Stakes

Stakes describe how severe the Complications and Consequences following an Action are.

Tiers

• Cautious
• Tense
• Perilous

Using Stakes

Differentiating Approaches

The referee can use Stakes to create differentiation between possible approaches. For example, taking out a guard with Eliminate (Violence) will remove them as opposition for the remainder of the session, but doing so is Perilous. Failure could mean the guard harming you or raising the alarm. On the other hand, using Eliminate (Manipulation) to trick the guard into leaving you alone is less likely to lead directly to conflict, so is Tense.

Correlate with Difficulty

The referee may also offer different difficulty or Scale depending on the Stakes of an Action.

The protagonists are attempting to bypass a locked door. The Stray recognizes picking the lock with Eliminate (Dexterity) is fairly complex (-2B Circumstance) but there’s little risk to being caught while working on it (Cautious). Meanwhile, the Delinquent realizes the door’s hinges are quite weak and could be knocked down easily (+1B Circumstance) with Eliminate (Violence) but that will create a lot of noise (Perilous).

Correlate with Scale

A protagonist trying to Traverse (Agility) across rooftops quickly can either make a daring leap across a gap (Perilous) or climb down to cross a lower level with much less risk (Tense). Both are about the same difficulty, but the former has a greater Scale.