The following rules apply to many aspects of the game.

Rounding Up

This game doesn’t use fractional numbers; if you need to round to a whole number, round up unless otherwise specified.

Simultaneous and Stacking Effects

If any two effects are happening simultaneously, and the rules don’t tell you which order to apply them in, the player (or GM) controlling the effects can do so in any order. For example, if one ability lets you spend a Hope to retaliate after an attack, and another ability lets you gain a Hope when you mark a Hit Point, you can decide to gain the Hope first, then spend it on the attack. Similarly, if you have multiple moves that can trigger in a situation (like two moves that occur “after a successful attack”), you can use them together, and choose which order to use them in. As always, if there’s any uncertainty, the GM arbitrates how effects apply.

At the GM’s discretion, most effects can stack; for example, if two Bards each give you a Rally die, you can spend both of them on the same roll if you wish. However, you can’t stack conditions (see “Conditions”), advantage/disadvantage (see “Advantage and Disadvantage”), or other effects that say you can’t (such as Tava’s Armor from the Book of Ava card).

Ongoing Effects

Once an effect is in play, it continues until a PC or the GM ends it, or until the fiction changes in a way that would naturally stop it. This means that if you cast a spell then switch out that domain card for another in your vault, that effect can remain active even though that card is no longer in your loadout.

Spending Resources

If a rule tells you to spend a resource, you lose that resource when you spend it. For example, when you spend a Hope on an ability, you erase a Hope that you’ve marked on your character sheet. Similarly, if a Bard gives you their Rally die, when you choose to spend it and add its result to your roll, you lose that die and return it to the other player.

End of the Scene

Sometimes certain effects, bonuses, or conditions state that they last until the end of the scene. At the GM’s discretion, a scene generally continues until the current narrative situation has played out. A chase scene might end when the PCs have caught their quarry or when they’ve escaped pursuit. A battle scene usually ends when one side has fled, surrendered, or been entirely dispatched. If there’s uncertainty about when a scene is considered to be over, throw it to the table and see what they think makes sense. You generally don’t have to linger in a scene after the most interesting actions and interactions have occurred -if you want to play out their implications or process the emotions but the heat of the moment has passed, that aftermath and processing can take place in its own scene.