Just interested in people's thoughts on the scenario where a Chaos Star and a Sigmar's comet come up in the same roll, specifically with generic skill rolls that aren't action cards.

Example from my game last night: One of the guys was rolling an Athletics check to escape the guards and rolled 2 successes, a comet and a chaos star. I read this as a 'success, but something bad happened'. He's clearly succeeded well but something bad has happened. How would you get across a success but have something bad happen that doesn't invalidate the success of that roll?

Or, if you are judging rolls that aren't related to action cards, and a chaos star comes up, do you just downgrade it to a bane?

Very much depends on the roll and the section of the story in which it occurs, at climatic times i may use the chaos star to describe osme bad occurrence but at other times it just gets converted.

We do use a house roule though that a converted Chaos star is converted to a challenge AND a bane, which makes the chaos star a bit more fearful even on these "everyday" rolls; I just don't think a single bane quite cuts it!

pumpkin said:

I've been thinking about doing this anyway...good to hear other people have already attempted it...things do seem a little too easy otherwise

Here's how I would run it. The athletics check was succesful, so he escapes. The Sigmar's Comet means it was a incredibly successful escape so he's in no danger of them picking up his trail. But he rolled the Chaos star. So in the chase one of the guards gets hurt/killed, and now he's on the hook for it. Was the chase across roof tops? Guard fell off the roof. Through a crowded street? Got ran over by a cart. Through the sewers? Slipped in and drowned. Either way, the other guards blame it on the PC. This will come back to haunt him. I love tweaking the story with the dice.

I would say, Sigmar's Comet means he escapes, but something unpleasant also happens:

- He takes a wound to his arm, hurt during the getaway.

- He drops his money purse during the getaway.

- He breaks a tool or a weapon that he is using.

- He offends his allies and takes a fellowship penalty with them for the rest of the episode.

- He's through a doorway, the occupants are local gangsters who decide to hold him.

- He's through a window, the occupant pretends to help and shelter, but is secretly reports him.

- He gets away, but he's cut off from the party and has to make some effort to find them.

Some folks house rule that a comet and star offset each other like banes/boons do.

A Chaos Star's affects don't necessarily have to occur directly related to the PC, although they could. For example ... the PC succeeds at a task, but makes a noise (perhaps even just a small one) that causes the enemies to change their plans or get alerted to the presence of intruders, etc. I often use Chaos Star results to manipulate the bad guys (in their favor), rather than trying to affect the PC directly.

dirtknap said:

I'd just like to point out that these are EXCELLENT, creative ideas.

This here is thinking outside the box (pardon the management speak).

Thank you for this.

I'd like to see a dev's diary entry about broader/more cinematic dice interpretations like Dvang's.

I can see a play group complaining about a guy falling off the roof and dying 'just' be cause of one chaos star and no rolls on the NPC's part without some good understanding of the depth of the dice mechanic.

Dvang should be a guest writer for it, too.