GM is the Director, players are Founders.

Each Session of play is divided into Scenes, with each scene being an individual encounter or situation.

Tags are small descriptors attached to characters and situations. Tags can be Traits (for characters, determined at character creation and development), Circumstances (for scenes/situations), and Consequences (for characters, as the result of actions they’ve taken). Tags are freeform, though Traits should probably be limited to one or two words, and descriptive, telling a fact about the entity they’re attached to. Tags have a score associated with them showing how much they affect the character - if none is given, the default is 1.

Checks are the system for determining success or failure of important events. All checks use 6 sided dice (d6). Each player, including the Director, will need two dice (2d6) for their rolls.

Checks take the form of 2d6 + Tags - in other words, rolling two 6-sided dice, and adding the scores of all the tags that are relevant. If a Check is an Engineering Check for instance, then in addition to the 2d6 the player would add any tags that apply - an Engineer 2 job tag, a Clever tag, and Focused tag. They then subtract the scores of any tags that would hinder this action - for instance, a Time crunch tag due to being under pressure.

On a roll of Snake Eyes (2 total), the check is an automatic fail. In addition, something bad happens, taking the form of a Circumstance on the scene. On a roll of Boxcars (12 total), the check is an automatic success. In addition, something good happens, taking the form of a Circumstance on the scene. Otherwise, the Founder is trying to beat a difficulty score:

• Easy (4)
• Normal (7)
• Hard (10)
• Very Hard (13)

If they meet or exceed the difficulty, then the Founder has succeeded in what they are trying to do.

If they fail, then the Founder receives one Adversity Token. Adversity Tokens can be spent on later rolls to give +1 each to the roll.

If a test would fail, but before adding any Adversity Tokens, a Founder may choose a risky maneuver. They may reroll the dice once, taking the new roll. This comes at a cost though, since the Director has become more suspicious of the founder. The Director receives a Suspicion Point. Suspicion Points can be spent in two ways:

• Reroll the dice for a contest against the founders
• Introduce a complication in the form of a new Circumstance on the given scene

The Director starts each scenario with one Suspicion Point for every two Founders, rounded up.

When multiple Founders work together on a task, one is the “leader” and the others are “assisting”. Each assisting Founder gives +2 if they have a relevant tag, or +1 otherwise.

A Contest occurs when two parties are trying to do opposite things. In this case, instead of a flat difficulty check, both parties make rolls using relevant tags. The two parties take turns using Adversity Tokens and raising Suspicion until neither side wants to or has available tokens. The party with the higher total is the winner of the Contest.

A Circumstance can be created with a skill check. The difficulty of the check should depend on what the founder is trying to do. Since Circumstances count as a bonus until the end of the scene, it’s reasonable that an action to create one is most often a Normal difficulty check. The Circumstance has a value of 1, but can be added to with additional checks. In addition, for every 3 above the difficulty that the Founder succeeds by when making it, the Circumstance gains 1 value. It is suggested that circumstances be written on index cards that are visible to all Founders and the Director.