Consequences
Consequences are the positive and negative results of a player's decisions and their character's actions.
The outcome of an action roll measures the amount of success and failure that results from a character's action. Following an action roll, the outcome determined by the dice must be translated into the consequences that describe how they impact characters and the current scene.
As the primary storytellers, players are responsible for choosing and narrating the consequences for their own actions. The host acts as a referee ensuring players follow the rules and stay within the narrative boundaries of the story setting.
Defining Levels
Every action roll produces 3 separate results, a success or failure for each die in the action pool. When determining consequences, each result can generate a separate minor consequence, or multiple results can be combined to create a moderate or major consequence.
When creating conditions, the level of the consequence determines how many checks are added to a character aspect for the condition.
Creating Conditions
A player's positive consequences are defined by adding or removing conditions from characters or altering the state of the current scene.
CHANGE SCENE: Narrate a change to the state of the current scene. For example, the character may have kicked over a lantern setting the floor ablaze or pushed over a cabinet to block a doorway.
ADD BOON: Add a positive condition to the player's own character or an ally. Adding a blessing or buffing them with inspiring words could add one or more positive conditions to the target.
REMOVE BANE: Remove an existing negative condition from a targeted ally. Casting a healing spell could remove one or more negative performance conditions on the spell's target.
ADD BANE: Add a negative condition to a targeted adversary.
A player's negative consequences are determined by adding negative conditions to their own character.
ADD BANE: Add a negative condition to the player's own character. For example, a failure when attacking an adversary with a sword could add a bane to their performance representing physical damage to themselves, a bane to control representing mental or emotional fatigue, or a bane to support, representing damage to the sword asset itself.
FOLLOW THE NARRATIVE
With experience, the host and players should learn to follow the narrative to automatically apply changes to characters and objects within the scene based on the rules for defining consequences.
For example, if a player states they intend to cast a healing spell on another player's character, the target player should know to remove performance banes from their character based on the number of successes achieved by the action roll. The player casting the spell can then narrate their failures while automatically applying banes to their own character's conditions. If a player states they intend to physically attack an NPC opponent, the host should automatically update the appropriate NPC aspects with negative conditions based on the player's success.
If possible, avoid discussing the mechanics of adding and removing conditions to avoid breaking immersion in the unfolding story. In time, performing actions and defining consequences will become smooth and natural for the entire group.
APPLICABLE ASPECTS
Boons and banes should be added and removed from aspects that align with the type of action, and the player's stated intentions. For more information on aspects, see Conditions.
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