When to Roll

When to Roll Dice

Use these questions to decide whether, and how, to roll:

1. Is there any reasonable chance of failure?
   • Yes: does failure have any consequences?
     • No: don't roll.
     • Yes: is it a simple pass/fail, or are there degrees of success and failure?
       • Pass/fail: make a single skill check.
       • Degrees of success: run a Skill Challenge (3 successes before 3 failures).
   • No: is there a time limit to finish the task?
     • Yes: set up a Completion Track (below): each successful roll or action toward the goal adds progress, and if it's complete before time runs out, the task succeeds.
     • No: does it matter how long it takes?
       • Yes: no check; just roll some dice to see how many rounds, hours, days or weeks it takes.
       • No: don't roll.

Completion Tracks

A Completion Track measures progress toward a goal that takes more than one action to reach, usually against a time limit. It works like a progress clock: the GM draws a track with a number of boxes, names the goal, and the players fill it in as they make headway.

• Size and time limit are the GM's call. A small task might be 4 boxes; a sprawling mystery or a race against an approaching army might be 8, 12 or more. The time limit can be in-world (before the train leaves, before nightfall, before the cult finishes its ritual) or another track that fills as things get worse.
• Each successful action toward the goal adds 1 tick. A critical success adds 2. What counts as a successful action, and what counts as a critical one, is up to the GM.
• A "successful action" doesn't have to be a single roll. It can be as simple as a passed check or a won Skill Challenge, but it can just as well be an open-ended goal achieved in the fiction: gaining someone's trust, finding an artifact, turning up a clue to the mystery. Each of those can take several actions, a whole scene, or even a quest, depending on how big the track is.
• When the track is full, the goal is reached. If time runs out first, it isn't, and the GM says what that costs.

Example: the crew has until the end of the festival to expose the mayor. The GM draws an 8-box track. Winning over the mayor's clerk adds 1 tick; stealing the ledger with a spectacular, unnoticed heist (a critical success, the GM rules) adds 2; uncovering the hidden payments takes a whole session of investigation and adds 1 more. When the eighth box fills, they have enough to bring him down.

Skill Challenge Results

The full Skill Challenge rules, with what each result means and the odds by target number, are in Skills.