Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 16:24:23 -0500 From: Derek Herrera TASKS Every now and then, your character will be called upon to perform feats of expertise in their chosen professions. Perhaps you need to operate on a dying person, or fix a starship's engine, or even reserach an old piece of alien technology. In all these cases, you will need to perform a Task. A Task is required of a player whenever some description mentions a Task. Typically, a Task will come from a Knowledge Slip, at which point a successful Task will enable you to access more Knowledge Slips or other envelopes. In short, if a Task is needed in order to continue with something, that Task will be clearly labelled in some way or another. At this time, you cannot create your Tasks. You can only perform Tasks that you learn of in-game. Tasks are done using the "Deck-of-Cards" mechanic. As the name implies, you need a deck of cards to perform a Task. You should have handed one over to the GM before the beginning of the event. The GM should have modified in some way (shuffled, added or removed cards) and then handed back to you. Here is how the "Deck-of-Cards" mechanic works: 1- Take your deck of cards and shuffle it seven times. 2- Deal out the top five cards in front of you, placing them besides each other as you do so. This is known as your Stack. 3- Deal out another five cards in front of you, but below the Stack. This is your Pool. 4- Discard one of the cards from your Stack. Replace that empty space with one card from your Pool. Discards all other cards from your Pool. You must always perform this step. You can't just skip replacing one of your cards. 5- Repeats steps 3 and 4 until you reach the bottom of your deck. If you at any point cannot deal out five cards into your Pool, you must discard all of those cards. You cannot perform Step 4 with an incomplete Pool. The goal of this mechanic, then, is to deal yourself a desired Poker hand into your Stack. You see, then, how you can replace the cards from the Stack as you deal out the rest of the deck. If at any time before you deal out your whole deck you get the desired Poker hand, you succeeded in your Task. Otherwise, you failed. Simple, isn't it? What Poker Hand do you need to get? That depends entirely on the difficulty of the Task. The higher the difficulty, the harder a Poker hand you need to deal yourself. You must deal out that specific hand. You cannot succeed with any other hand, even a better one. Here is the difficulty scale: 1 - Two Pairs 2 - Three of a kind 3 - Straight (numerical order, no suit requirement) 4 - Flush (all same suit, no numerical order required) 5 - Full House (One pair and another Three of a kind) 6 - Four of a kind 7 - Straight Flush (numerical order and all same suit) 8 - Royal Flush (A,K,Q,J,10, all same suit) Each Task will have a Difficulty attached to it. A MECHANIC 10 Task has a Difficulty of 10, an ACADEMIC 8 Task has a Difficulty of 8, and so forth. If you do not have the indicated Skill, you cannot perform the Task. Furthermore, you can subtract your Skill Rank from the Difficulty. Therefore, if a MECHANIC 4 tried to tackle that MECHANIC 10 Task, they would have deal with a Difficulty of 6. You can always try to succeed at any Task you are qualified to perform, even if your net Difficulty is greater than 8. If you succeed at Difficulty 8 (in other words, if you get a Royal Flush), then you succeed at that Task. Finally, and most importantly, performing Tasks costs crystals. Crystals are the closest thing to a standard currency in the Fallen Imperium, specifically because they are used in all Tasks. For each attempt you make at a Task, you must pay a number of crystals equal to the net difficulty of the Task, after you subtract your skill. So, our friend with MECHANIC 4 would have to spend 6 crystals to perform that MECHANIC 10 Task. Remember, if you fail at the Task and want to try it again, you have to pay the crystal cost again as well. Please place those used crystals in a separate pile on your person, since they are out-of-game. There will be a receptable in the middle of Game Area to discard used crystals.