claude-home/tcg/project-sol-rulebook/how-to-play.md

How to Play

Dice Pools

To get anything done, you'll be rolling a pool of six-sided dice and comparing hits to either a threshold or an opposing dice pool's number of hits. Just like Shadowrun, 5s and 6s count as hits.

In cases where time is on your side, the GM may allow you to buy hits. For every four dice in your dice pool, you may buy 1 hit. For example: 12 dice buys 3 hits, 8 dice buys 2 hits, and 10 dice also buys 2 hits.

Skill Tests

There are two types of skill tests: threshold tests and opposed tests.

A threshold test generally occurs when a character has to use their abilities to accomplish something non-trivial. Threshold test notation looks like this: + (<Difficulty/Threshold>). An example would be: Perception + INT (2). If the number of hits you roll equals or exceeds the threshold, you succeed in the action. Any hits rolled over the threshold are called net hits.

Opposed test notation looks like this: + vs <Skill/Attribute Used> + . An example would be: Sidearms + AGI vs REA + INT. The attacking (or instigating) character has the advantage so must achieve at least the same number of hits as the defending character in order to succeed.

Skill Test Thresholds

Difficulty	Threshold
Simple	1
Average	2
Difficult	3
Very Difficult	4
Formidable	6
Absurd	8+

Bonuses and Penalties

Different sources may apply bonuses and penalties to a character's dice pool. These are combined and applied as a single dice pool modification. A penalty of 2 and a bonus of 4 would combine to be a bonus of 2.

A final dice pool bonus may never exceed the rating of the skill being tested. In addition, a dice pool may never be lower than 1.

💡 For example, Cole has 0 ranks in Longarms (he's more of a pistolero), but picks up a sniper rifle with a scope mod on it. The scope increases the accuracy of the rifle by one bringing it up to 1. Unfortunately, Cole may not receive a bonus on his longarms test since he has no ranks in the skill.

💡 In another example, Hyde has 2 ranks in Electronic Warfare and is attempting to hack a terminal with a modified computer. Normally that computer would provide a dice pool bonus of 3, but that is limited to 2 since Hyde only has 2 ranks in the skill.

Glitches

Glitches introduce a consequence to the action being taken - they do not cause failure on their own. Glitches happen when half or more of the dice rolled are 1s. Three out of six dice is a glitch - three out of seven dice is not a glitch. This is different than Shadowrun. If you glitch a roll and also don't get any hits, that is a critical glitch. Those are super bad.

By definition, a critical glitch can only occur on a failed test so these results include both a failure of the test as well as a consequence to the action.

Critical Successes

A critical success occurs when you succeed on a test with three net hits. The outcome of a critical success is generally a success on the test plus providing the character with an added bonus.

Critical success results are generally not listed in action definitions as they are very context or scenario dependent.

Defaulting on Tests

If a character does not have a skill required for a skill test, they may still attempt the test by defaulting. This means their dice pool will just be the Attribute. If the character is asked to make a Pilot Ground Craft + Reaction test and they have 0 ranks in Pilot Ground Craft, they may default on the test and just roll Reaction.

If the skill has an untrained penalty, there is a dice pool penalty of 3 for defaulting. For example, if a character is asked to make a Mechanic Vehicles + Logic test and they have no ranks in Mechanic Vehicles, they would instead roll Logic - 3 (minimum 1 die).

Physical vs Mental Tests

Skills may be tested in two different manners: physical tests and mental tests. Physical tests use the physical attributes linked to skills to perform active tests such as rolling Sidearms + AGI in order to shoot the bad guy. As a demonstration of the flexibility of skill and attribute pairings, skills can be tested as mental tests. For example, a character may attempt to identify the intricacies of a specific weapon using Sidearms + LOG.

Teamwork

Characters may work together to achieve their goals mechanically in two ways. The assist action allows one character to provide bonus dice to another. The group action allows characters to work together and take the best result. All characters participating in the teamwork test suffer any consequences of the test.

Assist

When you assist another character, you make your own test and provide the other character a number of bonus dice equal to your hits. As always, the bonus they receive is capped by their skill ranks. By tying yourself to this action, you suffer from consequences of the other character's action if they fail.

Group Action

To perform a group action, a group leader is elected. Leading a group action, you coordinate multiple members of the team to tackle a problem together. Each involved character makes a test with the best result result being used for the entire group. The danger of a group action comes from the stress of herding figurative cats - for every character who rolled zero successes on their test, the group leader takes an unresisted Level 1 wound from the stress of dragging them along.

Try Again

At the GM's discretion, players may attempt a failed skill test again at a dice pool penalty of 2. This would typically only be allowed if the the only danger to the characters is the time sunk into an additional attempt. Tests may be tried again until the character's dice pool would be reduced to 0.

Edge

Edge is a measure of the character's luck. Their Edge attribute represents the number of Edge points a character has to spend during game play. Edge points can be spent for a variety of benefits listed below. There are two ways to use Edge points: Spending Edge and Burning Edge. Spent Edge is temporarily unavailable, but does not affect your Edge attribute. Burnt Edge decreases your Edge attribute by one, but has extremely potent effects.

Spending Edge

To activate any of the effects listed below, a character must spend one point of Edge. This does not decrease the Edge attribute - the point is temporarily unavailable and may be regained as described in the following section. A character can only spend one point of Edge on any test or action. For example, if you spend a point of Edge to Push the Limit, you may not then spend another point of Edge to negate the effects of a glitch.

Spending Edge Effects

Effect Name	Description
Push the Limit	Declare Push the Limit before rolling. For this test, die results of 3, 4, 5, and 6 count as successes.
Dead Man's Trigger	When your character is about to fall unconscious or die, you can spend a point of Edge to make a BOD + WIL (3), instant test. If you succeed, you may spend any remaining action points you have on a single action before your character blacks out.
Blitz	Receive a dice pool bonus equal to REA + INT to your initiative test. For most characters, this will double your Initiative dice pool. Usable once per test.
Seize the Initiative	Move to the top of the initiative order, regardless of your initiative score for one round of combat.
Close Call	Either negate the effects of a glitch or turn a critical glitch into a glitch. Usable once per test.
Second Chance	After rolling for a test, re-roll all dice which weren't hits. Usable once per test.

Regaining Edge

A character's Edge refreshes at the beginning of each play session. It is not tied to any in-game metrics. Additionally, the Game Master can reward players by refreshing a single point of Edge in exchange for inventive or entertaining actions in the course of a game play session. These refreshed Edge points do not have any effect on the character's Edge attribute.

Burning Edge

For guaranteed results, characters may burn a point of Edge which decreases their Edge attribute by one. The point may not be refreshed, but the character may still advance the attribute through normal means.

Burning Edge Effect

Effect Name	Description
Not Dead Yet	When a character would die, they may instead miraculously survive and decrease their highest Physical Attribute by 1. If there is a tie for highest, the character may choose which to decrease.
Smackdown	Automatically succeed in the action with four net hits. You may use this on any test.

Character Advancement

Skills

Experience

Characters grow in power through successfully using their skills. Each time a character rolls a number of hits greater than their ranks in that skill (one if the character has zero ranks), they gain one progress point in that skill. For every five progress points in a skill, the character gains one rank in the skill. Progress points in one skill have no bearing on progress points for any other skills. Characters may only gain one progress point per encounter. This means if a skill is being used repeatedly to confront the same challenge, only one progress point is earned.

💡 Example: Assume Malcolm has 4 ranks in the Etiquette skill. Each time Malcolm rolls 5 or more hits on an Etiquette test, he gains one progress point for the Etiquette skill. This includes tests during which Malcolm uses Edge. When Malcolm gets his fifth progress point, he increases his Etiquette skill rating by 1 to 5.

Training

Characters may receive skill training from a variety of sources. It could be virtual self-study or time with a trainer; this is just a matter of flavor and does not affect the cost. Characters must train the next rank in the skill and may not train multiple ranks in one session. For example, if Kyra has 2 ranks in Sidearms, she may not train her fourth rank until she has earned her third rank (through training or experience). Training a skill to the next rank has a Cost Rating of x 2.

Training sessions should be limited to one per game session.

💡 Example: Kyra wants to train her Sidearms skill form rank 2 to rank 3. The training has a Cost Rating of 6. Assuming Kyra can afford the training, she may increase her rank and clear any unused progress points.

Attributes

Attributes can only be increased through augmentations (see equipment chapter).