Unwritten: System Reference Document/Playing a Scene

Characters do lots of things. They jump chasms, they negotiate with antagonistic leaders, they decipher strange inscriptions on the ruins of D’ni outposts, etc. This all happens in scenes.

A scene is a coherent bit of game play, usually one that happens in a particular setting. It is the amount of time it takes to resolve a conflict, deal with a single prominent situation, or accomplish a goal. Scenes vary in length, from a minute or two if it’s just a quick description and some dialogue, to a half hour or more in the case of a major set piece. Taken together, the collection of scenes you play through make up a whole session of play.

You can look at them as the foundational unit of game time, and you probably already have a good idea of what one looks like. It’s not all that different from a scene in a movie, a television show, or a novel—the main characters are doing stuff in continuous time, usually all in the same space. Once the action shifts to a new goal, moves to a new place related to that goal, or jumps in time, you’re in the next scene.

Doing Things in a Scene

Playing out a scene is just a conversation between everyone at the table in which the story and the details of the scene unfold as the conversation continues. Most of what your character does is not all that interesting. They are not particularly difficult things to do, nor are they points of drama in the character’s story. Even when they need to be commented on, your character just does them.

In Unwritten, much of what you do just happens, as long as it makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t happen. This is a call made by the people around the table, with the GM as moderator of the discussion. That’s not to say that every action needs to be reviewed by committee; but everyone at the table should feel free to bring up relevant points at appropriate times.

However, there are times when the stakes are higher. At these times, you can still succeed, but potential failure is interesting. Even more so, what you are willing to do to ensure success is interesting and a dramatic moment. When that happens, it’s time to break out the dice and take an action.

Actions

An action represents something interesting that your character does. By ‘interesting’, we mean that what the character does has a possibility of failure or complication that that leads to further drama. It may lead to a failure that has ramifications later on, or it might require you to make a hard choice, or pay a price.

An action does not tell you exactly what happens; rather it provides the skeleton of what happens. It places constraints which you can then flesh out with juicy narrative details. Depending on the outcome of the action, you and the GM will be asked to describe how your character failed or succeeded. Use that to your advantage to make your actions flow with the story better.

One of the constraints that may come up is just what price is required for success. You will be presented with a choice to fail at your goal, or to succeed at a cost to ultimately attain your goal for a price.

Time Is Flexible

An action represents as much time as makes sense. This means that an action can represent a variable amount from one time to the next, or even in quick succession. If you spend an action to see if you can find a way to escape an oncoming avalanche, that action may only take a split-second. Taking an action to dig yourself out of the avalanche that you just got caught in may take a lot longer.

The Action Roll

Taking action boils down to:

• Establish the nature of the action
• Choose the skill and type of action
• Determine the opposition
• Determine the outcome
• Resolve action

Establish the Nature of the Action

The first step you perform on an action is to determine the nature of the action. The character performing the action is the actor and you establish what the goal of your action is, and how you plan to get there.

Before anything else, ask yourself “What is the character trying to accomplish?” You may want to jump straight to describing what your character is actually doing, but resist that temptation. You need to have your intention figured out before you can effectively continue—it is the linchpin for what your character actually does and how well it turns out for them.

Once you have gotten a handle on what you are trying to accomplish, then you describe how you want to get from here to there. Think about what your character would attempt based off of what they know and what strengths they would rely on. If you have a detailed idea of exactly your character will be attempting, then go ahead and describe it. However, if you aren’t sure on the details yet, don’t worry. Just make sure you have a general idea of what your character will be doing. We’ll settle the details when we resolve the action.

Choose the Skill and Type of Action

First, you choose which skill you will be using as the basis for the action.

Next, we classify what the character is doing into one of four different actions. Which action you choose determines what the actual outcomes signify and how they are resolved. There are four different actions.

Overcome

This is the action for overcoming opposition. When there’s something between your character and their goals, you use the overcome action to deal with it. Look at it as the “catch-all” action—if it doesn’t fall into any other category, it’s probably an overcome action.

Success in an overcome action means you have gotten past whatever was in your way.

Advantage

Advantage actions are focused on aspects and using them to help you. You can create advantage or take advantage.

Creating an advantage means that you have created something that your character can use to help out in other rolls. Sometimes, that means you’re doing something to actively change your circumstances (like attaching pulleys to a set of heavy stones or setting something on fire), but it could also mean that you’re discovering new information that helps you (like scouting out the lay of the land). If you are successful, you can place an situation aspect on a person or scene.

Taking advantage of something means you are using something you’ve previously observed (like an antagonist’s predisposition to a bad temper). Success means you can create free invocations on an existing aspect.

No matter what type of advantage action you are performing, if you are not successful then you may inadvertently accomplish something that hinders you instead.

Discover

The discover action is how a character (and thus a player) learns about the world around them. They may be examining a building, digging through dusty tomes, or talking to people in the know. A successful discover action gives the player a chance to ask the GM a specific number of questions dependent on the outcome.

Oppose

A oppose action is what your character is doing when you are acting as active opposition. You may be the target of a Create Advantage action or otherwise providing actively getting in the way of some action. Unlike other actions, an oppose action is a reaction to another’s action. However, it is also resolved during the resolution phase of an action.

Determine the Opposition

The opposition to the action determines how effective a character’s roll is and the results of the action. If someone or something is actively working against the action, then the opposition is active. Otherwise, the opposition is passive. In either case, the type and amount of opposition is determined before the actor rolls.

If a character is the target of an action, that is the actor is trying to do something to the character, then that character is actively opposing the action as long as they are capable of doing so (not unconscious, etc.).

Passive Opposition

Passive opposition represents the general resistance to an action. It is represented by a static rating. In some cases, the GM may decide that the opposition is coming from an active source, but may consider the source unimportant or uninteresting and just use a passive opposition for brevity’s sake.

Active Opposition

Active opposition signifies someone or something putting out effort to oppose the action. The opposition gets an Oppose action, which they roll before the actor rolls. Like an actor, they will choose a skill, collect any relevant bonuses from stunts, and add both to their dice roll.

Determine the Outcome

Now we get down to the nitty-gritty and determine the outcome of the action.

1. The actor rolls the Fate dice, adds up the pluses and subtracts the minuses.
2. The actor adds the value of the chosen skill.
3. The actor totals up any applicable stunts and adds that.
4. The opposition total is subtracted from the actor’s total.

If the final result is...

...negative, the action fumbles.

...zero, the action ties.

...positive and the result is 1 or 2, the action succeeds.

...positive and the result is 3 or greater, the action excels.

Invoke aspects

If the involved players or the GM are not satisfied with the roll, they can now invoke aspects (either using fate points or free invokes) for bonus or to re-roll the dice. Boosts can also be spent for bonuses at this time. You can invoke several different aspects using fate points, but each aspect can only be invoked once for this action by fate point. However, multiple free invokes can be used on the same aspect in this one action (on top of a fate point, if needed).

Players and the GM can go back and forth spending fate points, free invokes and boosts as much as they like. Once they are done, the outcome is figured out again and the action is resolved.

Resolve action

So, what happened? That depends on the type of action, listed below. Also, if the action was actively opposed, the oppose action is resolved as well.

You’ll notice below that in some cases, you have the option of turning a fumble or tie into a success by incurring a cost. We’ll discuss the nature of costs after we discuss the outcomes of each type of action.

Overcome

If you fumble...

Choose one of the following:

• Describe how you fail to overcome the situation at hand.
• Succeed at a serious cost. Work with the GM to determine the cost, then describe how you succeed and how the cost affected the success.

If you tie…

Choose one of the following:

• Describe how you fail to overcome the situation at hand.
• Succeed at a minor cost. Work with the GM to determine the cost, then describe how you succeed and how the cost affected the success.

If you succeed...

Describe how you overcome and obtain your goal.

If you excel...

Describe how you overcome and obtain your goal particularly well or with flair. Receive an appropriate boost to reflect how well you did in overcoming the action.

An obstacle that has been overcome successfully is no longer an obstacle for that character. Unless the situation changes, you should not have to overcome the obstacle again and again. For example, if you have managed to get across the menacing chasm in your way, you shouldn’t have to roll overcome every time you come to it again; overcoming it is no longer interesting. But if there was a earthquake, or someone has been tampering with the rope bridge you set up, it may be time for another overcome action.

Advantage

If you attempted to create an advantage, resolve the action as follows:

If you fumble…

Choose one of the following:

• Describe how you failed to make a change to your advantage or failed to recognize a potential advantage.
• Describe how you create a situation aspect that is not what you intended.
• Succeed at a serious cost. Work with the GM to determine the cost, then describe how you created your advantage, and how the cost affected the success.

In any case, the GM can give a free invoke to someone else who would benefit from how things went badly for you.

If you tie...

Describe how you created or recognized something to your advantage, but only get to use it momentarily. You receive a boost to reflect this.

If you succeed...

Describe how you created an advantage or recognized something to your advantage. Place a situation aspect and receive a free invoke on that aspect.

If you excel...

Describe how you created an advantage or recognized something that was distinctly to your advantage. Place a situation aspect and receive two free invokes on that aspect.

If you chose to take advantage of an existing aspect, resolve the action as follows:

If you fumble…

Choose one of the following:

• Describe how you failed to utilize the situation to your advantage. The GM can give a free invoke to someone else who would benefit from how things went badly for you.
• Succeed at a serious cost. Work with the GM to determine the cost, then describe how you succeed and how the cost affected the success. Receive a free invoke on the aspect.

If you tie or you succeed...

Describe how you take advantage of the aspect in question. Receive a free invoke on that aspect.

If you excel...

Describe how you take advantage of the aspect in question particularly well. Receive two free invokes on that aspect.

That's going to leave a mark

If you excel at creating an advantage on a target character, you can spend one of your free invokes to place a minor consequence on the target instead of a situation aspect. If the target has no open minor consequence slots available, it "rolls up" to the next available empty slot. If your target has no empty consequence slots, they are overwhelmed.

Discover

If you fumble...

Choose one of the following:

• Describe how you are unable to find any useful information.
• Succeed at a serious cost. Describe how your search inadvertently damages something helpful or important. Ask the GM a single question.

If you tie...

Choose one of the following:

• Describe how you are unable to find any useful information.
• Choose to succeed at a minor cost. Describe how your search causes an inconvenience and ask the GM a single question.

If you succeed...

Describe how you are seeking information. Ask one question for every shift you succeed by.

If you excel...

Describe how you cleverly (or luckily) discover information. Ask one question for every shift you succeed by. You also have the option to ask the GM to reveal an important detail or hint. If you do not use that option during the scene, you receive a fate point.

Your discover roll represents all of the details you can get out of the situation as it is. That means once you run out of questions, you cannot simply attempt another discover action to get more. Instead, you have to change the situation before you can dig further. Changing the situation is anything that would allow you to approach the question from a different angle. Ultimately, what qualifies as a sufficient change is up to the GM, but here are some suggestions:

• Change the environment with a create advantage action, such as performing an experiment or setting up helpful equipment. A nice side-effect of this is that you get a free invocation to help out with your roll.
• Get someone to help you using the Teamwork rules (someone different if you had help last time).
• Go away to do research, or go off to clear your head. It should take you out of play for a little bit of time.
• Provide a really detailed description on how you are approaching the problem differently that impresses the people at the table.

Oppose

Oppose is the mirror of an attempted action, so it is mostly resolved by the resolution of the action itself (if you succeed, the actor fumbles; if you tie, the actor ties, etc.). Describe your part in the action.

However, you can excel at your opposition when you beat the actor’s roll by 3 or more shifts. When you excel at opposition, describe how you manage to turn the tables momentarily. Receive a boost to reflect this.

Resolving costs

Costs can be considered to be either minor or serious. The GM should consider the nature of the action and the failure to come up with an appropriate and interesting cost.

A minor cost should add a story detail that’s problematic for the character, but isn’t really a danger, nor does it negate what the character was trying to do. Some examples of minor costs include:

• Introduce a new wrinkle to the situation that complicates things a little
• Present the player with a tough choice as part of the success
• Give an NPC a boost
• Place a situation aspect on the character

A serious cost should make the current situation worse. Some options include:

• Introduce a new wrinkle that complicates things a lot
• Reinforce the opposition or bring in new opposition
• Place a Minor consequence on the character (or the lowest empty consequence slot the character has available)
• Give an opponent an advantage with a free invoke
• Delay success so it will take much longer than expected

Teamwork

Characters can help each other out on actions. There are two versions of helping in Fate: combining skills, for when you are all putting the same kind of effort into an action (like using skills together to push over a crumbling wall), and stacking advantages, for when the group is setting a single person up to do well (like causing multiple distractions so one person can use Stealth to get into a guarded camp).

When you combine skills, figure out who has the highest skill level among the participants. Each other participant who has at least an Adequate (+1) in similar skills adds a +1 to the highest person’s skill level, and then only the lead character rolls. So if you have three helpers and you’re the highest, you roll your skill level with a +3 bonus.

If you fail a roll with combined skills, all of the participants share in the potential costs—whatever complication affects one character affects all of them, or everyone has to take consequences. Alternatively, you can impose a cost that affects all the characters the same.

When you stack advantages, each person takes a create an advantage action as usual, and gives whatever free invocations they get to a single character. Remember that multiple free invocations from the same aspect can stack.

Dangerous Actions

The GM can declare that an action is dangerous: the action represents something that could have significant repercussions if you fumble your roll. If you fumble a dangerous action, you are overwhelmed, and are no longer an active part of the scene. (See Overwhelmed below)

In an action that is being actively opposed, an action can be dangerous for both sides. This means that whichever character fumbles the action will be overwhelmed. However, the GM may declare that only one side of the action is dangerous. For example, you may be leaping from a high overhead balcony to cut off an escaping opponent, meaning it is dangerous for you, but not them. If you fumble, you are overwhelmed (you landed badly); but if they fumble, they are simply cut off and they continue to be active in the scene.

Conceding Dangerous Actions

Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor. When you are facing a dangerous action, you can interrupt it at any time before the roll is made to declare that you concede the action. This is critical—once dice hit the table, what happens happens, and you deal with it.

Concession gives the other person what they wanted, or in the case of more than two relevant participants, removes you from the scene. You are overwhelmed, period.

But it’s not all bad. First of all, you get a fate point for choosing to concede. The fate point may be used once this scene is over.

Second of all, you get to avoid the worst parts of your fate; you have a say in how your character is removed from the scene.  Yes, you lost, and the narration has to reflect that. You can’t use this privilege to undermine the opponent’s victory, either—what you say happens has to pass muster with the group. It may mean that you have a choice between dire consequences and merely dangerous consequences. But sometimes that is better than nothing.

Interludes

Interludes are a special scene that represents important dramatic moments and details, but happen outside the flow of the main action. This is a chance for characters to do other things, have some downtime, or to put some dramatic spotlight on things that don’t fit into the main story. You could think of them as happening ‘off stage’.

The GM can choose to call for an interlude at any time that seems appropriate. During an interlude, the characters have a chance to go about their own lives for a bit. Each player has a chance to do some little things on their own and refocus themselves. The actual amount of time this type of interlude represents will vary. Sometimes it is just a few hours, sometimes it could be days or weeks.

Overwhelmed

Normally, you leave a scene whenever makes sense. However, sometimes circumstances conspire to make you irrelevant. When you are overwhelmed, you are no longer an active participant in the scene. You have been trapped, fallen unconscious, chased away, or any other result that would remove you from the action. In some scenes, such as an investigation, it might be that you simply has gotten so confused that you are no longer helpful.

You are overwhelmed when:

• You are required to take a consequence and you have no empty consequence slots left.
• You fumble a dangerous action.

Whatever the case, you are no longer a part of that scene, even if your character is physically present. The person who caused you to be overwhelmed (player or GM) describes how you are removed from the scene.

Ending the Scene

Once the subject at hand has been dealt with, whatever that may be, the scene ends and the following things take place:

• Remove any minor consequences that are marked as recovering.
• Any consequences that have been successfully addressed during the scene are now marked as recovering.
• Any fate points earned from invokes are given to the players.

Zooming in on the Action

A single overcome action is sufficient to deal with a straightforward goal or obstacle—you needs to pick this lock, disarm this ancient security system, sift out a vital piece of information, and so on. It’s also useful when the details of how something gets done aren’t important or worth spending an intense amount of time on, when what you need to know is whether the character can get something done without any setbacks or costs.

Sometimes, however, things get complicated. It’s not enough to pick the lock, because you also have to avoid the falling rocks and set up the device that’s going to signal for help. It’s not enough to disarm the trap, because you also have to land the crashing blimp and keep the unconscious scientist you’re rescuing from getting hurt in said landing. It’s time to zoom in on the action.

When you want to zoom, in, you have four different ways to do so:

• Challenge - A lot of different actions all happening at once
• Contest - Characters compete over mutually exclusive goals
• Deduction - Players build an answer to a mystery
• Investigation - Characters dig for information

Deductions and Investigations are detailed in the Discovery and Investigation chapter. The other two are detailed below.

Challenges

A challenge is a series of overcome actions that you use to resolve an especially complicated or dynamic situation. Each overcome action uses a different roll to deal with one task or part of the situation, and you take the individual results as a whole to figure out how the situation resolves.

GMs, when you’re trying to figure out if it’s appropriate to call for a challenge, ask yourself the following questions:

Is each separate task something that can generate tension and drama independently of the other tasks? If all the tasks are really part of the same overall goal, then that should be one overcome action, where you use those details to explain what happened if the roll goes wrong.

Does the situation require different skills to deal with? Holding off the crazed animals (one skill) while pushing down a barricade (another skill) and fixing your broken wagon (a third skill) so that you can get away would be a good instance for a challenge.

To set up a challenge, simply identify the individual tasks or goals that make up the situation, and treat each one as a separate overcome roll. (Sometimes, only a certain sequence for the rolls will make sense to you; that’s okay too.) Depending on the situation, one character may be required to make several rolls, or multiple characters may be able to participate.

To conduct a challenge, call for each overcome action in whichever order seems most interesting, but don’t decide anything about how the situation turns out until after you’ve collected all the results—you want to have the freedom to sequence the events of each roll in the order that makes the most sense and is the most entertaining. Players, if you get a boost on one of your rolls, feel free to use it on another roll in the challenge, provided you can justify it.

GMs, after the rolls have been made, you’ll consider the successes, failures, and costs of each action as you interpret how the scene proceeds. It could be that the results lead you into another challenge or a contest.

If you have any boosts that went unused in the challenge, feel free to keep them for the rest of this scene or whatever scene you’re transitioning to, if the events of the challenge connect directly to the next scene.

Advantages in a Challenge

You can try to create an advantage during a challenge, for yourself or to help someone else out. Creating an advantage doesn’t count towards completing one of the challenge goals, but fumbling the roll could create a cost or problem that negatively impacts one of the other goals. Be careful using this tactic; advantages can help complete tasks more effectively and create momentum, but trying to create them is not without risk.

Contests

Whenever two or more characters have mutually exclusive goals they are attempting to resolve at the same time, they’re in a contest. Races or other sports competitions, and public debates are all good examples of contests.

GMs, answer the following questions when you’re setting up a contest:

• What are the “sides”? Is every character in the contest in it for herself, or are there groups of people opposing other groups? If you have multiple characters on a side, they roll together using the Teamwork rules.
• What environment does the contest take place in? Are there any significant or notable features of that environment you want to define as situation aspects?
• How are the participants opposing each other? Are they rolling against each other directly (like in a straight sprint race or a poker match), or are they trying to overcome something in the environment (like an obstacle course or a panel of judges)?

Now you can get started.

A contest proceeds in a series of exchanges. In an exchange, every participant gets to make one action roll to determine how well they do in that leg of the contest. This is basically an overcome action. If you are rolling against each other, you will be comparing your rolls to each other’s. If you are rolling against an environmental factor, you will be each be rolling against a passive opposition.

Players, when you make a contest roll, compare your result to everyone else’s. If you have the highest result, you win the exchange.

• If you’re rolling directly against the other participants, then that means you have beat the result of everyone involved, and you win by how much you beat the next highest opponent.
• If you’re all rolling against something in the environment, it means you have the most shifts out of everyone after rolling against passive resistance. If no one succeeded in the exchange, this exchange is over.  

Winning the exchange means you gain a point of progress (which you can just represent with a tally mark or check mark on scratch paper) and describe how you take the lead.

• If you excel and no one else does, then you get to mark two points of progress.
• If there’s a tie for the highest result, no one gets any progress, and an unexpected twist occurs. This could mean several things depending on the situation—the terrain or environment shifts somehow, the parameters of the contest change, or an unanticipated variable shows up and affects all the participants. GMs, you should create a new situation aspect reflecting this change.
• The first participant to achieve three points of progress wins the contest and describes achieving their goal.

Advantages in a Contest

During any exchange, you can try an advantage action before you make your contest roll. If you’re targeting another participant or someone can interfere, they get to oppose normally.

Doing this carries an additional risk—fumbling an advantage action means you forfeit your contest roll, which means there’s no way you can make progress in the current exchange. If you at least tie, you get to make your contest roll normally.