Directly engage a threat

When you directly engage a threat, roll + Danger. On a hit, trade blows. On a 10+, pick two. On a 7-9, pick one.
  • resist or avoid their blows
  • take something from them
  • create an opportunity for your allies
  • impress, surprise, or frighten the opposition

Unleash your powers

When you unleash your powers to overcome an obstacle, reshape your environment, or extend your senses, roll + Freak. On a hit, you do it. On a 7-9, mark a condition or the GM will tell you how the effect is unstable or temporary.

Comfort or support

When you comfort or support someone, roll + Mundane. On a hit, they hear you: they mark potential, clear a condition, or shift Labels if they open up to you. On a 10+, you can also add a Team to the pool or clear a condition yourself.

Pierce the Mask

When you pierce someone's mask to see the person beneath, roll + Mundane. On a 10+, ask three. On a 7-9, ask one.
  • what are you really planning?
  • what do you want me to do?
  • what do you intend to do?
  • how could I get your character to ____?
  • how could I gain influence over you?

Defend

When you defend someone or something from an immediate threat, roll + Savior. For NPC threats: on a hit, you keep them safe and choose one. On a 7-9, it costs you: expose yourself to danger or escalate the situation.
  • add a Team to the pool
  • take Influence over someone you protect
  • clear a condition
For PC threats: on a hit, give them -2 to their roll. On a 7-9, you expose yourself to cost, retribution, or judgment.

Assess the situation

When you assess the situation, roll + Superior. On a 10+, ask two. On a 7-9, ask one. Take +1 while acting on the answers.
  • what here can I use to ____?
  • what here is the biggest threat?
  • what here is in the greatest danger?
  • who here is most vulnerable to me?
  • how could we best end this quickly?

Provoke someome

When you provoke someone susceptible to your words, say what you're trying to get them to do and roll + Superior. For NPCs: on a 10+, they rise to the bait and do what you want. On a 7-9, they can instead choose one.
  • they stumble: you take +1 forward against them
  • they err: you gain a critical opportunity
  • they overreact: you gain Influence over them
For PCs: On a 10+, both. On a 7-9, choose one.
  • if they do it, add a Team to the pool
  • if they don't do it, they mark a condition

Take a powerful blow

When you take a powerful blow, roll + conditions marked. On a 10+, choose one.
  • you must remove yourself from the situation: flee, pass out, etc.
  • you lose control of yourself or your powers in a terrible way
  • two options from the 7-9 list
On a 7-9, choose one.
  • you lash out verbally: provoke a teammate to foolhardy action or take advantage of your Influence to inflict a condition
  • you give ground; your opposition gets an opportunity
  • you struggle past the pain; mark two conditions
On a miss, you stand strong. Mark potential as normal, and say how you weather the blow.

If you need to mark a condition and have no more conditions to mark, you are taken out. You lose consciousness or flee. The GM will tell you when you come back into another scene. You may clear one condition.

Condition Effect Clear condition
Angry -2 to comfort or support someone or pierce the mask hurt someone or break something important
Afraid -2 to directly engage run from something difficult
Guilty -2 to provoke someone or assess the situation make a sacrifice to absolve your guilt
Hopeless -2 to unleash your powers fling yourself into easy relief
Insecure -2 to defend or reject what others say about you or the world take foolhardy action without talking to your team

A condition is cleared at the end of a scene in which you take the corresponding action. You can also clear a condition when someone else comforts or supports you, or when you defend someone.

At the start of session, add 1 to the team pool

When you enter battle against a dangerous foe as a team, add 2 to the team pool.

Add a team if ... Remove a team if ...
the leader has Influence over every teammate any team member distrusts the leader or the team
everyone has the same purpose in the fight your team is ill-prepared or off-balance

The leader of the team can mark a condition to avoid removing a Team from the pool.

Using Team

Anyone working with the team can spend Team one for one to help a teammate; give them +1 to their roll.

Team members can also spend Team to act selfishly. When you act selfishly, say how your actions ignore or insult your teammates, remove one Team from the pool, and shift one Label up and one Label down, your choice. You can use this option after rolling to alter the Label you’re rolling with.

Whenever time passes, the GM will empty the Team pool and restore it to one Team.

When someone has Influence over you, it means you care about what they do, say, or think. At any time you can give Influence to any character who doesn't have Influence over you. All adults have Influence over you when first introduced.

When...

you have influence over someone take +1 to all moves targeting them, including rejecting their influence
you take advantage of your influence over someone surrender the influence you hold over them to choose one:
  • give them -2 on a roll they just made (after the roll)
  • inflict a condition on them
  • take an additional +1 on a move targeting them (after the roll)
someone with influence over you tells you who you are or how the world works accept what they say (GM changes Labels) or reject their influence
you reject someone's influence roll. On a hit, you successfully hold to yourself and tune them out. On a 10+, choose two. On a 7-9, choose one.
  • clear a condition or mark potential by immediately acting to prove them wrong
  • shift one Label up and one Label down, your choice
  • cancel their Influence and take +1 forward against them
on a miss, their words hit you hard. Mark a condition, and the GM will adjust your Labels.
you gain influence over a teammate you already have influence over immediately shift one of their Labels up and one of their Labels down, your choice
you gain influence over an NPC you already have influence over them take +1 forward against them

Agendas

  • Make Halcyon City feel like a comic book
  • Make the player characters' lives superheroic
  • Play to find out what changes

Always say ...

  • What the principles demand
  • What the rules demand
  • What honesty demands
  • What your prep demands

Principles

  • Describe like a comic book
  • Address yourself to the heroes, not the players
  • Make your move, but misdirect
  • Make threats real
  • Give up to fight another day
  • Treat human life as meaningful
  • Make supers seem outlandish, creative, and cool
  • Give villains drives to feature their humanity
  • Make adults seem childish and short-sighted
  • Support people, but only conditionally
  • Ask provocative questions and build on the answers
  • Be a fan of the PCs
  • Treat your NPCs like hammers: Square peg, round hole
  • Remind them of the generations that came before
  • Think in the gutters between panels
  • Sometimes, disclaim decision-making

Moves

  • Inflict a condition
  • Take Influence over someone
  • Bring them together
  • Capture someone
  • Put innocents in danger
  • Show the costs of collateral damage
  • Reveal the future, subtly or directly
  • Announce between-panel threats
  • Make them pay a price for victory
  • Turn their move back on them
  • Tell them the possible consequences and ask
  • Tell them who they are or who they should be
  • Bring an NPC to rash decisions and hard conclusions
  • Activate the downsides of their abilities and relationships
  • Make a playbook move
  • Make a villain move
  • After every move: "What do you do?"

The Beacon

  • Draw attention to their inadequacies
  • Praise their best traits
  • Make them pay for their audacity
  • Compare them to the others
  • Play to their drives

The Bull

  • Endanger their love
  • Bolster their rival
  • Reveal dark secrets of their past
  • Attack with someone just like them
  • Swarm with mundane forces

The Delinquent

  • Put them in chains
  • Give or take an audience
  • Give them conditional love
  • Show them the line
  • Offer a helping hand

The Doomed

  • Mark their doom track
  • Offer a chance to further their cause
  • Remind them of what they could lose
  • Push them to the brink
  • Offer temporary relief with a cost

The Janus

  • Bring their obligations to bear
  • Endanger someone from either life
  • Make their lives cross over
  • Put more obligations on them
  • Take away their mask

The Legacy

  • Remind them of their traditions
  • Compare them to the past
  • Make them answer their family's concerns
  • Raise expectations on them
  • Honor them

The Nova

  • Remind them of past collateral damage
  • Reveal a terrible truth of their powers
  • Make their powers flare out of control
  • Stoke their conditions
  • Introduce threats only they can tackle

The Outsider

  • Draw attention to their differences
  • Make a request from home
  • Introduce a monitor from home
  • Accept and support them in their moments of weakness
  • Provoke their beliefs and practices in tense situations

The Protege

  • Convey their mistakes
  • Bestow wisdom, wanted or unwanted
  • Hold up a mirror to them
  • Give them exactly what they need at a cost
  • Endanger their mentor

The Transformed

  • Reject them
  • Show how they are feared or hated
  • Attack them with unthinking hordes
  • Remind them of what they've lost
  • See their true self