Moss is using Alpha-Male 19 to pry open the door, and Augmenting with Telekinetic 14. As the ability’s description implies, Alpha-Male means – among other things – that Moss is bigger and stronger than the average vorcha, making it an appropriate Ability to use for this action. Augmenting means that you roll to try and get an additional bonus to your main roll. You can Augment with any one of your other Abilities so long as it makes sense and is interesting – in other words, leaning on one Ability for Augments several times in rapid succession is discouraged unless you manage to put a fresh twist on it.
In order to succeed in a contest, you need to roll a number equal to or under your Ability rating. However, there is more to it than that. As the Narrator, I assign a Resistance rating (whether the Resistance in question is an army of NPCs, a security system or the environment is irrelevant in this case) and roll for it. The rolls are then compared to establish the PC’s degree of success – or failure.
Moss rolls for his Augment. An Augment roll is always made against a Moderate Resistance, which at the beginning of the campaign has the rating of 14. The odds of his Augment going through are therefore even, though he’d need to roll really badly for his failure to result in a penalty as opposed to simply not getting an Augment.
He rolls
4. Contrary to what some of you might have been conditioned to expect from other systems, that’s actually a damn good roll, and a Success. The Resistance roll is…
16. A Failure.
Now I need to compare the rolls (this isn’t something you will ever have to do). Success vs. Failure is a Minor Victory. In Augment terms that counts for a +6. The +6 isn’t added to the roll, of course (as that would actually make it worse); it’s added to the player’s Ability rating for the purposes of the current contest. That brings Moss’ Rating for the following roll up to 5M. Prying open this door is a mere Moderate Resistance, so success of some sort is all but assured.
Alpha-Male Roll:
7. This would be a Failure if not for the Mastery. The Mastery automatically bumps it up to a Success. Had Moss rolled 5 or lower, he would have bumped his result up from a Success to a Critical, and gained an even bigger victory, which may have come with some added benefits. Conveniently for the purposes of this demonstration, the Resistance roll reveals an opposite extreme:
20, which is a Fumble – worse than an ordinary Failure. Success vs. Fumble equals a Major Victory for Moss. Not only does he get into the maintenance tunnel without any trouble, but he also gets a Lingering Benefit: +6 to further sabotage activities in maintenance tunnels, until he fails a related roll.