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At a high level, all of the action in games of The Source boils down to two things: The Basic Move and storytelling. Everything else builds on top of these two fundamentals to create the story of your players and their actions.
When you do something risky or dangerous, roll 2d6 and add a relevant attribute score.
- On a 12+, you do it perfectly, with some additional benefit.
- On a 10-11, you do it perfectly.
- On a 7-9, you do it, but with some cost or complication.
- On a 6-, you fail to do it, with some additional negative consequence.
Every player has the following attributes:
Every class will also have their own special moves. These will build on top of the basic move (EG: Clerics/Wizards casting spells, Artificers creating things) and may cause disadvantageous side effects if they fail.
Moves only make sense when there is a sense of _risk_ involved to things. Breaking a door down isn't risky unless there are monsters behind it. Picking a lock isn't risky if nobody can hear it or catch you doing it. Haggling isn't risky unless you are starved for gold. Attacks aren't risky if they aren't fantastic.
This is a fantasy roleplaying game. Your job is to help the players explore the world, have adventures and craft legends as a group. Read through this supplement and maybe a Dungeons and Dragons starter guide or two. Take things as they happen and don't be afraid to ask your players for ideas. Improvisation only can go so far.
Also, failure doesn't have to be a *complete failure*. If you fail a hit on a monster, you could just transfer that damage to another nearby monster instead of nullifying it out. Doing this helps keep the players in the flow of the game and make everything fun for everyone. Sometimes it can be fun to have a critical failure result in a better result for everyone. If you do end up making a move actually fail for a player, have them get some experience as penance.
Remember the rules (even though there are only a few of them) are NOT written in stone; and if something comes up that you feel is "wrong", make up something else! Don't be afraid to ask your players for amusing ideas. They are a very valuable resource for this!
As the Narrator, you should let the players know what the risks are before they roll. This lets players be informed and they might change their minds about their actions. This is good, this means your players are thinking!
To quote the 6E handbook:
When you fight an enemy in melee, roll for toughness. A 7-9 might mean that you successfully do your damage to the enemy, but they do their damage to you, or disarm you. A 6- might mean that you don’t do your damage to the enemy, and they do their damage
When shooting an enemy at range, roll for quickness. A 7-9 might mean that you successfully do your damage to the enemy, but they manage to move into melee range of you and swing - What do you do? A 6- might mean that you miss, and that was your last arrow!
When you look for rumors in town, buy a round for the local publicans and roll for charm. A 10+ might mean you get two rumors. A 7-9 might mean you only get 1 rumor. A 6- might mean you put your trust in bad information.
Withinbot is a Discord bot written in Rust that helps to manage dice and stat rolling for 6E games. It is present by default in the guild for The Source, but if you want to add it to your own Discord guild contact Cadey at Cadey~#1337.
Dice rolling is done with the ~roll command. It takes arguments that look like this:
~roll [number of dice]d[number of dice sides][+/-modifier] ~roll 3d6
The bot will reply with the list of dice that fed into the roll and the result:
[2, 5, 2] = 9
Report any bugs or issues with Withinbot here
If you are reading this via the gemini protocol, you can roll dice using the same random engine as Withinbot using the /dice route.