Dramatic situations arise whenever time becomes important, characters face opposition, or there are consequences for failure. The most common dramatic event in most games is combat, but races, debates, escapes, and so on are all also dramatic.

Parties

Parties are the basic unit of a dramatic situation. In most settings, each player's character will be a party unto themselves. Plot-crucial or challenging individuals will also be a party in most cases. Groups of lesser characters may compose a party collectively, such as a jury, goblin warband, or a stampede.

Actions

An action is built up of two main components: The thing you intend to do and the party you intend to do it to. The intent must be clear. An action can only affect one party.

In a dramatic situation, every round each party gets to take one aggressive action on their turn. There is no limit to the number of defensive actions a party can take.

Choose one applicable trait and one applicable treasure and add their values together to get the action's value. If you have no applicable traits or treasures, your action has a value of 0. Also, the GM may assign bonuses or penalties based on the situation and how far you're stretching the application of your trait.

Resolution

If an action's value beats a target the GM has set or another party's value, you succeed. Ties go to the party who describes their action best, as determined by a vote of all players, with the GM breaking ties.

Using Quintessence

You can use quintessence to help an action; just roll a quintessence die and add it to the action's value. You can only use quintessence up to the level of the trait you are using for the action (modified by any bonuses or penalties the GM has assigned). If you are not using any trait, you can still opt to use 1 quintessence to add a die.

You can also spend quintessence to add qualifiers or more targets to your action. Every quintessence you spend goes to your damage pool (more on this below). A qualifier lets you specify extra things you do or do not want to happen as a result of your action ("...but I don't want the fireball to catch the tapestries on fire"). Extra targets simply mean that your action affects another party ("...and I also want the fireball to hit Overlord Bastrastras").

Consequences

In an opposed situation, the loser loses 1 quintessence, plus 1 quintessence for each of the winner's high dice. Everyone loses quintessence equal to all the ones they rolled.

If you lose against a target set by the GM, you only lose whatever ones you rolled.

Any quintessence you lose should be moved to the damage pool (more on this below).

If you run out of quintessence, you're in trouble. Of course, you can't add dice to any actions, using only your trait and treasure (if any). Then, as soon as you fail at something, you've been defeated at whatever you were trying to do. Exactly what defeat entails depends on the situation, but it's seldom good.

If you win an action by double or more what you needed (for instance, you needed a 7 and you got 14 or more), you have a couple of special options. You can get roll any quintessence you have lost this round and instead loose only the 1's from that roll. Or, you can dictate the result of your action. The second choice doesn't allow you to break the numeric rules of the game (you cannot declare "I win!" if you haven't), but it can allow you to introduce new plot elements or put you or your companions into a more advantageous situation.

The Damage Pool

Any quintessence you have lost or spent sits in the damage pool and is unusable.

Restoring Quintessence

You get to pick a recovery action for your character. The setting will dictate how often you can take this action. When you take this action, roll your damage pool. Sixes and the highest die (or dice) below six come back to your quintessence. If you have any talents or treasures that you can convince your GM are applicable to this recovery, you may re-roll one die per point of bonus. Another character with proper traits or treasures may give you their bonus for this check.

You can't take your recovery action normally in the middle of a dramatic situation. You probably need a relatively calm time equal to about 10 rounds, at least. If you want to try to recover in the middle of drama, you can, but it's hard. Make the recovery check normally, using up your action for the round. Then take any dice that would be moving back to your quintessence and make another recovery check with them. Talents and treasures can be used for both of these rolls. If another character wants to use traits or treasures to help this roll, it costs an action for them, too. The rushed recovery counts against your recovery time and your action limit normally.

In most settings, a day or two of rest will fully restore your quintessence without any rolls.

Initiative

If the order in which participants act is important, everyone involved should roll a die. The highest result goes first, moving down through the results until the lowest result is reached. Then the character with the highest result goes again, and the cycle continues.

How long each cycle last depends on the situation and setting. A good measure of standard combat round would be about 6 seconds. Scenarios involving large, cumbersome things like armies or giant robots may have minute-long rounds. Political maneuvering may have rounds that last hours or days. Extremely fast-paced action may use second-long rounds.

An applicable trait and an applicable treasure may be used to modify this die roll.

Multiple Parties

Sometimes an action will involve more than one party on a side, either the aggressors (three players working together to decipher an ancient text) or the defenders (a couple of thugs trying to avoid a roundhouse kick). In these cases, every party on a side chooses their action normally and combines the results. The only special limitation is that only one party's trait applies to the action's value (everyone gets the value of their treasures). If it is an opposed action, the winner decides how to distribute the damage to quintessence.

If it's a dramatic situation where initiative has been rolled, a party that wants to take an action with another party has to wait for the other party's initiative to come up.