Tests & Dice
Every action in the Seven Kingdoms comes down to nerve, steel, and the roll of the dice. When your character reaches for something dangerous, difficult, or disputed — a sword edge, a lie told to a lord, a leap across a broken battlement — the Narrator calls for a test. This chapter is how tests work.
When the Narrator Calls for a Test
The Narrator calls for a test only when the outcome is uncertain and the stakes matter. If you are doing something anyone could do without risk — saddling a horse, reading a letter, walking down a street — you simply do it. If failure would be boring or impossible, no dice are rolled. The test exists to answer one question: what happens when this goes wrong?
When a test is called, say what you intend and how. The Narrator names the ability that governs it — fighting, marksmanship, cunning, status, and so on — tells you whether a specialty applies, and names which of the three kinds of test it is: basic, competition, or conflict. Then you roll.
The Core of Every Test
To perform a test, you roll your pool of dice, sum the highest retained dice, and compare the result to what the test demands — a difficulty for a basic test, an opposing score for a competition or conflict test.
- Roll the pool.
- Sum the highest retained dice.
- Compare the total to the difficulty or opposing score.
- Beat it and you succeed; fall short and you fail. How far past the difficulty or opposing score your result lands is your margin, measured in degrees of success (below). How far below you land decides how badly it goes.
The people of the Seven Kingdoms don't call a roll a "check" — they call it a test.
Three Kinds of Dice
This is a d6 system — every roll is a handful of six-sided dice, and three kinds of die can be in play: test dice that measure your ability, bonus dice that reward your training, and penalty dice that represent the world working against you.
Test Dice and Bonus Dice
Your ability ranks are measured in dice. A rank of 3 in Fighting gives you 3 test dice; a rank of 2 in Will gives you 2. These are written as D — for example, 3D.
Some specialties grant bonus dice, written as B. Specialties are the sharp edges of an ability: fighting-axes, marksmanship-bows, cunning-logic, status-reputation. When you use a specialty you have trained, add its rank in bonus dice to the pool — 3D + 2B.
| Pool | What you roll |
|---|---|
2D | Two test dice, no specialty |
3D + 2B | Three test dice plus two bonus dice (specialty rank 2) |
4D + 1B | Four test dice plus one bonus die |
3D + 1B − 1P | Three test dice, one bonus die, one penalty die |
Your sheet shows the pool for each weapon you carry, and you can ask the Narrator to confirm the pool for any other test. Wounds and injuries change the pool before you roll (see below).
Quality dice are already in your pools. Benefits and drawbacks change your pools automatically, and the Narrator's prompts already include them. Specialty-locked effects — Beastfriend's +1D on Animal Handling tests to Charm or Train, Furious's −2D on Seduce, Lascivious's −1D on Charm, Dwarf's −1D on Charm or Seduce, Ignoble's −1D on Persuasion and Status, Outcast's −2D on Status — are folded in whether or not you have ranks in those specialties. When the Narrator prompts a test, the pool they name is the pool you roll: never add or subtract a quality's dice by hand.
Penalty Dice
Not every test is made in good conditions. Penalty dice, written as P, are the dice the world rolls against you. A test written 3D + 2B − 1P means three test dice, two bonus dice, and one penalty die.
Penalty dice bite in one of two ways, depending on their source:
- Pool penalties remove test dice before you roll. A wounded man at
3Dfights at2D; a messenger running up the serpentine stairs of the Red Keep with a corpse on his back loses dice to the burden. Wounds already work this way — every wound is a standing pool penalty on all tests. - Discard penalties force you to discard your highest-rolling dice from the result after the roll. Darkness, confusion, a splitting headache, a hand shaking with rage — these do not stop you swinging; they make your best blows go wide. Two penalty dice mean you discard your two highest dice; if two dice tie for the discard, you choose which one goes.
The Narrator names which kind a penalty is when the test is called, and it never changes mid-roll. Penalty dice never take bonus dice directly — they strip test dice from your pool, or strip your best dice from the result.
Difficulties & Minimum Ranks
The Narrator sets the difficulty of a basic test from the challenges of the world. Each difficulty also carries a minimum rank: a character whose rank in the governing ability is below it has not the training to attempt the task at all.
| Difficulty | Min. Rank | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic (0) | 1 | Simple, everyday tasks |
| Easy (3) | 1 | Minor complications |
| Routine (6) | 1 | Standard trained tasks |
| Challenging (9) | 2 | Requires focus and skill |
| Formidable (12) | 2 | Pushes average abilities |
| Hard (15) | 3 | Requires expertise |
| Very Hard (18) | 3 | Extreme strain; rare feats |
| Heroic (21+) | 4 | Feats of legend |
An Automatic task succeeds without a roll — a difficulty of 0 is there for the rare moment when something still interferes. A character who lacks the minimum rank cannot attempt the difficulty: a rank 1 hedge knight cannot win a Heroic feat, no matter how the dice fall.
Degrees of Success
Your margin is how far past the difficulty or opposing score your result lands. Margin is banded into degrees of success, which tell the Narrator how thoroughly you achieved your goal:
| Margin | Degrees | Name | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–4 over difficulty | 1 | Marginal Success | Barely achieve the goal |
| 5–9 over difficulty | 2 | Great Success | Impressive skill/efficiency |
| 10–14 over difficulty | 3 | Incredible Success | Exceptional result/leverage |
| 15+ over difficulty | 4 | Astonishing Success | Legendary outcome |
A marginal success gets the goal and nothing more — the lock opens, but with a scrape and a dropped pick. Each further degree is leverage the Narrator spends on the details: a great success finishes the task faster or cleaner, an incredible success leaves no trace, an astonishing success is retold in songs. Degrees also decide how hard a blow lands in combat. A failed test's margin below the difficulty decides how badly it goes.
The Three Kinds of Tests
Basic Tests
A basic test is made against a static difficulty set by the Narrator based on the environment or the challenge — climbing a wall, deciphering a ledger, leaping a chasm. The Narrator picks the difficulty from the table above, and your rank in the governing ability must meet its minimum. No one is rolling against you; you are measuring yourself against the world.
Extended Tests are a multi-stage variant of the basic test, used for complex or time-consuming tasks such as forging a masterpiece weapon or researching obscure lore. An extended test requires accumulating a set number of successes across several successive rolls over time — the Narrator sets how many successes the task demands and what each roll costs in time, risk, or resources.
Competition Tests
A competition test is used when two or more characters are actively competing directly against each other in a non-violent, non-combat scenario where speed, positioning, or direct comparison matters — a horse race, an arm-wrestling match, a drinking contest. Everyone rolls, and the character with the highest total result wins. Margin in a competition is the difference between your total and the next-best result, measured in degrees like any other outcome: by one, the outcome is close and the loser keeps their pride; by many, the victory is crushing.
Conflict Tests
A conflict test is used during structured encounters — Combat, Intrigue, and Warfare. These tests measure attacks, maneuvers, and social maneuvers directed against an opponent's defense (such as Combat Defense or Intrigue Defense) to inflict damage, influence, or defeat an opponent. The defender's score is the difficulty you must beat; your degrees of success over it decide what lands and how hard it hits. Attacks are conflict tests against a foe's Defense; full rules for Intrigue and Warfare have their own chapters.
Wounds and Injuries
Your sheet tracks two kinds of harm, and they cut dice differently:
- Wounds — each wound is a pool penalty: it removes 1 test die from every test. A wounded man at
3Dfights at2D. This is the cost of staying in a fight. - Injuries — each injury subtracts 1 from the result of every test after the roll. Injuries are the deeper, lingering marks — broken bones, burns, betrayals that fester.
Wounds make you less able; injuries make your efforts less effective. Both stack, and both can kill you: when your wounds reach your Endurance rank, you die — no matter how much Health remains.
| Harm | Effect | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Wound | −1D on all tests | Death at your Endurance rank |
| Injury | −1 from the result on all tests | Cannot exceed your Endurance rank |
Aiding Another
Two people working together can do what one cannot. If another character with at least rank 1 in the ability helps you, you gain 1 bonus die on the test. The helper risks the same consequences as you do — a failed test is both your failures. Only one helper can meaningfully aid a single test.
One Is a Complication
A die showing 1 is the lowest a die can fall. When a test fails and any die came up 1, the Narrator may add a complication to the failure — your blade snaps, your lie is believed by the wrong person, your footing gives way at the worst moment. Complications are never arbitrary cruelty; they are the world answering a bad roll with a worse story.
Don't Roll for Everything
If there is no pressure, you do not roll. A merchant's son can spend an evening writing a letter; a maester can take a tenday to translate a scroll. When you are not in danger and have time, assume you succeed and let the scene move. The dice exist to decide the moments that matter — save your luck for them.