So you have a character that Glimmers and want to use their cool powers - but you're not sure exactly what to do to make that happen. This guide will walk you through a couple basic scenarios.
In all cases, if everyone involved agrees that something works, then it works. You don't have to roll for Glimmer. Quite often, if it's just for story purposes and everyone agrees that making it work is more interesting, you can just skip the roll and assume a success.
Rolling just allows for the possibility of failure, or a so-so success, which can lead you interesting narrative places. That's why you roll; to get a randomized outcome.
This means a roll isn't being done against something. As with all other uncontested FS3 rolls, this is done via the roll command as roll CharacterName/Aspect, so:
roll CharacterName/SpiritYou'll get a result that looks something like:
<FS3> CharacterName rolls Spirit: Success (8 8 5 4 3)
You succeed! You can now roleplay the outcome; maybe you were mending a broken glass, or killing some blackberry brambles that scratched you (look I don't judge).
If you or a GM/ST wants to make a given Glimmer roll more difficult, they can either require a higher number of successes, or reduce your dice pool with a negative modifier. For example, let's say you want to break a car's distributor cap without opening the engine hood so you can be sneaky and not be caught. But...you don't know this model of car very well. The GM might ask you to roll with a -3 modifier, so:
roll CharacterName/Spirit-3<FS3> CharacterName rolls Spirit: Success (8 5)
Or, they might require a Good Success (3+ successes) for it to work how you want it to:
roll CharacterName/Spirit<FS3> CharacterName rolls Spirit: Good Success (8 8 6 4 3)
Negative modifiers and success requirements raise the difficulty in a linear fashion, and should be used in cases where you're not rolling against another player or NPC but want to raise the bar for success. For example if a character is trying to use their Glimmer in a way which is outside their expertise (using Physical to undo a lock with no knowledge of lock internals, using Mental to make an illusion of something you've never seen, using Spirit to diagnose an illness without knowledge of this kind of disease), or they're in a stressful situation, maybe injured--these would all be good places to use negative modifiers, or require more successes.
Contested rolls represent a significantly higher difficulty than modifiers or success requirements. As a result, in FS3 they're usually reserved for Player vs. Player/NPC rolls--rolls where you want the chance of success to be low, or closer to 50% despite larger dice pools.
Using Glimmer on another Player or NPC isn't always contested. If you're using Mental to communicate with a close friend, they're probably not going to resist that. Similarly, you probably won't resist a Spiritualist healing you, or a Physicalist grabbing your clothes to stop you from falling. But there could be instances where you would resist things of this nature, so it's important to remember that nothing improves RP and a narrative like OOC communication. Ask if a roll is contested, and then roll accordingly.
Another instance where a Glimmer roll might not be contested is a 'surprise' round, i.e. you've gotten the drop on some enemies and are going to smack them with Glimmer before they know you're there. Your GM can choose to let you make this first round of attacks uncontested, as the targets are caught off guard. As with just about anything else, that's at your ST's discretion.
As a GM/ST, it's up to you to decide the difficulty of a roll, but near in mind, contested rolls are much more difficult to succeed at than uncontested, and largely negate the strength of higher dice pools in ways that most GMs and players don't expect. See here for detailed information about roll outcomes. tl;dr: use contested rolls when you want it to be hard and unpredictable, or in Player vs. Player/NPC rolling; consider negative modifiers or success requirements for static/environmental difficulties.
To use an Aspect against an NPC, you use the roll command like so:
roll CharacterName/Aspect vs NPC Bob/2This assumes Bob's resistance to that Aspect is a skill of 2, with an Attribute of 2 to back it. So as an example:
roll CharacterName/Physical vs NPC Bob/2 This assumes the greater of NPC Bob's Physical Aspect or Athletics is 2, and the relevant attribute for that is also a 2. You'll get a result that looks something like:
<FS3> CharacterName rolls Physical (7 6 6 3 3 3 3 1) vs Npc Bob (a NPC)'s 2 (8 7 1 1)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for CharacterName.
The GM/ST can now let you know the outcome of this roll. Each Aspect has a damage chart which serves as guidelines for the kinds of damage a given victory level can impart, but as always, you should go with what makes a good narrative.
Using Aspects against other PCs is slightly different in that you name the resistance used by the player (as they have an actual sheet).
While each Aspect has a specific resistance Action Skill (Spirit->Composure, Mental->Alertness, Physical->Athletics), the Aspects also provide resistance against themselves (i.e. Physical can allow you to resist someone else's Physical). You roll the higher resistance dice pool; so, if someone is rolling Mental against you, and your Mental dice pool is 5 but your Alertness dice pool is only 4, you would resist with Mental, not Alertness.
You can roll against players either using a complete roll command, like so:
roll CharacterName/Aspect vs OtherPlayer/Resistance SkillOr, using the shorthand Aspect commands (mental, spirit, and physical):
mental CharacterName vs OtherPlayerThe shorthand commands will automatically determine what the appropriate resistance Action Skill is, making them quite handy.
Shorthand commands can only be used for Player Characters, not NPCs.
If a Player Character who also has Glimmer is with you when you use it, they can try to detect your Glimmer usage via a contested roll of your Stealth+Glimmer vs their Alertness+Glimmer. For example:
roll Onlooker/Alertness+Glimmer vs CharacterName/Stealth+GlimmerIn this case, Onlooker is the person trying to detect the Glimmer, and CharacterName is the person using it. You'll see something like:
<FS3> Onlooker rolls Alertness+Glimmer (8 5 4 3 2 1) vs CharacterName's Stealth+Glimmer (8 8 4 3 2)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for CharacterName.
So Onlooker isn't able to determine that your PC used Glimmer to do something. If they witnessed whatever happened--that broken glass becoming whole, the blackberry bushes withering and dying--they can either assume someone else did it (if they know about Glimmer) or be appropriately freaked out if they don't.
Since that roll is a lot to type out, we have a handy shorthand command, detect. You can use that like this:
detect Onlooker vs CharacterNameAs with the Aspect shorthand commands, detect can't be used with NPCs. If you want to roll detect for an NPC, you'll need to decide what their Alertness and Glimmer are and calculate the roll. For example, let's assume NPC Bob is Glimmer 2 (baseline average for an Attribute) and Alertness 2. That roll would be:
roll CharacterName/Stealth+Glimmer vs NPC Bob/2The +2 Specialization Bonus, which applies to any rolls made by player characters with only one Aspect known, will automatically be accounted for when rolling using the Aspect commands (mental X vs Y, spirit X vs Y, physical X vs Y) and in combat code. It won't be accounted for if you're rolling using the roll command, eg. when rolling against NPCs.
For example, if you are GMing for Jill the Mentalist (who has no other Aspects) and you need to roll something for her against a special NPC of yours, this won't apply her specialization bonus:
roll Jill/Mental vs Special NPC Jerk/6You'll have to do it manually:
roll Jill/Mental+2 vs Special NPC Jerk/6These are special actions in FS3 Combat that use Glimmer Aspects. They work the same as normal combat actions.
combat/electro <target> - Use electrokinesis (Mental Aspect).
combat/pyro <target> - Use pyrokinesis (Spirit Aspect).
combat/tele <target> - Use telekinesis (Physical Aspect).
combat/spirit <target> - Attack with the Spirit Aspect.
combat/revive <name> - Revive someone with the Spirit Aspect, equivalent to that person using combat/hero
combat/illusion <name> - Use the Mental Aspect to create an illusion against someone.
combat/shield - Use the Physical Aspect to create a shield (+2 defense). Self-only.
combat/buff <name>/<option> - Use the Spirit Aspect to buff someone.
Note that buffs last the duration of combat (at the organizer's discretion). Options are:
* attack - Add a +2 to attack
* defense - Add a +2 to defense
* lethality - Add a +2 to the amount of damage taken
This effectively "jinxes" the person.
combat/mend <person> - Use the Spirit Aspect to heal someone in combat.
Special Note: You may see old references to Aspects as 'weapons' rather than combat actions. This is from a prior version of the combat code which has been removed, but still has artifacts lingering here and there. You can safely ignore it. Aspects have their own special combat actions separate from any weapon you might be wielding. (So, feel free to equip one for flavor! But it will just be flavor.)