Success, Failure and Competition

As they say in the technical argot, this game uses a fortune-in-the-middle system. That is, before you roll the dice, only determine what you are doing in the broadest possible sense. For example: fighting, driving, running, trying to kill someone. Then roll the dice. Figure out how well you did from the table below, then describe the outcome:

• No successes: You suck. You probably did something, but either it went wrong somehow, or the people trying to stop you did just that. In a fight, this is bad.
• Skill success: You did something, and it worked well enough. Good on ya.
• Matrix success: You did something pretty cool, or damn well. You rock.
• Double success: You did something totally badass. We worship you.

Note the order: A Double Success beats a Matrix success beats a Skill success beats no success. This becomes most important when you are rolling against other people. The GM may also require a minimum of a Matrix success to succeed at a task, or to succeed unreservedly. (Failure tends to be less interesting than success with a nasty catch.) Also, players should take into account how well they did when describing their actions. A Double Success represents those moments when the camera freezes and pans around your supercool badass move so all may marvel at it.

When competing against another party, the GM decides if your opponent(s) are good enough to warrant dice rolls. Both parties involved roll, the higher success level wins. If there is a tie, then no side gains a significant advantage. If fighting, they just beat the tar out of each other and destroy the architecture for a bit, but nobody gets the upper hand.

Note that almost all the human inhabitants of the Matrix have no Matrix stat, so can never get better than a Skill success. This means you can kick their asses. Note also that Agents have a Matrix stat of five and heaps of combat skills. This means they can kick your ass.