Refereeing

Primacy of Action

Even when using the rules for travel, exploration, and combat, remember this, the most important thing:

Past action taken by the players supersedes content generated by prompts or rules. Their deeds are reality.

Remember the core of giving players information, honouring their choices, and describing the impact of their actions.

Giving Information

The players can only make interesting choices when they are presented with difficult situations and given all of the information needed to engage with them.

Improvisation

When faced with a question not answered by rules, notes, or procedures, you improvise.

Anything too beneficial or too harmful creates the feeling of an arbitrary world. Instead, describe something that does at least one of the following:

• Evokes the flavour and themes of the area and its inhabitants.

• Indulges their senses. Vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.

• Reinforces something that they've already learned about this place.

Prompts

Every Knight and Myth spread has prompts across its base. These serve as cues for improvisation as needed. Spark Tables (p22) are also useful for generating ideas.

Luck Rolls

If you need to consult the whims of fate, make a Luck Roll on a d6. A high roll favours the players, a low one does not.

In general, use these guidelines:

Action Procedure

When the players take action the Referee works down this list:

• 1. Intent: What are you trying to do?

• 2. Leverage: What makes it possible?

• 3. Cost: Would it use a resource, cause Virtue Loss, or have a side-effect?

• 4. Risk: What's at risk? No risk, no roll. Otherwise make a Save or a Luck Roll.

• 5. Impact: Show the consequences, honour the established risk, and move forward.

Success

When the players succeed at a significant action the Referee does one of the following:

• Advance: Move in a good direction.

• Disrupt: Lessen a threat.

• Resolve: Put a problem to rest.

Failure

When the players fail at a risky action they might still complete the action, but always suffer negative consequences:

• Threaten: Create a new problem.

• Escalate: Make a problem worse.

• Execute: Deliver on a threat.

Impact

Whether a success or a failure, ensure that the players’ actions have an observable impact on the world. The best types of impact have both immediate and lasting consequences, always moving things forward.

Ending a Session

At the end of each session:

• Discuss if it would feel right for a Season or Age to pass between now and the next session (p17).

• If a Season or Age passes, then follow the procedure detailed.

• Ask the players if they have any plans or ambitions for the next session. This gives you a direction for any preparation you do before then.

Luck Roll