The following is a brief introduction to The System as a game. It’s intended to be a quick overview of game concepts to get you into the swing of things.
There are five primary terms to know: Attributes, Aptitudes, Abilities, and Actions & Augments. Attributes are the physical description of what a person is. Aptitudes are the limitations on what they can become. Abilities are the skills a person has learned, Action are what the person does with those skills, and Augments are a means of modifying those skills as they are used.
The details of all of these terms is recorded on the System Sheet, a page that helps the player keep track of all of the information for their character.
The System Check is any time that a roll is made to test whether or not a character successfully completes a task. Whether an individual is attacking an enemy, building a house, composing a sonnet, or opening a jar of pickles, a System Check determines whether or not they are successful. To perform a System Check, roll three six-sided dice and add any bonuses or penalties to the roll, then compare the result to the Difficulty Target (abbreviated at DT). If the result is equal to the DT or higher, then the check is successful.
Effect Rolls are used to determine the final effects of an action. This is most commonly used to determine damage from an attack and is typically called a Damage Roll rather than the more formal “Effect Roll for Damage.” Effect Rolls are always defined by the Ability or Item being used and may use any number of dice and even dice with a different number of faces.
Basic Conventions
The System adheres to the following conventions to make the game easier to handle.
Dice
The System uses the “standard” notation when referencing dice, that is a number, a lowercase letter “d” and another number followed by an optional mathematical equation, such as “3d6+9.” The first number represents the number of dice to roll, the letter “d” indicates that these are, indeed, dice being rolled, and the second number is the number of face on the dice to be rolled. So, in the case of “3d6+9,” we would be rolling three six-sided dice. The “+9” on the end indicates that we add nine to the result of the roll to get the final number.
Dice are most commonly referred to by this notation rather than their full name, such as “d6s” (pronounced as “dee sixes”) rather than the more formal “six-sided dice.”
You will need a standard set of Role Playing Dice or Polyhedral Dice with at least three d6s to play games within The System.
Math and Rounding
The mathematics used in The System are primarily simple addition and subtraction, though multiplication and division may also rarely be used. The System relies primarily on whole integers, but some effects may result in cumbersome factions. While the narrative use of The System in the novels retains and uses the fractions of fractions, you as a player are not expected to track them… unless you just really want to.
Unless explicitly instructed otherwise, you should handle rounding in the following manner, regardless of the fractional value:
- For costs and expenses, always Round Up. This means that anything which costs your character something, you will always pay the higher value.
- For System Checks, Effect Rolls, and other results, always Round Down. For example, if you deal 10 damage divided among three targets, each target would take 3 damage rather than 3⅓.
Measurements
The System conspicuously does not use any standardized or formal system of measurement that you may be familiar with. You will not find meters, miles, grams, gallons, or other such measures here.
Instead, The System uses what it believes to be “intuitive” measures. Distance is measured Steps and Paces, terms like Near, Far, and Distant, and other such measures which make sense in the immediate application but may not be entirely clear as a definitive measure. Weight is primarily measured in Stones, Pebbles, and Grains and volume in Phials, Buckets, and Barrels.
These measures are somewhat inconsistent and not always a perfect depiction of what we consider to be reality. It’s best to just… accept it. Don’t try to reason it out or convert it into more “logical” units. Just take it at face value and move along. It’s easier that way.