GM GUIDE THE LOOP + SAFETY NETS

The loop

(1) Describe the zone — feature + danger. (2) "What do you do?" (3) Uncertain and interesting → roll. (4) Narrate what the dice say. (5) Keep the Clock ticking. Repeat until an exit.

Running the sandbox

• No scene order. Wherever they go is the scene; factions advance on the Clock regardless.
• Every obstacle ≥2 routes among talk / sneak / tech / violence. Invented routes: price 🟪🟪 and go.
• The mystery is the intrigue. "Why are we here?" is discovered via props, the ship's voice, overheard arguments. NPCs answer, never volunteer. If discovery stalls — feed facts through props; curiosity pulls, never gates.
• Stuck / energy dips: an NPC walks in with a problem — a guard, an alarm, a terrified crew member.
• 2–3 hour sessions: break at a Clock boundary — end on an arrival announcement.

Hard rules

• Fail forward. Failure costs time, position, strain, or Threat — never progress, never a character.
• NPCs never take the cinematic beat.
• The breather: once, mid-session, ~90 seconds where nothing chases them: "What do you say to each other?" Then be quiet. Never cut it.
• Landing beats: every PC's epilogue beat (on their sheets), plus the exit epilogue. DeShawn's sting last. Never cut these.
• By Clock 3, put one armed threat ON SCREEN. Threats that stay offscreen stop pressing.

Safety nets

• PC down: stun everywhere — unconscious and carried, never dead. Capture is a detour: a cell, re-freeze threats, a rescue.
• Blank on difficulty: 🟪🟪. Blank on Threat: strain, the Clock loses a beat, or something on their exit route breaks (pay it off later).
• "Save all the pods": they can't. Let it hurt; let someone say "we come back." That's the Session 2 pitch, from a player.
• Running long: compress fights to two rounds, skip zones freely. Never cut the breather or landing beats.

Optional modules

• Thaw Tokens: era-flavor roleplay earns a token; spend = 🟦 any roll, even after dice. It's the describe-nicely Boost with a physical reminder — skip it if it's one thing too many.
• Pell, the scared defector (parked): tag-along junior tech, knows the ship, defers every decision. Only if the pair is missing a verb. Hard rule: he never solves a scene the PCs could.