Your character is defined by four attributes: Strength, Agility, Mind and Personality, which have values ranging from 2 to 12.
Strength: A measure of how physicaly tough your character is. Affects the weight you can carry, the power of your melee attacks, and how much damage you can take before dying.
Agility: A measure of your dexterity. Affects your ability to evade attacks, the accuracy of your missile attacks, and how well you can handle small mechanisms.
Mind: A measure of your mental acuity. Affects your ability to cast magic and your ability to resist mental strain.
Personality: A measure of your force of personality. This affects how people perceive you and your ability to convince them to do your bidding.
When the outcome of an action is in question, you roll an Attribute Check to determine if it is successful. To do this, roll 2d6.
You compare the result of the roll to the tested attribute, modified by the checks Difficulty and any relevant Bonuses you receive.
If the total is less than or equal to the modified attribute, the check is successful.
Rolling a natural 2 (both die show a 1) on an Attribute Check is a Critical Success. The check succeeded and some actions have additional consequences.
Rolling a natural 12 (both die show a 6) on An Attribute Check is a Critical Failure. The check failed and some actions have additional consequences.
A checks Difficulty defines how hard to achieve the thing you are attempting to do is.
Typical Difficulty values range from
The Difficulty is subtracted from your ability score.
If, for whatever reason, more than one Difficulty value could be applied to an attribute check, the highest one is used.
Your character can receive Bonuses to checks.
These might come from the present circumstances, for example using the right tool for the job (A locked door is way easier to smash in with a large axe than per hand), or from your characters training.
A bonus is added to your ability score.
The training is represented by Expertise and Mastery.
During character creation, and over the course of play, your character can gain Expertise or Mastery in an area defined by you.
An example might be: As an blacksmith, my character has Expertise in working metals.
If the referee agrees that an attribute check falls in that area of expertise, you gain a Bonus of 1. If your character has Mastery in that area, you get a Bonus of 2 instead.
A Bonus granted by circumstances and a bonus granted by expertise are added together.
If more than one circumstancial bonus, or more than one expertise bonus could be added, only the highest one of each is used.