Romance of Five Kingdoms
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Overview

Every action you attempt in Romance of Five Kingdoms comes down to a dice roll built from two parts: an approach and a specialized stat. The approach tells the game how you are doing something; the specialized stat tells it what you are doing it with. Together they set the modifier on a 2d8 exploding roll. On top of that foundation sits a separate pool of qi dice you can spend for extra power, plus style abilities that can reshape the dice entirely.

Your Stat Blocks

Type score to see your character sheet. By default it shows your approaches and a prompt at the bottom:

score adventure | sport | art | all

Each of the four sections is a separate stat block with its own point budget.

Approaches

Three stats that describe the manner of your attempt. You allocate up to 8 points here (each point costs 1, maximum 4 in any single approach):

Approach When to use it
Quick Anything consciously fast: a punch, a quick answer, a sudden sprint
Methodical Taking time to work through a problem reliably: forcing a door, building a logical argument
Instinctive Acting subconsciously before your mind catches up: dodging something you did not see coming, trusting your gut

Every stat roll requires at least one approach.

Specialized Blocks

Three specialist blocks, each covering a different domain. You receive 24 points in the block of your choice during character creation (max 6 per stat; costs scale up as values increase):

Adventure (default) – general adventuring capability:

Stat Covers
Power Physical strength
Grace Agility and dexterity
Knowledge Pre-existing knowledge
Curiosity Figuring out new things on the fly
Influencing Swaying people
Insight Reading people

Sport – athletic and physical contests:

Jumping, Running, Brute Force, Dodging, Coordination, Acrobatics.

Art – creative and performative disciplines:

Pitch, Rhythm, Fine Motor Control, Palette, Improvisation, Acting.

You cannot mix stats from different specialized blocks in the same roll.

The roll Command

The core syntax is:

roll <approach>+<stat>

Examples:

roll Quick+Power              -- quick use of raw power
roll Methodical+Knowledge     -- methodical application of knowledge
roll Instinctive+Insight      -- instinctive read of the room
roll Quick+Methodical+Grace   -- two approaches averaged, one specialized stat

The game computes your modifier by taking the ceiling-average of your approach values and the ceiling-average of your specialized values, then adding them. If your Quick is 3 and Methodical is 2, combining them gives a ceiling-average of 3 (not 2.5). That modifier is added to a 2d8 roll that explodes on 8 – any 8 rolled generates an additional die, which can itself explode.

Rules and limits:

  • At least one approach and at least one specialized stat are required.
  • Maximum two approaches and two specialized stats per roll.
  • You cannot use the same stat twice in one roll.
  • Both specialized stats must come from the same block (you cannot mix Adventure and Sport).

If you type roll with no arguments, a quickmenu appears listing your stats by block, with an option to type a combination manually.

Raw dice notation

When you want to throw dice without stats attached:

roll 2d6
roll 1d20+5
roll 3d8-2

These bypass the approach system entirely and broadcast the result to the room. Limits: 1 to 20 dice, 2 to 100 sides per die.

Crit fail

On a stat-based roll, only the first of your two base dice can trigger a crit fail: if that die shows 1, the result is flagged CRIT FAIL and displayed in red. Your second base die never triggers a crit fail, no matter what it shows. Qi dice (covered below) and the additional dice generated by explosions never cause one either.

A crit fail is not just cosmetic. In a group activity round, it counts as 0 toward the round’s target regardless of the rest of the dice. In a delve skill check, it auto-fails the check even if the modifier would have hit the difficulty class.

Assists

During a group activity, you can spend your turn helping another player instead of choosing your own action:

activity help <player name>

Each helper adds an assist die to one of the helped player’s base die positions; positions are filled round-robin starting from a random position each roll. The system then rolls both dice for a position and keeps the higher total.

Mechanically this is the dice “advantage” pattern. Keeping the higher of two d8 exploding rolls shifts the expected value of that position noticeably upward, and the bigger gains come on positions where the unassisted die would have rolled poorly.

The catch is that an assist die is subject to the same crit-fail rule as the position it lands on: an assist paired with your first base die rolls for crit fail right alongside it, while an assist paired with your second base die never can, no matter what it shows. With one helper, it is a coin flip whether their die lands on the crit-fail-eligible first position. With two or more helpers, the round-robin distribution guarantees at least one assist die lands on each position, so your first position is certain to pick up an extra chance at a 1. Assists make good rolls better without a guaranteed downside from a single helper; the added crit-fail risk only becomes certain once two or more people are helping.

Qi Dice

Qi is a separate resource tracked as a floating-point pool. You begin every session with 1 qi die and can accumulate up to 3. The pool is displayed as a decimal (for example, 1.5) because partial dice accumulate; you need at least 1.0 to spend a die.

How you gain qi

  • Taking damage in combat adds 0.5 qi per HP lost.
  • Recovering in an activity: choosing activity recover during a group activity skips your roll for the round but grants qi.
  • Qi regenerates gradually over the course of combat rounds.
  • When you leave all active sessions (fights, activities, delves) and return to the open world, your pool resets to 1.0.

What qi dice do

Each whole qi die you spend adds +1d8 exploding on 8 to the roll’s total. Qi dice roll alongside the base 2d8 and their results are added in directly. Spending qi is therefore a meaningful boost – especially if a style ability has upgraded your qi dice (see below).

Spending qi in activities

During a group activity, before you mark yourself ready for a round:

activity qi 0     -- spend no qi this round
activity qi 1     -- spend 1 qi die for +1d8
activity qi 2     -- spend 2 qi dice for +2d8

The command confirms your choice and deducts the dice when the round resolves.

Spending qi in delves

When you reach a skill check in a delve, the prompt asks whether you want to spend qi. Include qi in your response to spend one die on that check.

Style Abilities and Roll Bonuses

If your character has learned a martial style, many of its abilities can boost your dice rolls during adventuring. This is separate from combat – it is how style training helps you climb, restrain opponents, move through shadows, and perform other physical feats.

Two steps: invoke then roll

Step 1. Invoke the ability before you roll:

invoke <ability_key>

For example:

invoke thorn_snare
invoke shadows_veil
invoke stone_fist
invoke guardian_bloom

A short narrative line is echoed to the room when the ability arms. If you have not trained the relevant style to the required level you will see an error.

Step 2. Roll as usual. On your next qualifying roll the game checks whether the armed ability applies to the task. If it does, the bonus fires and appears above your roll result. The armed state is consumed by the roll whether the bonus fires or not.

Types of bonus

Depending on which ability you invoke and the nature of your task, the effect might be any of the following:

Effect What it does
Flat bonus Adds a fixed amount to the final roll total
Explode extras Adds faces that trigger extra explosions (for example, 6s and 7s also chain in addition to 8s)
Reroll Rerolls specific faces once before totalling (for example, rerolls any 1)
Reroll below N Rerolls any base die that showed strictly below N, once
Floor Sets a minimum value for the final total
Qi die floor Sets a minimum value for each qi die rolled, guaranteeing a solid contribution from qi spend
Qi die explode extras Adds extra explosion faces specifically on qi dice

Bonuses compose when multiple effects are armed: flat bonuses sum, explode and reroll faces union, and floors take the strongest value.

Conditions that gate a bonus

Some abilities only fire when specific conditions are met:

  • Task type. Stealth abilities fire on stealth tasks; restraint abilities fire when you are trying to catch or hold something. The game classifies your task description automatically.
  • Qi spend. Some abilities require you to have spent at least one qi die on the roll to activate.
  • Approach. A few abilities are gated on a specific approach (for example, only fires on Methodical rolls).
  • Room context. Abilities tied to terrain (a wood-sensing technique near a forest, for instance) check the current room automatically.

If the conditions are not satisfied the armed row is consumed silently and no bonus applies.

Scope: who benefits

Most abilities arm only on your own next roll (self scope). Some arm on a companion’s roll instead:

  • Target scope. The bonus arms on the character you are assisting. Invoke the ability, then help your ally with their task.
  • Group scope. The bonus arms on every character sharing your current room. All of them receive the effect on their next qualifying roll.

Finding ability keys

The ability key is always a short snake_case identifier matching the ability’s name (for example, guardian_bloom, natures_grasp, stone_fist). Use helpfile <style name> or ask a staff member to see the full list for any style you have trained.

Quick Reference

score                      -- view HP, energy, approaches
score adventure            -- view Adventure stat block
score sport                -- view Sport stat block
score art                  -- view Art stat block
score all                  -- view all stat blocks at once

roll Quick+Power              -- quick physical roll
roll Methodical+Knowledge     -- methodical knowledge roll
roll Instinctive+Insight      -- instinctive social read
roll Quick+Methodical+Grace   -- two approaches, one specialized stat
roll 2d6                      -- raw dice (no stats)

activity qi 1              -- spend 1 qi die on your next activity roll
activity qi 2              -- spend 2 qi dice
activity recover           -- skip your roll this round, gain qi

invoke <ability_key>       -- arm a style ability before your next roll