Every action in this game is built from three elements: an Ability that represents natural aptitude, a Skill that represents training, and a Risk set by the GM that represents how dangerous the situation is. Skill and Risk work against each other. Training reduces danger, and danger erodes the benefits of training. What remains after that contest, combined with the character's raw Ability, forms the dice pool.

When the outcome of an action matters, follow the same process every time: determine the Ability, determine the Skill, set the Risk, build the pool, roll, and resolve.

The GM sets the relevant Skill and the Risk. Together, the GM and player determine the Ability. The GM makes the initial call, but players may request a different Ability if they can justify their character's approach. A character powering through a wound might roll Strength; another character refusing to acknowledge the pain and pressing on might roll Will. The approach determines the Ability, but the GM has final say.

Abilities

Abilities are who a character is — their natural aptitude, the raw material that training builds on. Two characters can have the same skills and face the same danger, but their Abilities determine the shape of how they act. One leads with force, another with cunning, another with sheer stubbornness. Abilities are the foundation everything else rests on.

There are six Abilities: Strength, Agility, Intellect, Presence, Perception, and Will.

• Strength measures physical power, toughness, and resilience. It covers not just how hard a character can hit, but how much punishment their body can absorb, how long they can push through exhaustion, and how well they endure harsh conditions. A character with high Strength is both powerful and durable.
• Agility measures speed, reflexes, coordination, and fine motor control. It governs how quickly a character reacts, how precisely they move, and how well they handle tasks that demand dexterity — from dodging gunfire to picking a lock.
• Intellect measures reasoning, memory, technical aptitude, and problem-solving. It covers the ability to analyze information, think through complex problems, and apply knowledge under pressure. Engineers, scientists, tacticians, and medics all lean on Intellect.
• Presence measures social force — the ability to influence, persuade, intimidate, deceive, or inspire. A character with high Presence commands attention when they enter a room. Whether that attention comes from charm, authority, menace, or sheer magnetism depends on the character.
• Perception measures awareness — the ability to notice details, read a situation, sense danger, and pick up on things others miss. It is about input, not processing. A character with high Perception sees the gun under the coat. What they do about it is a different question.
• Will measures raw willpower — mental resilience, force of self, and the capacity to impose one's will on the universe. It is the Ability most directly tied to Focus, the supernatural force that underlies all existence. A character with high Will can push through pain, resist influence, and — with training — bend reality.

Ability Ratings

Abilities are rated 1 to 5. Most people sit at 1 or 2 in any given Ability. A 1 is not a weakness. It is simply unremarkable, the default for anyone who has never needed to develop that area. A 3 or 4 represents genuine distinction, the kind of aptitude that shapes a career or a reputation. A 5 is rare enough that it defines whoever has it.

Skills

Cold Stars defines its own catalog of skills, organized by group. Skills marked with (D) are domain skills (see Domains below).

Skill Ratings

A character is either trained or untrained in a given Skill. That distinction is binary and exists before ratings enter the picture. An untrained character has no meaningful training and suffers +1 Risk when attempting actions with that Skill. A trained character has at least foundational knowledge and avoids that penalty.

Trained Skills are rated 0 to 5. Most working professionals sit at 1 or 2. A character at 3 is someone others seek out. A 4 has spent years honing their craft and has little left to learn. A 5 is vanishingly rare — one of a handful of people alive operating at that level.

Domains

Some skills cover ground too broad to operate at full mastery across every application. These skills are marked with (D) and behave a little differently above rank 2.

• At rank 0–2. The skill works like any other skill. No domain is picked. The full rating applies to every roll.
• At rank 3 and above. The character must pick a domain — a narrower focus within the skill. The full rating applies to rolls within a declared domain. Rolls outside every declared domain cap the Skill dice at 2 before cancellation against Risk. There is no untrained Risk penalty — the character is still trained, just operating outside their declared domains.

The character can broaden later by purchasing additional domains. Costs scale with the number of domains already held on that skill (see Spending XP). Most characters specialize hard before broadening, because the value of a new domain scales with the skill rating it sits on.

Each domain skill in the catalog ships with a list of example domains. These are suggestions for calibration, not a closed list. Players may propose other domains of similar breadth with GM approval. The rule of thumb: a domain should be specific enough that someone outside it has a meaningful gap — "all ships" is not a Piloting domain, but "Small Craft" or "Racing Skiffs" is.

Risk Ratings

Risk is the GM's tool. It is the only number in the dice pool that the player does not control. It measures how dangerous, unstable, or committed an action is. Risk does not ask whether the action is possible, only what is at stake if things go sideways.

Risk is rated 0 to 6. Most actions in play sit at Risk 1 to 3. Risk 4 and above should be rare, and when they appear, every player at the table should feel the weight of it.

The Dice

The game uses three types of dice, each with their own symbol distribution.

Ability dice carry Blanks and Successes. They represent raw capability.

Skill dice carry Blanks, Successes, and Critical Successes. They represent expertise — more likely to succeed, and more likely to produce exceptional results.

Risk dice carry Blanks, Failures, and Critical Failures. They represent danger. Risk dice never help. They only threaten.

Using Standard d10s

If you do not have custom dice, use ten-sided dice numbered 1–10 (treat 0 as 10).

Resolving an Action

Every action follows seven steps. Steps 4 and 6 are optional. If the rolling player has no modification to apply, they pass instantly. The typical unmodified roll flows: intent → stakes → pool → roll → resolve.

Step 1: Declare Intent

The player states what their character is trying to do.

Step 2: Set the Stakes

The GM sets the relevant Skill and the Risk. Together, the GM and player determine the Ability (see above). The GM has final say.

Step 3: Build the Pool

Start with Ability dice equal to the relevant Ability rating.

If the character is untrained in the relevant Skill, add +1 Risk.

Then compare the Skill rating to the final Risk rating. Skill and Risk cancel one-for-one.

• If Skill is higher after cancellation, the remainder becomes Skill dice.
• If Risk is higher after cancellation, the remainder becomes Risk dice.

The pool always contains either Ability + Skill dice or Ability + Risk dice. Never both Skill and Risk dice together.

Step 4: Modify the Pool (Optional)

The rolling player may apply one pre-roll modification to the pool. No stacking. Pick one or skip this step.

• Press (Momentum spend). Take +1 Risk to gain +1 Momentum. (See Momentum.)
• Brace (Momentum spend). Spend 2 Momentum to remove 1 Risk. (See Momentum.)
• Willpower upgrade. Spend Willpower to upgrade Ability dice to Skill dice in the pool. (See Willpower.)
• Other abilities or effects that modify the pool will say so explicitly.

Step 5: Roll

Roll the pool.

Step 6: Modify the Roll (Optional)

The rolling player may apply one post-roll modification. No stacking. Pick one or skip this step.

• Correct (Momentum spend). Spend 1 Momentum to reroll the entire pool. (See Momentum.)
• Other abilities or effects that modify results will say so explicitly.

Step 7: Resolve

Check for Criticals first. Criticals override everything else.

• If any Skill die shows a Critical Success, the result is a Critical Success.
• If any Risk die shows a Critical Failure, the result is a Critical Failure.

If no Criticals are present, read the remaining symbols based on the dice type in the pool.

Ability + Skill Rolls

• At least one Success: Success.
• No Successes (all Blanks): The player chooses: accept a Costly Success, or Fail. No Risk dice were present, so the character is not trapped. They can hesitate, abort, or simply come up short.

Ability + Risk Rolls

• Success(es) and no Failures: Success.
• Failure(s) and no Successes: Failure.
• Both Successes and Failures: Costly Success.
• All Blanks: Costly Success. The character was committed to a dangerous action. Inaction under pressure is not free.

Result Bands

Every roll produces one of five results.

Critical Success. The character succeeds and gains a boon. They get what they want, and something extra breaks their way.

Success. The character succeeds cleanly. They achieve their immediate goal.

Costly Success. The character succeeds, but there is a complication, consequence, or price. If Risk dice were part of the roll, the cost is mandatory and the GM determines what it is. If no Risk dice were rolled, the player chooses whether to accept the cost or simply fail instead.

Failure. The character does not achieve their goal.

Critical Failure. The character fails and suffers a serious additional consequence. Something goes wrong beyond ordinary failure.

Skipping the Roll

Not every action needs the dice. A player may skip the roll entirely and take a fixed outcome when the Risk is low enough to allow it.

The Risk here is what would remain in the pool after Skill cancellation. A character whose Skill cancels the GM's set Risk entirely skips to a clean Success — their training already absorbed the danger. A character whose Skill cannot fully cancel the Risk skips to a Costly Success, absorbing the cost their training could not deflect.

Skipping is the player's call, not the GM's. Once the Risk is set and the pool is calculated, the player decides whether to roll or to skip. Uncancelled Risk of 3 or higher is where mortal peril enters the picture; the table plays those out at the dice.

Skipping does not apply to contested rolls. When another character is actively opposing the action, the dice always come out.

Players skip to keep a scene moving, to eliminate the risk of Critical Failure, or to trade the chance at a better result for the certainty of an acceptable one. Players roll when they want the chance at a Critical Success — the spotlight moment described in the Risk Ratings callout above.

Contested Rolls

When a character's action is opposed by another character — whether a player character or a GM-controlled one — the contest is resolved as either an active or passive contest.

Active vs Active

Both sides know they are in a contest and are actively trying to win it right now. A sword fight. Two pilots racing to dock first. A negotiation where both parties are pushing for different terms. An interrogation where the prisoner is actively resisting. Both characters are present, aware, and acting with intent against each other.

Both characters build their pools at Risk 0 — pure Ability + Skill dice. Both roll. Successes and Critical Successes cancel against the opposing roll's Successes and Critical Successes, one-for-one. Whoever has remaining Successes wins. If the result is completely even, the initiating character may accept a Costly Success or choose to Fail.

The normal 7-step flow still applies to each side's roll. In particular, either side may spend Willpower at Step 4 to upgrade Ability dice to Skill dice, or spend Momentum to Correct at Step 6. Since the pools contain no Risk dice, Brace does not apply.

Active vs Passive

One side is acting. The other side's competence is an obstacle, but they are not actively making choices against the acting character right now. A guard on patrol who might notice something. A person being lied to who is not yet suspicious. A lock built by a good engineer who is not present.

The passive side does not roll. Instead, the higher of their relevant Ability or Skill becomes the Risk for the acting character's roll. Resolve as a normal action.

When to Use Which

The test is simple: is the other side making a choice right now? If yes, it is an active contest. If their competence is simply a wall the acting character is running into, it is passive.