Rolling

Dice Pools
A dice pool refers, quite simply, to the dice you roll when your character takes a particular action. For rolling dice in-game, see '+help roll'. Dice pools are typically calculated by adding together two of your character's traits, usually an Attribute and a Skill, along with other bonuses or penalties determined by the situation or told to you by staff. The most common sources of bonuses are Merits, Specialties and tools (which will typically have a rating that tells how much they add to appropriate rolls). Examples:


 * You are asked to roll Manipulation+Subterfuge to lie to a guard. Your character's Manipulation is 3, and Subterfuge is 2, so your total dice pool is 5, and so 5 ten sided dice would be rolled.  Possible modifiers for this roll would be the guard being suspicious (-1, causing the dice pool to drop to 4), d'Angeline Beauty merit at 2 (+2, causing the dice pool to rise to 7), or a letter from someone in a position of authority agreeing with your character's story (+3, causing the dice pool to rise to 8).
 * Augustine is in a swordfight, and wants to cut his opponent. He would roll Strength+Weaponry+Weapon Damage-Opponent's Defense.  His Strength is 2, his Weaponry skill is 1, and the damage rating of his sword is 3.  His opponent's defense is 2, so the total dice pool would be 4 (2+1+3-2).  This is an example of a tool providing a bonus.
 * Violette needs to research the culture of a new ambassador who is en route to the capital, so must roll Intelligence+Academics. Her Specialty in Foreign Cultures would apply, and the Royal Library adds its rating of 3 in that same topic to the dice pool.  She has an Intelligence of 3 and an Academics of 4, so her total dice pool in this case is 11 (3+4+1+3).  An additional possible modifier would be if the culture was incredibly obscure or isolated, inflicting a -2 penalty and bringing the total dice pool down to a 9.

There is a special case which must be mentioned, the Chance Die. A dice pool that ends up being 0 or less after all modifiers are added in becomes a Chance Die, which will be explained in the next section.

Successes, Failures, and Thresholds
When you roll your dice pool, any die that comes up an 8 or higher is considered a success, and a result of 10 is counted as a success and then re-rolled (referred to as the 10-again rule). Any individual die roll of 7 or lower is considered a failure. When you roll, the game automatically handles much of this for you, and will tell you how many successes you roll. In general, one success is all you need to succeed, but more successes mean that you did well enough to exceed mere success.

On those occasions that your dice pool is reduced to a Chance Die, these rules change slightly. On a Chance Die, a result of 10 is the only way that a success is counted, with all other results being a failure. A 10 is still re-rolled in this instance. Chance Die rolls of 1 are considered a dramatic failure, so there is some negative consequence in addition to not succeeding that your character suffers. Maybe he or she trips over his or her sword, or on a mental skill roll, he or she believes some mistaken information to be true.

There are also three special roll modifiers that can be added, in addition to static dice bonuses or penalties. They are explained below, but only one can be applied to any particular roll:


 * 9-Again: Similar to the 10-Again rule above, if you can apply this modifier, 9's and 10's are counted as successes and re-rolled. See "+help roll" for more details on how to apply this in-game.
 * 8-Again: Similar to the 10-Again rule above, if you can apply this modifier, 8's, 9's and 10's are counted as successes and re-rolled. See "+help roll" for more details on how to apply this in-game.
 * Rote: If you can apply this modifier, you get to re-roll any failed dice once. See "+help roll" for more details on how to apply this in-game.

For some rolls, there will be a threshold, which is a number of successes that must be achieved in order to gain success. This is most often the case in extended action, which are explained below.

Types of Actions
There are 4 basic types of actions that your character might take within the game system: Instant, Extended, Contested, and Reflexive. It is possible for a particular action to belong to multiple types (Instant Contested, or Extended Contested, for instance). Also, when taking an extended action, you can only make a number of total rolls equal to your unmodified Attribute+Skill+Specialty. You can only be working on a number of extended actions equal to your Wits rating.
 * Instant: An instant action takes place within a short amount of time, a couple of minutes at most. In combat, it refers to an action that takes one combat turn.  You make a single roll, when a roll is necessary, and succeed or fail based on that one roll.  Whether you can retry on a subsequent turn would be dependent on the situation.  Examples of this sort of action are attacking someone with a weapon, or trying to get someone to believe a lie.
 * Extended: Extended actions, as the name would imply, take longer. When your character takes an extended action, he or she makes one or more rolls that represent more than one turn of work each.  Typically, this will be done with a judge, who will tell you how much time each roll represents.  Examples of this sort of action are smithing a sword, or researching the history of an artifact that falls into your character's hands.  If you fail a number of rolls before achieving the number of successes necessary to succeed at the task, the overall roll fails.  These numbers are based on the threshold:
 * For threshold up to 5, one roll
 * For threshold 6 to 10, two rolls
 * For threshold 11 to 15, three rolls
 * For threshold 16 to 20, four rolls
 * For threshold 21+, follow the same pattern.
 * Contested: A contested action is one in which two characters are actively working against one another. The defending character (the one being acted upon) rolls his dice pool first, generating a number of successes that the aggressor must exceed in order to gain success.  Examples of this sort of action would be a one character trying to sneak past another, or two characters armwrestling.
 * Reflexive:Usually a reaction to something, a reflexive action is rolled much the same way as an instant one, but takes little in the way of focus or time. Examples of this sort of roll are noticing something hidden, or hearing someone yelling in the next room.