Most of what a character does needs no dice. They walk down the road, they mend the fence, they greet the innkeeper. Dice come out only when the outcome is genuinely uncertain and the answer matters — and when they do, one small set of procedures answers every such question in the game.
This chapter is that set. A skill, an attribute, a mystical ability, a blow in combat, a wound closing over a week: all of them are resolved by the same handful of tests, and every later chapter is written on top of the terms defined here. Read it before the rest.
The shape of a test
Every test has the same three parts.
Something is being tested. A skill, an attribute, or an ability, rated by a Mastery Level — a number from 0 to 100 or beyond that says how good the character is at it. Circumstances adjust that rating up or down into an Effective Mastery Level, which is what the character actually rolls against.
Dice are rolled. Almost always a d100, rolled under the Effective Mastery Level.
The result is graded. Not merely passed or failed: a success level says how well or badly, on a scale that runs from Critical Failure through Marginal Failure and Marginal Success to Critical Success — and, where a rule pushes it, past either end. Almost everything downstream in these rules reads a success level rather than a bare success.
The tests
Four procedures cover the game. Each is a chapter of its own here.
A Success Test asks did it work, and how well? It is the ordinary test, and the one the other three are built from.
An Opposed Test asks which of us won, and by how much? Two characters test at the same time and their success levels are compared; the margin between them is counted in Victory Stars.
A Success Value Test asks how good is the work? It settles sustained effort — a sword forged, a voyage sailed, a wound treated — in one roll, and grades the result on a scale of quality rather than of achievement.
Secondary Mastery is how a second skill or attribute bears on a test of the first, either by shifting the Effective Mastery Level or by adding a small roll of its own alongside.
Standing apart from all four, Fate lets a character who has already rolled improve the result — never by rolling again, only by re-grading what was rolled.
Sections
- Mastery Level — ML, Index, and Effective Mastery Level: what a test is measured against
- Success Tests — the d100 test and the success levels it produces
- Opposed Tests — contests, Victory Stars, ties and tiebreaks
- Success Value Tests — graded outcomes for sustained work
- Secondary Mastery — Secondary Modifiers and Secondary Rolls
- Fate — spending Fate to improve a settled result