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Tone & Safety Tools

GM Reference · Chapter 04
Everything on this page is spoilers

Lines, veils, and how dark this table is actually willing to go.

How Dark This Actually Goes

The premise itself already commits to real weight, not GM discretion: Session 1 opens with people dying in the exit-flash the party didn't choose, and the Foundation's own operation runs on coerced D-Class test subjects and institutional control dressed up as public safety. A table that wants a lighter, bloodless campaign should reconsider before Session 1, not adjust after the fact. What is discretion: how graphic any of it gets on-screen, and pacing - how much room a heavy beat gets before the table moves on.

Lines & Veils

Already Decided - Not Up for Re-Litigation Table to Table

This campaign's real New Orleans history (Katrina flooding, plantation slavery, The Screen's own history as former slave quarters) gets touched directly, never played for spooky flavor or avoided outright - stated plainly, given real narrative weight, and where it's tied to a mechanic (The Floodline, The Overseer's Shade), built to spare anyone approaching in good faith. That's the established house style, already baked into what's live on the site.

Actually Up to This Table - Fill In Before Session 1, Revisit Any Time
Lines

Doesn't happen, full stop, no matter what the scene calls for.

Veils

Happens, but cuts away - implied, not shown.

The Tool

This table uses Lines & Veils only - no card, no signal. If something needs to stop or change mid-scene, someone just says so, and the table adjusts. That only works if everyone's actually willing to speak up in the moment, which is worth saying out loud once, directly, before it's ever needed.