Positive Dice Pool

The Positive Dice Pool is your constant and you’ll be using it every time you take an action. Your Talent Dice (d8) is your main bread and butter. At the bare minimum you’ll always be throwing a certain number of Talent dice.

I did it this way because I wanted it to feel like you could ALWAYS do something. There should never be a situation where you have no options to roll. No matter what you’re doing one of your Character Stats (Page 15) will be usable!

The Knack Dice (d12) is an UPGRADE to your Talent Dice. Remember, you’re not adding more dice, your bumping a d8 UP to a d12. The idea is that having a knack for something is even more impressive than having talent in it. As a game element, the d12 offers a higher chance at successes as well as giving you the ability to roll a critical or perfect (a natural 12).

This is why your character stat is not automatically your Talent Die. Your Knack may be at something of raw physical ability (i.e 3 Ranks of Aura), or maybe its because you’re highly trained in something (i.e 5 Ranks of Charm). Either way, between your Stats and Skills, you get a number of Talent Die equal to the highest of the two.

If you have 3 Aura, and 5 Charm, then Charm would become your Talent, giving you five d8’s to roll with. Your Aura, being the lowest UPGRADES 3 of the dice. It does not add 3 d12’s, it instead takes three of the Talent Die, and replaces them with Knack. It thematically shows how your Aura enhances your high levels of Charm. Bringing it to that next level. So with 3 Aura, and 5 Charm you’d end up with 2 d8’s and 3 d12’s to roll with.

For those lovers of math and numbers, you’ll notice that having to pick the highest always keeps it from being too overpowered. It’s not enough to have just one stat pumped out if you wanted to have really crazy rolls. You’d have to make sure you raise the Character Stat as well. Or vice versa, a high Character Stat will still need a high Skill to have really amazing dice rolls.

The last part of the Positive Dice Pool is Luck, and as the name suggests, it comes and goes. Luck Die (d6) comes from something happening, either at the request of the GM, someone else’s turn or your own. They do not affect how Talent and Knack play out and are very straightforward. Just add in however many you’ve been instructed to by the GM or the game and that’s it.