B-Grade Basic Rules

Basically the ORE system but heavily converted.

BASIC RULES

• The basic dice mechanic of One Roll Engine (ORE) provides all of the information needed to determine the speed and result of an action with a single roll.
• The Cardinal Rules
  1. Roll only when you need to. There's no sense in rolling for trivial tasks.
  2. Round down. Whenever dividing or averaging results in a fractional result, round down.
• Dice Pool
• Character abilities, skills, and actions are resolved using a Dice pool of 10-sided dice.
• The dice pool for any action is the appropriate Stat + appropriate Skill. Sometimes, there are bonuses and penalties to the dicepool. Sometimes difficulty numbers must be met.
  • eg. Wolfman Jackson has a Body Stat of 3 and a Brawling Skill of 4. To hit someone in hand-to-hand combat, Wolfman generally rolls 7d10 (3 from Body and 4 from Brawling).

STATS AND SKILLS

• There are 6 stats and around 4-5 skills per stat.

SETS AND WIDTH, HEIGHT AND AREA

• When a player rolls their dicepool, look for matches (pairs, triples, etc). Those matching dice are called Sets. A set has Width, Height and Area, and is written as W x H when it's described. The Width of a set is how many dice came up matching, while the Height is what number is matched. Area is only sometimes used, and is width multiplied by height.
  • eg. Wolfman Jackson takes a swing at a nazi. The results of the roll are 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, and 10. Since three dice came up 5, he has a Set. The set is Width is 3 (three dice are in it), and it's height is 5. This is written as a 3x5 set.
• Sets indicate a number of things about the roll. The width of the set determines how quickly the task was performed, while the Height of a set determines whether the task was done sufficiently well enough to overcome certain difficult circumstances. Wider sets are faster. Tall sets (in height) are successful in most difficult situations.
• If your roll results in no Sets, your attempt to perform a task fails.

DIFFICULTY

• Typically, any roll that results in sets is sufficient to succeed at a task (even if only barely). However, for challenging tasks, the Gamemaster may decide to set a Difficulty for the roll. The Difficulty of any task is the set of shortest width that can be rolled that is still considered to be a success.
  • Example Difficulties
    • Minor stumbling block: diff 2
    • Typically difficult: diff 3
    • Imposing: diff 4-5
    • Appallingly hard: diff 8
• Golden rule - Alwyas use a difficulty rather than a penalty, unless the rules state otherwise.
  • Example: Wolfman Jackson is trying to break down a reinforced door. The door has a strength of 4, which establishes the Difficulty of breaking it down. Wolfman will need to have a set of height 5 or more to succeed. Heights of 1 to 4 on Sets will fail in this task. The time taken to break the door down is (5-width) rounds.

STATIC AND DYNAMIC CONTESTS

• Static contests occur when a character is attempting a task, but is not competing with any person or other entity to complete it. Dynamic contests mean that you have an opponent, usually a person, but very occasionally some other factor.

OTHER THINGS

• Multiple Actions
  • Performing multiple actions is simple: declare multiple actions, and if you roll multiple sets, allocate them as you desire to the actions you wish to take (if you only roll one set, you'll need to decide which action you wish to perform). There is a -1d penalty to dicepool for each multiple action.
    • eg. performing 2 actions results in a -1d penalty. Performing 3 actions is a -2d penalty.
• Working Together
  • Characters can cooperate to perform a task, provided The task can be accomplished in a cooperative fashion.
  • To cooperate on a static contest, the 'main character' rolls first. Then the 'helper' rolls and any sets that he rolls turn into an ED that has the height of the set. The main character then can use these 'helper ED' to make matches with the dicepool he has already rolled.
  • Note that a helper can provide more than 1 ED to the main character's dicepool.
    • eg. Wolfman Jackson is trying to rewire a malfunctioning giant robot using Brains + Gadgets. Wolfman Jackson rolls his dicepool (rolling 1,3,3,4,5,5,7). Larry the Lecherous Leprechaun wants to help too. He rolls his dicepool of Brains + Gadgets (6d) and rolls very well - 3,3,3,7,7,9. He has rolled a set of 3s and a set of 7s. These turn into an ED of 3 and 7 for Wolfman to use in making matches. Wolfman Jackson now has a 3x3, 2x5 and 2x7 set to choose from.

SPECIAL DICE

• There are 2 special dice available in B-Grade: Expert Dice (ED) and Hammer-time Dice (HtD)
• Expert Dice (ED)
  • A die that you set the height of before you roll.
• Hammer-time Dice (HTD)
  • Hammer-time dice are very powerful. They can be set to whatever value you want, AFTER you roll. Thus, you can set them to make wide or tall sets as you see fit.
• Furthermore, both Expert dice and Hammer-time dice "buy off" penalties (such as wound penalties). When this happens, they remain in the pool, but are rolled normally (i.e., you don't set them). However, note that the buy off is MANDATORY - if you have an Expert Dice or Hammer-time dice and you face a dice pool penalty, you must use any special dice to buy off the penalty first.