It's not as scary as it looks!

Every attribute and skill (in short, anything that you might want to roll dice for) is given a Rating. The Rating consists of three parts: a Die, a Category, and a Type. If the Type is omitted, it is always considered to be Personal (more on this later).

Die:

The Die part will be a number - either 6, 8 or 10. This indicates the type of die you roll (d6, d8 or d10).

Category:

The Category part will be a letter - either L (Light), M (Medium) or H (Heavy). You can also think of them as Low, Middle and High if you like.

A Category L means that the die roll is read as is. If you are rolling a 6L Rating and you roll a 4, then your result is 4.

A Category M means that you double the rolled result. If you are rolling a 6M Rating and you roll a 4, then your result is 8.

A Category H means that you double the result twice (multiply by 4). If you are rolling a 6H Rating and you roll a 4, then your result is 16

Type:

The third part of the Rating is the Type. The Type represents multiples of 10. The normal (ie default) Type is Personal. Personal Type does not modify the die roll. The next Type up is Vehicle, which means that you multiply the Result by 10. Above that is Ship, which means that you mulitply the Result by 100. There are Types above that as well. If you are rolling a 6MG (Galactic Type) for example, you will multiply the rolled result by 10,000! Normally you would roll only Personal, only occasionally Vehicle or Ship type.

There is also one Type below Personal, known as Bantam. Bantam type means that you multiply your result by 1/10, dropping fractions (round down). If your Rating is 6HB and you roll an 8 (2 on the dice), then your result is 0. But if you roll a 6 on the dice (result 24) then your final Result is 2.

Remember that if the Type is not specified, then it is always considered Personal (x1).

The Doubling Die:

Whenever you make a roll, you will always roll the indicated die type alongside the 16 sided doubling die. This die is marked with lots of 1s, a bunch of 2s, a few 4s, two 8s and one 16. You will multiply your final rolled Result by the indicated number. Note that this involves simply doubling the result a number of times. There are doubling tables provided for the mathematically challenged, and when you roll so high that you're off the table, the exact roll doesn't matter much - an approximation will do.

If you roll a 16 on the doubling die, you can multiply your result by 16 and roll the doubling die (only) again. This makes for potentially open-ended rolls, and the posibility of very high results. This is because your characters are heroes, and are expected to do the occasional heroic thing.

The doubling die is also marked with a 'c' and a 't'. If you roll a 'c' on the doubling die, then your Rating's Category is changed one level down - ie a 6H becomes a 6M and a 6M becomes a 6L. Ratings that are already L are not modified (consider it as rolling a 1 on the doubling die). The die are not rerolled - you just calculate the result as if it were one Category lower.

If you roll a 't' on the doubling die, then your Rating's Type is moved one level closer to Personal. If it is already Personal then it is not modified (again, consider it as rolling a 1). Thus a 6LV Rating becomes 6L and a 8MS becomes 8MV.

For either a 'c' or a 't', if you are rolling a Bantam Rating, then the Category or Type is moved UP instead of down. Thus a 'c' or a 't' on the doubling die is always bad unless you are rolling a Bantam Rating.

Examples:

Target Numbers:

The GM will set a difficulty number for any task you attempt to perform. When shooting at NPCs, the difficulty number will be given by the NPC's stats. If you roll higher than the difficulty number, you succeed. If you roll much higher, you succeed even more. Critical results will be improvised on the spot. If you roll a natural '1', then you fumble. Again, fumbles will be ad-libbed.

Ratings, Values and Levels

Sometimes you will be required to convert a Rating to either a Value or a Level.

To convert to a Value, consider rolling the highest possible on the die and a 1 on the doubling die. In other words the Value of a 6L Rating is 6, 8M is 16 and 10HV is 400.

To convert to a Level, remember that 6L is level 1 and count up from there. 8L is level 2, 10L is level 3, 6M is level 4, etc. Note that the Die goes up first (6L, 8L, 10L) then add one to the Category:

etc.

Bantam ratings do not have a Level. I hope you will never be asked to convert a Bantam rating to a level. Value perhaps. Not level.

Bonuses:

Sometimes you can get a bonus to your Rating. Usually this appears like this: +1d, +2d, +1c, +2t. They represent adding to the Die, Category or Type. Remember that the 6-8-10 cycle is nested inside the L-M-H cycle. You also get penalties such as -1d, -2d, -1c, -1t.

6M +1d becomes 8M.

6M +1c becomes 6H.

6M +1t becomes 6MV.

10M +1d becomes 6H.

And vice versa for the penalties.

Note that +3d is identical to +1c. You will see it in both forms.

An analogy that is used in the manual is that of a stairwell in a building.

The building has three steps (die) to each landing and three landings (category) to each floor. When you step off the last step of the landing, you go onto the first step of the next landing. In other words, if you add 1d to 10L, it becomes 6M. Subtract 1d from 6H and you get 10M. Add 1d to 10H and you get 6LV (top landing of floor Personal to bottom landing of floor Vehicle).

Combining Ratings:

Sometimes two or more people can work together on a task. To combine their Ratings, use the method called Combine(Cat). You will also Combine(Cat) when you are using an item of equipment that has a Rating (eg a tool kit which has 6L Rating).

To Combine(Cat) two Ratings, start with the highest Rating. Then add +1d if the second is Light, +2d when the second is Medium and +1c when the second is Heavy. In the case of the toolkit, it would give you a +1d bonus to repair rolls.

There is another method of combining Ratings called Combine(High). To Combine(High) two Ratings, convert both to Values then add the larger Value to half the smaller one. Then convert the result back to a Rating. This is how armour ratings are combined, but you won't use it very often.

THAT'S IT!!

The beauty of this system is that this is the only system, and it applies in any and all situations. If you're patient enough to have read through this whole file, then you already have all you need to do anything you like. Anything else is just interpretation and elaboration (for example, there is a rule for conducting combat between different Types due to the physical size difference between People and Ships).

If you're picking a lock (Dex or Counter Security) or making a speech (Cha or Oratory), firing starship weapons (Turret Gunner) or sneaking about (Stealth), you will use the same system for rolling. The GM assigns a target number, you roll your Rating, and see if you succeed.