Basic Rules

Basic Rules#

Note

These are MY basic rules for most of my approaches to a FROTH game.

The game is a conversation in which a collaborative story unfolds. Players create characters to be the protagonists in the narrative. One player is the Game Master (GM), who controls the non-player characters, environmental factors, passage of time, etc. The GM sets the scene, players say what their characters do, then the GM responds with the reaction of the world, and so forth. When a character attempts something whose outcome might be uncertain, the GM asks for a dice roll to see if the action succeeds or fails, and by how much.

Types of Dice

This system uses primarily a twenty-sided die for action resolution (the “d20”), although all of the other typical polyhedral dice can be used for different randomizers and weird specific rolls.

Action resolution#

../../_images/rpg-image-2.jpg

art © Alex Mordovets#

Roll d20 + Your Level ± modifiers vs Difficulty.

    1On an exact match of your result and the Difficulty, a stalemate occurs. Some people interpret this as “nothing happens”. That’s not my intention. I consider this result neither a success nor a failure. Sometimes I interpret this as a partial success (you get what you intended but partially, or with an indirect complication). Most of the time I just tell the player that they are working towards their objective but didn’t get there yet, which means time is lost (and depending on the context, that could have considerable impact on the narrative).

  • Result = Difficulty: a stalemate; no progress is made, time passes, etc 1On an exact match of your result and the Difficulty, a stalemate occurs. Some people interpret this as “nothing happens”. That’s not my intention. I consider this result neither a success nor a failure. Sometimes I interpret this as a partial success (you get what you intended but partially, or with an indirect complication). Most of the time I just tell the player that they are working towards their objective but didn’t get there yet, which means time is lost (and depending on the context, that could have considerable impact on the narrative).

  • Result > Difficulty: success! The difference between the result and the Difficulty is the Positive Effect (used for damage dealt, progress made, decrease in task duration, etc)

  • Result < Difficulty: failure! The difference between the Difficulty and the result is the Negative Effect (used for damage received, progress unmade, increase in task duration, etc)

Difficulty = 10 + Level of obstacle / adversary / situation, ± modifiers.

Level

1-3

4-6

7-9

10+

Difficulty

Low

Medium

Hard

Extreme

Positive and Negative Effect#

The result of a die (plus the character’s Level and any other Bonuses/Maluses) is compared with the Difficulty. That difference between result and Difficulty is the Effect.

  • If the Difficulty is surpassed, the outcome is a succeess and that difference in the Effect is “how well” they did (this amount is the Positive Effect).

  • If the result is lower, it’s a failure and the difference is “how bad” they performed (this amount is the Negative Effect).

Tip

The GM is free to interpret these numbers following their gut, but as a rule of thumb, consider that a difference of 5 or less is not that big of a deal; a difference of 5~10 is important; a difference of 10+ is huge.

This amount of Effect is also used when dealing damage to a target’s Resistance, or when applying a Condition.

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