This category acts a guide on how to play the game, and stablishes rules on the way the world behaves.

ROLEPLAYING

At its core, tabletop roleplaying is a shared storytelling experience where both the Game Master ("GM") and the players contribute to shaping the world and the unfolding narrative. The GM serves as the guide, worldbuilder, and referee, presenting challenges, describing environments, and roleplaying non-player characters ("NPCs"). Meanwhile, the players bring the story to life by making decisions, interacting with the world, and embodying their player-characters ("PCs") personalities, goals, and motivations. The relationship between the GM and players should be collaborative, not adversarial—the GM sets the stage, but the players determine how the story unfolds.

PLAYER AGENCY

Each player must have the ability to make impactful decisions, ensuring that choices have consequences that shape the story, the mechanics, and ultimately the world. This is called player agency. The more meaningful a decision and its consequences are, the more personal and dynamic the game plays out like and the world feels like. There are three pillars of player agency that help substantiate this: clarity of information, freedom of choice, and consequences.

CLARITY OF INFORMATION

Before any decision or course of action can take place, the player must be informed clearly and thoroughly about their situation. While mystery, surprise, and uncertainty are part of the game, no decision should be made blindly or unknowingly. This doesn't mean players should outright know every detail in any given scenario, but they should awlays regard what is at stake. This also means that the world should be consistent, allowing a player to minimally predict an outcome, even if it has a chance of failure. The consequences of informed decisions will then naturally shape future events based on past choices.

FREEDOM OF CHOICE

Players should have the freedom to decide what their characters do—where they go, who they interact with, and how they approach challenges. In combat, this includes creating tactics, choosing targets, deciding their position, and whether to fight or flee. When exploring, this takes the form of determining where and how they go to, who they talk to, and any shape of preparation before these take place. Engagng with the world while recovering or after finishing an adventure should also grant the player opportunities. While freedom of choice is mostly a GM's responsibility, the player also has the responsibility of taking initiative, embracing consequences, and proactively look for solutions to the problems presented by the GM.

CONSEQUENCES

Agency is only meaningful if choices have consequences. This means that, whether good, bad, or unexpected, choices should always lead to results that reflect that decision. The world should react, either through NPCs and their factions, the environment, or the metaphysics of it all. In return, once a choice is weighted in and any potential failure or unforeseeable complication is dealt with, the player should be rewarded with that action's full intent, for ill or for good. Regardless, the GM's role in consequences is to be an arbiter or a judge, as neutral as possible.

GM FIAT

GM fiat refers to the Game Master's authority to make decisions beyond or in place of written rules when situations arise that are not explicitly covered. It allows the game to continue smoothly without getting bogged down in rule debates while keeping the experience immersive and engaging. Many rules include GM fiat, but no rule is exempt from it.

FAIR RULINGS

A fair ruling by a GM requires consistency, always prioritizing common sense, verisimilitude, and player agency (and its consequences). Communication with the players can be key to demonstrate a fair ruling, as opposed to outright arbitrary decisions. When explaining a ruling to the players, a GM must logical, reasonable, and fair. If the ruling is still unclear for one or more player, debate should always be an option, albeit the GM's decision, once made, can't be overruled by the players and gameplay must go on. If the ruling later on proves problematic, the GM must be willing to rectify it or, at the very least, refine it.

FUN VERSUS BALANCE

The GM is not an adversary, but a referee. GM fiat should be used to enhance the game, not override player enjoyment or create unnecessary unpredictability. Unusual interactions, resolutions, problems, and other exceptional scenarios created by the players warrant neutral and consistent decisions taken by the GM.

DEFERRING TO THE RULES

While GM fiat is a powerful tool, it should complement the rules rather than replace them. If a rule within the system is clear and already provides a balanced resolution, or if a mechanic already exists for handling a situation, the GM should defer to that rule instead of complicating the situation. Overcomplicating a mechanic or resolution could be disruptive to the gameplay. Regardless, the GM has the final say on any ruling.

COURSE OF ACTIONS

Once the GM describes the situation, the players decide the course of actions their characters will take. This can be done organically as time passes, or turn-by-turn using initiative order. The actions a character takes and the results of rolling dice determines the success on any given challenge, the progress of a story, and how the world reacts to them.