The Three Laws of Action Resolution

• The Law of Karma - When a GM applies the law of Karma she decides what "should" happen based on ability, approach etc. Story considerations play no role. Example: You have 7 Air and your argument is in the Queen's interest anyway - she grants your request.
• The Law of Drama - The GM applies the law of Drama if he feels dramatic imperatives call for an outcome - he applies that outcome regardless of element scores etc. Example: You have 7 Air and your argument is in the Queen's interest, but if she grants your request it will be boring - she turns you down.
• The Law of Fortune - Luck, fate, general uncertainty. Who knows what will happen? A GM applies the law of fortune when he doubts he can rule out all random elements. Some GMs feel this way all the time. In Everway, the random element (the fortune deck) is qualitative rather than quantitative in nature. The GM draws card and interprets it according to its meaning, its elemental association, its general character (positive or negative), some connection between the card's title and the situation - whatever strikes the GM's fancy. Example: You have 7 Air and your argument is in the Queen's interest, so unless I draw an especially bad card, she grants your request.

The Laws may be combined even within the resolution of a single action. You might combine the law of drama and the law of karma by ruling that the PC fails at a task, but that his high ability means he fails narrowly, or achieves some ancillary success in the face of the larger failure. (The Queen turns you down, but gives you a dinette set.) You might use karma to constrain the workings of fortune - the hero has a high score so the choice is not between failure and success but between partial and complete success. (The Queen can spare two ships but not the three you requested.)

Combat: Just Another Thing

Everway has no separate combat system. Rather, the gamemaster applies the Three Laws as he or she sees fit. The time scale too is flexible - the GM can zoom out, covering an entire pitched battle in a sentence or two, or zoom in, stepping through a precise blow-by-blow account where both PCs and NPCs have to make dozens of decisions between warm-up and aftermath. The GM may choose to draw fortune cards or not, may choose to draw a new card at each crisis point, or just draw a single card for the entire combat. The GM may choose to apply Karma to the beginning of the combat, Fortune to the middle and Drama to the end. Or, as they say, not.

One combat from the Amberway campaign - Delve and Fisher's assault on the Keep in the rift that links the seas of Amber to the seas of the Thousand Worlds - serves to illustrate the variety of approaches to resolving violent conflict. Delve wakes up to find two Amberite soldiers about to dump Fisher overboard. He decides to charge them from behind and try to hack off the head of the one who seems to be in charge. That is, Delve declares his desire to launch a vicious surprise attack. Delve has a Fire score of 5 and the advantage of surprise, but is weak from walking the Pattern. His target probably has a lower Fire score and all his attention on his work, but is rested. The GM decides to draw a card and gets Summer, which means "Energy." This is an excellent draw for the fatigued, Pattern-charged Delve and his attack succeeds.

The ensuing standoff between Delve and the other soldier, who is nicknamed (alarmingly) "Big", plays out in detail. They talk, Delve uses the Pattern to find a handy crossbow, Big revives Fisher with a bucket of water at Delve's direction. During this time, NPC crossbowmen are maneuvering into firing range atop the Keep, but Delve doesn't know this. He ducks for cover at the last minute because of something Big says.

This brings up a decision point - what does Delve do with Big while Fisher is still befogged. Delve offers Big the chance to jump ship and flee, which Big takes. Because the action is now in stalemate - Delve won't expose himself and the crossbowyers won't leave the keep - GM and players dilate time somewhat. Fisher announces a "move" that will take several minutes of game time to complete, finding an arbalest, taking a shot or two at the keep's defenders, fixing sandwiches (!) and rigging impromptu siege cover.

Once Delve and Fisher gain access to the keep, the GM asks for their general plan of attack. Fisher responds as he is the superior tactician - his Air score is as high as Delve's and his Fire score considerably higher. The entire running battle with a half-dozen defenders resolves as follows: "Using these tactics you successfully clear the building of defenders. The last two soldiers wish to surrender. Do you accept?" So the assault is compressed up to the next test of character - what will the PCs do with the prisoners?

Injury and Recovery

Injury and fatigue are also abstracted, though it is possible to work up some more systematic accounting of damage if an Everway group desires. As with combat, the emphasis is on direct qualitative experience ("you have a nasty gash in your leg that will leave you limping for a couple of weeks") to quantitative mediation ("you've lost 6 hit points"). Since wounds themselves tend not to be quantified, healing too is described qualitatively rather than quantitatively.

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