Editing Unwritten: System Reference Document/Running the Game (section)

==Actions==

Roll the dice when succeeding or failing at the action could each contribute something interesting to the game. If you can’t imagine an interesting outcome from both results, then don’t call for that roll. If failure is the uninteresting option, just give the PCs what they want and call for a roll later, when you can think of an interesting failure. If success is the boring option, then see if you can turn your idea for failure into a compel instead, using that moment as an opportunity to funnel fate points to the players.

GMs, when considering a roll, you should consider the following questions:

;Is the action is a reasonable action for the character to perform?
:If the action is impossible, or just too improbable, then it doesn’t happen.

;Is this an action that deserves dramatic attention?
:Some things the characters want to do may be difficult. However, they may not be interesting. Stopping to roll the dice may interrupt the flow of gameplay unnecessarily. Or maybe failure or the cost of success will just have little effect on the flow of the story. If it doesn’t really matter, then let the player have the action and move on.

;Is failure an interesting option?
:Sometimes failure is just boring. Maybe failing here just stops gameplay completely to no effect. There’s no need to have the characters standing around and the players stumped. If you are in a situation where a character fails and a player would just decline to pay a price for success and ask to roll again, then it may not be worth making the player roll in the first place. However, if failure might lead to the characters making different choices or open up other avenues for drama, a roll could be a good idea.

;Could paying a price for success be interesting?
:Some things the characters are just going to succeed at eventually. The master cat burglar will eventually figure out how to get past the ancient D’ni security system - it’s what they do. However, what it takes to do that and what effects it has is ripe for drama. A roll can take advantage of that.

;Is the action being actively opposed?
:Any time two (or more) people are working against each other, we have drama. Both failure and the price of success have ramifications, so rolling the dice makes sense.

===Deciding on Difficulties===

Like most of Unwritten, choosing the level of opposition is driven by narrative factors, rather than any attempt to represent a reality. Base difficulties off of both the nature of the situation and its importance to the story. It’s more an art than a science, but we have some guidelines to help you.

When deciding on passive opposition, look at how the PC’s skill level compares with the opposition. 
* Anything that’s two or more steps higher than the PC’s skill level—Fair (+2) skill and Great (+4) opposition, for example— means that the player will probably fail or need to invoke aspects to succeed.
* Anything that’s two or more steps lower than the PC’s skill level—Fair (+2) skill and Mediocre (+0) opposition, for example—means that the player will probably not need to invoke aspects and have a good chance of succeeding with style.
* Between that range, there’s a roughly equal chance that they’ll tie or succeed, and a roughly equal chance that they will or won’t need to invoke aspects to do so.

Therefore, low difficulties are best when you want to give the PCs a chance to show off and be awesome, difficulties near their skill levels are best when you want to provide tension but not overwhelm them, and high difficulties are best when you want to emphasize how dire or unusual the circumstances are and make them pull out all the stops.

Of course, there needs to be a good reason that backs up your choice in the story. It’s totally okay if that justification is something you’re about to make up, rather than something you know beforehand. Aspects are a great tool for this, especially situation aspects. It makes sense that a character with Just Not a People Person would have more trouble trying to communicate with natives who don’t speak their language. This is a situation ripe for compels, but if you aren’t specifically looking to throw a complication into the mix, adjusting the strength of the opposition makes sense.

In fact, the need for more challenge for a particularly skilled player or set of players is a great chance to be creative and bring new details into play. Let’s say you want to make bypassing an old D’ni security system more of a challenge, and you have an NPC you have been wanting to bring in. You could decide that the NPC has upgraded the system, or is somehow interfering. By doing so, you’ve brought in a narrative hook and made things more interesting.

You might also try using “out of place” difficulties to indicate the presence of unanswered questions during the game—for some odd reason, the store room you’re trying to break into has a +5 lock on the door. What could be so important in there that you don’t know about?

Either way, don’t skip the justification part—either let the players know what it is immediately when you tell them the difficulty, or shrug mysteriously and then let them find out soon thereafter (as in, the time it takes to think it up).

===Great Success!===

Sometimes, a PC is going to roll far in excess of the difficulty, getting a lot of shifts on the roll. Some of the basic actions already have a built-in effect for rolling really well, like getting free invokes on an Advantage action.

For others, it’s not so clear. What’s happens when you get a lot of shifts on a roll? You want to make sure those results have some kind of meaning and reflect how competent the PC’s are.

Here are a few choice options.

* Go Gonzo with the Narration: It’s important to celebrate a great roll with a suitable narration of over the top success. Let the success affect something else, in addition to what the PC was going for, and bring the player into the process of selling it by prompting them to make up cool details. “Three extra shifts on that attempt to get past the lock — tell me, is anyone ever going to be able to lock that crypt again?”
* Add an Aspect: You can express additional effects of a good roll by placing an aspect on the PC or on the scene, essentially letting them an advantage for free. “So your action to chat up the ResEng succeeded with four shifts. She’ll let you into the DRC library, and she’ll also act as Available Backup if you should need some help later.”
* Reducing Time: If it’s important to get something done fast, then you can use extra shifts to decrease the time that it takes to do an action.

===Awesome Failure===

Failure is a hard thing to make awesome, but it pays off in making interesting games. Fumbles are only dead ends if there isn’t anything interesting to be found by following up on it.

====Blame the Circumstances====

The PCs are competent people. They aren’t supposed to look like fools on a regular or even semi-regular basis. Sometimes, all it takes is the right description to make failure into something dynamic—instead of narrating that the PC just made a stupid mistake, blame the failure on something that the PC couldn’t have prevented. There’s a secondary mechanism on that lock that initially looked simple, or the contact broke his promise to show up on time, or the ancient tome is too withered to read, or a sudden seismic shift throws off your run.

That way, the PCs still look competent, even though they don’t get what they want. More importantly, shifting the blame to the circumstances gives you an opportunity to suggest a new course of action, which allows the failure to forward momentum in your story. The contact didn’t make his appointment? Where is he? Who was following him to the rendezvous? The ancient tome is withered? Maybe someone can restore it. That way, you don’t spend time dwelling on the failure and can move on to something new.

====Let the Player Do the Work====

You can also kick the question back to the players, and let them decide what the context of their own failure is. This is a great move to foster a collaborative spirit, and some players will be surprisingly eager to hose their own characters in order to further the story, especially if it means they can keep control of their own portrayal.

It’s also a great thing to do if you just plain can’t think of anything. “Okay, so, you fumbled that action by 2. So you’re working the lock, and something goes wrong. What is it?” “You missed that roll to keep your eyes peeled. What don’t you notice as you’re sneaking up to the queen’s chambers?” It’s better if the question is specific, like those examples—just saying, “Okay, tell me how you fail!” can easily stall things by putting a player on the spot unnecessarily. You want to let the player do the work, not make them.