The Director's Toolkit

The Director's Cut is your working guide for running an Episode: interpreting the Success and Risk dice without bogging down the narrative, and applying costs that keep the story moving. This chapter distills its numbers into table-ready form.

Energy Cost

Energy cost is tied to Risk and narrative circumstance — guidelines, not hard rules. Start with the baseline exertion of the action if performed in a perfect "lab" environment (ordinary human):

Then add the level of resistance the situation offers:

Add the two values together and multiply by the character's size modifier (Size / 1.5) and a function of the Scene Level: (SL + 3) / 4. Invert the size modifier when the action should be easier for a smaller character.

Key points:

• Energy is still expended even if the result is below the DC — the DC is a reference point for consequences that accounts for defenses. Use a DC of 0 for the energy expenditure itself.
• A concession may include a reduction to Resistance or Exertion, lowering the cost; consequences, such as taking a hit, typically increase them.
• These are reference points — a specific action may fall between them, circumstantially.
• Social Energy follows the same economy. Social actions typically cost less because they are less strenuous — but SE does not regenerate via Breathers, so smaller quantities at a time are fine.

Morale Discipline

Morale 'damage' is a significant event — reaching 0 Morale means panic: fleeing the scene or surrendering. Most combat situations should end this way rather than in total annihilation. Apply it sparingly:

• Hit Morale only when the Risk result is above the DC, and typically only if the action also failed; success should mitigate some or all panic impact — circumstantially.
• The disruption scale mirrors the energy scales: Minor 2, Moderate 4, Major 8, Extreme 16, Psychological Horror 32.
• Size does not affect Morale except through the Risk DC; the same scene function, (SL + 3) / 4, applies.

Narrative Risk

Narrative Risks are the challenges surrounding the character in the Shot, applied in addition to the energy cost and established from the outcome of the Risk roll. They also narratively explain the cost — the level of Resistance the player never sees as a number.

Risk is anything that can go wrong regardless of the success or failure of the action: lowering a merchant's opinion of you even though the deal went through; a stray arrow while sneaking across a battlefield; assassins you failed to detect; your own soldiers taking a royal beating after a victory. Consequences can be compound, and they can be both relevant and irrelevant to the action — that is what makes the system dynamic. It is also how A&E handles action economy seamlessly in large-scale conflicts: the spotlight stays on key characters while minor characters operate in the background.

Calibrate weight to the story: light consequences (knocked down, gear damaged) for most campaigns; loss of life and limb only sparingly, unless the table agreed early that characters will come out looking like stereotypical pirates — if they survive at all. There is no master outcome chart: keeping it interesting, stakes high enough to hold players, and not so punishing it becomes unplayable — that part is yours.

Mitigation Degrees

Risk Mitigation is purely narrative, expressed in degrees:

True Vulnerability [death on exposure] · Extreme Vulnerability · Major Vulnerability · Moderate Vulnerability · Minor Vulnerability · None · Minor Resistance · Moderate Resistance · Major Resistance · Extreme Resistance · True Immunity [cannot, under any circumstances, be affected]

Some Races — or even Classes — carry these. Narrate them; never arithmetic them. And remember the 2:1 Vulnerability Rule when granting them: a Vulnerability is twice as punishing as a Resistance is helpful.