Example of play: one combat round
The player
“I lunge to the right, covering the two steps in one stride, then begin firing off rounds in the direction of the man in front of me, trying to hit him, while running for cover behind the ship.”
The engine
INITIATIVE ORDER 1. Denn: 18 (d20=16, DEX +2) 2. Jett Burrow: 16 (d20=13, DEX +3) 3. Roby: 11 (d20=9, DEX +2) Denn attacked Jett Burrow with DEX (CRITICAL MISS! 3 vs AC 16) Jett Burrow used Ben's Sidearm (using DEX) • Roby was hit (22 vs AC 12) [decisive] took 9 energy damage (1/10 HP) resource changes: Jett Burrow Resonance 2 → 3 ── Combat · Round 1 · The Barn · Night ── Allies: Jett Burrow — Healthy · Resonance 3/10 ← acting Enemies: Denn — Healthy Roby — Critical
What the player reads
You feel it more than see it: the flat crack, a spit of splinters where the shot bites the doorframe a full body-width from where you'd been … Your read was true. He shot the space you'd already left.
It's nothing like the footage. There's no music. There's just the buck of it in your two hands — steady, steady, the way he drilled you, hands that don't inherit the body's panic — and the scarred man in the doorway going from a shape with his palms up to a shape folding around itself.
From a real Space Cowboy session.
