Contested Roll's
Storytellers use contests to model direct opposition: e.g., hacking a monitored system, sneaking past a guard searching for you, or seducing an undercover vice cop.
In a contest, the acting character and their opponent each build a dice pool. This process does not have to use the same pool; the Storyteller might tell the sneaking character to use Dexterity + Stealth, but roll Wits + Awareness for the searching guard.
Basic contests go like this:
- Describe what you want your character to do and how.
- The Storyteller decides someone opposes your effort and tells you which of your character’s Traits to use to assemble a dice pool.
- The Storyteller chooses which of the opponent’s Traits to use to assemble a dice pool.
- Each contestant rolls their dice pool and counts their successes.
- If the acting character rolled equal to or more than the number of successes rolled by the opposing character, the test is a win.
- Player characters can definitely engage in contests against each other! The Storyteller still determines which character assembles which dice pool.
Examples:
Scenario | Aggressor | Defender |
The aggressor would like to sneak up on the defender | Dexterity + Stealth | Wits + Awareness |