This page is here to give you a brief idea of how the Challenge System works.

Making the Character

Characters in the Challenge System have three parts: Fields, the Condition Track, and Edge.

Fields are used instead of skills. Instead of rolling to see if you succeed in an action, you roll to see how much of the story you get to tell. Every 4 or higher that you roll on a d6 gives you one narration. So, a high level in a field might indicate that your character is skilled in that area. Or it might mean that the character is very powerful, not really skilled, just very very strong. Or maybe the character is just uncommonly lucky. It depends entirely on how you want to describe it.

The condition track is used to measure your character’s well being. Every narration changes someone’s condition, either moving their condition up (towards health or safety) or down (towards defeat). If you narrate someone getting getting slammed into a wall, their condition would go down. If that player narrates the character rising to his feet and shaking off the blow, the condition goes back up.

Edge is used to get extra narrations. If you use Edge to raise your character’s condition, you get an automatic narration to do so. If you want to use Edge to raise or lower someone else condition, you have to roll for it. 4 or higher means you get the narration, 3 or lower means you don’t.

Running the Game

When nothing dramatic is going on, there is no need to roll dice. You know the drill, GM describes the surroundings, players describe their character’s actions and role-play discussion.

When something dramatic is happening it’s time to get out the dice. Most of the time players only need four or five d6. The same is true for the GM. The GM describes the Challenge, that is, the obstacle that the characters face. Bad guys, environmental obstacles like mountains, poison, anything that opposes the characters or seeks to bring them harm or hinders them. The GM then tells the players what level of Drama the Challenge is. Low Drama is stuff that isn’t very important to the game or that is over very quickly, like looking around to notice a hiding thief, or trying to push someone off a ledge. Middle Drama is more important to the game and requires more narration. A fight with a local street gang, trying to hack into the high school grade files, an impromptu car race on the way to the airport, any thing that the GM wants to add to the story that but doesn’t want to take a lot of time with. High Drama is central to the story and warrants a lot of narration – the climactic battle with the acid-spewing villain, a high-speed chase in jet fighters through a canyon, convincing the jury that the mass murderer is actually innocent.

The level of Drama tells you two things about the Challenge: how long it will last and how much a single narration will affect conditions.

Low Drama lasts for 1 Exchange and narrations move conditions by four.

Middle Drama lasts for 2 Exchanges and narrations move conditions by two.

High Drama lasts for 5 Exchanges and narrations move conditions by one.

An Exchange starts with everyone rolling the field most appropriate for the situation. Every narration that you get gives you the ability to tell part of the story. The GM will decide the order (usually there is a back and forth between players and GM) and off you go. After you have completed all the Exchanges for the Challenge, the Challenge is over. Conditions are reset to appropriate levels, and the game continues.  It might seem strange to limit the Challenges like that, but you’ll get used to telling the story so it ends in an interesting way. More importantly, it limits the amount of back and forth that could potentially go on forever.