Special moves

The moves between the action: recovery, downtime, and change.

Advantage/Disadvantage

When you make a roll with advantage or disadvantage…

When you make a roll with advantage, roll an extra die and discard the lowest result.

When you make a roll with disadvantage, roll an extra die and discard the highest result.

When you make a roll with both advantage and disadvantage, they cancel each other out.

If you have advantage/disadvantage on a damage roll, roll the main die twice and discard the lower/higher result. Then add any bonus dice that apply.

Advantage usually means: roll 3d6 and keep the two highest dice. Disadvantage usually means: roll 3d6 and keep the two lowest dice. If there’s a tie for lowest or highest, discard one of them; it doesn’t matter which.

Advantage/disadvantage don’t “stack.” They’re binary—either you have them, or you don’t. By default, it doesn’t matter if you have multiple sources of advantage vs. a single source of disadvantage (or vice versa)—they cancel each other out.

Burn Brightly

When you have enough XP to Level Up (6 + twice your current level)…

When you have enough XP to Level Up (6 + twice your current level), you may spend 2 XP after any roll you make to add +1 to that roll (max +1 per roll).

Players will most often Burn Brightly when they roll 2d6 for a move, but they can use it on any roll—including damage rolls or even the Die of Fate. A player can Burn Brightly only on a roll they make themselves; they can’t spend their surplus XP to improve another player’s roll.

End of Session

When a session ends…

When a session ends, point out how you demonstrated or struggled with your instinct. If you can, mark XP.

Say how your relationship with or opinion of a PC, NPC, or group has changed. If you can, mark XP.

Answer these questions as a group. For each “yes,” everyone marks XP.

• Did we learn more about the world or its history?
• Did we defeat a threat to Stonetop or the region?
• Did we improve our standing with our neighbors?
• Did we make a lasting improvement to Stonetop, or tangible progress towards doing so?

Praise something about the session (in the fiction or around the table) that you enjoyed or appreciated.

Finally, offer up a wish for future sessions: more __, less __, a chance to __, handling __ in a different way, etc. Wishes can be about what happens in the fiction or around the table. The GM will take notes.

Max 1 XP per session for the instinct step (even if it came up more than once), and max 1 XP for the relationship step (even if multiple relations changed). For the four group questions, everyone (including the GM) has to agree that a question is answered “yes”; if anyone dissents, no XP for that question.

Death’s Door

When you are dying…

When you are dying, you glimpse the Last Door and the Lady of Crows (describe them). Then, roll +nothing: on a 10+, you wrest yourself back to the realm of the living—return to 1 HP but say how your brush with death has marked you; on a 7–9, the Lady waves you off—you’re no longer dying but you’re out of the action; on a 6−, your time has come—choose 1:

• Make one last move as if you rolled a 12+, then step through the Last Door
• Refuse to go; gain the Revenant or Ghost insert
• Call on one of the Things Below by name and beseech it to intercede; gain the Thrall insert

This move is discussed in detail on page 245, in the Harm and Healing chapter.

Custom Moves (rules note)

Book II: The Wider World and Other Wonders contains dozens of custom moves that you can use in your game. These moves apply only to specific game or setting elements, and only if you choose to use them. Most custom moves are unnamed; they’re simply presented as part of a setting element’s description.

Custom moves can work in different ways: some establish how something works (like the Makers’ Roads’ wards against violence); some establish that something is possible, along with the stakes, risks, and potential benefits or consequences (like calling the departed by name at the Crossroads under the new moon); some have no 2d6 roll at all—the move just says what happens (like striking an entity of darkness, chaos, or death with a shattered road-stone); and some are reactive—the players don’t choose to trigger them, the GM does, usually via a GM move like announce trouble (like hearing the call of the nosgalau).

If a custom move doesn’t say what happens on a 6−, it follows the standard rules: the player marks XP and the GM makes a hard GM move that fits the established situation.

While a custom move like the road-wards doesn’t directly apply to NPCs or monsters, the GM can use it as a guide for how they might be affected.

A PC can Order Followers (page 462) to trigger a custom move. As usual, the PC’s player rolls for the move and makes any decisions on the follower’s behalf.

Reveal a custom move’s text to the players as soon as it’s relevant to them. Players should know that the move is in play and how it works, so that they can choose to engage with it (or avoid it). Toss a copy of the move onto the table or into the group chat, and ask a player to read it aloud (or just read it aloud yourself). “As soon as it’s relevant” will vary from case to case. If you don’t think that the workings of a custom move would be apparent to the PCs, then don’t reveal it to them right away—maybe just hint at more than meets the eye or otherwise suggest that there’s more to learn, and see what they do.

For guidance on writing your own custom moves, see page 551.

Back to all moves.