The Basic Mechanics
The Players and The World Builder
The game of Crytures is focused around a small group of players, one of which is designated as the World Builder. The World Builder serves as the narrator, the referee, the antagonist, and the supporting cast all in one. They eschew the chance to control a player character, in order to run the game and present challenges for the players to overcome.
Each other player controls a single character in the world, known as a Player Character, as well as the crytures that character owns. They are the heroes of the story, who react to the challenges and situations that the World Builder presents to them.
Dice Rolls
Conflict resolution in Crytures is handled by rolling a handful of 10-sided dice, called the Dice Pool, which aims for a target number, called the Difficulty. Each die in the pool that rolls the difficulty or higher is registered as a Success, or a Hit.
Some rolls may require multiple successes to complete a task, while others may give bonuses for each success beyond the first. The number of successes needed to complete a task is called the Complexity.
If you fail to achieve enough successes, you may suffer a setback of some kind, or you may need to spend extra time, Stamina, or Mana in order to try again.
Dice Pools
When making a roll, you will be instructed - either by the World Builder or the rules themselves - to add some combination of stats together. Typically, this will be a Talent + a Skill for human characters, or a Stat + a Class for Crytures. Add any dice modifiers to this number, and the result will be the number of d10s in the dice pool.
Natural 10s and Critical Hits
When a die rolls a 10, before adding any modifiers, that is considered a natural 10. Any time a natural 10 is rolled, that roll counts as an automatic success, and if it would be a normal success as well, it counts as two successes. In combat, a natural 10 is considered a critical hit, and it triggers the Crit effect of an attack, which usually adds another hit and may inflict additional effects as well.
Roll vs Die Modifiers
Certain situations may give you bonuses or penalties to your dice pools or the rolls of each die. These are distinguished as either roll modifiers or die modifiers.
A roll modifier is added to the results of each die within a dice pool. For example, let’s say you roll a dice pool of 6 with a +2 roll modifier, and roll 4, 7, 2, 6, 9, and 3. You then add +2 to each of those rolls, resulting in 6, 9, 4, 8, 11, and 5.
A die modifier adds (or removes) dice from a pool. If you are making a roll with a dice pool of 6, but get a +3 die modifier, that means you’ll roll 9d10 as the total dice pool.