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The final Difficulty of such actions is a hard thing to
judge. Generally, anyone with a greater Skill Rank than
you will have quite an edge. Even a little Active Opposi­
tion can make such actions as sneaking up on someone
very Difficult. As Director, you'll have to adjust the
inherent Difficulty of the action by the level of the Active
Opposition. For example, attempting to hit an opponent
in combat, who is roughly equal to you in skill and build,
is probably a Normal Difficulty. A Judo flip used against
the same opponent would be a Difficult action. Against
someone much better than you, a punch might be a
Difficult action, and a flip would be Extraordinary. We'll
discuss the Difficulty of combat actions further, in the
chapter entitled 'Combat'.
Rule Of Thumb
As a rule of thumb, you can consider raising or
lowering the Difficulty of Actively Opposed actions by one
step, for each two full points of difference in the oppo­
nents' Skill Ranks. This is a very rough rule, and will
certainly fluctuate depending on the genre being played
and the situation at hand. An action can't be harder than
Impossible, and any action less Difficult than Easy is
pretty much an Automatic Action. So, if you're going to
win out over opponents two or more full points better than
you, then you had best be very clever, or bring the
battleground into an area where you have the advantage
once again.
THE ACTIVE PARTICIPANT
In most cases, as Director, you needn't make sepa­
rate adjudications for each party in an Actively Opposed
action. Choose one party to be the Active Participant.
This is generally the person the camera would be focusing
upon in a movie. If the choice is between an Actor and a
member of the Supporting Cast, then unless you have
good reasons not to, choose the Actor. First, set the
Active Participant's Difficulty in terms of the action. Next,
adjust the Difficulty to take into account the Skill Rank of
the opposition, the environment, and most importantly,
the roleplay of everyone involved. Make any judgement
of Results based off your adjudication for the Active
Participant alone.
DUELING SUCCESSES
There are some instances where you'll want to make
separate adjudications for several of the participants in an
Actively Opposed action. Instead of basing the Result of
an Actively Opposed action off of the roleplay of a single
participant, you can choose to make multiple determina­
tions of Result. This is the normal route to take in combat.
This means that you'll be setting the Difficulty and making
58 Theatrlx - The Core Rules
determinations of Success and Failure, separately and
simultaneously, for each participant. This also means
that it's possible for both sides in the action to Succeed,
both sides to Fail, or one to Succeed while the other Fails.
To give you an indication of the possibilities, think of the
Western showdown example, given earlier under 'Skill
Vs. Plotline'. All we knew was that both parties in that
conflict had drawn and fired. Yet, even disregarding their
roleplay, and their respective Skill Ranks in both Marks­
manship and the Fast Draw, there were still a lot of
interesting possibilities based upon the assignments of
Success and Failure alone. We touched on only a few of
them. Taking into account the other factors as well, these
situations can get very messy.
RESOLUTION FLOWCHARTS
Resolution Flowcharts are structured decision paths
that easily allow you to reach a suggested outcome for
any series of actions. To use the flowcharts, all you need
to have is a good visual impression of the actions you wish
to find a Result for, firmly in mind. By using the flowcharts,
you'll quickly develop your own sense of the questions
you'll need to answer, in order to create good interactive
drama from your fluid impressions of the roleplay. A
single Resolution Flowchart may apply to a broad cat­
egory of situations. Which flowchart best fits a particular
dramatic moment is up to the discretion of the Director.
Using the Resolution Flowcharts is a two part opera­
tion. Normally, you'd begin with the chart marked 'Basic
Resolution Flowchart', so take it out and have a look at it
now. To use the flowchart, start with the middle box at the
top. Answer the question in the box, following the arrow
with your answer on it to the next indicated box. Don't
worry terribly about having the 'correct' answer. Simply
answer the way your judgement leans toward and go on.
Proceed similarly with each subsequent box. When you
reach a box exited by a black arrow, you're done with the
first stage.
The next step is to choose the most appropriate
'Advanced Resolution Flowchart' for the action. You may
choose from flowcharts for 'Athletic Activities', 'Combat
Activities', 'Intellectual Activities', and 'Interpersonal Ac­
tivities'. Other, more genre specific flowcharts will be
available in future supplements (many are included within
our Setting Books). Once you've found the appropriate
flowchart to continue with, start with the box on the new
chart, that duplicates your ending box from the previous
chart. Move out along the arrows, passing along the most
appropriately marked path. Again, don't worry about
being overly 'correct'. This is a theatrical game, so keep
the pace and be fluid with your decisions. The text at the
end of each path is a description that captures the
structure of the suggested Result. Just apply this Result
to the action in question.