BURNED CIRCLE - Action and Contest Rules

ThirdWizard · Jun 7, 2012

You'll be taking a lot of actions, and when those actions have a chance of success or failure, then you have to make a roll. For rules specific to rolls in the game, see [campaign=BURNED CIRCLE - Dice and The Ladder]Dice and The Ladder[/campaign].
[h=2]Simple Actions[/h]
A simple action is a roll your character makes against a difficulty. No one is attempting to stop you, and if you can match or beat the difficulty, you succeed.

Examples

Climbing a wall into a cultist compound
Looking up an obscure fact about Atlanta history
Searching a crime scene for fingerprints

When you are attempting a simple action, if the skill is obvious (such as Athletics to climb or Investigation to search for clues) you can immediately roll as soon as declaring your action in the same post. Give a brief description of what you're using and your total skill bonus either in the ooc or the sblock tags, whatever your preference is. Don't spend any FATE points yet!

Once you post this up, the GM will respond with the difficulty if appropriate and your success or failure. At this point, if you failed, you can accept that, or you can spend a FATE point to turn a failure into a success, or even a success into extra shifts if you really need those extra shifts for some reason. If possible, then you can describe the result of the roll. Or the GM will describe what happens.

Whenever you spend a FATE in game, always make some mention of how many FATE points you have remaining so that we can keep track. If you spend a FATE point in the in character thread, also make an out of character post detailing your total remaining FATE so that we have easy to find records of current FATE for all players. We never want to get into the situation where we aren't sure how many FATE someone has!

[h=4]Contacts Example[/h]

Jack's Player said:
I need to get some information on where these girls were before they started disappearing. We know they were out on the town, but not much else. I'm going to
hit the street and ask around if anybody has seen them. I know some guys who frequent clubs, bars, all kinds of places. I'll see if anybody knows anything.

OOC: Rolling Good Contacts. Any extra shifts will be used to speed things up.

ROLL (Good Contacts): 4df+3 = 0

GM said:
GM: Mediocre contacts will get you nothing. You need Good or better.

Jack's Player said:
OOC: I'm going to invoke two aspects. "From the Street" and "Winter Court Allies, Summer Court Enemies" to gain a +4 to the roll. That gives me a Great, and I'll spend the extra shift to speed it up. That's two spent FATE points, so I only have one left.

GM said:
GM: That'll do it! Also, it will speed up the process from a few hours to only an hour, so you're done by 3:30. You get a tip from one of your Winter Court contacts, a pixie in the area, who gathers some intel from other pixies and informs you that the last place the girls were seen was the Full Moon, a club in Midtown. But, you owe them a pizza for their trouble.

Jack's Player said:
Jack orders two pizzas for the little guys with a grin on his face. "Full Moon," he thinks to himself, "Hope its not some hangout for werewolves. That's all I need right now."

[h=4]Investigation Example[/h]

Blake Stone's Player said:
I'm going to look around. There's got to be more to this case than a simple run away, or at least a clue as to why she ran off. I'll search everywhere I can think to look. I'm trying not to make a mess, too. I don't want the mother too upset that I'm going through her missing daughter's things without asking.

OOC: Rolling my Fair Investigation skill. Any extra shifts, I'll use to make it less obvious that I searched the room.

ROLL (Fair Investigation): 4df+2 = 1

GM said:
Blake searches through every nook and cranny of the dresser, flips over the mattress of the bed, and generally makes a mess, but nothing turns up. After searching and looking at his handiwork, Blake is pretty sure that his goal of not making a mess was just as complete a failure as his attempt to find anything in the room.

GM: With an Average Investigation roll, you don't find anything.

Blake Stone's Player said:
OOC: That was a terrible roll... I'm going to invoke Blake's High Aspect of Former Beat Cop For Higher to gain a bonus of +2 to the roll making it Good. Less one FATE, I now have 3 left.

GM said:
As Blake looks over his latest mess, he notices scuff marks. But, these scuff marks are on the ceiling, just above the window!

GM: The Good Investigation got it.

Blake Stone's Player said:
"Why do I never look up?" Blake muttered to himself. But, now things were starting to get too weird. Was something walking around on the ceiling? What was going on here? He decided it was time to make a phone call to a buddy of his named Ian Rhode. He'd probably have some kind of idea what was going on with this crazy case. He pulled out his cell phone to dial up the practitioner.

[h=2]Contests[/h]
Contests are run like Simple Actions. In most cases, the GM will run them exactly the same, the only difference being that the difficulty will be based on some kind of opposed roll.

BURNED CIRCLE - Action and Contest Rules

ThirdWizard

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