Acts, Scenes and Altercations
Tension Tokens
Tension Tokens are a meta currency used by the Game Moderator. As their name may suggest, they represent the tension that arises from the player's actions, or sometimes in-action. These tokens allow the Game Moderator to interrupt the player's actions in order to activate adversaries, boost the potency of their actions or perform special abilities.
The Game Moderator will maintain two collections of these token. One collection belonging to the current Act and the other belonging to the Scene. Each time a new Scene begins, its token pool is reset to a number of tokens equal to the number of player characters. Likewise, when a new Act begins, its token pool is reset to one (1). Tokens assigned to the Act's pool are able to accumulate and be spent across scenes, whereas all other token pools will usually get reset at the conclusion of a scene.
Accumulating Tokens
The most common way for a Game Moderator to accumulate tokens is as a consequence of a player's Action Roll. These tokens are then assigned to either the current Scene or Act. If the circumstances around the gain are narrative significant, the Game Moderate ma choose to add the token to the Act's pool, representing a rising tension that may resolve in a later scene. Otherwise, it is added to the Scene's pool.
Additional sources of Tension Tokens come from Adversaries being introduced into a scene or when a player character initiates an action roll. By default, all adversaries, when introduced into a scene, have two tokens assigned to them, however there some more impactful adversaries (ie the big bad) may start with additional tokens.
Spending Tokens
When spending Tension Tokens, the Game Moderator must use them in a way that is connected with the pool they are used from. Tokens from a player character can only be used in relation to that character and each adversary can only use their tokens around something that adversary is doing. Scene and Act tokens with anything that is part of the current scene being played out.
Discarding Player Tokens
If all the player characters within a scene have one or more Tension Tokens assigned to them, then the players, as a collective, may choose to discard some of their tokens after an action roll has been resolved. Every player character within the scene must, at the same time, each discard the same number of Tension Tokens.
All tension tokens assigned to player characters are discarded at the beginning on a new scene.