Checks
Stormchaser is a game where your choices determine the story’s direction. Throughout the game, the GM describes what’s happening in the world and then asks the players, “so what do you do?” Exactly what you choose to do, and how the GM responds to those choices, builds a unique story experience. Every game is different, because you’ll rarely, if ever, make the same decisions as another group of players. This is true for the GM as well. Two GMs running the exact same adventure will put different emphasis and flourishes on the way they present each scenario and encounter.
Often, your choices have no immediate risk or consequences. If you’re traveling along a forest path and come across a fork in the trail, the GM will ask, “which way do you go?” You might choose to take the right fork or the left. You could also choose to leave the trail, or just go back to town. Once your choice is made, the GM tells you what happens next. Down the line, that choice may impact what you encounter later in the game, but in many cases nothing dangerous happens immediately.
However, sometimes what happens as a result of your choices is less than certain. In those cases, you’ll attempt a check.
Whether you’re swinging a sword at a foul beast, attempting to leap across a chasm, or straining to remember the name of the earl’s second cousin at a soiree, you’ll attempt a check. Stormchaser has many types of checks, from skill checks to attack rolls to defence checks, but they all follow these basic steps.
- Identify the modifiers that apply and roll your d20 dice pool.
- Calculate the result and compare it to the difficulty class (DC).
- Determine the degree of success and the effect.
Checks and difficulty classes (DC) both come in many forms. When you swing your sword at that foul beast, you’ll make an attack roll against its defence, which is the DC to hit another creature. If you are leaping across that chasm, you’ll attempt an Athletics skill check with a DC based on the distance you are trying to jump. When calling to mind the name of the earl’s second cousin, you attempt a check to Recall Knowledge. You might use either the Society skill, or a Lore skill you have that’s relevant to the task, and the DC depends on how common the knowledge of the cousin’s name might be, or how many drinks your character had when they were introduced to the cousin the night before.
No matter the details, for any check you must roll your d20 dice pool and achieve a result equal to or greater than the DC to succeed. Each of these steps is explained below.