The Weary Game Master's Almanac

Rule Zero

Whenever you don't know what to do, just think: "What is the most entertaining thing that could happen right now?" and do that (as long as it doesn't really hurt a Player).

What to Do

Whenever the action has stopped, and the Players turn to you to find out what happens next, choose or randomly roll for one of the following:

1. Ask someone to make a Roll
2. Introduce a Complication / Reveal an Unwelcome Truth
3. Offer an Opportunity with a Cost
4. Put Someone on the Spot
5. Have a Power or Place Do Something Important
6. Move a Clock forward (or back!)
7. Introduce a new Threat
8. Cause Harm

How to run a Game

Explain the core mechanics:

• The Roll
• Spending Fortune
• Making Saves
• Backgrounds & Talents
• Forces & Places
• Magic

Have everyone make characters Have everyone make the Party Have everyone make the Map Have everyone set the Tone

Generate three quests randomly from the Forces, Places, and Party generated from above.

If it’s meant to be a ‘one shot’, have all the Quests just be three or less encounters.

Players pick one quest.

Generate or pick the encounters as they go.

Somewhere along the Quest give an opportunity for Rest, so the Players can tell stories to recover Fortune and do Rest Actions. Usually this is after an Encounter has ended, but if you’d like to make things harder then give less chances to Rest.

Once the Quest is completed, ask the experience questions and distribute experience. Players can then Level Up their Characters.

Then mark some of the old Quests off as ‘no longer available’, generate some new Quests, and narrate and/or ask the Players what has changed in the World due to them completing the Quest they chose (and what happened because they didn’t do one of the other Quests).

Then the Party picks a new Quest, and the cycle repeats.

If the Party returns to a Place they haven’t been in a while, narrate and/or ask the Players what has changed in the world while they were away.