Fortune Scale – 5 Tiers

Fortune Scale – 5 Tiers expands Voyage’s action resolution into a simple 5-tier outcome scale, adding an important middle ground between outright failure and ordinary success without making the system complicated. Results range from Critical Failure and Failure, through Costly Success, all the way up to Success and Critical Success. Each tier includes dedicated narration guidance designed to keep outcomes proportional to the action being attempted. Failures do not automatically make capable characters look incompetent, while successes remain focused on what the character actually attempted rather than granting unrelated rewards or impossible effects. Costly Success is the first successful tier: the character achieves their immediate goal, but with a meaningful cost, complication, or limitation. A normal Success achieves the goal cleanly, while Critical Success represents the best plausible result the attempted action can reasonably produce. Designed to be fully setting- and genre-agnostic, Fortune Scale can be used in fantasy, science fiction, modern, historical, horror, romance, slice-of-life, and other worlds. This version is designed for players and creators who want a straightforward outcome system while still preserving the distinction between simply succeeding and succeeding at a meaningful cost. The 5-Tier Scale Each tier begins at the following action score: Critical Failure — -50 and below Failure — -11 Costly Success — -1 Success — 0 Critical Success — 50