Well... you roll them. No, wait.... Don't slap me in the head just yet. It really is that simple. Just about every significant thing you do in the game will require you to roll some dice to determine the outcome. Every time you roll the dice, we call that a check. There are several types of checks that you may be asked to make by the GM, but they all work in the same basic way: you will roll a certain number of six-sided die, and add up the result. In the Universal Gaming System, a higher roll is always better. Higher rolls reflect more skill, more finesse, and more damage done to your foe. The number that you roll on the dice, before you add anything to it, is called the natural roll. For instance, if you roll a four and a five, you might say that you rolled a "natural nine." Most checks have something called a die modifier, which is a bonus or penalty to your roll. This number is combined with your natural roll to produce your check. If the Game Master asks me to make a climbing skill check, I will roll 2d6 (read two-die-six, meaning two six sided die) and see what my natural roll (in this case a two and a five) was. I will then add the DM of my climbing skill (in this case +2). My skill check was a nine, which is what I tell the Game Master. If the climb was a normal difficulty, an eight or higher succeeds, which means I succeeded by one. The amount I succeeded by will be a concept that becomes important later on.
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