2. Framing a resolution

Intention: what are you actually trying to achieve?

The player begins by stating what they are trying to accomplish in the fiction.

I want to stop the guard from reaching the door.

An Intention is not an ability, a standardized action, or a menu entry.

It is what the character is actually trying to obtain.

The same Intention can be pursued in many ways. Regard does not first ask which rule corresponds to the action. It asks what, in the fiction, will actually bear on what the character is trying to do.

Important consequences must be visible

The word stakes can still be used in its ordinary sense for what may be gained, lost, or transformed, but it is not a distinct mechanical concept in Regard.

What matters is simpler: players should be able to know the significant consequences they are exposing themselves to when those consequences are not already obvious.

Player: I jump from the roof to the other building.

GM: All right. At this distance, if you fall, the drop could kill you. Do you still do it?

The necessary level of precision depends on the table contract and the game being played.

The goal is not to announce everything that might happen, but to let the player make an informed decision from their character's situation.

Focus: what don't we know yet?

A resolution does not necessarily test whether an action "succeeds."

Success or failure may already be established by the fiction. In that case, resolution concerns what remains open: the form of the result, its price, its consequences, or what it transforms.

A resolution does not necessarily ask, "Does it work?" It asks, "What don't we know yet?"

The table then clarifies the question the resolution is meant to answer. That question defines the Focus.

Does the guard manage to raise the alarm before you stop them?

The Focus does not describe everything happening in the scene. It determines what this resolution is looking at.

Not everything on the character sheet is necessarily relevant.

Not everything in the world is necessarily relevant.

Even something important to the story may not matter to this particular resolution.

The Gaze is not limited to what stands in front of the character in the present moment. To answer the Focus, the table may look into memory, past experience, relationships, the lore of the world, or what the character projects and anticipates about the future.

The Focus determines what we are looking at, not where what matters must come from.

The Focus must concern a genuine uncertainty.

If the fiction has already established that a possibility is open or closed, resolution should not ask the dice to revisit that fact. It should look at what remains genuinely uncertain around it.

A resolution does not ask the dice what the fiction already knows. It brings them in where the fiction remains open.

A king may necessarily refuse a request without removing all uncertainty: the Focus may instead concern what the characters preserve of their relationship with the king. A ship may be doomed to sink while resolution concerns what can still be saved.

Putting two outcomes in the balance

The Focus makes uncertainty resolvable by placing two possible outcomes in the balance.

An Intention often provides one outcome: what the character, group, or force is trying to obtain. The situation lets the table formulate what is at stake on the other side. The two outcomes may be directly opposed, but they do not have to be.

In the guard example, the two outcomes might be:

• the character stops the guard before the alarm is raised;
• the guard raises the alarm before being stopped.

The two outcomes state what the resolution must decide. They do not claim to describe everything that may happen.

Other events can still occur around either outcome. They belong to interpretation, consequences, or what happens next, not necessarily to the question this resolution must decide.

Conversely, once the table accepts the Focus, both outcomes bind the table: each must genuinely be able to happen. Framing should not pretend that a possibility is in play only to remove it after the roll.

Zoom: at what scale?

The Focus has a scale. Regard calls this property the Zoom.

The Focus says what we are resolving.
The Zoom says at what scale we are resolving it.

Choosing the Focus therefore also means choosing how broad a question we are asking of the fiction.

Action Zoom

The Focus concerns a single act or precise moment.

Get through the door before it closes.

The space of Bets is naturally restricted. Several formulations of the same advantage tend to be redundant because the resolution is looking at a narrow instant.

Sequence Zoom

The Focus concerns a coherent succession of actions.

Cross the rooftops and lose the guards before reaching the temple.

Elements that would have been redundant in a single action can become distinct because they concern different dimensions or stages of the sequence: endurance, knowledge of the neighborhood, help from an accomplice, rain making the tiles slippery, fear of being recognized.

Script Zoom

The Focus covers a broader whole: a journey, investigation, military campaign, prolonged negotiation, or complex project.

Get a caravan through to the besieged city.

The character or group can then bring several genuinely distinct dimensions into play: relationships, logistics, reputation, knowledge, endurance, wealth, political protection, preparation, or sacrifice.

These are not "more bonuses because the conflict lasts longer."

They are more relevant dimensions because the question being asked is broader.

Zoom therefore lets the table control pacing without inventing a subsystem for every type of scene.

Zoom does not set difficulty

Choosing an individual or collective Focus is not a way to adjust the number of Bets artificially.

Zoom does not set difficulty. It determines which differences the fiction still wants to distinguish.

Imagine an expedition crossing a steep mountain.

If each character is resolved individually, Bitter cold, Unstable ledge, or Lack of experience may become relevant again for each person because the fiction is looking at several distinct experiences.

If the Focus becomes collective:

Does the group manage to cross the mountain?

then Bitter cold is one dimension of that collective situation. It should not be duplicated once per character.

A Bet does not count once per character. It counts once per dimension relevant to the Focus.

A collective Focus may naturally bring out other elements specific to the group: protecting an injured member, moving at the pace of the least experienced, coordinating several people, or crossing a passage one at a time.

Changing Zoom therefore changes the question being asked of the fiction, not simply the number of dice.