Facilitator Guide

Your Job

As Facilitator, you:

  • Set scenes and describe the world
  • Play NPCs and enemies
  • Adjudicate rules and Tag relevance
  • Create challenges and consequences
  • Manage the flow of Negative Tokens

You are not the players' adversary. You're their collaborator in creating a story that matters. Your job is to make the characters' lives interesting—not miserable, not easy, but interesting.

The Negative Token Agenda

When spending Negative Tokens, you must:

  • Make the situation more interesting, not just more difficult.
  • Never cross lines established at the table.
  • Threaten, don't take. A character should never die directly from Negative Token usage. But they can be put in mortal danger.

Creating Enemies

Enemies use a streamlined structure built around Limits, Tags, and Gimmicks.

Limits

Instead of hit points, enemies have Limits: named Meters that represent different ways to defeat them. A ghost might have a "Defeat" Limit for combat, an "Exorcise" Limit for spiritual cleansing, and a "Console" Limit for emotional resolution.

Enemy Tags

Enemies have their own Tags that they use to make attacks, defend, or influence the scene.

Gimmicks

A Gimmick is a unified special ability that defines what makes this enemy unique and creates tactical considerations for the players.