Event Dicing

A single 10-sided die (d10) is used in making all event rolls. event rolls are the only time that a dice roller is used to provide RNG content to simulate the role of luck or fate in whether or not a character is going to act/react in a certain way with a result that benefits them. In any given scene, the players who are writing it have control over when the narrative is paused at the end of a round of posts so event dicing can take place before the start of the next round of posts. It is good player etiquette for everyone posting in a scene to agree to event dicing to resolve an IC challenge or conflict if one player makes a request for it to be handled that way.

D10 = 0-9
In Storygame, a "10" on a d10 is interpreted as a zero. The dice should be interpreted as 0-9 rather than 1-10. It is the worst rather than best outcome. Such a roll doesn't mean the character fails so long as their attribute + ADQ + situational modifier score is still high enough to meet or exceed the target number, but is should flavor the narrative to make it obvious that something unlucky or unfortunate just happened to the character as part of the results, even if they overcome the original obstacle facing them. For the purpose of setting tone to their posts, players can look at an event die roll of 0=3 is "unlucky" and 7=9 as "lucky" while 4-6 is neutral. A character who succeeds at a challenge or conflict even with a low event roll did so because of skill and experience (aka having a good attribute + advantage score), not luck.

Dicing Challenges
A challenge is an event where a character has to overcome some kind of obstacle in order to achieve a goal but no other character is going interfere. Challenge events have difficulty ratings based on how easy or hard it should be for a character of that type to accomplish under the given circumstances. Like most of the Storygame System Mechanics, Challenge Difficulties are rated on a five point scale. To succeed at an ordinary challenge (the kind that most characters of that type will succeed at with only a little luck), the player picks which attribute their character is going to need to rely on, then applies the modifiers from any and all advantages or disadvantages on their sheet (or in play as situational modifiers) which would help/hinder their chance at success. The end result can't be less than 1 for an ordinary challenge, less than 3 for a good challenge or less than 5 for a herculean challenge or else the character will suffer an automatic failure.

Flavor Of A Challenge Failure
When faced with an automatic failure, and the only thing that making an event roll will do is flavor what failing does to the character. It can be worth making it any way. If the result of a modified event dice roll ~almost~ meets the challenge difficulty, the player who starts the narration of the next rounds of posts can opt to provide the character overcoming at least some of the obstacle but at a cost of their choice.

Made It.... Barely
When the result of a challenge event roll is exactly the same as the challenge difficulty, the next narrated post should acknowledge that the character overcame the most burdensome part of the obstacle but not without at least a little unanticipated and by the character's own perspective unwanted result. It is an imperfect victory.

Simple Success
As long as the result of the challenge event roll is at least one higher than the challenge but the result is 17 or less, than the character simply succeeds. Whoever would normally be person to write first in the next round of posts will do so and shape the narrative in a way that acknowledges the character's success in a fair and reasonable way.

Spectacular Success
When the event die itself is a "9" and the modifiers from attribute + adq + any situational modifiers are also 9 or higher to provide a score of 18+? Then regardless of the actual target number, the character achieves such a spectacular success that their player becomes the first person to type in the new post round and can write the narrative to describe the scene in whatever way they find most emotionally satisfying except for something that would automatically effect the wellness pools of another character who was either present or off-panel. If the player of the successful character wants to use their spectacular success in a challenge to trigger a Crisis Event in another character, it has to be a character present or played by a player who is present. Said player needs to consent and be allowed the opportunity to make their character's Crisis Event roll before the posting for that round begins and to establish in their own follow-up post exactly what the outcome of the triggered Crisis Event was.

Conflicts vs Combats
Conflict is the Storygame term for any scenario where a character acts upon another character in order to get a desired reaction that isn't guaranteed to happen. Combat is when a character acts upon another character in order to hurt them immediately or manipulate them in some way that will probably have harmful consequences later on. It doesn't have to be a physical blow. Social combat can be fought with veiled threats, seductive whispers, blatant lies, con games. A conflict can start even when the acting character has the best or most noble of intentions but the participants probably won't walk away with anything worse than a change of mood- unless a conflict escalates into a combat. A combat begins when one or more characters is actively trying to benefit themselves at another character's expense. Hurt feelings, broken trust, actual physical wounds or injuries might result if it goes badly.

A conflict can escalate into a combat in the middle of a found of posts so long as Event dicing was already enabled at the start of the round.

Dicing Conflicts
Conflicts happen when a character is the obstacle in the way or source of challenge and therefore the target of another character's intended action. Conflicts don't have to be physical and conflicts don't -have- to be diced out. Conflicts are only diced events when at least one player requests for conflict dicing to begin at the end of the round. Even a violent physical conflict doesn't need to have the narrative paused so long as the players are content to just "roll with the punches" and collaboratively write the way characters attack and defend, win and lose. In exclusively narrative combat, each player has full control over how their character reacts to being hurt and the extent of the damage done by injury or stressors.

But the minute a player decides they'd prefer to rely on event dicing and announces to in a short OOC post, players need to adjust any remaining posts in the round to simply set the stage for themselves and everyone else.

One character simply trying to seduce or mislead another character can lead to a conflict event at the end of a round of posts.

Making Opposed Conflict/Combat Event Rolls
Unlike challenges, there is no target difficulty that needs to be reached. Instead players select which of their involved characters is the one they want to be most active in causing/thwarting the intended action. If there are a choice of opponents, they chose a target. They declare their intended action/reaction and then create a pool of most applicable attribute + character's applicable ADQ + situational modifiers + modifier based on target's Echelon compared to their own. It is okay if this creates a negative number, something below zero. They should then roll the event die and then add their modifier result to the die roll to get an action result.

Whoever has the highest result of all the conflict rolls gets to post first in the following post round. Whoever has the next highest result of all the conflict rolls gets to post second and so on so that the player with the lowest conflict event result is last in posting rotation.

A character of a higher echelon than their opponent/victim has a clear advantage in any kind of conflict and that is the system working as intended. They aren't impossible to thwart or defeat but its really hard to in a direct conflict unless:


 * they are unlucky (low Event Roll)
 * not well-endowed (applicable attribute of 1-2)
 * not well-advantaged (positive ADQ and situational modifier)

PC Critters ar never going to win a conflict with a PC demigod in opposed event dicing. They are better off trying to just run and escape if they can. However, it is very possible for a very lucky (event dice = 8/9), extraordinarily endowed (attribute 5), and maximally  advantaged (+4) human to defeat a very unlucky (event dice = 0/1), abysmally endowed (attribute 1) and maximally disadvantaged (-4) superhuman. In this scenario before the Echelon differences were calculated, the subhuman would have a conflict result of 17-18 and the superhuman a conflict result of -3/-2. Even when the Echelon difference drops the human's conflict result to 15-16 and raises the superhuman's conflict result to -1/0, there is still an spectacular difference and the human's player can take advantage of that when they narrate their next post.

Tied Conflict/Combat Results
When two or more characters tie in highest conflict result score, the player with the character having the highest result score gets to post first but the narrative should reflect the characters were evenly matched and the conflict didn't resolve in a clear victory for anyone. If the results are still tied, then the player who got the highest event die roll can post first. And if the results are still tied? Whichever player of those in the conflict result tie was scheduled to write a post ahead of the other in the previous posting order can claim posting priority now.

Calculating Combat Damage
In Storygame, players may only calculate damage for characters they control. They have final word on what kind of damage and how much damage is actually inflicted vs. how much damage an opposing character intends. Extras, minor characters introduced into a scene as plot device or flavor text are not considered controlled by anyone. When it is their turn write a post? A player can do absolutely anything they want to an extra that seems like a reasonable consequence to the end result of a conflict event so long as they remember IC actions can have unexpected IC consequences.

By default, Storygame has three kinds of wellness pools: health, sanity, and morality. Physical damage reduces current health points, Stress/Trauma damage reduces current sanity points, and forcing a character to experience and tolerate (or worse enjoy) an act they had previously considered reprehensible reduces morality points. When a character loses a conflict and the opposing character's player describes what happens next, the target of that described action then decides how much and what kind of damage their character just sustained. If it is really minor damage (barely a bruise, just a typical kind of frustration or very temporary loss of pride/self-control), then there's no need to decrease a form of wellness or at most remove a single dot.

If a player wants to be brutal to their character, they can look at the difference between their character's conflict result and the opposing character's conflict result and remove points of wellness on a 1-for-1 basis. For example, if a character loses a conflict by 3 result points and the resulting narrative describes them getting shoved hard back into a wall and being yelled at in an intimidating way which is intended to prevent them from leaving the scene? They could take a point of health pool from cracking their head against the wall, no concussion, just leaving them stunned and with a headache in the morning. They could take a point of sanity because the character is feeling helpless or scared and trapped. They could remove a point from morality because the character finds an unexpected and gut-wrenching thrill in being this position and believes no one ever should have that kind of reaction. The player could even do all three and describe it all in their own post.

Holding Actions
A player who "wins" the combat result doesn't have to post first if they prefer to have the other player or players re-start the narrative and describe how the winner's character successfully defeated their own and/or any bystanders. They can wait to post last and then use their character's success to shape anything else remaining unmentioned in the scene in a way that benefits their character.

Multiple Conflict/Combat Rolls
Some players will prefer to have just one conflict/combat event shape what happens during the rest of the scene. Others might prefer there is a new conflict/combat event roll made between each post round. Its good player etiquette to allow for multiple conflict/combat events in a scene but to be cognizant when this is making a scene start to drag or become un-fun for someone else. Its better to let a scene wrap up or fade with the characters having hurt each other but not getting the resolution they really wanted and quicklyh narrating how they part ways than to push a scene to continue to another round when someone is OOC tired, frazzled or needing to stop storygaming in order to go do something else. Real Life Comes First.

Randomizing Reactions With The Event Dice
Sometimes a character isn't necessarily trying to do something specific in the scene. Something just happened: they witnessed a shocking event, they were kissed by their best friend, they see their worst enemy curled up in a corner crying and the player isn't certain how they want their character to react. Either there are too many possible choices or they want outside guidance in how good or bad the reaction should be.

In these situations, the player doesn't need to wait for an entirely new post round to begin to use the Event Die. They simply roll it, declaring HG/LB which is shorthand for high is good, low is bad. A roll of 0 (remember that 10 = 0 in Storygame) dictates they let their character have the worst possible reaction imaginable. A roll of 1-3 isn't much better. A roll of 9 dictates they let their character have the best possible reaction imaginable. A roll of 6-8 is still pretty good. A roll of 4-5 means the reaction is pretty mild and neutral.

Reaction rolls are personalized. They can be made any time the specific player who is next to post wants to make them and only effects how their character reacts to what is happening in the scene, it doesn't by itself change what is happening in the scene. Sometimes a player's reaction event roll might lead to them deciding their character is going to start or join a conflict and they will request Conflict/Combat dicing at the end of the current round.


 * alose see Tips For Event Rolls