Narrative Actions
Momenta Core Rules · Moment 3 · Narrative Play · Chapter 14
Outside of combat (during interludes and downtime), the GM may ask players for action rolls or luck rolls in order to narratively resolve non-combat challenges. This is called narrative play. In these situations, the GM needs to determine the difficulty of the challenge:
- Routine - Carries some risk, but most characters can handle it without much trouble.
- Tricky - Comes with a chance of failure, and while most characters can succeed, it often comes at a cost.
- Daunting - Poses a higher risk of failure, with most characters likely facing some hardship in the process of completing the task.
- Insurmountable - Extremely difficult challenge that can only be accomplished by the most heroic characters of legend.
And also choose which attribute the player will need to use for the roll, and adjudicate whether any character Threads are applicable (+2d bonus). Since luck rolls are not affected by any modifiers, Threads will thus not apply to luck rolls.
If none of the character’s Threads apply, but one of the player’s Bonds plausibly supports, the player can choose to spend 1 Resolve to invoke the Bond (instead of a Thread) to gain the same +2d bonus on the action roll.
The players can choose to spend Momentum for a Momentous Feat to influence the outcome of the roll.
| Successes | Routine | Tricky | Daunting | Insurmountable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Success at a Cost | Failure | Catastrophic Failure | Catastrophic Failure |
| 1 | Success | Success at a Cost | Failure | Catastrophic Failure |
| 2 | Success | Success | Success at a Cost | Failure |
| 3+ | Success | Success | Success | Success at a Cost |
Design Note: An Insurmountable task never yields a pure Success on counting successes alone. The only path to an unqualified Success is to use the Extra Success pattern. This makes sense, as legend-tier feats always cost something, unless the dice themselves sing.
Increasing the Odds
Players have several ways to increase the chances of success for their action rolls (none of these apply to luck rolls):
- Invoke a Thread - If the GM agrees that one of your Threads applies to the action, the roll gains a +2d bonus. Every action roll can apply at most one Thread.
- Invoke a Bond - Before the roll, spend 1 Resolve and explain how one of your Bonds applies: the roll gains +2d. You may invoke a Bond for them - boosting a roll made by your Bond target, whom you must be able to perceive - or for yourself - when the Bond drives your action: fighting alongside them, protecting them, avenging them, proving yourself against them, or defending a place or object you hold a Bond toward. A roll can benefit from at most one Bond invocation. If the explanation doesn’t hold, the Bond doesn’t fire and no Resolve is spent. In combat, Invoke also applies to attack and spellcasting rolls (see Bonds in Combat).
- Push Yourself - The player can spend 1 Resolve to add a +1d bonus to the action roll. Note that the total contribution between Assists and Push Yourself is capped at +2d for any one roll.
- Assist - Before rolling, an ally may describe how they are assisting the player and the assistant spends 1 Resolve to grant a +1d bonus to the action roll. An ally may only assist on a roll if they themself have a relevant Thread to the situation at hand, or at least a Bond 2 relationship with the roller. Each ally may contribute at most +1d, and the total contribution between Assists and Push Yourself is capped at +2d for any one roll.
- Momentous Feats - The player can spend 1 Momentum each to add up to 3 successes to a single action roll. The player can decide to apply this after the roll is made.
For luck rolls, one option applies:
- Momentous Fortune - The player can spend 1 Momentum to reroll the an undesirable luck roll result.
Roll Outcomes
| Outcome | Description |
|---|---|
| Catastrophic Failure | Besides failing at the task at hand, the character or party suffers an additional impactful setback as determined by the GM. |
| Failure | The character fails to do whatever they set out to do. |
| Success at a Cost | The character succeeds, but with an added cost as determined by the GM. |
| Success | The character succeeds at whatever they set out to do. |
| Success with a Bonus | Not only does the character succeed, but they also receive an extra benefit or boon as determined by the GM. |
Before any action roll, the GM should explain what are the stakes: what success gets you, and what the cost will be. For “Success at a Cost” and “Catastrophic Failure” outcomes, the GM can draw from the following sample options, or come up with anything else that is appropriate:
| Option | Suitable for “Success at a Cost”? | Suitable for “Catastrophic Failure”? |
|---|---|---|
| The mission clock advances 1 beat | Yes | - |
| A resource is spent, lost, or damaged | Yes | - |
| The party loses Momentum | Yes | Yes |
| The party’s position worsens (alarm raised, route closed, weather turns; GM discretion) | Yes | Yes |
| The character takes a Wound or Burden | - | Yes |
| A Bond is strained | - | Yes |
| A new complication enters the fiction (GM discretion) | - | Yes |
Group Rolls
When the whole party attempts something together, the GM may call a group roll:
- The GM sets one single difficulty (Routine, Tricky, Daunting, Insurmountable). Every participant rolls their own action roll against it. During group rolls, no one can Assist (everyone’s hands are full).
- The group succeeds if at least half the participants score at a “Success at a Cost”, “Success”, or “Success with a Bonus”. However, if anyone rolls a “Catastrophic Failure”, everyone fails.
- Any character that rolls a “Success at a Cost” or a “Catastrophic Failure” still suffer a consequence, regardless of the overall success of the group.
- Carry - After all of the rolls have been made, a participant who succeeded their roll may spend 1 Resolve to “carry” one target participant, if they hold at least a Bond 2 with them. If the target participant suffers a consequence as a result of the group roll, the carrying player suffers the consequence instead. The player should narrate how their bond helped carry their ally. Note that Carry only re-distributes consequences, and does not affect any roll results.
Retrying Rolls
In many cases when you fail a roll, you can’t attempt the roll again unless the circumstances of the roll change. The GM will determine when the circumstances have changed enough.
Momentous Development
During narrative play, players can choose to spend 1 Momentum to declare a fact into the fiction that one of the character’s Threads makes plausible. This can represent a flashback, or a serendipitous coincidence, or some other plausible development that helps the party’s current situation. Examples:
- “As a former smuggler, I know a guy in this port that can get us the equipment we need.”
- “Since I am an experienced herbalist, I have picked up these medicinal herbs along the road here, which may help soothe the poison.”
The GM can either ratify the player’s declaration, or makes adjustments as required.
Design Note: The reason this costs Momentum is because this is considered authorship spend. We want to encourage player creativity during narrative play, but we also want to enforce the fact that editing the world is not free.