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1. Discovering Regard

A scene in a few seconds​

GM: The stone door is beginning to close. What do you do?

Player: I run to get through before it shuts.

GM: All right. What matters here?

Player: I'm fast. And I was already running.

GM: Yes. But the floor is covered in rubble.

Player: And my leg is injured.

GM: Exactly. Anything else?

Silence.

GM: Then let's see what happens.

That is the fundamental gesture of Regard.

The fictional world always contains more detail than a resolution can take into account. The table selects what matters to the question at hand, puts those elements into play, resolves the uncertainty, then uses the result to transform the fiction.

Regard therefore does not begin by asking:

Which value on my character sheet applies? What bonus can I add?

It begins by asking:

What matters here?

The rule does not try to replace the player's view of the scene.

It extends that view.

Four questions are enough to play​

When uncertainty appears, you can begin without memorizing a complete procedure:

  1. What do you want to achieve?
  2. What do we still not know?
  3. What matters here?
  4. What does the result change in the world?

These four questions are enough to understand the movement of Regard. The concepts introduced later in the SRD make some decisions more precise when they become difficult; they are not a vocabulary checklist to recite before every roll.

The loop unfolded​

When you need to see every articulation, a resolution can be unfolded like this:

  1. State what you want to achieve.
  2. Frame the question and its scale.
  3. Make important consequences explicit when necessary.
  4. Identify what matters to that question.
  5. Discard what is irrelevant or redundant at that scale.
  6. Resolve the uncertainty.
  7. Read the form of the result.
  8. Interpret that result from what was put into play.
  9. Continue from the transformed world.

This detailed version is a reading and design tool. At the table, it should be able to condense until it feels almost obvious.

The way uncertainty is materialized or read can vary from one game to another; to learn how to play, we will begin with the standard configuration.

The table contract comes before the mechanics​

Regard regularly asks the table to judge what matters in the fiction. That freedom requires a shared frame.

Before play, the table should at least know:

  • what world and tone it is trying to bring to life;
  • what degree of danger it accepts;
  • who arbitrates when there is disagreement about a Bet;
  • what limits or sensitivities must be respected;
  • whether some consequences should always be announced before a player exposes their character to them;
  • what optional coherence or safety tools it wants to use.

The social contract does not replace the rules. It provides the context in which judgments of relevance can function without becoming a permanent negotiation.