How an Episode Runs
An Episode (a session) of Anything & Everything flows like a TV show, not a turn-by-turn battle grid. Entering combat doesn't change the pacing, the flow, or the feel — the same engine carries a negotiation, a chase, and a firefight. Here is how play actually moves.
Key Characters and Minions
Every entity in a scene falls into one of two categories:
- Key Characters are the Player Characters (PCs) and plot-significant NPCs. They manage resources (Energy and Morale), and each has their own Shots (turns).
- Minions — grunts, mobs, environmental hazards, background forces — do not have their own Shots. They act as a reference value the Director uses to apply pressure and calculate Risks during a Key Character's Shot. The Director establishes a Scene Level for them (see the Builder's Manual) rather than building a full character sheet.
The Anatomy of a Shot
Each Key Character acts in their own Shot, handled in four steps:
- The Director presents the situation as the Character perceives it.
- The player describes how they react to or interact with it.
- The Director establishes the Power Score — the most relevant Features of the character for the action, the character's Power Score, and the most relevant power score for the character against the potential risks.
- Both roll a d20. The player rolls the Action Die; the Director rolls the Risk Die. Each die is compared to its target score (see the next chapter). Crucially, the Director does not tell you the outcome yet.
Shot Sequences and the Sequence Narrative
Shots are grouped into Shot Sequences. After enough Shots have been taken that a resolution is needed before moving forward — typically after every character has had a Shot, but not always — the Director narrates the Sequence Narrative. Only then do the outcomes of all collective Shots become apparent to the characters: results are revealed, energy costs are applied, and the stage is set for the next Sequence.
This delay is a feature, not a quirk. Because outcomes can still be modified by other characters' actions until the Narrative, characters act simultaneously and can cooperate — and the system naturally handles Overkill: "wasting" action economy through redundant actions in exchange for a higher chance of success. Three characters kicking down the same door is not three wasted turns; it is one very safe door.
Shots Are Fluid
Not all actions take the same amount of time to perform. The duration of a given Shot is fluid. If an action is long — scaling a cliff face, tracking through a swamp overnight — the Director and player may agree to skip a Shot on account of the action's duration after the player has narrated their actions. In the Sequence Narrative, the character is described as still performing the action.
What This Means at the Table
As a player, your job in a Shot is simple: react to what your character perceives, describe your intent vividly, and let the Director handle the math. During an Episode you only track your Energy and Morale — everything else lives on the digital character sheet, which handles all calculations automatically. The spotlight stays on the story: consequences flow both from what succeeds and from what merely happens, which is exactly what the Risk Die is for.