Every time a concept is mentioned throughout the rules, it is written in Capital, except in examples of play. These concepts are the backbones of Satisfiction as a game, the building blocks of the rules.
A Character is any being within the game world.
Every player controls one Character. Be it an elven princess or a centaur shaman, it is a fictional being that is associated with, but different from the person who controls it. In the game, this difference can be important: The player knows facts that the Character could never have heard about. Always be aware what your Character has perceived and what they could have a notion of. This keeps the game flow believable.
A Task is anything a player wants their Character to attempt. This could be building a house or lighting a candle in a storm. Each Task is based on a player’s intent and the description of the approach. These two things define the desired outcome.
Tasks mostly take one step to be completed (like lighting a candle in unfavourable conditions), but can also take multiple steps (like building a house). In the rules, steps that are necessary to complete a Task are called Actions.
<aside> 📜 Many Tasks do not require any roll, because they do not involve any danger or their outcome is known. When you want to leave your house to walk into town, you simply walk into town.
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Some common Tasks are pre-defined in the Advanced Ruleset. Once you're familiar with the game, you can continue reading there. You will also find additional ways for rolling the dice, including ways to handle Tasks with multiple Actions.
Characters use Actions to change the game world. Every Action is part of a Task, which defines its intent and approach. When a roll is required for an Action, the GM assigns it three defining values.
➕ Attribute
⚡ Risk
🕗 duration (optional)
The Attribute is what the Character uses to tackle the Task. It is one of four defining abilities that every Character has got.
The Risk describes the difficulty and dangerousness of the Action. Risks and Attributes are key concepts themselves and are explained in the following sections.
The duration is just the time it takes to complete the Action. It can range from a few seconds (leaping from a dock to a departing boat) to several hours, or even months (making progress in uncovering the ancient tombs of a forbidden god).
A Risk sets the difficulty of an Action by setting the number of necessary successes. When Characters decide to act, we always think about the Risk involved. It might be easy to butter your bread in the morning, but that is not what we want to cover when sitting together at the table.
All Tasks that require rolls because their outcome is uncertain or a danger is involved (defending a brittle vial from thieves, searching a place where something valuable is hidden, stealing from a sleeping dragon), also have a Risk attached.
One the one hand, Risk is rooted in the game’s fiction (risking to break a valuable vial, risking finding something you did not want to find, or risking a horrible death). The exact consequences are only known to the GM and do not need to be disclosed.
On the other hand, the Risk is rooted in the game rules by a simple value. This value equals the amount of successes necessary to succeed. It is set by the GM and normally ranges from 2 to 4. When a roll yields more successes than the Risk, these are excess successes that improve the outcome of the roll.
<aside> 🪶 Putting a number on a Risk
| a piece of cake | 1 |
|---|---|
| a piece of work | 2 |
| a challenge | 3 |
| a gamble | 4 |
| a miracle | 5 |
| a supernatural feat | 6 |
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The GM may choose to keep the risk value secret in order to focus on the story and thus increase immersion.