genreDiversion

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Abilities describe the areas in which a character has talent. They are five abilities: fitness, awareness, creativity, reasoning, and influence. They are rated between 1 and 5.

Skills reflect a character's general knowledge, training, and fields of study, with values ranging between 0 and 8.

Gimmicks are special traits that are either beneficial or detrimental to the character.

Health measures a character's level of fatigue and injury. Some games also track other conditions like infection, dementia, or intoxication.

Whenever a character attempts to do something in which success is not guaranteed, a roll of the dice is needed. The character rolls two 6-sided dice and determines their sum for a dice total. If this dice total is less than or equal to his skill total (sum of his relevant ability and skill ratings) for routine tasks, he succeeds. Double ones is an automatic success and double sixes is an automatic failure.

A difficulty other than routine may also be determined by the gamemaster. In these cases, the margin must be determined. This is equal to the difference between the skill total and dice total. If the margin is equal to or greater than the assigned difficulty, the task succeeds. When two characters are competing against each other, the one with the greater margin wins.

Some tasks may require additional steps. For example, characters can choose over-exert themselves to boost the odds of success (they receive fatigue to lessen the difficulty).

Ranged attacks are always made against a difficulty that is based on the distance to the target. Close combat is either considered contested (someone defending) or routine (with modifiers applied for specific situations).

If an attack is successful, first determine the damage rating. This depends on the weapon used and may also rely on the character's fitness rating and if he over-exerted himself. The defender rolls a number of dice equal to the total damage. Each die that is less than or equal to the defender's armor rating (which may also be modified by his fitness), blocks one point of damage. The remaining is applied as fatigue or injury, depending on the nature of the attack. Also, if the total number of dice rolled to block damage is greater than the defender's fitness rating, he falls to the ground.

While this system is ideal for one-shots, it may also be used for extended play. Characters can gain experience points that can be spent to increase ability and skill ratings, and sometimes new gimmicks.