Fria Ligans forum

Just to clarify how this works:
If a character butchers an animal, they automatically extract a number of rations of grub equal to the creature’s strength. This is “usually” contaminated by rot (I assume at the GM’s discretion?).
If a Zone Cook then tries to cook it, they have to roll against their Know the Zone value. For every 6 they roll, they then roll another D6 to determine how many rations they successfully turn into rot-free grub?

What if they fail the Know the Zone roll? Can they try again after a certain period of time (e.g. 4 hours), or is the food doomed to be rot-tainted, or worse, spoiled?

I’m divided between game-play, which would argue for a fail-as-a-fail - the attempt fails and the food is rot-tainted forever - and a sense of realism, which suggests that, if you know how to cook, you’re just as likely to cook successfully as you would be to butcher an animal, which didn’t require a roll. The food may taste bad, but it should be cooked.

I tend to like the idea of a Zone Cook automatically cooking D6 rations, while a non-cook has to roll, at risk of burning/spoiling/undercooking the meat, resulting in rot or poison (requiring Endurance rolls to avoid damage), or something to that effect.

Any thoughts on this?

If you roll no 'Success', something goes wrong. You're now at the GM's mercy. The only thing she can't say is "nothing happens." Failure should always have consequences. <>

It is up to the GM to decide. For this, well, the easy choice for the GM is of course, that the food is destroyed. Another, a bit nicer, choice is to give the chef some doubt (trauma to empathy) besides that the food still is contaminated or fatigue as well as a rot attack after he tasted the dish. If the GM is nice and not destroying the grub, he can spend another four hours (most things in MYZ take four hours, sometimes two) and try again.

A tip is that you prep some failures for skills that you guess the players will do, so the failures will be a bit more varied.

If you fail the roll, you don't fail cooking the food.

You fail the roll, you will still cook it, but it won't have its radiation removed.

Failing a skill roll in MYZ is very harsh (much more so than in other YZE games).

If you roll no 'success' something goes wrong. You’re now at the GM’s mercy. The only thing she can’t say is “nothing happens”. Failure should always have consequences.

Failing the skill roll and the grub is still classed as contaminated is technically classed as "nothing happens" and that is the one thing a skill roll shouldn't result in.
Consequences in MYZ are very harsh. Looking at the various example but also Tomas input (in the Swedish part of the forum) also say the same thing. The only exception to this is combat skills. The consequences of failing in combat is that your opponent might do something.

But all this regarding consequences and how harsh he thinks that he needs to be for skill roll is really up to each GM to decide.

Also, the GM can get creative. I personally like to take inspiration from Gordon Ramsey’s Hells Kitchen. For instance “the food is delicious now roll some dice to see who got the undercooked/raw contaminated grub” … of course the mutant with Rot Eater loved every meal!