Playing Your Way

This chapter’s full of ways to do that, from bigger print to someone else rolling your dice. Pick the ones your table needs and leave the rest. Most of them don’t touch the rules, and the few that do are in the last section. Plenty of them help everyone, like saying every number out loud, so they’re worth a go even when nobody’s asked.

Talking About It

At Session Zero, once the lines and veils are written down, ask the table one more question: “Is there anything that’d make the game easier for you to play?” Go round everyone, the GM included. “Nothing I can think of” is fine, and so is “I’ll let you know.”

Ask what’d help, and leave it there. Nobody has to say why they need something, and nobody asks. “Can someone read my dice out for me?” is all anyone has to say, and the table says yes.

Not everyone wants to say it in front of the table, so the GM offers another way in: “If there’s anything you’d rather tell me on my own, message me, or grab me before next session.” Where she can, she makes it part of how the whole table plays. If every telegraph goes on a card, nobody needs to know who asked.

Write the tools you’re using down with the rest of your Session Zero answers (the tools, never who they’re for). Anyone can ask for something new at any point in a campaign, the same as with lines and veils.

Seeing the Dice and the Table

When you act against a threat, you roll its die too, in another colour, so you can tell which is which. If colours are hard to tell apart, make the threat’s dice look different some other way, like a set that’s bigger in your hand or a different finish (plain against glittery, say). Or give them their own cup or tray, so they don’t land in among yours.

• Say every number out loud. Whoever rolls reads out both sides: “9 on my d12, and the door’s d8 is a 3.” It’s quicker than everyone leaning over the tray.
• Dice you can read. Chunky dice with big, clear numbers, in a colour that stands out against the table.
• Print it big. The character sheet, the player reference and the party sheet are A4 PDFs, and they’ll all print at A3. Fill the character sheet in on screen first, so it prints in clean type, and go over anything faint in black marker. The web book zooms in as far as you need.
• A telegraph board. The GM writes each telegraph on a whiteboard as she says it, big, with its die and who it’s aimed at, and rubs it out once it’s answered or landed. Put the board wherever it’s easiest to see.
• No grid, if the grid’s hard to see. Use the bands from Playing Without a Grid instead.

Hearing

Telegraphs come all at once, and they’re the part nobody can afford to miss, so the GM writes each one on an index card as she says it: what it’s doing, and its die. The die sits on the card, and the card goes in front of whoever it’s aimed at (or beside the stake, place or clock). Whoever answers it, or has it land on them, picks that die up and rolls it. Then the card comes off the table.

Sit where you can see the GM’s face and everyone else’s, at the quietest end of the room. Planning a round gets loud, so talk one at a time, and let whoever’s talking finish. Online, turn the captions on if your call has them, and the GM types every telegraph into the chat as she says it.

Hands and Rolling

A dice tray stops the dice going off the edge of the table, and with a dice tower you just drop them in the top. Chunky dice are easier to pick up, too.

If throwing dice is hard work, ask a friend to roll for you. Every call’s still yours: the intents, the Aura and your Resolve. Or roll in the Player app, which builds and rolls any roll from your sheet and rolls your defence when something lands on you, so all you do is tap. With the app, someone at the table rolls the threat’s die alongside it.

Cut down the bits to handle, too. Tokens for Aura and Resolve are easier than rubbing out a number, and so is a token on the Confidence die you’re on, because that moves up and down all scene. The clocks can go on the whiteboard, so nobody’s swapping dice at the end of every round.

Reading, Numbers and Words

The book’s in plain words, and every rule term’s in the glossary at the back, one line each. The web book’s search finds any word, on a phone or a computer, and the Player app’s got the rules too, searchable, with short lessons on how to play.

• Skip the long build. Quick Build gets you a character in ten minutes, or you can pick a ready-made character and play. The same six are in the Player app.
• Let your set actions count for you. Each one has its steps and its die written on your sheet, so most rolls start from a number and there’s no maths to do in your head. When you bring something in, keep the steps-to-dice ladder from the player reference beside you, and the table can help you count: “Your Sneak’s 4, and your grappling line’s 1 more for 1 Aura. That’s 5, a d10.”
• A cut-down sheet. Copy your set actions onto one card, with their steps and dice, in big, clear writing, and keep the full sheet nearby for the rest.
• Say your sheet out loud. Before you play, read your permissions to the table as plain I can lines. Then everyone knows what you’re good at, and anyone can say “your cloak fits that” when you’ve missed one.
• Use your own words. You don’t need the game’s terms. Say what your character does, and the table turns it into steps: “I’m burning that arrow out of the air before it gets to Isolde” is an answer, and the GM says so.

Focus, Memory and Energy

• A timer you can see. The scene clock’s a die, face up. Put it in the middle of the table or write it big on the whiteboard, and say it out loud every time it steps down: “The household wakes is a d6 now.”
• The recap. Every session opens with someone reading from the log. If it’s been a while, or last week’s a blur, read the last three lines instead of one.
• The party sheet’s the table’s memory. The Goal, everyone’s Aspirations, the factions and what has changed all live on the party sheet. When someone asks why the crew’s doing this again, point at it.
• Shorter sessions. A session in this book runs two to four hours, and it’s fine to go shorter: keep the order from The Session and play one scene instead of two or three.
• Breaks. Take one between scenes, where the game stops anyway. Mid-round’s fine too: everything’s face up and nothing happens till someone acts, so the round waits while you get a drink.
• A sign for “I need a minute”. Sometimes you need a minute without leaving the table. Agree on a sign at Session Zero, like a hand flat on your sheet, and when someone uses it, the game carries on around them and nobody asks. If it’s mid-round, the rest of the crew goes first.

Talking at the Table

You don’t have to do voices, or talk as your character at all. Say what they do, in the third person if that’s easier: “Dorrie gives the clerk a false name and flashes her signet pin.” It’s the same roll either way: her Pass as someone else, with the pin already on it, 5 steps, a d10. The Resolve the GM gives for great roleplay works the same way. It’s for what your character does, like facing their fear or keeping a promise to themselves, so it counts however you tell it.

• Take the spotlight when you want it. Want a moment? Ask for one: “Can Dorrie have a go at the clerk?” If you’d rather sit back for a scene, tell the GM and she’ll aim it at someone else. When your moment comes, it can be a roll instead of a speech.
• Ask before putting anyone on the spot. The GM asks players to make up bits of the world (see The Conversation). Some love it and some don’t, so she gives a heads-up and a way out: “Isolde, in a minute I’ll ask what your order’s sigils mean, so have a think. Or I’ll make it up, if you’d rather.”
• Nothing comes out of nowhere. Every telegraph’s on the table, face up, before it can land, and there’s no reacting in a hurry. You deal with what’s coming on your turn, when you’re ready, and you can talk it through with the crew first.

Playing from Somewhere Else

Some nights getting to the table’s the hard part. Zi’Dara plays fine over a video call, and it works with one player on a screen and the rest round the table. For the nights someone can’t make it at all, see When Someone Can’t Make It.

Roll in the Player app, or roll real dice where the camera can see them, and say every number out loud either way. If the table would rather see every roll, use a dice roller you can all see in the chat. Keep the party sheet and the log in a shared document everyone can open. With one player on a screen, point a phone at the telegraph cards and the party sheet, and before the round ends, the GM checks they’ve had their action.

The GM’s Side

A few habits help everyone at the table, whoever needs what:

• Say the die out loud every time, with what it’s doing and who it’s aimed at: “The Warden drives its spear at Isolde, a d10.” There’s more on that in Telegraphing Well.
• Put telegraphs where everyone can see them, on cards or on the board, and leave them there till they’re answered or land.
• Say where things are as well as pointing: “The Warden’s two squares from Isolde, between her and the door.”
• Give people time. Let whoever’s counting steps count, and help if they ask.
• Check in. After the first session, ask each player on their own whether the table’s working for them, and change what isn’t.

Changing the Rules to Fit

The rules are there for the table, so if one gets in the way of someone playing, change it.

That leaves plenty of room:

• Fewer dice on the table. A defence roll stands for the whole round, the threat’s and yours, so roll it first and leave it showing (or write the number on the board), then roll the dice coming at it one at a time. Only two dice are ever down at once. Or have one person roll the threats’ dice for everyone, and the GM can pick them back up for anyone who’d rather she did.
• Bigger dice. Bigger in your hand, with the same number of sides.
• Numbers instead of dice. A roller on a screen, like the Player app, gives you the number with nothing to pick up or read off a die.
• A friend’s hands. Someone else rolls, and you make every call.