Rules light, GM advice heavy. The Player and GM advice sections for my light system total 8 pages long, compared to the system's 15 pages! Too much? What should I cut first?

My goals for the system are:

1. Session 0 takes 15 minutes for new players with 0 other prep
2. Gentle learning curve. Beginner friendly.
3. Collaborative gamefeel (the fellowship element of gaming is prioritized)
4. Improvisation replaces most GM prep
5. Minimal bookkeeping and zero arithmetic required

I've edited the following GM advice loads, but I'd like to identify what I could ax. My vision is that a brand new GM will pick it up and feel as confident as possible running her first game. Is that unrealistic? Or is it dumb that I think a 15 page book is way more approachable than a 23 page book? Something tells me I could chop this advice WAY down.

My game uses *mostly* generic terms, but particulars are that the GM is called the Voice, PCs are called Protagonists (Protags) and Reveals are a way for players to narrate things into the fiction while the Voice decides how (un)reliable of a narrator the player is being. The following goes at the end of the book:

Behind the Curtain:

Most of what a Voice does is hidden in her mind where players will never see (like it's behind the curtain on a stage). Players almost never know when you make mistakes (or "happy little accidents.") In fact, when you don't keep details straight, players will often make sense of any disjointed content and presentation or not notice because they were thinking about what their characters want to do and how to do it.

Peel back the curtain as much or as little as you like, but if you're ever nervous you're not Voicing well, let the curtain keep you secure.

Make the fiction Obvious:

Give Players lots of clear information and reinforce important details. Subversion and mystery are fun for the Voice, but hard for Players because they need to develop a Protag and make bold choices. Remind Players of details from previous sessions. To drive key details home, ask for a Reveal such as, "How do you know this mirror-faced monster will consume your past?"

Make it easy:

These are some things to minimize to keep gameplay *easy and spontaneous:

1. Bookkeeping (tracking resources, equipment, and various points)
2. Simulating play mechanically (calculating things for realism)
3. Looking up rules (or lore, etc.)
4. Reading pages or paragraphs of description, monolog, or lore

*Complex and structured play can also be fun. Add rules to suit your group's tastes.

UNLIMITED POWER:

You're playing the game—the game doesn't play you. You have full power and permission to change rules, add your own, or play through events without using mechanics at all. Some of the best fun happens when you get caught up in the flow of a scene and forget rolling dice for a while.

Strong & Clever was made to be hacked, remixed, and homebrewed. While the game is tested and fun as is, every Voice and group can bring something special to it to get something special out of it.

Pro Tip: When ruling how to play events that don't have rules already, don't simulate things realistically, turn them into challenging choices. If you say, "This is the most realistic way of doing this activity," many players will argue "realistic" details and be unsatisfied with how they influence fiction. Instead, present gameplay choices that feel challenging and fit the vibe.

Borrowing Ideas:

Borrowing is one of the greatest ways to play TTRPGs. Any story you know, you can borrow characters, conflicts, and settings from. If you borrow inspiration and still make the world your own, you can Reveal original lore as it suits your story.

Preparation:

Most typical preparation("prep") a Voice does behind the curtain goes unseen and often unused because the game is designed to surprise and delight players and Voice alike with unexpected events. The only essential preparation is collaborating on the Premise and Protag creation. If you want to Voice a genre or style of story, modify the questions for Premise, and offer special backgrounds for Protagonists. Leave room for Players to Reveal parts of the setting.

Between episodes in a series, you can do fun worldbuilding for the upcoming episode or write custom Conflicts (triggered when players roll doubles.) Mostly, develop a cast of characters with backgrounds, relationships, properties(locations), and problems(quests). Characters are mobile, so you can introduce the right person wherever Protagonists go, creating a challenging scenario. You might also list enemies and items that would suit the series.

Keep your options open and only expect Protags to finish 2-3 scenes per hour of play at most.

Cut to Key Scenes:

If play between goal-oriented scenes would interrupt pacing, immersion, or foreshadowing, ask the players if they're ready to start the next scene at the time and place they intend to go. Players can veto.

For the Voice, this avoids the emptier scenes that are hard to come up with. For the Players, this provides a little bit of possibility space behind them. Players can Reveal preparations made between scenes. If needed, the Voice can call for rolls to see how attempts to prepare panned out.

Reward/Punishment:

Rewards work wonders. A robust, lively, healthy table culture can be built by recognizing, praising, and incentivizing actions that contribute positively. Bless Protags enthusiastically, and remember to help all Players shine.

Punishment knocks the wind out of play. Resist the human urge or temptation to punish a Player who acts badly. We're all flawed. If a Player does something that prevents others from having fun, including you, just be honest with her out-of-game right then.

Roleplay("RP"):

The heart of RP is "buying in" to the story you're telling, playing so that the fiction feels real. When the world and characters react to Protags in a way Players understand, the story becomes immersive. The Voice can set the tone and lead by example, being expressive in narration and using voices for characters. Talking in-character can be as easy as pretending to hold a lantern like the character does, or it can become a live performance with voices, mannerisms, and props.

It helps Players to roleplay if everyone refers to each other by Protag names. When a Player gets "in-character" she will likely describe her Protag's actions in first person and have clearly character-driven motivations and personality.

Out-of-character, the appeal of roleplay is getting immersed in an imaginary world where the fantastic is possible and choices matter.

Pretending together is naturally funny, so play along when RP turns into oddball behavior for comedy.

Because the Voice and Players are telling the story collaboratively, together you'll feel out the right level of immersion for the moment. The Voice can make a simple request like, "I want you to think in-character for this part," if the moment calls for that. The Voice might also consistently encourage and reward RP.

Beginner Tip: Players sometimes defer RP by rolling dice for Speech without speaking in-character. It can be hard to come up with the right words in a fictional context even if your Protag could. Just ask for the player's intention, have her roll [speech] to decide how well it is received, and narrate an outcome without worrying about specifics of what was said.

Social Encounters:

If you want players to solve conflicts diplomatically, make characters way more responsive than you naturally would. Even during combat. RP as if Protags are interesting. If Protags can pull off bombastic action, but social conflicts feel like mountains climbed by inches, then diplomacy isn't appealing and escalating to force is the choice that makes play interesting. Every character has a price, or has a problem a Protag can solve for her (a quest) in exchange for what Protags want.

Pro Tip: To gamify a conversation (see: RP Beginner Tip), make it 'winnable' by understanding a character or culture well enough to have influence. RP conversational clues or have players roll [knowledge] for them.

Put simply, Protags should learn to navigate a belief and/or a polite custom from local culture, and motivate the character according to her background. If the setting is multilingual, involve language/dialect barriers to overcome them with [knowledge] or [speech] respectively. Set a Progress Difficulty to persuade, earn trust, or negotiate. Players earn rolls to make Progress by saying the right things or at least using the right details.

Improvising Descriptions:

Risks and opportunities are the core of a scene, and flavorful details add interest. Between these, interpreting them, are the Protagonists. To make descriptions easier, prioritize parts of a setting Protags can interact with (risks and opportunities), then sensory details from the perspective of Protagonists, then ask for their impressions. If you ever feel stuck, ask Players to Reveal what else is there.

Keep in mind what is familiar and unfamiliar to Protags (and Players), and how it motivates them to move the story forward.

Example: *= Voice, # = Protag, () = thoughts.

*You emerge from the cover of trees and step into the open, your knee aching like it does before an oncoming storm. It looks like there's a cliff in front of you. You've heard that the underbelly of this floating island is festooned with priceless treasure, but nobody here is rich off of it.

# I hammer a stake into the ground near the cliff and tie my rope to it with a sailor's knot. Wait, are there any birds or wildlife out here?

*(there weren't, but is the player interested?) "Definitely could be. Would you like to find some?"

# I was imagining giant birds nested under the island or something, and I don't want to get attacked.

*You've heard legends of harpies, but they sound like the kind of monster Skyship sailors draw on corners of maps. Legends say their feathers hold magic power. To you, they sound suspiciously similar to sirens in the sky

# (I bet there are harpies. Its just a matter of what they're like.) "I go back to the cover of trees and observe for any signs of wildlife. Especially harpy screams."

*(I don't know exactly what kind of wildlife will live down there, but it should be a surprise. How do I make exploring tense and tempting?). "A storm is brewing. Wind is folding the grass over in swirls. Are you sure you want to wait there and leave your rope staked to the ground?"

# I don't know what to do then. I don't want to risk being attacked. What else is out here?

*The coast of this island is a unique and mysterious place. (I need an example.) There are unfamiliar plants among the grasses. What kinds of things might you be interested in?

# Vines that grow on the underside of the island like ivy. Something to climb down on or use as a safety net.

*(I need to use that idea to raise the stakes) "You take hold of your rope to be safe, peek over the edge, and see broad-leafed ivy, its vines crawling up the side of the island like a remnant

of the jurrassic period. It looks like it could shelter something below from rain, but the only way to see underneath is to climb down through the leaf canopy. You hear no harpy screams." (I need to tempt her.) "What kind of treasure might you expect is down there?"

# I don't know. Probably something magic.

*Nobody knows how the island floats. Could be the treasure underneath it is responsible. What's your goal if you go down? What would treasure do for you? Or are you exploring for another reason?

Protags bring meaning to choices and details, so its a good idea to ask and bring to the table what's important to the Protag and why. The desires and expectations of the Player show the Voice where description is valuable. When improvising, the Voice can lean on Players to collaborate and decide what's interesting or relevant.

Improvising Tension, Conflict, and Stakes:

The Voice adds tension to scenarios by raising stakes(what could be lost) and introducing conflict(what must be overcome) in a way that makes for tough choices (tension). This tension can be used for drama or comedy based on how Players respond to it. Players often relieve the pressure of tension by making jokes. This is a win for the Voice and the whole group! Sometimes Players instigate conflict themselves and the Voice can play along. To foster spontaneous and creative play, the Voice can present open-ended "sandbox" problems with no clear "right way" to play through them.

When improvising a conflict that fits into a plot, consider Protags for sources of conflict.

• What might Protags' choices lead to?
• What would a Protag take personally?
• What challenges a Protag's flaws or strengths?

Also consider the setting's motivations.

• What does the genre/setting call for?
• Where do Protags belong or not belong? What or who could be there?
• People covet good things. What is going well, which a helpful or hostile person could be interested in?

Highs and Lows:

The golden rule of game design is "Player experience is everything." Players have high peaks of fun when their Protags do awesome things. Other high points are discovery, drama, and immersion.

Low points make the peaks seem higher, but we wouldn't have Protags toil in frustration to make a low point. Instead, give failures tragic meaning. A Protag can be injured physically, materially, or relationally, (which may increase difficulty) but those consequences should be as closely connected to her choices as possible.

When you can, let the player choose between two consequences to a failure.

Example: You're about to be devoured by this dragon. Will you slide down her gullet and see what waits in the darkness, or impale yourself on her teeth and thrash until your dying breath?

Tactical Combat:

The best action presents a challenge so difficult that Players play creatively to emerge victorious. MAKE IT DANGEROUS.

Run enemies relentlessly hard. Target the Defenseless, exploit weaknesses, and make Protags earn victories. The complexity of Voicing the environment and multiple unique enemies means you'll sometimes make mistakes. Don't worry, Players can't tell.

You can secretly make up for missed opportunities. Auto-Crit with the next reaction. This is "fighting dirty," the Voice equivalent of Protag actions dealing extra Damage. Don't deny Players the full enjoyment of an enemy because a detail slipped by you at one point. Fight dirty!

Start a battle with as few enemies as possible and add enemies after 1-2 rounds so that you can adjust difficulty as fights progress. This is important because dice rolls vary wildly, so you may add stronger/weaker enemies to keep the challenge lively but not too lethal. New enemies also keep the battle fresh. Don't forget to flee or surrender when a battle seems clearly lost on either side.

Pro tip: For experienced players, make the live round timer shorter each round.

Messy Combat:

Voices naturally narrate a failed attack comedically; the worse the roll, the more slapstick the whiff, while a great roll makes the target seem like a straw man. That's good for a light, casual tone.

For immersion, narrate the defender blocking and struggling desperately to hurt the attacker. Narrate superficial backlash like, "You slam her sword aside and gash her right leg. That'll give her a limp. But as you step back, she trades a wild slice to your collar, splitting fabric under your throat."

The more threatening enemies feel, the cooler it feels to beat them. Everyone gets bloody, bruised, and dirty in a fight.

Rules and Rulings:

Rules are written down only to remember and share; the wording doesn't matter, but the way the Voice applies them does. The Voice holds the power to add, remove, or bend rules to serve the table. Players rely on her to provide a satisfying and believable challenge. Set difficulty and apply consequences with consistency to create immersive play.

Refer to the deadliness a Player chose at the Premise if a player argues a ruling should save her Protag from getting hurt. Players can use the Magic Phrase, "But what if it didn't happen that way?" if they truly want to change the way a rule was applied or what the dice rolled.

Exposition, Mysteries, and Lore:

When Protags encounter a clue, ask a Player to roll [knowledge] and foreshadow with the result, or let her Reveal what it foreshadows. To uncover a mystery or follow a trail, a clue should point to the next clue with variable risks and opportunities.

A low result may cause a Protag to remember a rumor, get a hunch leading through danger, or observe genre-relevant details to build immersion. A high result should make the Protag remember deep and helpful lore, find opportunity, and understand intelligent options to move forward.

End Credits:

Ask the Protags (from their perspectives) about the following parts of the episode. Write notes on what got the most excitement or attention.

This is fuel for Protag Progression, continuing a series, and understanding how players experienced the game you Voiced. They also get to understand each other better and connect on what they enjoyed.

Pro Tip: If you get a plain answer, ask, "What did you think/feel about that?" Write notes for what the players remembered and liked or didn't.

1. What was this episode about? (Each Protag gives her perspective)
2. Places you went + people you met there
3. Each Protag's best moment
4. Things left unfinished

If continuing a series, Players need at least an index card to write their Protags' essential features. On the back, they should each record things gained and lost (record Strong size, injuries, equipment, etc.) Anything useful or harmful for the future.