11 Conditions
11. Conditions
Conditions represent harm, fear, sickness, debt, and compromise.
Conditions are not tracked on a separate sheet. They are cards that enter your deck and reduce what you can do cleanly.
In this game, “draw” means: a card enters your Ready Hand and becomes Ready. Deck order is not mechanically important.
11.1 What a Condition Is
A Condition is a card that: • occupies readiness • triggers when it becomes Ready • persists until removed by recovery or a rule effect • creates pressure without GM judgment
11.2 When Conditions Trigger
A Condition triggers when it becomes Ready.
Timing is immediate: if a Condition becomes Ready during a Scene for any reason, it triggers immediately.
11.3 Resolving a Condition Trigger
When a Condition triggers:
- Read the Condition text
- Apply its effect using existing systems: • Tags (Section 6) • Fatigue (Section 10) • Trauma & Scars if specified (Section 12) • Attention or Doom only if the Condition says so (Sections 18–19)
- The Condition remains in your Ready Hand unless it says it is discarded
If unclear, resolve via World Arbitration (Section 23).
11.4 Conditions and Readiness
A Condition card in your Ready Hand is still a card.
It may: • be discarded when a rule tells you to discard a Ready card • be discarded to pay costs when a rule allows discarding a Ready card (example: supporting with Action Cards in Section 7.6)
Unless a Condition explicitly says it can be played, it cannot be used as an Action.
11.5 Gaining Conditions
Conditions are gained only when a mechanic creates them, such as: • COST band results (Sections 3 and 5) • failure consequences (Section 2 + Scene framing in Section 13) • Exposure (Section 17) • Catastrophes (Section 20) • world procedures (Section 14)
When you gain a Condition: • add it to your deck as Unready (Section 7.2) unless the effect explicitly says it becomes Ready immediately.
11.6 Removing Conditions
Conditions are removed only when: • downtime in a Safe Location removes them (Sections 13 and 15) • an explicit card/tag/relic/world effect removes them
Removed Conditions are trashed unless the effect says otherwise.
11.7 Design Intent
Conditions ensure: • harm persists between Scenes • pressure is felt through constrained readiness • recovery is meaningful and scarce • the deck becomes a record of what the world did to you
11.8 Example
For practical examples, see Appendix A (e.g., Conditions.md). A brief illustration:
After a Costly Success while climbing a sheer cliff, Ren suffers 2 COST band damage. The rules dictate taking a Condition. Ren adds an "Exhausted" Condition card to their deck as Unready. Later, when they shuffle and draw it, it becomes Ready and its text triggers immediately.