Part I: Initiative and Movement

Mages have a way of turning time and space into enigmatic pretzels. Even so, it’s a good idea to go over the basic rules of timing and activity before exploring the various methods for breaking heads, hearts, and the laws of physics. The intervals of game time and story time can be found under Turns, Scenes, and Stories in The Book of Rules, and this page shows you what you can do within those times.

Action Turns

When action erupts, each activity becomes a distinct and concentrated moment, and its importance becomes obvious only after the action ends. In The Matrix, that sense of bullet time captures the strange sense of calm-amidst-chaos... a sense mages understand all too well, especially those familiar with the Sphere of Time.

In game terms, dramatic moments become action turns — those short units of time described in The Book of Rules that reflect between 3 and 10 seconds in your character’s life. Although extended tasks — hacking, seductions, rituals, and so on — may use turns that last for minutes or even hours, situations in which the “clock is ticking” employ action turns.

During those action turns — especially the ones that cover combat situations — the Storyteller can break things down into three stages:

• Stage One: Initiative, in which the various players determine who acts in which order. (See below.)
• Stage Two: Action, during which everyone rolls dice and figures out what’s happening; and...
• Stage Three: Resolution, in which the results of those die rolls make themselves known. Damage gets figured. Success or failure plays out through character activities. And then the stage gets set for the next turn, where it all begins again.

For combat-based situations, see the page of that name. For non-combat situations, check Dramatic Feats. And for details about time, see The Book of Rules.

Initiative and Initiative Ratings

In real life, such moments feel chaotic; games, though, demand a bit more order. And so, when the action starts, each player (including the Storyteller) rolls initiative for their character. Those with high initiatives act first, while the others scramble to catch up.

To find your initiative, roll 1 die and then add it to your character’s initiative rating: zir Dexterity + Wits. The character with the highest initiative acts first, the second highest goes next, and so on down the line. The Storyteller handles initiative for each of their characters too, and they might decide — for simplicity’s sake — to have them all act on the same initiative.

Ties on the die roll go to the player with the highest initiative rating; if the initiative ratings are also tied, then favor the character with the highest Wits. If the Wits ratings are also tied, favor the character with the highest Dexterity. In story terms, both characters act simultaneously, and the effects of their actions hit home at the same time.

Automatic Feats

Once you’ve figured out who’s doing what and when they’re doing it, you’ll generally want to figure out whether or not they succeed at doing it. Most of this document covers the many situations in which you’ll probably roll for success or failure. Certain automatic feats, though, require no rolls. Although you’ll generally have to spend an action to perform such activities, you won’t need to roll for them unless there’s some sort of complication involved, like trying to run across ice or grab a key ring that has slipped deep into your pocket... just when you need to get into your car or apartment RIGHT THIS SECOND.

When there’s nothing vital on the line, most activities are essentially automatic actions. Malcolm doesn’t need to make a roll every time ze fills out a form or makes a deal — that’s just what ze does. But when the difference between success and failure impacts the story, the die rolls matter. Under calm circumstances, you can just use the automatic success rule referred to in The Book of Rules. Save the rolls and rules for tasks with potentially dramatic consequences.

Automatic or not, each of the following tasks takes an action. A player who wants to have zir character take more than 1 action at time needs to divide zir attention between them — see Doing Several Things at Once, below.

Common automatic feats include:

• Getting to Your Feet: Under normal circumstances, you don’t need to roll dice in order to get up from a chair or the floor. Such actions require rolls only if someone’s trying to stop your character from getting up or when ze’s struggling with hazards like ice, oil, or some similar impediment.
• Normal Movement: Under most circumstances, your character can get around without needing to make a roll. As with the other situations, those rolls come in only when there’s some hazard or ticking clock involved. For movement rates, see below.
• Normal Speech, Writing, or Texting: Unless you’re trying to accomplish something vital with your words, it doesn’t take much time, or a roll, to make a short statement or share a brief exchange. Long speeches or debates, of course, do take time — you can’t deliver a stirring address about the wonders of Taoist alchemy in a few seconds — and typing or texting take more time than speaking. Under certain circumstances, you may need to make a roll to speak, text, or type something complicated while under stress... especially if you’re trying to deal with autocorrect while texting a banishment ritual to a friend who’s under attack.
• Grabbing Tools or Weapons: Mages tend to keep the tools of their Arts within easy reach, especially if they know they’re going into hostile situations. Thus, certain instruments — guns, knives, mummified pigeon feet on a chain, and so forth — can usually be grabbed within a turn and without a roll.

Certain tools and weapons, though, are more difficult and clumsy to employ: cauldrons, laptops, a set of dice in a bag that’s buried at the bottom of your backpack... stuff like that. In that case, the action used to dig them out or put them to use might take more than 3 to 10 seconds. A pistol, for example, is quick to draw and easy to employ, whereas a .30 caliber machine gun is not. Certain instruments take time to use. Sure, you can drink a potion or point a wand within seconds, but typing out a custom virus script or inscribing the Seventh and Last Pentacle of the Sun will take quite a bit longer, and it will probably require a roll to assure that you don’t screw up the process.

To pull out an instrument or weapon and use it within the same turn, you’ve got to split your dice pool between actions. Again, see Doing Several Things at Once.

• Starting a Vehicle: It doesn’t take a roll, or much time, to start up the average car. Starting a tank or airplane, of course, is another matter — it might take several minutes to get all the essential systems online. Traveling, likewise, doesn’t usually require rolling dice unless there’s some complication involved — driving on icy roads, having an aerial dogfight, trying to outrun a pack of Road Warrior rejects, that sort of thing. For such situations, see Dramatic Feats, Environmental Hazards, and Vehicle Systems.
• Delaying Your Action: If you want your character to hold off on an action until other characters have acted, simply declare, “I yield this action until later.” By yielding, or delaying, an action, you save your character’s activity up until the end of the turn. If you don’t use a delayed action within that turn, however, then your character doesn’t act that turn. And if everyone yields their action that turn, then no one goes at all.

Doing Several Things at Once

In the heat of the moment, characters often try to perform several tasks at the same time. Doing so, however, means that they have to divide their attention between them. In game terms, this requires either Multiple Actions (described in The Book of Rules), or else the use of a Time 3 Effect that lets you move faster than usual.

Movement

Mages get around — on foot, in cars, on wings and jetpacks and motorcycles and whatever other methods they manage to employ. The higher-level Correspondence Sphere magicks even let them step from place to place without passing through the intervening distance; that’s pretty unusual, though, and it’s covered in The Book of Magick. Most times, the Awakened move around more or less the way we all do: on foot or in vehicles that cover the space between Point A and Point B.

When your character walks, runs, swims, or flies, the Movement Rates chart tells you more or less how far ze’ll move within a single turn. Ze can move up to half of zir normal running speed in a single turn and still act without taking a penalty; if ze moves more than that, ze’ll have to reduce zir dice pool for that second action by 1 die for every yard ze moves.

Generally, a character can move at full speed for a minute or two (roughly 10 turns) for every point of Stamina ze possesses. Characters who have reached the Injured Health Level or lower move at half their normal rate. High-intensity movement (jumping, swimming, flat-out running) can cut the normal movement duration by half or even more than that if ze’s also dodging gunfire, swimming through heavy waves, or outrunning the hounds of hell. To push beyond such limits, you’ll often have to roll either your character’s Stamina or Willpower — whichever one is greater. Botch that roll, and your mage’s body immediately gives up, trips, or otherwise comes to a screeching halt.

For rules dealing with vehicles, see Vehicle Systems.