Taking Action (Dice and When to Roll Them)

When your character tries to do something uncertain in Our Terrible Fate, you will often roll dice to see if he succeeds. Not everything requires a dice roll; usually you’ll only roll dice when the action your character is attempting is dramatically important or carries a certain weight of tension, such as if it’s opposed by the efforts of another character, or if there’s a significant obstacle in your way. Otherwise, as long as the Keeper says your action is physically possible, your character simply does what you say.

There is another important rule for the Keeper to remember throughout the game. You don’t need to roll dice every time a character does something. Only roll the dice when both (or all) the possible outcomes of the roll are interesting. If the story only moves forward if the investigator succeeds, then just assume they were successful and continue playing.

Anything a character (or even a group of characters) may attempt can be treated as one of the following five basic actions.

Overcome

Overcome: To overcome an obstacle. If what you’re attempting doesn’t fit one of the other actions, it’s an Overcome action.

Discover

Discover: To find things and learn about the world around you. Commonly used to find clues and so one of the most commonly used actions.

Create Advantage

Create an Advantage: To create or unlock an advantage for your character, or otherwise set yourself up for future success.

Attack

Attack: To inflict stress, harm, or similar unwanted effect on another.

Defend

Defend: To defend yourself or another from harm.

Oppose

Oppose: To interfere with the actions of another. Not a true action, an sometimes called the Sixth Reason to Roll the Dice.

Rolling the Dice

When you need to roll dice in Fate, pick up four Fate dice and roll them. When you read the dice, read every as +1, every as 0, and every as –1. Add them all together. You’ll get a result from –4 to +4, most often between –2 and +2.

Here are some sample dice totals:

= +1

= 0

= +2

= −1

The result on the dice isn’t your final total, however. If your character has a skill that’s appropriate to the action, you get to add your character’s rating in that skill to whatever you rolled.

So, once you’ve rolled the dice, how do you determine what a particular result means? Glad you asked.

The Ladder

Fate uses a ladder of adjectives and numbers to rate the dice results, a character’s skills and the result of a roll. Here’s the ladder:

+8 Legendary

+7 Epic

+6 Fantastic

+5 Superb

+4 Great

+3 Good

+2 Fair

+1 Average

+0 Mediocre

-1 Poor

-2 Terrible

It doesn’t really matter which side of the ladder you use—some people remember the words better, some people remember the numbers better, and some people like using both. So you could say, “I got a Great,” or “I got a +4,” and it means the same thing. As long as everyone understands what you’re communicating, you’re fine.

Results can go below and above the ladder. It is encouraged that you to come up with your own names for results above Legendary, such as “Zounds!” and “Ridiculously Awesome.”

Interpreting Results

When you roll the dice, you’re trying to get a high enough roll to match or beat your opposition. That opposition is going to come in one of two forms: active opposition, from someone rolling dice against you, or passive opposition, from an obstacle that just has a set rating on the ladder for you to overcome. (Keepers, you can also just decide your NPCs provide passive opposition when you don’t want to roll dice for them.)
Generally speaking, if you beat your opposition on the ladder, you succeed at your action. A tie creates some effect, but not to the extent your character was intending. If you win by a lot, something extra happens (like uncovering additional information or doing more harm to your opponent in a fight).

If you don’t beat the opposition, either you don’t succeed at your action, you succeed at a cost, or something else happens to complicate the outcome. Some game actions have special results when you fail at the roll.

When you beat a roll or a set obstacle, the difference between your opposition and your result is what is called shifts. When you roll equal to the opposition, you have zero shifts. Roll one over your opposition, and you have one shift. Two over means two shifts, and so on.

Brousseau, Paul’s character, is trying to escape from a house that is supposedly “haunted”. He doesn’t believe in such things, but the door to the bedroom he is in just slammed shut, and his friends down the hall are screaming about something coming out of the walls. As if that wasn’t bad enough, furniture has started flying around the room, blocking his way to the only remaining exit – the window.

Steve, the Keeper, says, “This is passive opposition, because it’s just getting in your way. It’s opposing you at Great (+4). Dodging a bed and shelves full of books to dive through a window isn’t going to be easy.”

Paul sighs and says, “Well, I’ve got Athletics at Good (+3), so I’ll try to run and dive through it, hoping to dodge the big stuff.”
He takes up the dice and rolls, getting , for a result of +2. This steps up his result on the ladder by two, from Good (+3) to Superb (+5). That’s enough to beat the opposition by one shift and succeed.

Steve says, “Well, it may not have been graceful, but you managed to jump through the window without being flattened by an inanimate object that seemed determined to crush you, or any other serious injury. Of course, now you’re lying in the front yard while everyone else is still trapped inside.”

Paul replies, “I knew the pay for this job was too good to be true,” and Brousseau continues dusts himself off before circling around the side of the house, hoping to find some way to help his friends.