Time-Sensitive Events

TIme-Sensitive Events (TSEs) are time sensitive problems that pose an obstacle to the characters and are not triggered by another character.

There is a wide range of events and things that can generate a TSE, such an avalanche in a mountain, or a trap going off. It is the job of the GM to determine when such obstacles should be considered TSEs for the purpose of confrontations, and to establish their level.

A TSE plays as many cards as its level. It is recom-mended that in order to present a minor challenge, a TSE should play as many cards as the PC, a moderate challenge should play one more card, and a hard one, two more.

If you consider a TSE easy enough to overcome that it should play fewer cards than the PCs, simply let them perform the action with-out a confrontation.

The GM should consider the difficulty of the task and level of the characters and the needs of the story to de-cide how long it takes them."E.g. Pachacuti has Survival 3. She is trekking through the mountains with enough supplies for one month, and the GM determines it would take a skilled trek-ker two weeks to travel this route. Pachacuti is only an average traveller, so the GM determines she can do it without a confrontation, but it takes her a whole month, exhausting her supplies."Otherwise, if the characters are in a hurry or are using a Skill with a value of 0, a TSE will confront them as if it was an NPC, playing a number of cards against them equal to its level and with an initial action value of 0. TSEs do not have a Skill value, and they do not suf-fer a disadvantage because of it."E.g. If Pachacuti were in a hurry (perhaps she does not have a month worth of supplies, or she has somewhere to be), she could push her luck and trek through the steppes faster. In this case, the GM determines that Pachacuti is confronted by a TSE. If she loses, she could end up delayed, lost, or even worse, as determined by the GM; but if she succeeds, she completes the trek faster."TSEs do not have a hand of cards to play during con-frontations. Instead, whenever they can play a card, they play the first card from the top of the deck, which never triggers any drawing card mechanics.