HOW TO GET MORE ADVANCEMENT POINTS

Help me to help yourselves to getting a decent amount of Advancement Points

Advancement Points — loosely called ‘ticks’ at the table, in reference to the equivalent in CoC/BRP — are the filled-in diamonds to the right of the Skills Grid.
TOR is deliberately vague on when the Lore-Master should let you fill in one of these diamonds. They should be filled in for a ‘dramatic’ use of a skill, where it has an unexpected outcome (including a brilliant success or an appalling failure, but based on the RP implications aspects, not just as a reward for rolling well), or where failure would have had really bad consequences.

• The first one should be fairly easy.
  When you use a skill, tell me if you don’t yet have any diamonds filled in for the row it’s on (Skill Group).
• If you’re acting in line with a Trait, I should be more inclined to reward that.
  When you undertake a skill in a way that’s clearly in line with one of the Traits (‘Distinctive Features’ or ‘Specialities’) on your character sheet, invoke that to ‘trump’ me into awarding a point.
• I’m inclined to award them for good thinking regardless of dice rolls.
  If you ever think I just give you a successful outcome without having called for a roll, remind me that this was as good as a roll, and should be as good a candidate for a diamond as if it had been rolled.

What not to bother with: Most ‘Me too’ rolls; the third diamond in a row (these are pretty hard to qualify for, so unless something awesome happens on a skill in such a Skill Group, save your breath for other, less heavily-used Skill Groups.

Awarding Advancement Points clarified, 2013

This is actually from Francesco’s blog and discussions on the forum, rather than official TOR rules.

If a player succeeds in an action (or describes a failure ‘dramatically’ with a lesson learnt)

1. …he may invoke a Trait to gain an Advancement point
2. …where the outcome was significant, including if failing would have been really bad, he may gain the first or second Advancement point for that skill group (row)
3. …with TN above 14, he may gain the first or second Advancement point for that skill group (row)
4. …with a Great B or Extraordinary BB+ success, he may gain the first or second Advancement point for that skill group (row)

Note that 1. — succeeding on a trait-related action — is the only way to get the third diamond in a skill group.