Skills

Each player starts with a Report Card, which is where we define player Abilities and Skills.

Skills are on the right side of the Report Card.

Choose a Skill

A player must choose 1 Skill:

FINAID - Empathy, Perception & Danger Sense (Fast / Lucky)
ART - Performance, Disguise & Forgery (Charming / Fast)
SCI - Computers, Chemistry, Biology, Physics & Math (Clever / Charming)
FREE - Stealth, Breaking & Entering (Clever / Fast)
GYM - Movement, Sport & Dance (Strong / Fast)
AID - First Aid, Exploration & Survival (Wise / Charming)
SHOP - Mechanical, Constructive, & Culinary (Wise / Strong)
LAW - Bureaucracy, Legal, and Investigative (Wise / Clever)
MISC - Everything Not Otherwise Covered (Lucky / Strong)

They can only choose a Skill if they have at least one of the associated Abilities: For example: if you are not Charming or Fast, you cannot choose Deception, Theft & Stealth.

Choose a skill by writing an "A+" next to it.

The A+ is thematic, and you can use anything you want to indicate that this is a preferred skill: circle it, use a gold star sticker, a unicorn sticker, a "good work!", whatever floats your boat.

Any Skill Check that the player performs against a Skill that they have chosen becomes easier by one rank: an Impossible check becomes Hard, a Hard check becomes Medium, and so on.

Fail a Skill

A player must fail 1 skill. Fail a skill by writing an "F" next to it.

The F is thematic, and you can use anything you want to indicate that this is a crossed out skill: cross it out, write "SEE ME AFTER CLASS", put a sad-face sticker on it...

The player is bad at this skill and won't generally be able to pass skill checks where it is involved.

Any skill check against a failed Skill becomes Unlikely for the player.

Skill Corruption

Players can mark Corruption Points on the "Skill Corruption" box on their Report Card. When all three of the Corruption Circles are filled, you may gain a new Skill, and fail a new skill.

Skill Checks

Determining the Skill for a Skill Check

What is the task the player is hoping to perform, and under which skill does it fit?

Here are some examples of tasks that might fit under each category:

FINAID - Empathy, Perception & Danger Sense

Determining if someone is lying to you.
Searching a room for traps.
Noticing something bad about to happen to you.
Helping someone work through an emotional issue.

ART - Performance, Disguise & Forgery

Disguising yourself as someone else.
Performing in a musical.
Forging a note.
Painting.
Knowing stuff about pop culture and art history.

SCI - Computers, Chemistry, Biology, Physics & Math

Hacking into a computer to gain some secrets.
An incredible bank shot in pool.
Picking out the drugs least likely to harm you while robbing a pharmacy.
Guessing valuable information about non-human Adversaries.

FREE - Stealth, Breaking & Entering

Picking a lock.
Doing things without drawing attention or while remaining hidden.
Knowing stuff about security systems.

GYM - Movement, Sport & Dance

Climbing a wall.
Forcing through a door.
Swimming, holding one's breath for a long time.
Executing the legendary and forbidden "Chaos Dunk"
Doing "The Angle Brackets", the dance craze sweeping Paradise Lua

AID - First Aid, Exploration & Survival

Bandaging a wounded ally.
Navigating without getting lost.
Knowing which crates in a warehouse are likely to have useful supplies in them.

SHOP - Mechanical, Constructive & Culinary

Creating a useful weapon out of found trash.
Building an impromptu wall.
Turning something inedible (raw flour) into food.

LAW - Bureaucracy, Legal, & Investigative

Searching a room for clues or useful items.
Getting tech support to help with an issue.
Checks against individuals who are bureaucratically "locked"
- For example of bureaucratic lock: A cashier can't help you with your problem, unless you can convince them that they can do so without losing their job.

MISC - Everything Else

It doesn't fit into the above categories
???

Wait, there's no "deception" or "communication" skill! How do I talk to people?

You have to actually talk to them.

Determining the Difficulty of a Skill Check

Automatic: Breathing. Walking. (The GM probably should not be calling for Automatic skill checks.)
Trivial: Making toast.
Easy: Most people could probably do this, most of the time.
Medium: A trained person can probably do this, most of the time.
Hard: A skilled adult with a lot of training might be able to do this.
Unlikely: A world-class sniper making a once-in-a-lifetime shot, over a kilometer away.
Impossible: Eating the moon. Jumping into space.

Resolving a Skill Check

Skill checks are resolved by having the player draw the top card from their decks.

Automatic: The player can not fail this check.
Trivial: Only fails on a Critical Failure.
Easy: Fails on any Minor Arcana <= 5, otherwise succeeds.
Medium: Fails on any Minor Arcana <= 9, otherwise succeeds.
Hard: Fails on any Minor Arcana, otherwise succeeds.
Unlikely: Success on a Critical Success, otherwise fails
Impossible: The player can not succeed at this check.

If the card drawn is a Major Arcana - well, it might trigger a Critical Success or Critical Failure.

Success

Simple: whatever the player was trying to achieve? They succeeded. The thing happens. The scene continues, the thing having happened.

Failure

If the player fails a roll, the thing they were trying to achieve?

It either:

doesn't happen (the door they were trying to open stays shut),
it happens but introduces significant additional complication for the players (the door opens, alerting the guards), or
it doesn't happen and introduces significant additional complication for the players (the door stays shut, alerting the guards).

The player can take 1 Corruption Point to retry the check.

Each time the player attempts to re-try the check, it becomes one step easier: an Unlikely check becomes merely Hard, a Hard check becomes Medium, etc.

At the GM's discretion, a check can remain at its current difficulty level during a retry: jumping from the Moon to the Earth is Impossible and no matter how many times a player tries to accomplish it, it will remain Impossible.

Sometimes There Are Consequences Either Way

Succeed at breaking down a heavy door? It's possible that the sound of this will alert some guards! Life isn't always fair.

Critical Success

Certain cards will trigger a Critical Success:

A Fool is always a Critical Success
The World is always a Critical Success
The Sun is always a Critical Success
The player's own Major Arcana card always triggers a Critical Success

On an Unlikely check, a Critical Success is just a success: nothing special happens, but it was unlikely that the player would have succeeded, so that alone is special.

On other checks, a Critical Success indicates that something about the success was a little bit extra good. The player, at the GM's discretion, should recieve some small extra bonus or benefit for completing this task perfectly.

Critical Failure

The Critical Success conditions fire before the Critical Failure conditions.

Certain cards will trigger a Critical Failure:

If a card is a Critical Success, it can't be a Critical Failure.
A Tower is always a Critical Failure.
The Devil is always a Critical Failure.
Death is always a Critical Failure.

A Critical Failure indicates that something about the failure was a little bit extra bad. Whatever the consequences are for failure, really lean into them a little bit.

The Wheel of Fortune

When a Wheel of Fortune is drawn, the player will either see a Critical Success or Critical Failure.

Draw a second card:

If the card is an Ace through a Nine: Critical Failure
If the card is a 10, Page, Knight, Queen, King, or Major Arcana: Critical Success

That Seems Like a Lot of Rules

Look, the middle of the Report Card lays it out pretty simply: draw a card, see what happens.

Inconsequential Skill Checks

In general, the GM should not be calling for skill checks unless there is something at stake.

Sometimes the player will request to perform an action that turns out to have no real stakes: this check is Inconsequential.

Inconsequential is not the same as Automatic or Trivial: "Breathing" and "walking" are automatic, whereas "hacking into a computer that doesn't have any useful secrets on it" is Hard but Inconsequential.

Depending on how generous the GM is feeling towards the players, if the players seem like they are going to spend a lot of time or resources on a check that turns out to be Inconsequential, the GM can warn them that this is going to be the case: the check, pass or fail, is unlikely to have a real effect on the story. They can even skip the check itself and grant automatic failure or success.

"You quickly and successfully search the empty room. There is nothing here. It is an empty room."

Bonus / Penalty

If the player has a significant, concrete advantage on a skill check - for example, deciphering a lab result when they have recently aced a chemistry course covering that exact topic, they get a "Bonus" on that check. While they have Bonus, they draw two cards and use whichever of the two cards they would prefer.

If the player has a significant, concrete disadvantage on a skill check - for example, climbing a wall with a Splinted Leg, they get a "Penalty" on that check. While they have Penalty, they draw two cards and use whichever card the GM decides is the worse of the two.

Bonus and Penalty cancel one another out, and do not stack.

No Retries

Unless otherwise specified, Skill Checks for a specific thing cannot be made more than once per Day. If you fail a skill check, it stays failed. Try to unlock a door and fail at it? You can't go back and try again (until a Day has passed).

On top of that, a Skill Check can only be attempted by one player. Another player can help (see: One Player Helps Another, below), but only one player gets to make the skill check, and once the card is drawn, the results are final.

However, if the player is in a low-stakes situation where they can take as many tries as they want, the GM can make the check itself easier.

Interpreting Success and Failure

If the player needed a face card or Major Arcana to succeed, and they drew a 9, or a 10, that's a closer failure than if they had drawn a 1 or a 2. If they needed to draw a Major Arcana and they draw a Magician (2), that's a closer success than if they had drawn a Judgement (20).

The GM is free to interpret "close successes" or "close failures" as the player narrowly succeeding or failing, if they want. They also don't have to, if it doesn't make sense for the check.

If the GM is able to, they're also encouraged to tie the drawn Tarot card's meaning to the result in some way.

For example:

if the player draws a Chariot and succeeds, outline that the task was difficult but it was possible thanks to help from the player's allies.
If they draw a Magician and succeed, then the task was technically difficult but possible thanks to the player's skill and perserverance.
If they draw a Seven of Swords, and fail, it was because they got too greedy and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
If they draw a Nine of Swords, and fail, it was because they panicked.

Happenstance

When a Critical Success or Critical Failure is triggered by The Fool or the Wheel of Fortune: it should be made clear by the GM that, even within the fiction of the game, this success (or failure) was powered by blind luck and happenstance, and not skill at all.

If, for example, the player draws The Fool during a Hacking check, maybe they just find the password for the computer that they are hacking on a post-it note attached to the computer - or guess the right password on their first try.

If the player draws The Fool while attempting major surgery (note that the difficulty of attempting major surgery, as a teenager, is going to be Unlikely or Impossible), maybe they accidentally drop a Junior Mint into the chest cavity of their patient, which should cause major complications but, in an unlikely twist of fate actually kills what would otherwise have been a fatal infection.

Remaining Teenagers: Zero - Player's Guide