Scaling The Complexity of ORC Action Resolution

ORC action resolution can be scaled up or down in complexity to meet the needs of the situation. The more important a roll is to the plot, the more complexity should go into it. In this way, ORC can scale from rules-light to crunchy to meet the needs of the situation and the desires of players. For example:
Situation: Cam is cooking a meal for himself and his friends.
Resolution: Since Cam is reasonably intelligent and/or has at least one level of the cooking skill, the GM doesn’t make Cam roll anything and instead says that he succeeds at making a tasty meal.
Situation: Cam is cooking a meal for a dinner party. One of the attendees is a girl that he wants to impress.
Resolution: The GM makes Cam make an AWR +skill +1d20 roll to see how good the meal is (the higher the result the more she is impressed).
Situation: Cam is trying to get a meal at a trendy restaurant and has been given a chance to cook something for the head chef.
Resolution: The GM makes Cam make an AWR +skill +1d20 roll, allowing Cam to choose the difficulty he is trying to meet, and also allowing him to add in a +6 for having his own special tools and tackle-box full of rare spices.
Situation: A serial killer has kidnapped Cam’s parents and hidden them somewhere in the city, threatening to kill them unless Cam cooks the best meal that the serial killer has ever had.
Resolution: The GM sets a Legendary difficulty, and allows Cam to start assembling various plusses: from dosing himself up on smart drugs and Bright, from using his special tools and spices, from strong-arming his way into the city’s fanciest restaurant and taking over their high-tech kitchen, from calling on his old cooking mentor for advice. Other actions (often involving their own skill rolls) made by Cam’s friends can also give plusses: his Runner friend is racing around the city at top speed gathering the freshest ingredients, his Needle Punk friend assembles a cocktail of tasteless drugs to put in the meal designed to increase the serial killer’s appreciation of it, his Thief friend has broken into the serial killer’s home to see what he has in the fridge to get a sense of his tastes, and his Math Addict friend does internet research on studies of the effects of environment on appreciation of food and is redecorating the dining room in a way calculated to maximize the ambiance. The end roll is the result of an entire game session worth of activity.

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