Alright, I want to look at the first page and a half of Segira (once you get past my personal message/license page that I always put in the very front).

Right now I've got a LibreOffice TOC that will be lost in the change to Scribus. I'll probably have to build a new one manually, but that's not the end of the world. I think Scribus supports an "automated" TOC, but it might not be worth it for a game the size of Segira.

I'm going to break down the first page or so below. I'm including quotes to show where I have an important thought or key detail. Feel free to give any feedback.

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What is a Roleplaying Game?

Roleplaying games involve players taking on the roles of characters and telling a story. Unlike board games or video games, they offer a tremendous amount of freedom for players to pursue goals.

The focus of roleplaying games is on storytelling and creativity. All the players are trying to tell a story, but typically there is one, the game-master (GM), who handles setting the stage for the story.

In addition, a roleplaying game includes mechanics that help to reduce ambiguity about what a character can do. By putting mechanics into place to limit characters’ actions, everyone gets a share of the spotlight and the challenges and twists of the story can have a real impact on characters.

How to Play?

To play Segira you need three things: a copy of this book, a character sheet, and a set of polyhedral dice (in particular, a pair of ones-place and tens-place ten-sided dice). It is also possible to play digitally, either via text or voice chat, or via dedicated “virtual tabletop” software.

Segira is intended for play without a physical representation or with abstract physical representation, so you will not need a playing surface and tokens to represent characters unless you choose to use them.

The Core Mechanic

Segira uses a streamlined version of the Hammercalled system from Loreshaper Games. The core mechanic of the game uses percentile rolls, which yield a number from 1-100. This can be done with a specialized die, or more commonly two ten-sided dice (d10s), with one d10 standing for a ones-place and one standing for a tens-place (most sets of polyhedral dice available at game/hobby shops include two d10s paired in this manner).

Characters make rolls against a number determined by many factors, including situational modifiers. The final number after everything is considered is called the Target Number (TN), and characters must roll at or beneath it to succeed.

The main rolls in the game are carried out by Player Characters. NPCs and the GM rarely roll.

The typical way that a roll is denoted is as an Attribute roll, reflecting the universal element that any character will have. For instance, the game may call for a Presence roll.

However, players and game-masters should remember that specializations, gear, talents, and situational factors can modify a roll further. Segira, and the Hammercalled system, does not generally restrict rolls to the use of only one attribute.

When you do math that requires division in Segira, always round fractions down.

Margin

The goal of a test is to roll under a target number (TN), but higher results on the d100 increase the Margin of the roll. To determine the Margin, just take the tens place of a roll (so a roll of 37 would have a Margin of 3, a roll of 11 a Margin of 1, and a roll of 68 a Margin of 6).

Think of this like Blackjack: you want to get as high a roll as you can without going over. Expert characters have a high TN on their rolls, especially in ideal situations, while inept ones or ones caught in awful situations will have a low TN in theirs.

Typically only successful rolls have a Margin, but in some cases, like failing a defense roll, the Margin of failure matters. In this case the Margin counts down, starting at 0 at a result of "00" and "0" on both dice (100), 1 for 99-90, 2 for 89-80, and so forth.

Opposed Rolls

Although only PCs typically roll dice to see if actions succeed or fail, on rare occasions there may be two PCs or special circumstances that dictate that two or more people will roll dice. In this event, both characters roll against an appropriate TN (determined individually), and the character with the highest Margin without going over their TN roll.

Difficulty

The GM determines a TN based on the difficulty of a task, not just a PC’s Attributes, Specializations, and Talents, and Gear.

An easy or inconsequential task does not usually require a roll. Likewise, it is possible for a desired task to be outside the realm of possibility for a character. Remember that the purpose of the game's mechanics is to provide an arbitrator, not a limitation, when telling stories.

This means that you may choose to have difficulties determined by what makes the story work well, or you may simply skip rolling at key moments to let the story play out in a more dramatic fashion (for instance, if you've already clearly won a fight there's no need to keep rolling).

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My goal here is to provide enough basic information to really set the stage and be unambiguous, but also provide a very quick explanation that won't insult players' intelligence if they're already familiar with roleplaying games. The core mechanic needs to be described in good detail without being bulky. It will be well-used by the end of play.