Throughout this game you will have scores, levels, and other numbers that describe your character’s prowess and competence. The higher these numbers are, the more often your character will be successful at whatever the number describes.
The reason that higher numbers are better is that whenever your character does something at which there is a chance of failure, you roll a d20 and compare the number on that die to one of those scores. If the die comes up lower than the score or equal to the score, your character succeeds at the task.
For example, you might decide your character is going to climb a rope thirty feet into a tower. The Adventure Guide tells you it requires a strength roll. You’ll roll d20 and if the die comes up less than or equal to your character’s strength, your character successfully climbed the rope. If your character has a 13 strength and you roll 11, you’ve succeeded by 2. If you roll 18, you’ve failed by five.
Sometimes there will be modifiers. For example, if the rope is slippery the Adventure Guide may say that this is a difficult task and give you a penalty to the roll. If you have a skill for climbing, that skill might give you a bonus for climbing the rope.
When circumstances, such as that the rope is slippery, affect your character’s chance of success, you won’t always know what that penalty (or bonus) is. Sometimes it will become obvious once you attempt the action. Other times it will not. If you bid mojo on a failed roll, and your bid succeeds, you will know exactly what the modifier was, because you will spend that much mojo on your success.
