In this imagined exchange, Jamie and her three friends are playing an adventure in the Spellweavers universe.
A small village has hired the party to search the northern moors for the source of creatures from the In-between that have been attacking the villagers
GM (Jamie): You set off to the north. There's a narrow trail for grazing livestock, but no road.
Bratha (Priya): We'll follow the trail for now.
Bix (Tomoki): I'm going to Call » Awareness of the In-Between, and continue it while we march.
As a Lifecaller, Bix is able to channel life force from the In-between, and uses that life force to power various abilities. "Awareness of the In-between" allows Bix to sense creatures that originate there.
Doing so is not free, however. Each use of this power incurs some Exhaustion, which limits Bix's ability to take action, unless she rests.
GM (Jamie): Okay. Go ahead and make the first roll.
Bix (Tomoki): Um, I have one die allocated to Call » Awareness, two in Channel Life, and... let's see, it also says I add in my Toughness attribute, that's two more, and I'll spend all five of my Action Dice.
’Verses is a Dice Pool system. Tests of capabilities are made by rolling several six-sided dice at once and counting the number of dice that roll successes (fives or sixes).
Bix (Tomoki): Nice! Five successes. I needed two to succeed at the Call, and leaving three more, that's a Success Margin of four. That gives me a forty meter radius of detection.
The Success Margin (SM) of a roll determines the degree of success.
GM (Jamie): You'll get some exhaustion doing that.
Bix (Tomoki): Yeah, with my two dice in Channel Life, I bind three AD into exhaustion. After I get the Call going, I'm going to rest to recover that exhaustion.
Exhaustion limits character action, but outside of Fast Action it's generally not necessary to track in detail. Here, the GM and Tomoki acknowledge the exhaustion, but keep the game moving.
Bix's awareness leads the party to a cave
GM (Jamie): As you approach the cave, you realize that there's a narrow opening in the stone, leading into the darkness. You think you can just all squeeze through it. Bix, you feel that sensation much more strongly here. As you get closer, you notice a rich, almost overpowering stench of foulness and decay emanating from the cave.
Filch (Dave): Um, how much are we getting paid again? I'm not sure I want to go down there.
Bratha (Priya): Stow it, Filch. We're going in. Um, if we can see, that is.
Bix (Tomoki): I'm going to keep maintaining the Awareness and also Call Light.
GM (Jamie): Do you know that skill?
Bix (Tomoki):
Well, no, but I've seen someone use it, and I think I can figure it out. It's only difficulty one; pretty easy. I touch the ferrule on the end of my quarterstaff and Call » Light. I've got four dice for the skill. I can't spend all my action dice—I have to keep the Awareness going—so I'll spend four AD for 8d6. But I have to subtract one because I'm guessing at how to call light.
Characters can use skills even if they don't have them allocated, but there's a penalty associated with doing so. The penalty is based on the difficulty of the skill.
It's possible to maintain more than one continuous test at a time. It's up to players to decide how to divide and spend their Action Dice (AD).
Bix (Tomoki): Success margin of three.
GM (Jamie): The end of your quarterstaff emits a cold, white light for fifteen meters.
Bratha (Priya): Get ready everyone! I draw my sword. We're going in...
The party explores the cave, following Bix's lead. Soon, they stumble upon a creature in the darkness: a Shade. The GM calls for rolls to determine turn order, and the action begins.
GM (Jamie): Alright Tomoki, Bix goes first.
Bix (Tomoki): Uh, yeah... We don't want to lose my light, so I'm going to spend one action die to move behind Bratha. I also need to maintain the light; I'll spend two AD on that. Rolling... and one success: the Light stays up. I'll use one more for my Awareness—we know where this one is, but there may be more. Rolled two successes. I'll hold the rest of my AD for defense in case I'm attacked.
Every action that a character takes (including movement) requires spending at least one action die. Players are free to allocate their action dice however they like, but active defense (eg: dodges and parries) is a big part of Fast Action, so it's always a good idea to hold some in reserve.
GM (Jamie): Okay. Unfortunately, it's now the Shade's turn. It moves deadly fast and lashes out at Bratha, who is now in the lead, with vicious, inky claws.
GM (Jamie): That's five successes for 5 HP of slashing damage. Two of those are sixes, and would bypass your armor: One of its claws is going to catch you just under the breastplate.
While both fives and sixes are successes, in combat, damage resulting from sixes counts directly against health points.
Bratha (Priya): I'm going to use my sword to try to parry its attack, with one AD and my sword skill that's 7d6.
Bratha (Priya):
I got two successes, which cancel out its two sixes.
Defensive actions act as contests, negating some number of successes of the initial attack—and sixes are always canceled first.
GM (Jamie): Okay. So its claws slash into your armor and catch on the parry. You'll still take three points of slashing damage, though your armor will catch that.
Bratha (Priya): It can take it! My armor has resistance to slashing and a Toughness of two. After that, there's only one point of damage left, and the armor converts that to crushing damage, which I can resist with my own Toughness.
Damage resistance allows creatures and armor to absorb an amount of damage equal to their Toughness attribute, as long as it's the right type of damage. All biological creatures (even player characters!) are resistant to crushing damage.
Bratha's armor is resistant to slashing damage, but also converts any remaining slashing damage over and above its Toughness to crushing (because the sharp edge of the claws can't make it through the hard scales, but the force of the blow is still transferred). Bratha's Toughness is two, so she takes no damage from the hit.
GM (Jamie): Okay. It's caught a little off-guard by you. It didn't expect you to be so difficult to hurt. It's going to hold the rest of its AD for defense.
Bratha (Priya): My turn! I've got five AD left, so first I'll make a quick stab attack. With one AD and my sword skill: that's 7d6.
Strategic use of action dice can help to control a battle's pacing and outcome.
GM (Jamie): Nice! Stabbing with your longsword, that roll means you do eight points of puncturing damage. It's going to try to dodge with the rest of its AD.
Weapons may inflict different damage when used in different ways.
GM (Jamie): So, it was a good stab, but the Shade managed to dodge it.
Bratha (Priya): That's totally ok, because it's out of AD now. And my next attack is a massive slashing attack. I've got 6d6 from my sword skill, all four AD, and my sword is chainable, so I get to add the two dice that rolled sixes from the last attack roll, for 12d6!
Action Chaining is a feature of some weapons and skills, where successes in one action can influence immediate follow-up actions. In this case, Bratha's stabbing attack was a feint, and has positioned her for an even better slashing attack.
GM (Jamie): Wow. So, your longsword does 3HP slashing per success margin. You've got a SM of five, for fifteen points of slashing damage. It's resistant to slashing damage, which means that its Toughness can absorb... uh... two points. Um, it's very, very dead.
In ’Verses, most arithmatic involves just adding or removing dice from the pool you're about to roll. But even when you need to figure damage from a success margin, the numbers are small, making it easy to keep the game moving quickly.
Filch (Dave): Whew! We made it.
GM (Jamie): Yeah, so... about that... Bix, you start to get more twinges from your Awareness... They're coming from all around you.
Filch, it's your turn...
