When you GM, you are several people all at once. 

You’re a storyteller who narrates evocative establishing shots, mysterious characters, touching moments, and intense action scenes.

You’re a coordinator who brings a group of people together to play a game, gets things started, helps new players learn the game, and ensures things are finished in a timely manner. 

You’re a referee, interested and impartial, who makes calls, settles disputes, and applies rules that turn playing out “what-if” scenarios into a challenging game. 

GMing can be a daunting prospect for people who haven’t tried it before, but it’s easier than it sounds. 

After all, no one’s truly new to GMing. 

We all tell stories, share anecdotes, and explore hypothetical situations. We’ve all attended gatherings, found people to play games with, and helped teach new players the rules.

GMing is easier to learn than painting or playing an instrument, but it too is an art. It’s a performing art that utilizes a variety of skills from improvisation to game design. A masterful GM can inspire their Players to push themselves out of their comfort zones and can captivate an audience with stories more intensely personal than any show or movie. A masterful GM can blow people’s minds.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. 

All you really want is to play the game and have a good time. That much is easy.

If The Contract was a video game, the players would be holding the controllers, and the GM would be the game’s graphics, engine, and one of the game’s designers.

Instead of rendering graphics to a screen, you render them via narration, like a storyteller. You use concise, evocative descriptions, and you clarify details as they become relevant or as the Players ask for them. 

Like a video game’s engine, you enforce the rules of what the Players can and cannot do. You resolve the outcome of the actions the Players take. The Contract’s rules exist largely to make this process easier for you and more consistent for the Players. 

You also act as a game designer, creating content in real time as the game progresses. This is the secret sauce that makes table-top roleplaying games worth playing. You empower Players to think creatively, inventing tactics and getting into situations that weren’t pre-programmed into the game. Most GMs use pre-written Scenarios so they don’t have to come up with everything on the fly. 

During gameplay, this takes the form of a back-and-forth between the Players and the GM: GM Rendering -> Player Action -> Resolution -> GM Rendering. This is the core conversation of the game.

Players converse with the GM to move the game's action forward. This is the game's core conversation:  GM Rendering -> Player Action -> Resolution -> GM Rendering.

GM Rendering is narrating establishing shots, answering the Players’ questions about the scene, and describing what’s going on. During this phase, the GM has an incredible amount of power. You can establish almost anything you want. Just keep it consistent with whatever you've already established, and remember: you can't un-establish something. Once you spin it into existence, it's there.

Player Action happens when the Players direct their Contractors to actually do something. This can be as simple as entering a new room or as dramatic as tackling someone off a building. Players can choose to attempt any action they want. Oftentimes this phase involves a bit of discussion with the Player to clarify their intent and/or understanding of the situation.

Resolution is the out-of-game process of figuring out what happens. In the end, Resolution is up to the GM's discretion, but if can also involve using the game's rules (for example, calling for the Player to roll dice or recording an Injury on their character sheet). If the Player's action is innocuous and simple, like ordering food at a restaurant, the GM can simply decide what happens. Similarly, if the Player attempts something impossible, like catching hold of a jet as it passes by, the GM may declare the action a failure without calling for a roll or referencing the Contractor’s character sheet. 

The return to GM Rendering is just starting the loop over again. You describe what happens and how the situation changes in response to the character’s action.

That’s really all there is to it.

Sometimes the scope of the action is large: traveling to Paris or performing an investigation. Sometimes it’s small: pulling their scarf up to hide their face or stomping the fingers of the person clutching to the cliff. As the GM, you guide the scope of the conversation, summarizing the boring bits and moving things along to the good parts like a novelist. 

Let's look at an example.

Here’s an example scene with one Player and a GM. GM Rendering is highlighted in blue, Player Action is highlighted in green, and Resolution is in salmon. Notice how natural and conversational each phase can be and how Resolution for most actions is performed silently by the GM using their discretion. 

GM: You burst from the roadhouse into the dry, desert sun. The roar of a Harley motor splits your ears, and you see Jimmy peeling out of the parking lot.

Player: Do I see the amulet?

GM: Yes. You see him clutching a golden chain in his throttle hand. 

Player: How far away is he? Can I catch him?

GM: He’s about 50 feet away and speeding up. Unless you have a Gift that’ll help, you need a car. But alas, you took a taxi to the Contract today, didn’t you?  

Player: I shout “get back here you son of a bitch!” 

GM: If he heard you, he makes no sign. He speeds down the highway on his chopper. The sound of the motor fades into the distance. 

Player: Alright. What else is in the parking lot?

GM: You look around the sun-baked lot. It’s mostly empty, but there’s a few cars. You see a big semi-truck parked off to the side, alongside an old 1980s Ford truck, a Honda Civic, and a minivan. A couple of college-aged men are exiting a Dodge Challenger and heading toward the roadhouse. 

Player: If I broke into one of these cars, could I hotwire it?

GM: What’s your Intellect + Technology? 

Player: Two. I don’t have any points in Technology. 

GM: What about Drive?

Player: I have two in Drive. So two in Intellect and two in Drive would be a total of four dice. 

GM: You could try, but it would be at a higher Difficulty. 

Player: Okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. I jog up to the guys heading into the roadhouse and get their attention. “Hey! Excuse me?”

GM: They’re both wearing polo shirts. The passenger has shades and the driver’s got a baseball cap that says “white girl wasted.” They stop as you run up. “Yeah? What’s up?”

Player: Okay. Once I’m up near them, I reach into my coat and pull out my Desert Eagle .45, point it right at the guy’s stupid hat and say, “Freeze right there. Don’t move a fucking muscle.” 

GM: They freeze. 

Player: “Toss your keys over to me.” 

GM: The guy with the hat reaches a trembling hand into his pocket, pulls out the keys, and tosses them onto the ground. “Yeah, man. Of course. Just chill.”

Player: “I’m chill. Are you chill?” 

GM: “I’m chill,” they say, both clearly terrified.

Player: I reach down and pick up the keys, keeping my gun trained on the guy. 

GM: Yup. They don’t try to stop you. 

Player: Cool. I’m going to walk backwards to the Challenger, hop in, and start it up, keeping my gun on them. 

GM: Sure. They’ve still got their hands up. 

Player: Great. I start the car, and peel out the parking lot down the highway, heading the same direction that Jimmy did. 

GM: Sounds good. Go ahead and roll Perception + Alertness.

Player: Difficulty 6? 

GM: Yup.

Player: I got an Outcome of four. That's a complete success.

GM: As you drive away, you see one of them pull out their phone and make a call. 

Player: Shit. That’s the cops. I probably should have taken those too.

GM: Probably. 

This GM did a great job of administering the game. They kept the action moving, minimized discussions about mechanics, and maintained the Player's agency. 

Keep the ball on the Player's side of the court

Instead of a minute-long description of the parking lot, the GM offered a concise description and filled in the details as the Player "looked around." They resolved most of the Player's actions silently and immediately. Finally, they involved mechanics only when necessary.

Every second spent on mechanics is a second lost. The story isn't moving forward, the Players aren't solving problems, and they aren't roleplaying their characters. 

Waiting for the GM to resolve an action or describe a scene feels like input lag in a video game. Minimizing that delay engages Players by giving them agency. 

Player Agency

Players need the freedom to act and make choices. Making decisions and dealing with the consequences IS the gameplay of The Contract. 

The Players will chose to do things you haven't anticipated, and you should let them. The story may veer off in an entirely unexpected direction, and that's great! The Players aren't a passive audience. You must let the Players' choices guide the action.

What Happens?

In our example, the Player considered multiple tactics before chosing one. It was hardly the only way to get what they wanted. They could have bribed the kids, called another taxi, checked the cars to see if any of them had their keys hidden in the sun visor, or gone back into the roadhouse and pickpocked someone.

Not all strategies are created equal. Some are riskier or more effective than others. In this case, the tactic the Player chose (to steal a car) wasn’t that bad. Yes, they will be pursued by the police, but they wasted little time. 

If the Player had taken the kids’ phones, they would have simply gone into the roadhouse and called the police, and the Player would be holding two tracking devices. To steal the car and prevent police involvement, they would have had to either steal the keys in secret, or kidnap the college kids. 

Kidnapping would have been risky. For one, it is a more serious crime and demands a larger response if discovered. Furthermore, how could the Player restrain the kids without giving them a chance to break free? And even if they did succeed, it would take a long time, and there’s no guarantee someone in the roadhouse wouldn’t notice and call the police themselves. 

Searching the cars in the parking lot or trying to hotwire a car might have worked, but a failure would have cost them a lot of time. Can they track Jimmy? Do they know exactly where they’re headed? Calling a taxi would be giving up the chase. 

A big part of GMing is considering the impact of the Players’ tactics. As you can see, each choice can change the situation drastically.

Usually, the GM knows more about the rules than the Players. That’s okay. The gameplay of The Contract is the roleplay, the creativity, and the outside-the-box problem solving. None of this requires a Player to master the rules. 

Allow new Players to learn as they play. If a Player is confused about a rule, you should take a moment to teach them. During Combat, you should help Players understand what mechanical options are available to them. At all other times, you should be generous when translating the Players’ intentions into rules.

As GM, you are the master of ceremonies for that Session. You organize the session, make the out-of-game rules, and have the power to resolve conflicts.

This means that you determine whether the group should start playing or wait for that Player who is running late. If the Contractors split up during the Contract, you determine which scene has focus. You determine when the Contract is over and when the session ends.

It is up to the GM to ensure that the Contract resolves in a single session. This is exremely important in The Contract, and you can read more about the why and how in the Craft of GMing guide.

If there is a conflict between Players, you have the power to ask someone to leave the table.  Most of the time, interpersonal conflicts resolve themselves without GM involvement. However, if a Player is being distracting, acting inappropriate, or making people uncomfortable and no one else is addressing it, you should. 

Remember, you are not obligated to GM for a Player you don’t want to GM for. There's no character lock-in in the Contract. If a Player stops getting invited to game night, all it means is that the Harbingers have stopped inviting that Contractor for some mysterious reason. 

Before you run your group’s first Contract, you need to form a Playgroup. 

Decide where to set your Playgroup's setting. We recommend centering your Playgroup’s setting around a particular city or town that is familiar to your group. All Contractors should live in that area and have some connection to it. 

If you need Players, reach out to friends, distribute flyers in game stores, or make LFG posts online. Three to four Players is an ideal number for any Contract, and four Players is best for new groups (in case someone drops, you will still have three).

Finally, create a Playgroup on the website. Making a Playgroup set in the default setting of The Illumination is incredibly simple. Just fill out the form here. 

First, you must select a Scenario to run. The Scenarios section in the Player’s Guide explains how to access the free Stock Scenarios that come with the game.

Select a Newbie-friendly Contract. Bobasaurus, Mushroom Hunt, and Passing the Hours are all good choices. 

Next, read your Scenario top to bottom. Form clear mental images of the Scenario’s settings, set-pieces, events, and NPCs. Consider what it will be like for the Contractors, what choices they might make, and how the action could go delightfully off the rails. 

This mental exercise is known as “prep.” Forming a complete mental picture of the Scenario ahead of time makes it much easier to run. Instead of trying to figure out what is happening at game time, you can focus on reacting to the Players' choices. 

Ideally, you should do this the day before your session. 

If your Playgroup is centered around a particular location, consider whether the Scenario can be adjusted to take place in that area. Some Scenarios depend on their setting, but others work just as well set in any city, any suburb, any forest, etc.

Even though Contracts normally resolve in a single Session, if all of your Players are new (and especially if you are also new), it is best to schedule a Session Zero to get everything set up beforehand.

During Session Zero, you will help the Players learn the basics of the game, create Contractors, and do initial Contractor introductions. 

Specifically, you should:

1. Help your Players register for the website.
2. Invite your Players to join the Playgroup you created in Form a Playgroup.
3. Describe the overall premise, setting, and structure of the game.
4. Help your Players create their Contractors.
5. Run each new Contractor’s initial introduction.

If you would rather not schedule a Session Zero, you can also just schedule a normal Session and complete all of these activities one-on-one with each Player beforehand. None of the Session Zero activities require any communication or collaboration between the Players, so you can simply reach out to each Player individually a day or two before the session and guide them through the steps at their own pace. 

Schedule a Session to run the Contract. Inform your Players that it will last about 4 hours, and make sure as many Players as possible have completed the Session Zero activities before the scheduled start time. 

On the website, you can schedule an upcoming Contract via the Schedule Contract page. This allows you to send invitations to Players, and, in Playgroups with more private permissions, allows you to read RSVPed Character Sheets before the Contract begins. As you start GMing, press the “Start Contract” button at the top of the scheduled Contract to start the session, and be sure to hit the “Finish Contract” button at the end so you can specify which Contractors won, lost, or died. 

You can also forgo the above process, simply play the Contract, and afterwards record it as a completed Contract. Either way will grant the proper rewards, mark the Scenario as spoiled for the Players, and give you credit for GMing it. 

Make sure you read the rest of How to Start GMing before you begin, and read The Craft of GMing if you'd like additional guidance.

The sequence of running a Contract is often a little different for established groups. 

Scheduling a Session and selecting a Scenario often occur in tandem. Because Players can’t play in Scenarios they are spoiled on, you may have to invite someone to play as an NPC Ringer or change which Scenario you are going to run. The website makes it clear to both Players and the GM who is spoiled on which Scenarios. 

You do not need to run a Session Zero with an established group, but you should read all of their Character Sheets ahead of time to make sure you have a basic familiarity with the Contractors and their Gifts. While pre-reading character sheets, make sure that none of the Contractors have disruptive character concepts, mechanical issues, or broken Gifts. 

Please note: it is EXTREMELY poor form to deny a Contractor’s attendance because they are too well-suited for the Scenario you are planning to run. Likewise, you should not change the Scenario if the Contractors are doomed to be eaten by zombies because their group is comprised entirely of blind folk singers and children. Remember: the Contracts are tests, and while all character concepts are possible, not all of them are viable. 

Introductions should be kept as short as possible for experienced Contractors. If most of the Contractors have been in at least one Contract, you should have time to run initial introductions for any brand new Contractors. 

Introductions are the phase of the game where the Harbinger approaches each Contractor and offers them the titular Contract: Will they risk their life for a chance to become something more? Briefing the Contractors and transporting them to the mission location is also considered part of the introductions.

Unless you're running for a group of brand new Players, make it a goal to introduce, gather, and brief all Contractors within one real-life hour. Quicker is usually better.

Scenarios usually provide specific guidance on how to gather and brief the Contractors for that particular Contract.

You can read an example of an Introduction in the How to Play guide. 

Introductions For Brand New Contractors

While Introductions for experienced Contractors are quick and minimal, a Contractor’s first introduction should be more substantial. 

This is a life-changing moment for the character, and it should have the appropriate gravitas. Picture the first few conversations between Morpheus and Neo, Frodo and Gandalf, Mr. Wednesday and Shadow, Harry Potter and Hagrid, etc. 

Although Harbingers are not mentors and they are not introducing the Contractor to the supernatural, they are very special. It’s rarer than a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet such a being, and they are extending a hand. Come, you may join our ranks, if you are willing to risk your life. 

And indeed, a great many Contractors end up losing more than that. 

But they will accept because their characters were literally designed to accept that deal-- and it is kinda tempting, right?

Most people avoid speaking to The Talent, and that suits him just fine.

He’s not repulsive. In fact, he’s quite put-together. His slacks are pressed, and his amber button-down, though its oversized collar is a little dated, is freshly cleaned and stain-free. Perhaps it’s the attention to detail that puts people off.  His braided belt matches his leather shoes, and the frames of his aviators match the gold of his watch.

Most of his conversations are with waiters, flight attendants, and hotel staff. When he speaks, it’s with the enthusiasm of a used car salesman. He’s not trustworthy. Better not to get involved. 

Of course, this is all by design. 

The Talent views humans the same way most people view rocks. Mostly, they are uninteresting, sometimes they are useful, and, occasionally, if you wander long and far enough and watch ever-so-carefully, you might just find a gold nugget. 

This is his gift: an eye for value. Not market prices or even sentimental value, but the sort of value that might only show itself in one particular place, in one particular moment. The value of a chance encounter that will change history forever. 

Contractors and potentials have value. Not for the tasks they might accomplish but for the finder’s fee he charges the Powers that Be. He runs The Agency, a small collection of Harbingers that do all the heavy lifting of actually finding tasks for the Contractors. The Talent is just a middle-man who finds individuals with promise and delivers them to the tests. 

He enjoys his work immensely. Long ago, on another world, in another dimension, he signed The Contract. He participated in the Contracts. The horrors he witnessed, the lines he crossed, and the powers he gained transformed him, distanced him. But that look on a new recruit’s face when they hear his offer makes him feel young again. 

Playing The Talent

The Talent is a great Harbinger to use for initial introductions for new Contractors or for quick introductions with extant Contractors. 

He behaves like a cross between a hollywood talent agent, a used car salesperson, and a  coked-out investor. If he lets someone see a glimpse of the smooth operator hiding underneath, it is on purpose. 

He describes himself as a partner at “The Agency.” They connect contract workers with clients who need a group that will always deliver results. “Think of us like Uber for badasses.”  Security? Sometimes. Thieves? On occasion. Assassins? Look, drop the labels, kid; we’re the ones that get shit done. He will never hint that the jobs are merely tests or that he is doing it for kickbacks from The Powers that Be. 

He often bounces back and forth between praising a potential recruit’s talents and negging them. 

Most potential Contractors won’t give him the time of day. When they walk away, he shows a glimpse of power. He might freeze time. The recruit might find that any door they open leads back to his office. He might accomplish whatever task the contractor used as an excuse with the snap of his fingers, or transport them to a remote mountain in Antarctica. 

One he has their attention, he makes the offer. He isn’t offering a full-time position or partnership at The Agency, just some contract work. He is very clear that the jobs will be risky, perhaps even deadly, and that the payment will be an awakening of their supernatural potential, an opportunity to become something more.

He will explain that in order to accept this job and to be considered for others in the future, the recruit must be “Imbued.” This will change how they learn, making a single job worth a year of intense study. It will protect their psyches from any traumatic experiences, to a degree. They can back out at any time, but once you’re out, you’re out. 

When the new Contractor accepts and shakes his hand, they experience a mind-bending expansion of consciousness, awareness, and one-ness with the universe. They are a drop rejoining the ocean of creation. This feeling, and any insights or knowledge that came with it, fade like the memories of a dream upon waking, and they are left knowing only that they experienced something truly remarkable. 

The Talent will also give the Contractor a burner phone (like a motorola brick) so they can be contacted quickly in the future. The phone has no reception and is useless except to receive calls from The Talent. You can add it as a Trophy to the Contractor’s sheet. It will help you run quick introductions for these Contractors in the future. 

With all this out of the way, he will proceed to give the brief and potentially deliver the Contractor to the location of their first Game. 

When you GM, you weave an elaborate lie. 

Like a storyteller, you present a world that don’t exist. Despite the fact that it's all make-believe, you want the Players to care about the world, the characters that live in it, and the events that transpire there.

This is the start of the lie. 

Like a video game designer, you place the Players into this world and allow them to interact with it. However, where video games are limited by their programming and assets, your only limitations are your ability and imagination. 

Playing a roleplaying game is like wearing a virtual reality headset. Virtual reality blurs the line between fantasy and truth. You know you’re wearing a headset, but sometimes you might forget and try to lean against a table that doesn’t really exist. 

In the same way, your Players may trick themselves into believing that you are a window into this world instead of the one weaving it into existence. They may forget that you have an agenda.

This is the heart of the lie. 

Unlike virtual reality, you can’t rely on graphics and sensory tricks to tell your lie. Instead you build faith in the world you create with its fidelity. 

If the Players’ characters are running away from a giant slug monster, and they turn a corner to find a kitchen cart with a big container of salt, do the Players think “ah, the GM is throwing us a bone” or do they think, “holy fuck, how lucky!” 

Faith hides the god in the machine.

Whether or not you can build that faith depends on the way you present the world to the Players. Namely, does it have fidelity?

Fidelity is consistency and agency. Does the world follow its own rules? Do the Players understand the picture you’re painting? Do they have the capacity to reach out and touch it? If the villain is giving their epic monologue, and a Player’s character interrupts them by making fart sounds, are they going to watch the villain react, or are you going to tell the Player to stop ruining the moment? 

When you GM, you’re not telling a story. You are offering an experience. When you break the consistency of the world or undermine Player agency, their faith falters, and the illusion that you are a portal to another world shatters.

Of course it really is a lie. You are opinionated. Every GM has a hidden goal they use to guide the game.

When a group of people get together to play a game, everyone has the same goal: have a good time. 

In this sort of game, most Players focus on trying to have a good time for themselves, while being cognizant not to ruin the fun of the others. This is totally normal and acceptable.

Meanwhile, the GM is paying attention to the big picture. Their position makes them uniquely suited for ensuring everyone is having a good time. In fact, this is the goal that guides every single decision that the GM makes. 

The goal of the GM is to maximize everyone’s enjoyment of the session.

People with poor personal boundaries might interpret the sentence above to mean that the GM should place the Players’ enjoyment over their own. It doesn’t. Your enjoyment as the GM is equally important. You shouldn’t GM if you don’t enjoy it, and you shouldn’t play games with people you don’t like being around. 

If everyone is excited, happy, and fulfilled at the end of the Contract, you have succeeded as GM. However, if some of the Players are upset, sad, or anxious, you haven’t necessarily failed. Sometimes those emotions unlock the best experiences. Consider your frustration when you fail in a challenging video game, or your despair when a beloved character dies in your favorite story. 

Different Players enjoy roleplaying games in different ways. Most new Players have no idea what part of the roleplaying experience they’ll find compelling, and some Players crave such different experiences that there is simply no reconciling their preferences in a way that pleases everyone. 

A good GM is attuned to their Players. They pay attention when their faces light up, when their muscles tense, when they are touched by the experience of the game. They learn what their Players want and know how to give it to them. 

At the end of the day, being GM is a performance art. I don’t say that because GMs occasionally act and do character voices, spin electrifying narrative, or employ production effects like music and visual aids. I say it because GMs must read, understand, and influence their Players’ emotions. 

That is performance art.

To understand what your Players want and how to give it to them, you must understand the elements of the roleplaying experience.

People have fun playing roleplaying games, but there are many types of fun, and fun is not the only experience roleplaying games offer. 

As GM, you need to understand the experience you're providing and learn which elements of that experience resonate with each of your Players.

Story, Challenge, and Cultivation are the primary experiences Players stand to gain from playing a roleplaying game. 

They aren't the only elements of the roleplaying experience. There is a simple joy in engaging with a fantasy world, doing things you wouldn't do in real life, and socializing with a group of friends. 

Story, Challenge, and Cultivation stand out because different Players engage with them in different ways, and, as GM, you have a hand in delivering them.

Story drives the most profound experiences available in roleplaying games, but it's also the most misunderstod element of experience.

Stories are not their plots. Plot is what happens. In The Contract, you set the situation, NPCs, and set pieces, and the Players drive the action with their choices. Plot emerges naturally. If you try to force a plot, you violate Player agency, which is a big no-no. 

Stories aren't engaging because of their plots.

Every story you’ve ever loved has one thing in common: they all have characters you care about facing believable, significant stakes. 

Caring about Characters

The hardest part of writing a novel or screenplay is making the audience care about a character. You get that for free in The Contract. 

Players always care about their Contractors. Each Contractor is grown from a piece of their Player and nurtured with their time and creative energy. As the GM, you further superimpose the Player into their Contractor by limiting their knowledge and agency to that of the character. You’ll never have to worry about a Player being under-invested in their character. 

If the GM can also introduce NPCs the Players care about, you've got yourself a potent story stew a-brewin'. 

Setting the Stakes

Stakes don’t have to be life-and-death to be significant. Sometimes the stakes are “will the main character get a date to the prom?” In The Contract, the stakes are usually more extreme. This game lends itself to stakes like “will I be maimed, traumatized, or killed?” or “In my pursuit of power, will I change so much that I’ll forget who I am?” 

The challenges of the game naturally create stakes. Some story-minded Players also provide their own character-driven stakes, which is great. 

It’s surprisingly easy to make an intense story experience. The more the Player cares about their character and the more believable and significant the stakes, the more intense the experience. In fact, you have to be careful not to make the experience too intense. 

If a Player is extremely invested in a character, if the stakes are life or death, and if you regularly demonstrate a willingness to kill characters, that player will feel like you’re holding a gun to the head of a family member. That’s too intense.

The gap between the stakes you sell and the stakes you demonstrate provides a wiggle room for Players to “opt in” to a more intense experience. Some Players can trick themselves into believing the stakes are as high as you present, but, if the experience gets too intense, they will deflate the stakes to a minimum of the stakes you regularly demonstrate.

In contrast, most Players do not have as much control over their emotional investment in their characters. 

Unfortunately, the intensity of a story experience also defines its potential upside. Conquering the stakes only matters if the stakes were there to begin with. Technically, I conquer death every day on the toilet, but I don’t feel like I face death every day on the toilet, so I don’t get much gratification from it.

I encourage you to push the stakes high enough to make the Players a little uncomfortable. That is how every story that's gripped you has done it. 

The GM's Role

As GM, you need to read how connected your Players are with their Contractors and set the stakes appropriately for the intensity of the story you want to tell. You should also strive to introduce NPCs the Players care about. I talk more about how to do that later on.

This element is the experience of “game.” It is the fufillment of overcoming obstacles, avoiding failure, and improving a skill. 

For a game to be challenging, it needs two things: it needs to define success and failure, and Players need to feel like their skill determines whether they succeed or fail. 

Some games don’t offer significant challenge, and that’s fine. Some games offer challenge via a strict structure (in roleplaying games, usually resource management and optimization of combat). The Contract aspires to offer unstructured challenge via creative problem-solving. 

The Contract’s breed of challenge is the challenge of solving problems without planned solutions. It’s the challenge of breaking out of a jail cell or stopping a lynch mob. The Contractors’ stats, equipment, and powers are their set of tools, not a power rating.

The challenge level of the Contract can range from nonexistent to extreme. Each Player has a different appetite for challenge and a different skill level. As GM, you need to learn this about your Players and select the ones whose preferences match your own. 

If challenge is something you want to deliver as a GM, you need the Players to feel like their skill is the determining factor in their success or failure. That means when you use your GM’s discretion to make calls, they need to be fair and consistent.

Cultivation is the joy that comes from creating something and showing it off. Think Minecraft, Legos, and writing. 

Most of the cultivation experience in The Contract occurs between the game’s systems and the Players themselves. Players create their Contractors, write their journals, build their Gifts, etc. Playing the game also cultivates stories of epic moments which are shared amongst Players long after the game has concluded. Much like the joy of socialization, these stories come for free as you run the game. 

The way the GM assists in cultivation is to understand what the Players have built and help them showcase it. 

For example, let’s say one of your Players has created a weeaboo ninja Contractor. If they make a successful attack you could say “you stab them with your katana and deal 10 Damage” or you could say, “you flip over your opponent, and-- with a flash of thousand-folded nippon steel-- slice them vertically. You adjust your fedora and smirk as their body collapses in two pieces behind you.” 

The second bit of narration was more successful not because it was more elaborate but because it showcased what the Player was going for. 

When the Players want to show off their Contractors with specific descriptions, get out of their way. Just make sure you draw boundaries when they establish details that impact the game's challenge or your world's fidelity. 

We have established that the GM needs to create a world with high fidelity in order to hide the way they guide the experience. But how can you guide the action in a consistent world without undermining Player agency?

Enter the GM's three tools: Establishment, Discretion, and Misdirection. Proper use of these three tools allows the GM to guide the game without damaging fidelity.

Establishment is setting the scene, and it's the most powerful tool in the GM's arsenal. When the Players look around a corner, the GM decides what’s there. Is it a pile of cash? A zombie? A hundred zombies? When the Players ask how far away the monster is, the GM decides whether if it’s a hundred feet away or breathing down their neck.

Think of establishment as the rough sketch of each situation. You don’t need to establish a perfectly balanced challenge right from the get-go. In fact, doing so is almost impossible. Have you considered that a hundred zombies are often less dangerous than five? The Contractors will find a way to avoid the hundred zombies, but they may actually try to fight the five. 

The game’s systems, the agency of the Players, and your other tools insulate you from dooming your game with a bit of bad establishment. It’s more important that you’re bold, quick, and consistent with what you spin into existence. Just remember to keep the things you establish consistent with what you've established previously.

When it's obvious you're using establishment to direct the game, it degrades fidelity. When Players ask about specific details with a large gameplay impact, GMs often flip a coin to maintain their impartiality. 

Discretion is the GM’s power to control resolution. You decide how the NPCs react to the Contractors. You decide when the Players need to roll. When you do call for a roll, most Outcomes give the GM discretion in interpreting the results. 

If Establishment is taking a leap of faith, Discretion is your ability to flop around mid-air and try to stick the landing. 

Whenever you use your Discretion, you run the risk of breaking the illusion of fidelity. However, the game’s rules protect you. It surprises me to this day how well the simple act of rolling dice maintains the illusion of an unbiased GM. 

Let's say a Contractor is trying to convince a bouncer to let them into the club. You call for a Charisma + Influence roll, and the Contractor rolls an Outcome of 3: Partial Success. How you determine the result is informed mostly by the state of the game. 

If it’s getting late and you need to move the story forward, you might let them in with an “I’ll be watching you.” If the game has felt too easy, you might let them in on the condition that they’re searched for weapons. Letting only some of the group enter is a reasonable interpretation of a Partial Success, but you know you should avoid avoid splitting the party, so you should choose something else.

Just remember the flip-side of utilizing rolls and the game's rules: every second spent on mechanics is a second wasted. 

You have to strike a balance between risk and expediency. The more your Players trust your discretion, the more you can utilize it. 

Misdirection is the ability for a GM to influence the Players and the choices they make. This is a subtle power that takes many forms, from narrating with specific words and emphasis to fudging rolls, to asking outright, “are you sure you want to do that?” 

Players aren’t allowed to use out-of-character (OOC) information or tactics to achieve an in-game result, but the GM is. 

Examples include:

• Putting specific emphasis on a particular detail, or reminding Players about it.
• Asking for confirmation of a Player’s action if it's likely to have an unintended outcome. 
• Calling for unnecessary rolls to mask the in-game reality (e.g. calling for alertness checks when there isn’t anything to spot).
• Editorializing (e.g. “I’ll be surprised if you make it out of this one alive.”).
• Fudging the outcome of rolls that are made in private. 
• Changing the stats of enemies.

At the end of the day, OOC information spreads, and it affects Player chocies. That’s a fact of life. Part of Misdirection is your ability to harness that fact to direct the game.

Because most misdirection happens outside the game, it actually doesn't run much risk of damaging the game's fidelity. However, it does risk damaging the challenge of the game, deflating the stakes, and harming agency by making the Players feel like you're encouraging a specific course of action. 

Fudging rolls is a lot riskier than changing stats. The Contract doesn’t have a “monster manual” filled with canonical stats, and Scenarios aren’t scripture. When it comes to stats, Players can’t tell the difference between establishment and misdirection.

All crafts have their deadly sins. Pop singers don’t hit the wrong notes; top chefs don’t serve food that fell on the floor; and Broadway actors don’t forget their lines. 

When a GM commits a deadly sin, they poison the experience. These are the reasons people check out, leave Playgroups, or stop playing altogether. Luckily, they're easy to avoid if you know what they are.

Players have free will. They will bypass challenges in ways you didn’t expect, and they will struggle with things you hadn’t considered. They will take the story you were planning on telling and scribble all over the pages. And you, as a good GM, will let them. 

In The Contract, Player agency is sacred.

It's the lynchpin of the game, the keystone, the secret sauce. Violating Player agency is the cardinal sin. There is no quicker way to ruin fidelity for the Players. Suddenly, they realize the game world is nothing but cardboard cut-outs and animatronic actors. They aren’t in WestWorld; they’re in It’s a Small World. It takes a long, long time to build that trust again. 

Gifts Work

Gifts are powerful. Gifts allow Contractors to do crazy unexpected things. They make Scenarios more difficult to design, and they force GMs to react and think on their feet. 

Gifts are supposed to work like that. That’s what makes them fun. 

Gifts are the whole reason anyone is here. Contractors are risking their lives for Gifts. Players are spending their time playing your Contract for Gifts. Nullifying a Gift when it becomes relevant devalues all Gifts.

I don’t care if you can justify the Gift not working because of the fiction. If you fill the room with sleeping gas, and then you learn that one of the Contractors is sleepless and immune to drugs, toxins, and poisons, that Contractor isn’t going to fall asleep. If you say “oh well, it’s a magic sleeping gas so you still fall asleep,” then that sucks. Full stop. 

When a Player uses a Gift to overcome an obstacle in a way you didn’t expect, don’t hand them the world. Take a moment to validate that the Gift can be used at that time in the way the Player intends, and consider whether using that Gift will cause any other complications or obstacles. The Gift may work but not work out. Proceed impartially. 

Finally, Gifts which have specific limitations as a part of their construction should be limited in those ways. For example, all equipment-based Gifts are useless if the Contractors get stripped completely naked at the start of the Contract (which is something that can happen). Similarly, Gifts that are conditional are not usable when they do not satisfy their conditions. 

It Isn't Your Story

You spent weeks designing a Scenario that takes place in an old Victorian mansion. You got so excited about that one encounter, the villain’s monologue, and the big moral dilemma at the end. 

Then a Player says something like, “let’s turn around, go to the gas station, buy 50 gallons of gas, and burn this place to the ground.” 

You have to let them do it, even if it ruins the plot you intended. Give them the win and fix up the Scenario so it works the next time you run it. 

This happens all the time. One time I was watching a Contract where the objective was “get the cat down from the top of the tree.” A Contractor immediately pulled out a rifle, shot the cat, picked it up off the ground, and handed it to the Harbinger. That’s a win. Should have specified “alive.” 

The Contract’s gameplay is all about thinking outside the box. Players are encouraged to push boundaries, test limits, and circumvent obstacles in clever ways. The Contract is not a venue for you to tell a story to a passive audience. If that’s the experience you’re after, I recommend writing a novel instead.

Deus-ex-machina is when you clumsily apply your tools to save a Contractor. 

Of course clumsily applying the tools to ruin a Contractor's day is also bad, but everyone already knows that saying "rocks fall, everybody dies" is shit GMing. In fact, in the hundreds of games I've played, GMed, and watched, I've never seen that happen. 

What happens far more often is pulling punches: the deus-ex-machina. Remember how you build Player faith to hide the god in the machine? This cardinal sin is when you display it blatently.

Deus-Ex Creates Interpersonal Conflicts

When you ignore the results of a roll, take pity on a character you love, or have the floor give out under the enemy's feet, you insert yourself into the game. 

When you place the GM inside the game, you put the GM in conflict with the Players. 

Now if you do decide to kill a Contractor, it's because you the GM chose to do it. It's no longer a result of the choices of the Player. 

For more information, you can read this article on conflicts in gameplay. Suffice to say, you don't want to create interpersonal conflicts, and you don't want to be inside the game standing in the way of the Contractors. Contractors are scary. 

Deus-Ex Ruins Story and Challenge

If your Players believe you are the reason why good or bad things happen, you immediately ruin two of the three core experiences of roleplaying games. 

Challenge is out the window straight away. Players need to believe their skill as a Player impacts their ability to succed. If they don't, there's no challenge. Or, more likely, the challenge transforms into playing the GM (see interpersonal conflicts above). 

As for story. . .

Frankly, if Contractors never die in your Playgroup's Contracts, you're missing out. Groups with demonstrated life-or-death stakes operate on a different level than groups that don't. I can't explain how characters come alive after they've seen another Contractor die, how it engages the Players, or how the stories become real. You just have to experience it. 

The Contract offers an exceptionally high-quality experience, but it does so at a cost:

All Contracts must resolve in a single session.

This constraint is more important than it seems. Not only does it empower the game’s flexible scheduling and Contractor portability, it also lowers the cost of character death, balances the game’s rate of reward, and improves pacing. 

If your Contracts don’t resolve in a single session, you’re not playing The Contract. 

A GM’s ability to move the action along is key. Fully passive, reactive GMing styles may work in some games, but they do not work in The Contract. 

Player Energy

If a Scenario would take 6 hours for a given group to complete in a single session, it will take the same group 10 hours to complete in two sessions. 

This is because the more energy the Players have, the more slowly the action progresses. 

Players have lots of energy at the start of a session. They’re happy to roleplay and chat in-character. They put more thought and effort into their strategies, preparations, and investigations. They embellish their descriptions and take time to indulge in flavorful moments. These are valuable, fun activities, and GMs are right to be hesitant to cut them short. 

At the end of a session, Players start running out of energy. They start skipping the fluff and drive the Contract towards a conclusion. Low-energy Players take more risks, but risks taken because you want the game to end are supremely unsatisfying.

Although Player energy inextricably marches from high to low over the course of a session, the events of the game do influence it. Players gain energy when exciting or intriguing things happen and lose it when the action stalls, the game becomes tedious, or they don’t feel like they have any realistic paths forward. 

The most interesting part of a Contract is usually a climactic moment near the end. You want your Players to reach that moment when their energy is high enough to enjoy it and the risks they’re taking aren’t tainted by impatience. 

Thankfully, there are ways to do this without rushing the Players. 

How to keep things moving

As a GM, make sure you do the following:

• Stay focused

• • Not only does a distracted GM cause the action to drag, they undermine the investment of all the Players. Don’t text or surf the web. Don’t tune out so you have to ask Players to repeat themselves. 

• Resolve Player and NPC actions as quickly as possible

• • In an ideal world, Players get immediate feedback on the outcomes of their actions and never spend time waiting for NPCs to decide what they do. Delays add up and feel like input lag in a video game. 

• Don’t spend too long on introductions

• • Introductions inherently exclude all but one Player. Strive to finish them quickly. Don’t wait until everyone is ready to start introductions; handle them as the Players arrive and get settled. Only brand new contractors demand in-depth introductions. Experienced Contractors can receive a letter, a text, or a phone call.

• Don’t run Hustles before the session

• • Resolve Loose Ends and Hustles after the Contract has concluded or between sessions. 

• Enforce the passage of time

• • The relationship between in-game and out-of-game time is flexible, but they move in lockstep when Players roleplay in-character conversations. Time does not freeze and wait for them to decide what to do next. If they’re at a school, periods will end, and kids will go home. If they’re on a sinking ship, water will rise to their ankles, then waists, then necks. 

• Call for a break

• • Give Players a 10-15 minute break partway through the Contract to go to the restroom, stretch their legs, have a snack, and think about their situation. Do not GM at all during this time. 

• Remind the Players that they need to move things along 

• Players are also sensitive to the fact that the Contract needs to conclude in one session. Sometimes, all you need to do is remind them. Just avoid doing it more than once or twice per session.

Avoid these situations. Scenario designers are aware of these pitfalls when writing scenarios and usually provide ways for the GM to avoid them, if the GM knows what they’re looking for. 

• Split party

• • When the party is split, you can only GM for one group at a time. This slows the game to a crawl and leaves some Players twiddling their thumbs. If the group decides to split, you have to let them. Thankfully, splitting is incredibly dangerous so it doesn’t happen often. 

• Heisting / turtling

• • Contractors are strategic and don’t like taking unnecessary risks, especially in Playgroups where there is a lot of Contractor death. If given the opportunity, Contractors will spend an incredible amount of time over-preparing for scary obstacles (heisting), or wait long periods of time for the danger to pass (turtling).  
  • Scenarios are designed to prevent this and usually give the GM tools to force the Contractors to act. Don’t give the Contractors access to resources the Scenario explicitly states they shouldn’t (e.g. cell reception or a WalMart). 

• No leads

• • Contracts stall out if the Contractors feel like they have no reasonable paths forward or if they are worried that moving forward will close opportunities behind them.
  • Don’t lock the only path toward a conclusion behind a roll. Ideally, Contracts are always moving towards a conclusion, and successful investigations help Contractors avoid bad situations. 

• Multiple Combats / combats with many participants

• • Combat moves pretty quickly in The Contract, but it’s still slower than standard roleplay. Don’t roll Initiative for characters that aren’t active participants in the conflict, and use the Mob Rules when dealing with groups of similar enemies. 

• Action that doesn’t move the game toward a conclusion. 

• Sometimes Contractors will go off and chase a red herring, heist a non-obstacle, or get wildly distracted. Unless the action is still moving towards a conclusion, you should gently guide them back to a course that will. 
• Avoid indulging in lengthy scenes with irrelevant NPCs. 

And always remember the golden rule: No one has ever complained that a Contract was too short.

Everyone has their own gameplay preferences. Most of the time, each Player can find their own brand of fun without ruining the enjoyment of others. The more skilled the GM, the more easily they can provide that common ground. 

However, sometimes preferences are impossible to reconcile. For example, some players want high stakes and others want low stakes. An impartial GM cannot simultaneously offer both. 

Here are two more examples. Older Players might want gameplay challenges that involve properly managing personal finances to avoid scrutiny, but younger players who have never even applied for a credit card simply can’t engage with the game in that way. Similarly, a Player that craves a story with goofy characters and inappropriate humor will be at odds with someone who wants a serious and gritty story. The Player who showed up expecting Silence of the Lambs is not going to be happy if the session turns into Who Framed Roger Rabbit. 

Preference conflicts can smolder for several sessions before coming to a head. Ideally, Players will recognize them and bring them up between sessions. Sometimes the best solution  is to find a new Playgroup that is more aligned with the Player’s preferences. 

Any game designed with purpose lends itself better to some gameplay experiences than others. The Contract is no exception. 

That said, nothing frustrates me more than listening to Players squabble over whose preferences are “correct,” or which way of running a game is the “intended” way. The rules of any TTRPG, even ones with a strong identity, leave space for a vast range of experiences. 

If you find yourself fighting the rules on your quest to enjoy the game, by all means switch games. If you like the rules and your only issue is that your Playgroup wants a different experience, that is a preferences issue, and you should find another Playgroup. If you and your Playgroup are enjoying the game and an outsider tells you that you’re “doing it wrong,” tell them to fuck off and carry on having a great time. 

Now that that’s out of the way. . .

The Contract works best with a gritty tone, telling stories about the pursuit of power and how it changes and corrupts people. Saving the world isn’t as simple as revealing the conspiracy or blowing up the death star. To have a seat at the table, you need to make compromises and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Think Scarface, Watchmen, No Country for Old Men, Mad Max, etc.

In practice, you’ll probably find that your table feels a lot more like it’s writing episodes of Archer than a hardboiled melodrama. That’s fine. All that joke-cracking and tomfoolery is how Players have fun and form relationships with the characters. As long as you set the stage with the proper stakes, the character-defining moments of horror, tenderness, and sacrifice will come, and they’ll have your Players pacing the room, wringing their hands, and begging each other for their lives. 

As an aside: there is no roleplaying moment more intense than when a Contractor ends up on the wrong end of another’s gun and has to beg for their life. Is it the Contractor begging, or the Player? 

The Joy of Petty Inconveniences

Contractors are not superheroes. Newbie Contractors get mugged, arrested, and kidnapped. They get in trouble for running their mouths. They lose track of their gear. They wear the wrong shoes.

When running The Contract, don’t give your Players anything they didn’t earn. What are they doing with their luggage as they climb from one speeding car to another? How are they drawing their gun when they’re wearing a rain poncho? You know those Desert Eagles can deafen you if you don’t wear ear protection.

Every petty inconvenience creates an opportunity for foresight and creative problem solving. They underline the mundanity of Contractors and raise the stakes. They give Gifts an opportunity to shine and feel extraordinary. And when a Contractor is a complete badass, that badassery feels truly impressive. 

Never underestimate the ol’ razzle-dazzle! 

GMing is a performance art. On top of being a referee, GMs are storytellers, improvisers, actors, and entertainers. If you want your Players to be excited and engaged, you gotta perform.

If you consider yourself shy or otherwise lacking in performance skills, don’t worry! There are plenty of ways to up the showmanship of your sessions that don’t involve voice acting or improv. 

Voice Acting

At the end of the day, everyone loves it when people do character voices. 

Voices help with immersion. Even if you’re bad at it, making an attempt to give each character a unique voice will lead by example and create a safe, accepting atmosphere that will relax socially-anxious Players. 

Never bully your Players into doing voices if they don’t want to. Shy Players are like hermit crabs; if you try to force them out of their shells you’ll damage them. Just leave the door open and lower the bar. We’re here to have fun, okay? 

Improv

In traditional improv, everyone can establish anything, and everyone goes along with it. In GMing, you can allow your players to establish things, but you can and should correct them if they establish something that isn’t reasonable, accurate, or has enough strategic importance to warrant a coin flip.

Allow them to get creative and help move the action along, but don’t let them run away with the game. 

Narrative

Narrative is the primary way that GMs render the game for the Players. Here are a few tips and tricks to punch up your descriptions and immerse your Players. 

Basic

• Use the imperative tense in third or second person POV. In other words, instead of saying “you are going to see a clown,” say “you see a clown.” Instead of “your character picked up a sandwich and swallowed it in one bite,” say “Ryan consumes the sandwich in a single bite.”
• Keep things eye-level for the Contractors. Narrate from their perspective. Instead of saying “there is a cloud of smoke rising over the horizon,” say “You smell smoke, and you look to see a dark cloud rising over the horizon.” How do their senses tell them what is happening?
• When you detect confusion, clarify. If a Contractor made a decision based on a misunderstanding of something you’ve established, clarify what’s going on as their Contractor would understand it, and let them reconsider their decision. 
• Use narrative to increase the stakes. For example, if an enemy attacks a Contractor and misses, make sure they hit SOMETHING, blowing chunks out of a concrete pillar, visiting untold destruction on a chair, etc. 
• Lead the narrative before you call for a roll. Rather than having a Player roll because they're in a chase, set up the dramatic situation. “There’s a fruit cart in the sidewalk, and you’ve got to dodge it! Roll Dexterity + Drive.”

Intermediate

• Keep your narrative concise and evocative. Don’t drone on and on going over every detail. Let the Contractors discover as they move about and ask for more information. Keep the ball on your Players’ side of the court.
• Bring combat to life! This isn’t a JRPG where people stand idly waiting for their turn. Describe how their Contractor slides under the monster, slicing its belly open so its guts spill everywhere. Let the Player describe how their sword locks against their opponent’s, and things look grim before they spit in their eyes and take the upper hand.
  • An attack that does no damage could be narrated as a tense standoff, a glancing blow, or even a less-serious cut.
• Let the Contractors shine. Make them feel like badasses facing impossible odds, not klutzes stumbling over themselves to take on some basic bad guys.
• Read books. Reading or listening to high-quality books will increase your narrative skills immensely. If you’re a storyteller who doesn’t read, you’re like a chef that doesn’t eat or a musician that never listens to music.

Advanced 

• Show, don’t tell. This means instead of drawing a conclusion for the characters like, “the valet is sad,” narrate the observation that lets them draw that conclusion: “The valet sniffles, and when he responds, his voice wavers.”
  • Note that you want the Players to understand at least what their characters do. For example, if you’re dealing with a high-charisma Contractor in the above situation, make sure the Player understands that the valet is sad. 
• Narrate based on the skills and attributes of the Contractors. A Contractor with high Intellect sees the world very differently than one with high Charisma. A Contractor who spent the past 40 years in the backwoods will see a situation differently than a successful businessperson. You can help your Players characterize their Contractors with the way you describe their perspective. 

Production

Production includes things like photos, drawings, maps, music, sound effects, props, and lighting. Production informs Players, immerses them, and sets a tone.

Everyone loves production, and GMs who struggle with other aspects of showmanship can always lean on a few visual aids and atmospheric sound effects to immerse their players. All it takes is a little preparation ahead of time. 

Just make sure your production doesn’t disrupt the game. If you turn the lights so low that people can’t read their sheets, or Players have to shout over your rain sound effects, you may be doing more harm than good. 

Oh no, it’s happening again. The Contractors are singling someone out in a crowd, kidnapping a taxi driver, or seducing an office worker whose badge opens the building they’re heisting. The character isn’t even mentioned in the Scenario, but now they’re a big part of the story. 

This is one hell of an opportunity.

Two-dimensional NPCs are totally serviceable in most cases, but you would be amazed how transformative it is to be able to whip up an NPC that the Players care about. Suddenly they’re a character whose life has value. Their experiences act as the “straight man” to all the insanity the Contractors are up to, making everything that much more hilarious and exciting. Are they going to show up on the next Contract too? Absolutely. 

Coming up with compelling NPCs is easier than you might think. Here are some simple pointers:

• Give them a goal. Think small; they are not contractors, but that makes them more relatable. They want financial stability, social acceptance, to find love, or to have a greater purpose.
• Give them a challenge. They just lost their job. They have a disability. They’re an addict, an immigrant, or a conservative whose support for their gay son caused their community to reject them.
• Pull from an archetype (Are they a demeaning Karen? A tourist? A tired parent? A rebellious teen?)
• Draw inspiration from people you’ve met or characters on TV. Just choose someone noone at the table has ever met, and keep those similarities our little secret. 
• Finally, cover the basics. Make them up as they become relevant, but don't hesitate to make them up. Your NPC has:
  • A name
  • A nationality
  • An accent
  • A passion
  • A job

All it takes is one or two extra touches. Make your NPCs more than a generic cop, starbucks drone, or panicking bystander. It pays insane dividends. 

Every Contractor is grown from a piece of their Player. A strong sentimental attachment forms during the days Players spend building, advancing, and playing their Contractors. Even if you don't form such connections with your characters, you must understand that most Players do.

GMs who appreciate the emotional investment of their Players are often rightfully hesitant to kill Contractors. However, GMs who are too soft risk missing out on some of the most powerful roleplaying experiences. 

Contractor death is the best fertilizer for compelling stories and challenging games. 

The story of The Contract is about people risking their lives for supernatural powers, and that risk is not felt until someone dies. As much as I hate to say it, only those Contractors who have watched their fellow Contractors die, who have stepped over their bodies in pursuit of their goals, and who still say “yes” each time a Harbinger invites them on a job are real Contractors. 

These experiences fundamentally change Contractors and the story of the game. There is no substitute. 

The Contract is well-suited for killing Contractors. The nature of the broad, outside-the-box challenges make deaths feel fair and avoidable. The self-contained sessions mean a Player whose Contractor dies only misses out on the remainder of the session instead of a chunk of the campaign, and Players usually have other Contractors already created, waiting in the wings. 

Charon Coins and the Golden Ratio are designed to encourage tentative GMs to make the kills they should instead of pulling punches. 

The Ideal Death

The ideal Contractor death is fair and witnessed. 

Any Contractor death must be fair. Ideally, it is due to a combination of Player mistakes and bad rolls.

The mistakes may be innocuous: they split off from the group, went with a plan they knew was risky, failed to follow up on something suspicious, trusted the wrong person, got into a fight they should have avoided, or chose a character concept that simply isn’t viable (like a blind folk singer). Players need to be able to look back and know they could have made choices that would have prevented their death. 

Half the value of a death is its effect on those Contractors who witnessed it. If a Contractor dies “off-screen,” it is far less valuable than if their death was witnessed by (or even directly involved) other Contractors. Make an effort to connect the Contractors to the deaths of their comrades, even if it’s just hearing a single gunshot echo through the forest. 

Striking a Balance

At the end of the day, each Playgroup and Player has their own appetite for PC death. 

Depending on your Playgroup’s preferences, a rate of one death per 14 Newbie/Novice Contracts may be totally sufficient. Less than that is too low. Most Players tolerate a rate up to one death every 5 Contracts or so. After that, only the “tryhard” Players who are extremely cunning and resourceful stick around.  

The more a Contractor has been played, the lower their chance of dying. Seasoned Contractors (10+ victories) simply have too much emotional investment to make their deaths worth the price. This is why they have access to Gifts that allow them to cheat death. Of course, there’s still the possibility of death, but it’s almost always due to hubris. 

GMs tend to overestimate the emotional cost of a Newbie death. Brand new Players who try The Contract online return for a second session about 70% of the time. Brand new Players who lose their Contractor on their first Contract come back Every. Single. Time. 

Why? Because they’ve found a game with real challenges, and a story with real stakes. They feel its power.

Rolling dice is the most iconic part of playing a TTRPG. Everyone holds their breath and gathers round to learn the fate of their characters. Jubilation! Anguish! They turn to the GM to hear what happens next. 

That’s how you want dice rolling to feel. Dice rolling can also become a chore that stalls the game and turns controlling your characters into a tedious slog. 

As the GM, calling for rolls is your way to make critical, impactful decisions about the actions of characters in a fair way. When a player rolls dice, they feel like they are in control. They feel responsible for the outcome of the roll-- good or bad-- in a way that they wouldn’t if they hadn’t rolled dice.

When a Contractor attempts an action and you call for a roll, you are entering an agreement with that Player: “if you roll well, your character will succeed. Roll poorly, and they will fail.” 

Do not make that agreement unless you are ready to uphold it. 

The rulebook puts it best: “When a Contractor attempts an action where the outcome is risky or unsure, the GM calls for a roll to determine what happens.”

Rolling dice is only exciting if the outcome matters. 

Sometimes Contracts last hours before you have to call for a roll. That’s fine. If you call for too many rolls, you slow the game down and sap your Players’ energy. You also increase your risk of accidentally entering into an agreement you don’t want to uphold. 

Beyond that guideline, there are a couple of other situations where you can avoid rolls:

• When there is no reasonable chance of success. 
  • Contractors don’t always get rolls. You can also just say they fail to catch the rocket mid-flight, or that they fire their gun blindly into the dark forest, hitting who knows what.

• When success is all but assured.

• If a Contractor is an expert at something (4-5 in an Ability), you can assume they know all common knowledge in that field. An expert driver knows the difference between a truck and a coupe, and they can drive manual. Don’t make them roll along with the rest of the riff raff. They’re special!
• Similarly, if a person is tied to a chair, and a Contractor with a knife and ample time wants to kill them, just let them. No rolling required. 

The one time you should never skip rolling dice is when a Contractor’s life hangs in the balance. Even if they’re rolling two dice against twelve, let them have those last couple rolls. It does a lot to make the death feel fair. 

If a Player rolls the wrong number of dice, maintain a consistent policy: Always nullify the outcome of the wrong roll and force them to re-roll with the correct number of dice. 

Sometimes when I am GMing for brand new Players, I will call for an unnecessary roll or two to teach them the dice rolling mechanic. Even on those rolls, you should be sure to respect the outcome.

Social Situations

A lot of newer GMs aren't quite sure when to ask for social rolls. It's actually quite simple:

1. When the Contractor is trying to influence an NPC's discretion.
2. When the Player's "social stats" are greatly mismatched with their Contractor's. 
3. When the Players need hints on how to get leverage over an NPC.
4. When Contractors are trying to lie or convince each other, and the Players have OOC information that makes it hard to play true to their character.

Players don't need to roll if they have overwhelming leverage. For example, they don't need to roll to fighten someone with a gun. I mean, who isn't afraid of having an M-16 jabbed in their ribs? Similarly, if they're offering an NPC a genuinely compelling deal and have demonstrated their ability to pay, the NPC may just believe them. 

All rolls use one Attribute and one Ability and have a Difficulty rating. As GM, you specify all three. 

Selecting stats and modifiers is an art, not a science, and it often involves some back-and-forth with the Players. Above all, if a Contractor should be good at something, you want their roll to reflect it. 

Sometimes it’s obvious which roll to use. Someone’s sneaking up behind them? That’s Perception + Alertness. Trying to get backstage by pretending to be a cop? That’s Charisma + Performance. 

When multiple rolls could work, you can also offer a choice to your Players. For example, if the Contractors are examining some bullet casings at a crime scene, you might say “Roll Intellect + Investigation or Firearms” and let the Players choose. 

Sometimes when you offer a roll, a Player might make a counteroffer. “What about Perception + Survival?” You are free to accept or reject their offer. Just try to be fair. Once you make your call, it’s poor form for the Player to continue arguing or making offers, and you should stand firm. Don’t let the gameplay cross into out-of-character bartering. 

Difficulty is easy enough. Default to Difficulty 6. Increase it by one or two if the situation has complications that makes the action more difficult, and decrease it by one or two if the Contractor has some specific Equipment or setup that will make it easier. 

The exact probability of rolls is of no concern to you or your Players. Follow the guidelines above and the game will play as it should. Outright failures and botches are uncommon; Contractors are likely to get some sort of success. 

Once the Player has made the roll, it’s time for you to interpret the outcome. 

There are five degrees of success possible based on the roll’s Outcome (Botch, Failure, Partial Success, Complete Success, Exceptional Success). Three of these Outcomes give the GM a lot of power to determine exactly what happens. 

Use this discretion in accordance with all the guidance I’ve already given. Move the action forward, turn the situation more interesting, make it fun, keep it fair. 

Botches result from any Outcome less than 0. Some GMs like to make extreme botches more severe, others treat them all the same. Any Botch lower than -2 is exceedingly rare (1/1000 odds at best), so it can be fun to recognize that a bit in the fiction. Just don’t be cruel or ridiculous. The stakes of any Botch should be proportional to the risk of the original Action.

Failures happen on an Outcome of 0. They are just what they say on the tin: a failure, nothing more, nothing less. What would it look like if someone failed to do that thing? That’s what happens. 

Partial Success happens on any Outcome from 1-3. This is the most common degree of success, and it gives the GM a lot of leeway to determine just what “partial” means. The magic of dice rolling lets you get away with almost anything. 

Complete Success comes from an Outcome of 4 or 5. Similar to a flat Failure, this degree of success does not leave much room for GM interpretation. 

Exceptional Success results from any Outcome higher than 6. It’s best to think of an Exceptional Success as a Complete Success plus a bonus. Oftentimes it’s enough to narrate the Contractor performing their Action with exceptional grace and badassery, or to allow the Player to describe their Contractor kicking ass. Sometimes it’s nice to offer extra information, or to give the Contractor a stroke of great luck or something they’d given up hope on. 

Contested Actions do not have degrees of success. They either go one way or the other.

Players often ask for details about the situation their Contractors are in. Normally you just establish one thing or another based on your mental picture of the scene or what you believe to be reasonable. 

Sometimes you hadn’t considered the detail, your answer will have a large impact on the game, and it could reasonably go either way. Does this American home have guns in it? Does the taxi arrive within five minutes? Does this high rise have a fire axe behind a pane of glass? 

To remain impartial during these situations, some GMs like to flip a coin. 

There are no rules that call for flipping a coin. It’s just a GM technique for you to use much or as little as you’d like. Sometimes it’s fun to have the Player flip the coin. 

If you don’t like coins, you can roll high/low on a d10 (1-5 is low, 6-10 is high).

Contractors are bastards. The point of the game is explicitly to break rules, sidestep challenges, and win by whatever means necessary. On top of that, Contracts have to have an explicit goal, and they need to begin and resolve in a single session. It’s extremely difficult to improvise tightly-scoped content for characters that are out to break free of all constraints at every turn. 

Most GMs need more than a vague notion and a few hastily-scribed notes to pull off a quality Contract. Luckily, we have Scenarios. 

Scenarios are like recipes for Contracts. They’ve already thought of everything: the objective, the details of the challenges, the names for all the characters, the enemies, many of the shenanigans Contractors might get up to, and how to deal with them.

Running from Scenarios allows the GM to kicking ass running the game instead of scrambling to lay tracks in front of a moving train. You’ll still have to improvise and adapt, but at least you’ll have something to hang onto. 

The best part about Scenarios is that they’re reusable. Once you play in a Contract, its Scenario is revealed to you, and you can use it to GM Contracts for other groups. You also get to read notes from other GMs who ran it in the past, as well as Journals from the Contractors who played in it. 

Prep with Scenarios

Writing a Scenario is sufficient prep on its own. 

If you’re planning on running a Scenario someone else wrote, you should read it top to bottom, ideally the day before the Contract. Imagine Contractors running through it and how they might react to its various situations. Read some of the GM notes and Journals from previous runs to give yourself an idea about what might go down. 

Scenarios aren’t scripture, and you don’t have to follow them exactly. You can change the stats of enemies, the setting, or anything else you’d like. Every detail of every element is just an idea until you establish it at game-time via narration. After that, it’s set in stone.  

Just be aware that details that seem innocuous are sometimes important to making the Scenario work. Always take a moment to consider how a change you’re making might affect the options available to Contractors. Otherwise they’re going to end up calling the cops, burning something down, visiting a department store, or starting a riot when the Scenario wasn’t built for it. 

The GM is the alpha and omega of the session, the master of ceremonies. It’s up to you to decide when the game starts, how long to wait for the Player who’s arriving late, when to call a break, and when the session ends. 

When you are GM, you are the boss. Sometimes you need to exercise that power to maximize everyone’s enjoyment. 

You control the spotlight, not the Players. Don’t allow one Player to hog your attention. Don’t let one Player interrupt the others over and over. If the group splits up, bounce back and forth between the two groups so everyone gets to play. 

If one Contractor starts derailing the game or getting distracted while the rest of the party wants to complete the job, stick with the party and then resolve the other Player’s high-speed chase with the cops after the rest of the group has completed the objective. 

Don’t let Players diminish your power. You are in charge. When a Player explains how they expect the action they’re attempting to play out, treat it as them communicating their intent, and do not let them take control of interpreting the outcome.

Don’t let Players, even Players who are more experienced GMs than you, start calling for rolls and acting as the GM. Do not allow Players who argue and disrespect your calls to bully you into changing your decisions. Be fair, but stand strong. 

Don’t suffer bullies. No one at your table is “too cool” to be there. Don’t let your Players make fun of each other, even if their character voices are less than perfect. 

And above all, never, ever, EVER let one of your Players get away with gross misconduct. Sexual harassment, abuse, and cruelty should never be allowed at your table. You have the responsibility to ask problem Players to leave. Never give more than one warning.

You aren’t just choosing between the abusive Player and the Player they’re abusing. If you welcome abusers at your table, you’re choosing to include them instead of any Players with integrity and self-respect.

If you do not act, you are complicit in their abuse. Refuse to continue the game until the problem Player is gone. 

Rivalry Scenarios pit Contractors against each other so only part of the group can win. In highlander Contracts, only a single Contractor can claim victory (though all may survive). 

These sorts of Scenarios are difficult to get right, and they can be very frustrating for Players. You shouldn’t run them very often, and when you do, you need to set the stage just right.

• Make sure all of the attending Contractors are from the same Playgroup; they need to be able to find each other in the Downtime after the Contract. 
• Highlanders work best when the Contractors involved have Loose Ends or Circumstances that make a loss unacceptable. 
• All attending Contractors should have a similar number of Victories. Do not put the 3-win into a highlander with the 9-win. 
• Try to invite Contractors with ongoing drama or opposing moralities. Stir the pot a little. 

What you want in these Contracts is drama. You want inter-character conflict that sizzles and pops. When highlanders are at their best, they change the course of the Contractors’ lives and relationships. 

A highlander or rivalry that surprises most Contractors with a loss at the end is not a good experience. A highlander that immediately devolves into a last-man-standing PvP deathmatch is not a good experience. A highlander where the win is simply auctioned to the highest bidder is not an excellent experience but is acceptable. 

Don’t run a highlander Contract until the conditions are just right. 

It’s easy to create a Contractor with world-class Charisma or Intellect, but it’s difficult to play them so they feel that way. Furthermore, skills that help Players with the game’s challenges (problem-solving, lateral thinking, etc) are available to Contractors.

As the GM, you’re in charge of drawing the line between the Players’ capabilities and their characters’.  

What you want to avoid is a situation where a Contractor who is, say, a beautiful life-of-the-party-type can’t get into a gathering because the Player controlling them is less capable. The best way to do this is to allow them to roll. If they succeed, you can reveal the angles they should work to persuade their target, or how to get leverage over them, or what sorts of things the NPC is likely to say yes or no to. Often this sort of information is something you’d let the Player intuit. 

The same goes for problem-solving and Intellect, but you have to be careful not to let a character with high Intellect undermine the game’s gameplay. I usually limit hints to one or two per session, max. 

On the flip side, when a charismatic or clever Player plays an uncharismatic or unintelligent Contractor, you may need to limit the strategies and actions they attempt, or gate them behind  rolls you wouldn’t normally call for.

These are the core restrictions of The Contract that define the format. 

• There must be a minimum of two Players and one GM - except for Veteran Contractors (25+ victories), who can attempt Solo Games.
• Contractors are always given a choice whether or not they want to participate in a Game (although they need not be presented with any information about the Scenario prior to being offered that choice). 
• After the Game, each surviving Contractor is determined a winner or a loser. 
• Scenarios must be deadly, and there must be a real possibility of Contractor death in every Game.
• No Scenarios can REQUIRE a Contractor death as a prerequisite victory.
• No two Contractors owned by the same Player can ever meet each other or interact.

Soft and Slow Rules

These Rules are more like guidelines, really. 

• Scenarios should be designed to conclude within four hours.
• Other than Status Constraints, Scenarios are written completely agnostic of the Contractors that may attend them. Specific Contractors cannot be required to attend.
• Novice Scenarios should be subtle. You should not find yourself facing Stormtroopers or transformed into a toon on your first Game. Think X-Files or Fringe. Early Games should gradually become supernatural, as Novice characters can't be expected to handle total mind-fuck Scenarios and not realistically fall apart. Save your weird games for the Seasoned group.  This does depend somewhat on the nature of the Setting you are playing in; what qualifies as "subtle" in a modern mostly normal planet Earth is very different than a subtle game in a high fantasy Setting.
• Objectives, especially in Novice Scenarios, should be clear. If Players get frustrated because they are unable to figure a Game out, it does not make you an awesome criminal mastermind. Anyone can fool Novices. If they get frustrated and walk out on a Game, you are a poor Harbinger, and your peers will laugh at you.

All Scenarios in The Contract follow the same basic structure. A group of characters are rounded up and presented with a deadly task which they must then attempt to complete for a chance to awaken their Powers.

The mission is the meat and potatoes of a Scenario. The choices of what to create are limitless, but this article will give you a place to start. 

You can stir up a generic Scenario by adding other elements such as the following. 

Everyone wants to play a balanced game. This means different things in different Games, but in The Contract: a Game is balanced if it feels "fair". 

Who is responsible for Balance? 

The responsibility for balance is shared between The Contract's developers, those who write Scenarios, GMs who run Games, and Playgroup Leaders. Of those, the Contract Designers and Scenario writers hold the most power over balance. 

The point of the Games is to produce some of the hardest, smartest, cunning, bad-asses ever seen in the Multiverse. It is NOT to kill players. If your games routinely wipe out characters who did not take foolish risks or turtle excessively, you are a poor Harbinger and your peers will laugh at you. Might do more than laugh, in fact. You are wasting good talent, which is hard to find. That makes you a wastrel, and most Harbingers did not get where they are today by being lax.

[x] Contractors have a chance of winning any straight fight they get into [x]

Contractors must choose their fights and their tactics carefully. If they can win every fight they can possibly get into, your Players will stop coming up with outside-the-box strategies. The Games will devolve into a simple hack and slash affairs for which the system is not designed. 

For this reason, you will not find encounter tables in this Guide.

[x] All character concepts and builds are viable [x]

We strive to make it possible to build a Contractor with almost any concept. However, not all concepts, stat builds, or Power selections are viable. Your absent-minded, blind, folk-singer Contractor will almost certainly be less useful than someone more suited to dealing with unexpected or violent situations. 

That said, we do want to make sure a wide variety of Character concepts are viable. Scenario designers should strive to design challenges that are incredibly various. Games should take place in various settings, from the jungle to the inside of an airplane. They should involve investigations or social challenges, research, tracking, animals, science, and all sorts of other concepts. 

Do not design your Scenarios for the specific Contractors that will play in them. Design them in spite of the Contractors that will play in them, and you will force Contractors to diversify in order to deal with all the challenges.

Your games should fall somewhere between never killing anyone and full party wipes. Games that end in full party wipes are generally unenjoyable and often voided. Remember: perception of danger is even more important than the reality of danger. Sprinkling a few NPC deaths or visceral descriptions of close calls can raise the stakes considerably.

The exact stats you should give your baddies depends a lot on the culture of your Playgroup and the situation of the fight.

Introducing Supernatural Objects and Spells that Contractors may Obtain

You may system out any supernatural elements for your Scenarios, including spells and magical items, however you'd like. You don't need to use The Contract's Powers System. However, if a Playgroup Leader later decides that the item is unduly powerful (or maybe harms the story of the Setting), they can strip it or declare the Game void. 

Also, Contractors are never guaranteed to have any setting-granted items or abilities when they play Games in other Playgroups. They only bring their own Powers granted by the Gifts as rewards for completing Games. 

Tone

Let's start this section with a motivating question. Which of the following elements are acceptable to put in a Scenario?

• Someone's character is cursed and grows bunny ears permanently
• The players must kill a child to succeed the game
• The gang fights Santa Claus
• A pop-culture character makes a guest appearance
• There's an erotic or leading scene that must be roleplayed

The answer? It depends. All of these things have occurred in Scenarios that have been run in various Playgroups.

These are somewhat extreme examples, but the lesson is that what's acceptable in one group is not always acceptable in other groups. Things are rarely black and white, and the handling of a subject matter can make a huge difference in whether or not it seems okay. Try to get a grasp on what a particular set of players will balk at or embrace. Always consider your audience, and don't force your preferred tone down their throats. 

See the Content Warning at the very start of the Guide.

So is the extra reward worth the risk? Riskier tactics do not necessarily lead to greater rewards. In fact, a Contractor who has a Power that lets them cure cancer could achieve the same rewards as our kidnapper with far less risk by approaching a billionaire with cancer and making an offer they can't refuse.

Playgroup Leaders act as head GM for their Playgroup. They define the Playgroup's setting as well as it's culture and organization. They also settle disputes between Playgroup members about Contractors, Powers, and Contracts.

Most roleplayers are used to games where a single GM owns the entire Setting. However, The Contract has rotating game-masters and works best when all GMs have some ownership over the setting. Collaborative world-building allows your GMs to run Contracts that drive engagement with your Playgroup's setting, which creates a more fulfilling and exciting gameplay experience.

Sharing ownership of a setting can be intimidating, especially when you and the other GMs also act as Players. Luckily, it is easier than it appears.  

Ways to Share the Setting

Contracts in the Setting

Removed, isolated, repeatable Contracts are great from time to time, but the most fulfilling Contracts are those that take place in, and change the setting. 

• Ideally, most Contracts are events that happen a single time in a given Playgroup. Other Contractors in the Playgroup can hear about the events of the Contract, and the events change the world around them. 
• Contracts also work best when they tell a story, or when they reveal a Harbinger’s MO or backstory.

Tips for Engaging Players

Leading a Playgroup also means leading a group of Players, which comes with its own set of challenges.