Page 34 - World of Darkness

A third kind of action is called a contested action. It Example
can happen quickly in the space of time of an instant ac- Let’s see how it looks in action.
tion, or over a prolonged period as an extended action. In Your character tries to shoot at a thug who just killed
a contested action, two or more opposing characters seek his friend. Your character’s Dexterity is •••, his Firearms
to accomplish a feat first or better than the others. He ••, and he’s using a Glock 9mm pistol, which provides a
who gets the most successes (or the required total first in dice modifier of +2. Your dice pool is therefore made up of
the case of an extended task) is the winner. Arm wres- seven dice.
tling is an instant, contested action. Two characters com- The thug is about 30 yards away — that’s within the
peting to be first to win a long-distance race is an extended, pistol’s medium range. A -2 penalty is applied to attacks
contested action. at medium range. So, your dice pool to reduced to five
Combat dice.
Fighting is a series of instant actions, demanding how- But that’s not all. It’s raining cats and dogs. The Sto-
ever long it takes until someone surrenders or is rendered ryteller decides that there’s an additional -1 penalty for
unable to fight. poor visibility. That leaves you a dice pool of four.
Combat involves a single dice pool roll per attack. The roll yields a 3, 5, 8 and 9 — two successes. The
The result determines whether or not your character hits thug is hit. He suffers two points of lethal damage to his
and how much damage he inflicts on his target. The dice Health. It hurts, but it’s not enough to stop him and he
pool is determined as above, but the equipment modifier staggers away. Your character needs to decide whether to
depends on the weapon used. A knife is more deadly than give chase and close the distance, or try to fire again at a
a fist, and a gun is more deadly than all. receding target.
Each success gained on your attack roll represents a The Chance Roll
point of damage inflicted against the target’s Health trait. One final rule: If your dice pool is ever reduced to
When the target has no more Health left, he is uncon- zero or fewer dice, you can still make a “chance roll.” Your
scious or dead (depending on the type of damage done). character makes a wild or blind attempt to accomplish a
There are three types of damage: bashing (caused by feat where he might normally be outclassed or have little Storytelling Rules Summary
blunt weapons such as fists or clubs; these wounds heal chance. Roll a single die, but you only succeed on a result
quickly), lethal (caused by sharp weapons such as knives of 10. (You still re-roll 10’s for extra successes, as per the
and bullets; these wounds heal slowly) and aggravated “10 again” rule.) There is, however, a chance of calamity.
(caused by devastating supernatural attacks; these wounds If you roll a 1 on your first die, your character suffers a
take a very long time to heal). “dramatic failure,” a disastrous setback. The nature of the
There are a number of complications involved in com- setback is decided by the Storyteller.
bat, such as a target’s Defense trait (which is subtracted Getting Started
from any melee attack dice pools targeted against him), Now that you know the basics of the Storytelling
penalties for armor, for hiding behind cover, and more. System, you can proceed to create your own characters.
Details are described in the following chapters, but the You’ll be able to judge what sort of traits you’ll need based
basics are simple. Roll to hit and apply successes as dam- on their titles (they’re mostly self-explanatory), and know
age. that the more dots you have in a trait the better your char-
acter will be when accomplishing tasks with it.

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STORYTELLING RULES SUMMARY