Taking turns¶
For long stretches of a game you may never think about turns at all, especially when there's no fight and nothing is racing the clock. As a player, keep an eye on the people around the table and make sure you're not hogging the spotlight. Everyone should get a chance to take part. If you're the Narrator, you can help with that too. (There's more on running the table in the For Narrators section.)
You're still taking turns in those moments. You're just not keeping track.
When seconds matter¶
When seconds matter, the Narrator may decide it's time to track turns closely. Whoever sets things in motion acts first. Everyone else rolls their Soul die for order, and the highest roll goes next.
Once everyone has had a turn, everyone's actions refresh and the order starts again from the top.
The action pool¶
You get three actions to spend on your turn. Anything you want to do costs at least one. Throwing a punch is one action. So is running for the door.
Some things cost nothing. Speaking is free. So is noticing something obvious (asking the Narrator what's around you), or dropping something you're holding.
Some things cost more. A complicated task may take two or three actions to pull off; the Narrator will tell you when that's the case, or the description of an ability will.
Trying again, and pushing your luck¶
If you fail a check and still have actions left, you can usually try again. If that punch misses, you can throw a second, or even a third.
Sometimes you can't simply try again. Think of the classic movie scene where the hero has to defuse the bomb: cut the wrong wire and it goes off. Or you throw your only grenade and miss: the miss itself is harmless, but there's no second grenade to throw.
We like good stories, though. And second chances. So even when a normal second try is off the table, there's a way to try again — the stakes just go up.
You can push your luck: reroll the attempt you just failed. It costs one action, the same as any second try, plus one stamina in the Skill you're rolling (see Stamina). If you succeed, that's all it costs. If you fail, it's a critical failure: worse than an ordinary failure, and often double its effect.
- Defusing the bomb. If the bomb would cost each of you one stamina, a failed push costs you and your allies two.
- Your only grenade. A missed throw just misses. A failed push means it slips out of your hand and goes off at your feet.
- A stun bomb. It does no damage, but stuns whoever it catches for a round. On a failed push, the stun lasts two rounds.
What a critical failure means is always up to the Narrator. Just know that it always means something bad. That's what keeps it exciting.
Reacting¶
You don't have to spend all your actions on your turn. You can hold any of them back to use as a reaction after someone else's turn.
Say your name is Eleven and you have telekinetic powers. You might hold an action, just in case. Then if a bully drives your friend Mike off the edge of a cliff, you can spend it to catch him in mid-air, and save him from what looked like a certain fall.
A reaction usually comes after the other person's whole turn. Some reactions can interrupt a turn, and when they can, their description says so.