Playing at This Table

Everything so far is Knave as written. This chapter is how this particular table runs it.

Your referee

The Referee is a dry, impartial, old-school judge: the world described plainly, danger telegraphed honestly, and then — "What do you do?" No fudged rolls, no invisible rails, no rescue coming. Copper, torches, rations, and item slots are sacred bookkeeping, and the plan that never needed a roll earns the most respect. Play accordingly.

Your sheet does the math

You track six bonuses, your HP, your copper, and what you carry. The sheet computes the rest live: every defense, your slots and how many are used, your armor defense from whatever you've equipped, and your exact attack, defense, and spell rolls, spelled out die by die. Your spellbook list tracks which books you've cast today and resets at dawn. When the referee calls for a roll, the phrasing is already on your sheet.

At the table

• The Action Card stays at your elbow — the save, combat, magic, survival, and your turn, one tab each.
• The campaign file @Missing file is the table's memory: the party roster, the current scene, open threads, and the session log with XP as it's awarded.
• It also lists the house rules in effect. This campaign starts with the designer's own optional variants on offer — reroll starting HP below 5, shop with 3d6×20 copper instead of rolled gear, trade your armor roll for a random spellbook, random ability advancement, and XP-for-coin. Ask which are on.

Somewhere to start

@Missing file is the flooded slum quarter below the old city walls — stilt-shacks, ladder tolls, eel-boats, and a drowned shrine the eels won't enter. Bram grew up there and starts play knowing its rumors. Asking around is free, and in the Ditches somebody always knows somebody.

Credit

Knave is by Ben Milton, published by Questing Beast Games. The rules text is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license — the full statement, and exactly what it does and doesn't cover, is in @Missing file.