Running the Game

Everything in this chapter comes back to one idea. The players’ characters are properly good at things, the best in the city at something. Rather than making the numbers bigger, Zi’Dara makes them struggle by giving them more problems than dice, and by making every choice between those problems matter.

Your job comes in three parts: put interesting problems in front of competent people, tell them the truth about those problems, and make the world answer what they do. The rest of this chapter shows you how.

The Promises

Say these out loud at Session Zero, and then stick to them.

The Conversation

Most of a session happens outside rounds, as a conversation that goes round and round:

1. You describe the situation. Where they are, what they notice, and what’s already happening.
2. You ask: what do you do?
3. They tell you.
4. You decide what that takes. Either it just happens, or it needs a roll, or the moment’s tense enough, and timing matters enough, that it becomes a round.

Most things just happen. Only roll when something pushes back, or when the outcome’s uncertain and interesting either way. A master thief opening an ordinary door with nobody watching doesn’t roll. She opens it, and you describe what’s behind it.

Saying Yes

Yes, and. When a player tries something that fits the fiction, the answer’s yes. When a player spends Resolve, the answer’s almost always yes.

Yes, but. When a player tries something that pushes a permission past what it normally does, the answer’s yes, but there’s a cost: 1 Resolve to go beyond, a higher Challenge for something bigger, or a complication.

No, not like that. Sometimes the fiction just doesn’t allow something. Then the answer’s no, not like that, and straight away you tell them what would work.

What you never do.

• You never say no because you think it’s too easy.
• You never raise the difficulty because they’ve stacked a big die.
• You never roll to make a decision the fiction’s already made.
• You never take away agency the fiction’s given the player.
• You never hide how big something is and then act surprised when they lose to it.
• You never add a telegraph after the last player has acted, or land one nobody could possibly have answered.
• You never use Aura or Resolve, because you don’t have any.

Reading permissions

Players will ask whether something fits a hundred times a session. Answer fast and be generous. Whatever’s on the set action they’re rolling is free. Anything else that fits costs them 1 Aura to bring in, even when it plainly fits, and pushing a permission past what it normally does costs 1 Resolve to go beyond. If you catch yourself arguing about whether it’s normal, it’s going beyond, so take the Resolve and move on.

Be consistent. If calling up someone a hundred years dead was going beyond for Isolde last week, it’s going beyond this week too.

Ask questions, and use the answers

You don’t have to invent everything. The players know things about their characters that you don’t.

• “Vesk, you’ve been in this district before. What’s the thing everyone here is afraid of?”
• “Bram, how do you know this sergeant?”
• “Isolde, this sigil is your order’s work. What does it mean when the lines are drawn in blood?”

Whatever they say is true, so write it down. It’s part of your world now, and the player cares about it because they made it.

When They Look at You

Rounds have a shape: you telegraph, they act, the round ends. The rest of the session is a conversation, and sometimes it stops and everyone looks at you. They’ve asked what happens next, a roll that mattered has missed, or nobody knows what to do. That’s when you make a move.

A move is something the world does. Most of them are a telegraph outside a round: say what’s coming, put a die on the table, and it lands if nobody deals with it. Pick one that follows from what’s in front of them.

• Show danger coming. Put a die on it, and say it lands if they ignore it. “Boots on the stair. The watch is two floors down. That’s a d8, and it lands on whoever’s still in the study.”
• Use a tag. Every threat and every place has tags, so let one act. A Greedy magistrate asks for more. A Rotten floor gives a little under Bram’s weight.
• Reveal something they won’t like. The ledger’s in code. The ship’s already sailed. Their contact’s been talking to the Harbour Guild.
• Offer an opportunity, with a price. “The clerk can get you into the archive tonight. He wants a name in return.” They can take it, or find another way.
• Take something away. Something they carry, a way out, a friend’s goodwill. The rain puts the torches out. The bridge they came over is burning.
• Put someone they care about in danger. Look at their bonds and the crew answers. The fence Vesk owes has been taken in by the watch.
• Move a clock. Step an event down or a faction’s agenda up, and say what it means. “Vane’s carriage was seen at the north gate. Vane comes home is a d10 now.”
• Split them up, or cut to someone else. Leave one of them on the edge of something, and ask the next player what they’re doing.
• Ask a question, and build on the answer. “Isolde, you’ve read about doors like this. What happens to people who open them wrong?” Whatever she says is true now.
• Cut to the next scene. If nothing’s pushing back and they’ve got what they came for, say so and move on.

How hard to go

• Gentle first. Show it coming before it lands. A die on the table is a warning they can act on.
• Harder when they ignore it. If nobody answers it, it lands. If a roll that mattered misses, the move can land straight away, as long as you showed it coming. That’s failing forward.
• From the fiction. Every move comes out of what’s already there: a threat’s tags and drives, the place, a clock, the crew’s own sheets. Never out of nowhere.
• Face up. Say the die out loud, and who or what it’s aimed at, same as in a round.
• Never take a choice away without warning. Nobody gets captured, knocked out or stuck without a telegraph they could have answered.
• Stuck for one? Roll on the Twist table in The Oracle.

Catches and Resolve at the Table

Letting a Catch bite is up to the player. You’ve got telegraphs, the cost of a miss and every move above to make things go wrong, so leave their Catches to them. When one bites, or a player drops their character in it without a Catch at all, run with it and make it real trouble: a new telegraph, a new stake, or someone who wants something. They take 1 Aura each time, as often as they like.

When a Catch bites big, because it changes the scene or costs them something they wanted, they can take 1 Resolve instead of the Aura. It’s their call when.

• Give 1 Resolve for great roleplay, like a character facing their fear or keeping a promise they made to themselves. It’s your best way of saying more of that. It can’t take anyone past their maximum.
• Give 1 Aura when a great setup doesn’t land. There’s an example in Consequences and Failure.
• Play your NPCs’ side of a thread. When a player strains a thread with one of your people, like calling in a favour or using their name, they take 1 Resolve, and that person feels it. Play it the way Playing the strain says: the thread gives the reason, so say how it shows and what would make it right, and play that and nothing bigger. They can mend it in downtime or in a scene with that person, but not in the middle of the fight where they strained it, and once it’s mended, let it go.

Building a Scene

Zi’Dara doesn’t have encounter types, so there’s no “combat encounter” and no “investigation scene”. A scene is a situation with stakes, and the crew chooses how to deal with it. Some of them will draw steel, some will talk and some will climb in through a window, all in the same scene. Build for all of it.

Every scene you prepare needs these nine things, and none of them takes more than a sentence.

1. Where it starts. Start in the middle, because the world didn’t wait for the crew to show up. The vault door is open. It was loud. Somewhere above, the household is waking.
2. What’s already in motion. Something that’s happening whether they act or not, which gives the scene a clock before anyone rolls. Lord Vane is on the road home. He’ll be here before dawn.
3. Two or three stakes. What the crew wants from this scene, and what it costs them if they don’t get it. It’s the most important thing on this list, and there’s more on it below.
4. Who pushes back. Threats with tags, and at least one of them wants something, so it can be talked to, bought, scared or turned.
5. The ground. Two or three tags about the place, open for anyone to use, and one hidden. Candlelight, Narrow Stair, Portraits That Watch.
6. A moment for each character. One problem in this scene that only that character can solve brilliantly.
7. A scene clock. A die on the whole scene, face up, with one sentence for what happens when it runs out. There’s more on it below.
8. A twist. Something you hold back for round two or three, like a second threat, a betrayal or the floor giving way.
9. How it can end. Two or three ways out, and what each one costs. The scene’s over when the stakes are settled, whether or not the last enemy has fallen.

Stakes, not obstacles

This is the most important idea in the chapter. “Kill the guard” is an obstacle, and the stake is whatever he’s guarding. A stake is something the crew wants, with a cost if they don’t get it, and the guard’s just in the way of the stake.

Give the scene two or three stakes, and make sure the crew doesn’t have enough actions to do all of them well. That’s where the tactics come from. Should the fastest character go for the paintings, or stop the maid? Should the wall hold the corridor, or haul the canvases? Every round they’re choosing what they can afford to lose.

Each stake gets a Challenge and tags for what’s in the way: Locked, Heavy Load, Three of Them, Someone Must Agree, Proof Needed. Every win strips one, and once they’re all stripped, the stake is theirs. Put a clock on at least one stake: a die that steps down every round nobody works on it. When it steps down past a d2, the chance is gone.

Say every stake out loud at the start of the scene, with its cost. The choice is only real if they know what they’re choosing between.

A clock on every scene

Put a rough clock on every scene. It’s an event on the whole scene: a die, face up, that steps down at the end of every round, with one sentence for what happens when it runs out. Outside rounds, it steps down whenever the crew wastes time. It tells the players how long they’ve got, and it tells you where the scene lands if they’re too slow.

Start it at a d6 for a tight scene, a d8 for most, and a d10 when there’s time. When it steps down past a d2, the scene turns: play what the sentence says, and the scene either carries on in a worse place or ends.

A moment for each character

Before you build, look at every character’s sheet and ask what they’re the best at. Then put that problem in the scene.

• Vesk’s the best cat burglar in the city, so the vault’s three storeys up, behind a lock nobody else can open.
• Dorrie can talk anyone round. The only witness is a terrified maid who won’t listen to anyone in armour.
• Bram holds lines, and the corridor’s two Wardens wide and one Bram wide.
• Isolde’s order made the binding, so she’s the only one who can read it, and break it.

This is what makes specialists feel like specialists, so don’t make them split their dice across everything. Give each of them a problem that’s theirs, let them dominate it, and make the scene hard because there are four of those problems at once.

Look at their archetypes too, because each one has something only it can do. Ash is an Elementalist, so put a crowd of guards in front of her, and Wren’s a Hunter, so give her something worth marking.

Building Threats

A threat is a Challenge and a handful of tags. The full procedure, with tables to roll on, is in The Threat Builder. Here’s the thinking behind it.

Challenge is defence

Pick the Challenge by what the threat is, not by how hard you want the fight to be. The ladder’s in Threats. If this one’s weaker than usual (young, half-woken, hurt), run it a size small, and say why.

Write tags that change what the players do

A good tag tells the table how to deal with it, and a bad one’s just a number in disguise.

Every tag is one of three kinds: how it comes at you, what keeps it going, and what drives it. A threat with only the first two is a wall to grind through, so give everything that matters at least one thing that drives it.

Tags are health

A threat’s keeps-it-going tags are how many wins it takes to bring it down. It defends and telegraphs with its Challenge die, and tags don’t make it bigger unless the tag says so.

Never count hits. Count the reasons it’s still standing. When a player asks “how hurt is it?”, tell them which tags are gone.

Tough

One win, one tag is right for most threats. A boss that should last needs more than that, so give it Tough, and think of it as hit points: a number the crew has to knock down, like Tough 40. Every winning die takes off what it rolled. Plain Tough comes off anything that hurts it. Give it a name, like Natural Armour 40 or Commanding Presence 20, and only what fits it chips it.

• Who gets it. Mostly bosses. A Named threat that should take a while can have a little, and so can a big obstacle: a vault door that’s Reinforced 30, a crowd that’s Loyal 20, a storm, a fire.
• How much. A boss worth a session wants about your whole threat budget in Tough, split however you like: one big number that comes first, or two smaller ones.
• Give it things to tackle. Tough is the hit points. Its other tags are what make the fight: something to knock out of the air, a shield to break, a shout to stop. A boss with Tough and two plain tags is a better fight than one with four numbers, so keep it short.
• First, when it’s a shell. Mark Tough first when the story says you can’t get at the rest until it’s gone: a hide, a shield wall, a crowd of bodyguards. Leave it off when the crew should be able to go round it.
• Say what each chip looks like: plates cracking off his shoulders, or his men looking at each other. Then say the number that’s left.
• Keep the way in open. A weak point still ends it, an opening counts Tough as just one tag, and Study can find what’s under the first one, so a clever crew never has to grind through the whole number.

Hidden tags and weak points

Anything that matters should have one hidden tag, and every boss should have a weak point: the tag that holds the whole thing together. Break the binding, speak the true name or show the zealot her own child in the crowd, and it falls, whatever else it’s got left.

A weak point is the reward for paying attention: for studying, asking questions, remembering what the old woman in session two said. Make weak points findable, and make finding them feel like winning.

Powers are tags

Threats never have Aura or Resolve, so they don’t pay to go beyond, and an area costs them nothing. Fire breathed at three of the crew is just a telegraph at three targets, paid for from your round budget. If a threat can do something impossible, write it as a tag (Calls the Storm, Walks Through Walls, Wears Your Face) and telegraph it from the round budget like anything else. The players see it coming, with a die, and they can answer it. Don’t let a power skip the telegraph, because then the players don’t get to play against it.

Unique mechanics

Most threats need nothing but Challenge and tags. A few deserve a rule of their own, written as a tag. I’d use them sparingly. They’re what make a threat memorable.

• Crumbling. Instead of stripping tags, every win steps its Challenge down one, and at Challenge 1 it falls. Use it for crowds, walls, swarms and slowly dying things.
• Forms. It’s got two or more forms. Strip the last keeps-it-going tag of one and it doesn’t fall: it changes. Its Tough refills, and it takes 3 to 5 tags from its Forms list of about ten (more for a bigger change), and the list can bring back tags it had before. Because Tough refills, split the boss’s Tough across its forms: Tough 20 each for a boss with two. Its weak point still ends it in any form. Tell the table it’s happening, and what it’s becoming.
• Regrows. At the end of every round, one stripped tag comes back, unless something the tag names (fire, salt, a word) was used on it this round.
• Split. It’s in several places at once, with its keeps-it-going tags spread across its bodies. Strip them in one place and the others carry on.
• Layered. The first time it’s attacked each round, it rolls one Challenge die for every tag it’s got left keeping it going, and its best die is the roll that stands. Strip a tag and it rolls one fewer next round. Use it for the enchanted door, the warded vault, or the boss that should feel like a wall. The rule’s in Conflict.
• Bound by Rules. It has to obey something, like an invitation, a bargain or a name said three times. Learn the rule and a single roll ends it.

The Threat Budget

Your threat budget says how much your threats can take, and how long a scene’s going to run.

Half the threat budget holds the whole crew for about a round, and the whole of it holds them for about two. So a boss worth a session wants about the whole threat budget in Tough, and the bestiary’s Tough is written for a starting crew of four: Tough 40 is that crew’s whole threat budget and Tough 20 is half. Scale it to yours.

It’s a guide, so move it to suit the table. If the crew’s mixed, add up each character’s share: Bram and Dorrie with two Titles each, and Vesk and Isolde with four, is 10 + 10 + 15 + 15 = 50. Past six Titles the crew’s growing in ways the ladder doesn’t count, like Titles filled to six permissions, Boons and attuned things at Perfected, so go by what you see at the table.

How long a scene runs

Add up everything standing between the crew and done: every keeps-it-going tag on every threat that has to fall, and every tag in the way of every stake. Anything with none counts as one. Divide that by half the crew’s actions a round, because not every action lands. That’s roughly how many rounds the scene will take. Then add about two rounds for every half of your threat budget sitting in Tough, because the crew won’t put every action into chipping.

Say it’s two Wardens with four keeps-it-going tags each, and two stakes with two tags each. That’s 12. Four characters with one action each is 4 a round, and half of that is 2. So it’s about six rounds, or fewer if they find the weak points. If a scene looks like it’ll take eight rounds, it’ll drag, so I’d cut something or give it an obvious weak point.

Telegraphs a Round

Every round you’ve got a number of steps to telegraph with. That’s your round budget, and it’s what keeps the pressure matched to the crew.

With four players that’s 20 steps: two d10s, a d12 and a d8, or a lot of little ones. It’s a guide, so move it to suit the table: if the crew’s walking through everything, push harder, and if they’re drowning, ease off.

Spending it

• A telegraph costs its steps. A d10 is 5, and you take it off the budget as you say it.
• Spend it on everything. Threats, the ground, events, stakes, and anything else you decide the scene needs. A telegraph aimed at a clock or a stake is as good as one aimed at a character, and often better.
• Not all of it at bodies. At Even, aim about one harm telegraph a round at each character, and spend the rest on control, position, stakes, clocks and words. At Hard, about two each.
• Answered telegraphs still count. You spent the pressure, and the crew stopping it is what it was for.
• A telegraph at several targets costs its steps once for each target. The fire spreads, a d8 at all three on the stair is 12 steps. That’s more than half of a four-player round, so save a telegraph at everyone for the moment it matters.
• It refills every round. Unspent steps don’t carry over.
• Within the budget, the fiction decides. A single guard doesn’t telegraph six times, but a boss with two blades might telegraph three.

How hard it pushes

Telegraphing Well

In a fight, everything the world does comes through a telegraph. Every round you’re telling the table what the world’s about to do. Do it well and the players will feel the danger before a single die gets rolled.

Say it as one sentence

Who, does what, to whom, how hard. “The captain levels his crossbow at Ash, a d8.” Don’t just say “he attacks.” Every telegraph should be something a player could picture, and something a player could answer.

Mix what you telegraph

A round of five telegraphs that all say “hits someone” is a boring round, so mix them up:

• Harm: the spear at Isolde.
• Control: pin Bram against the wall, grab the child, disarm the duellist.
• Position: cut off the door, plant itself in the vault doorway, push the crew towards the edge.
• Stakes: snatch the painting, burn the ledger, slam the gate.
• Clocks: ring the bell, run for help, pour the oil on the stairs.
• Words: shame Dorrie in front of the court, frighten the witness, turn the crowd.

Let the threat’s tags tell you what it does. Reach pins from a distance, Calls for Help goes after the clock, and Grasping goes for what they’re carrying. A threat that telegraphs from its tags feels like itself.

Fear is a telegraph

Fear, lies and pressure are telegraphs like any attack, aimed at Confidence: the brute roars at Bram, a d8 at his Confidence. Bram can answer it, Defend or let it ride, the usual way, and that’s his fear check. There isn’t another one.

It’s worth going after Confidence, because it swings up and down through a scene. Anyone who stops all the fear, lies and pressure that came at them goes up a size, and so does anyone who takes a threat down. When some gets through, they choose what it costs them (see Consequences and Failure). At d2 they’re shaken, and they’ve got to spend 1 Resolve every time they go at a threat, in a fight or face to face. Say the roar gets through to Bram two rounds running, and both times he lets it shake him: d6 to d4, then d2. Now he’s shaken, so going at the brute costs him 1 Resolve.

Aim at what they care about

Go for the stake they’re winning, the friend with a d2 Armour, the item marked Wanted or the bond they wrote in session one. The crew should never feel safe leaving a telegraph unanswered just because it’s small.

Pressure heavy armour

Armour has no ceiling. Every piece of plain armour makes it a size bigger, so a knight in plate with a shield and a helm is on a d8 before he’s taken a single Boon. Give him a couple of Armour Boons and he’ll sit behind a d12 and shrug off blows all night, and that’s what plate’s meant to do. Instead of fighting it with bigger numbers, fight it with choices. Aim at what Armour doesn’t stop: pin him, drag him, frighten him (his plate does nothing for his Confidence), or go for the stake behind him, the friend beside him or the clock. Telegraph more than the crew can answer, so the one in plate has to spend his action Defending the people next to him instead of swinging. Heavy armour buys time, so make them decide what to spend it on.

One answer, sparingly

A telegraph with only one answer, like if this lands, the house wakes, is a spotlight. Use one or two a scene, on things that really matter, and always say so when you telegraph it.

The quick telegraph

You don’t need to prepare every telegraph. When the scene needs something (the candles gutter, the floor groans, a dog starts barking two streets away), just put a die on the table and say what it is. “The floorboards under the gallery are giving way. A d8, at anyone standing there.” It comes off the round budget like anything else.

Telegraph at their strengths

Give the wall something big to answer, the eye something hidden to find, and the voice someone to talk to. Telegraphs are how you threaten the crew, and they’re also how you invite each of them to be brilliant.

Running a Round

1. Telegraph. Everything goes face up and comes off the round budget. Say which telegraphs have only one answer.
2. Ask what they do. They go in whatever order they like, one action each. Let them talk and plan, but keep it moving.
3. Let them roll for your side. The first time a threat’s attacked in a round, the player going at it rolls its Challenge die too, in another colour. That roll stands for the round, so everyone who goes at that threat this round has to beat it. A Layered threat rolls one die for every tag it’s got left keeping it going, and its best die is the roll that stands. A stake works the same way. You’ll hardly touch a die all round.
4. Say what the win does. The player’s intent happens: strip the tag, place the condition, move the threat, reveal the secret. If they made an opening, a Mook or a Named threat falls, and a Boss loses two tags, unless it was its weak point. On Tough, take off what the die rolled and say what’s left.
5. End the round. Everything unanswered lands. Each player rolls their Armour once against all the blows aimed at them, and their Confidence once against all the fear, lies and pressure, then rolls the telegraphs’ dice too, and each one has to beat that one number. Anyone who Defended rolls once for every die coming at them instead, Armour for blows and Confidence for the rest, and picks which roll blocks which. For each blow that lands, name what it costs, and take a fair swap if they offer one. For each telegraph at Confidence that gets through, the player chooses: drop a size of Confidence, take a Hurt, or spend 1 Resolve to hold their ground. Untouched events and clocks step down, and every condition steps down one size. Spend the ones you said you would.
6. Describe the new situation. Then telegraph again.

The first roll on a threat matters. If Bram goes at the captain and the captain’s d8 comes up 2, everyone else in the crew knows the captain’s wide open for the rest of the round.

Defend pulls attacks. Someone who Defends can pull one enemy’s whole attack onto themselves, everything it aimed at friends within their stride. A Guardian pulls every attack aimed at those friends, whichever enemy it’s from, so to get past one, you’ve got to pull the crew apart.

Your side can take the hit too. Anyone can step in front of an attack aimed at someone within their stride and take it, and that goes for your NPCs: a bodyguard steps in front of the blow meant for his lord, a hound in front of its master. Say so before the player rolls. The one who steps in doesn’t roll to defend, so the blow counts as a win against it: it loses a tag, or falls if it’s a mook. Use it when the story says they would.

Judging intents

Players will give their dice all kinds of intents. These three questions settle almost everything:

• Is it possible from here, with this? If not, it’s “not like that,” and you tell them what would work.
• Is it one intent or two? “Knock him down and take his sword” is two dice, or one die and a choice.
• What does it get past? If the intent goes around everything that’s keeping a threat going, say so. That’s an opening, and they’ve earned it.

Recognise openings

When a player shoves the shielded captain off a narrow bridge, Shield and Fortified do nothing for him. When the thief puts a knife to the throat of a guard who never saw her, his Trained doesn’t help. Say it out loud: “That’s an opening. If you win, he’s done.” (Against a Boss: “that’s two tags.”) If players get rewarded for clever play, they’ll keep playing cleverly.

Consequences and Failure

A miss only costs something when it matters. When something pushes back or time’s short, a miss lands a consequence. When nothing’s at stake, a miss is just a miss: the lock didn’t open, so try something else.

Name the cost. When a blow lands or a miss matters, pick a cost that fits it and the threat: Armour, a Hurt, breaking something they carry (never an attuned thing, because those can’t break), their Aspiration, the Party Goal or a clock. A miss can cost Confidence too, when it fits. A threat’s tags are a good guide: Venom poisons, and Grasping takes what they carry. If the player offers a different one that fits and costs about as much, take it. If the telegraph had one answer, it happens.

Fear, lies and pressure are the player’s call. When one gets through, they choose: let it shake them and drop a size of Confidence, bury it and take a Hurt, or hold their ground and spend 1 Resolve so neither happens. Nothing takes Confidence below d2, so at d2 it’s a Hurt or 1 Resolve. If it had a specific intent, like Frightened or Taunted, that’s what it does, unless they trade it for one of those three.

Fail forward. When a miss matters outside a round, change the situation. The lock holds and the guard’s footsteps are on the stair, or the magistrate refuses and now he knows your name. The Twist table in The Oracle is full of these.

When a great setup misses. If a player planned something, it was cool, and the dice said no, you can give them 1 Aura. It keeps them making plans like that. Wren spends a round getting up the bell tower for the perfect shot, Bram drags the captain out into the open for her, and her d10 comes up 2 against the captain’s 6. That’s a great setup that didn’t land, so the GM gives Wren 1 Aura.

Make a Blaze magnificent. When a player takes a Hurt with every box already full, they Blaze: they declare something extraordinary, and it happens, no roll. Let it be as big as the moment, then give it room: the scene afterwards should feel different because of it.

When a player chooses to die. From their very first Blaze, a player can choose for their character to die, instead of leaving the scene with a Scar. If they do, slow right down. Let them tell their last moment in their own words, and make sure what they died for happens: the door holds, the crew gets out, the threat goes down with them. Then give everyone at the table a moment to answer it, in character. Once every box on a character’s Hurt track is crossed out, their next Blaze is their last, so run that one the same way.

Secrets and Discovery

• Put a secret in everything that matters. Every named threat, every stake and every important place gets one hidden tag.
• Reveal generously. When a player looks at something nobody’s hiding, and they’ve got a permission that covers it, tell them without a roll. A threat’s hidden tags take Study, because the threat pushes back.
• When they Study and win, give them what they asked for. That’s a hidden tag or a straight answer. A Scholar can introduce a truth instead, and there’s more on judging those in Archetypes, Resolve and Study at the Table.
• Leave three trails to every important secret. A person who knows, a place that shows it and a thing that proves it. If they miss one, they’ll find another.
• Let secrets change the fight. The best hidden tags turn a slog into a single roll: the weak point, the want, the name.

Archetypes, Resolve and Study at the Table

• Let each archetype do its thing. Every archetype has something only it can do. When it comes out, let it change the fight, and say what it looks like: Dorrie’s influence turning the captain’s cut onto his own sergeant, or an Illusionist’s wall sending the guards the long way round.
• Areas are the Elementalist’s. An Elementalist can make a die their area, and it takes a split but no Aura. Say what it touches before they roll. Fire catches everyone in the squares it covers, friend and foe, so if a friend’s standing in the fireball, say so, and let them make it smaller. Wards, blessings and heals reach one person, and a split’s second die can reach another friend they can touch.
• Big things are big Challenges. Going beyond is 1 Resolve whatever the size, so the size goes in the Challenge. Phasing through a garden wall and through the vault door both cost 1 Resolve, but the vault door’s a far bigger Challenge, with tags for what stands in the way. Set it by how hard it is in the world, and let them roll.
• Study finds what’s there: a hidden tag or a straight answer. Only a Scholar’s truth makes something true that wasn’t.
• Judge a Scholar’s truth by the scene. When a Scholar wins a Study, they can introduce a truth instead, something that wasn’t obvious to anyone else, and it counts as a permission for the crew this scene. If it could be here, it is. If it’s too big, ask them to make it smaller or pick something else.

Quick Rulings

When the rules don’t say, find the nearest rule. Most questions come down to one of these.

Pacing

• Start late, leave early. Open scenes in the middle of things, and close them the moment the stakes are settled.
• Rounds only when timing matters. A fight the crew’s obviously won doesn’t need three more rounds, so narrate the end and move on.
• Two or three scenes a session. Something like a planning scene, a confrontation and an aftermath. There’s more in The Session.
• Cut to the good part. The walk to the manor is one sentence, unless something’s waiting on the way.
• Downtime every session. It keeps the world moving and lets the players choose how they grow. Keep it brisk: pressures, slots, and one roll if something pushes back.
• Watch the table, not the notes. When the energy drops, play the twist early, and when a scene’s singing, let it run.

Campaigns

• An arc is four to six sessions. It’s got a Party Goal, a faction moving against the crew, and at least one Aspiration coming to a head.
• Aspirations are your map. Every player’s written down what their character wants, so build scenes that put it within reach, then make them choose between it and something else.
• Titles are the milestones. When an Aspiration resolves and a Title gets written, the campaign’s turned a page, so mark it.
• The world grows with them. The threat budget rises with every new Title, and threats that were bosses become lieutenants. Factions notice the crew and start treating it as a power (see Factions).
• Remember everything. Bring back the maid who swore she saw a stranger, and the Warden who knelt, because a world that remembers is one worth being competent in.

The GM on One Page