Mythic and Tunnels & Trolls: Determining SR rating

One of the challenges of Solo rpg play is determining task difficulty. As I mentioned in an early post, rereading the original Mythic rules I got a better grasp of determining this. To paraphrase - it says use your logic by comparing the difficulty to what the average would be for example: busting down a door - what is the average strength of a door? Determine it based on what your logic tells you. Is the door made of metal? is the door thick? This can be aided by Mythic questions. When in doubt of course and you have no idea, it is fine to say "I don't know" and go with a 50/50 chance so you can move on without slowing your game down.

Some people use Mythic for task resolution but for me the Fate Chart is used just to ask questions. I use whatever system I'm using for task resolution.

Thankfully, Tunnels & Trolls is particularly Mythic friendly in regards to establishing task difficulty. All tasks are determined by making one standard SR roll which basically is 2d6 + appropriate attribute against SR level. The 7.5 rules uses these numbers to serve as a guideline for saving roll ratings.


Level One - 20
Level Two - 25
Level Three - 30
Level Four - 35
Level Five - 40

I have modded this to 6 levels of SR ratings:

Level One -  Somewhat easy 15 or more
Level Two - 50/50 20
Level Three - Hard 25
Level Four - Difficult 30
Level Five - Very difficult 35
Level Six - Almost impossible 40

If it a task seems definitely easy then of course no roll is needed. Based on the levels above, I could see most SR rating being assessed as Levels one to four in solo play to make it easier to assess (this is primarily for lower level characters). Very difficulty and almost impossible of course can occur but should only be used when a task is obviuosly at that difficulty level.

Circumstantial Modifiers: A small modiefier might change a SR rating by 1-2 both positively or negatively. A serious modifier by 3.

Another mythic question I sometimes ask is how wide/tall/big is the ____?
roll 1 d6 to determine an answer to asking how.

6- very
5- more than normal
3-4 - normal
2 - less than normal
1 - not at all

this can help determine SR ratings.

Here is an example of determine a SR rating:

A group of goblins is chasing me up a rocky slop. I come to a ravine, there is no other possible direction I can go. I will attempt to jump over it. Modifiers: (how much time do I have? result = 2 - not much time, they are about 50 feet away. Alright I have to do this in one jump so I determine that as a small negative modifier -2(1d2 = 2). How wide is the ravine? (the 'how' chart above, result =3 so normal). I set the SR rating at 22. My Dex score is 14 so I need a roll of 8 or more to succeed.

Another great rule for SR rolls in Tunnels in trolls is you can add your attribute level at the end of the roll in case might help you. So if I rolled a 7 and received a result of 21 then I could boost it to a 22(my dex rating is 14 which is determined as level one rating for attributes in T&T rules) if I needed to in that situation. It's helps with narrative too: I jump over the ravine and barely land on the other side grabbing onto the edge with my arms while my legs dangle over the 100 foot drop, I'm starting to slip but at the last moment grab onto a root of the tree pulling myself up.

I have an idea for taking this one step further which I'll write about in another post soon. 

Next time, I will write about a new little tool I've been messing with- solo geomorphs. Intrigued? check my blog in the next few days.