Game play rules

-- Rolling --
The game will be a shared story-telling where I will assume your character fails. I will give you some tips when suitable (for D&D saves, passive perception, etc.), but if you wish to prevent a specific outcome you will need to roll 2d6 to prevent the narrated outcome. To resolve the action you then take the sum of the two dice and compare it to the action's success range. -- Success Range --
Unlike many other systems, you are not aiming for high or low results but instead, a successful action is one which the roll’s result falls within the action's success range. This range starts with the value 5, being extended by the action modifier. This modifier is based on the skill level but its also affected by the circumstances, for example:

+1 if you can find a way to make the action easier (e.g. produce a relevant object, use landmarks, use relevant information)
+1 if using a good quality item (e.g. damage weakness, magical weapons)
+1 from traits and abilities
+1 if you use a previous experience

-1 if something if making the action more difficult (e.g. cover, low visibility, weaknesses)
-1 per accumulated wounds (see wounds below)
-1 if using a bad quality item (e.g. damage resistance, improvised weapons) -- Result--
Because the success of any roll depends only on the character's ability, you know immediately what the outcome is. If possible, you have the freedom to describe how the action is performed, the outcome and any potential consequence resulting from your character's action on a follow up post without waiting for my input. Ideally, this would allow the system to be run almost GMless at some point.

-- Failure --
When the dice are rolled, given the way the game is set up, it is often the case that you do not succeed. In most cases, this should not stop the action or prevent the players from getting what they are looking for. If you fail, you can:

* Receive help: If reasonable, another player can spend his action to help you by providing a +1 bonus to you action. If this is not enough, more players can roll to help taking a penalty equal to the number of characters' already helping (more characters make more confusion!) If any of them succeeds, the entire action was saved!

* Hard success: If you are able to give up something, you can choose to obtain a forced success instead of failing (e.g. an item brakes, run out of ammunition, a contact is lost, drop something important, miss a clue, etc). Items weariness is often used in these cases, particularly when wearing protective armor in combat.

* Twist! If you had all the time in the world, you would have succeed... eventually. If you can suggest a reason why your action was interrupted, what prevented you from succeeding, you find yourself in new trouble, but may retry the action once the new problem is solved. It is difficult to come up with something for every rolls, specially before the plot starts to take shape, but you will also be awarded one experience ("inspiration") as a reward for your contribution to the story if you managed to!* Push hard: If nothing else applies, your character's fatigue increases as it struggles to complete the action.

* Beyond your reach: You can just admit you don't have the skills to solve the action and give up. However, no one may re-try the same action until the circumstances change.Note that wealth is a special skill which failing requires you to level down reflecting how your current spending affects your total wealth significantly. Wealth reflects how much you can spend and, given that the success probably lies don’t scale up linearly, this means each level of wealth reflects different "amounts". The richer you are, the more you can spend without your overall wealth being affected.

few notes on combat...

So, if you can solve everything with a roll, how does combat actually works?

Combat actions work in much the same way as any other action (similar to PbtA). As for everything else, I will describe the round assuming the enemies are successful. To prevent such outcome, players will need to roll a skill, likely melee, ranged or magic.

Note that there is no defined turn order but within one round, every player gets to go once. All actions are rolled when the players announce their actions but only resolved at the end of the turn simultaneously. That means that characters can choose to help with actions that other players have already announced and rolled or even post an action that occurs before something already posted.But this means one-shot boss fights...

Adding enemies is one way to make combat last longer and make it more exciting and dangerous. However, to avoid anti-climatic one-shot kill of important enemies (bosses), some options I can secretly use are:

* Higher "armor", which means they have the ability to avoid damage by giving up some armor (like you can do using the Hard success option).
* Different combat goals or attitudes, for example changing from fight to flight as it becomes clear that you are winning.
* May require an actual success to be hit (or in specific cases a critical success!)

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A note on killing: I find assuming enemies are killed (in D&D) a bit counter-productive. Sometimes you just want to question them or not be a murder hobo. Sometimes you're just defending yourself or have not actual reason to kill an enemy. Maybe is just me, but I feel like it is better is the enemies are removed from the fight because they are wounded, and then you decide if they are killed or not.

To actually kill an enemy during combat you will have to roll a critical or purposefully attack them again. This doesn't prevent you from just doing it that after the combat (take no prisoners), mercifully kill those wounded beyond hope (though with magic that is very subjective) or just leave them to die from their wounds.

-- Wounds and corruption--
Each character has two weariness scales: fatigue and corruption. These two values increase as the adventures starts to weight down on the characters. When a roll is made, if the result is lower than the weariness value, the character is affected by it:

* Fatigue replaces HP common in other systems. The more exhausted a character is, the more likely it is to make grave mistakes and being wounded, where each wound affect one skill group (e.g. physical, reputation, distracted, etc) by adding a cumulative -1 penalty to the skills modifier. Note that a negative modifier results in an empty success range and an automatic failure so beware not to be caught in the "death spiral" that can quickly get a character out of action.* Corruption is a role play guideline based on the characters exposure to magic powers spreading across Icewind Dale. Even if you figure out what is causing it, the characters will likely be unaware of it for the first part of the adventure. When corruption triggers, the character becomes paranoid, unstable or aggressive.
-- Rest--
Whenever the characters are safe, they can take a short rest to recover from the adventure. If they rest in a protected, warm place they recover 1 fatigue. In addition, characters may perform any possible first aid action to stabilise one wound, temporarily removing its penalty (add a modifier penalty -1 per stabilised wound).

A long rest consists of a night of sleep in a safe and warm environment, usually between episodes or quests and fully removes all accumulated fatigue. Corruption may be gained or decreased based on the character’s exposure to a source. Finally, stabilised wounds may be treated to fully heal.

-- Level up! --
This game doesn’t use levels in the D&D sense. Character Improvement happens on an individual basis for each skill. Broadly speaking, the more you use a skill, the faster it will level up. This is because rolling the same number on both dice (doubles) mean the character notices something important while doing the action. If the value shown is higher than your skill level you immediately level up the trait. Otherwise, you gain 1 experience. Write it down on your character sheet and when suitable, you can use it to gain a +1 bonus to an action* Scars: If the damage accumulated is above your skill level, the skill modifier is negative, so the success range is empty, and the action automatically fails. You can, if you want, gain a scar to remove all wounds by levelling down all the skills in the same group.