One-Roll Engine Fundamentals

Background
The One-Roll Engine (ORE) is a system designed by Greg Stolze (best known as one of the co-creators, along with
John Tynes, of Unknown Armies). Anecdotally, Stolze created it while tinkering around with White Wolf's
Storyteller system. First used in the World War II superhero game Godlike it's been used for Superhero Roleplaying
(Godlike, Wild Talents, Better Angels), Epic Fantasy (Reign), Modern Fantasy (Monsters and Other Childish
Things), Horror (Nemesis) and even Noir (A Dirty Word). Each game uses variant rules designed to optimize the
play experience for its particular genre, but the core resolution mechanic, the One-Roll Engine, is the same.

Rolling dice
The ORE uses a pool of 10-sided dice. The size of the pool is written as "#d", so that a pool of 6 d10s is written as
6d. When you roll your dice, you're looking for matches, which are called Sets. For instance, let's say you roll 8d and
get this outcome:
1 1 4 4 9 9 9 10
Your Sets are 1 1, 4 4, and 9 9 9.

A Set has two elements. The number of dice in the Set is called its Width. The number on the dice themselves are
called its Height. Sets are written as Width x Height so in the above outcome, your Sets are 2x1, 2x4 and 3x9.

Most actions require only a single Set to be successful, and generally any Set will do. As another general rule, you
should only roll if your action is challenging or where the outcome could be interesting. You don't need to roll to
walk to the store and buy milk.

Any dice that aren't part of a Set are called Loose Dice Loose Dice generally don't do anything, but sometimes you'll
come across abilities where they come in handy, so don't forget about them entirely.

What Sets Mean

Width tells you the speed and intensity of an action. A Set with 5 Width is much faster than Le Belle Curve
a Set with 2 Width. This comes into play most prominently in combat. Getting hit first can This is a general guide to your
sometimes spoil your attack, and a shield raised too slowly won't protect you from a swift chances of rolling at least one
dagger. Set
Height tells you how precise and accomplished an action is. A Set with 1 Height is sloppy 2d 10%
and unprofessional, like a third-grader blowing on a recorder. A Set with 10 Height is 3d 28%
magnificently executed, like a concert violist playing Mozart's Symphonie Nr. 40. In combat 4d 50%
Height determines an attack's damage. A 4x1 is fast but weak; a 2x10 is slow but devastating. 5d 70%
6d 85%
Height also determines how difficult to stop or avoid an action is. You can't dodge an arrow 7d 93%
shot at you with a 2x10 with a measely 3x2 attempt to roll out of the way, and a lie woven 8d 98%
with a masterful 3x8 can't be unwound even with a similarly proficient 3x7. 9d 99.6%
10d 99.9%
In terms of probability, Width has a pretty sharp curve. At low dice pools you're very
unlikely to get more than 2 Width, and it's only in the most extreme circumstances that As you can see, it doesn’t take
you'll ever get more than 5 Width even when you're rolling all 10d. Normally it hovers many dice get even or better
between 2-3, with 4 being extremely good. Height is pretty much entirely random. odds. Once you hit 7d you start
to see diminishing returns on
your odds of rolling a Set; the
real advantage to a dice pool
that big is better odds of getting
multiple Sets and very Wide sets.
 Difficult Actions
When you want to simulate particularly hard actions, you can introduce Difficulty. Difficulty is a minimum Height
requirement for a successful action. This is the normal difficulty scale for ORE:

3 Pretty challenging; an untrained person would probably be stumped

5 Quite hard; even well trained experts will sweat
7 Daunting; only the best have a chance at success
9 Nearly impossible; success, even for the world's most renowned expert, owes more to luck
than anything else
Acting Fast
If a character has to do something very quickly, success is determined by their Width. For instance if you're trying to
knock-out a guard before he can fire an arrow at a bell to signal the fortress garrison, you might need a minimum
Width of 3 to do it. If you only have a 2 Width you might still knock the guard out, but not before he signaled back-
up.

Since very Wide sets are harder to get than very High ones, the speed hierarchy is much shorter.

2 Width Normal speed

3 Width Very fast, as in the above example
4 Width Blindingly fast; it takes everything you have to intercept something this quick

Bonuses and Penalties

If a situation grants you some kind of clear advantage, it can be modeled as a Bonus, which grants additional dice.
Similarly a situation that hinders you is a Penalty, which takes your dice away. A GM can declare whatever bonuses
or penalties he wants, but generally you won't see more than +3d or -3d.

A small bonus or penalty is usually the result of one thing going well or poorly; a major bonus or penalty is usually a
mixture of lots of elements combining together to give you a major windfall, or to ruin your day. Here's an example
of how bonuses or penalties can work in combat:

+3d Major Bonus Ambushing a prone target after taking a turn to prepare your attack
+2d Significant Bonus Ambushing a prone target
+1d Minor Bonus Ambushing someone
-1d Minor Penalty Shooting a moving target
-2d Significant Penalty Shooting a moving target through a smokescreen
-3d Major Penalty Shooting a moving target through a smokescreen with your off-hand

Generally, Penalties are more punishing for players than Difficulties are, especially with low dice pools. A -2d penalty
won't bother someone rolling 10d very much, but if they're only rolling 5d it's going to cripple their chances of
success.

Multiple Actions
When you want to do two things at once, you're attempting Multiple Actions. This is only if both actions would
reasonably take up a big chunk of your attention and energy. You don't need Multiple Actions to sip from a tankard
while riding a horse, but you do need to follow these rules when you're trying to fire an arrow while riding at a full
gallop.
If both your actions use the same dice pool, like trying to punch two people in quick succession with your Strenggth
pool, then do the following:

1. Drop 1d from your pool

2. Roll your dice
3. Look for two different Set and assign each to one of the actions you're attempting

If your two actions use different dice pools (like riding and shooting), then you choose the smaller of the two dice
pools. So if you're trying to ride with 8d and shoot with 7d, start with 7d, drop 1d, and roll the remaining 6d and
look for two Sets.

If you only roll 1 Set, you need to choose which action succeeds. Do you miss your target but keep pace, or do you
hit them but allow them to escape injured?

You can attempt as many Multiple Actions as you want, dropping 1d from your dice pool for each additional action.
So at -2d you can attempt 3 actions; but you better be using a big dice pool because you're gonna need three separate
Sets.

In Once Rekindled Embers, there are some additional rules for Multiple Actions related to combat especially; for
instance there's a larger penalty for attacking with Multiple Actions using a large, heavy weapon like a Zweihander vs
a normal broadsword; conversely there's no Penalty for multiple attacks when you use a small, light weapon like a
dagger.

Gobble Dice
Whenever you're trying to prevent someone from doing something, whether you're using your intuition to ferret out
a person's lies or your agility to dodge a battle-axe, the Set that you roll to beat them turns into Gobble Dice.
Gobble Dice cancel dice from other Sets of equal or lesser Height. If a Set gets gobbled down to 1 Width, it fails
(since a Set with 1 Width is just loose die). These two examples (detecting lies and dodging attacks) both employ
Gobble Dice, but in slightly different ways.

In the case of detecting lies, all you need is to beat your adversary's height to Gobble them. So if they rolled a 2x5
and you rolled a 2x8, they're busted. Your Set has enough Height to gobble them down. They're also burned if your
Heights are equal, so if they rolled a 2x8, they're still busted. They're also busted if they rolled a 3x8 lie vs your 2x8
detection; your dice will gobble their Lie Set down to a 1x8, which is a failure.

However, if the liar rolled a 4x8 vs your 2x8, they got away with it. You can only Gobble them down to a 2x8, which
is still a success. Maybe something still smells fishy to you, but their alibi still seems tight. The take-away from this is
that in most contest, the Higher Set has an advantage, unless the Set being gobbled is very wide; in game, finesse
always beats sloppy execution (the realm of Height), but sheer effort can sometimes win out (the realm of Width).

In combat, Gobble Dice work a little differently. You still need to beat the Height of an attack to defend against it,
so a lowly 2x3 can't evade a towering 2x10. But in combat, timing matters a lot more. If someone's lying to you, it
doesn't matter that much fast they talk if you catch them in a clear lie. But when you're fighting someone, if you can't
react fast enough to protect yourself you're done. As a result, to dodge an attack your defending Set must equal or
exceed BOTH the attack's Height and Width. Not enough Height means you didn't execute correctly; not enough
Width means you were too slow.

This can make it seems like defense is a sucker's game in Once Rekindled Embers. Sometimes the best defense is
just hitting someone before they hit you. But a successful Defense can be very powerful, for one reason: Once a Set
becomes Gobble Dice, you can split the dice up however you want.

Here's a combat example. Let's say that you're being attacked by three dudes, and you choose to defend yourself by
dodging out of the way. You roll a 3x8 and they roll a 2x1, a 2x5 and a 2x8. Your Width is greater than any of those
Sets, so you're fast enough to react to them, and so is your Height, so your moves are good enough as well. You can
then shoot one of your 8s at each of those Sets to Gobble them down to 1 Width, which breaks them all. So your
one Defense Set just outfoxed three separate attacks, rolling around at the speed of sound.

Now if one of those attacks was instead had 3 Width, you'd need to make a choice. If instead you were facing a 2x1,
3x5 and 2x8, you don't have enough Gobble Dice to break all of them, since you need 2 to stop that 3x5. So you use
2 8's to break that, and another 8 to break the 2x8 coming at you, leaving you vulnerable to the 2x1. Not the end of
the world but you still got hit.

Note that in the combat example we're only talking about dodging out of the way. Blocking with a Shield is another
matter, and the rules for that are detailed when we start talking about combat.