Quellian-dyrae
2015-07-02, 01:50 AM
Introduction
What I'm trying to do here is create a sort of skill challenge system that can be hopefully-fairly-seamlessly used across multiple RPGs. The goal is to try to cover several of the shortcomings of some of the existing skill systems I've seen. Specifically, I'm aiming for a system that:
1) Integrates the description of the scene and its mechanics cohesively. PCs should face specific challenges, overcome those challenges with specific actions, and see benefits or consequences based on the result of those actions.
2) Helps the GM gauge the difficulty and duration of the challenge. The GM should know how many checks of what difficulty the PCs can go up against to achieve a desired level of encounter difficulty. Everyone should be easily able to differentiate victory and defeat conditions from mere progress.
3) Involves some level of tactical play. PCs should be able to make meaningful choices and leverage their skills and abilities to gain advantage. Smart and creative play should be mechanically rewarded.
4) Allows all players to participate. Three people should not have to sit on the sidelines while the fourth handles the entire challenge because they have the best stealth, social skills, investigative skills, whatever. Players should not feel that they are being detrimental to the cause if they try to make a check or take an action despite not having the highest skill in the group. This is especially true if they do have some degree of investment in the skill, just not as much as another character.
Quick Play Rules (M&M 3e)
The full system is fairly crunchy, and adds some specific options for GMs and PCs alike. The following quick version of the rules is a bare-bones module that should be easy to integrate into a game.
During any challenge scene, each PC receives 10 Aptitude. The GM receives 12 Complications per PC. A Trivial skill check is DC 6+PL. An Easy skill check is DC 9+PL. An Average skill check is DC 11+PL. A Challenging skill check is DC 13+PL. A Difficult skill check is DC 15+PL. If the DC would logically be lower than a Trivial check, then it's probably not a meaningful obstacle and there's no real point in rolling for it.
The PCs play through the scene as normal. Each time the GM requires a player to make a skill check for the group to make progress or avoid failing the challenge, it spends Complications; 1 for a Trivial check, 2 for an Easy check, 4 for an Average check, 6 for a Challenging check, and 8 for a Difficult check. If the GM requires everyone make the check, rather than allowing one PC to make it for the party, the GM must spend Complications for each player. If the GM runs out of Complications, it can no longer place meaningful obstacles in the PCs' path; they simply finish playing out successfully achieving their encounter goal.
If a PC fails a check, it may spend Aptitude to mitigate the failure. It loses Aptitude equal to the number of points it failed by. If the PC doesn't have enough Aptitude to fully mitigate the failure, the check fails outright and normal consequences (usually the failure of the challenge, or that PC becoming unable to continue contributing to the challenge) apply.
The above quick play rules use M&M 3e as a baseline, but it can be adapted to other games by changing the numbers a bit. If you scroll down to the Aptitude section of the Core Mechanics rules below, you'll see how to adapt Aptitude costs per point of failure for other games' dice systems. You'll also want to change how you calculate the DCs of checks. Basically, an Average check should have a DC (target number, opposing stat, difficulty, required number of successes, whatever) that has a roughly 50% chance of success for a character with a solid level-appropriate investment in the stat. Easy and Challenging checks should be roughly two Aptitude harder or easier (but always by at least one point). Trivial and Difficult checks should be roughly five Aptitude harder or easier (but always at least two points).
If the game is more swingy in its stats, you might increase the DC changes to +/-5 and 10 rather than 2 and 5.
For example, in D&D 3.5, a decent level-appropriate skill probably means max ranks, with maybe a +2 from some miscellaneous source (ability scores, synergy bonus, etc). Higher ability scores, feats, and such can give a character an edge, and skill boosting magic items can break the system entirely (eh, what can you do?) Considering the swinginess of skills, increasing the DC shifts is probably a good idea. So for a 10th level party, an Average DC would be 11 + 13 (ranks) + 2 (misc) = 26. An Easy DC would be 21, Trivial would be 16, Challenging would be 31, and Difficult would be 36.
In D&D 5e, due to bounded accuracy, you could probably just set the Average DC to 15 regardless of level, making Easy 13, Trivial 10, Challenging 17, and Difficult 20. If you wanted a bit more scaling, though, 12+Proficiency Bonus would be a solid baseline.
In FATE, due to how narrow the range of possibilities is, a one point shift in difficulty is actually somewhat more significant than normal (although PCs have Fate Points as well as Aptitude to help them beat the odds! And the +0 result accounts for a larger portion of possible results due to the bell curve). If you figure Fair (+2) as the Average difficulty (despite the fact that FATE actually has Average as one of its stat rankings), then Easy would be Mediocre (+1), Trivial would be Average (+0), Challenging would be Good (+3), and Difficult would be Great (+4).
The Core Mechanics
Aptitude: At the start of each scene, all players receive a pool of 10 Aptitude. Aptitude is a sort of measure of narrative control, and is the player's primary mechanical resource for influencing a scene, and can be spent to modify how actions are resolved in a variety of ways.
The main effect of Aptitude, however, is to mitigate failures that might result in negative consequences or the failure of the challenge. When a character fails a check, it may spend Aptitude to avoid the consequences of failing. By spending Aptitude, the character's check result improves by a certain amount. If it reaches the value that would have been required to succeed the check, the character suffers no consequences for failure. Any resources that were expended as part of the check on either side (including Complications from the GM) remain expended, but no special benefits of success apply. Thus, Aptitude can be used to escape a hazard that might harm or kill you, bypass an obstacle that might prevent you from continuing the challenge, resist fatigue that could force you to drop out of a chase, or avoid detection by a patrol that could ruin an infiltration. It cannot be used to locate an extra clue to a mystery, or find a hidden treasure, or counterattack an enemy's blow.
The amount that Aptitude increases your checks by will vary based on the game's dice resolution mechanics. Some common options are as follows, but you may need to come up with your own for other games:
1d20 or 2d10 resolution: Each point of Aptitude adds +1 to the roll (or -1, if lower is better).
1d100 resolution: Each point of Aptitude adds +5 to the roll (or -5, if lower is better).
3d6 or 1d10 resolution: Each two points of Aptitude add +1 to the roll (or -1, if lower is better).
2d6 resolution: Each three points of Aptitude add +1 to the roll (or -1, if lower is better).
4dF resolution: Each four points of Aptitude add +1 to the roll (or -1, if lower is better).
Dice Pool resolution: Each two points of Aptitude adds 1 success to the roll.
I went with d20 as a base (because let's be honest, the d20 systems are probably the ones that need the most help with skill challenges anyway :smallamused:), for the default 1 Aptitude = +1. On a check with a 50% chance of success (11+ succeeds), this means that a minimum roll will wipe out a PCs full Aptitude total while still letting them hit the "avoid consequences" margin. Such checks will, on average, cost 2.75 Aptitude to pass (50% chance of losing 0 Aptitude, 5% of each result from 1-10 Aptitude lost).
d100 and d10 was easy, just multiply and divide appropriately.
The bell curvy ones I calculated the average Aptitude cost of a check (basically the chance of scoring each die result below average, times the number of points below average), and used it to get a rough multiplier. For example, taking a +0 result as the minimum for success, 4dF gives a 19.75% chance of failing by 1, 12.35% of failing by 2, 4.94% of failing by 3, and 1.23% of failing by 4. .1975*1+.1235*2+.0494*3+.0123*4 = .6419; 2.75 / .6419 = 4.284, rounding down to 4 Aptitude per +1.
For Dice Pools I went with my gut :smallamused:. Seriously I have no idea how well this will balance out in a dice pool game.
Complications: At the start of each scene, the GM also gains a resource called Complications. The GM spends Complications during the scene to throw challenges at the players. Once the GM's supply of Complications are exhausted, no new obstacles can be raised against the PCs during the scene. Normally, the GM begins the scene with 12 Complications per PC. The GM may increase or decrease its number of Complications for the scene to raise or lower encounter difficulty; 12 per PC is a "standard" challenge; one that the PCs should be able to overcome reliably as long as they don't make too many major blunders.
When the GM creates an obstacle for the players, it costs Complications. An average obstacle costs 4, but the difficulty of the obstacle can change that number; see Designing Obstacles below. The most common form of obstacle requires one PC to make one check, would have an average difficulty for a character with basic level-appropriate skill, and failing the check would carry the consequence of failing the encounter. This would rate as an average obstacle, costing 4 Complications.
So, on average, you can expect players to spend somewhere in the vicinity of 2.75 Aptitude per check made, plus or minus depending on the dice used. Likewise, an average obstcle costs the GM 4 Complications to create. PCs each have 10 Aptitude, and for an average encounter the GM has 12 Complications per PC. So, for an average encounter, you can expect each PC to have to make three checks, so with average rolls, they can get by all the Complications on Aptitude alone.
At 16 Complications per PC, each one has to make four checks, costing an average of 11 Aptitude. Slightly higher than what the PCs have, but tactics will help some; with average rolls, they should be able to squeak by, but their only margin for error is what they can build in with good tactics.
At 20 Complications per PC, each one is likely to make five checks, costing an average of 13.75 Aptitude. They'll need to roll well or play smart to have a chance at victory.
Likewise, 10 or 8 Complications per PC would be an easy encounter that the PCs can almost certainly breeze through with minimal difficulty. Less than 8 Complicatiins per PC is probably too trivial to rate a full challenge.
Running Out of Resources: It is important to note, reaching 0 on a resource doesn't inherently end the encounter. A PC with 0 Aptitude has no buffer for failures, but as long as it keeps succeeding checks (or its allies can make them), it can keep going. An entire group with 0 Aptitude is one significant failed check away from failure, but isn't out yet. Likewise, if the GM runs out of Complications, it can't introduce new obstacles; but if it established some obstacles before-hand, they are still in play, and it may still describe token resistance to the PCs efforts as they make their way to the goal.
Likewise, just because the GM still has Complications or the PCs still have Aptitude doesn't mean the challenge can't end decisively. If the PCs are in a negotiation and make a good argument, successfully answer all concerns, and the GM just can't think of any reason for the NPCs not to go along with them, it doesn't have to have them rehash the same points or otherwise drag the encounter out because there are Complications remaining. If the PCs are infiltrating an enemy lair and, through a smart approach, reach their goal before the GM has run out of Complications, it's fine to end the challenge there (although of course the GM could still throw some obstacles in their way when they try to sneak out).
Spending Aptitude
The PCs can spend Aptitude for more than just mitigating personal failure. The following options are available, although some may be restricted based on the nature of the game.
Aid Ally: Most games have some rule or another for working together to accomplish a task. Doing so as part of a challenge scene costs 1 Aptitude, but otherwise follows all normal rules for the game. If the game doesn't have a specific rule for teamwork, simply spend Aptitude to grant a straight check bonus to the ally, at half the cost as for the Mitigate Failure option. You must do this before the check is rolled. You may declare aid contingently (for example, to aid whichever ally decides to make the check). If for whatever reason your aid doesn't apply to a check (for example, an ally uses an ability to overcome the obstacle with no check needed), your Aptitude is refunded.
Accept Consequence: If you succeed a check, you may choose to treat it as a failure instead, in order to regain Aptitude. You gain 1 Aptitude if you suffer a minor consequence in this way, 2 Aptitude for a moderate consequence, 3 Aptitude for a major consequence, and 4 Aptitude for a severe consequence. You may not do this when the consequence would affect other PCs without their approval. If the consequence you suffer in this way renders you unfit to continue contributing to the scene, all of your remaining Aptitude is divided up among your allies as you see fit, including the new Aptitude earned.
Alter Stat: In most cases, the GM decides what stat or skill is used to make a check. However, you can spend Aptitude to use a different one. You must describe how you use the different stat to make the check. If it's an obvious solution, typically because the skill you use is very closely related in function to the skill called by the GM, this costs 0 Aptitude. If the solution is plausible, but outside the box, it costs 1 Aptitude. If the solution is really out there, it costs 2 Aptitude.
If the stat you choose is a different type of mechanic entirely than the one originally called, increase the cost by 1. For example, if you want to use a skill instead of a saving throw. The GM may rule that an especially creative solution that makes exceptionally good sense given the specific situation is worth a 1 Aptitude discount, to a minimum of 0. You may use your abilities as justification for this advantage without spending extra Aptitude on the Use Ability advantage.
Rocks fall, everybody dies! rolls a Dodge check to avoid them. Substituting Athletics, Acrobatics, or Speed to get clear of the area instead is an obvious solution; it's basically doing the same thing in a different way, and so costs 0 Aptitude. Substituting Perception, Insight, or Architecture to detect the hazard before it happens and be out of the way already when it does is perfectly plausible, but definitely not in the same arena, and would cost 1 Aptitude. Substituting Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion to retroactively say you interrogated the guard you defeated on the way in and were warned of the hazard is a clever solution, but it's way out there and would cost 2 Aptitude (assuming, you know, there was a guard you defeated on the way in and it would have known about the hazard). Naturally, this assumes all of these stats are in the same field; if this is an M&M game where Dodge is a combat stat and most of the rest of those are skills, the Aptitude cost would be one higher.
Choose Result: Some games have options where you can choose the result you roll under specific circumstances, such as Taking 10 and Taking 20 in D&D 3.5. Using such options during a challenge scene costs 1 Aptitude. You must still qualify for the option normally. If these options don't exist in your game, this advantage becomes unavailable.
Cover Allies: In many cases, the GM will design obstacles in such a way that only one PC needs to make the check (because forcing multiple PCs to make checks will cost additional Complications) to get the party through. For example, if the characters need to slip past an enemy patrol, whoever has the highest Stealth can make the check and guide the entire group silently past. If the GM does require multiple PCs to roll a check, you can use your result for one ally per 2 AP spent, if the ally wishes. The ally doesn't roll the check at all, and you only roll once. If you fail the check, each ally must Mitigate Failure separately if they want to avoid the consequences. Depending on the situation, the GM may rule that you suffer the consequences for each ally instead (for example, if you jump in the way of a trap to protect two vulnerable allies and fail your check, rather than all three of you taking damage, the GM may rule that you take three times as much damage).
Dramatic Exchange: By playing out a short, dramatic interaction with another PC, you may give them some of your Aptitude. No checks or surcharges are required, but the interaction should be dramatic. That is to say, it should have a tangible impact on the relationship between the two characters, or tie into their backgrounds or personal traits, or otherwise be more interesting than just an encouraging word or inspiring speech.
The Dramatic Exchange rules can also be used when a PC wants to contribute to a challenge descriptively, but not mechanically. For example, a PC with low social skills can still make points, offers, or threats, to the NPC but rather than rolling a check to try and overcome the obstacle, it just gives some of its Aptitude to an ally, presumably one with better social skills, allowing it to cover a potential failure.
Emulate Ally: Just because you're not the best doesn't mean you can't contribute. By spending one Aptitude before making a check, you can get a bonus on the check equal to half the difference between your stat and that of the party member with the highest score in the given stat. For example, if you have Stealth 2 and an ally has Stealth 10, you could spend an Aptitude to get a +4 bonus to your Stealth check. You may only do this once per check.
Execute Gambit: For 1 Aptitude, a player can request a check to receive a benefit of some kind. If the GM approves, it creates an obstacle to resolve the attempt, but the benefits of succeeding the check to overcome the obstacle must exceed the consequences of failing, and the PC gets to dictate at least one benefit. The GM gains or spends consequences for this obstacle as normal. The GM may freely refuse a gambit, in which case the Aptitude is refunded.
Final Effort: If a character other than you fails a check that entails a consequence too serious to allow (PC death or failure of the challenge being the obvious ones), and no party member feels confident enough to use the Save Ally option, but the group has at least enough Aptitude remaining between them to cover the cost of Mitigating Failure, the group can collectively declare a Final Effort. All PCs fall to 0 Aptitude, even if their total is higher than the cost required to mitigate the failure, but the failure is mitigated with no further checks required.
Influence Narrative: Some games already include mechanics for influencing the narrative, such as FATE's Fate Points or M&M's Hero Points and Extra Effort. Using such a mechanic during a challenge scene also costs 1 Aptitude, unless it is an expenditure to enable something else that carries its own Aptitude cost, like an ability.
Mitigate Failure: The default use of Aptitude, as explained previously.
Save Ally: If an ally fails a check, and the consequences of the failure are too serious to allow, you may spend 2 Aptitude to attempt to save your ally. Make your own check (typically using the same skill, but you can use Alter Stat normally) against the same DC, at a penalty equal to the number of points the ally failed by (minus any mitigation on its part). If you succeed, the ally's failure is mitigated (this is not the same as fully succeeding the check in the first place). If you fail, you may spend more Aptitude to mitigate your own failure, and if that's not enough other allies can attempt to save you. If the check does end up in a failure, all allies who attempted saves suffer the consequences equally. You may use this option even if the ally has enough Aptitude to mitigate the failure, but it costs 3 Aptitude to do so in this case.
Use Ability: If you have a special ability that can directly contribute to overcoming an obstacle, you can use it normally. This costs 0 Aptitude if the ability is basically just descriptive or a justification for other advantages. It costs 1 Aptitude if the ability provides a concrete mechanical benefit. It costs 2 Aptitude if the ability invalidates the obstacle outright. All normal costs, checks, and other limitations of the ability still apply. Unlike most advantages, you may use this even while out of Aptitude, but an ally must spend the Aptitude for you. If no one has any Aptitude remaining, you can still use your abilities freely; it's up to your GM to design challenges that can't be automatically steamrolled just by spamming your special powers (or to recognize when they can be and realize they shouldn't be played out as challenge scenes).
Aptitude isn't meant to substitute for normal resource costs for abilities, but to represent a player's narrative control over the scene. Powerful special abilities are a big expression of narrative control, so they cost Aptitude while you have it; you can use them as freely as the normal mechanics of the game allows, but if you overuse them, you can't spend Aptitude to mitigate failure if you wind up faced with an obstacle you can't just power through. Requiring allies to spend Aptitude to power your abilities when you run out is to ensure people all get their chance at the spotlight. Most likely, using an ability will get the group further for a relatively low cost, so in most cases, your allies should be happy to help you use them if needed. If they aren't, it probably means they want the chance to do some cool stuff too!
Designing Obstacles
Each obstacle has a minimum cost of 1 Complication, unless the benefits for succeeding are at least equal to the consequences for failing, in which case there is no minimum and the GM can potentially regain Complications.
Benefits: Typically, succeeding a check against an obstacle doesn't entail any particular benefit to the PCs; rather, it simply allows them to continue making progress. By working in benefits if they manage to succeed the check, the GM can reduce the obstacle's Complication cost. Remember, benefits only accrue for a true success; mitigating a failure does not provide any benefits.
No Benefit (+0): There is no special benefit to overcoming the obstacle.
Minor Benefit (-1): A minor benefit might have a small mechanical impact on a single obstacle or action. Among other things, a minor benefit can include recovering a point of Aptitude, or a fairly minor resource, such as healing a bit of damage or recovering an expended use of a fairly low-power ability. Minor benefits may also include small one-use bonuses, short-term role playing advantages, or minor but useful bits of information. Small XP or treasure awards are also good examples.
Moderate Benefit (-2): Moderate benefits have a similar scope to minor benefits, but are more significant. Recovering two Aptitude, healing a decent amount of damage or recovering a use of a mid-power ability or a few uses of a low-power one, a moderate one-off bonus, longer-term role playing advantages, reasonably valuable information, modest XP or treasure awards, and so on. They can also include gaining or recovering more significant resources, like Hero Points in M&M, Fate Points in FATE, or Willpower in the Storyteller system.
Major Benefit (-4): A major benefit can have a noticeable impact on an entire scene. They can include further scaled up moderate benefits (recovering five Aptitude, healing about half your health, recovering a use of a high-powered ability, a few uses of a mid-power ability, or all uses of a low-power ability, lasting role playing advantages, significant clues or plot-relevant information, significant XP or treasure awards, etc). Other possibilities are low-powered but permanent magic items, new capabilities that can be learned through in-character actions (such as a D&D 3.5 wizard's spells, or a D&D 5e character's Tool proficiencies). They can include a lasting bonus for the entire scene, such as an increase to all checks or a reduction in check difficulty.
Exceptional Benefits (-8): An exceptional benefit can have serious or long-term effects, or basically decide a scene. Exceptional benefits can include a player fully refreshing its Aptitude, health, or uses of a mid-power ability (or gaining a few uses of a high-powered ability). It can provide the answer the a dilemma, or a key piece of plot-critical information. Large XP or treasure awards, or in games with staggered advancement, immediate additional advancement points (such as 1 PP in M&M or 1 XP in Storyteller systems), as well as level-appropriate new gear. An exceptional benefit can also be a victory condition for the scene, immediately ending the challenge as a success if the PCs succeed to overcome the obstacle.
Checks: The GM spends the full cost in Complications for each check that has to be made for the party as a whole to overcome the obstacle. In general (unless using the Cover Ally advantage), a given PC can only make one check against a given obstacle; a complex obstacle with multiple checks that one PC can make should be represented as multiple obstacles. For example, a trapped and locked door isn't one obstacle with two checks, it's two separate obstacles that happen to be encountered simultaneously. When a single obstacle has multiple checks, any consequences of failure (and benefits of success) apply to every PC who makes one of the checks.
Consequences: If the PCs fail the check required to overcome the obstacle, they suffer consequences unless they mitigate the failure. The severity of the consequence suffered determines the cost in Complications.
Some consequences, once suffered, can be avoided or mitigated with secondary checks. For example, if you trigger a trap, you still might get defensive rolls against it following normal rules for your game. These don't change the Complication cost in themselves, but they may modify the consequence level; a moderate amount of damage but with a decent shot of the character avoiding it might be considered only a Minor consequence, for example.
Consequences should, of course, be tailored to your game. In a low-lethality game like M&M, for example, outright character death is probably too serious even for a Severe Consequence; it might render a character dying instead. Conversely, in a more lethal game like Call of Cthuhu, death might only rate as a Major Consequence. And in a game like Paranoia, it may only be a Moderate Consequence!
No Consequence (+0): Failing the check carries no consequence. If an obstacle carries neither a consequence for failure nor a benefit for success, it is not an obstacle at all. It does not cost Complications, but you may want to ask yourself why you are making your players roll pointless checks.
Minor Consequence (+1): A minor consequence will hamper the PCs, but isn't going to have a lasting impact. Damage, most status effects, significant penalties on single checks or small penalties on multiple future checks, are all common examples. A consequence can also make the encounter tougher due to things like alarms being sounded, traps being armed, the terrain changing in some way, cutting off easier paths so the PCs have to tackle the more difficult or dangerous route, and so on; this is represented by the GM gaining additional Complications equal to the cost of the Consequence per PC (so a Minor consequence would grant the GM an additional 1 Complication per PC, if they fail the check to overcome the obstacle).
Moderate Consequence (+2): A moderate consequence can significantly negatively impact your chance of succeeding the encounter. Major status effects, high amounts of damage, or a moderate check penalty or DC increase for all future checks for the scene (or a significant penalty for a few checks) are the common ones. They can also have impacts outside of the current scene, such as causing some loss of wealth, status, or reputation, or the temporary loss of gear or abilities.
Major Consequence (+4): A major consequence can end the encounter. In fact, they usually do! The most common major consequence either makes the PC who fails the check unable to participate further in the scene (if the check basically only affects the one PC), or even ends the challenge itself as a failure (if the check is being made to allow the party to progress). Alternately, they may change the nature of the scene, such as an infiltration turning into a combat or escape scene when the PCs are caught. Major consequences can also be less severe, but lasting for a longer duration, generally an entire adventure, such as the destruction of an important (but eventually replacable) item, or a lasting status effect like a curse.
Severe Consequence (+8): Severe consequences should be handled with care, for they have permanent or story-altering ramifications. Suffering a severe consequence can alter the course of the campaign - the villain accomplishing its goal, for example. It can cause permanent losses, such as the destruction of irreplacable items, the death of important NPCs, crippling injuries or nigh-irreversible curses, and so on. In most games, character death is a possibility for suffering a severe consequence.
Difficulty: The difficulty of the check required to overcome the obstacle has an impact on its cost, as follows. Trivial: -2. Easy: -1. Average: +0. Challenging: +2. Difficult: +4.
Scaling: Some obstacles will have greater benefits for higher values of success (or greater consequences for more severe failures). For each level of scaling consequence, the GM spends one additional Complication (if hitting it requires failing by the equivalent of two difficulty steps), or two additional Complications (if hitting it requires failing by the equivalent of one difficulty step). Likewise, for each level of scaling benefit, the GM lowers the cost by 1 or 2 for two or one added difficulty step of success required.
For example, in M&M 3e, one difficulty step is +2 to the DC, and two are +5. So if a check normally has a Moderate Consequence, but carries a Major Consequence for a two-degree failure (failing by 5, so two additional difficulty steps), and a Severe Consequence for a three-degree failure (failing by 10, so four additional difficulty steps), the GM would pay +2 additional Complications; one for each scaling of the Consequence.
Future Updates
Depending on if I get the inspiration for it, I may write up some extended examples, as well as some special abilities that can be slotted into a game that interact with this system, allowing for more diversity through build options. Maybe some rules for integrating challenge scene mechanics into combat scenes too. But we'll see.
What I'm trying to do here is create a sort of skill challenge system that can be hopefully-fairly-seamlessly used across multiple RPGs. The goal is to try to cover several of the shortcomings of some of the existing skill systems I've seen. Specifically, I'm aiming for a system that:
1) Integrates the description of the scene and its mechanics cohesively. PCs should face specific challenges, overcome those challenges with specific actions, and see benefits or consequences based on the result of those actions.
2) Helps the GM gauge the difficulty and duration of the challenge. The GM should know how many checks of what difficulty the PCs can go up against to achieve a desired level of encounter difficulty. Everyone should be easily able to differentiate victory and defeat conditions from mere progress.
3) Involves some level of tactical play. PCs should be able to make meaningful choices and leverage their skills and abilities to gain advantage. Smart and creative play should be mechanically rewarded.
4) Allows all players to participate. Three people should not have to sit on the sidelines while the fourth handles the entire challenge because they have the best stealth, social skills, investigative skills, whatever. Players should not feel that they are being detrimental to the cause if they try to make a check or take an action despite not having the highest skill in the group. This is especially true if they do have some degree of investment in the skill, just not as much as another character.
Quick Play Rules (M&M 3e)
The full system is fairly crunchy, and adds some specific options for GMs and PCs alike. The following quick version of the rules is a bare-bones module that should be easy to integrate into a game.
During any challenge scene, each PC receives 10 Aptitude. The GM receives 12 Complications per PC. A Trivial skill check is DC 6+PL. An Easy skill check is DC 9+PL. An Average skill check is DC 11+PL. A Challenging skill check is DC 13+PL. A Difficult skill check is DC 15+PL. If the DC would logically be lower than a Trivial check, then it's probably not a meaningful obstacle and there's no real point in rolling for it.
The PCs play through the scene as normal. Each time the GM requires a player to make a skill check for the group to make progress or avoid failing the challenge, it spends Complications; 1 for a Trivial check, 2 for an Easy check, 4 for an Average check, 6 for a Challenging check, and 8 for a Difficult check. If the GM requires everyone make the check, rather than allowing one PC to make it for the party, the GM must spend Complications for each player. If the GM runs out of Complications, it can no longer place meaningful obstacles in the PCs' path; they simply finish playing out successfully achieving their encounter goal.
If a PC fails a check, it may spend Aptitude to mitigate the failure. It loses Aptitude equal to the number of points it failed by. If the PC doesn't have enough Aptitude to fully mitigate the failure, the check fails outright and normal consequences (usually the failure of the challenge, or that PC becoming unable to continue contributing to the challenge) apply.
The above quick play rules use M&M 3e as a baseline, but it can be adapted to other games by changing the numbers a bit. If you scroll down to the Aptitude section of the Core Mechanics rules below, you'll see how to adapt Aptitude costs per point of failure for other games' dice systems. You'll also want to change how you calculate the DCs of checks. Basically, an Average check should have a DC (target number, opposing stat, difficulty, required number of successes, whatever) that has a roughly 50% chance of success for a character with a solid level-appropriate investment in the stat. Easy and Challenging checks should be roughly two Aptitude harder or easier (but always by at least one point). Trivial and Difficult checks should be roughly five Aptitude harder or easier (but always at least two points).
If the game is more swingy in its stats, you might increase the DC changes to +/-5 and 10 rather than 2 and 5.
For example, in D&D 3.5, a decent level-appropriate skill probably means max ranks, with maybe a +2 from some miscellaneous source (ability scores, synergy bonus, etc). Higher ability scores, feats, and such can give a character an edge, and skill boosting magic items can break the system entirely (eh, what can you do?) Considering the swinginess of skills, increasing the DC shifts is probably a good idea. So for a 10th level party, an Average DC would be 11 + 13 (ranks) + 2 (misc) = 26. An Easy DC would be 21, Trivial would be 16, Challenging would be 31, and Difficult would be 36.
In D&D 5e, due to bounded accuracy, you could probably just set the Average DC to 15 regardless of level, making Easy 13, Trivial 10, Challenging 17, and Difficult 20. If you wanted a bit more scaling, though, 12+Proficiency Bonus would be a solid baseline.
In FATE, due to how narrow the range of possibilities is, a one point shift in difficulty is actually somewhat more significant than normal (although PCs have Fate Points as well as Aptitude to help them beat the odds! And the +0 result accounts for a larger portion of possible results due to the bell curve). If you figure Fair (+2) as the Average difficulty (despite the fact that FATE actually has Average as one of its stat rankings), then Easy would be Mediocre (+1), Trivial would be Average (+0), Challenging would be Good (+3), and Difficult would be Great (+4).
The Core Mechanics
Aptitude: At the start of each scene, all players receive a pool of 10 Aptitude. Aptitude is a sort of measure of narrative control, and is the player's primary mechanical resource for influencing a scene, and can be spent to modify how actions are resolved in a variety of ways.
The main effect of Aptitude, however, is to mitigate failures that might result in negative consequences or the failure of the challenge. When a character fails a check, it may spend Aptitude to avoid the consequences of failing. By spending Aptitude, the character's check result improves by a certain amount. If it reaches the value that would have been required to succeed the check, the character suffers no consequences for failure. Any resources that were expended as part of the check on either side (including Complications from the GM) remain expended, but no special benefits of success apply. Thus, Aptitude can be used to escape a hazard that might harm or kill you, bypass an obstacle that might prevent you from continuing the challenge, resist fatigue that could force you to drop out of a chase, or avoid detection by a patrol that could ruin an infiltration. It cannot be used to locate an extra clue to a mystery, or find a hidden treasure, or counterattack an enemy's blow.
The amount that Aptitude increases your checks by will vary based on the game's dice resolution mechanics. Some common options are as follows, but you may need to come up with your own for other games:
1d20 or 2d10 resolution: Each point of Aptitude adds +1 to the roll (or -1, if lower is better).
1d100 resolution: Each point of Aptitude adds +5 to the roll (or -5, if lower is better).
3d6 or 1d10 resolution: Each two points of Aptitude add +1 to the roll (or -1, if lower is better).
2d6 resolution: Each three points of Aptitude add +1 to the roll (or -1, if lower is better).
4dF resolution: Each four points of Aptitude add +1 to the roll (or -1, if lower is better).
Dice Pool resolution: Each two points of Aptitude adds 1 success to the roll.
I went with d20 as a base (because let's be honest, the d20 systems are probably the ones that need the most help with skill challenges anyway :smallamused:), for the default 1 Aptitude = +1. On a check with a 50% chance of success (11+ succeeds), this means that a minimum roll will wipe out a PCs full Aptitude total while still letting them hit the "avoid consequences" margin. Such checks will, on average, cost 2.75 Aptitude to pass (50% chance of losing 0 Aptitude, 5% of each result from 1-10 Aptitude lost).
d100 and d10 was easy, just multiply and divide appropriately.
The bell curvy ones I calculated the average Aptitude cost of a check (basically the chance of scoring each die result below average, times the number of points below average), and used it to get a rough multiplier. For example, taking a +0 result as the minimum for success, 4dF gives a 19.75% chance of failing by 1, 12.35% of failing by 2, 4.94% of failing by 3, and 1.23% of failing by 4. .1975*1+.1235*2+.0494*3+.0123*4 = .6419; 2.75 / .6419 = 4.284, rounding down to 4 Aptitude per +1.
For Dice Pools I went with my gut :smallamused:. Seriously I have no idea how well this will balance out in a dice pool game.
Complications: At the start of each scene, the GM also gains a resource called Complications. The GM spends Complications during the scene to throw challenges at the players. Once the GM's supply of Complications are exhausted, no new obstacles can be raised against the PCs during the scene. Normally, the GM begins the scene with 12 Complications per PC. The GM may increase or decrease its number of Complications for the scene to raise or lower encounter difficulty; 12 per PC is a "standard" challenge; one that the PCs should be able to overcome reliably as long as they don't make too many major blunders.
When the GM creates an obstacle for the players, it costs Complications. An average obstacle costs 4, but the difficulty of the obstacle can change that number; see Designing Obstacles below. The most common form of obstacle requires one PC to make one check, would have an average difficulty for a character with basic level-appropriate skill, and failing the check would carry the consequence of failing the encounter. This would rate as an average obstacle, costing 4 Complications.
So, on average, you can expect players to spend somewhere in the vicinity of 2.75 Aptitude per check made, plus or minus depending on the dice used. Likewise, an average obstcle costs the GM 4 Complications to create. PCs each have 10 Aptitude, and for an average encounter the GM has 12 Complications per PC. So, for an average encounter, you can expect each PC to have to make three checks, so with average rolls, they can get by all the Complications on Aptitude alone.
At 16 Complications per PC, each one has to make four checks, costing an average of 11 Aptitude. Slightly higher than what the PCs have, but tactics will help some; with average rolls, they should be able to squeak by, but their only margin for error is what they can build in with good tactics.
At 20 Complications per PC, each one is likely to make five checks, costing an average of 13.75 Aptitude. They'll need to roll well or play smart to have a chance at victory.
Likewise, 10 or 8 Complications per PC would be an easy encounter that the PCs can almost certainly breeze through with minimal difficulty. Less than 8 Complicatiins per PC is probably too trivial to rate a full challenge.
Running Out of Resources: It is important to note, reaching 0 on a resource doesn't inherently end the encounter. A PC with 0 Aptitude has no buffer for failures, but as long as it keeps succeeding checks (or its allies can make them), it can keep going. An entire group with 0 Aptitude is one significant failed check away from failure, but isn't out yet. Likewise, if the GM runs out of Complications, it can't introduce new obstacles; but if it established some obstacles before-hand, they are still in play, and it may still describe token resistance to the PCs efforts as they make their way to the goal.
Likewise, just because the GM still has Complications or the PCs still have Aptitude doesn't mean the challenge can't end decisively. If the PCs are in a negotiation and make a good argument, successfully answer all concerns, and the GM just can't think of any reason for the NPCs not to go along with them, it doesn't have to have them rehash the same points or otherwise drag the encounter out because there are Complications remaining. If the PCs are infiltrating an enemy lair and, through a smart approach, reach their goal before the GM has run out of Complications, it's fine to end the challenge there (although of course the GM could still throw some obstacles in their way when they try to sneak out).
Spending Aptitude
The PCs can spend Aptitude for more than just mitigating personal failure. The following options are available, although some may be restricted based on the nature of the game.
Aid Ally: Most games have some rule or another for working together to accomplish a task. Doing so as part of a challenge scene costs 1 Aptitude, but otherwise follows all normal rules for the game. If the game doesn't have a specific rule for teamwork, simply spend Aptitude to grant a straight check bonus to the ally, at half the cost as for the Mitigate Failure option. You must do this before the check is rolled. You may declare aid contingently (for example, to aid whichever ally decides to make the check). If for whatever reason your aid doesn't apply to a check (for example, an ally uses an ability to overcome the obstacle with no check needed), your Aptitude is refunded.
Accept Consequence: If you succeed a check, you may choose to treat it as a failure instead, in order to regain Aptitude. You gain 1 Aptitude if you suffer a minor consequence in this way, 2 Aptitude for a moderate consequence, 3 Aptitude for a major consequence, and 4 Aptitude for a severe consequence. You may not do this when the consequence would affect other PCs without their approval. If the consequence you suffer in this way renders you unfit to continue contributing to the scene, all of your remaining Aptitude is divided up among your allies as you see fit, including the new Aptitude earned.
Alter Stat: In most cases, the GM decides what stat or skill is used to make a check. However, you can spend Aptitude to use a different one. You must describe how you use the different stat to make the check. If it's an obvious solution, typically because the skill you use is very closely related in function to the skill called by the GM, this costs 0 Aptitude. If the solution is plausible, but outside the box, it costs 1 Aptitude. If the solution is really out there, it costs 2 Aptitude.
If the stat you choose is a different type of mechanic entirely than the one originally called, increase the cost by 1. For example, if you want to use a skill instead of a saving throw. The GM may rule that an especially creative solution that makes exceptionally good sense given the specific situation is worth a 1 Aptitude discount, to a minimum of 0. You may use your abilities as justification for this advantage without spending extra Aptitude on the Use Ability advantage.
Rocks fall, everybody dies! rolls a Dodge check to avoid them. Substituting Athletics, Acrobatics, or Speed to get clear of the area instead is an obvious solution; it's basically doing the same thing in a different way, and so costs 0 Aptitude. Substituting Perception, Insight, or Architecture to detect the hazard before it happens and be out of the way already when it does is perfectly plausible, but definitely not in the same arena, and would cost 1 Aptitude. Substituting Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion to retroactively say you interrogated the guard you defeated on the way in and were warned of the hazard is a clever solution, but it's way out there and would cost 2 Aptitude (assuming, you know, there was a guard you defeated on the way in and it would have known about the hazard). Naturally, this assumes all of these stats are in the same field; if this is an M&M game where Dodge is a combat stat and most of the rest of those are skills, the Aptitude cost would be one higher.
Choose Result: Some games have options where you can choose the result you roll under specific circumstances, such as Taking 10 and Taking 20 in D&D 3.5. Using such options during a challenge scene costs 1 Aptitude. You must still qualify for the option normally. If these options don't exist in your game, this advantage becomes unavailable.
Cover Allies: In many cases, the GM will design obstacles in such a way that only one PC needs to make the check (because forcing multiple PCs to make checks will cost additional Complications) to get the party through. For example, if the characters need to slip past an enemy patrol, whoever has the highest Stealth can make the check and guide the entire group silently past. If the GM does require multiple PCs to roll a check, you can use your result for one ally per 2 AP spent, if the ally wishes. The ally doesn't roll the check at all, and you only roll once. If you fail the check, each ally must Mitigate Failure separately if they want to avoid the consequences. Depending on the situation, the GM may rule that you suffer the consequences for each ally instead (for example, if you jump in the way of a trap to protect two vulnerable allies and fail your check, rather than all three of you taking damage, the GM may rule that you take three times as much damage).
Dramatic Exchange: By playing out a short, dramatic interaction with another PC, you may give them some of your Aptitude. No checks or surcharges are required, but the interaction should be dramatic. That is to say, it should have a tangible impact on the relationship between the two characters, or tie into their backgrounds or personal traits, or otherwise be more interesting than just an encouraging word or inspiring speech.
The Dramatic Exchange rules can also be used when a PC wants to contribute to a challenge descriptively, but not mechanically. For example, a PC with low social skills can still make points, offers, or threats, to the NPC but rather than rolling a check to try and overcome the obstacle, it just gives some of its Aptitude to an ally, presumably one with better social skills, allowing it to cover a potential failure.
Emulate Ally: Just because you're not the best doesn't mean you can't contribute. By spending one Aptitude before making a check, you can get a bonus on the check equal to half the difference between your stat and that of the party member with the highest score in the given stat. For example, if you have Stealth 2 and an ally has Stealth 10, you could spend an Aptitude to get a +4 bonus to your Stealth check. You may only do this once per check.
Execute Gambit: For 1 Aptitude, a player can request a check to receive a benefit of some kind. If the GM approves, it creates an obstacle to resolve the attempt, but the benefits of succeeding the check to overcome the obstacle must exceed the consequences of failing, and the PC gets to dictate at least one benefit. The GM gains or spends consequences for this obstacle as normal. The GM may freely refuse a gambit, in which case the Aptitude is refunded.
Final Effort: If a character other than you fails a check that entails a consequence too serious to allow (PC death or failure of the challenge being the obvious ones), and no party member feels confident enough to use the Save Ally option, but the group has at least enough Aptitude remaining between them to cover the cost of Mitigating Failure, the group can collectively declare a Final Effort. All PCs fall to 0 Aptitude, even if their total is higher than the cost required to mitigate the failure, but the failure is mitigated with no further checks required.
Influence Narrative: Some games already include mechanics for influencing the narrative, such as FATE's Fate Points or M&M's Hero Points and Extra Effort. Using such a mechanic during a challenge scene also costs 1 Aptitude, unless it is an expenditure to enable something else that carries its own Aptitude cost, like an ability.
Mitigate Failure: The default use of Aptitude, as explained previously.
Save Ally: If an ally fails a check, and the consequences of the failure are too serious to allow, you may spend 2 Aptitude to attempt to save your ally. Make your own check (typically using the same skill, but you can use Alter Stat normally) against the same DC, at a penalty equal to the number of points the ally failed by (minus any mitigation on its part). If you succeed, the ally's failure is mitigated (this is not the same as fully succeeding the check in the first place). If you fail, you may spend more Aptitude to mitigate your own failure, and if that's not enough other allies can attempt to save you. If the check does end up in a failure, all allies who attempted saves suffer the consequences equally. You may use this option even if the ally has enough Aptitude to mitigate the failure, but it costs 3 Aptitude to do so in this case.
Use Ability: If you have a special ability that can directly contribute to overcoming an obstacle, you can use it normally. This costs 0 Aptitude if the ability is basically just descriptive or a justification for other advantages. It costs 1 Aptitude if the ability provides a concrete mechanical benefit. It costs 2 Aptitude if the ability invalidates the obstacle outright. All normal costs, checks, and other limitations of the ability still apply. Unlike most advantages, you may use this even while out of Aptitude, but an ally must spend the Aptitude for you. If no one has any Aptitude remaining, you can still use your abilities freely; it's up to your GM to design challenges that can't be automatically steamrolled just by spamming your special powers (or to recognize when they can be and realize they shouldn't be played out as challenge scenes).
Aptitude isn't meant to substitute for normal resource costs for abilities, but to represent a player's narrative control over the scene. Powerful special abilities are a big expression of narrative control, so they cost Aptitude while you have it; you can use them as freely as the normal mechanics of the game allows, but if you overuse them, you can't spend Aptitude to mitigate failure if you wind up faced with an obstacle you can't just power through. Requiring allies to spend Aptitude to power your abilities when you run out is to ensure people all get their chance at the spotlight. Most likely, using an ability will get the group further for a relatively low cost, so in most cases, your allies should be happy to help you use them if needed. If they aren't, it probably means they want the chance to do some cool stuff too!
Designing Obstacles
Each obstacle has a minimum cost of 1 Complication, unless the benefits for succeeding are at least equal to the consequences for failing, in which case there is no minimum and the GM can potentially regain Complications.
Benefits: Typically, succeeding a check against an obstacle doesn't entail any particular benefit to the PCs; rather, it simply allows them to continue making progress. By working in benefits if they manage to succeed the check, the GM can reduce the obstacle's Complication cost. Remember, benefits only accrue for a true success; mitigating a failure does not provide any benefits.
No Benefit (+0): There is no special benefit to overcoming the obstacle.
Minor Benefit (-1): A minor benefit might have a small mechanical impact on a single obstacle or action. Among other things, a minor benefit can include recovering a point of Aptitude, or a fairly minor resource, such as healing a bit of damage or recovering an expended use of a fairly low-power ability. Minor benefits may also include small one-use bonuses, short-term role playing advantages, or minor but useful bits of information. Small XP or treasure awards are also good examples.
Moderate Benefit (-2): Moderate benefits have a similar scope to minor benefits, but are more significant. Recovering two Aptitude, healing a decent amount of damage or recovering a use of a mid-power ability or a few uses of a low-power one, a moderate one-off bonus, longer-term role playing advantages, reasonably valuable information, modest XP or treasure awards, and so on. They can also include gaining or recovering more significant resources, like Hero Points in M&M, Fate Points in FATE, or Willpower in the Storyteller system.
Major Benefit (-4): A major benefit can have a noticeable impact on an entire scene. They can include further scaled up moderate benefits (recovering five Aptitude, healing about half your health, recovering a use of a high-powered ability, a few uses of a mid-power ability, or all uses of a low-power ability, lasting role playing advantages, significant clues or plot-relevant information, significant XP or treasure awards, etc). Other possibilities are low-powered but permanent magic items, new capabilities that can be learned through in-character actions (such as a D&D 3.5 wizard's spells, or a D&D 5e character's Tool proficiencies). They can include a lasting bonus for the entire scene, such as an increase to all checks or a reduction in check difficulty.
Exceptional Benefits (-8): An exceptional benefit can have serious or long-term effects, or basically decide a scene. Exceptional benefits can include a player fully refreshing its Aptitude, health, or uses of a mid-power ability (or gaining a few uses of a high-powered ability). It can provide the answer the a dilemma, or a key piece of plot-critical information. Large XP or treasure awards, or in games with staggered advancement, immediate additional advancement points (such as 1 PP in M&M or 1 XP in Storyteller systems), as well as level-appropriate new gear. An exceptional benefit can also be a victory condition for the scene, immediately ending the challenge as a success if the PCs succeed to overcome the obstacle.
Checks: The GM spends the full cost in Complications for each check that has to be made for the party as a whole to overcome the obstacle. In general (unless using the Cover Ally advantage), a given PC can only make one check against a given obstacle; a complex obstacle with multiple checks that one PC can make should be represented as multiple obstacles. For example, a trapped and locked door isn't one obstacle with two checks, it's two separate obstacles that happen to be encountered simultaneously. When a single obstacle has multiple checks, any consequences of failure (and benefits of success) apply to every PC who makes one of the checks.
Consequences: If the PCs fail the check required to overcome the obstacle, they suffer consequences unless they mitigate the failure. The severity of the consequence suffered determines the cost in Complications.
Some consequences, once suffered, can be avoided or mitigated with secondary checks. For example, if you trigger a trap, you still might get defensive rolls against it following normal rules for your game. These don't change the Complication cost in themselves, but they may modify the consequence level; a moderate amount of damage but with a decent shot of the character avoiding it might be considered only a Minor consequence, for example.
Consequences should, of course, be tailored to your game. In a low-lethality game like M&M, for example, outright character death is probably too serious even for a Severe Consequence; it might render a character dying instead. Conversely, in a more lethal game like Call of Cthuhu, death might only rate as a Major Consequence. And in a game like Paranoia, it may only be a Moderate Consequence!
No Consequence (+0): Failing the check carries no consequence. If an obstacle carries neither a consequence for failure nor a benefit for success, it is not an obstacle at all. It does not cost Complications, but you may want to ask yourself why you are making your players roll pointless checks.
Minor Consequence (+1): A minor consequence will hamper the PCs, but isn't going to have a lasting impact. Damage, most status effects, significant penalties on single checks or small penalties on multiple future checks, are all common examples. A consequence can also make the encounter tougher due to things like alarms being sounded, traps being armed, the terrain changing in some way, cutting off easier paths so the PCs have to tackle the more difficult or dangerous route, and so on; this is represented by the GM gaining additional Complications equal to the cost of the Consequence per PC (so a Minor consequence would grant the GM an additional 1 Complication per PC, if they fail the check to overcome the obstacle).
Moderate Consequence (+2): A moderate consequence can significantly negatively impact your chance of succeeding the encounter. Major status effects, high amounts of damage, or a moderate check penalty or DC increase for all future checks for the scene (or a significant penalty for a few checks) are the common ones. They can also have impacts outside of the current scene, such as causing some loss of wealth, status, or reputation, or the temporary loss of gear or abilities.
Major Consequence (+4): A major consequence can end the encounter. In fact, they usually do! The most common major consequence either makes the PC who fails the check unable to participate further in the scene (if the check basically only affects the one PC), or even ends the challenge itself as a failure (if the check is being made to allow the party to progress). Alternately, they may change the nature of the scene, such as an infiltration turning into a combat or escape scene when the PCs are caught. Major consequences can also be less severe, but lasting for a longer duration, generally an entire adventure, such as the destruction of an important (but eventually replacable) item, or a lasting status effect like a curse.
Severe Consequence (+8): Severe consequences should be handled with care, for they have permanent or story-altering ramifications. Suffering a severe consequence can alter the course of the campaign - the villain accomplishing its goal, for example. It can cause permanent losses, such as the destruction of irreplacable items, the death of important NPCs, crippling injuries or nigh-irreversible curses, and so on. In most games, character death is a possibility for suffering a severe consequence.
Difficulty: The difficulty of the check required to overcome the obstacle has an impact on its cost, as follows. Trivial: -2. Easy: -1. Average: +0. Challenging: +2. Difficult: +4.
Scaling: Some obstacles will have greater benefits for higher values of success (or greater consequences for more severe failures). For each level of scaling consequence, the GM spends one additional Complication (if hitting it requires failing by the equivalent of two difficulty steps), or two additional Complications (if hitting it requires failing by the equivalent of one difficulty step). Likewise, for each level of scaling benefit, the GM lowers the cost by 1 or 2 for two or one added difficulty step of success required.
For example, in M&M 3e, one difficulty step is +2 to the DC, and two are +5. So if a check normally has a Moderate Consequence, but carries a Major Consequence for a two-degree failure (failing by 5, so two additional difficulty steps), and a Severe Consequence for a three-degree failure (failing by 10, so four additional difficulty steps), the GM would pay +2 additional Complications; one for each scaling of the Consequence.
Future Updates
Depending on if I get the inspiration for it, I may write up some extended examples, as well as some special abilities that can be slotted into a game that interact with this system, allowing for more diversity through build options. Maybe some rules for integrating challenge scene mechanics into combat scenes too. But we'll see.