3. Putting what matters in the balance
The character sheet: a memory of what may matter
Regard uses a character sheet, but it is not a catalogue of abilities or bonuses.
It keeps track of elements that may matter during play: keywords, relationships, states, objects, affiliations, convictions, symbols, injuries, oaths, reputations, or other elements specific to the game world.
For example:
- Veteran of the Northern War;
- Oath to the Red House;
- Injured leg;
- a religious symbol;
- the name of an ally or rival;
- a Rune, title, debt, or mark that matters to the game.
Reading your sheet is not about looking for what gives you a die.
It is about remembering who the character is and what may matter.
An element written on the sheet may contribute nothing to the current Focus. Conversely, something that has never appeared on the sheet may become decisive.
The sheet is therefore only one of the memories available to the Gaze.
The Gaze may also draw from the scene, relationships, the character's past, their experience, what they know of the world, lore, or what they anticipate about the future.
What may matter changes
The character changes through fiction. What the table may recognize as relevant changes with them.
A young warrior might begin with:
Clan — Master — Duty — Reputation — Obedience
Then their story might bring forth:
Compassion — Personal love — Doubt — Truth — Refusal of an unjust order
Some elements appear. Others disappear. Others are transformed:
Obedient to my master → Doubtful of my master → Betrayed by my master
The character has not necessarily gained an ability.
What may matter for them has changed.
To progress in Regard is to transform what can matter.
Bets
Elements that the game and the table recognize as relevant become Bets.
A Bet is an element recognized as relevant to the Focus, at this Zoom.
Where it comes from matters less than why it matters now.
A Bet may come, among other things, from:
- the character or their sheet: experience, ability, state, reputation, fear, conviction;
- their memory or past;
- their relationships: ally, debt, rivalry, oath, love, loyalty;
- the situation: position, preparation, surprise, urgency;
- the environment: rain, darkness, terrain, crowd, fire;
- adversity: weakness, advantage, discipline, numbers, knowledge;
- the world or its lore: custom, taboo, status, magic, cosmology, history;
- what the character projects or anticipates: a plan, fear, promise, expected consequence;
- anything else the game and the table recognize as significant to this Focus.
This list is not exhaustive.
The question is not:
Can I find a justification for adding this?
The question is:
Does this genuinely matter to the Focus we are looking at, at this Zoom?
The Focus does not create those elements. It turns the Gaze toward them and lets the table decide which ones become Bets.
Framing has already isolated what remains uncertain and placed two possible outcomes in the balance. Bets now say what matters in favor of each one.
A Bet favors an outcome
A Bet is not favorable or adverse in itself.
Driving rain
may work against a quick crossing when the Focus concerns getting over a pass before nightfall, but favor an escape when it hides the characters' tracks.
A Bet favors one of the two outcomes relative to the current Focus.
The Focus therefore selects what matters and lets the table see which side it matters on.
An injury may belong to the character and still favor the other outcome. A weakness in the opposition may instead favor the outcome sought by the character.
A Bet's fictional origin and the side it favors are two distinct questions.
When identifiable characters, groups, or forces carry the two outcomes, side remains a natural shorthand at the table. But an injury, a mountain, weather, or distance can favor the other side without constituting a fictional "side" in its own right.
There is therefore no need to give the resulting mechanical groupings a special name. At the table, you can simply speak of:
- the Bets favoring this outcome;
- the Bets on the other side;
- or, when that genuinely matches the fiction, the Bets of each side.
An outcome may have no Bet
One of the two outcomes may receive no Bet. In the standard configuration it is then represented by zero dice.
Neither the Intention nor the mere fact that an outcome is in the balance supplies an implicit Bet. Regard does not add a “base die” to represent the character, their action, or an outcome.
Every die placed on the table must represent an element that the Focus has actually made relevant.
“It's the base die because there has to be one” is therefore never a sufficient answer.
One side with no Bet: 0 / N
A side with no Bet is valid. It simply means that no element retained as relevant favors that outcome.
For example, a character tries to convince their brother to let them leave. Nothing especially relevant weighs in the character's favor, but the brother has Sworn to their father to protect them. The resolution may therefore be 0 / 1.
This does not mean the character has “zero social skill.” Regard is not measuring an abstract competence here: it is observing what matters here and now.
A strongly asymmetric result is therefore valid when it genuinely expresses the fictional situation.
No Bet on either side: 0 / 0
A 0 / 0 is not a roll to make. It is a framing signal.
The table returns to the question:
If nothing favors either outcome, what actually makes this resolution uncertain?
Two possibilities follow:
- the answer reveals a relevant element that had not yet been identified: it may become a Bet;
- no relevant element appears: the situation probably does not require resolution, and the fiction moves forward directly.
This extends the framing principle that resolution does not ask the dice what the fiction already knows: it brings them in where the fiction remains open.
Regard therefore never adds a die merely to make a roll possible.
A Bet is also a choice of attention
Relevance is not only causal.
In fiction, we never pay equal attention to every possible detail. The game, the scene, and the table bring some things to the foreground.
The mischievous look of an old sage may matter because the story has taught us to recognize their wisdom in it.
The storm around a duel may matter because this game gives special importance to signs from the world.
The imminent arrival of an enemy may matter because the entire scene is shaped by that urgency.
A character's legendary clumsiness may matter because it has become a motif of the fiction.
The participants do not merely observe what would be causally important.
They also choose what this fiction deserves to focus on right now.
That selection is not arbitrary: it is guided by the world, genre, tropes, rules of the game, and what the table has learned to treat as meaningful.
Relevance and non-redundancy
A rich world almost always lets us formulate several closely related reasons for the same advantage.
I am an excellent swordsman.
I have trained since childhood.
I am a veteran of three wars.
All three facts may be true without constituting three distinct Bets.
The question is:
At the scale of this Focus, do they really represent several different things that the resolution wants to put into play?
If all three formulations simply mean "they are very experienced with a sword" in an exchange lasting a few seconds, they are probably redundant.
In a broader resolution, they could instead become distinct if they genuinely affect different dimensions of the situation.
Non-redundancy is therefore not an accounting rule.
It depends on the Focus and its Zoom.
It applies in the same way to a group: several characters can contribute several genuinely distinct elements, but a single dimension of the situation does not become several Bets simply because it affects several people.
Closing the Bets
The table does not need to find everything that could theoretically matter.
In a rich world, that search would never end.
The criterion is simpler:
When nobody immediately sees anything else that matters and does not repeat what has already been established, resolve.
A Bet should not be the result of exhaustively searching the character sheet, the lore, or the scene.
You do not search for a Bet. You notice it.
The table ritual can remain extremely light:
What matters here?
Anything else?
Silence.
Then let's see what happens.
The conversation exists to make the situation clear enough to resolve, not to accumulate dice.
Opposition and counter-Bets
A Bet can naturally reveal a truth that favors the other outcome.
Player: I'm already between him and the door.
GM: He knows this barracks perfectly.
Player: Exactly. He has to get around me in this narrow corridor.
GM: But two soldiers are coming up behind you.
This conversation is not a negotiation over bonuses. It gradually reveals the different elements the fiction makes relevant on both sides.
This is also why oppositions can tend to balance organically: looking at a situation more closely often reveals new elements favoring each outcome.
That does not mean every opposition should be balanced.
A real fictional advantage should remain a real fictional advantage.
Counter-Bets are an organic counterweight produced by exploring the fiction, not a mathematical obligation to equalize the number of dice on each side.