Action Variations

Actions have many potential variations, including teamwork, being opposed by other characters and extended endeavors. The most common variations are presented below.

Roll a d10

Sometimes a rule in Saga Machine calls for a player to “roll a d10.” To do this, simply roll a ten-sided die and take the result.

Group Effort

Sometimes multiple characters work together to accomplish a particular task, such as prying open a jammed airlock door or investigating a suspicious secret society.

Nominate one of the characters as the primary actor; the others will be secondary. Only the primary character’s total will matter directly; the secondary characters will provide a ⊕ or ⊖ to this test.

Have the secondary characters make the test first, albeit with TN 10. If one or more secondary character is successful, the primary character’s test is granted a ⊕. No more than one ⊕ may be granted in this way. On a critical failure, a ⊖ is imposed. Finally, have the primary character make the test and resolve as normal.

Gan is attempting to develop a new mounted laser design and has three engineers helping him. Each of the engineers makes the test and two are successful; this grants Gan a ⊕ for the successes. Finally, Gan makes the test with the granted ⊕. The laser design is a success!

Opposed Actions

Many times a character wants to attempt some action that another character is actively trying to thwart. This is called an opposed action.

To resolve this sort of action, both players should make a test. The party with the highest total succeeds in what she was trying to accomplish. Ties are broken in favor of the character with the highest relevant stat, followed by the character with the highest Edge.

To push your luck in an opposed test, you must choose to do so before the opponent’s total has been revealed (see page XXX).

Ernest is trying to sneak by an agitated cyberfiend. This is a Stealth vs. Awareness test. Ernest makes his test and gets a total of 14, while the cyberfiend makes her test and gets a 12. She fails to notice Ernest sneaking by.

Extended Actions

An extended action is a drawn-out endeavor where the time taken to complete the action is of particular importance, or where events can happen throughout the course of the endeavor that affect it in some way. Examples include a foot chase through a city street, repairing a boat moored at the dock before a volcanic eruption destroys the island or sneaking into a particularly well-guarded compound.

Extended actions are composed of a series of tests taken sequentially until the action is resolved. Each test represents the progress made over a particular Interval of time. The margin of success for each test is noted and added together to form a running total. This is called the Tally. The extended action is complete once the running total reaches the Tally required for the action. When the Tally is reached, the action is a success. Failure on an extended action is running out of time before the task can be completed.

Nadya is attempting to repair her spacecraft before a solar flare arrives. The GM declares this is an extended Trade (Mechanic)-10 action with an interval of a day and Tally 10. Nadya has three days before it arrives. The first day she makes a test and gets a total of 9. This is a failure, therefore she made no real progress towards her goal—not a good start! The next day she gets a 14, bringing her up to a total of Tally 4. Finally, on the third day she gets a total of 16. She is now at Tally 10, which is exactly the amount the extended action requires. She repairs her ship and sets off into the sky just in the nick of time.

Tally Guidelines

Since the required Tally represents the amount of work an extended action will take to complete, it is useful to have some guidelines. Use the table below.

Amount of Work	Tally
Some	5
Lots	10
Tons	15

Opposed Extended Actions

An extended action can be opposed if two sides are actively working against each other. In this case, instead of a fixed Tally, the side with the highest accumulated total is successful.

The Rule of Three

When in doubt, the GM should frame an extended action as a series of three intervals—that is, three tests are made and then the action is resolved one way or another. This gives ample time for the extended action to build a sense of tension without drawing out the endeavor to the point of boredom.