Game Mechanisms

Who Rolls the Dice?

As the Game Master you must decide who will make the rolls for a character - the player or you yourself.

— If you roll, the game will be more suspenseful, but the extra rolls will slow you down.

— If the players roll, the game will be smoother, but it will reveal some secrets the players should not know (difficulties, monsters' combat numbers, etc.)

Our recommendation: leave common rolls to the players and take them over from the players only in tense situations.

Difficulty of a Roll

The Character Rules describe the basic game mechanics and how to set the difficulty for success rolls and contest rolls. But the difficulty is always set by you as the Game Master - only you know all the conditions and factors.

The 5-10-15-X System

According to the Difficulty Table, the 5-10-15-X system (five - ten - fifteen) can be read as easy - medium - hard - etc., which captures its basic essence. Set the difficulty as you see fit and assign it a number, for example easy 5, hard 15, very hard 20, and so on. You can of course also choose difficulties between these values; for example, something a little harder than easy but less than medium could be 8. Or, if it starts raining during a hard climb (15), the difficulty may rise to 17.

In a contest the situation is similar (use the Advantages in a Contest table). A character who has no advantage from the circumstances has no modifier either. The more advantages, the greater the bonus (+5, +10, +15), or even assurance. We do not give penalties; it is always an advantage for one side or the other.

Simplified Contest Roll

If the opponent is a non-player character or a monster, you can use a simplification - instead of a contest roll, you let the player roll only against a difficulty that you set with the 5-10-15 system. This saves you the work of determining the skill of the non-player character, the conditions, and the skill roll:

Here, by feel alone, you can bypass all the calculations and resolve the whole situation by setting a single number (the difficulty).

Low Influence of Chance

All the rolls you use in the game follow the rule of sixes (ones). They are therefore fairly random and show that even a weaker character can (with a little luck) succeed and, conversely, a strong one can fail (if unlucky).

However, there are situations where chance has little influence - for example, luck will not help you lift a stone. As the GM, you can decide at any time that a given roll has a low influence of chance and forbid adding up sixes. We recommend never using this rule for combat and magic.

Awarding Experience

Experience is, in a sense, the player's reward for their play. It is awarded for resolving difficult or dangerous situations, such as combat, negotiation, solving riddles and the like.

But beware! Experience should never be the player's direct goal. Role-playing games are not a competition where you collect points.

When awarding experience, try to be fair and objective more than ever!

The amount of experience gained depends on the difficulty of the task - the more difficult and dangerous the action, the more experience the character gets for success.

Too Little and Too Much Experience

As the GM you will have to learn to judge how to award experience. The examples given apply only in general cases, and in many situations you will have to rely on your intuition.

If the characters gain too little experience, they cannot improve and the players start to get bored. Although gaining experience is not the goal of the game, it brings changes and new fun.

On the other hand, if the characters grow too quickly, they become killing machines. They destroy everything that comes their way and the players soon get their fill of advancement - they will take no joy in their character's progress.

Playing a character who improves slowly can be just as fun as playing a true, invincible hero. Playing a weak character, on the other hand, is much harder, and the GM should award it more experience for role-playing (player experience) to even out the difference between the characters a little.

Base Experience

For better orientation, you can follow the table below. If the game is simple and the characters face no serious danger, they receive 2 exp; for highly demanding tasks, on the other hand, they receive 10 or even 15 exp. Judge the difficulty also by the abilities of the characters: for a beginner it is hard even to get an audience with a nobleman, whereas from an experienced character you can expect them to negotiate a truce between two countries.

One game means about ten hours of actual play. This is how many exp a player receives for an ordinary performance. You may lower the exp for a worse performance, but this can greatly demotivate the player. On the other hand, for better play, for every contribution, adventure idea, well-played role and the like, give the player a substantial extra reward. An excellent player can easily receive 8 exp even in their first game.

* Medium difficulty is the most common.

Experience Above the Limit

A player can gain extra experience for playing their character well. If they are active, have good ideas, and use their character's abilities well and purposefully, do not hesitate to reward them. Award at most 10 exp above the limit, for truly excellent play:

Playing the Personality

Playing a character's personality correctly is the key to good play. Good traits are usually much harder to keep than bad ones, so reward playing them more.

Playing the Race

Do not underestimate a character's race and nationality. Every race has its specifics - elves tend to be gentler, dwarves and barbarians louder, kentu mysterious, imps witty and gnomes talkative.

Playing the Training / Profession

A character's profession can also determine their behavior. Wizards are mysterious, knights honorable and brave, fighters drink a lot and shout, rangers tend to be restrained.

Using the Character's Abilities

Every character has a range of special abilities - from fighting through skills to spells. A fight need not consist only of attacks and defenses - characters can try feints, disarm opponents, use superior numbers, cover each other. Thieves' abilities offer themselves especially - stealth, stealing, trap detection, etc. With wizards, rangers and priests, watch whether the players use their characters' spells needlessly - many situations can be solved the conventional way. Spells should remain a reserve for situations when there is no other way.

Activity

A player should try to keep the game from stalling. They should keep doing something rather than wait for you, the GM, to “hand them” something.

Problem Solving

You can especially reward players who manage to handle difficult situations - escaping from a collapsed cave, fleeing from superior numbers, fighting an invulnerable or otherwise advantaged opponent, etc.

Help with the Story

Players can also help you with the story and the development of the whole game. They can actively contribute by recounting their own dream, telling a legend or an experience, or by talking with the others, describing what their characters imagine will happen or what awaits them.

Increasing Attributes and Skills

A player should increase all the skills and attributes their character uses. A character traveling through the wilderness will have higher movement, will learn to track and survive in the wild, their awareness, constitution and the like will grow.

A character in a town will learn to negotiate, their charisma and intelligence will rise, they may learn street knowledge, etc.

Try to teach the players these principles; if they insist at all costs on increasing the primary stats (warriors Rfx, style, Str; wizards magic, spells, Int, Wil and the like) tied to their character, give them less experience, or try to put them in situations where they will have to increase these attributes/skills to survive.