How it Works

## Game Mechanics

The mechanics for this game are fairly simple. To play, you'll need around ten D10s, a D4 or two, some D8s and a couple D20s, depending on how many players there are and how highly ranked their abilities.

### Roll for Initiative

Whenever any obstacle is faced, there will be an initiative roll to determine which player will be able to go first. This roll is done with a D20 and the person with the highest roll gets to decide if they'll go first or last. If they decide to go first, the player with the next highest roll with go next and so on down the line. If they decide to go last, the person with the lowest roll goes first and the next lowest goes next and so on. If two people roll the same number, they'll re-roll to see which of them will go first.

Characters have two moves per turn, unless they are engaged in combat with another character at the table, in which case they would have one.

### Combat Rolls

In a combat situation, you'll describe your action, then select the Physical or Supernatural Ability with which you want to initiate it. For example: If I wanted to hit my opponent in the head with a piece of metal, I would tell the DM that I wanted to do that action and then select (let's say) Strength to carry it out. Since this is a combat roll, I would add my Experience Level (in the case of my character, that's Level 4) and my Strength Level (2) to get the number of D10s I would roll. So, I roll my six D10s for that action.

The way you would figure out if you actually managed to bash that guy's head in would be by counting your successes. Any die on which you rolled a 7 or higher counts as a success, and the amount of successes you need in order to achieve an action would depend on the difficulty of it (which will be determined by your DM or the counter-rolls of the other character). In this case, let's say I rolled a higher initiative than my opponent and so he's using his defense instead of offense to roll. He selects his Reflexes (maybe 3) and adds his Experience (also 3), which means he's rolling six D10s. If he rolls more successes than I do, my attack doesn't do any damage. If I roll three more successes than he does, he would take damage to the given area. Then it's his turn.

If you roll a 00 (10) on any of those six D10s I mentioned earlier, you get to roll another die to add to your total, giving you even more chance for success rolls.

If you fail a roll that was extremely important, your DM may decide to let you take a luck roll, using a D4. Even numbers for good fortune and odd numbers for bad fortune. This can help change the mood of an event or even allow for a re-roll if needed.

### Social Rolls

Monsters of Myth is a Live Action and Table Top roleplay combination, so in social interactions, your words are your characters words and this will play a part in the success of your encounter. The other factor that determines the outcome will be similar to a combat roll.

To determine how many D10s you'll be rolling, add the Level of your Human-Kin, Spirit-Kin, or Myth-Kin (depending on the person with whom you're communicating) and the level of the Personality Trait you'd like to use. For example: I want to persuade a castle guard to give me her keys, so I'd add my Human-Kin (4) and my Manipulative Trait (2) to get the number of D10s I ought to be rolling. If I have another Personality Trait my DM thinks applies to this situation (perhaps Flirtatious or Intimidating) I can add one die, regardless of what Level that other trait may be. Two traits is the cut off, however.

So, I roll my seven D10s, count my successes (every die with a 7 or higher) and see if I rolled enough to accomplish my goal (number of successes needed for an event TBD by your DM).

As I mentioned earlier, if you roll a 00 (10) on any of your D10s, you get to roll another die to add to your total, giving you even more chance for success rolls.

If you fail a roll that was extremely important, your DM may decide to let you take a luck roll, using a D4. Even numbers for good fortune and odd numbers for bad fortune. This can help change the mood of an event or even allow for a re-roll if needed.

Note that not every social encounter will require rolls. There shouldn't be much need for you to roll in a social setting unless you're attempting to overpower another character or if someone else at the table has a problem with the action you've chosen. For example, you won't need to roll to have a casual conversation with someone, but you would need to roll if you were attempting to deceive them.

### Skill Rolls

These are action based rolls in which your character is attempting something that requires some level of talent or training (Like picking a lock, for example). In these types of rolls, you would be using your Special Skills to determine success.

Now, let's say you wanted to pick the lock to a local baker's safe and your character has level 3 lock picking. Probably, since the baker is poor and can't afford high security, your DM would rank that difficulty level 1, meaning you could do it with no rolls, no questions asked.

If you were, with this same character, wanting to pick the lock to the Queen's Crown Room (definitely difficultly level 5), you would have to roll for that because it's above your skill level. The way you would go about rolling for this would be to take the number of points you have in that skill (in this case, three) and roll that many D10s. To succeed, you'd need five successes (any die with a seven or higher) because that's the skill level it requires to accomplish that task. This may sound like it makes it impossible to do anything above your skill level, but that's not exactly the case. If you were to roll three successes and two of those successes were tens, then you could roll two more dice and possibly end up lucking out and doing something you weren't even skilled to do.

If you have no level in a skill at all and want to attempt it, you can still roll one D10 to see how you do. If you roll higher than a seven, you could accomplish a level one skill. If you rolled a ten and then rolled a seven with your additional die, you could accomplish a level two skill. You could technically be completely inexperienced in a skill and, with an insane amount of luck, accomplish a difficulty level 5 action.

If you're level 3 in a skill and want to accomplish a level 3 action, you don't have to roll for that action and may count it as an automatic success. However, if your DM thinks the action you want to accomplish is overpowered, he may ask you to take a luck roll to make the completion of the action a little more difficult.

### Damage

In Monsters of Myth, story telling plays a large role in combat damage. Instead of jotting down numbers and hit points to calculate your character's health, there's a section on your character sheet to write down the severity and location of your injuries; ranging from bruises to avulsions. When you take damage and write it down, it will be considered in future combat that your character is weak in that area or possibly unable to use it all together, until it has been healed. If you acquire too many injures, it will eventually lead to the death of your character.

How to know if you've been injured and how severely will depend on the rolls you make in combat.

If you read back to Combat Rolls, you'll see that a character takes damage whenever their opponent rolls higher than they do. However, how much higher than you they'll need to roll in order to harm you will depend on the area of the body for which they're aiming. To hit you in the arm, they would only need to roll one higher than you. If they rolled five higher than you, the damage to your arm would be considerably worse. If they wanted to hit you in the head, they would need to roll three higher than you. If they rolled six higher than you, you would be in a very bad situation. That's how damage works.

Now, one of the things that can affect how much damage you take would be armor. If you're wearing a metal breast plate, it would increase the number of successes your opponent needed to harm you in an attack on the chest. The better quality of the armor, the more successes required.

### Spot Check

Your character can
ask for a spot check at any time (though only once per turn round). Spot
 checks are away to observe your surroundings in a situation and can be
 carried out by rolling two D8s and using the numbers you roll to
calculate success. Two even numbers count for information about what you
 see and two odd numbers count for information about what you feel. If
you roll one even number and one odd number, your character won't be
able to read anything. If the two numbers you roll are the same (for
example, two 7s) then your reading would be much stronger. For every
level of Observation your character has, you can add one D8 to your hand
 and then merely select the two dice you would like to count for that
spot check.