On A Miss

A Basic Move Set for a Game That Knows It Is A Game

1. When you enter a room, roll +presence.

On a 10+, the room receives you. Ask one question about it; the GM will answer honestly.

On a 7-9, the room is already occupied by something - a mood, a memory, a person. Choose whether to proceed or wait outside. Waiting has its own consequences.

On a miss, you left something in the last room. You won't know what until you need it.

2. When you try to find someone in a city, roll +method.

On a 10+, ask 3. On a 7–9,where ask 1. Take +1 forward when you act on what you learn.

3. When you read a document that changes what you thought you knew, roll +the version of events you preferred.

On a 10+, you absorb the new information cleanly. Update your understanding. Ask the GM one clarifying question.

On a 7-9, the new information is true but it requires you to revise something you've already done. The GM will tell you what action, in hindsight, means something different now.

On a miss, the document raises more questions than it resolves. The GM adds a thread. You now have more threads than you can hold comfortably.

4. When you make a promise, roll +the weight of your word.

On a hit, the promise holds - in you, in them, in the structure of what follows. On a 10+, it becomes a resource: write the promise down. You may spend it once, later, to make something true that would otherwise require a roll.

On a 7-9, the promise holds but it is already costing you something. The GM marks a Clock called what you promised and it is running.

On a miss, you meant it. That's the problem. You meant it completely.

5. When you tell someone a story about yourself, roll +how much of it is true.

On a 10+, they believe you and the believing shapes them toward you in a way that will matter.

On a 7-9, they believe the part that isn't true and are uncertain about the part that is. This is also fine. This is, in fact, very human. Choose whether to correct them.

On a miss, you begin to lose track of which parts you invented. The GM will ask you, later, a question about your past. You will have to answer without checking your notes. Whatever you say will be true from that point forward.

6. When you follow someone without knowing why, roll +instinct.

On a 10+, your instinct is correct. You don't know yet what it's correct about.

On a 7-9, you follow them somewhere you didn't intend to be. The GM describes where this is. It is not where you would have chosen to go. It is where you needed to go. These are rarely the same place.

On a miss, you lose them. Or: you don't lose them. They were leading you. Choose which, and tell the table what this means about the kind of story this is.

7. When you open a door that has been locked for a long time, roll +

(The stat has not been decided yet. Leave a space. Come back to it. Some moves know what they need before the game does.)

On a 10+, what's inside is what you expected, which is its own kind of horror, its own kind of relief.

On a 7-9, what's inside is not what you expected. Describe what you expected. The GM will describe what's there instead. The gap between these two things is, from this point forward, what the game is about.

On a miss, the door was locked from the inside.

8. When you reach the middle of the story, everyone stops.

Look at what has accumulated. The threads, the clocks, the promises, the things left in other rooms. The GM reads them aloud.

Roll nothing. Ask: is this the story we meant to tell?

If yes, continue.

If no, continue anyway. The story has opinions about itself by now.

9. When you try to explain the game to someone who is not playing it, roll +the gap between experience and language.

On a 10+, they understand something. Not the game but something adjacent to it, something the game is about, something that was always about more than the game.

On a 7-9, they look at you with a specific expression. You know this expression. It means: I can see this matters to you. This is not the same as understanding but it is not nothing. It is, some nights, enough.

On a miss, you realise mid-explanation that you are also explaining something else. The GM does not tell you what. You will figure it out. You always figure it out too late, which is to say, at exactly the right time.

10. When you look for the rule that covers what is happening, you will not find it.

This is not an oversight.

Roll +trust.

11. When the fiction and the mechanics point in different directions, follow the fiction.

If the fiction is also unclear, follow what you're afraid of.

If you are not afraid of anything, the game has not started yet, or it is already over. Roll to find out which.

Roll +

12. (When you)

roll +

On a 10+,

On a 7-9, choose-

On a miss, the GM

13. When you reach the end of the list of moves and there are still things left to be done, do not be alarmed.

The library is larger than the building. The city is larger than the guidebook.

Roll +the space between the last move and this one.

The GM will tell you what lives there. It has always lived there. It is not hostile. It is not friendly. It is the kind of thing that was there before the game and will be there after and has no particular investment in your outcome but has been paying attention, the way old things pay attention, which is completely, and without judgement, and from very far away.

14. when you

roll

on a hit

on a miss, you

(the player who reads this move aloud should do so quietly. this is the move that was always at the bottom of the stack. you have found it now. some games end here. some games find out what they were about here. there is no mechanical difference between these two outcomes.)

15.

When the game ends, you hold the pen.