SoSy:The Ability Check
Return to the main index for the Solar System
The Ability Check
The way we determine outcomes is called an Ability Check. When performing an uncertain action, the player needs to state her basic intention for the character and the ability they are using. (They don't have to have this ability on their character sheet, but, as you'll see, it helps.) This is not a full description of the action, as the dice provide a randomizer that let the player know how well this action happened. After stating the character's intention, deciding on stakes, and choosing the relevant ability, the Ability Check is made.
The Ability Check involves a dice roll. This roll uses special dice you can find at hobby stores or online called "Fudge dice." They were originally invented for a neat little role-playing game called Fudge. They are six-sided dice; two sides of them have plus signs on them, two sides are blank, and two sides have minus signs. If you don't have any, you can make your own really easily. Get a red and a green marker and some white dice. Color two sides red and two sides green, and you've got Fudge dice. The plus sides are +1, the blank sides are 0, and the minus sides are -1, in case you didn't know. An even better way to make your own Fudge dice from ordinary six-sided dice can be found in Jonathan Walton's article "Baby's First Fudge Dice" in the online magazine Fudge Factor.
After you've got weird dice, the process is pretty simple: roll three dice and add them to your character's rank in the ability being used. As you probably remember, each ability rank has a number associated with it. That's what you use here. So, a character who is Competent (1) in Scrapping that rolls two pluses and a minus on the dice has a total of 2. That's your success level (SL). There's only one trick to this: you can't get lower than zero. It's a hard bottom number, and if you end up with -1 or something, it's just zero.
Just like every ability rank has an associated number, each success level has an associated name.
| Success Level | Associated Name |
|---|---|
| 0 | Failure |
| 1 | Marginal |
| 2 | Good |
| 3 | Great |
| 4 | Amazing |
| 5 | Legendary |
| 6 | Ultimate |
| 7 | Transcendent |
That name is just there to help you describe the outcome. It doesn't have a mechanical effect. A Marginal success is all that is needed to succeed at most tasks in the game.
Bonus and penalty dice
While a ability score determines the range of your character's ability, bonus and penalty dice are a mechanic to skew your results toward one end of that range. When making a Ability Check, bonus dice add to the number of dice rolled, as do penalty dice. Roll three Fudge dice, plus a number of Fudge dice equal to all your bonus and penalty dice. Whenever possible, bonus and penalty dice cancel each other out, so if you have two bonus dice and a penalty die before your roll, you end up with only one bonus die.
After you roll, remove a number of your dice equal to your penalty dice, starting with pluses. If you run out of pluses, remove blanks, and then minuses. Bonus dice work the opposite way: you remove minuses first, then blanks, then pluses. More simply, penalty dice take away your highest rolls. Bonus dice take away your lowest rolls.
Players can always spend one point from the ability's associated pool to get one bonus die on a Ability Check. This is limited to one bonus die per Ability Check.
The Gift of Dice
At the beginning of each session of the game, every player including the Story Guide receives a number of gift dice equal to the number of players at the table. At any point during the game, any of these dice can be given to another player to be added as bonus dice to that player's current Ability Check. This is most often used when a player's character is attempting something especially dangerous, or the player describes his character's intention in a cool way.
These gift dice are an important part of play and should not be forgotten. They encourage cooperation among the players as much as among the characters.
