Movement

The movement mechanic is focused in encounters, as it is irrelevant while walking through a market, or exploring an empty ruin.

Movement in DCA can be represented abstractly or realistically. To properly play with realistic movement, it is recommended that you use miniatures and a grid or a ruler; otherwise, it is recommended to use abstract movement, as it allows for more flexibility and won’t give space to discussions about who could reach who and why.

Human characters can move 5 meters per action, or 10 if the action is critically successful. The movement of each NPC is written in their descriptions."Bare in mind that unconfronted actions can be considered critically successful without spending any cards. Therefore if you are the trig-gering character of your running action (i.e. you are not using it as a counteraction), you can simply decide to run 10 meters."

Abstract Movement
Abstractly moving is meant to be used in a narrative focused play style, more concerned with streamlining the action than with realism (e.g. think of those movies in which the distances between the protagonists and their adversaries seem to get bigger or shorter depending on what the script requires). To use this style the GM should describe the location of the encounter with detail, and it is very important that she sets up a few milestones (e.g. A tree fallen in the middle or the road, the river a few steps away from the road, etc) that the players can use in their heads to put together their plans.

During their turn, each character can move a bit to adjust their position slightly (if they were around a corner, lean out to take a shot with their bow; jump over a short wall and crouch, to avoid behind the target of archers, etc) or they can choose to use their action to move running and reach a milestone or another character (or in the case it is clear that they are too far away from any, that they approach it enough to reach it during following Rounds — ranged fighters will probably want to start an encounter far enough to take one or two shoots before a running opponent reaches them).

This style will sometimes benefit the PCs, allowing them to reach an opponent just because they narrate it; but other times, it will be in their detriment, as sometimes NPCs will benefit from this too. Because while playing like this it is very likely to each person will have their own image of how everything is placed, it requires trust between the players and the GM, flexibility towards what might occur to the story and the character, and creativity to make it interesting.

Realistic Movement
Realistic movement is meant to be used for complex encounters or when you want to focus in the gameplay and the fighting - it is best done with miniatures on a map or a grid.

Realistic movement allows you to calculate accurately what you can reach. When fighting narratively the GM can make up the distances on the go, and decide if you can reach something or not, with miniatures and terrain, this is no longer on her hands, and she must represent these distances as accurately as possible on the tabletop.

During their turn, each character can move 2 metres while performing any other action in addition to crouching, dropping down to the floor or standing up. If they wish to move further, they need to spend their action to run.

Grid
You can use a hex or square grid. In a square grid, you can only move diagonally once every three spaces.

Each space of the grid represents 2 metres (~8 ft). This is not the most realistic conversion, but it is the most comfortable to use in the tabletop.

When you perform a non-running action, you can move up to one space (i.e. you can move 2 metres every time you perform an action).

When you run, you can move 3 spaces with a regular success, and 5 with a critical success.

Ruler
When using a ruler consider that one metre in-game is considered one centimetre (~2  metres are consid-ered one inch).