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Situations

A Situation is a piece of Glorantha in motion that Time prepares so it can be brought to life when the Protagonists encounter it.

That preparation may be minimal or highly structured. Time may prepare truths, Forces, and Pressures, but also revelations, possible scenes, images, transitions, or an overall dramatic direction.

What it cannot prepare is what only the table can discover through play.

Prepare as much as helps you. Never prepare what only the table can discover.

Compact preparation​

The following categories are supports, not a mandatory form. A simple Situation may fit in a few lines.

Situation​

What is true here and now before the Protagonists intervene: place, relationships, ongoing events, constraints, and important truths.

Vector​

The direction in which the Situation is already moving.

The Vector does not say what must happen. It only indicates where the world is heading if nothing transforms it.

In a more structured style of play, Time may also have a dramatic direction in mind. The Vector remains what the world itself produces, not what the scenario requires.

Forces​

People, communities, institutions, creatures, or powers that want something and can act to obtain it.

A Force is not necessarily an adversary. Two well-intentioned Forces may become incompatible because they do not see the same thing or protect the same truths.

Pressures​

What pushes the Situation to change: a deadline, an approaching rite, an army on the move, a debt, growing fear, a dwindling resource.

Pressures remind the table that the world continues without the Protagonists. They also give Time a simple lever for tension and pacing without having to predict every possible path.

Promises​

A Promise is a remarkable possibility that Time wants to keep available in the fiction: an image, revelation, mythical manifestation, human moment, Gloranthan detail, confrontation, or transition.

A Promise may serve two functions.

A world Promise belongs first to Glorantha. It exists because this place, these people, this myth, or this Situation can produce it. It gives Time a way to show the wonder of Glorantha without waiting for a Protagonist to ask for it. The world can surprise, reveal, and manifest its myths and strangeness on its own initiative. In that sense, Glorantha almost becomes a Protagonist: not because it imposes a story, but because it acts, responds, and reveals itself.

A structural Promise serves a prepared dramatic function: a truth that should be possible to discover, a confrontation Time would like to make available, a strong image, a handoff, a moment meant for a Protagonist. It prepares what may become available, not the exact path to it nor what the table will make of it.

This notably allows a clue to be prepared without building a lock around it. The truth may be fixed while its means of access remains mobile: witness, object, place, consequence, or another opportunity compatible with the fiction.

A Promise is never an outcome to guarantee nor a scene to force. If the fiction does not open the expected space, Time may move it, transform it, or abandon it.

A useful test for a world Promise remains:

Would this moment remain remarkable if another Protagonist were here?

For a structural Promise, the better question is:

Can I preserve what I want to make possible without deciding in advance what the Protagonists will do or what it will mean to them?

Both forms are legitimate.

Two uses of the same Situation​

A Situation can support very different styles of play without changing the rules.

In an emergent style, Time mostly prepares what exists and what is pushing: Situation, Vector, Forces, Pressures, Promises. Time then follows what the players choose to look at and discovers with them what becomes central.

In a Showrunner style, Time may additionally prepare pacing, dramatic functions, a sequence of revelations, possible scenes, transitions, or an overall architecture. Situations remove the need to predict every branch: Pressures create tension, Promises keep important moments available, Zoom sets the scale, and Focus reveals what the scene actually ends up putting at stake.

These uses are not exclusive. The same game can be tightly conducted at some moments and largely emergent at others.

What about Bets?​

Even a highly prepared Situation does not pre-write its resolutions. It may point to truths that could matter, but three things remain for the table to discover:

  • the Bets that are actually relevant, including Time's, because their relevance depends on the Focus and the Zoom;
  • the exact Focus, meaning where uncertainty actually lands after Intentions, questions, and changes in the fiction;
  • the interpretation of the resolution, which emerges from the result and everything the fiction has already established.

The same element may therefore help, hinder, close a possibility, or carry no weight at all depending on the Focus.

A prepared confrontation may ultimately be about defeating an opponent, convincing their soldiers, preserving a reputation, escaping — or require no roll at all.

A scenario may have a dramatic direction. It never owns the exact geometry of its resolutions in advance.

Complete example​

The Three Stones Spring shows a Situation prepared from only a few elements: four Forces, three Pressures, a world that will change at dawn, and a Promise that belongs to no Protagonist.

This Situation was then actually played with Peek-ee-Peek; the Verbatim and Time's Backstage let you compare directly what was prepared with what play made of it.

It is an example of a largely emergent style, not the only way to use a Situation.