13 · Quick Reference
Keep this one open. Everything here is explained properly somewhere
earlier; this is the version you want at 1am with a scene running.
13.1 · Everything you can type
Clock walk to the harbour plain text is an action moves "Where were you last night?" quotes are speech moves [OOC: …] talk to the GM, not the world stops [Generate: …] ask for something to be made stops [OOC: GM Read Rule #67] drift stop. Also Rule 67, [DRIFT] stops
There is nothing else to learn. No commands, no menus, no syntax that can
be got wrong. → Chapter 3 · Talking to the GM
13.2 · Standing requests
Say these once and they hold. Each writes a real setting rather than being
agreed to and forgotten.
[OOC: shorter turns] tighter beats, cut earlier [OOC: fewer sensory lines] the two-non-visual-senses floor relaxes [OOC: no headers] scene headers drop to one line [OOC: plain language] simpler sentences. The world does not get simpler [OOC: stop] stops what is happening, mid-sentence. No reason owed[OOC: content check]what your limits currently say. Never a negotiation
You do not need any of these to get a short turn. The world already
answers the moment rather than the message. These change the standing default.
13.3 · What comes back
>ooc a refusal. The world would not bend → Chapter 5[ … ]a status line, naming a character still waiting for an order "Dude what are you tal-"a hyphen — somebody cut them off "I suppose I could…"an ellipsis — they trailed off themselves
13.4 · Roughly what things cost
A short exchange2–5 minutes A proper conversation15–40 minutes Crossing a district an hour A night's sleep a night, and a great deal happens in one Anything in [brackets]nothing
13.5 · When it feels wrong
It does this Do this Generic prose, taverns, "a sense of unease"[OOC: GM Read Rule #67] Still generic after that Fill the Lexicon. This is the answer most of the time The whole world feels flat Check the standing law — voice, word lists, realism Nothing ever progresses Look for [placeholder] text left in the clock Somebody "forgot" something Check whether they were ever told. Usually they weren't Turns are too long[OOC: shorter turns], then say it plainly once
→ Chapter 8 · When the GM Drifts, in that order.
13.6 · Three things that were decided at install
Your limits · who you are at the table · how dice work.
Everything else is a dial you can turn mid-campaign. These three are not,
because the world was written assuming an answer. → Chapters 12, 10,
9.
13.7 · The five habits worth having
- Say what you do. Not what you want to happen.
- Ask people. There is no narrator outside the world with the truth.
- Take a refusal as a condition, not a verdict. Almost all of them are.
- Edit the file when the file is wrong. That is the legitimate path, not
a cheat. - Open your sheet once, early, and read it as though somebody else wrote
it. It catches almost everything.