OVERVIEW

HURSAGMU is a roleplaying game set in a young world of swords, sorcery, gods, gateways, aliens, monsters, and horrors.

Player characters are fairly simple: four primary attributes and a number of skills. Attributes represent the fundamental nature of the character. Skills measure learned abilities like fighting, sorcery, and craftsmanship.

Players begin with a certain amount of character points with which to build their in-game persona. The number of points players start with is up to the game master (known hereafter as "The Master"), and depends upon how powerful He wishes for beginning characters to be. The Master may wish to assign character points for attributes and skills separately if He wants the players to create naturally talented but inexperienced characters or journeyman adventurers with average attributes.

As the characters adventure, The Master will occasionally give out experience points for character actions. Experience points can be used to increase the character's attributes and skills just as character points were used to build them. This allows characters to grow more powerful over time.

More about character creation can be found in the following chapters.

The Skill Roll

Central to the rules of the game is the skill roll. All actions in the game are resolved in much the same way, whether one is building a table, picking a lock, swinging a sword, or casting a spell. The differences between various actions come from the attributes and skills of characters and situational modifiers. Here it is -- the fundamental roll of the entire game:

That is, roll a pair of six-sided dice, add them together, and add the result to the sum of the character's attribute and skill levels. If this roll is equal to or higher than the opposed roll, then the act is successful.

All skill checks in the game are performed as opposed rolls: if two characters are in conflict, both roll their appropriate skills as indicated above. The higher roll wins. Ties may mean equal success or may go to the defender, depending on the situation.

If a character is trying to perform some task not in conflict with another character, The Master must assign a challenge level to the task. This number is then rolled as if it were a skill. This is done to insure that the success probabilities stay the same across conflict and non-conflict skill checks.

Challenge Levels

The following table should give The Master some guidance on assigning challenge levels.

Task Difficulty	Challenge Level
Fair	0
Moderate	5
Great	10
Incredible	15
Inconceivable	20

This is a basic outline, and should only be used when the character is not in conflict with another and The Master is unsure about the difficulty involved. When two characters are conflicting, their skills are rolled against one another.

Note that high rolls are always better than low rolls.

The numbers above assume that the character has at least an average tool for the job in question - i.e., if a thief is trying to pick a lock, then he is using a standard lockpick. If the thief was trying to pick a lock with something nonstandard, like a dagger, then The Master should assign an appropriate penalty (make the challenge number higher). If the character has an exceptional set of tools at his disposal, then he should receive some bonuses (a lower challenge number).

The numbers also assume that the character is taking a normal amount of time to perform the task. What this amount of time is depends upon the task in question - perhaps six seconds for picking a lock or six days for smithing a weapon. The Master may wish to assign bonuses for extra time taken and penalties for rushed work. He may lower the challenge level if the character more time than necessary, or raise it if the character tries to rush. Most of the time, this should be -2 to the skill roll per halving of the time and +2 to the skill roll per doubling of the necessary time.

Example: Lanky the thief wants to pick a lock on a treasure chest. The lock quality is somewhere in between average and good quality, so The Master decided to assign a challenge level of seven to the task. Lanky has a Dex of four and a Burglary skill of six. To make the attempt, he rolls 2d6+10. The Master then rolls 2d6+7. If Lanky's roll is better than The Master's, he succeeds in picking the lock.

If Lucky wanted to be extra sure, he could take twice as much time to pick the lock and garner a +2 to his skill roll. Trying to pick the lock in one quarter of the usual time would give him a -4.

Example: Chuck the Barbarian wants to crush the skull of Lothar the Unlucky. Chuck has a Dex of two and a Striking skill of five. To attack, he rolls 2d6+7. Lothar, not wanting to have his skull crushed, decides to dodge the attack. Lothar has a Dex of three and a Defense skill of six, so he rolls 2d6+9. If Chuck's roll is higher than Lothar's, the attack hits. If Lothar's roll is equal to or higher than Chuck's, the attack misses. Fighting is one case in which ties go to the defender.