As we said in The Basics, whenever you roll the dice, you’re comparing your roll to your opposition. Opposition is either active, meaning it’s another person rolling dice against you, or passive, meaning that it’s just a set rating on the ladder which represents the influence of the environment or situation you’re in. GMs, it’s your job to decide what the most reasonable source of opposition is.
Active or Passive Opposition?
If a PC or a named NPC can reasonably interfere with whatever the
action is, then you should give them the opportunity to roll active opposition. This does not count as an action for the opposing character; it’s just a basic property of resolving
actions . In other words, a player doesn’t have to do anything special to earn the right to actively oppose an action, as long as the character is present and can interfere. If there’s any doubt, having an appropriate situation
aspect helps justify why a character gets to actively oppose someone else.
If there is no character in the way, then look at your situation
aspects in this scene to see if any of them justify some sort of obstacle, or consider the cir
circumstances (like rough terrain, a complex lock, time running out, a situational complication, etc.). If something sounds interesting, choose passive op position and set a rating on the ladder.
Sometimes you’re going to run into edge cases, where something
Amanda decides to roll active opposition against Lily on behalf of the guards. She decides the most appropriate opposing skill is Will—they’re trying to resist the temptation of bribery, after all. The guards are nameless NPCs with no reason to be particularly strong of will, so she gives them a Mediocre (+0).
She rolls and gets: 0+++
...for an incredibly lucky result of +3!
That gives her a Good (+3) result, beating Lily’s roll by one.
Comments