Action Resolution

The moment you stop moving, our dream is over. Move as fast as you can, and if it all falls apart, you'll have no regrets.
Sanctuary

"I found this in your bag."
"My paintball gun? So what?"

"Mary, tell me what you are up to! First those weird friends of yours, then the computer and now this..."

"OK, mom. This is how it is: my friends and I are a cell of technoanarchists fighting a global war of subversion against governments worldwide. My computer runs AI agents, and the plastic bullets of that gun contain psychotropic drugs mixed with DMSO."

"..."

"I'm just kidding, mom."

Rolling the dice

First of all, use the dice sparingly, role-play situations rather than roll-play them. If you, the Coordinator, think that a dice roll will slow the action down, do not roll. Resolve the situation through role- playing instead. The Coordinator should never describe an action in game terms, keep up the role-playing instead.

InfoWar uses four regular six sided dice. The results of these dice show how many levels up or down on a skill or an attribute you move to achieve a result level that's predetermined by the Coordinator according on how difficult he thinks the task is.

The results are the following:

1,2= -1
3,4= 0
5,6= +1
Example: Piotr rolls the dice to make his character climb a wall. The character has Athletics: Fair and the Coordinator assigns a difficulty of Good on this wall. Piotr rolls 1, 4, 5, 5 on his dice roll which give the numbers of -1, 0, +1, +1 so the character succeeds in climbing the wall achieving a Good result.

Of course Piotr's character only barely succeeded in climbing the wall, he only got a Good result, if he had rolled a Great or even Superb result he would have succeeded better. The Coordinator can easily see the degree to which the character succeeded in his task.

Action modifiers are important in InfoWar, the Coordinator should make the players think, not just rely on their characters' skills and attributes. Negative modifiers might represent such things as a target in cover, not having the proper equipment, stressing a task attempt, relying on bad information and so on. Positive modifiers might represent such things as a tactical advantage, being helped by an expert program, having excellent equipment and so on. There are too many examples to list here, but set the tone firmly! If the characters don't think and prepare themselves properly, hit them with negative modifiers. If they think and prepare themselves properly give them positive modifiers. Modifiers are subtracted or added to a character's skill or attribute before the dice roll. The maximum modifier except under extreme circumstances in Info War is +/- 3 the trait.

Example: If Piotr's character had had access to some climbing gear when he tried to climb the wall, he might have received a positive modifier of +1. So he would have had a Good skill on this attempt, and then rolled a Great result with his dice roll.

Unopposed actions is when the Coordinator sets a Difficulty Level (Fair is the most common) and announces which trait should be rolled against. If absolutely no skill seems appropriate, choose the most appropriate attribute. The player then appropriately modifies the trait with the Coordinator's modifiers and rolls against the trait level, and tries to match or surpass the Difficulty Level (see the example of Piotr's character above). If the character's skill is rated as Non-Existent (as for Very Hard skills) he cannot attempt the task in question, he doesn't have a clue about Nanotechnology, even less about constructing a matter compiler.

Opposed actions are actions between two characters in competition; each side rolls against the appropriate trait and announces the result (as above). The traits rolled against or the Difficulty Level are not necessarily the same. When done the results of the characters are compared in a relative degree and the character with the best result wins. Note that you must succeed at your task to beat an adversary, you cannot always rely on the mistakes of others.

Example: Piotr's character is trying to sneak past a guard. The character has Stealth: Fair and the guard has INT: Good. The Coordinator announces a Difficulty Level of Great for Piotr's character and a Difficulty Level of Fair for the guard. Piotr rolls a result of +2 for a Great roll and the Coordinator rolls a result of -1 for a Fair roll. Both succeed in their tasks, but the relative degree is +2 to Piotr's advantage. The character sneaks past the guard.

Critical Success and Critical Failure

If a character gets a rolled degree of four levels or more better than the Difficulty Level he has gotten a critical success - the character has done exceptionally well and the Coordinator should grant a special bonus to the action's result. It is possible to roll a result that is higher than Superb, the character has done exceptionally well. Note that a trait of Enhanced or higher implies that the character almost always will succeed in his task. Never assign a Difficulty Level of Enhanced or more, they are simply impossible to achieve for regular men.

Example: Christo has STR: Enhanced (how he got that is an interesting story in itself) and is going to flip over a car. The Coordinator announces a Difficulty Level of Superb (it's a heavy car). Christo gets a result of +2 a Transhuman result for a degree of +3. Watch that car fly!

Of course, some tasks are difficult even for enhanced humans and might require a superior Difficulty Level (regular humans cannot even perceive these tasks).

If a character gets a rolled degree of four levels or less lower than the Difficulty Level he has gotten a critical failure - the character has done exceptionally bad and the Coordinator should grant a special penalty to the action's result. It is possible to roll a result that is lower than Terrible, the character has done exceptionally bad.