Internal Missing an opponent in combat is still meaningful, since

it affects the ultimate outcome. The third criterion seems

Some players are more reticent at the table. Give them space straightforward. A normal human in a world like ours can’t
to shine, but only if they want it. Not everyone enjoys making shoot bullets without a gun, or float like a soap bubble. But it
grandiose speeches, especially in front of others. They have also means that even though you can theoretically convince
an internal experience of their character and act quietly. On a stranger to, say, strip naked on a street corner and sing
the other hand, some players are simply shy, and don’t talk bawdy tunes, as GM, you can rule that no matter how well
because they don’t feel they have space in-between more someone rolls at a social task, it isn’t going to work, barring
chatty and demanding players. Your job is to provide an an encounter with, shall we say, a very extroverted NPC.
opportunity to speak, but not to apply pressure. Not every-
body needs to shout at NPC enemies or plan their actions Framing Action
out loud. In these cases, talking to the player outside the
session might give you a better sense of what they want, so It’s often easiest to frame physical actions, since they usually
you can address it without putting them on the spot. have a quantifiable result. If your character is trying to make a
jump, lift something, or break down a door, you either do it or
Framing you don’t. But the relative simplicity of the action still allows
for you to make it exciting, and both the GM and the player
Game Mechanics can work to do that. If Brian is trying to kick a door down,
Brian’s player can describe the way what he pulls back and
“Framing“ is how we talk about what the game’s mechanics tenses the muscles in his thighs and calves, and then when
mean in the adventure and campaign. An attack roll isn’t you roll the dice, you can describe the noise, and how much
just a bit of math and dice; it represents a character in the it hurts when the door holds and Brian bounces off, or the
game world shooting a gun or slugging an enemy. Framing sound of a door cracking around its handle and flying off its
justifies how the rules come into play, and what they mean hinges and the way the impact vibrates in Brian’s ankle.
to the characters in the world of the game. One of the funny things about roleplaying games is that
When the story brings up an element where chance and some life-or-death events can come off as being less mean-
dramatic tension are factors, it’s time to roll one or more tests, ingful than less dangerous ones. Sure, if Indra, edging along
whether it’s to see if Sean manages to convince the customs a skyscraper, just fell to her death because Alejandro (her
worker not to search a container full of refugees, or Brian player) blew the test, it would be a bit meaningful. But since
manages to shoot the gun out of the hypnotized president’s there wouldn’t be much in the way of rising tension, and
hand before he murders the prime minister, or Indra manages few choices for the player to make, it’d be less important
to edge her way around the outside of the 207th floor of the than it could be—and it should be, when death is on the
skyscraper. All these actions require one or more rolls using line! A thoughtful GM should break this out into multiple
the same basic mechanic. Roll 3d6, add an Ability, a focus, and rolls, including one to catch herself by her fingertips, and
any modifiers to the total; if the total is equal to or higher than should make it clear alternate strategies are viable, such
a target number, you succeed. If any two of the dice come as surrendering herself to the investigators inside, only to
up with the same number, you can spend a number of points escape later. But if she makes the crawl, you owe the layer
equal to the number you rolled on the Stunt Die. a vivid description: gusts of wind; the bottom falling out of
But even though these actions all use similar mechanics, they her stomach at a glimpse of the distant streets below; the
represent very different actions inside the fiction that the rough texture of the stone against her clutching fingertips; a
game is creating. Nevertheless, we use the same core game sudden slip on a patch of bird droppings.
mechanic not because of the type of action, but because each
of these actions holds a story purpose in common, which we Framing Exploration
can boil down to these criteria: & Social Events
1. Chance needs to matter, and can often be the best way
to determine where events go next. Mental actions are usually more difficult to frame. Some
actions, such as researching an occult adversary for example,
2. Rolling dice needs to be meaningful. The character take hours of time to perform in the game world, but only
needs to have a chance of succeeding at the task, and take a minute or two at the table. What happens when a char-
the task’s success or failure needs to matter. acter fails an Intelligence test? Mental exertion doesn’t work
3. The action’s initiation and results need to be something the same way as physical exertion. You don’t stop being
that can be described as events that make sense in the smart when you fail to invent something or come up with a
context of the game world. solution. True, you might forget a detail, but you might also
be tired, or you might have had to spend time doing some-
If something doesn’t meet these criteria, it’s not worth thing else, or you might be under stress. A failure on a test
rolling dice. If it does, we’ve successfully framed the action. might not even be the character’s own failure. They might
That doesn’t mean a character needs to have a good chance of be doing perfectly rigorous research, but it doesn’t matter
success. A less than 1% chance of success is still a chance, and how good the research is if the sources they’re looking at
great stories have come from pulling off remarkably difficult don’t contain the information they need. A failed test might
tests. It doesn’t mean the impact of the roll needs to be felt mean the facts just aren’t there and it’s time to find another
immediately, either, or that a single roll resolves everything. library or informant.

114 Chapter 7: The Game Master