DOT SYSTEM
In the Dot System all rolls are made using six-sided dice as usual, but instead of adding the dice together the number of success are counted.
Rules
The core of the system could be summarized using the following terms; creating a dice pool, add modifiers and roll for success. Before starting the dice pool creation, all characteristics and skills needs to be converted to a corresponding number of dots:
- To convert characteristics into dots, just divide the characteristic by five to get the number of dots.
- Skills bought at a value equal to the characteristic roll get zero dots. For each skill point bought above the characteristic roll, the skill gets one dot. Only skills with a level of zero, or higher, may be used to form dice pools.
Each dot represents a d6 die that is added to a dice pool to roll for the task resolution. To make a characteristic roll, the dice pool just consists of the number of dots in the characteristic. To determine their dice pool for a skill check, a character adds the number of dots in the skill together with those in the most appropriate characteristic. There is one exception to this procedure. When converting 8- and 11- “familiarity skills” to the dot system they become one dot and two dots skills respectively. Being just familiarities, they can’t be used together with characteristics to form larger dice pools.
The target number for determining a success is 5, so that every d6 in the dice pool that shows 5s and 6s indicate a success. A roll of 4 or less is a Failure. As long as one success is rolled, that character has achieved his task. Five or more successes in a roll indicate an exceptional success (equal to rolling “3” on 3d6). Each time a die show a “6”, the player may reroll that die to see if any additional successes (or even rerolls) show up.
The dice pools aren’t completely static. Depending on the circumstances bonus, or penalty, dots can be added to the dice pool according to the game master’s judgment. It is not recommended to adjust the dice pool with more than five dots (in either direction). If the dice pool is lowered below one dot the player can still roll one die, but if that die fail to give a success the roll is considered a critical failure (equal to rolling “18” on 3d6).
For combat these rules are slightly changed. The dice pool is equal to two dots plus the attackers OCV minus the defenders DCV.
Example
Just set the concept in practice, this is how it could work in game:
Andarra (DEX 15) has a DEX Pool of 3 dots (15/5). She grabs the ledge if she rolls 5 or 6 on at least one of the dices in her pool.
Here’s an example on how to convert skills into dice pools:
Andarra has Concealment 12-, which equals her characteristic roll (DEX 15). That means that she has Concealment 0 dots. Had her Concealment value been 14- had her converted value been Concealment 2 dots, for a total dice pool of 5 dots.
Here’s an example of dice pool modifications:
Andarra attempts to conceal an illegal mind control helmet in her ship. The GM rules that since Andarra has a small spaceship, this attempt suffers a -1 modifier to Andarra's Concealment roll. With the -1 modifier, Andarra’s dice pool is 2 dots to successfully hide the device.
And finally, a test of how combat could work in the dot system:
Andarra fires Autofire (5 shots) blaster at an alien agent standing next to her. Andarra has a base OCV of 7, and the agent aDCV of 5. Because the attack is point-blank, there's no Range Modifiers. Andarra's Attack dice pool is 2 + 7 - 5 = 4 dots. She get three successes, hitting the agent three times.
Originally Posted by Blue
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