In Regulus, narrative matters. The narration of the story centers on the player’s characters, particularly the critical moments of choice they make throughout the story. Daily normal happenings do not warrant narration at all. We are not concerned with the characters washing their hands or handling everyday pressures like paying routine bills. This said, the flow of narration is a give-and-take between the GM and the players, as they narrate the character’s story.
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Most of the time, narration is a smooth conversation about the fiction. The players decide on their characters' actions and narrate them, and the GM replies with narrative about the world around the characters. Suddenly, something interesting will happen. A character might attempt something risky where the outcome is in question. Something might befall a character in an important way, and the outcome is in question. These moments lead to Contests and Challenges below.
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Narrative matters in Regulus because it impacts characters’ stories. A narration often changes a situation in a profound and impactful way. Sometimes this just happens. A player or GM might narrate something with such impact. A narration isn’t canon to the story immediately. It can be disputed. When a dispute occurs, you use the rules for Contests of Challenges below to resolve it.
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The GM also has two other tools in their arsenal to assist in the flow of narration. These are Checks and Tests, which are quick rolls that can inform the narrative based on the situation at hand.
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## Contests
As the story of the game is narrated by the players, eventually something risky will come into play. A player's character might pull out a pistol and shoot a security droid, or they might hack into a secure system. In these risky cases where the outcome of an action, or sequence of actions, is rife with chance: dice are rolled to determine the outcome.
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The outcome on the result table is a direct indicator if the player gets what they want for their character. That said, each result that isn't as simple as **No** or **Yes** needs some clarity:
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- **Maybe**: Things got complicated, and the outcome isn't immediately in favor of the character. The GM creates the complication in narration, and the player can either accept a result of **No**, or push the contest. If choosing to push, re-reroll with one more die (max of 3) and move right on the rolling table if possible (Favored becomes Means, Means becomes No Means).
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- **Maybe**: Things got complicated, and the outcome isn't immediately in favor of the character. The GM creates the complication in narration, and the player can either accept a result of **No**, or push the contest. If choosing to push, re-roll with one more die (max of 3) and move right on the rolling table if possible (Favored becomes Means, Means becomes No Means).
- **Possibly**: An issue has arisen. The GM (or player with GM approval) creates an interesting issue that results from the narrative of the contest and then either accepts that issue to earn a **Yes** result or does not and takes a **No**. Taking a No avoids the issue.
- **! - Exclamation**: This is narrative code for 'and'. A **Yes!** result is 'Yes, and ...' where the player gets even more than they wanted in the end. **No!** is 'No, and ...' where not only did the player not get what they want but now an issue is narrated (like Possibly but no choice here).
- **Hell No**: Where to start! Well this result has gone sideways in the kind of way where the character might be telling stories about the incident for years to come. Crowd source this kind of disaster of an outcome with the playing group with GM as final approval.
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A Challenge is just a contest in reverse. It is a narrative situation that is happening to a player character where the player wants to avoid the outcome. Let us reframe the continuing pistol example. In this new case, the player's character enters a vault of caplets to steal a rare one, and as they do so a security droid deploys it's auto-pistol to shoot the character. Now this is the inverse of the action above, as the player wants to avoid being 'incapacited by the security droid'. The rules are the same, but the outcome is reversed. If the player gets the Yes (or better) outcome they avoid the narration in question. Most of the results are the same but work opposite. However the **Yes!** and **Yes!!** work slightly differently:
- **! - Exclamation**: In a challenge, "Yes, and ..." becomes a way to flip the narrative. The clause here can be used to generate a blanket narration related to the outcome of the challenge. In the pistol example the player could do something like "Yes, and in a flash I deactivate the security droid with small stun wand". The blanket narration must be related to the challenge but not directly. A more interesting outcome here could be "Yes, I dodge the droid's fire and slip through a wall of caplet trays, quickly pocketing the one labeled XX-23 that I was looking for." This is more interesting as it leaves the droid in narrative play, but gets the character what the player was looking for.
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## Checks
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## Tests
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A Test resolves a simple question in the fiction. A Test is warranted for simple situations. Complicated ones are resolved with Contests and Challenges above. Usually, the framework for a Test is the player asking the GM a question. Here is an example:
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GM: Iris sits at a bar, admiring the assortment of liquor behind the bartender, when suddenly a drink is slid in front of her by Evan, an associate of hers with a less-than-stellar reputation.
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Iris’ Player: Can Iris identify the drink and if it might be doctored?
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GM: Possibly, does anything on your sheet give you Means?
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Iris’ Player: She has the quality: Impressive Extra-Sensory Perception?
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GM: Sure, that works. Roll a die 3+ or mark down Luck to succeed automatically.
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Iris’ Player: I’ll roll. That’s a 5, made it!
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GM: Iris gets a flash of Evan getting the drink from the bartender a few minutes, a sweet kind of concoction Evan thinks Iris might like, no tampering at all.
