The Odds

Before you build a scenario, you need to know what the dice actually do. The math is the reason the game works, and it is not what most GMs assume.

Five dice, roughly

Player characters have an average of 5 points in each trait. On a 5-dice roll:

• They succeed (equal or more 5s and 6s than 1s) about 87% of the time.
• They roll two or more 1s — a snake attack — about 20% of the time.

In other words, PCs start at a level of hypercompetence that would make your typical RPG character salivate. Any single task is almost certain to succeed.

The difficulty is attrition, not failure

Here is the design secret: the chief difficulty a PC faces is not succeeding at a given challenge. It is a succession of challenges and complications, back to back, whittling their traits down through ophidian attrition. Every snake attack costs a point. Every point is a step toward zero. Zero is death.

That is why traits are rated at all. Two reasons, from the SnakeMaster's own mouth:

• People like rolling handfuls of dice.
• Traits act as a damage meter that depletes over time.

A player with Guts 5 who takes two hits is at Guts 3. They are not failing more — they are dying slower. The tension is not "will this roll work?" It is "how many rolls do I have left?"

What this means when you build

• Never let a single roll resolve a Story. If the goal can be achieved with one stat check, the game is over in five minutes. The Story should require a chain of actions, each with a roll, each advancing the clock.
• Pace the attrition. A PC should be worn down over the length of the flight, not deleted in the first scene. Attack them, yes — but the real pressure is cumulative.
• Success is not safety. A character who succeeds at everything still dies if their traits run out. Design encounters that spend their points.

Keep this in mind for every scenario: the players should never be in a position where they can achieve their Story goal with one stat roll until the clock is nearly elapsed.