Yes/No Oracle

An "oracle" in this context is a way of randomly answering questions - in this case, yes or no questions. For this purpose, a Yes/No Oracle table is included below. To use it, you first formulate a question such that a "yes" is the answer you're hoping for and then you roll a die and look up the result on the Oracle table to find the result.

There are eight possible results you can get from this Oracle:

  1. Negative random event
  2. No, and it's worse than you think
  3. No
  4. No, but not as bad as you think
  5. Yes, but not as good as you were hoping
  6. Yes
  7. Yes, and it's even better than you hoped
  8. Positive random event

To get a Yes/No answer, follow these steps:

  1. Determine how likely you think a positive answer should be, and find the corresponding row using the Probability column of the table.
  2. Optional: Decide if you want to spend any Luck Points to improve your chances of a Yes (positive) answer. For each Luck Point you spend, you can go up one row on the table. For example, if you have decided that the probability of a Yes answer is "likely" (the +3 row) and you decide to spend 2 Luck Points to improve your odds, you go up two rows to "highly likely" (the +5 row).
  3. Roll a d20, and look up the result on the table.
  4. If you roll a 1 or a 20, the narrative is interrupted by a Random Event - see the section on those below the table.
Row Probability No and No No but Yes but Yes Yes and
+6 Almost certainly 2 3 4 5-7 8-16 17-19
+5 Highly likely 2 3-4 5 6-8 9-16 17-19
+4 Very likely 2 3-5 6 7-9 10-17 18-19
+3 Likely 2 3-6 7 8-9 10-17 18-19
+2 Probably 2 3-6 7-8 9-10 11-17 18-19
+1 Somewhat likely 2-3 4-7 8-9 10-11 12-17 18-19
0 50/50 2-3 4-8 9-10 11-12 13-17 18-19
-1 Somewhat unlikely 2-3 4-9 10-11 12-13 14-17 18-19
-2 Probably not 2-3 4-10 11-12 13-14 15-18 19
-3 Unlikely 2-3 4-11 12-13 14 15-18 19
-4 Very unlikely 2-3 4-11 12-14 15 16-18 19
-5 Highly unlikely 2-4 5-12 13-15 16 17-18 19
-6 Almost certainly not 2-4 5-13 14-16 17 18 19

Random Events

If you roll a 1 (Negative Event) or a 20 (Positive Event), you get a random event instead of an answer to your question. Roll on the following table to determine what the event relates to - what it is about.

  1. Roll a 1d4, and look up the result on the following table.
  2. Now that you know what the event relates to (PC, NPC, Faction, or Plot), randomly determine which of these (which PC, etc).
  3. Come up with an appropriate event, and narrate accordingly. If you need inspiration, use the Verb and Noun Oracles.
1d4 Relates to
1 PC
2 NPC
3 Faction
4 Plot

So, if you rolled a 20 (Positive Event) on the d20, you roll a 1d4 to find out what this negative event pertains to.