PART ONE: THE BASICS
The Action Roll
When you make a move representing a risky or uncertain action, roll your action die (d6) and two challenge dice (2d10).
Add a stat to your action die. The move will tell you what stat to add (phrased as “roll +stat”), or may give you a choice. Some moves will tell you to use a condition meter, such as health or supply, in place of a stat. You may also have an opportunity to apply one or more bonuses called adds (phrased as “add +X”).
The total of your action die, your stat, and any adds is your action score. Your action score is never greater than 10.
To determine the outcome of your move, check if the action score beats the individual values of the challenge dice.
- Strong hit: Your action score beats the value of both challenge dice. You succeed at what you are trying to do.
- Weak hit: Your action score beats only one of the challenge dice. You succeed, but with a cost or lesser effect.
- Miss: Your action score doesn’t beat either challenge die. You fail, or must make serious concessions.
Remember: Your action score needs to beat — not equal — the challenge dice to count as a hit. Ties go to the challenge dice. Since your action score can’t exceed 10, this means you never beat a 10 on a challenge die.
Matches
When you make an action roll, check the value of your challenge dice. If they are the same, you’ve rolled a match. Some moves and assets offer specific outcomes on a match. Otherwise, you can use a match as a prompt to add a twist, create a new complication, or introduce a new peril.
On a strong hit, a match represents an interesting twist or new opportunity. On a miss, a match represents a heightened negative outcome, a complication, or new danger. You can let the intensity of the success or failure frame how you interpret a match — matched 10s should prompt something harrowing or dire.
If you’re not sure what a match means for the current situation, Ask the Oracle. Matches are not mandates — they are just an opportunity to season your story with occasional dramatic turns.
The Momentum Mechanic
Your momentum meter ranges from -6 to +10 and represents your inertia, luck, and confidence. It is located on the left side of your character sheet. Move results and asset abilities may prompt you to increase or decrease momentum.
Gaining Momentum
You can gain momentum as an outcome or option when making moves. If a move tells you to add momentum — phrased as “take +X momentum” — increase your momentum meter by that amount.
Losing Momentum
When you suffer a cost that causes a delay or puts you at a disadvantage, make the Lose Momentum move. Using this move, as appropriate to the severity of the situation, reduce your momentum by -1, -2, or -3.
Some moves or assets will prompt you to Lose Momentum as part of an outcome for an action, and may specify an amount of momentum to suffer, phrased as “Lose Momentum (-X).”
Burning Momentum
Burning momentum is a powerful option to deliver a decisive result or avoid dire failure. When you have positive momentum, after you make an action roll, you may replace your action score with your current momentum value to improve your result.
Resetting Momentum
After you burn momentum, you must reset your momentum by immediately adjusting your momentum meter to your momentum reset value.
The default reset is +2. This value is reduced when you suffer from an impact.
- If you have one impact marked, your momentum reset is +1.
- If you have more than one impact marked, your momentum reset is 0.
Progress Tracks
A progress track measures your headway against a goal or obstacle, including quests, expeditions, connections, and fights.
Progress tracks are drawn as a row of ten boxes that you fill in — or mark — as you advance toward your goal. When you create a progress track, give the challenge a rank. In increasing order of severity, the ranks are troublesome, dangerous, formidable, extreme, and epic.
When a move tells you to mark progress, fill in the appropriate number of ticks or progress boxes per the rank of your challenge. It takes four ticks to fill a box.
If a move prompts you to mark progress, and you have an asset ability that also instructs you to mark progress for that action, you may mark progress again — “mark progress” stacks.
Shared Progress Tracks
When you and your allies are working together to resolve a challenge — a quest, expedition, connection, or fight — you share a progress track. This is called a shared challenge. When a move prompts someone to mark progress for that challenge, it is marked on your shared progress track.
Progress Moves and Progress Rolls
There are several key moves, called progress moves, which utilize progress tracks to resolve the outcome of challenges.
You don’t make an action roll when making a progress move. Instead, tally the number of fully filled progress boxes (those with four ticks). This is your progress score. Then, roll only the challenge dice and compare your progress score to the value of the dice.
Momentum is ignored on a progress move. You cannot burn momentum on a progress roll, and you do not suffer negative momentum.
As with an action roll, if your progress score beats the challenge dice, it’s a strong hit. If you beat one of the challenge dice, it’s a weak hit. If you fail to beat either die, it’s a miss.
Condition Meters
Along the right side of your character sheet are three condition meters: health, spirit, and supply. Their values are reduced when you face hardship through a suffer move, and increased when you make recover moves.
- Health represents your physical condition and stamina.
- Spirit is your morale and mental state.
- Supply is an abstract representation of your overall preparedness, including food, water, fuel, weapons, ammo, equipment, cargo, money, and general upkeep.
If you are playing with allies, you share the same supply value. If any of you make a move to increase supply, or suffer the result of an outcome that forces you to Sacrifice Resources, each of you adjust your supply meter accordingly.
Some assets have their own condition meters, such as a vehicle’s integrity meter or a companion’s health meter. Track their status using the condition meter on the asset card.
Impacts
Impacts represent temporary, long-term, and permanent disadvantages. Moves will tell you when to mark an impact, or may give you an option to mark an impact to avoid a greater danger.
Impacts reduce your max momentum. Each marked impact reduces your max momentum (normally 10) by 1. Impacts also reduce your momentum reset: with one marked impact, your reset is +1; with more than one, it’s 0.
Misfortunes — wounded (0 health, failed Endure Harm), shaken (0 spirit, failed Endure Stress), unprepared (Sacrifice Resources reduces you to 0 supply; shared with allies). While marked, you cannot increase the associated condition meter until a recover move clears the impact.
Vehicle Troubles — battered (vehicle at 0 integrity, failed Withstand Damage — barely holding together, cannot raise integrity until Repaired), cursed (command vehicle at 0 integrity, failed Withstand Damage — permanent). Vehicle troubles only count as an impact while you’re piloting or aboard that vehicle.
Burdens — doomed (Face Death, return with a soul-bound quest), tormented (Face Desolation, undertake a quest to prevent a dire future), indebted (Overcome Destruction, take on a duty-bound quest). Burdens can only be cleared by resolving the associated quest.
Lasting Effects — permanently harmed (0 health, failed Endure Harm — a wound you must reckon with), traumatized (0 spirit, failed Endure Stress — emotionally or mentally scarred). These are permanent.
Equipment
Your supply meter is an abstract representation of your overall readiness. You are otherwise armed, armored, and equipped as appropriate to your vision of your character.
Make note of equipment at whatever level of detail you like. Envision how it enables you to make moves where that gear is important, or perhaps allows you to avoid the risky nature of a move altogether.
If you ever need to know if you have a specific helpful item, make the Check Your Gear move.
Oracles
Make the Ask the Oracle move to help guide your campaign. Its most basic function is to answer a yes/no question, but you can also use oracle tables to generate story events, locations, characters, creatures, and more.
Whenever you are prompted to generate a result between 1 and 100, roll two ten-sided dice. Decide before rolling which represents the tens digit and which is the units. This is an oracle roll.