Facilitating Play

For some groups, playing out the story freely without the intervention of a single authority figure is preferable. The rules are designed to support that style of play out of the box, so if that’s how your group likes to play, you should be able to do that without modification.

For groups who prefer to play with the aid of a facilitator, here are some things to consider. Remember that everything in this chapter is optional; if you don’t want a facilitator, your group doesn’t have to have one.

The facilitator’s job is to help the players navigate the rules. As facilitator, you can prepare reference materials for them, keep track of narrative events in your own journal, hand out dice as needed, and so on. You don’t need to control anything that happens within the story or come up with an overarching narrative.

You can offer suggestions or ask questions, and if you and the other players all trust each other you can push players to go deeper in exploring a scene or moment, but be careful if you do this. Remember that your primary goal is to help the group play the game, not to play it for them.

The Importance of Agency

The only person who decides what happens to a character is that character’s player. If you’re facilitating play, you can ask a player what happens to their character. If players appreciate it, you may suggest things. You may never tell them what happens to their character.

Be the Weaver.

Whenever a player asks for a weaving die, you are the person they ask, which means that you will always be the one to decide what types of memory are conjured when the characters in the story tap into the world’s magic. When the weaving die is cast, you are also the one to describe what happens as a result. The player is still responsible for describing how their own character is injured, if it comes to that.

If you’re using the optional Universal Truth rule for skills, the players can then always offer their own universal truths as weaving dice.

Be a Player.

If the other players want you to take a more active role, I recommend setting up your own Player’s Journal and treating the world or the story as its own character. Play out beats and scenes using skills that are appropriate for the narrative, like Dramatic Irony, or The Villain’s Speech.

The skills in your journal improve the same way that the other players’ skills do.

This might present some challenges if you see your role as adversarial to the players’ goals. I would recommend building skills that focus on ways that a villain’s aims are thwarted, if you use skills on behalf of a villain. The Villain’s Speech, for instance, might be framed as “if this roll comes out as a 6, the villain’s speech goes on long enough to give the players an opening.”

That way, a roll of less than 6 means that the speech doesn’t give the players an opening, and a Complication is added to the Adversary’s pool as normal.

If the story becomes more complex, you might find it useful to create more than one “character” for the different aspects of the world that the players must deal with. You might have a whole journal dedicated to the city of Ironhold, for instance, which you only pull out when the players spend time there. You might have a journal that is all about the Mayor of Thornsville too, if they appear regularly in the story.

The balancing act here is that if you’re playing a character, whether it’s a single person or a city, you take turns the same way the players do. You might have additional opportunities to jump in and add details as facilitator, but when it comes to doing things, you still only get one turn.

Other Modifications to Play

Some possible modifications to play, if the group wants them:

Deck Burner: On each player’s turn, you draw the card from the deck and describe the scene for the player to respond to, building toward the moment when you ask the player: What does your character do?
Group Scenes: When it’s time to bring in all the complications, you decide how the complications come up and frame the scene where the players must deal with the consequences of their actions. Once you’ve gathered all of the dice for the Adversary’s Pool, ask them: What do your characters do?
Individual Scenes: When a player’s roll results in complications for their character or the group, you describe those complications where they extend beyond the characters themselves.
Discussions: All discussions are led and facilitated by the facilitator, presenting each player with questions and asking the group when they’re ready to move on.
Order of Play: You determine the order of turns, so that the players can be surprised if they want to be surprised.

You don’t have to use all or any of these modifications; the facilitator can just as easily be The Person Who Reads the Rules When It’s Necessary.