No bonuses
Alice is in the Game
Alice is a warrior of some renown, who is known for coolness on the field, but also known for her outbursts of temper that lead out to the duelling field in civilian life. She has a high Control and a medium Command stat, and all of her bonuses are in fighting.
Alice is stuck in a game of poker while she waits to get into the back room of a gambling den. She has to make it look like she knows what she is doing, and throw money around without losing it. She has no bonuses to card play, but the GM determines that her opponents are merely mooks, and gives them a difficulty of 6. Alice's Control is 8, and she has no bonuses so she adds no dice. However, she still passes the test. Her goal all along has been to get into the back room, and soon she is invited in.
Bob loses his cool
Bob is a diplomat, and not in any way a physical man. He has a good sense of how people work, and he can niggle at little details until everything is in order. He has Style and a little more Grit than you would think to look at him.
Bob has been sent across a mountain pass to negotiate with the lord of a city on the other side. It is winter and he is walking over a glacier, and the GM asks him how he does. He elects to use his Grit, which is a 6. The difficulty of getting across without help, as he is trying to do, is a flat 8. Bob has no bonuses to help him, and is soon stuck in a crevasse while his companions catch up and rig up a way to rescue him.
Single Bonuses
Alice in Command
Alice has been given orders by a superior officer to attack a hill fort. She formulates a simple plan, "We go up there with ladders under cover of night." The GM knows that the defenders are alert but have no magic and no particular way of stopping the plan beyond fighting people off. The target number is set at 10.
Alice's plan is based on her Control stat. If it all works seamlessly, she will win. She uses her Control of 8 and rolls a d6 for the single bonus she has in commanding troops. Unfortunately for her, she rolls a 1, making a total of 9. Her plan falls apart, and her troops are thrown back in disorder. Worse, she is about to have to explain her failure up the chain of command. This is not a good day.
Bob talks fast
Bob finds himself lost in a set of twisty roads and noisome alleys. The only possible help he has is a street gang who are undecided what to do about the stranger approaching. Bob has to talk them round, and fast; the GM sets the difficulty at 10, because Bob is in a foreign city, and the men of the gang want to prove their strength. Bob elects to use style, and to try to befriend the top man.
Bob's Style is 7, and he rolls a 4, putting him squarely in the safe area. He starts with a bit of gross flattery about the man's position in the gang, compliments the leader on his looks, and then listens to a long list of grievances the man has about foreigners, looking and sounding sympathetic. The leader warms to him, and sends him down the right road with very few insults.
Alice fakes it
Alice is practicing with sword and shield when young Lord Zane butts in. She knows Zane is in need of a boost in the court, and she owes his father a favour, so she grits her teeth and lets him play. Zane's skill gives him a target number of 8.
Alice can easily surpass that, and she does, rolling a 6 to put her on 14. She elects not to beat him physically, but instead chooses the consequence of making him look good. Zane never knows he could have been hurt in dozens of ways, and his reputation among the young men of the court rises considerably.
Bob nearly makes it
Bob is trying to negotiate a tricky deal with old Lord Zane, and needs to see through a lot of the lies and half truths in the court. He takes a tour of the castle and talks to people, trying to get their stories from them. The GM decides this is moderately difficult, as Zane has ordered people not to talk. The target number is a 10.
Bob rolls a 3 to add to his style of 7, hitting the number squarely. That puts him within an ace of victory, but it could go either way. The GM decides that the things at stake are Zane finding out what Bob is doing, and Bob finding out the truth. It is more amusing for them both to find things out, rather than to stay locked in their stalemate, so Bob learns that Zane has been selling weapons down the pirate coast, which is why he cannot supply Bob's home town. Zane finds out that Bob knows his secret, and now Bob is in a world of trouble and has to report back this vital piece of information.
Double Bonuses
Alice Fights
Alice is in an official duel. She lives for these moments, although there is a chance she will die in one. She has a bonus for sword use and a bonus for single combat. In this duel she elects to use her control stat. The encounter is a planned one and the NPC she is facing has a difficulty of 13.
Alice spends a moment describing how she intends to fight, a complex series of movements that will tie up her opponent's blade until she can end the fight at a moment of her own choosing. Then she rolls. Her stat is 8. She gets the d6 result for the first bonus, and can add a flat +3 for the second bonus. Unfortunately, she rolls a 1, for a total of 11. The NPC does not outclass her hugely, but he is still better, and Alice ends up in a military hospital. She is also in a lot of pain, and her reputation is likely to take a knock.
Bob Negotiates
Bob is in a bad position, trapped in the castle of Lord Zane, but he has a secret weapon. He has studied Lord Zane, and knows the old man is religious. Bob is not exactly under arrest, so he goes to the chapel and pretends to pray, and Lord Zane happens along at his accustomed hour. Bob has a bonus for oratory, and a bonus for impressing the credulous. The GM decides that Zane is credulous where religion is concerned, but is still a tough man to crack. The number is a 12, as this is the negotiation equivalent of a boss fight.
Bob describes how he has worked out where Zane is likely to stand, and where the stained glass window will cast light like a halo. He puts himself in the most impressive place, and when Zane starts to gloat, Bob listens politely and then launches into a speech on religion and heathens, with emphasis on the bad morals of the pirates. He has a style of 7, and he adds d6 + 1, for his two bonuses. He rolls a 5, for a total of 13. Zane is not just impressed, but persuaded, and he cannot stand up to the fury of Bob's sermon. Instead, he bows his head, and falls in line with the plans of a foreign nation, and the Zane lands stop supplying the pirates.
PC vs PC
Alice and Yvette
Alice and her sister Yvette are rivals, and finally they are facing each other across the battlefield. Yvette has a sheet based around fast moves, all command and control. Alice knows her sister will be trying to do clever, hard things, and also knows that her own side will reinforce her if she can only hold out for a single day. Alice decides to use grit, where she is weak and Yvette is weaker. Yvette is also a PC, and decides to use command, for much the same reasons. Yvette is pushing forward to try to grab defensive positions.
Alice has a grit of 4 and a command of 6. She has to acknowledge that Yvette also has the right (and the power) to try to swing this scene, so she uses not only the stat she chooses, but also the stat Yvette chose. She adds up the numbers to get 10, and adds on her bonus for commanding troops. She also decides to add personal risk and stand in the front lines herself, adding her skill with a sword to the battle for an extra +1. Her total will be made of all of those things.
Yvette does the same thing. Her grit is 2, but her command is 7, so she starts with a total of 9 She has two bonuses in commanding troops, and one in hand to hand fighting. She can use a maximum of two, and she does not care to meet her sister in battle, so she stays at the back, exhorting her troops and rallying the weak through a long day. Her total will be 9 + d6 + 1. A single roll will do for the whole encounter, but the GM elects to have them make their rolls in secret, to draw it out and make it more dramatic. The battle then plays out over several minutes.
Alice rolls a 4 and her sister rolls a 1. Alice's total is 15, and Yvette can only manage 11, but at the start of the battle nobody knows that. The stakes are already high, and the GM runs it so that until noon, nobody can even be sure what is going to happen. The use of grit means that lots of people are likely to die, and die they do. At the end of the day, Alice is wounded in half a dozen places, but is still standing, which is more than can be said for most of Yvette's troops. The dead litter the field, and Alice's reinforcements arrive to find exhausted but victorious troops. Yvette has lost, and can easily be chased away.
Bob and Xavier
Bob has been sent to Zane once more, to bring home a trade deal, and is trying to cut out a major campaign NPC. The lord he faces, Xavier, is important enough that the GM has written him a full sheet, and so he has stats instead of a challenge number. Bob's career may rest on what happens in this room, and Xavier's life probably does. Bob has a style of 7 and a grit of 6. He knows Xavier is famed for his straight talking and honesty, and that Zane respects him. Bob elects to use style, deciding that Xavier will make his speech, and then Bob can point out just how much better Zane can do. Bob has multiple possible bonuses, but once more he elects to use oratory. He checks with the GM if Zane would be affected by religious matters, but the GM decides Zane will be trying to do his best on the facts, and they are no longer in the chapel. Bob uses a bonus for needling his opposition instead.
Xavier has a command of 9 and a style of 2, for a total of 11. Bob has always let personality clashes move past him. His command is 1, and his style is 7. His total is 8, putting him well behind from the beginning. However, Xavier has no bonuses for persuasion. Bob rolls a 3, and adds 1 for the second bonus, for a total of 12. His plan works, and Xavier starts to lose his temper, which makes Bob look better by comparison. It is a narrow victory, but a victory nonetheless. Zane is uneasy, but persuaded, and Bob brings home a trade treaty, but Xavier is left alive and is a future enemy. Later, he can arrange to have Bob beaten or kidnapped, as a separate conflict.