How a turn plays out

Every round, a turn runs through these few steps, the way the game plays today. Three actions against six options means you are forever deciding what you will not be doing this time, and every tempo card you play stays gone until the whole hand has been played.

1. Set your speed Every class holds its own small hand of tempo cards, and that hand is what its initiative amounts to, since all of them have to be played before any of them comes back. Everyone commits one face down, and the order of actions is only settled when your cards and the enemies’ behaviour card all turn over together. Initiative is never rolled for.
2. Roll The dice are your actions. Every one you hold can either go onto your board for an action, or be given up.
3. Place them … Every board has six slots, each standing for a basic action like movement, melee or healing. The same number sets off something different in every slot and on every character board, so no roll is ever simply wasted.
4. … or spend them If there is one action you absolutely have to have, you can give up one of your action dice at any time and take points equal to its value, and each of those points shifts a die you have already placed by one step. A five buys a lot of fixing. You can keep up to two of those points and use them to shift your initiative on the next turn.
5. Activate Work through every slot that has a die on it, in whatever order you like. Damage is fixed and nobody rolls to hit, so what the slot promises is exactly what lands. You are playing professionals, and professionals do not miss.
6. Or the team card Your team shares its equipment and throws it back and forth in the form of team cards. There are only so many of them, but the right one at the right moment turns the tide and tears open the path you needed. Or leaves the whole board a minefield.