Rolling

Every roll in Tesserae is 1d20 plus one computed stat, against a number. Over or equal succeeds. That is the entire resolution system.

You roll your own dice. The GM prompts you with the formula and then waits. It rolls for creatures and for nothing else — it will not roll on your behalf to keep things moving, and it will not narrate the result of a roll you have not reported.

A prompt looks like this, and it looks like this every time:

Roll 1d20 + 3 against 12.

Checks

Discoveries name a stat and a difficulty. Foraging asks for Wits against 8; opening @Missing file asks for Might against 11.

Failure is rarely nothing-happens. Foraging badly still gets you something, just less of it, because you spent the time either way. A cairn that collapses is a cairn you do not get a second attempt at.

Natural 20 and natural 1

A natural 20 deals double damage. A natural 1 always misses, whatever your bonus.

There is no critical table and no fumble table. The die is the die.

What is not rolled

Movement is never rolled. You do not test to cross an edge and you cannot roll your way onto impassable ground — deep water and standing rock are walls, and no result on a d20 changes that.

Damage is not rolled either, on either side. It is a flat number read off the sheet.