Chapter Six
Reading Results
##### The Anti-Duplication Rule
**Side effects should never duplicate the main result.**
If a character succeeds at picking a lock, leftover Boons should not just mean *the lock opened harder*. They should mean something else changed: the character opened it quietly, opened it quickly, also noticed a faint scratch on the doorframe, or left no sign of forced entry.
If a character failed to pick the lock, leftover Boons should not mean *the lock partially opened*. They should mean something else went right: the character learned the lock is reinforced, avoided alerting the guard inside, or dropped a tool quietly enough that nothing was lost.
Ask "what else?" not "how much?"
### Successes vs Boons: Different Axes
Extra Successes and Boons describe different things. They are not interchangeable.
**Extra Successes scale the action's primary effect**, whatever the roll itself is *for*. The primary effect is roll-type-specific:
- **Weapon attacks** scale damage. Each net Success above the first adds damage as defined by the weapon and combat rules. More Successes mean a harder hit.
- **Medicine and recovery checks** scale Wounds healed or treatment quality. More Successes mean a better outcome for the patient.
- **Extended Checks** count net Successes against a threshold. More Successes mean the task completes faster.
- **Most other skill checks** are binary: the first net Success means the task is accomplished. Additional Successes describe *how well* it was done, faster, cleaner, more precise, more impressive, but they stay on the same axis as the task itself.
**Boons (and Banes) add separate texture**, what else changed beyond the action's primary effect. They live on the Eight Axes below and never reskin the primary effect as "more of itself."
The same roll uses both. On a Stealth check, extra Successes mean you moved cleanly and precisely; a Boon means you also learned the patrol pattern, or saved a charge of your light source. On an attack, extra Successes mean more damage; a Boon means you also reloaded as a free action, or spotted the next threat. On a Medicine check, extra Successes restore more Wounds; a Boon means you also preserved scarce supplies, or identified the cause of the injury.
When in doubt: Successes answer "how well did the action itself succeed?" Boons answer "what else changed?"
### The Result Spending Ladder
Net symbols scale by count. Use this ladder as the default for any check.
| Net Result | Scope of Effect | Examples |
|:----------:|:----------------|:---------|
| 1 / | **Minor texture** | Recover 1 Strain; small positional shift; brief delay; small clue or oversight |
| 2 / | **Named effect** | Inflict or shed a condition; gain or miss a useful detail; expose or shore up a weakness; help or hinder an ally's next check |
| 3+ / | **Scene-shifting** | Alter the environment; bypass or introduce a complication; create a lasting benefit or threat |
| | **Exceptional positive** | Critical Injury inflicted; truth revealed; reversal in your favor; lasting advantage |
| | **Exceptional negative** | Critical Injury suffered; truth withheld or weaponized; reversal against you; lasting threat |
A Breakthrough and a Calamity are *meaningfully* stronger than a 3+ Boon or Bane spend. They change the shape of the scene; they do not just stack more of the same effect.
### Who Spends What
The default protocol:
- **Players propose positive spends.** Boons and Breakthroughs belong to the player who rolled them. The player suggests how to spend them, recover Strain, gain a clue, inflict a condition, learn a fact. The GM may approve, adjust, or offer alternatives if the proposal does not fit the fiction.
- **The GM applies negative spends.** Banes and Calamities are the GM's tool to shape the scene. The GM decides what complication landed, what was lost, exposed, alerted, or worsened. The player may suggest, but the GM has final authority.
This protocol is collaborative, not adversarial. A GM who never accepts a player's Boon proposal is being too tight. A player who tries to dictate Calamity narration is overstepping. Both sides are building the same scene.
### The Universal Menu: Eight Axes of Change
When you have leftover symbols and no obvious narrative use, change one of these eight things. This menu works for any skill, any check, any context.
| Axis | Boon Spend | Bane Spend |
|:-----|:------------------------------------------------|:------------------------------------------------|
| **Time** | Faster, sooner, in fewer rounds | Slower, delayed, takes longer than expected |
| **Position** | Better cover, advantage, footing, reach | Exposed, off-balance, cornered, vulnerable |
| **Information** | Learn an extra fact, see a detail, recognize a pattern | Misread the situation, miss a clue, recall something wrong |
| **Resources** | Save supplies, ammo, time, money, charges | Lose, expend, or damage supplies, ammo, gear |
| **Attention** | Stay unnoticed, avoid drawing notice, slip away cleanly | Draw notice, alert someone, leave a trail |
| **Condition** | Apply or remove a temporary condition | Suffer a temporary condition; lose composure |
| **Future Rolls** | Add 1 Boon Die to the next related check | Add 1 Bane Die to the next related check |
| **Scene** | Open a new path, opportunity, escape route, or pressure point | Introduce a new hazard, threat, complication, or pressure |
Spend along whichever axis fits the fiction. A successful Stealth check with extra Boons may move along Attention (you slip past unseen) or Information (you noticed the patrol's pattern) or Future Rolls (your next ally has an easier time). A failed Lore check with Boons may move along Information (you don't know the answer, but you know who would) or Scene (your interest reaches the right ear).
### Skill-Family Examples
The eight axes apply to every kind of check. The following examples show what they look like in different domains.
##### Combat
- **2 ** — inflict Disoriented; shove the target a band; reload as a Quick Action; take cover from your strike
- **3+ ** — bypass armor on the next hit; reposition allies; control the engagement
- **2 ** — drop a weapon, expose a flank, draw a worse threat's attention, suffer 2 Strain
- ** on a hit** — Critical Injury inflicted; major battlefield reversal
- ** on a miss** — your missed shot reveals an opening, breaks cover for an ally, or destroys a hazard
- ** on a hit** — your weapon breaks; the room goes loud; a worse enemy notices; your hit also injures an ally
- ** on a miss** — friendly fire; you fall; the enemy escapes; you create the opening you feared
##### Search, Perception, and Investigation
- **2 on success** — find it quickly; find an additional related detail; preserve the search site
- **2 on failure** — learn where *not* to look; rule out a false lead; spot a separate hazard
- ** on success** — uncover the hidden truth that reframes the scene
- ** on failure** — you don't find it, but you find something *more* important
- ** on success** — you find it and trigger the ward, alarm, or watcher
- ** on failure** — you miss it *and* alert whatever was guarding it
##### Lore, Knowledge, and Recall
- **2 ** — recall a related fact; remember the name of someone who would know; identify the maker, era, or origin
- ** on success** — the answer connects to something already in play: a known enemy, a missing person, a buried history
- ** on failure** — you don't remember, but you remember *who told you*, and where that person is
##### Social (Charm, Deception, Negotiation, Intimidation, Leadership)
- **2 on success** — improve disposition; reduce future difficulty with this NPC; learn a motive
- **2 on failure** — they refuse, but you learn what would work; they respect your nerve; they leave a future opening
- **2 on success** — they agree, but demand a price; remember the imposition; tell someone else
- ** on success** — they agree, and immediately betray, blackmail, or weaponize the agreement
- ** on failure** — they refuse, but reveal their actual fear, weakness, or true loyalty
##### Stealth and Subterfuge
- **2 on success** — leave no trace; learn the patrol pattern; place yourself for the next action
- **2 on failure** — you're seen, but only briefly; you misjudged the angle, but the watcher dismisses it
- ** on success** — the entire route is mapped; you reach a vantage point you didn't expect
- ** on success** — you got through, but left evidence that someone *will* find
##### Medicine and Recovery
- **2 ** — preserve scarce supplies; reduce treatment time; identify the cause of the injury
- **** — the patient recovers far beyond expectation, or you spot a separate condition that would have killed them
- ** on success** — the patient lives, but with a complication: a scar, a weakness, a debt of conscience
##### Craft, Operate, and Technical
- **2 ** — finish faster; conserve materials; add a small feature or improvement
- ** on a successful repair** — the system works *better* than before
- ** on a failed repair** — you can't fix it, but you identify the exact part needed and where to find it
- ** on a successful build** — it works for now, but is unstable, traceable, or compromised
- ** on operating a vehicle** — you maintain control, but lose a system, attract pursuit, or expose a weakness
##### Spells, Powers, and Universe-Specific Abilities
The default Exodus NDS rules do not include magic or supernatural powers — those belong to the Universe. The spending pattern carries:
- **2 ** — reduce the cost; extend the duration; affect a second target; suppress the signature
- ** on success** — the effect exceeds normal limits or reveals a deeper truth
- ** on failure** — the spell fails, but you learn its true nature, open a future channel, or avoid the cost
- ** on success** — the spell works, but warps, drains, attracts attention, or backlashes
- ** on failure** — the spell fails *and* something else gets through: backlash, possession, attention, unintended targets
### Mixed Results: The Four Quadrants
The most distinctive moments in Exodus NDS occur when the main result and the exceptional result point in different directions. Use this matrix to read them.
| Main Result | + Breakthrough | + Calamity |
|:------------|:-----------------------------------------------------------|:----------------------------------------------------|
| **Success** | Clean win plus major upside. The task is done and something significant goes your way, a revelation, a permanent advantage, or a turning point. | You succeed, but at a serious cost. The task is done and something major has gone wrong, a price, an exposure, a wound, a debt, a watcher. |
| **Failure** | You fail the task, but something major breaks your way. You did not accomplish the goal, but a different opportunity, truth, or advantage opens. | You fail and the situation worsens significantly. The task is undone and the scene escalates, a new threat, a lasting wound, a closed door. |
Each cell is a distinct narrative moment. None is just *more* of the cell next to it.
##### Examples by Pillar
**Combat — Success + Calamity:** Your blow lands and the enemy falls. Your weapon shatters in the strike, or your shout draws a worse threat, or you slip and fall Prone next to the body.
>**Combat — Failure + Breakthrough:** Your shot misses. It strikes the chandelier above, the support beam, or the lantern, and the room changes. The enemy is still standing. The battlefield is not.
>**Investigation — Success + Calamity:** You find what you were looking for. Finding it triggered the ward, the alarm, or the watcher. You have the prize. Something now has you.
>**Investigation — Failure + Breakthrough:** You don't find what you were looking for. You find something else, older, stranger, or more dangerous, that you weren't supposed to see.
>**Social — Success + Calamity:** They agree. They will betray you the moment it suits them, and you can see in their eyes that you both know it.
**Social — Failure + Breakthrough:** They refuse. In refusing, they reveal their true motive, their fear, or their lord's name, something you came for that you weren't asking about.
**Spell — Success + Calamity:** The spell works. It also tears something, your reserves, the Veil, your reputation, an ally's resistance, or a binding you did not know was holding.
>**Spell — Failure + Breakthrough:** The spell fails. The failure illuminates *why*, and the next attempt will be different.
>**Craft — Success + Calamity:** The repair holds. It will fail again at the worst possible moment, and you suspect when.
**Craft — Failure + Breakthrough:** You cannot fix it with what you have. You now know exactly what you need, who has it, and what it will cost.
### Floor Rules: When the Table Stalls
If a player has leftover symbols and cannot decide what to do with them, do not let the table stall. Use these defaults.
- **Unspent (1):** Recover 1 Strain. Always available. Always sufficient.
- **Unspent (2 or more):** Add 1 Boon Die to the next ally's check this scene.
- **Unspent :** If no specific effect is chosen, the next ally to make a check this scene adds 1 Boon Die *and* the GM owes the table a moment of relief, a brief lull, a found item, a shorter watch.
- **Unspent :** The character suffers 1 Strain per net Bane (the GM may instead translate to a fictional setback if one is obvious).
- **Unspent :** If the GM does not name a specific effect, the GM gains 1 Peril Point and the scene tilts perceptibly, a sound from elsewhere, a tremor, a held breath. Something has shifted. The bill comes later.
These are floors, not ceilings. They keep the game moving when imagination stalls. Replace them with anything richer.
##### A Note for Universes
Every menu, axis, and example in this chapter is a default. Universes may rename the axes (Reputation, Heat, Charge, Veil), restrict the menus, expand the skill-family examples, or add entire new domains (mass combat, ritual, dueling, sailing). The protocol, three-step resolution, anti-duplication, players propose positive, GM applies negative, should remain stable across all Universes built on Exodus NDS.
Where a Universe rule conflicts with the defaults in this chapter, the Universe rule takes precedence.