Preparing the session
Only the Incident Master reads this page before the session.
DEFAULT Preparation takes 30 minutes: read the run sheet, seal the persona, print the chair sheets and the bench card. This chapter gives you the order to do it in, and the three ways the table can be set up.
Quick reference
30 minute prep
- Read the run sheet once through.
- Choose the setup: company-only, comrades, or both chairs.
- Seal the persona (company-only), or arrange for the cell to pick (comrades, both chairs).
- Check the 3 hire cards.
- Print the chair sheets, the bench card and the tracks sheet.
- Set up the room.
- Walk through the opening once, aloud.
Minutes 0 to 5: read the run sheet
Read the run sheet end to end, once. It holds the clock marks, the opening script word for word, the round loop, the tick boxes for the clue tier and the lookups, the vote script and the debrief script. You do not need to memorise it. You need to know where each piece is.
Then read your own side of the case file: the script of three numbered moves per stage for the side you will play (see Playing the other side).
Minutes 5 to 10: choose the setup
DEFAULT Each case file holds 3 hire cards, and every card has the same fields: role and start date, work pattern, process facts (ship-to address, remote tools, ID-check status) and money facts (payee, bank changes). There is no portrait, no accent or language field, and the names come from one mixed list. Your setup decides who picks the persona.
RULED The two modes are one chair at a time, where you play the other side, or both chairs at once, where two tables share one IM and one debrief.
| Setup | Who sits | Who picks the persona | You play |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company-only | The Company’s chair | You, sealed | The operator cell, from the script |
| Comrades | The Comrades’ chair | The cell, and it tells you privately | The Company, from the script |
| Both chairs | Two tables | The cell, in secret from the Company table, in 5 minutes | Neither side, you referee both |
The Comrades row needs a note. When only the Comrades sit there is no Company table to hide the pick from, so the cell chooses and tells you privately. You then know the persona, so you must play the Company only from its script: round 1 plays move 1, round 2 plays move 2, and a blocked move is replaced once by move 3. The script is what keeps you from steering.
Company-only: seal the persona
You decide which hire is the operator’s persona. The rules fix the shape: the operator hire has 2 or more process or money anomalies, at least 1 real anomaly of each record type (process and money), and each of the other hires has 2 weak decoy oddities, one process and one money, each with a harmless reason (a late bank change, a shy camera).
- Pick the hire. Use a die if you want to avoid a pattern. Do not pick the hire who “looks” most suspicious; the cards carry no looks.
- Write the hire’s number on a slip. Fold it, put it in an envelope, seal it, and put the envelope where you can reach it and the table cannot.
- Note on your own copy which anomalies belong to the persona and which oddity belongs to each decoy, with its harmless reason. You need the reasons when a hire is questioned. In company-only play the case card also carries the pre-written meeting lines for each hire (see chapter 04).
- Tell the table nothing except that one of the 3 hires is the operator’s persona.
If a player wants proof you did not change the pick, ask them to initial the envelope flap. Skipping this never breaks a session.
Comrades and both chairs: the cell picks
DEFAULT The cell has 5 minutes to pick which hire card is theirs and to choose two tells from the list in the case file, in secret from any Company table. Give the cell its own corner or room for this, and keep the Company away.
- The cell writes the hire number and the two tells on one slip and hands it to you.
- Check the two tells are process or money tells from the list. Nothing about looks is on the list, and the cell cannot add one.
- The two tells are the persona’s anomalies. The other hires keep their 2 decoy oddities each (one process, one money, each with its harmless reason).
If the pick runs past 5 minutes, pick the first hire the cell named and move on. The playtest watches this number, so note how long it took.
Minutes 10 to 15: check the hire cards
Lay the 3 cards side by side and read each field aloud to yourself. Confirm:
- Every card has the same fields, in the same order.
- No card carries a portrait, a nationality, an accent, or a language field.
- The persona has at least 2 anomalies, with at least 1 of each record type. Each decoy has exactly 2 weak oddities, one process and one money, and you can state each one’s harmless reason.
- You can answer one question per hire from the card alone: ship-to address, remote tools, ID-check status, payee, bank changes.
Write each hire’s reason sentences on a card edge or a sticky note on your copy. When a table questions a hire, you answer from this, in persona. In a company-only meeting you answer only from the pre-written card lines, never improvised.
The case card
DEFAULT You may see the case card details. The hire cards hold facts; the case card holds what you need to referee. Check that it carries all of these before you start:
| Field | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Stopping control, per clue | For each clue on each hire, the control that would have stopped the matching Comrades move. You read it aloud when the IM-played Company cuts. |
| Record type, per clue | Each clue is marked process (a device fact counts as process) or money. |
| Money clue from stage 2 | Each hire’s money clue is marked available from stage 2 and not before, so no cut can happen before stage 2. |
| Covered scripted move | Company-only play: the one scripted Comrades move per stage that is covered (its cover roll is 12). A covered move whose cover roll succeeds never raises the tier. The cover roll is yours to throw and counts toward nothing. |
| Fact pool, per record type | Facts an inform success can reveal, marked process or money. You choose which unrevealed fact of the verb’s record type to give. Money facts read “Not on file until stage 2” before then. |
| Probe-interview lines | The inconsistency for each hire, with its record type, or “none”. A stated inconsistency counts as a revealed fact for the cut gate and the clue-leader count. |
| Cover holder, per stage | Company-only play: the role that holds the cover roll in each stage, when you play the cell. |
| Band, per scripted move | The Easy, Standard or Hard band for each scripted Comrades move. |
| Decoys | Two weak oddities per decoy, one process and one money, each with a harmless reason you read out in the meeting. |
If a field is missing, set it yourself, say it aloud and move on, and note it as a finding.
Minutes 15 to 25: printing, chair sheets and the bench card
Print from the case file and the resources:
- The 3 hire cards, one set for the table (two sets in both-chairs mode; the cell’s copy marks their pick only on their own sheet).
- Chair sheets, one per role, handed out after the opening script. They are the role cards in the Players’ Handbook. Do not hand them out before: the opening is under 3 minutes and the sheets would compete with you.
- The bench card: a printed analysis card, no timer. RULED It is the default bench. A hands-on artifact is an optional module you can add if you have prepared it. In both-chairs mode each table has its own sealed card.
- The tracks sheet: Payoff and Exposure, each from 0 to 9, both starting at 0, visible to both sides.
- The tier log with a cause column, and the lookup tick boxes: the shared clue tier (noisy, partial, clean) and 3 lookups per stage. Add a hop log sheet. You write both logs.
- The vote script and a copy of the debrief script from the run sheet.
- An X-card or a stack of blank index cards.
The bench card
The bench grades the file, not the flag. It asks what a file does, never who sent it. Prepare it like this:
- Read the card once so you know what it says.
- Seal it in its own envelope, separate from the persona envelope. In both-chairs mode make one sealed envelope per table and mark each so you do not swap them.
- Hand it over at the first stage transition, and let the table read it once. DEFAULT In both-chairs mode both cards are handed over at that same transition.
RULED A bench result may open a meeting (body report). It does not by itself make a cut: a cut still needs a named control or a human cost.
Minutes 25 to 28: the room
- One table, with chairs for every player and room to see the tracks sheet. A wall or a whiteboard works well for the tracks.
- Put the tracks and the tier where both sides can read them. The tier is shown to the Company.
- Keep the envelopes, the case file and your script on your side of the table.
- In both-chairs mode: two tables far enough apart that neither can hear the other, and a spot for you to stand between them. See Both-chairs mode.
- Phones are not a lookup. If a player wants to search, they spend a lookup.
Table size
DEFAULT Fewer players than roles: any player may borrow another role’s verb for one action. With 6 or more players, the extra player is the Scribe, who keeps the tracks, the lookup ticks and the finger counts in a vote. In both-chairs mode you keep the shared tracks and each table’s Scribe keeps only lookup ticks and finger counts. You, not the Scribe, write the hop log and the tier log on the run sheet. See Session management.
Minutes 28 to 30: walk the opening
Say the opening aloud once, with a timer. DEFAULT It is under 3 minutes: read the brief, assign chairs and roles, explain the d20, the two tracks and stop-the-line, then play round 1 as a taught round, naming each step as you do it. The words are in the opening script.
Checklists
Day before
One hour before
Ten minutes before
If something is missing
- No die: use a phone die app. This is the one use of a phone, and you hold it.
- A late player: hand them the chair sheet for the open role and tell them to ask the table what they missed.
What next
Read Running the session.