Rounds
Every now and then the game shifts into higher stakes periods of action where you start playing out 10 second periods of action called Rounds.
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Unlike turn based systems, each round all players discuss what their Jacks will do which will simultaneously be played out by their Jacks.
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Need an example? head to the bottom of this page.
What Exactly Can My Jack Do?
Each round your Jack can move and do one of 6 things, they can Dream weave, attack, use an ability, help a Jack, move further or interact with an object in the environment.
Move
Distances in a dream are a strange concept.
Large distances may be crossed in an instant or small distances taking a lifetime. For this reason, rather than talking about specific measurements, distance will be measured in Distance Units (DU).
1DU is the equivalent to 1 metre in an orderly dream that mirrors reality. For dreams where the scale of the world changes, we use the reference that 25 DU is how far the common Jack can travel within the dream in about 5 dream seconds.
This movement of 25DU per round is referred to as a Jack's Base Move Distance. The Jack can use abilities or attacks at any point in this movement.
Climbing, swimming or other unusual forms of movement have a base move distance of 10DU per round.
Rather than choosing to move a Jack can Jump 10DU, Dive to the ground to become Prone, get up from Prone, or take Cover if there is any nearby.
Dream Weave
Dream Weaving is a great way to creatively get your way out of tricky situations without needing to use abilities, so always give it a quick thought before moving onto the more consistent attacks and abilities.
It is also a handy option if you have a condition that prevents the Jack from moving and are trying to find an alternative way to help the party.
Attack
Attacks always succeed and roll their condition die.
You use a weapon to attack which applies conditions to what you are hitting.
You can attack once per round as a baseline but as you level up you may get extra attacks that you can use in a round. This would allow you to do something else and also attack or simply attack multiple times.
Weapons and Conditions are a big part of the game, and more info can be found in the Weapons and Conditions pages.
Ability
Abilities also always succeed. An ability is something your Specialisation can do and can have any number of unique effects.
Some abilities are quick abilities that don't count towards the things you can do in a round. Some abilities are split second abilities that can happen in response to anything at any time.
The chaos effect and order effect are described in the ability's description and occur when a 1,2, or 3 is rolled for chaos or an 18, 19 or 20 is rolled for order.
At level one you have your first ability you can use once per dream as a baseline.
Some abilities allow you to use them once per scene, allowing you to use them multiple times in the dream.
Some abilities are free abilities than can be used any number of times.
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Help
You can always Help another Jack or your Jack to remove a Basic Condition, which are Pained, Hazed and Shaken. This can look like; administering first aid to remove 1 Pained, offering encouragement to remove one Hazed or offering a complement to remove 1 Shaken.
Move further
You can also choose to move further during your round allowing you to move your move distance again, Jump, go Prone, or seek Cover.
Interact
You can always interact with the environment or other objects. You GM will decide if you simply do what you aim to do or if you need to make a decisive roll. In either case, the GM decides what occurs in these interactions.
Combat rules
Combat doesn't change how rounds work but there are some key terms that help to describe the positioning of enemies and allies that can be important for attacks and abilities.
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Adjacent things are right next to each other or within arms reach.
Nearby things are within 25 DU, You could move to a nearby thing in one round.
Far things are usually too far away to engage with at over 500 DU.
Seen things can be seen which can be important.
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You need to be adjacent to something to attack it unless you have an augment or ability that says otherwise.
Example of 3 rounds
Three Jacks (an Architect, a Chronomancer and a Detective) want to cross a 50 DU chasm to ambush a group of two occupants in order to capture them.
The Mark’s occupants have the traits of "Freezes" and "Flees" which mean that the marks occupants will not act during the first round (Freeze), and that they will run away if given the opportunity (Flees).
Pre Round 1
The players discuss. One player wants to create a bridge using their Architect ability, another wants to double the partie's move distance using a Chronomancer ability and the Detective simply wants to cross the bridge.
Before beginning the round the Architect makes a roll to determine if the bridge will have a Chaos or Order effect. They roll an 18 which will mean that it has an Order effect. The Chronomancer now rolls to determine if their ability has a Chaos or Order effect. They roll a 5 so the ability will go ahead normally.
Note: That no matter the roll, the ability still succeeds which allows the players plan to go ahead.
Round 1
GM Narrates, “A bridge emerges from one side of the chasm to the other as though it was always there,” they shift the Chaos Scale one step towards Order. “You feel the dream around you slow and your heart race as you all dash across the sturdy bridge at double your speed allowing you to reach the Occupants by the end of the round.”
Note: players may also narrate their Jack’s actions. The GM might decide to only narrate if something unexpected happens.
Here is where the GM will narrate the response of the Occupants.
“Shocked by the great speed of your approach, the occupants freeze up and do nothing”, this is due to their freeze trait.
Pre Round 2
The players decide on their second round. The Chronomancer wants to stop one of the occupants in time by using an ability. The other Jacks decide to try to defeat the other with attacks.
In this case everyone needs to roll their ability and attacks before the round.
The Chronomancer rolls a 2, this results in a chaos effect, The Architect strikes out with a spear, it is a d6 slashing weapon, they roll a 5 so will apply the Bleeding condition. The Detective makes 2 attacks with a revolver as it is a light, d4 piercing weapon, they roll a 2 and 3 so will apply the Hazed and Pained conditions.
Round 2
“The Chronomancer races up to one of the occupants and due to the chaos effect, only stops their torso in time leaving their legs free to run away, and so the occupant begins to run taking their time frozen torso with them. The other occupant turns to run also but your other Jacks are too fast for them.”
“The Architect strikes the occupant with their spear, lacerating an artery in the process. The Detective follows up with a round of bullets, one hitting their leg and the other ringing right past the occupant's ear.”
“The occupant is bleeding so takes another pained condition at the end of the round and starts to run.”
Pre round 3
The players need to tidy up this interaction before more occupants arrive. The players know that the occupant they attacked will take one pained from bleeding, meaning the Jacks only need to apply one more Pained to shatter it. They plan to have the detective go after that occupant with their two attacks and the other Jacks decided to pile onto the time frozen occupant and grab them.
The Detective makes two attack rolls, 1 and 3 and will apply Shaken and Pained, so will shatter the occupant.
The others make a decision roll on the difficulty table, with two of them trying and with a time frozen torso, the GM decides that they will automatically succeed.
Round 3
“A bullet hits the back of the fleeing occupant and it runs a bit further before stumbling over and bleeding out then fades into the surrounding landscape. How do you restrain the other occupant”
Players: “I'll grab the legs,” says the architect, "And I'll grab the torso and let my body weight bring them to the ground," says the Chronomancer.
“You have captured the occupant”.
The group stops acting in rounds and starts a narrative interrogation of the occupant and the game moves on.