Running the Game

Think of yourself as the universe's advocate; you represent everything that isn't the player characters.

This section is for the Deus Machina (DM). It covers how to create scenes, manage opposition, and use your tools to create dramatic, engaging sessions.

You are not the players' opponent. Your job is to introduce obstacles, complicate situations, and make the world respond to player choices so that every action contributes to compelling stories.

Every roll moves the story forward. Failure doesn't mean "nothing happens." It means the situation changes in a way the players didn't want. New guards arrive. A system fails. An ally's loyalty wavers.

Escalate through consequences, not difficulty. Don't make rolls harder; make the stakes of failure more interesting. The third attempt to hack the terminal isn't harder; it's just that the countdown clock is closer to zero.

Spread the spotlight. Track which players have had recent spotlight moments. If someone's been quiet, create opportunities that play to their character's strengths.

Telegraph danger. Players should understand the risks before they commit to an action. "The corridor is filled with sparking electrical conduits" tells them a Vigor roll might be coming. Surprises should come from what happens, not from hidden mechanical consequences.

Use opposition as story. Every stat block represents something with motivations, even if those motivations are simple (the drones follow protocols; the beast is hungry; the environment is failing). Let opposition behavior reflect its nature, not just optimal tactics.

Relaxed Spotlight

When the spotlight player declares a trivial action, you can let other players join in. This isn't a separate mode; it's just flexibility within the existing spotlight turn.

Player 1 has the spotlight and wants to go talk to a shop owner. Trivial; it happens. Player 2 says "I'll come along." Normally only the spotlight player acts, but since no roll is involved, you can allow it. The players walk over, start a conversation, roleplay the interaction. Player 1 asks the owner about local rumors. Still trivial; it happens. Player 2 chimes in with a follow-up question. Fine.

All of this is still Player 1's spotlight turn. The guardrail is built in: eventually, Player 1 needs to either commit to an action roll or pass the spotlight. If Player 2 tries to do something that would require a roll, step in. It is still Player 1's turn. Ask Player 1 if they have an action they want to commit to. If not, Player 1 can pass the spotlight to Player 2, who then takes their turn normally.

This works well for exploration and social scenes. Pull back to strict turn order when stakes rise, opposition is active, or multiple players want to act independently.

When you get the spotlight, choose one:

Use Free Abilities: Activate up to 3 free abilities from any stat blocks in play.

Use Activated Abilities: Spend interruption tokens to trigger powerful abilities from stat blocks.

Alter Game Clocks: Advance countdowns by 1-2 segments, reduce progress clocks, or shift tug-of-war clocks. Connect all changes to fictional events.

Make Narrative Changes: Introduce complications, reveal information, modify conditions, add or remove scene elements.

After your action, either pass play back to the players or spend 1 IT for another spotlight action.

Interruption tokens (IT) are your currency for seizing narrative control at dramatic moments.

Starting Tokens

At the beginning of each scene (or after an intermission), you receive 2 interruption tokens per player.

Gaining Tokens

Player critical failures are the only way to gain tokens during play. Each critical failure grants you 1 IT.

Spending Tokens

Token Strategy

You gain tokens slowly during play, so spend them strategically. Conserve in early scenes for critical moments. In climactic encounters, multiple tokens spent in sequence can create dramatic escalation.

Build scenes in seven steps. Not every scene needs all seven; a quick social encounter might only need Steps 1, 6, and 7, while a major setpiece uses them all.

Step 1: Define the Core Concept

Start with the big picture: what can players accomplish here that moves the story forward? Think in terms of 2-3 concrete outcomes that could emerge from player choices.

Good scene concepts are specific: "Rescue the trapped research team while preventing a reactor meltdown" rather than "explore the facility."

Step 2: Sketch the Location

Break the location into zones and edges. Each zone should represent a functional area: a place where specific types of actions make sense.

Zone types to consider:

• Encounter zones (where conflicts happen)
• Transit zones (corridors and passages)
• Resource zones (useful equipment or information)
• Sanctuary zones (safe areas for regrouping)
• Objective zones (where scene goals are completed)

Edge types:

• Open (normal movement)
• Difficult (require effort to traverse)
• Hazardous (deal harm during crossing)
• Conditional (accessibility changes based on circumstances)

A quick sketch of circles and lines is all you need. Focus on functional relationships and meaningful separations, not architectural precision.

Step 3: Create Opposition

Opposition provides the mechanical framework for dramatic tension. Progeny uses three types.

Minions

Individual threats, each tracked with their own small progress clock (2-4 segments). Multiple minions can share the same stat block.

• Light hits advance 1 segment; hard hits advance 2.
• All minions of the same type share one free ability per DM turn.

Use minions for guards, drones, individual hazards (anything the players can eliminate through focused effort).

Example: Security Drones (Tier 0)

Free Abilities:
  Patrol Route: Move one drone to adjacent zone

Activated Abilities:
  Stun Blast (1 IT): Target loses 1 Vigor
  Alert Network (1 IT): Advance Reinforcements countdown by 1

Clock: 4 segments per drone

Hordes

Coordinated groups sharing a single stat block and progress clock (4-8 segments). Each segment represents one unit. When designing a horde, decide whether segments are removed by light hits, hard hits, or both.

• May split into smaller groups at half segments.

Use hordes for swarms, security teams, waves of lesser threats.

Example: Void Pirates (Tier 1-2)

Free Abilities:
  Coordinated Fire: Deal light hits equal to half remaining segments
    (rounded down), distributed among foes in the zone
  Tactical Movement: Move up to 3 units to adjacent zones

Activated Abilities:
  Boarding Action (2 IT): All foes in zone make Vigor capacity roll.
    On failure, 1 hard hit.
  Covering Fire (1 IT): Target zone becomes hazardous until next DM turn

Clock: 8 segments (hard hits only remove segments)

Champions

Major threats with multiple progress clocks, complex abilities, and dramatic weight. They define the conflict's stakes and require sustained, coordinated effort to overcome.

• Multiple clocks (health, armor, special conditions).
• Usually only damaged meaningfully by hard hits or critical successes.

Example: Corrupted Oracle (Tier 3-4)

Free Abilities:
  Prophetic Vision: Move any foe to adjacent zone
  Whisper: Target makes Zeal capacity roll. On failure, lose 1 Zeal.

Activated Abilities:
  Reality Fracture (2 IT): All foes in zone make Wit capacity roll.
    On failure, 1 wound.
  Temporal Loop (1 IT): Advance or reduce any scene clock by 2 segments

Clocks: Armor 4 segments (must fill before Health), Health 6 segments
  (hard hits only)

Step 4: Design Environmental Challenges

Environments can be active participants in scenes: changing conditions, responding to actions, creating ongoing pressure. Use environmental stat blocks when the location itself is a source of danger or opportunity.

Environmental stat blocks use the same framework as opposition but serve different purposes:

Progress clocks track conditions like structural integrity, system stability, contamination levels, or security status.

Free abilities represent natural environmental progression: gradual degradation, random hazard activation, system changes.

Activated abilities represent dramatic responses: emergency protocols, cascading failures, major structural changes.

Unlike opposition, environments often respond to specific player actions. A successful Craft roll might stabilize a failing system; environmental knowledge might reveal how to work with conditions rather than against them.

Example: Failing Life Support

Clock: Atmospheric Integrity (6 segments)

Free Abilities:
  Pressure Drop: One random zone becomes difficult terrain until next DM turn
  System Warning: Advance clock by 1 if no player attempted repairs this round

Activated Abilities:
  Emergency Lockdown (1 IT): Seal one edge until systems restored
  Cascade Failure (2 IT): Advance clock by 2; all zones become hazardous
  Complete Failure (3 IT): When clock empties, all players make Vigor rolls each turn or suffer 1 wound

Player Interaction:
  Successful Craft actions can remove 1 segment
  Technical knowledge predicts which zones will be affected next

Activated Ability Cost Guidelines

Most activated abilities cost 1 IT. Reserve 2 IT for devastating effects (zone-wide damage, direct wounds, scene-reshaping). Most stat blocks should have zero or one 2 IT ability. See the Obstacle Ability Scaling section for tier-specific guidelines on what abilities are appropriate at each power level.

Step 5: Design Scene Clocks

Scene clocks track overarching obstacles: the big-picture challenges that span the whole scene. Focus on the obstacle itself, not how players might solve it.

Progress Clocks: Obstacles that weaken as players chip away at them. Advance when players damage, bypass, or undermine the obstacle.

Examples: "Corporate Security" (weakened by stealth, combat, or corruption), "Sealed Vault" (weakened by hacking, explosives, or social manipulation).

Countdown Clocks: Threats that grow over time regardless of player approach. Advance based on time, escalation, or failures.

Examples: "Approaching Reinforcements" (overwhelming when full), "Rising Flood" (eliminates options as it advances).

Tug-of-War Clocks: Elements that could help or hinder. Start partially filled; shift based on player actions.

Examples: "Factional Loyalty" (could become ally or enemy), "Crowd Mood" (could offer protection or turn hostile).

Design tip: Name clocks after obstacles, not methods. "Guard Patrols" (obstacle) rather than "Sneak Past Guards" (method). Players can approach any obstacle through multiple methods.

Step 6: Populate with Investigation Opportunities

Distribute discovery opportunities across the scene's zones using a three-tier structure:

Landmarks: Immediately obvious features. Visible without effort. A landmark is just what you can see: a thing, a person, a detail in the environment. They draw attention and give players starting points for investigation. Every landmark should have a discovery.

Discoveries: What players learn by looking closer at a landmark. A discovery is not hidden; it's the natural result of paying attention. "Papers scattered on a table" (landmark) becomes "this is a revised contract that extends the service agreement fifteen years" (discovery). "Two people whispering in a corner" (landmark) becomes "as you approach, you catch fragments of their conversation before they notice you" (discovery).

When a player investigates a landmark, you can optionally require a capacity roll to represent the cost of looking closer (approaching without being noticed, handling something carefully, enduring a hazard). On success, the player gets the discovery normally. On failure, something changes: a hit or wound, a game clock shifts, someone is alerted, or the secret tied to this discovery is no longer available. Simple scenes or scenes with tight turn counts can skip the roll entirely.

Either way, the discovery itself grants useful information but hints at something deeper. Landmarks are short; discoveries contain the substance.

Secrets: The deeper truth behind a discovery. Each secret is tied to one specific discovery. When you prepare a secret, write down what it is before the outcomes so you can reference it at a glance during play.

When a player digs into a discovery, the outcome determines how much they learn. Prepare four tiers: critical success, success, failure, and critical failure. Don't decide in advance which action the player needs to use. Let them choose their approach (safe or risky) and justify their chosen action. If the action choice is narratively absurd (usually because a player is trying to use their best action), you can ask them to choose a different action instead or indicate a set of actions (like any Zeal or any Wit action).

Simple example:

• Landmark: "A small golden locket hanging on a stand on a desk."
• Discovery: The locket holds a pre-Collapse image of a man and a woman from Gaia before the fall. It has been meticulously cared for. As you turn it over, you feel the subtle buzz that tells you this is likely a psychoserai.
• Secret (from the psychoserai): The originator is on Gaia, at Heritage Station.
  • Critical success: The psychoserai carries a clear emotional imprint. You see Heritage Station, a name (Ellara Voss), and the feeling of someone waiting. She's still alive.
  • Success: You get a flash of Gaia. Heritage Station. Someone is there, connected to this locket.
  • Failure: The psychoserai is too faded to read clearly. You feel warmth and loss, but nothing specific. The intensity of the emotional imprint tells you one thing: whoever made this is still alive.
  • Critical failure: The imprint hits you harder than expected. You feel decades of grief compressed into a moment. Lose 1 Zeal.

Complex example (discovery failure branches into a degraded secret):

• Landmark: "A glass vial on a stand, emitting faint orange vapors."
• Discovery: Approaching the vial requires a Vigor capacity roll as the vapors cause dizziness. On success, the player steadies themselves and holds their breath long enough to examine the vial up close: the liquid inside shifts between orange and deep red, and faint symbols are etched into the glass. On failure, the player stumbles forward and knocks the vial off its stand. It shatters on the floor. Everyone in the zone takes 1 light hit from the vapor burst.
• Secret (from the intact vial): The vial originates from Hyalos, and the compound is a powerful sedative mixture.
  • Critical success: You recognize these symbols. This is a Hyalos workshop signature, and the compound inside is a sedative potent enough to drop someone mid-sentence. Whoever left this here has access to restricted temple supply lines.
  • Success: You recognize either the symbols (a Hyalos workshop signature) or the compound (a powerful sedative), but you can't connect both.
  • Failure: The symbols and the compound don't mean anything to you, but the vial itself is distinctive. You'd recognize another one if you saw it.
  • Critical failure: You lean too close and inhale a concentrated dose. You drop the vial as it shatters on the floor and everyone in the zone takes 1 light hit.
• Secret (from the shattered vial): The glass shards still carry the etched symbols, but the compound has evaporated. The vial originates from Hyalos.
  • Critical success: You piece together enough of the signature from the shards to identify a specific Hyalos workshop. Whatever was inside is gone, but you know exactly where this glass was made.
  • Success: These symbols are Hyalos-origin. Someone with temple connections left this here.
  • Failure: The shards are too fragmented to reconstruct the symbols. But the glass itself is distinctive, high quality with an unusual amber tint. You'd recognize it if you saw it again.
  • Critical failure: The lingering vapors surge as you disturb the shards. Everyone still in the zone takes 1 light hit.

Plan roughly 10 secrets per session distributed across all scenes. Not every discovery needs a secret, but important story threads should have multiple discovery paths.

Area Integration: Connect investigation rewards to your scene's mechanical elements:

• Landmarks should hint at the nature of scene obstacles
• Discoveries could reveal methods for overcoming opposition or environmental challenges
• Secrets might provide direct advantages against specific obstacles or reveal how scene clocks can be influenced

Step 7: Bring It to Life

With all mechanical elements in place, focus on the atmospheric details that transform functional zones into memorable, immersive locations. This step shifts from mechanics to mood, creating sensory foundations that help players visualize and engage with your scene.

Atmospheric Foundation Formula: For each distinct area in your scene, create a three-sentence foundation that engages multiple senses and suggests activity:

1. Visual elements: Establish the basic setting with 1-2 specific, evocative details that go beyond generic descriptions.
2. Sensory layers: Add non-visual senses (sound, smell, touch, temperature) that make the space feel real and lived-in.
3. Signs of life: Show that the space is dynamic. Hint at recent activity, ongoing processes, or environmental changes.

Connect your descriptions to your mechanical elements. Let atmospheric details hint at opposition positioning, environmental hazards, and investigation opportunities without stating them outright.

These foundations are starting points. As player actions change the scene, your descriptions should evolve to reflect the new reality.

Each complete breakthrough cycle (2 talents + 1 capacity increase) represents a tier of character growth. Use tiers to plan campaign length, start campaigns with more experienced characters, or bring late-joining players up to speed.

To create a higher-tier starting character, apply the cumulative gains from the table above during character creation. The player chooses which talents and capacities to take as normal. Standard talents (Life Line, Capacity Floor, Expertise) count toward the talent total.

For longer campaigns or campaigns with shorter scenes, change breakthroughs to once per act instead of once per scene. An act is a narrative arc spanning multiple scenes, typically 3-5.

Use this reference when designing stat blocks. Each tier assumes the party has completed the corresponding number of breakthrough cycles. Free abilities happen on your turn at no IT cost. Activated abilities cost IT as listed.

General rules at every tier:

• Free abilities always have a gate: a capacity roll to avoid the effect, or a weak baseline effect (single light hit). The exception is horde scaling abilities, which deal automatic light hits proportional to remaining segments.
• Activated abilities deal direct damage with no roll gate. The IT cost is the gate.
• The roll capacity and the lost capacity must always differ. Never "Vigor roll, lose Vigor on fail."
• Losing Protection directly is a light hit. Write it as a light hit, not as capacity loss.
• 2 IT abilities are rare. Most stat blocks should have zero or one.

Starting / Tier 0

Characters have starting capacities (roughly 1-7), 2-segment wound clocks, minimal soak. Scenes should feel threatening but survivable with basic caution.

Free Abilities

• 1 light hit, gated by a capacity roll (e.g., "Target makes a Vigor capacity roll. On failure, 1 light hit.")
• Capacity loss gated by a different capacity roll (e.g., "Target makes a Protection capacity roll. On failure, lose 1 Wit.")
• Movement (reposition the obstacle to an adjacent zone)

Activated Abilities (1 IT)

• 1 hard hit (direct, no roll gate)
• 1 point of direct capacity loss (not Protection; Protection loss is a light hit)
• Advance or reduce a scene clock by 1 segment
• Force a target to move to an adjacent zone

Activated Abilities (2 IT)

• Not available at this tier.

Capacity damage budget: 1 obstacle per scene with capacity-draining abilities. Other obstacles deal hits only.

Tier 1-2

Characters have +2 to +4 capacity maximums, 2-4 wound segments, more talents and instant options. They can absorb more pressure and have tools to mitigate it.

Free Abilities

• Everything from Tier 0
• Capacity rolls against any of the three primary capacities as gates (spread across the scene's stat blocks, not all on one obstacle)
• Conditional riders that bypass the roll gate when a condition is met (e.g., "If another ally is in the zone, the light hit is automatic.")

Activated Abilities (1 IT)

• Everything from Tier 0
• Multi-hit: 2 light hits, or 1 light hit then 1 hard hit (light before hard so Protection degrades first)
• Zone-wide light hit (all foes in the zone take 1 light hit)
• Create a zone condition (hazardous terrain, difficult terrain) that persists until a stated trigger

Activated Abilities (2 IT)

• Advance or reduce a scene clock by 2 segments
• Zone-wide capacity loss (all foes in a zone lose 1 point of a primary capacity)
• Multi-target hard hit (1 hard hit to up to 2 targets)

Capacity damage budget: 1 obstacle per scene at Tier 1. At Tier 2, 1-2 obstacles can have capacity drain if they target different capacities.

Tier 3-4

Characters have +6 to +8 capacity maximums, 4-8+ wound segments, soak, expertise, and a deep talent bench. Scenes should force hard resource decisions.

Free Abilities

• Everything from Tier 1-2
• Multiple light hits on a single target, gated by a capacity roll (e.g., "Target makes a Wit capacity roll. On failure, 2 light hits.")
• Zone-wide capacity roll with light hit consequence (all foes in the zone make a capacity roll; on failure, 1 light hit each)
• Automatic light hit (no roll gate) on a single target, only if paired with a vulnerability state or cost to the obstacle

Activated Abilities (1 IT)

• Everything from Tier 1-2
• 1 direct wound to a single target (use sparingly; bypasses Protection entirely)
• 2 hard hits to a single target
• Multi-target capacity loss (up to 2 targets each lose 1 point of a primary capacity)
• Forced movement of multiple targets to adjacent zones

Activated Abilities (2 IT)

• Zone-wide hard hit (all foes in a zone take 1 hard hit)
• Direct wound + capacity loss combo on a single target (1 wound and lose 1 primary capacity)
• Major clock manipulation (advance or reduce a scene clock by 3 segments)
• Create a persistent zone condition across 2 zones

Capacity damage budget: 1-2 obstacles per scene with capacity-draining abilities. At Tier 4, both can target the same capacity in climactic encounters.

Tier 5

Characters are at peak power: maximums near or at 7 across multiple capacities, deep wound clocks, full talent suites, soak, expertise, and calling synergies. Tier 5 scenes should feel like genuine existential threats where every DM turn creates a dilemma.

Free Abilities

• Everything from Tier 3-4
• Zone-wide automatic light hit (no roll gate) to all foes in the obstacle's zone, paired with a vulnerability state or self-cost
• Capacity roll with multi-hit consequence (e.g., "Target makes a Vigor capacity roll. On failure, 1 light hit then 1 hard hit.")
• Automatic capacity loss (1 point, no roll gate) to a single target as a free ability, used only on champions with clear fictional justification

Activated Abilities (1 IT)

• Everything from Tier 3-4
• 2 sequential hard hits to a single target (each requiring its own Protection roll)
• Zone-wide capacity loss (all foes in a zone lose 1 point of a primary capacity)
• Direct wound with a secondary effect (1 wound and create a zone condition, or 1 wound and advance a clock by 1)

Activated Abilities (2 IT)

• Zone-wide wound threat (all foes in a zone make a capacity roll; on failure, 1 wound)
• Multi-wound on a single target (2 wounds; reserved for the most devastating champion abilities)
• Scene-reshaping effects: seal or open zone edges, destroy a zone (force all occupants to adjacent zones and take 1 hard hit), reset a scene clock
• Simultaneous pressure: 1 hard hit to all foes in a zone and advance a countdown clock by 2 segments

Capacity damage budget: 2 obstacles per scene with capacity-draining abilities. Both can target the same capacity, and one can deal automatic (ungated) capacity loss.

Scaling Summary

When a player rolls a critical failure, you gain 1 IT and determine a complication. The standard complication is capacity loss: the player loses 1 point from a capacity of your choice. This is the default. Use it unless you have a specific narrative complication that is more interesting and roughly equivalent in mechanical weight.

Narrative complications are the alternative, not the baseline. "The alarm triggers," "the NPC notices you," or "the bridge starts to collapse" are all valid if they create meaningful fictional consequences. But if nothing specific comes to mind, capacity loss is always correct. Do not skip the mechanical bite of a critical failure in favor of a soft narrative beat.

If you choose capacity loss, pick the capacity that creates the most interesting pressure. A Vigor loss when the character is already low pushes toward Exhausted. A Wit loss when they need safe rolls creates a painful squeeze. A Zeal loss when they are spending balance tokens threatens Demoralized. Read the table state and choose what makes the next few turns more dramatic.

You may also choose to gain an additional IT instead of inflicting capacity loss. This is a valid alternative when you want to bank resources for a later activated ability.