YDIN - Basic rules - How to roll

YDIN uses simple basic rules presented here.

Attributes And Skills

Characters have 6 attributes:

• Strength - Physical strength and power
• Dexterity - Physical agility and mobility
• Stamina - Physical constitution and toughness
• Intelligence - Mental wit and education
• Perception - Mental noticing and awareness
• Charisma - Outlooks and personality

Attributes range from 1 to 6, where 6 is highest and 1 is lowest. Usually character's average is 3, where 4 is a slightly higher than average, 5  way above average and 6 at human limits. Also 2 is a bit below average and 1 is really poor.

Skills are listed in setting, and they are in range 0 to 1, where 0 stands for untrained, 1 is green, 2 is trained, 3 is pro and 4 is master. You can use untrained skills (everything you haven't bought) unless they are marked with * to be learned. You cannot for example do brain surgery without a skill. Skill scores are skill levels.

Attempting A Task

When your character tries to do something, you add relevant attribute and skill bonus. Skill bonuses are as following:

• Skill level 0 - 1D6 - One negative modifier (will be discussed later)
• Skill level 1 - 1D6 - +0
• Skill level 2 - 1D8 - +2
• Skill level 3 - 1D10 - +4
• Skill level 4 - 1D12 - +6

Skill level tells both what die you are rolling to perform a task and modifier to your attribute. Basically you use your attribute as a target number and skill level to determine modifier to your target number and what die you are using against the target number.

(Thanks for blog reader Vanphil for these alternative modifiers. Really appreciate it).

Rolling Under Or Over

There are two ways to attempt a task. You can choose to roll over or to roll under. There are few differences.

Rolling under. When rolling under, you try to get with a die same result or under as your attribute + skill level modifier to success.
Example: Attribute 4 + Skill level modifier +2 = 6. You roll D8 (from your Skill level) and numbers 6 and lower are a success.

Rolling over. You might decide to roll over, where die result of higher is a success. There is a drawback though. Unsuccesful rolls are allways concidered as a catastrophic failure.
Example: Attribute 4 + Skill level modifier +2 = 6. You roll D8 and if you decide to roll over you only success with 2 die results, where other 6 are catastrophic failures.
Example 2: Attribute 3 + Skill modifier +0. Rolling under or higher you have equal changes in success, but if you decide to roll over, your critical failure rate rises dramatically.
Example 3: Attribute 1 + Skill modifier +0. You success with 2,3,4,5,6 but score critical failure 1/6 of the time. This means, with a poor character you still have good changes to success, but you also fail critically more often than a skilled character.

Why is it so, that in my system characteristically poorer character might have better change to success in same situation where better character? Reason is simple. Even if your character is not professional or even good in everything, he has a great change to success. There is no characters who cannot hit their opponents or who are doomed to fail in their jump-tests. Everyone has a good change to success. But if you are poorer character, there is also a greater change to score critical failure.
It is taking a risk. With luck poor character can perform as good or even slightly better than a skilled character, but as an unskilled character, you also fail critically more often. Do you choose to play it safe, or take a risk to loose it all?

Catastrophic Failures

Catastrophic failure is when something ends really bad. It is aftermath of botched skill task.

• You try to swing your enemy with a sword but end up cutting yourself. (Failure would be only a miss.)
• Your leap from rooftop to rooftop ends into a deadly fall. (Failure would be just loosing balance after leap).
• Your gun might jam to unrepaired condition. (Failure would be just missed shot).

Catastrophic failure occurs in two ways:

• Fail rolling over.
• When rolling under, if you score highest result of a die, roll again. If result is again the highest number, your failure is catastrophic. If second roll result is anything else than highest number of a die, it's just normal failure without additional bad effects.

Rolling over can provide more successes in some situations or attribute + skill combinations, but also catastrophic failures occure more often.

Critical Success

Critical success is when something really good happens. You deal extra damage as you hit very well or you might get a really good edge in a chase.

Critical success occurs when you roll same or under your skill level. The higher your skill, the better you success more often.

Note, that when rolling over you cannot score critical successes.

Modifiers

Modifiers are added to skill tasks from different situations what affect the task. Modifiers are not calculated, but you roll several dice according to your skill and take the best or worst result of the dice (depending on do you roll higher or lower AND is modifier negative or positive). Modifiers vary from 1 to 3 and can affect each other.
Example: Fight on the rooftop. Rooftop is slick from the rain and hard to maintain balance, but opponent is fallen down. Character gets one positive modifier from fallen opponent as he does get one negative modifier from slick rooftop. Total modifier is /-0 and doesn't affect the roll.

Positive modifiers are when enviroment and or situation is really good. It might be great equipment, really easy task or blow on opponent laying on the ground. Roll dice equal to your positive modifier and take best result for the situation.

Negative modifiers are when enviroment and or situation doesn't favour in a way or another the character. It might be slick rooftop, pitchblack or fallen down. Roll dice equal to your negative modifier and take worst result for the situation.

When trying a task without a skill, character gets one negative modifier to roll.

Attempting A Task With No Skill Involved

Sometimes there are situations there is no suitable skill to use, and task is purely based on attributes. Divide your attribute by half (round down) and use it as you would normally use skill level.
Example: Character is trying to lift a fallen tree over his friend stuck below it. There is no skill to lift things as it uses pure strength. Character's Strength is 4, so he uses half of his strength, number 2, as he would normally use skill level.



These are the very basic rules of YDIN. They are fast with tactical options to use in skill tasks. Easy to use and versatile to use. Some might say that mathematics or success/failure probabilites aren't the most realistic ones, but this is a game system, not realism simulation.
In YDIN even poorer character might success well with good changes to, but if he fails, the results are really nasty. And the better you are, the better are the probabilities for critical success.
Negative and positive modifiers to task rolls are easy to calculate. No number twisting or calculating. Just roll more dice and pick up the best or worst result for the situation.

Numbers For Tasks

Attribute 1
Skill level 0/D6 = Target number 1 (one negative modifier)
Skill level 1/D6 = Target number 1
Skill level 2/D8 = Target number 3
Skill level 3/D10 = Target number 5
Skill level 4/D12 = Target number 7

Attribute 2
Skill level 0/D6 = Target number 2 (one negative modifier)
Skill level 1/D6 = Target number 2
Skill level 2/D8 = Target number 4
Skill level 3/D10 = Target number 6
Skill level 4/D10 = Target number 8

Attribute 3
Skill level 0/D6 = Target number 3 (one negative modifier)
Skill level 1/D6 = Target number 3
Skill level 2/D8 = Target number 5
Skill level 3/D10 = Target number 7
Skill level 4/D12 = Target number 9

Attribute 4
Skill level 0/D6 = Target number 4 (one negative modifier)
Skill level 1/D6 = Target number 4
Skill level 2/D8 = Target number 6
Skill level 3/D10 = Target number 8
Skilll level 4/D12 = Target number 10

Attribute 5
Skill level 0/D6 = Target number 5 (one negative modifier)
Skill level 1/D6 = Target number 5
Skill level 2/D8 = Target number 7
Skill level 3/D10 = Target number 9
Skill level 4/D12 = Target number 11

Attribute 6
Skill level 0/D6 = Target number 6 (one negative modifier)
Skill level 1/D6 = Target number 6
Skill level 2/D8 = Target number 8
Skill level 3/D10 = Target number 10
Skill level 4/D10 = Target number 12