Game Mechanics
BlackThorne utilizes a modular game system with a simple, easy-to-remember core that heavily favors the narrative
flow of your game over number crunching. When you want more control over something, say, combat, you can use
the crunchier Combat! Mechanic with no fuss, and little to no portability issues: all your attributes, stats, and skill
ratings remain as they are.
Dice Mechanics
The basic resolution mechanic in BlackThorne consists
of building and rolling a d6 dice pool based on an array
of applicable skills that your character possesses. The
highest result on a single die (which can be anything
from 1 to 6) is the result of your roll. Occasionally, it
will be useful to arrange your dice after rolling from
lowest to highest, but for the most part, you will be
looking for the single die that rolled the highest.
It should be fairly obvious that the more dice in your
pool, the better your chances of rolling high.
Core Mechanic
The core mechanic of BlackThorne is a narrative
between Game Master and players, with dice rolls made
to resolve conflicts.
Conflicts is a flexible word in this game; A physical
brawl is the clich definition, but also involves trying to
lower the price on a piece of armor, convincing a guard
to let you pass, or even simply trying to leap over a
waist-high wall. Anytime there is a chance that the
player might not get what he/she wants, this is a
conflict, and must be resolved somehow.
The most common way conflicts are resolved is via tests.
This is when the GM calls for a particular skill to be
tested, and the player/s roll a number of D6s equal to
their rating in the called skill.
After rolling, the player looks for the die/dice that
rolled the highest number. This number is the roll
result.
The result of your roll is interpreted according to the
following table:
Black Gray White
Failure with
Consequences 1-3 4-5 6 the NPC opposing the player's actions) roll dice pools.
Success with
Consequences 1-2 3-4 5-6
Straight
1-2 3 4-6
Success
Table 1: Degrees-of-Success
A Straight Success is a success as agreed upon by the
player and GM. This agreement between player and GM
is important, even if it seems like meta-gaming, as it will
help determine the number of dice in your pool.
Success with Consequences means that the player is
presented with a choice: He/she can attain their goal
but at a usually unpleasant cost, or else opt to fail to get
what they want, and avoid the unpleasant cost. The
ultimate objective of Success with Consequences is to
present the player with a hard choice that makes them
question the ultimate value of whatever it is they want
and if it is still worth the trouble.
Failure with Consequences is similar with Success with
Consequences, but without the hard choice: the
character simply fails to get what they want, and nasty
stuff happens. While this is a daunting outcome for any
player, it should be noted that this is only a real problem
when your dice pool consists of only one or two dice;
the chances of rolling all 1s or 2s decreases dramatically
when you roll more dice.
The horizontal axis indicates Skill Shade, which is a way
of representing a character's talent or giftedness in a
particular skill (while the number of dice in their pool
indicates their training). At the start of the game, nearly
all your skills will be shaded Black. How to move to the
Grey and White shades will be discussed later.
Players from other RPG systems might notice the lack
of a critical success/failure mechanic. We love critical
successes (and conversely, despise critical failures), but
there was no way to build such a mechanic into the
initial roll of the dice pool in a way that felt satisfactory
to us. The game plays fine without them, but if you
really want to give both your players (and some of your
NPCs) the thrill of astounding success, you may allow
players to renegotiate their definition of straight
success only if more than one die rolled a six, with
more dramatic redefinitions costing more sixes.
Opposed Tests (Modular Combat/Social Conflict)
A different kind of test occurs when whatever a player is
trying to do in the game is being actively worked-
against by someone or something. This is known as an
opposed test, and this kind of test does not make use of
degrees-of-success.
In an opposed test, both the player and the GM (playing
Similar dice results cancel each other out, and the
winner is whoever has the remaining die with the
highest number. Ties go in favor of the defender, the
character being acted against.
It goes without saying that this kind of test occurs most
often during combat, with Attack rolls being opposed
by Defend rolls (Block, Parry, or Dodge).
Advantage & Disadvantage
The words advantage and disadvantage have very
specific effects on your rolls. When you roll with
advantage, you add 1 to the result, to a maximum of 6.
When you roll with disadvantage, you subtract 1 from
the result, to a minimum of 1.

Character Attributes
Player characters (PCs) are defined by three primary
attributes: Body, Mind, and Spirit. These govern the
secondary attributes as follows:
Body Mind Spirit
Constitution Intelligence Will
Strength Knowledge Spellcasting
Stamina Perception Faith
Accuracy
Coordination
Quickness
Table 2: Secondary Attributes
Players are given 5 points to distribute among the three
primary attributes, where no attribute can have zero
points. These points then determine the starting scores
for the secondary attributes.
Point Distribution
Given that there are only 5 points to spread-out among
three Primary Attributes, it should be obvious that there
are only two point groupings possible: 311 and 221.
The first grouping is good for creating a super-
specialized character right out of the gate, while latter
grouping allows for a character with more balanced
attributes.
Regardless of which point grouping you decide upon,
the Secondary Attributes inherit the points of the
Primary Attributes in the following manner:
A primary attribute equal to 3 allows you to set
one secondary attribute at 3, another one at 2,
and the rest at 1.
A primary attribute equal to 2 allows you to set
three secondary attributes at 2, and the rest at 1.
A primary attribute equal to 1 will set all
secondary attributes beneath it to 1.
Don't worry if the point distribution looks low;
character improvement is at the heart of BlackThorne,
and there are only a very few things about your
character that cannot be improved somehow as the
game progresses.
Character Stats
Stats are derived attributes, meaning, their score are
calculated from the scores of one or more Primary or
Secondary Attributes. There are four character stats:
Charisma, Wound, Grit, and Morale.
Charisma is the average of Intelligence and Will.
Unlike in other games, the ability to influence others is
not a standalone attribute.
Wound is a character's ability to cause physical damage
to someone or something. It is equal to Strength +
Stamina.
Grit is a character's ability to endure physical pain and
suffering before losing consciousness. It is the sum of
Constitution and Will.
Morale is a character's willingness to stand firm and
continue in the face of fear, pain, or mind-shredding
horror. It is equal to Will + Intelligence or Faith,
whichever is larger.
Character Skills
Skills are the backbone of BlackThorne. Nearly
everything you would like to do is dependent on a skill.
There are three general classes of skill: Common,
Combat, and Specialist. Common skills are things that
anyone in the world of BlackThorne can do: things like
climbing, swimming, riding, etc. Combat skills are all
about fighting, of course, and Specialist skills are those
things that only someone with special training of some
sort would know anything about.
Each skill is governed by either an Attribute or a Stat,
and many of them inherit their governing attribute or
stat score at the start of the game. The exceptions to this
are many of the Combat and Specialist skills: Each
player may open 3 Combat Knowledge skills and 3
Specialist skills to the level of their governing
attributes. The rest will have to be learned and
improved upon over the course of the game.

Swim (Stamina) Climb (Strength) Ride (Coordination) Haggle (Charisma)

First Aid (Intelligence) Tinker (Coordination) Persuade (Charisma) Intimidate (Charisma)
Sneak (Coordination) Conceal (Quickness) Local (Knowledge) Nature (Knowledge)
Geography (Knowledge) Nobility (Knowledge) Religion (Knowledge) Lore (Knowledge)
Table 3: Common Skills

Melee Attack Shoot (Accuracy) Throw (Accuracy) Grapple (Strength)

(Coordination)
Block (Strength) Parry (Coordination) Dodge (Quickness)
Dagger (Knowledge) Short Blades (Knowledge) Long Blades (Knowledge) Dueling Blades
(Knowledge)
Bludgeons (Knowledge) Whips & Flails Polearms (Knowledge) Bows (Knowledge)
(Knowledge)
Crossbows (Knowledge) Firearms (Knowledge) Exotic Weapons Unarmed/Improvised
 (Knowledge) (Knowledge)
Table 4: Combat Skills
 Woodworking Smithing (Strength) Armoring (Intelligence) Performing (Charisma)
(Coordination)
Survival (Intelligence) Alchemy (Intelligence) Medicine (Intelligence) Surgery (Accuracy)
Animal Handling Acrobatics (Coordination) Disguise (Intelligence) Sleight of Hand (Accuracy)
(Intelligence)
Navigation (Intelligence) History (Knowledge) Occult (Knowledge) Appraisal (Knowledge)
History (Knowledge) Engineering (Knowledge) Architecture (Knowledge) Dungeoneering
(Knowledge)
Table 5: Specialist Skills

Social Skills
Social skills are used by the Social Conflict module
(more on that later), and are derived from Charisma and
the Persuade and Intimidate skills. Simply add their Table 6: Social Skills
ratings together, and that is the total number of points
that a player can assign to the skills listed below.