StarDrive Games

But/And/No/Yes

[tabby title=”Basic”]

I.            Basic Rules

A.           Core System

Welcome to a super simple storytelling tool inspired by improv theater. You can use it as the system for a role-playing game (RPG) or for writing a novel. For most actions you will roll one six-sided die (d6). Say what your character is trying to do, roll the die, and then interpret the result. Imagine you are asking the story a yes or no question.

Here’s the result table:

  1. No/And – The worst result. Not only did you fail, but you also made things worse or suffered some additional harm.
  2. No – A simple failure. You didn’t get what you wanted but you’re no worse off for having tried.
  3. No/But – You failed, but something about the situation works in your favor anyway.
  4. Yes/But – You succeed but you’re not in the clear. There was some price or side effect.
  5. Yes – A solid success!
  6. Yes/And – Not only did you succeed; you did a bit more than expected or there’s some side benefit.

B.           Example: The Spy

1.                  The Question

Alan, the spy asks, “Can I knock the security guard unconscious… without killing him?”. Beth, the game master (GM), replies, “let’s see what happens!”. Alan rolls and gets….

2.                  The Results

  1. No/And – The guard is still awake and hit the alarm button. More goons are on their way.
  2. No – The guard is still awake and fighting back.
  3. No/But – Alan whiffs the attack with the stun dart, but the guard is unaware the spy is there.
  4. Yes/But – The guard is down but managed to hit the alarm button. Or the guard has an adverse reaction to the dart, and he dies twitching. This could be a moral dilemma for the character.
  5. Yes – Bonk! The guard is out like a light without any further harm.
  6. Yes/And – The guard slouches in his chair in a way that a casual observer might not realize anything is amiss. Or his slouching draws attention to something useful to the players, like a key.

3.                  Note

It’s important to think about what the Buts and Ands mean, and use them as a reference for a simple Yes or No. No/But needs to be better than just No, but not as good as a Yes/But. In this case, No must mean a bit more than just failing to knock out the guard.

C.           Example: The Bard and the Baron

1.                  The Question

“Can I convince the Baron to let us stay in his castle for the night?”

  1. No/And – The baron is offended these rabble would even ask. They take a few bruises as the guards roughly escort them out of the castle.
  2. No – The baron politely, but firmly declines.
  3. No/But – He sends the party away but gives them a letter granting them a night at the inn at his expense. This means they have shelter, but not security from their pursuers.
  4. Yes/But – The Baron allows them to stay in a room in his castle, but he will demand a favor for it.
  5. Yes – He pauses and says the party may stay in the great hall.
  6. Yes/And – The baron is delighted to have brave adventurers to stay in his home. He treats them to a hearty meal and fine bedrooms. They awake refreshed.

2.                  Note

The result determines the mindset of the baron. The baron is neutral to the party before the roll. The die determines his attitude. Also, the No/But is a decent result. The No refers to the player’s stated goal – staying inside the castle – where they would have shelter, comfort and security. One interpretation of No/But might be one of the guards escorting the party directs them to an unused building within the fortifications.

D.            General Guidance for GMs

1.                  One Side Rolls

In BANY, generally only the player/protagonist side of the conflict rolls. When you attack, the target’s ability to dodge or counterattack is built into the roll. What the enemy vampire does to the PC depends on the player’s roll. Both sides’ intentions are rolled into the player’s roll via what happens with a result of a No. When the player gets a No, the GM gets a Yes, and vice versa. Both sides will roll when the conflict is between PCs.

2.                  To Roll or Not to Roll?

a)            Resist the urge to call for a roll for every little task.

b)            Don’t roll if the outcome is obvious or when chance is not a factor. Like if the noodle armed nerd is arm wrestling the quarterback. The suave spy can seduce the receptionist. It’s not even an issue.

c)            Don’t roll if nothing is at stake. Characters act because they want something. That desire may be to slay a dragon or to avoid some harm. The stakes are what could go wrong or right. Skip rolling if there’s no harm in failure or nothing to gain. Is it a scene that a director would cut from the film? Would a writer address it in a sentence, or a chapter?

d)            Don’t roll for the same conflict repeatedly. The question should be, “can I sneak my way to the server room?”.  It shouldn’t be, “can I sneak past this guard, that guard, the motion sensor etc.”. That just becomes punishing. If you want to represent the action being very difficult you can do that with the modifications described below. The exception to this would be an Extended Test (see below).

3.                  Allow the Die to Help the Player

In the case of the bard, the player might not know to address the baron as “your lordship” or other etiquette, but the character certainly does. Let the die speak for the character’s knowledge.

4.                  Role While You Roll

Both player and GM should build the narrative before and after the die roll. Emote, describe, act out! Consider giving the player a second die for exceptional performances.

5.                  Help

Many RPGs have rules for PCs to help each other. BANY does by asking, “was my assistance helpful?”. The players should explain how their character can help. Can the character provide help on this task at all? As in, does the helper know what they are doing, and would the situation allow help at? It doesn’t make sense that the swordsman can help the wizard design a spell. How many people can reasonably help with the challenge? Swinging a one-handed sword is a one warrior job.

For simplicity, you can say that help is always… helpful. Or, you can have the helping player roll. A simple No means the helper did not benefit the active character. A No/And indicates the helper somehow made things worse (inflicting Disadvantage). A Yes grants a benefit. A successful attempt to help could grant the active character a +1 or Advantage. Requiring a roll adds some drama to the attempt to help. You might ease the burden of pouring over scrolls, or you might get the scrolls out of order.

E.           Representing Difficulty and Competence

BANY rolls assume the character has even odds of success. As we said above, if the task is too difficult or too easy, there’s no need to roll. Just go with what seems to be a certain outcome. If the situation is just shy of too easy or too difficult, here are a few ways to represent that.

Advantage and Disadvantage – I’m going to steal a great idea from D&D called advantage and disadvantage. Advantage means you roll two dice and use the better. Disadvantage is the opposite; roll two and keep the worst. Instead of an even chance of each possible outcome you get a slant toward one end or the other. The average with advantage is 4.5 instead of 3.5. Disadvantage averages 2.5.

a) If conditions provide both advantage and disadvantage, they cancel, leaving it a normal roll. Having advantage or disadvantage with three or more dice makes success or failure too certain to be fun.

b) Give advantage when the character has greater than average ability, equipment or circumstances. When a veteran warrior squares off against a novice. To the hacker with upgraded RAM. The soldier on the high ground should have advantage on their roll.

c) Impose disadvantage when the veteran warrior is fighting her teacher. To the hacker with a defective stick of RAM. And to the soldier charging uphill.

+/- 1 – Another way to tweak a roll is with a plus or minus 1. A +1 makes the result of 1 impossible and significantly increases the likelihood of a Yes/And result. A minus -1 does the opposite. Having both +1 and -1 leaves you with a normal roll. Treat a 0 (1 – 1) as a 1. Treat a 7 as a 6.

Rerolls – If the task is low risk, grant the PC a chance to reroll the die if it shows a 1.

[tabby title=”Extended Tasks”]

II.         Extended Tasks

A.           Extended Tasks

Sometimes a task is too big (time consuming) to resolve in one go. In the basic rules we covered single actions; a sniper taking a shot, a bard romancing a dragon or a thief cracking a standard safe. Here we’ll look at efforts that take place over hours, days or months.

Examples – Here are some example questions an extended test might answer. Can I forge a sword good enough to earn a place as a master in the smithing guild? Can Alice write a program to secretly siphon a fraction of the megacorp’s earnings to fund our gang’s efforts against them? Will the kung fu training montage be long enough to make me good enough to win the state championship?

Overview – The player will make a series of rolls, one at a time. Each Yes (4-6) increments the answer of the extended roll. Thus, three Yes rolls would generate a 3 as a result on the final result of a No/But. These individual rolls ask, “did I make progress on this project?”.

B.           For Each Roll

  1. No/And – This particular effort undoes one level of progress. GMs should be kind enough to not reduce you below one. If you were sitting at a Yes, you are downgraded to Yes/But. Or perhaps this day’s failure inflicts disadvantage on your next roll or costs some additional resource.
  2. No – Nope. This week you were too busy to lift, bro. You made a bad batch of Frog’s Breath. You forgot to carry the two.
  3. No/But – Still no progress, but all is not lost. You used less quicksilver on this try. A painful learning experience will give you a +1 on the next roll.
  4. Yes/But – You moved forward on your plan, yet Murphy’s Law still took some toll. You used your last bezoar to get the true name of that demon. You lost track of time, and you’ll have to turn in your thesis late. You annoyed the librarian and will have -1 on your next research roll.
  5. Yes – A solid result from a solid week of work.
  6. Yes/And – This effort yields two degrees of success or grants some other additional benefit like a +1 on the next roll. You had some profound insight in the shower that changes everything. This batch of Worm’s Wart was so potent you needed just a dash instead of a cup.

Time/Resource Limit – For some extended tests the player might be able to keep rolling until they get the desired result. A more likely scenario is each roll costs something. Use these costs to limit how many tries the character gets and to create tension.

Time – Each roll should come with a time cost at a scale that makes sense. For mixing a new potion you might be looking at each roll taking an hour. Rolls to complete a PhD might represent months. In some cases, the PC might not be able to do much of anything else. The reagents will not wait. In the case of the PhD, the character certainly could engage in other activities, like teaching a class. A time cost is a great way to represent a deadline or missed opportunity. Your advisor might tire of your excuses and cut you from her grant.

Other Resources – For some projects, the cost will be some other limited resource. The potion experiment will consume expensive reagents, or shatter hard to replace vials. If you run out of Frog’s Breath, you must buy or find more. You can try over and over, but it’s going to hurt.

Specific/General Rolls – The player and GM should discuss if the rolls are for specific tasks under the project as a whole, or if they are a vague sort of progress. For the project of getting the demon’s true name the effort could be reading book after book. A more specific breakdown could be something like, read these books, summon a lesser demon, inscribe the summoning circle and so on. The specific roll option takes more thought and might be more fun, or at least more flavorful.

Inspiration – Take a look at Jon Harper’s amazing Forged in the Dark system. What I present here is in part inspired by his downtime activities and progress clocks (BladesInTheDark.com).

Interaction/Negotiation – These projects shouldn’t be a lifeless ‘roll die, number goes up’. Treat them with at least as much care as the standard roll. The player and the GM should think about how the project will unfold. Talk about why the character is doing this. What do you gain if successful? What are you losing by working on this instead of that? How is the result going to change the game or even just the character? Why bother if the project isn’t going to make a difference? Will that change be too great? Inventing a suit of impervious armor could be game breaking. Will there be some consequence for failure beyond the sunk costs?

A.           Example

Overview – Bronwyn must create an original and potent spell to join the ranks of the masters in the Guild of Wizardry. She’ll work on her spell as one of her downtime activities (what she does when she’s not adventuring). This is a personal goal, not something that must be achieved by a certain time, or at all. She’ll be able to make as many effort rolls as she likes. The time cost takes the form of opportunity cost… the longer it takes the less time she’ll have for other activities. The GM stipulates Bronwyn will have to pay for each die/roll, to cover the cost of reagents and materials.

Progress Table

  1. No/And – She’s woefully unprepared to demonstrate the spell to the guild. She’d likely lose membership for wasting their time.
  2. No – Still not ready.
  3. No/But – She wouldn’t be laughed out of the room, but her advisor would offer advice for the next attempt.
  4. Yes/But – She passes the test by the skin of her teeth. Some guild masters will hold resentment that she was promoted for subpar work.
  5. Yes – Her spell is original and potent. The guild masters welcome her into their ranks.
  6. Yes/And – Her fellow masters applaud her artistry. Generations of wizards will learn Bronwyn’s Blast.

The Rolls – The GM and Bronwyn’s player decide each roll should have some specific, explicit purpose toward the project.

For the first roll, she does research to design a spell that would be original. She hits the books hard. Bronny has a specialization in research, so she has advantage on the roll. The dice hit the table for a pair of sixes. Yes, she has a theory for a unique spell, and she has a very clear idea on how to proceed. The GM grants her two increments of progress and gives her a +1 for the rest of the project.

Returning to research after clearing out some catacombs, Bronny spends her downtime on her spell. Thank Gygax she had that +1 from the first roll or she would have lost progress from the 1 she just rolled.

Determined to do better this weekend, she hires a fellow journeyman to help her. Now with two dice she gets a 5. She’s up to a 3 for her progress.

Bronwyn’s player opts to spend some willpower, a metamechanic (see below) allowing the player to alter the outcome, to get advantage on the next roll. Another PC offers her a vial of rare mushroom spores for an additional +1. Her higher die is a 4, but the two bonuses put her at 6. for another two degrees of progress. With a Yes result for the project, Bronwyn decides to present her spell to the masters.

Completion – The demonstration of the spell is a hit. Bronwyn’s Blast fills everyone in the room with a feeling of excitement and reduced inhibition. The masters use her spell to celebrate her promotion. Everyone at the party had a blast.

[tabby title=”Group Tasks”]

III.        Group Tasks

A.           Introduction

Teamwork makes the dream work. Sometimes you’re going to need more than the Help Action (I.C.5) to get something done. BANY calls this a Group Test.

Examples – Can we convince the baron to lend troops to defending the valley bridge? Can we scrounge together enough cash to pay off the loan shark so Alan can keep his teeth? Can the squad snipe all of the guards in each of the four watch towers at the same time?

Overview – Instead of rolling one die, all the players will roll one (possibly two) die, and each Yes result will increment the “roll” of the Group Test result. Thus, three dice showing Yes would give the team a 3 (No/But) for the test. It’s like an Extended Test (II.2), each die contributes to the final result, but the dice come from multiple characters and all the effort happens at roughly the same time in the story.

B.           For Each Player

These rolls answer, “was I helpful to the cause?”. Will your character roll one die, or with advantage or disadvantage?

  1. No/And – You did not contribute and somehow made things worse. Your poor enunciation trips the tongue of the paladin who was already struggling, so he’ll make his roll at disadvantage on his roll. Your sniper rifle is jammed and useless for the rest of this mission.
  2. No – Well, at least you didn’t make things worse. The ghost manages to put a chandelier between you and it, reducing your team’s effect.
  3. No/But – Your efforts didn’t help this time around but there’s some consolation. The ghost dodged your proton pack blast but did so by moving closer to your teammate; she’ll have advantage on her roll.
  4. Yes/But – This time your positive contribution came at some cost. Perhaps you were injured, you jostled your teammate and ruined his shot, or your wand overheated.
  5. Yes – Good job, you helped your team. Your effort was solid, but not noteworthy.
  6. Yes/And – Not only did you help, but your effort was extra helpful. This might grant another player a +1 (I.D.2) to their roll, to reroll a failed die, or your roll counts as two Yes dice.

B.           Number of Players

If the party has six players, getting a final result is simple. Each Yes increments the degree of success. Four successes mean a Yes/But. With three characters you might need to let each Yes count for two increments or have each player roll twice. Between four and five players you will have to use your intuition to allow them the possibility of a Yes/And. Perhaps a player rolling a Yes/And counts as two increments.

A.           Role of Each Character

As with individual rolls, it must make sense how the character is contributing. If the goal is to abjure the Balrog, not even a Yes/And will help if you’re trying to using your cooking skill. The GM should be flexible about what to allow, but not amorphous.

A.           Example

Defining – Ctrl-A, Biron and Synthia are coordinating an attack on the Gibson mainframe. Can they get the VP’s password? First, let’s get more specific about the goal. They want to gain access, find the password and leave without a trace.

Dividing – While all of this falls under hacking, these cyberpunks have specialties. Ctrl-A’s focus is on research. He’ll learn what model hardware and software versions are between them and their goal. Biron uses his hackathon ability to remain calm and alert during the attack. The team’s social engineer is Synthia. She’ll make a few strategic phone calls to get inside intel on their target. The players roll and the GM interprets.

Interpreting – For simplicity, the GM can just take the rolls as increments toward the final result. Or she might interpret rolls in particular ways. Ctrl-A’s result could mean they make assumptions about what they’re up against. Biron might falter and need to use a stimpak to keep going. Synthia’s Yes/And can be two increments or give her advantage on the next roll.

Implementing – Any result in the region of No means they failed in their goal, but we listed three subgoals. The players and GM can negotiate where to assign their Yes and No rolls. The players decide to prioritize getting access and getting the password, leaving the failure on the goal to leave no trace. If you look at it as one question, the above looks like a Yes/But. They have the password, but the sysadmin knows who infiltrated.

B.           Group Extended

Introduction – The extended task with a group task to get a group extended task. The example of hacking the Gibson would make a great group extended task. Each PC makes a series of rolls, the rolls accumulate into a sort of meta result, which combine into the group’s final result.

Each player – could make three rolls, with Yes/And granting two increments, to answer “do my efforts help?”. If the PC gets four or more on those roll, they increment the group’s success by one.

Combine – Use the ideas above to further refine the various efforts, costs and questions. In the case of hacking the Gibson, you would likely further break down each character’s part in the effort. Any heist montage can inspire you, in particular the Hack the Gibson chapter of the movie Hackers. The main characters recruit help, they divide the labor, they did some social engineering to get inside intel and finally, they made their attack on the mainframe.

Example

The GM says they have three days to navigate dungeon, thus each roll will represent a day of adventuring. The group has four characters. This means we’ll have twelve dice in total. Dividing that by six tells us each PC will contribute up to two degrees of success. You don’t have to do math like this. Feel free to arrange it in a way that fits your group and the narrative you’re creating.

The initial question is, “can we find the reliquary before the winter solstice”. The GM and players might want to add, “and all get out alive”.

A dull way of doing it would be, “I use this skill, and I got a… four”. It would be much cooler for the players and GM to create obstacles to roll against. This creates questions like, “can I disarm this trap?”. Set a scene of the thief detecting and defeating the trap… or the consequences of failure. Let the burly warrior have a scene of hacking some fell beast… or being eaten by it. The GM can adjust the consequences for failure to create the desired tone. They could be delays, consumed resources and even outright harm.

Failing Forward – Speaking of failure, don’t let any particular die roll shut down the whole effort. For instance, if there’s a locked door and the thief fails to pick the lock, let the warrior hack it down. This might draw unwanted attention. Or have the thief break part of their kit.

Failing – The result of the Group Extended task might be a No. What does that look like for your initial question? It might mean the PCs don’t find the reliquary or find it in time. Sometimes heroes fail. The consequence should be proportional to the effort and the goal. Let’s say they were trying to stop the world from ending and failed. You don’t have to jump to the world ending, and thus ending the campaign. It could mean the world of the game changes in a drastic way. The dead crawl out of their graves. Once noble kings go mad. The gods go silent. The next adventures could be about setting the world right or adapting to this new Failure can lead to the next thing, not the end. Here again, the GM and players should define the possible (but not inevitable) consequences. This can happen before the adventure begins, or as it ends.

Looking back at this example, we have the makings of a garden variety dungeon crawl. An adventure is a series of scenes, a dungeon a series of challenges, a novel a series of conflicts in chapters, all culminating in answering a larger question. We’ll go deeper into this in Example Adventure.

[tabby title=”Characters”]

IV.        Characters

A.           Vague

Simplicity – PCs in BANY don’t have to have four-page character sheets. They can be a simple as a name or a character concept.

James Bond – Name a character or person. Done. You’re ready to play! Your PC can be that character in the fiction or be inspired by them. If your game is going to be Cyberpunk in nature, one player can be Johnny Mnemonic, another plays Johnny Silverhand, and another, John Wick.

Competence – When it comes to play, those characters roll one die for actions they can do well. Two dice with advantage for what they do very well. Two dice at disadvantage when they are outside their expertise.

Adjust Scale – You might think the character might be good at everything. Bond certainly is hypercompetent at many things. The GM can adjust what is possible and difficult based on the story. Yes, he’s good at dancing, but the stakes are higher than just having fun. If he fails, he could reveal himself. For this reason, the GM might call for him to roll just one die, whereas a competitive dancer would roll two. In the real world, Bond would probably roll two dice for just about everything, yet the stakes and scale of performance would be very different. This scale adjustment keeps things difficult and therefore, fun. We’ll take the idea of scale further with the idea of Tier (VII).

B.           Detailed

Traits – For an experience more like a typical RPG we can break down a character concept into something like attributes, abilities, powers and the like. I will call these Traits. Each trait can lend one die to a roll.

Attributes – List a few words or phrases that describe what is positive/powerful about your character. What does the character do well, or at least better than others. These could be adjectives like brave, strong, intelligent. To compare this with the Bond example, you are listing what you think he is. This is not a physical description, so much as how the character compares to the world and how they interact with it. We might say Black Widow has the trait of Beautiful. While many characters in the world might be beautiful, Black Widow is capital B Beautiful. She can use that Trait to make steer the story in the way she wants. A character should have three or four of these Attributes. The PC can roll one die when the named Attribute would apply. James Bond can’t Fearless his way into a safe, but he could use it to run and shoot at the same time in a shootout.

Flaws/Weaknesses – These are negative Traits that can negate dice from a pool when they apply. If that would leave you will zero or negative dice, roll two and keep the lowest. In making a character you can take a Flaw to buy another Attribute. Flawed characters are much more interesting than paragons of virtue and skill. Don’t be afraid to take one or two.

Example – A character with the Flaw of Cowardly would remove a die from any action where the PC is attempting something where harm is likely and likely to be serious.

Skills/Abilities – Where Attributes are universal, Abilities are specific. They can be listed as verbs like Fight, Sing or Scry. They can be fields of study of professions like Meteorology, Engineering or Art History. Four or five of these should be sufficient to start play. These Traits also add a die to the pool.

Other – There are many other Traits that may be appropriate for your game. They could be magical items, willpower or mana. What matters is that they give or take additional dice and that there aren’t too many or too few.

B.           Advancement

Gaining levels and advancing Traits doesn’t make much sense in BANY. Instead, adjust the scale. Instead of getting another die in pyromancy you would agree that your firestorms are larger, hotter or that you learn how to shape them. Look to specific games based on BANY for details on how that might work.

[tabby title=”Example Adventure”]

V.           Example Adventure

A.           Setting the Scene

Introduction – Let’s watch a Group Extended Challenge (III.F.4) unfold from start to finish. Alice, the GM, says the party must answer this question: Can we find and destroy the reliquary before midnight? This defines a goal and a deadline. They could find it too late; they could not find it in time, or they could do both.

Consequence – This mission is all about the stick (though they might find a carrot along the way). Alice needs to think about what happens if the PCs fail. She shouldn’t limit her options right away. The threat can be vague enough to allow her to adapt and specific enough to motivate the characters. She’ll go with: At midnight, “the dead shall rise to consume the living”. She should also think about the nuanced results too.

Scenes – Each scene, or challenge, will “cost” half an hour. The party has three hours to find the MacGuffin; giving them six challenges to complete. These could be specific, like fighting a minotaur, or abstract, like navigating. A battle is probably one scene with a clear beginning and end with nothing else in between. The navigation challenge could play out between other scenes and challenges.

B.           The Minotaur

To Battle – Deep into the labyrinth, the brave adventurers confront a minotaur who is bent on hunting them. The PCs decide to take this challenge directly. Can they kill this creature? Alice decides this beast is itself, an extended challenge. The three players will take turns describing what their character’s will do.

The Minotaur – In video games, we’d call him a boss. His strength is his strength. Any efforts against that will be at disadvantage. The consequences for failing against him on that front would be a serious wound as he counter attacks. On the other hand, he’ll be vulnerable to mental efforts. In BANY, enemies are not separate entities using the same rules as PCs. They are bags of consequences and difficulty. The minotaur does not succeed or fail, it applies pain for failure and absorbs success until defeated.

a) Bronwyn – “This guy is huge, right? Let’s nerf that advantage. I will cast Weakness.” The question assumed in this action is “can I make him weaker with a spell”. Bronny rolls two dice, one for being a Witch, another for specializing in Curses. She rolls 5 and 2 for a Yes. Doing so reduces the consequences for failing when in combat with him. We’ll see that in a moment.

b) Charolis – The mighty barbarian closes the distance and swings his comically large sword. “Can I slay this foul beast in one fell swoop?” Alice rules the answer to be No (I.C.2.a), but will interpret the result as answering, “can I wound the monster?”. Charolis can’t kill it outright because of scale (IV.A.4), this is a boss, not just some minion. Our hero loses one die for challenging the beast where it is most potent.

[tabby title=”In Development”]

VII.      Tiers

F.            Order of Magnitude

1.

VIII.   Box Cars and Snake Eyes

IX.        Metamechanics

X.           Beyond Dice

XI.        Opposed Rolls

XII.      BANY for Writers

[tabbyending]