Critical Failure

A critical failure is an especially bad
result. You score a critical failure as
follows:
• A roll of 18 is always a critical
failure.
• A roll of 17 is a critical failure if
your effective skill is 15 or less; other-
wise, it is an ordinary failure.
• Any roll of 10 greater than your
effective skill is a critical failure: 16 on
a skill of 6, 15 on a skill of 5, and so on.
When you roll a critical failure, the
GM determines what happens to you.
It is always something bad – the high-
er the roll, the worse the result.
Sometimes a situation will arise in
which two characters must compare
attributes, skills, or other traits to settle
a competition. The one with the highest
score doesn’t always win . . . but that’s
the way to bet. A “Contest” is a quick
way to handle such a competitive situa-
tion without playing it out in detail.
In a Contest, each competitor
attempts a success roll against the abil-
ity being tested – with all applicable
modifiers – and then compares his
result to his opponent’s. There are
two different ways to make this
comparison.