HERE'S A BREAKDOWN TO EXPLAIN:
Here's the scenario:
Guide must decide whether everyone has to cope with (1) the hazards of the Tech Services explosives manufacturing center (Violence/Demolitions) or (2) the threat of the Power Services reactor core (Hardware/Nuclear Engineering)
INITIAL ROLL
Dexter (leader) chose the reactor option, meaning everyone rolls against their hardware/nuclear engineering skill.
CL rolled 17 (and used no Perversity Points).
CL's Hardware score is 6, and he has no Nuclear Engineering specialty/weakness.
So CL's margin is 6 (skill level) minus 17 (roll). His margin is -11, which is pretty bad. Now, if he can "get ahead" with a good roll, he can reduce that margin or even turn it into a success roll. (Again, he used no Perversity Points for the "get ahead" roll but probably shouldn't have used "get ahead" anyway...see below.)
GET AHEAD
To "get ahead" in this case, you roll against your violence/ demolitions instead of hardware/nuclear engineering (i.e., the opposite one chosen by the leader).
VIOLENCE is the SKILL. DEMOLITIONS is the SPECIALTY/WEAKNESS. So if your character sheet has a "demolitions" specialty under the Violence heading, you have to use the "demolitions" specialty/weakness instead of the violence skill. If you do not have demolitions, then you use violence as the default. (The same is true of HARDWARE (generic skill) and NUCLEAR ENGINEERING (specialty/weakness) for the first roll above.)
Here's what it looks like on the character sheet:
CL Character Sheet:
VIOLENCE 06
Energy Weapons 10
Thrown Weapons 10
Demolition 01
Poke 'Em in the Eye with a finger! 12
HARDWARE 06
Electronic Engineering 10
Habitat Engineering 01
So, for example:
CL chose "get ahead" and rolled 17.
CL has a demolitions "weakness." On your character sheet, anything with a skill level of 1 is a "weakness." Therefore, choosing to get ahead for CL is a bad idea because he's rolling against his worst score!
So CL's roll is his specialty/weakness skill (01) minus his roll (17)= His margin of success if -16, which is almost as horrible as you can get (-19 being the worst).
(The rules probably want you to subtract the 16 from your normal roll, but I've ruled to disregard it for getting ahead purposes. So CL's "get ahead" has no effect.)
So CL's final score for where he is in the setup is: missed his roll by 11, and adds no bonus points from "get ahead" and adds no bonus points from perversity points. His final position will be wherever -11 puts him compared with everyone else.
I hope that helps...
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:30, Thu 16 Oct 2008.