. If there is only one die being rolled an the result is 1, the player is given a penalty token.

If the dice pool has both an exploding and an imploding die, they cancel each other out.

Examples:

Shannon rolls 3D4, resulting in two 4s and one 1. The 1 cancels out one of the 4s, meaning it does not explode, but it is still counted as the highest in the dice pool, and there is still has another 4 in the dice pool that explodes. Shannon rolls again and gets another 4, another explosion. They roll another die and get a result of 2. The final result of the roll is 4 + 4 + 4 + 2 + their character's competency and specialisation.

Massimo rolls 4D10, resulting in a 1, a 4, a 5 and an 8. The result of 8 is disgarded because of the exploding dice, meaning Massimo's final result from the roll is 5 + his character's competency and specialisation.

Success/Failure Threshold

The success threshold determines how well the character succeeds or fails with their attempted action.

Result	Outcome
16+	Critical Success: The character achieves their goal and gains the best possible outcome from the attempt. Give them a bonus token.
13-15	Clean Success: The character achieves their goal with no penalties or bonuses.
10-12	Scraped By: The character achieves their goal, but suffers a small penalty token for their attempt.
7-9	Almost There: The character does not achieve their goal but gains a bonus token for their attempt.
4-6	Clean Failure: The character does not achieve their goal and does not suffer additional consequences.
3 or less	Critical Failure: The character does not achieve their goals and suffers the worst possible outcome from the attempt. Give them a penalty token.

Bonuses & Penalties

Bonuses and Penalties are tokens given to the player that they can apply to their dice rolls. Each player has a pool of tokens that starts at 0 at the beginning of each session. Bonuses that are not used by the end of the session are lost.

When a player has bonuses available in their pool, they can apply them to increase the result on of the die that they have rolled by 1 for each bonus point available. This can make a dice explode or prevent a implosions (player's choice, if they have one).

The maximum number of bonuses that can be used on a roll is enough to make every die in the dice pool explode.

When a player is given a penalty, this reduces the number of bonuses that are available to them in their pool. If they have no bonuses available to them, then they begin earning penalty tokens.

If a player has penalty tokens in their pool, they must use those tokens on their next roll. Each penalty token reduces the result on the players die by 1. This can cause dice to implode or prevent a explosions (GM's choice, if they have one).

Group Rolls

When making a group roll, the character with the highest value ACS makes the roll. Each other character involved adds their competency and specialisation to the result.

Rounding

All results ending in a decimal value are rounded up. E.g. halving 3 to 1.5 rounds up to 2.