The One Rule
To play ForeSight you learn one rule. It's called resolution, and it runs every uncertain thing anyone attempts — a task — from picking a lock to winning a trial. Everything else in this book is that rule applied to a situation, or an example of applying it. Learn this page and you can run the game from memory.
The core
Every ability — an attribute (innate, like Strength or Perception) or a skill (trained, like Firearms or Stealth) — has a Score and a Base Ease Factor (BEF).
- Score is how good you are: 1 is hopeless, 10–15 is competent, 20+ is very good. Skills climb far higher than attributes.
- BEF is how forgiving the ability is by nature — usually around 5.
To resolve a task, judge how hard this particular attempt is as an ease-factor modifier, add it to the BEF to get the Ease Factor (EF), and multiply:
SC = Score × Ease Factor
Roll D100. Roll ≤ your Success Chance and you succeed.
*Amy fires a stun pistol at a suspect. Firearms BEF 3; the suspect is 12 m off (−2 range) and moving (−2), but she braced (+1), aimed (+1), and the pistol is well-balanced (+1). EF = 3 − 2 − 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 2. Her Firearms Score is 17, so SC = 2 × 17 = 34%. That is about as complicated as it ever gets.*
How ease factors work
Ease factors aren't a linear scale at the bottom — they run:
0 — ¼ — ½ — 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9 — 10 — 11 — 12 — 13 — 14 — 15
Adding a modifier moves right along the ladder, subtracting moves left. Sum every modifier first, then apply it (6 + 10 − 4 is 6 + 6 = 12, not 15 − 4). EF can't fall below 0 (flatly impossible) or rise above 15 (as easy as things get). A Score over 20 counts as 20 but adds +1 EF per 3 points above — written 20+1 (23–25), 20+2 (26–28)… — which is how the truly gifted do what lesser mortals simply cannot.
One step is a big lever, and it scales with skill. In the sweet spot, +1 EF adds your whole Score to the SC — Score 15 going EF 5→6 jumps 75%→90%. Down at the ¼/½ rungs a step is worth about half your Score. Two consequences: modifiers stay small (a typical situational modifier is ±1 or ±2 — each is already potent), and the same good conditions help a skilled character more, which is exactly right.
Fractions round to nearest (½ or more rounds up): Score 13 at EF ¼ → 3.25 → roll ≤ 3.
Designer's Note — a lever you can feel. One EF step is a big lever, and a fixed-size one: because SC = Score × EF, a step moves your success chance by your whole Score in points wherever you sit on the range — 30%→45% and 60%→75% cost the same single step. Almost no other dice engine can say that. A 2D6 or 3D6 bell curve gives a lever that's huge near the middle and near-useless at the tails, so a +1 barely dents a long shot or a near-certainty. A flat D20 is the reverse — a modest lever in the middle that turns brutal at the 1/20 edges, and the change in odds is nastier still. A raw flat D100 is the cautionary tale: a flat +10 runs 10→20 (doubling your chances) in one place and 45→55 in another — the "same" modifier doing wildly different work, a giant lever with poverty traps at the bottom. (Savage Worlds' exploding dice are more erratic yet.) Score × EF is deliberately none of these: the same-sized step wherever you pull it.
Competence at a glance
What a Score buys you on an ordinary task (a typical BEF ≈ 5, no modifiers):
| Score | Who they are | SC on an average task |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | rank amateur | 25% |
| 10 | capable | 50% |
| 15 | seasoned professional | 75% |
| 20 | expert | 100% |
| 20+3 (26+) | master — only a natural 100 fails | over 100% |
Challenge at a glance
What the situation is worth. This table is really all you need to remember — every other modifier in the book is an example of it.
| The task is… | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Trivially easy | +5 |
| Very easy | +3 |
| Relatively easy | +1 |
| Average | +0 |
| Relatively hard | −1 |
| Very hard | −3 |
| Extremely hard | −5 |
| Near impossible | −7 |
Modifiers accumulate, and can run past either end: wounded and firing at a small, distant, dodging target with a badly-made gun can pile well below −7. So it should be.
Success comes in degrees — Quality Ratings
One roll tells you whether and how well. Read the Quality Rating (QR) off where your roll fell under the SC:
| Your roll | QR | |
|---|---|---|
| ≤ SC ÷ 10 | QR1 | brilliant |
| ≤ SC ÷ 4 | QR2 | good |
| ≤ SC ÷ 2 | QR3 | solid |
| ≤ SC | QR4 | scraped through |
| > SC | QR7 | failure |
| > SC and a multiple of 10 | QR10 | fumble — it went wrong |
Two hard limits: a roll of 100 is never better than QR7 (even a near-certainty can fail), and 99 is never better than QR4 (you can always succeed, but never brilliantly, on a 99). (The character sheet's Resolution Table precomputes the four thresholds so you never divide at the table.)
Read one column: fast, good, or much
A QR1 is quick or superb or plentiful — never all three. Decide before you roll what was at stake, and read only that column:
- Yield — how much? QR1 100%, QR2 80%, QR3 50%, QR4 25% of the maximum. Damage, intel gathered, ground covered, gold panned, rope salvaged. (Damage = Yield × Damage Class ÷ 2.)
- Time — how fast? QR4 takes roughly twice a competent estimate; QR1 is done in a flash. This is what answers "did you pick it before the guard rounded the corner?"
- Product (PM) — how good, for later? When a task makes something used in a later task, carry it forward as PM = 4 − QR: QR1 → +3 … QR4 → +0, QR7 → −3. (That's why the scale is numbered 1-2-3-4-7-10.)
Never penalize the same choice twice. If you took a penalty to do it a certain way, success already includes that thing. Pick the lock fast under a haste penalty and a plain success means you were fast — no separate Time roll on top. Call the head-shot at a penalty and a hit lands where you aimed. Pay once, up front.
Half of all successes are QR4 — twice the time, a quarter of the take — and that's just life: the plumbing rarely gets fixed well. When a result is hidden (was the alarm well-installed?), a failure yields and takes time exactly as a QR4 would; the dice stay quiet and the GM knows.
Speed answers "why can't I just try again?"
No special rule needed. A failure already spent the time — a QR7 eats ~200% of the estimate, same as a QR4 success — so retrying isn't free, and when time matters the guard is coming. A QR10 shuts the door: you've fouled the approach (snapped the pick, convinced yourself the safe turns the wrong way) — find another way. The worst-to-best conga line never forms.
Opposed resolution — oppose or build
Tasks rarely stand alone. Two moves cover every chain:
- Oppose — both roll, compare QRs; the better QR wins. A big gap is a rout, a small gap a narrow win, and equal QRs cancel — the blow just parried, the tail almost spotted. That's a feature: nothing decisive happens, the tension holds, you keep going, and a string of ties is a long taut struggle. If someone must act now, the higher Score edges it.
- Build — a prior result feeds the next as a modifier: +(5 − QR). QR1 → +4 … QR4 → +1. The follow-up still uses its own ability and BEF, nudged by what came before. Opposing a standing result instead (hacking a system someone built well)? Take the same value as a penalty.
Worked examples
- Picking a lock — Lockpicking (or Sleight of Hand) vs a difficulty for the lock's quality, minus haste, plus good picks. Time is usually the real stake: take the haste penalty and success is beating the guard.
- Fixing an engine — a chain. First diagnose it: a Knowledge task (the relevant field, with Perception or Intelligence to read the symptoms). The diagnosis is the product that feeds the fix (PM = 4 − QR) — a spot-on read (QR1) is +3 to the repair; a botched one (QR7) sends you chasing the wrong fault at −3. The repair may still be hard for its own reasons (access, a seized bolt), and its Yield is how much you restore — capped at as good as before. So: +3 to do the repair from a perfect diagnosis, never +3 to the thing repaired. A repair only restores.
- Hot-rodding it — the same plan-then-execute chain (plan the modification as a Knowledge task; the plan feeds the execution), but where a repair only restores, hot-rodding improves a chosen quality at a tradeoff — and it's the book's clearest picture of what a QR actually means:
- QR1–2 — the gain, with the tradeoff shrunk or gone; maybe a little extra on top.
- QR4 — the gain and the full tradeoff: quicker off the line, worse through the bends (the normal deal).
- QR7 — all downside, no upside: you paid the price and got nothing.
- QR10 — you broke it completely.
- Persuading the Duke — Charm (or Confidence) opposed by his resolve (WP, or Confidence if he's arguing back). Compare QRs; the gap is how convinced. A tie: he wavers but won't commit — yet.
- Picking a pocket — Sleight of Hand opposed by the mark's Perception. Reaching for a guarded inside pocket is a penalty and a called outcome: succeed and you got that pocket.
- Sneaking past — Stealth opposed by their Perception (or Search, if they're actively looking). A tie means they sense something and can't place it.
Random QR
When you need a QR out of nowhere — area damage catching a bystander, how well an unseen NPC did their job — roll D10: 1→QR1, 2→QR2, 3–5→QR3, 6–10→QR4.
Designer's Note: resolution is adapted from Victory Games' James Bond 007 — the finest published RPG of its era — generalized, then beaten into shape by four decades of play. It is not negotiable: a cleverer-looking dice engine was built to replace it, looked fine on paper, and failed at the table. Score × EF works because the value is a percentage, and people understand percentages and multiplication in their bones. The QR scale is the secret engine — combat damage, a chase's gained ground, an interrogation's leaked truth, a forged passport's quality are all "read the QR in the column that matters." Learn these two things and the rest of the book is examples.