Chapter 5 - Playing the Game

Making Rolls

Now that you've got your hero built, and you've purchased some equipment, it's time to talk about how your hero interacts with the environment and other people (also known as "adventuring"), and when those interactions turn hostile (commonly known as "combat"), and how all those interactions fit into your hero's progression.

In OHO, action descriptions will instruct you to make a particular roll with an ATTRIBUTE, the number your hero has in that ATTRIBUTE is the number of d6 you roll for that action, plus modifiers to that action as determined by any APTITUDES your hero has. For example, a 2 in REFLEX grants 2d6 to any action that uses REFLEX, like a dodge DEFENSE roll. The ACROBAT aptitude gives a +1 to that roll.

The number rolled is compared to a CR, or Challenge Rating. This number depends on the action attempted, and is categorized as either a CONTESTED roll, or a GENERAL roll:

• A CONTESTED roll is when the success of an action your hero takes depends upon the outcome of another roll, such as ATTACK rolls or baneful SPELL EFFECT rolls that target others.
• A GENERAL roll is when the success of an action your hero takes depends upon the difficulty of the task itself, such as jumping a 10-foot gap or learning a particular skill.

General Rolls

Applicable to most situations, a general roll combines each result of the die in your pool, and compares it to the CR.

Contested Rolls

Typically used in interaction encounters, be it combat or social, contested rolls are rolls against another character (or monster!), where individual dice values are compared to each other. After each pool of dice are rolled, arrange the values in descending order vertically, and match the counterparts. Any extra dice are set aside and will be used shortly; compare the dice rolls, adding any modifiers to each of your die (not the extra). The extra die are added together and used as a pool of bonus points to be added; first to die that are less than their contested die, and then the rest goes to the highest roll.

Success

If the number you rolled is greater than or equal to the CR, your hero has succeeded, gaining half the CR as success points to the appropriate category:

• MIGHT, REFLEX, and FORTITUDE rolls grant Physical Success Points
• INTELLECT and PERCEPTION rolls grant Mental Success Points
• APPEARANCE and PERSONALITY rolls grant Social Success Points
• MANA rolls grant Mystical Success Points

If that number is double the CR, that's a critical success! Your hero gains the CR as success points, and for effects that count successes, counts as two successes. For every multiple higher, count another success. Success also counts die rating; divide the number of success points your hero gains by the difference in their dice pool and the die rating, rounding up (to a minimum of one (1) success point).
For example, if a hero with MIGHT 3 rolls against a CR of 4, an average roll of 10 is a critical success, but the CR is a one-die rating, so 3 - 1 = 2, causing a gain of only 2 physical success points.

Success points are discussed more in Advancement.

Actions

Actions your hero takes have a "tick" cost, which mostly applies during an encounter. These costs represent the amount of effort that goes into the individual action. For example, to make a basic attack with an equipped weapon is a 3-tick action. More detail on that in Combat.

There are many basic actions that your hero can take, and many more that are granted by purchasing various APTITUDES.

Table 5-1 lists the basic actions that can be taken during the game, and the general associated ATTRIBUTE that governs it:

Social Encounters

Turns in a social encounter are relatively fluid, but follow a few loose guidelines:

• Players in social encounters roll initiative, which is a general PERSONALITY roll, with the highest going first.
• A player that takes an action with a specified tick cost doesn't get to act again until at least X other participants have, where X is the tick cost.

Combat Encounters

Turns in a combat encounter can be represented by an six-spoke wheel around which the players' turns (represented by tokens) revolve. Each slice of the wheel delineated by a spoke represents a tick. Number them from 1 to 6.

Resolving Combat Initiative

When an encounter starts, everyone involved rolls REFLEX, taking the total as if it were a general roll. Ties compare rolls as if contested, with more successes going first. The highest number goes first, declaring an action, and then placing their token on the appropriate tick for their action's cost and then resolving that action. Then, in descending order of initiative, actions are taken, resolved, and tokens placed. Once every one of the participant's tokens have been placed, play then moves to the next tick, with the participant(s) there taking their action and moving their token(s). If two (or more) players start in the same tick AND they had the same starting initiative, they roll off with REFLEX, the winner going first; otherwise, the original initiative order prevails.

For example, the heroes Antoine, Bronson, and Chadwin are fighting against two goblins (let's call them gob_1 and gob_2). After initiative rolls, Antoine got a total of 7, Bronson got a 5, and Chadwin and the goblins have 3. So, the goblins tying with Chadwin means his roll becomes contested with the goblin(s), and since they're monsters, Chadwin's 3 counts as a success, meaning he will go before the goblins. To illustrate this, let's follow a round of actions. Say Antoine's player decides to have him DASH in a direction. From tick 1, Antoine's player moves their token to tick 3, and Antoine moves in the direction indicated. Then, it's Bronson's turn, and he wants to take the ATTACK action, attacking gob_1 with a bow, and moving from tick 1 to tick 4, moving gob_1 to tick 2. Next is Chadwin's turn, who decides to take a STEP confidently forward, moving from tick 1 to tick 2. Finally, gob_2 (that was not attacked yet) can DASH forward, so the GM moves gob_2's token from tick 1 to tick 3. Now that there are no other participants waiting to take action, play moves forward tick by tick until one is found with a token representing a member of combat waiting to take an action, in this case it would be tick 2 with Chadwin and gob_1. Chadwin went before the goblins and will do so now, and decides that, now that gob_2 is in his melee reach, will ATTACK it with his equipped weapon. The attack is resolved and Chadwin's token is then placed from tick 2 to tick 5, while the attacked gob_2 is pushed forward a tick (to tick 4). After again checking for participants waiting to act, play moves from tick 2 to tick 3, where Antoine awaits to take his next action. Gob_2 is in Antoine's reach, so he takes an ATTACK action, moving from tick 3 to tick 6 (and pushing the goblin forward 1 tick, but let's say this attack kills gob_2). Now play moves to tick 4, where gob_1 awaits with Bronson to take their next actions. Bronson went before the goblins, so he will here, too, and can make another attack (placing him around the wheel into the next round, tick 1) and kills gob_1.

Attacking and Defending

To make an attack, first the attacker takes the ATTACK action, making a MIGHT roll, and adding any appropriate bonuses from APTITUDES. To DEFEND, the defender then takes either the DODGE or PARRY action, rolling as appropriate. Order the rolls from highest to lowest, and compare the opposing values. Each success by the attacker is an injury for the defender (See Injuries). If the attacker scores no successes, no damage is dealt. More dice than the contested roll counts as an automatic success.

Momentum

Some Actions grant Momentum (X). Momentum translates it's value in the form of a bonus on the next Action taken, called "using Momentum". For example, let's say Antoine has a REFLEX of 1, and he takes the Dash Action, moving twice his speed, and gaining Momentum 2 for his next Action. He decides to take the ATTACK action next, gaining +2 to the roll.

Facing

Your hero has different "faces". OHO uses a hex grid; your hero has a front, back, and two each of front-side and back-side. Your hero can change their facing:

• At the start of their action
• After a move action (except for DASH or JUMP)
• If they haven't changed facing from the beginning of the action, they may at the end

Table 5-2 shows the bonuses for ATTACK rolls made at each side.

Flanking

A creature is flanked when two hostile creatures' faces are perpendicular and the creature is between them. Flankers grant each other their own bonus (flanking over a side grants each flanker a total of +4).

Resolving Damage

Armor, while providing little in the way of keeping one from getting hit, does protect the defender by reducing the amount of damage taken. Armor provides an initial number of automatic successes equal to (1 if Easy or Normal, 0 if Hardcore or Honour) + (1 if Light armor, 2 if Heavy, x the quality). Light armor applies one success at a time and Heavy, two; until there are no more left, indicating the armor needs to be repaired. As such, if the defender is wearing armor, first reduce the damage by the amount indicated by the type of armor worn.

Status: Injuries and Conditions

Your hero's status is a list of injuries and/or conditions that are currently affecting them. If your hero gains more injuries than their FORTITUDE score, they gain the stunned condition. If your hero has more instances of any injury than their FORTITUDE score when they gain the injury, they also gain the dying condition. Each injury incurred is a cumulative -1 penalty on FORTITUDE rolls, in addition to the other effects of the injury, as noted below.

Injuries

Table 5-3 shows various injuries and what type of damage causes them.

Bleeding - At the beginning of the round (tick 1), roll FORTITUDE against the number of bleeding your hero has.

• Critical success removes one instance of bleeding.
• Failure gains an additional instance of bleeding.
• Critical failure causes your hero to gain the dying condition and an instance of bleeding.

Concussion - At the beginning of the round, roll FORTITUDE against the number of concussion your hero has. Hero takes a flat penalty to INTELLECT and PERCEPTION actions equal to the number of concussion.

• Critical success removes one instance of concussion.
• Failure gains an additional instance of concussion.
• Critical failure causes your hero to gain the dying condition and an instance of concussion.

Burned - At the beginning of the round, roll FORTITUDE against the number of burned instances your hero has.

• Failure causes your hero to gain the disabled condition for this round.
• Critical failure causes your hero to gain the unconscious condition.

Frostbite - Hero takes a flat penalty to REFLEX actions equal to the number of frostbite.

Poisoned - At the beginning of the round, roll FORTITUDE against poison.

• Critical success removes one instance of poison.
• Failure grants a penalty to actions equal to number of poison until next round, and another instance of poison.
• Critical failure causes your hero to gain the disabled condition until next round, and another instance of poison.

Conditions

Conditions can afflict your hero in varying ways, from the effects of magical spells to mundane traps, darkness, starvation, or exhaustion.

Blinded - Affected creature can't see. Automatically fails any action that requires sight. Lose 1d to any actions with the physical trait.

Confused - Affected creature is unable to think or reason clearly. Every turn acts randomly and out of character.

Cursed - Affected creature gets penalty to an attribute, defined when the curse takes effect.

Deafened - Affected creature can't hear. Automatically fails any action that requires hearing. Lose 1d to PERCEPTION rolls and any action with the auditory trait.

Disabled - Affected creature is incapacitated, and unable to act for as long as this condition persists.

Dying - Affected creature is close to death. At the beginning of the round, add another instance of dying. Successive injuries also add instances of dying. A creature gains the unconscious condition when their dying equals their FORTITUDE, and dies when their instances of dying exceeds their FORTITUDE.

Fatigued - Affected creature has one or more levels of exhaustion. Multiple instances of fatigued are cumulative, each giving a -1d penalty to actions with the physical or mental traits. Table 5-4 shows additional effects of multiple instances of fatigued on a creature:

Frightened - Affected creature loses 1D to all actions while in line of sight of its source of fear. Cannot take actions that would cause it to move closer to the source of fear.

Panicked - Affected creature can only use its actions to move away from the source of fear.

Paralyzed - Affected creature's speed is 0, and cannot take actions for as long as this condition persists.

Petrified - Affected creature suffers a -1 penalty to speed for each instance of petrified. Every round, gain an additional instance of petrified, until the number of petrified equals affected creature's FORTITUDE, in which case the creature is turned wholly to stone.

Prone - Affected creature is lying on the ground, their speed halved (rounded down), and take a -1d penalty to physical actions.

Stunned - Affected creature is unable to act until next round, and one instance of stunned is removed.

Unconscious - Affected creature is Prone and incapacitated.

Renown

How your hero is perceived by the populace is largeley relegated by Renown. Each action taken by a hero can affect their renown, either positively or negatively. The GM will decide, and there are benefits and drawbacks to having positive and negative Renown.

Rests and Downtime

Rests

A rest can be taken only while exploring, not in an Encounter, during which certain actions, like TREAT-INJURIES, may be taken. For every hour of rest your hero takes, they must wait (3[EASY], 6[NORMAL], 9[HARDCORE], 12[HONOUR]) hours before being able to rest again.

• For every hour of rest, remove an instance of bleeding and concussion.

Downtime

Downtime occurs during gaps in the narrative, typically between sessions of play, or as the GM specifies. Work with your GM to determine how this time is spent for your hero.

Advancement