0-2 - Tutorial on Rolls
The lights inside the 7-11 are bright white, spilling out through the glass doors. Anna Hemmerton picks up a wire basket from the rack and drifts towards the toiletries section.
Behind her, the pale man enters. He takes a basket too. Under the harsh lighting, he looks even clammier. He's clearly built like an outhouse, muscles bulging under his dark jacket. He's keeping well back as she drifts through the supermarket, grabbing a box of tissues and then heading towards the TV dinners.
Pulling out his mobile, he dials a number.
"Boss. It's Rolf." He pauses. "On her tail now, boss. Late night shopping. Looks like she's just forgotten to get food in."
He pokes his head around the corner. Chinese for one. Cheesecake for one. Bottle of wine. She ain't buying for two people, he knows that for sure. They've been following her for days now. The broad's as blind as a bat even with those spectacles.
Listening to his boss' orders, the man nods. "Right. We'll get her out the way for you. I'll call you when it's done." And with that said, he hangs up.
Anna Hemmerton is heading into the frozen goods section to find herself a frozen pizza. She has no idea what's waiting for her.
So. Rolls and actions.
Let's start with the basics, shall we?
Lesson one - You're surrounded by idiots. Your basic mooks aren't very good. They'll usually have a dice pool of 2-3, and that means using them alone is a risk for anything apart from the easiest operations. If you rely on basic mooks, you'll fail a lot.
There are ways around this, and you'll see some of them later. Skilled assets are valuable, even if they're limited. You certainly want to get your hands on them. But sometimes you'll not be able to use them, and you'll just have to accept that you have to trust things to the idiot brigade. In which case...
Lesson two - Bonuses are your friends. Since your mooks are a bunch of incompetents, it means it's your job to come up with cunning plans and clever ways of attack. Well-devised schemes, doing preparatory actions, cinematic locations to attack from, and playing to the strengths of your faction with write-ins will often do things like grant bonus dice, reduce the difficulty, or suchlike. Sometimes you might even get a difficulty 0 action out of it, in which case you're only rolling to see if there's a complication or stroke of luck. And speaking of complications...
Lesson three - Auto-complications - Threat or Menace?. Auto-complications are bad. All things remaining equal, you don't want to take such choices. They're not catastrophic because you can cancel them out by getting lucky and rolling more 6s than 1s, but on average if there's an auto-complication something is going to go wrong. On the other hand, though, it's often a trade off. Options with auto-complications will often have dice bonuses or reduced difficulties. In essence, you're trading better odds of success now for the risk of future problems.
Lesson four - Rolls Are For A Goal, Not For An Action. You're not rolling to hurt someone in this system, unless your primary goal is to hurt them. Hence, failure can take many forms. An instructive beating meant to warn them off can result in them dying if you fail the roll just as it can result in them not taking the lesson to heart. Always consider what you're aiming to do when you choose an action, and how it might go wrong to stop you achieving your goal if you fail the roll.
Lesson five - Failure is not the end. Well, okay, sometimes it is. But if you pick your battles wisely, your target might not even realise how you failed. Sometimes you will fail. It's how you recover from it and how you account for the failure that matters. Sometimes it's better to pull back and try something else. Sometimes you shouldn't let one failure stop you in your path.
Choose your action
Base pool: 3 dice
[ ] Strike in the frozen food isle. She won't have anywhere to run to, but there's the risk of a late-night shopper or the staff noticing you and kicking up a fuss.
(+1 dice, 1 autocomplication, Diff 2)
[ ] Beat her up in the car park outside. It's dark, mostly empty, and even if someone notices you'll have time to run. On the other hand, she might manage to get into her car and escape.
(Diff 2)
[ ] Puncture her tires. That'll mean she has to pull over on the way back home. Awfully dangerous for a lone woman who gets a puncture at this hour, ain't it? She might get attacked by miscreants while she's waiting for the tow truck.
(Set-up action - enhances a later action, but doesn't accomplish your goals)
[ ] Just shoot her. Look, sure, the boss said not to kill her, but not everyone dies from gunshot wounds, right? Just pop a bullet in her leg when she comes out. Simple. Well, unless you accidentally kill her. That'll get the boss mad. And, you know. Start murder enquiries if the body gets found.
(Fixed failure result - target's death, Diff 2)
[ ] Trail her home and strike when she's trying to get her groceries out of her car. It's more isolated and quiet, but there's the risk she'll run for her house and get inside.
(-1 dice, Diff 1)
Choose your rolling system:
[ ] Roll Once. The usual way of rolling. One person rolls, and we use that result.
[ ] Roll Thrice, Take Middle. Three people roll, and we take the roll with the middle number of successes. If there's a draw, the Complication/Fluke balance is used to work out the middle one. This will serve to somewhat insulate you from very bad or very good luck. Basically, you'll just be closer to the mean.
[ ] You Don't See Me Rollin', You Hatin'. All rolls are done secretly by EarthScorpion, and the results are only revealed in the update. More narrative tension but you don't get the fun of rolling. (x0.5)
