MORLENCIR ARCHIVE
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Morlencir Adventures

Momentum and Threat

Chapter 3.2: Momentum and Threat

A Task rarely lands exactly as hard as it needed to. Roll better than a scene demanded and something is left over: Momentum, yours to bank and spend as you choose for the rest of the commission. Spend it and the situation gets easier for something you control. The gamemaster's Threat grows by the same amount, banked for the characters and assets the gamemaster controls. Threat is visible to everyone at the table. Its depth shows the gamemaster's current mechanical reach.

Momentum

Momentum belongs to you. Each player keeps their own pool. When a Task produces more successes than its Difficulty required, the extra becomes Momentum for the player controlling the character or asset that attempted the Task. Assistance contributes to the Task's total; any surplus still enters the acting player's pool.

In an Opposed Task, a player-controlled reactive character gains Momentum when the active character fails. The amount equals the active character's shortfall against the Difficulty set by the reactive character.

Every player begins a commission with 0 Momentum. There is no cap on how much you can hold and no decay between scenes. When the commission ends, every player's unspent Momentum is discarded.

Characters and assets do not keep pools of their own. Your pool pays for any asset you control: your main character, a Companion (Chapter 4.4), a Supporting Character (Chapter 4.8), a ship or vehicle, and equipment acting through any of them. When control passes to another person, the new controller uses their pool: a player uses Momentum, and the gamemaster uses Threat.

Players never pay a Momentum cost by adding Threat directly. They spend Momentum from their own pool, and every point spent adds one point to Threat.

Some rules grant bonus Momentum for a specific action or purpose. Use it only for that purpose and before the opportunity ends; it cannot enter your pool. Spending bonus Momentum still adds Threat.

Spending Momentum

Momentum buys a specific list of effects. Most require a successful Task first; a few, marked Immediate below, can be spent the moment they are needed.

  • Buy Extra Dice (Immediate). Before rolling, add a d20 to your dice pool: the first costs 1 Momentum, the second 2 more, the third 3 more. No Task ever rolls more than five d20s. A die granted free by a Talent or another rule spends no Momentum and therefore adds no Threat.
  • Create or Change a Trait (2). Establish a new Trait in the scene, or remove or replace one already there, or raise or lower a Trait's Potency by 1, so long as the change grows out of the Task you just passed.
  • Keep the Initiative (2, Immediate). After your turn in a conflict, keep the initiative on your own side by handing the action to another character there. Nobody on your side may do this twice running; the opposition has to act in between.
  • Obtain Information (1, Repeatable). Ask the gamemaster one question about the scene, tied to the Task you attempted. The answer is truthful, though not necessarily complete; if there is nothing to learn, the gamemaster says so and refunds the point.
  • Reduce Time (2). Halve how long the Task's activity takes. Not available mid-conflict.
  • Swift Action (2, Immediate). Take an extra Major Action on your turn; any Task rolled as part of it is one step harder. No character takes more than two Major Actions in a round.
  • Extra Minor Action (1, Immediate). Take an additional Minor Action on your turn, once per turn.
  • Bring In Help (variable, Immediate). Introduce a Supporting Character or a larger asset into the scene. Chapter 4.8 covers the specifics and the costs.

A group and its gamemaster may agree on a spend that is not listed here when it follows from the situation in play. Price it against the listed effects, then spend the Momentum and add the same amount to Threat.

Threat

Threat is the gamemaster's mirror of Momentum. It stays in one shared pool, visible to every player. Every gamemaster-controlled character and asset draws from it: a lone infiltrator, a hostile ship, an allied specialist, a vehicle, a weapon system, or an entire faction.

Threat begins each commission at 0. Every point of Momentum any player spends adds one point to Threat. When a gamemaster-controlled character or asset produces more successes than a Task's Difficulty required, add the surplus to Threat. A rule may also add Threat explicitly. When the commission ends, any unspent Threat is discarded alongside the players' Momentum.

In an Opposed Task, a gamemaster-controlled reactive character adds Threat when the active character fails. The amount equals the active character's shortfall against the Difficulty set by the reactive character.

Threat may fall below 0 for one reason: a gamemaster-controlled character choosing Deadly intent may spend 1 Threat when the pool is empty or already in deficit. Record the negative total. Further Deadly Attacks can deepen the deficit. While Threat is below 0, the gamemaster cannot make any other Threat spend. Threat added afterward pays down the deficit before becoming available to spend. No other effect can spend Threat the pool does not hold.

The gamemaster does not spend Threat to make the world act or to introduce the ordinary facts of the story. Threat pays for the same kind of mechanical edge Momentum gives a player. Spending Threat does not give Momentum back to the players. Threat can support a gamemaster-controlled character whose action helps the crew. The gamemaster uses the pool to serve the table's play.

Spending Threat

Threat buys a gamemaster-controlled character or asset the following entries from the Momentum menu, at the same costs and limits:

  • Buy Extra Dice. Spend 1 Threat for the first added d20, 2 more for the second, and 3 more for the third. The five-die limit still applies.
  • Create or Change a Trait (2), after that character or asset passes a related Task.
  • Keep the Initiative (2), Swift Action (2), and Extra Minor Action (1), under their normal conflict limits.
  • Reduce Time (2), after a successful Task outside conflict.
  • Any chapter-specific Momentum spend whose trigger applies to a gamemaster-controlled character or asset, such as increasing an Attack's Severity or an Extended Task's Impact.

Obtain Information has no separate Threat use. The gamemaster already determines what NPCs know and what a successful NPC Task discovers. Bring In Help uses the Reinforcements rule below. The Deadly-intent deficit above is the sole exception to paying a cost from the available pool.

The gamemaster also has these Threat-only spends:

  • Prevent an NPC Complication (2). Prevent one complication suffered by a gamemaster-controlled character or asset.

  • Complication (2). Introduce a complication into the scene as a Trait, grown out of the situation already in play.

  • Reinforcements. Bring in a Minor NPC for 1 Threat for the current scene, or 2 Threat for the rest of the commission. A Notable NPC costs 2 Threat for the scene or 4 for the commission, matching Chapter 4.8's Named Specialist. Price a group or hostile ship as Bigger Help under that chapter according to how much it changes the scene. State the duration when spending the Threat.

Environmental and Narrative Changes

Threat may bring forward a possibility already established by the scene. These spends cannot contradict a known fact, revoke an earned success, or make a prepared Asset disappear without a cause the players could perceive.

  • Incidental Effect (1 per affected character). Briefly intensify an established environmental pressure. It may widen one Task's complication range by 1, make a routine action require a Difficulty 1 Task, or require a Difficulty 1 Task to avoid a minor consequence.
  • Change of Circumstances (2 per Trait). Add, remove, or replace a situation or location Trait as the established environment changes.
  • Divide the Crew (variable). Temporarily separate the characters into two groups. Spend Threat equal to the number of player characters in the larger group. The change must follow from an established route, mechanism, or danger, and the crew must have a possible means of reunion.
  • Reveal (4). Bring an established hidden fact into the open: an ambush is sprung, a concealed device activates, or an ally's existing divided loyalty becomes action. A Reveal cannot invent a contradiction to facts already confirmed through play.
  • Reversal (2 per player character in the scene, once per commission). End the scene with its immediate question unresolved because the situation escalates beyond it. A Reversal cannot directly injure or kill a character, erase completed work, or dictate a player character's decision. Frame the new circumstances, give the players time to assess them, and begin a new scene.

Immediate and lingering hazards use the exposure procedure in Chapter 3.4. The gamemaster states the hazard's source, Severity, affected area, and opportunity to resist or escape when spending Threat to bring it into play.