Cybergeneration is based off the Fusion system, which is a simplification of the Interlock system used by CP2020.
Everybody has 8 stats rated between 2-10+ and a number of skills rated from 0-10. (e.g. BOD 10 is Arnie from his action movie days, INT 2 is severe learning difficulties and barely able to function independently, EMP 2 is dangerously close to going psycho). Kids (aka you) are rated 2-8. Average is 5-6.
There are broadly speaking 3 kinds of checks:
Stat checks (often called saves),
Skill checks
Opposed skill checks.
Stat checks are roll equal to or under your stat on a 1d10. E.g. poisons require you to roll under your BOD. Sometimes there are penalties or bonuses attached to the roll. The most common is a stun/shock save to avoid passing out after you have taken damage.
Skill checks are stat + skill + modifiers + 1d10 against a specified difficulty. Equal to or Higher is success, lower a failure.
Opposed checks are both of you roll stat + skill + modifiers + 1d10. Highest number wins, defender wins ties. Remember in opposed checks with adults your skill is often at half value (round down).
Before making an roll you can opt to spend luck points – each point of luck modifies the roll by 1 in your favour. This lowers your LUCK stat for the remainder of the session. You must decide how much luck you are spending before rolling.
These are the general difficulties of performing a skill check.
A roll of 10 on a skill/opposed check is a critical success, you can roll an additional d10 and add that. A roll of 1 is a fumble, you roll another d10 and subtract it!
Combat gets it's own page
Stolen shamelessly from 4th edition. Some times an activity doesn’t lend itself well to a single skill check, the skill challenge spreads the activity across multiple checks. In general a base/default skill and difficulty will be given, and the difficulty of the challenge is determined by the difficulty number of the check and the number of successes required to pass. While there is a default check, roleplaying and creatively creatively using other skills is encouraged and may yield bonuses.
The kids splunking run went a bit wrong: they tripped an alarm and had to high tail it out of there. They managed to lose pursuit in the nearest mall, but now every juve in the mall has been rounded up by corpsec and is being questioned. The kids need to come up with an alibi to convince the guards that it wasn’t them.
The GM declares that the base check for this will be Little Angel, since pretending to be an innocent kid is exactly what that skill is good for. The mall guards are having to interview dozens of kids, so its become a formality instead of an opposition, hence it will be a flat difficulty 15 for the checks. In order to succeed the party need to score 5 successes before 3 failures.
First up is Dan the beaverbrat. Shamefaced innocence comes second nature to beaverbrat so Dans player opts to take the standard check and easily beats the required difficulty.
Next up is James the guardian. He has not got as high little angel skill, so his player asks if instead of just pulling innocence, he can play on the fact that guardians are all about law and order and justice and being good guys. The GM agrees that this is suitable so lets him roll using his special ability instead. James has a nice conversation with the guard about how vandalism like this is totally wrong, the guard buys it hook line and sinker, achieving a 2nd success.
Jack the Radical is pretty confident that he can act innocent, but is looking nervously at Max, the party megoviolent who is up next and can’t do innocence to save his life so is probably going to get aggressive. Jack asks to spend most of his storytelling scoping out the guard to see if he can get any reads on him. The GM rules that this is a legit tactic, and will be an EMP + Get a Clue roll. Jack rolls a lucky critical, massively exceeding the target number. For passing his check, he notices that the guard is a bit older and pretty embittered, he is not going to take well to intimidation attempts by a group of juvepunks and that those checks will be Hard (DC 20) instead of average. As Jack rolled so well, the GM decides to give him an extra bit of information – the guard is totally disinterested and doesn’t like that some other Corpsec screwed up, but then dumped the problem on him. He just wants to get this over and done with and doesn’t care so long as he can say that he asked you and your stories seemed to check out. As a result the difficulty of little angel rolls is reduced to Easy (10) as the kids tailor their stories to his interest level and tell him what he wants to hear.
Max takes the subtle hints from Jack that getting in this guys face would be a bad plan. He’s in a bit of a pickle here because his little angel score is very low, even with the reduced difficulty. His player asks that since the guard really doesn’t care, rather pretend to be innocent, he is going to blag that he can’t have done it because he was too busy having a punch up elsewhere at the time. This sounds hilarious so the GM allows it, demanding an INT + Beserking roll at average difficulty to make up a convincing fight story. Max makes his roll and so tells a story involving a lot of swearing and gory details about his dust up, that the guard either believes, or just wants him to shut up.
Lastly is Amy the ecoraider, she opts just to play it innocent and take the little angel roll, but rolls poorly, only achieving 13. This would have been a fail before, but thanks to their knowledge of the guard, it’s convincing enough to pass the reduced difficulty.
With 5 successes and no failures, the gang have succeeded in the challenge and the security guard lets them go and sends them on their way.