1. Introduction
Welcome to Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying system, one of most influential roleplaying game systems in the world.
If you’re familiar with roleplaying games you can skip through much of this introduction. This covers the terms used in the Basic Roleplaying system. For veteran players, the only section in this introduction you should pay attention to is the Optional Rules section.
Terms Used in Basic Roleplaying
The following terms are used frequently in this book. Some are common in roleplaying games, and are provided as an aid to new and experienced gamers alike. Each is explained at length in relevant sections.
Ability: Something a character can do or feel, whether a skill, a passion, or some other factor rated on a 1–100 rating. Generally when you roll an ability successfully, you get an experience check.
Allegiance: An optional system measuring devotion to a spiritual being, principle, or deity, improved by performing favored actions.
Augment: Using one ability to modify the chance of success using another ability, such as when one skill provides additional support to another, or a passion can help improve the chance of a skill succeeding.
Base Chance: The default chance at succeeding with a skill a character has no training or experience in.
For example, on the character sheet, Hide (20%) means that even if your character has not invested any skill points in the Hide skill, they have a 20% natural ability in it.
Base Range: The normal distance within which a missile weapon can hit a target.
Character: The role you assume in a game session, described in game mechanics by values such as characteristics and skill totals. Generally, characters have names and backgrounds determined by the player, with assistance and/or approval from the gamemaster. (see also player character and nonplayer character).
Characteristic: Your character’s physical, mental, and spiritual attributes (Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, and Charisma), rated numerically on a scale (usually 3–18), with a human average being 10-11.
For example, if the initial maximum characteristic is 18, a STR 17 means your character is extremely strong, while a DEX 7 means they are a bit clumsy.
Characteristic Roll: One of your character’s characteristics multiplied by a number (Intelligence ×3, for example), expressed as a percentage, and rolled with percentile dice. A characteristic roll is usually ×5, but other multiples may be used.
For example, if your character’s Intelligence characteristic is 14, they have a 42% chance at succeeding with a characteristic check with a multiple of ×3.
Combat Round: A 12-second (or equivalent) amount of time imposed during combat or dramatic activities, where the order that actions occur is important. This is game time, not actual time—the events of a few seconds of action may take several minutes to play out between the players and gamemaster.
Critical Success: This is the result of a skill check roll that is 1/20 (or 5%) of the regular chance of success. Generally, a critical success is rewarded with greater results, though in some cases a critical success is required for success at all.
For example, if the regular chance for success is 75%, any roll of 4 or under is a critical success (1/20 of 75% is 3.75, rounded up to 4).
D100: A percentile die roll, attained by rolling two 10-sided dice (D10s), with one representing the tens, and the other the ones. Some dice come already marked as ‘tens’ (00, 10, 20, etc.) and are always used as the first number in a D100 roll. A roll of 01 is the best possible result, while 100 (which usually reads as 00) is the worst.
For example, a roll of 60 (or 6) and 2 equals a result of 62.
Damage: A value representing injury, subtracted from a character’s hit points. Weapons, unfortunate events, and other hazards inflict damage on characters.
Damage Modifier: A modifier to rolled damage due to above-average Strength and Size characteristics.
DEX Rank: Based on the Dexterity characteristic, this determines when your character can usually act during a combat round. Characters with higher DEX will generally act before characters with lower DEX.
Difficulty Modifier: The amount a skill’s chance is adjusted by, based on the circumstances surrounding its use. These range from Automatic (no roll required), Easy (skill is doubled), Average (no modification to skill), and Difficult (skill is halved) to Impossible (no roll, or a 01% chance at the gamemaster’s discretion).
Experience Rolls: If you are successful with a roll for one or more of your character’s abilities or characteristic resistance rolls (see below), you should mark your character sheet in the provided check box (sometimes this action is called an “experience check”), if appropriate. Later, between adventures or during down-time, you can determine if your character’s ability has improved in that skill or if the characteristic has increased through successful use. Some skills cannot be improved by experience and must be improved through other means.
Fail: A roll of percentile dice above the required chance for success.
For example, a roll of 89 when the required chance was 56% indicates a failure.
Fatal Wound: A wound that costs your character more hit points than they currently possess. Without intervention (medical or otherwise) death comes at the end of the following combat round.
Fatigue Points: An optional system, using your character’s Strength and Constitution characteristic to determine how long they can endure strenuous physical activity before tiring.
Full Turn: A period consisting of 25 combat rounds, equaling five minutes of game world time.
Fumble: A roll of 99 and/or 00 when rolling percentile dice to determine success. Generally, when a fumble is indicated something bad happens above and beyond a simple failure.
Gamemaster (GM): The director, or guide for the game, who helps you create characters, comes up with the adventure, and represents the world outside your character, rolling dice for the nonplayer characters and the opposing forces.
Game Time: The time that elapses as a scenario or campaign unfolds as experienced by your characters. This is not usually the same as the real time you and the gamemaster spend playing.
Hit Location: An optional system for specifying where a successful attack lands on your character’s body, or where their attacks hit a foe.
Hit Points: A measure of the relative health of your character, represented in a value derived from their Constitution and Size characteristics. Attackers inflict damage in hit points, subtracted from the target’s total hit points. Usually when your character reaches 0 hit points, they are dead.
“In character” or “Out of character”: The distinction in the chat between players and the gamemaster around the gaming table, representing the difference between real-world discussion and game discussion. Both achieve the same goal, but represent different styles or aspects of play, and can be used interchangeably in play. Some groups or players lean towards one or another—it’s an element of preference. “In character” discussion is flavorful and immersive, while “out of character” discussion is essential to describe rules mechanics and to speed along play through unnecessary detail.
For example, in character, you might say ‘Sir Wilfric asks the innkeeper “Could you perhaps allow us the night’s stay for a promise of future payment!”’ while out of character, you might say “I try to Persuade the innkeeper to let us stay a night without pay.”
Magic Points: Another name for power points (see power points).
Major Wound: An injury causing enough damage to exceed half the character’s normal hit point total in a single blow. Usually accompanied by a debilitating effect.
Minor Wound: Any single injury that is less than a major wound in severity (less than 1/2 normal hit points).
Modifiers: Temporary additions or subtractions to your character’s rating in an ability, usually from circumstances, environment, or equipment.
For example, trying to pick a lock with a bent paper clip is an example of substandard tools, for a –20% modifier. Using a standard lockpick does not modify the skill. Using a deluxe set of calibrated precision lockpicks and lockpicking equipment adds +20% to your character’s skill rating.
Move (MOV): The rate of movement your character can make during a single combat round. This measurement is a flexible one, but usually translates to one meter of unhurried movement per point of MOV.
Nonplayer Character (NPC): A character or creature in the game world that is played or otherwise represented by the gamemaster, instead of being played by you or another player.
Opposed Roll: When your character wants to attempt an action another character (or nonplayer character) wants to oppose with an “opposite” skill that cancels or thwarts the initial action. In this case, both skill checks are made, and the results compared.
For example, Stealth is usually opposed by Listen.
Passion: An optional system where a strongly held belief towards a subject—such as Devotion, Fear, Hate, Love, Loyalty—is measured on a percentile basis. Passions are used to indicate or determine how your character feels about the subject and how strongly, and is often used to augment ability rolls. (see augments).
Percentile Dice: Two D10s rolled together, with one designated as the tens figure, and the other as ones. Some dice are numbered in units of ten, i.e., 00, 10, 20, 30, etc. See also D100.
Player Character (PC): This is your character, usually created and almost always controlled by you, comprised of abilities and an identity you assume through roleplaying. Your character is your representation in the game world and enables you to interact with the setting.
Power: A generic term for magic spells, mutations, psychic abilities, sorcery, or super abilities your character may possess (see Chapter 4: Powers).
Power Points: The amount of willpower or energy your character has, represented as a total based on their Power characteristic. These are spent to use special powers or abilities and can be drained by other abilities. When your character reaches 0 power points, they fall unconscious. Power points can also be called magic points in appropriate genres.
Profession: Your character’s job occupation, represented as a list of skills they have been trained to use (or have had the opportunity to learn).
Rating: The chance of success for an ability, rated as value from 1–100 (sometimes higher).
For example, Demolitions 43% is a rating of 43, meaning a 43% chance of success when the skill is attempted during normal circumstances. (see also skill rating).
Resistance Roll: When your character wants to attempt an action being resisted by an inanimate object or force, the relevant characteristic (for example, Strength) is opposed to another appropriate characteristic (for example, the stuck door’s Strength). The two numbers are cross-referenced on the resistance table (see below) to determine a chance of success, and one or both characters roll dice to see who succeeds. Equal characteristics mean a 50% chance of success. Resistance rolls can also be used when pitting one character against another character, such as an arm-wrestling match (Strength vs. Strength).
Resistance Table: The table showing the ratio of characteristic versus characteristic. To use the resistance table, find the opposing force on the vertical column, the resisting force on the horizontal column, then cross-reference them to find the likelihood of success, expressed as a percentile chance.
Roll: A roll using D100 to determine whether an attempt at performing a skill, ability, or power was successful. The result of a skill roll is a critical success, special success, success, failure, or a fumble. Additional means of determining the quality of success are presented in optional rules.
Sanity: An optional system where your character’s mental health is measured by their capacity to withstand horrific sights, events, and revelations. As Sanity gets lower, the grasp on reality diminishes. If your character loses too much Sanity at once, they can go temporarily or permanently insane.
Skill: An ability, training, field of knowledge, talent, specialty, or something your character knows something about (or is talented in), quantified as a skill level. Skills are used in skill rolls, where percentile dice are rolled against the skill’s rating.
Skill Rating: The degree of competence your character has with a skill, expressed as a number from 00% (no skill whatsoever) to 100% or higher (world-class expert).
Special Success: A roll of 1/5 of the required score for success indicates that your character performed exceptionally well and achieves a superior result than a traditional success. This is especially significant in combat.
For example, a character with 70% in a skill who rolls 14 or lower has achieved a special success.
Success: The result of a percentage dice roll where your character performed the task adequately, and achieved an average quality of success. If the roll is very low, it may be a special success or critical success, as described above. If it is above the ability ranking, it is usually a failure. If it is very high, such as a 00, it might be a fumble.
For example, if your character has a 70% in a skill, and rolls 70 or lower, they have succeeded.
Optional Rules
Over the years, various sub-systems were introduced into Basic Roleplaying games to cover situations or conditions suitable to the specific game, such as expanded combat systems for fantasy games, rules for insanity and research for horror games, rules for the use of vehicles and spaceships, rules governing grand passions and personality traits, different magic systems appropriate to the genre, etc. Core elements have even been changed or treated differently, sometimes even in different editions of the same game.
These variations appear here as optional rules, presented in boxes like this one, with suggestions about when to use them, and notes about how they affect play, and in some cases, about how they interact with other optional rules. Thus, the gamemaster can pick and choose optional rules as desired.
Before you begin play, you should decide what sorts of optional rules you want to use, especially those that apply to character creation. Chapter 10: Settings suggests what optional rules go well with particular settings, and additionally, a complete list is presented in Chapter 9: Gamemastering.