Editing Unwritten: System Reference Document/Running the Game (section)

==Obstacles==

Drama suggests that the explorers encounter a series of obstacles that they have to overcome in order to see what is over the next hill. As always, what is interesting should guide you on what to throw in the explorer’s path and how much focus it deserves. Slogging through the swamps of Negilahn is difficult, but we only need to spend any time on it if the trek is interesting.

Simple Overcome and Advantage actions will usually suffice. Failure should rarely simply cut off access to an area. Rather, it should be the chance for creative problem solving or diverting into interesting subplots. Success at a cost can leave the explorers hurt or resources depleted, for example.

When it is time to zoom in on the drama of exploration, it becomes an exercise in problem solving for the characters. Rather than just simple obstacles, characters should face problems that they have to solve that require more than a roll of the dice to bypass. Teamwork, planning, and thought should be required. Dipping into action sequences like challenges and contests as a structure allow you to turn it into an adventure scene on all its own. Getting past a particular obstacle can even be the basis of a sub-plot or story arc, with gathering the information or resources needed.

GMs, one thing to remember: once a problem has been solved, it is solved. Don’t make your players run through the sequence again when they head back or come that way again; that’s just boring. Unless the situation has changed significantly or there is a chance for additional new drama (such as an interesting compel), just let them walk by without further problem.

===Hazards===

Environmental hazards are a common hurdle for explorers to face. A simple passive opposition will often be enough. Situation aspects can be used for invocations and compels. A forest age may have aspects like Dangerous Predators or Poisonous Mushrooms Everywhere, for instance.

However, hazards can be viewed as ‘characters’ with aspects and even skills. Playing a hazard like this makes it an active participant in the scene—the environment (or elements in the environment) can actively do things to characters. They become participants in scenes like contests.

The environment may have an attribute that will affect the characters the longer they are exposed to it. A contest that is run through the scene can model this. The environment uses its skill against the characters and each characters resists with appropriate skills in return. If the hazard gets a three-victory lead over a character, then the character takes an appropriate consequence. If the character takes the same lead, they have bypassed the hazard and no longer have to deal with it. Remember that this is a contest between the hazard and each character. One character overcoming the hazard may not mean the others have as well.

A scene that is just a contest versus a hazard has some possibilities, but combining the contest with other actions will be more fun. Interspersing contest exchanges with other activities (even other contests, such as running from an angry mob) adds another level of worry to the situation. A contest could be run across several scenes to reflect a pervasive threat that affects the characters the whole time they are in the area.