Final Destination

Some actions demand time and effort to be performed. They can’t be completed on the fly or in the moment as instant actions are. Activities such as conducting research into a politician with a shady past, or canvassing a neighborhood for strange sightings are considered extended actions. Rather than require one roll, they demand several rolls before overall success can be determined.

Successes earned per roll are accumulated, and the period that passes between rolls varies depending on the activity performed. Each roll — each step in the process — is a step toward achieving the end goal, such as hacking a computer or hot-wiring a car. A failure on any roll means you accumulate no successes at that stage and your character’s time in that period is wasted. The project continues, though.

It’s also possible that particularly crippling penalties could be imposed on your dice pool for any stage, reducing you to a chance roll. Say a research effort is made ever more challenging in the wake of a fire in which important documents are lost. (The Storyteller imposes a high penalty to subsequent rolls made.) A dramatic failure on such a roll cancels all accumulated successes and may mean that your character must start the extended action from scratch, but also has to make some change in circumstance (he has to find a new source of information, get new tools, read the automobile repair manual or find new parts).

Under delicate circumstances, perhaps when tools or parts are one-of-a-kind, a dramatic failure may indicate that the project ends in utter failure, maybe with harm done to your character. The Storyteller determines how many total successes are required to complete an extended action. He also decides what period of time passes for each roll that you make, and translates what each stage means for your character.