Skip to main content

Round Transitions

What the Incident Master says between rounds and between stages: resolving the round, announcing the tier, reading the clock.
ImportantIM only

Only the Incident Master reads this page before the session.

A transition is where the session loses or keeps its time. Say the same four things every time: what resolved, where the tracks are, what the tier is, how much clock is left. Keep it under a minute. The stages are Interview, Onboarding and First Month. Each has 2 rounds, and the session plan leaves 5 minutes in total for transitions. DEFAULT

Between rounds (inside a stage)

1. Resolve. In both-chairs mode effects resolve at the end of the round, for both tables together. Apply every track change you owe.

Round over. Effects resolve now. [Read each effect in one line.]

2. Tracks. Read both aloud, always in this order.

Payoff is [n]. Exposure is [n].

3. Tier. See announcing the tier. Say the tier, never the cause.

4. Clock and budget.

[n] minutes left in this stage. The Company has [n] lookups left. [Stop-the-line is still available / has been used] this stage at this table.

5. Next round.

Round [2]. Here is the event: [read it, or “no event this round”].

Announcing the tier

The tier is shared and shown to the Company. It sets the Company’s target. RULED The numbers are DEFAULT. Every case starts at noisy at the start of stage 1, and the tier carries across stages.

Tier Say Company target
Noisy “The tier is noisy. The signal is thin and mixed.” Hard, 16
Partial “The tier is partial. Some of it lines up.” Standard, 12
Clean “The tier is clean. The picture is clear.” Easy, 8

What moves the tier: RULED

  • It rises one step when a scoring Comrades move succeeds without cover, or when a Comrades d20 fails.
  • A costed lookup also raises it one step, capped at clean. That rise is the Company’s own act and is not hidden: say “The lookup raised the tier.”
  • A wrongful offboarding in stage 1 or 2 resets it to noisy.

Always announce the new tier. Never announce the cause of a rise that came from a Comrades move. If a player asks why: “That is for the debrief.” You write the tier log on your run sheet, cause column included, as events happen, so you can read it back in the debrief. The Scribe keeps only the tracks and the lookup ticks. You also write the hop log there.

If the tier moved and a player guesses the cause out loud, do not confirm or deny. Say “Noted.”

Between stages

Run these in order. Each stage is 15 minutes. DEFAULT In both-chairs mode the tier is shown to every table and the IM keeps the shared tracks on a board both tables can see. The bench cards (one sealed card per table) are handed over at the first stage transition.

  1. Close the stage. First the passivity check, unless the stage ended with a cut: if a Comrades scoring move stood in this stage and the Company closed no control in it, Exposure +1. Say it plainly: “No control was closed this stage. Exposure rises by 1.” Then: “That is the end of [Interview]. Payoff [n], Exposure [n], tier [x].”
  2. Reset the budgets. “The lookup budget is back to 3. Stop-the-line is back at each table.”
  3. Cover roll. One fixed cover roll per stage, target 12, held by a different role each stage, chosen by the cell from the seated roles that have not held it. “This stage’s cover roll belongs to [role].” RULED one per stage, rotating. The cover holder throws it and the Comrades table announces it before the scoring move’s own d20. At 12 or higher that move cannot raise the tier, whether it succeeds or fails. Below 12 the move has no cover. A failed cover roll adds no rise of its own. It counts as one of the table’s 3 rolls. Company-only play: take the holder, and the covered scripted move, from the case card.
  4. Name the stage. “Next: [Onboarding]. [One sentence from the case card on what changes.]”
  5. Reveal. Announce the tier and the first event, then start round 1 of the stage.

After a wrongful offboarding

In stage 1 or 2 the stage ends now, Exposure rises by 2, the hire is gone (two hires remain), and the tier is noisy again. DEFAULT

That cut removed [hire]. They were a real hire. Exposure is up by 2. The stage ends here. The tier is noisy.

In stage 3 a wrongful offboarding ends the case at once: Exposure +2, the operator counts as not cut, and the debrief begins (go to the closing script).

Say it flat. No sympathy and no scorn. The debrief handles it. Remind the table once: “Judge the process, not the person.”

Reading the clock

Mark Say
Stage start “This stage has 15 minutes.”
Round 1 over “Half the stage is gone.”
About three minutes left “Three minutes. Spend your lookups and your last calls.”
Minute 40, any mode, stage not finished “It is minute 40 and this stage is not finished. I am dropping round 2 if we have not played it.” See session management.
Last stage ends “That is the end of play. We step out of character in a moment.”

The clock rule applies in every mode DEFAULT: at minute 40, if the stage in progress is not finished, drop its round 2 if it has not been played. Announce it, then do it. The 10 minutes of slack sit before the debrief, never inside it. At 6 players, the table nominates up to 3 rolled actions together before you call.

End triggers

Check these every round, after effects resolve. DEFAULT

  • The operator is cut: Payoff freezes at its value at the moment of the cut, the ending is read from that value, and the case ends at the end of the round.
  • Payoff is one running total, shown as at most 8 until the round ends. If the operator is not cut by the end of the round and the total reaches 9, the case ends. If a cut and Payoff 9 land in the same round, the cut wins.
  • A wrongful offboarding in stage 3.
  • The last stage ends.

The case ends here. [Reason.] Payoff is [n], Exposure is [n].

Then go to the closing script.

Energy and pace

  • Both chairs: visit each table every round, alternating which table is first. The idle table plays free actions and writes its next action on a slip, with no rolls and no track moves while you are away. Effects resolve at the end of the round. When both tables call stop-the-line in one round, the table you visited first resolves first, and a second call is void and unpaid if the first ended the stage (a wrongful offboarding or the operator cut); otherwise it is valid, paid and resolved after the first.
  • Fast table: keep transitions to the four fixed lines. Do not add events.
  • Quiet table: ask one role by name at the start of the next round, not the whole table.
  • Slow table: read the clock aloud at every transition and name the round you will cut.

What next