GM book · 1.0.0 · 120-minute plan · 4 players
Promises have become little objects in a civic archive. Its shelves are full, and a librarian cannot return the promise she made to her sister.
Content notice: Commitment, family disappointment and consent; nobody must share a real promise.
Archivist Rhea classified unresolved promises as permanent deposits. That prevents owners from revising them, so the objects accumulate. A consent-based renewal card releases a deposit; sealing new intake stops the overload but leaves old promises unresolved.
Use your own rules or play without dice. State the goal, choose an approach, explain a reasonable cost and let the players decide. Plausible careful actions succeed; uncertain actions can succeed with delay, spent supplies or a favour owed. Evidence is always available through its described action. Each player creates an ordinary person with a useful skill, a reason to help, and an item. No character sheet, monster statistics or proprietary rulebook is needed.
Take 10 minutes to introduce characters, read the premise and discuss the content notice. Anyone may say “pause”, pass on a description, or ask to move an uncomfortable moment offstage. Agree on no combat and on treating consequences as delay or repair, not permanent harm. Give one player the route map and another the time sheet.
Follow both investigations; take the break before the immediate problem.
Total: 120 minutes.
Place: Archive lobby
A jar containing a tiny ladder trembles on the lobby desk. Noel says it is a promise to help paint a ceiling.
The archive’s rule, not broken promises alone, causes the overload. Pause the service as a fallback. Begin with the concrete request in the premise. Ask each character why they care and give them one ordinary useful item. Read both public observations without requiring a roll. Explain that the marked routes are safe to investigate, and offer a choice of the records or the visible trail. Let the group appoint a map reader; do not use hidden travel rolls to block the first lead.
If conversation or a test fails, give the public card anyway. A clear sign points to Promise vault. A missing method can be found again at Renewal shelf; no character skill is required.
Noel: Recover a promise without making it binding forever Offers directions and ordinary transport for news of the outcome. Voice: Patient, concrete sentences; ask one practical question.
Timeline record: Every overflowing shelf is stamped PERMANENT; no owner has a renewal card.
Give it: Inspect the visible labelled object. Give its full text automatically; a check affects time or extra colour only.
GM inference: The archive’s rule, not broken promises alone, causes the overload.
Fallback instruction: Closing new intake stops the shelves growing while old deposits stay safe.
Give it: Inspect the visible labelled object. Give its full text automatically; a check affects time or extra colour only.
GM inference: Pause the service as a fallback.
Continue: Records and tools or An independent trail
Place: Card desk
Imi lays out cards marked KEEP, CHANGE and RELEASE. The old catalogue has only one box: PERMANENT.
Consent-based revision clears deposits. The archivist is in the vault. Put the method card and destination note on the table. Ask what the two objects suggest, then answer direct practical questions from their wording. The maker can trade tools for help carrying or recording them, but refusal never removes these public documents. The trail remains another route. A check, if your rules use one, changes the time or tidiness of the work rather than whether this evidence exists.
If conversation or a test fails, give the public card anyway. A clear sign points to Promise vault. A missing method can be found again at Renewal shelf; no character skill is required.
Imi: Create a record for a promise that can change Lends supplies if a character helps carry or catalogue them. Public instructions remain available. Voice: Quick, exact words; point at tools while speaking.
Method diagram: A willing owner may mark KEEP, CHANGE or RELEASE and sign a renewal card.
Give it: Inspect the visible labelled object. Give its full text automatically; a check affects time or extra colour only.
GM inference: Consent-based revision clears deposits.
Destination note: Rhea’s duty card places her in the promise vault.
Give it: Inspect the visible labelled object. Give its full text automatically; a check affects time or extra colour only.
GM inference: The archivist is in the vault.
Continue: An independent trail or The immediate problem
Place: Delivery steps
Gus’s delivery basket is full of keys, pebbles and folded paper stars. Nobody has signed the old receipts.
A physical trail reaches her. A witness supplies the destination. Describe the physical trail before asking for a decision. The witness tells what they actually observed and admits what they did not see. If the group refuses conversation, the physical route supplies the destination. Let a character compare the timeline and another trace the map. For a divided group, take one short turn per side, then reunite at the meeting; do not add another travel encounter.
If conversation or a test fails, give the public card anyway. A clear sign points to Promise vault. A missing method can be found again at Renewal shelf; no character skill is required.
Gus: Deliver overdue tokens to willing owners Guides the party if they share a plan. If refused, points to the visible trail. Voice: Cautious, distinguish observation from assumption.
Physical trail: A trail of garden leaves falls from the model toward the vault.
Give it: Inspect the visible labelled object. Give its full text automatically; a check affects time or extra colour only.
GM inference: A physical trail reaches her.
Witness statement: Gus saw Rhea carry her garden model into the vault.
Give it: Ask any direct question, or read the witness’s signed statement if conversation is refused.
GM inference: A witness supplies the destination.
Continue: Records and tools or The immediate problem
Place: Promise vault
Rhea stands among shelves of objects that lean toward the door. She holds a small model of a shared garden.
Archivist Rhea classified unresolved promises as permanent deposits. That prevents owners from revising them, so the objects accumulate. A consent-based renewal card releases a deposit; sealing new intake stops the overload but leaves old promises unresolved. State the immediate stakes and offer both listed approaches. Before resolving action, ask who observes, who acts and who helps. Make any cost visible before a player accepts it. Avoid demanding a special ability or spell. When a plan fails, use the slower listed route and mark its time cost; people remain recoverable. Once the goal is safe, mark the immediate goal safe and continue. A refusal by the keeper cannot hide the marked safety instructions.
Close intake and schedule private renewal appointments. Explain a five-minute delay before they accept it; mark the immediate goal safe when the people or resource are secured.
Rhea: Ask her sister to revise a promise she cannot fulfil Explains both solutions when the party agrees to protect the immediate goal; the marked instructions are available regardless. Voice: Calm under pressure; admit the decision and its cost.
Safety marks: No one may sign for another owner. A missing owner’s token goes to WAITING, not RELEASE.
Give it: Inspect the visible labelled object. Give its full text automatically; a check affects time or extra colour only.
GM inference: Resolve the archive without overriding absent people.
A delay leaves less time for the final repair or decision. Explain costs before resolving an action.
Approach A: Invite present owners to choose cards; move absent owners’ tokens to a dated waiting shelf.
Approach B: Close intake and schedule private renewal appointments.
4 players: Two pairs take observation and action tasks. Resolve them in two short alternating turns.
Mark the immediate goal safe after either safe approach; a setback costs time, not access to the next scene.
Continue: The final choice
Place: Renewal shelf
The renewal shelf is empty except for three card slots. It seems built for a choice the archive stopped offering.
Consent-based revision clears deposits. Resolve the archive without overriding absent people. Reveal the method and fallback together. Ask the group which tradeoff it accepts and give every character a small contribution. Mark the complete method for the first choice or the fallback method for the second. A risky improvisation should inherit one of these outcomes after its cost is explained, rather than create a third unprepared lock. Keep the immediate goal safe. Return by the known marked route; no new location needs to be invented.
Pause intake and preserve the model until her sister can reply. Mark the fallback method, keep the immediate goal safe and read the cost ending. Do not repeat a failed test.
Imi: Create a record for a promise that can change Lends supplies if a character helps carry or catalogue them. Public instructions remain available. Voice: Quick, exact words; point at tools while speaking.
Rhea: Ask her sister to revise a promise she cannot fulfil Explains both solutions when the party agrees to protect the immediate goal; the marked instructions are available regardless. Voice: Calm under pressure; admit the decision and its cost.
Method diagram: A willing owner may mark KEEP, CHANGE or RELEASE and sign a renewal card.
Give it: Inspect the visible labelled object. Give its full text automatically; a check affects time or extra colour only.
GM inference: Consent-based revision clears deposits.
Fallback instruction: Closing new intake stops the shelves growing while old deposits stay safe.
Give it: Inspect the visible labelled object. Give its full text automatically; a check affects time or extra colour only.
GM inference: Pause the service as a fallback.
The complete method preserves the planned service; the fallback preserves the immediate goal at a visible cost.
Approach A: Let Rhea request a revised garden promise and adopt renewal cards for the archive.
Approach B: Pause intake and preserve the model until her sister can reply.
4 players: Work in two pairs, one following the method and the other preparing a fallback or record.
Mark the complete method for the first approach or the fallback method for the second. Both allow return and an ending.
Continue: Home and aftermath
Place: Archive lobby
A ladder dissolves into a warm draft. Its owner keeps the decision, rather than an object that makes the decision for them.
Choose a complete resolution or a resolution with a cost, then ask the group what happens next. Read the ending matching the selected outcome. Invite each character to add one ordinary detail to the aftermath, then ask the keeper for a concrete next action. Record who accepted the cost and which clues went unused. Spend the last few minutes on one enjoyable moment and one thing to change next time. Characters need not solve every optional inference to earn a resolved ending.
If no method was chosen, first confirm the immediate goal is safe, use the final fallback method and then read the cost ending. Record the unresolved work and give every character an epilogue.
Noel: Recover a promise without making it binding forever Offers directions and ordinary transport for news of the outcome. Voice: Patient, concrete sentences; ask one practical question.
Rhea: Ask her sister to revise a promise she cannot fulfil Explains both solutions when the party agrees to protect the immediate goal; the marked instructions are available regardless. Voice: Calm under pressure; admit the decision and its cost.
No new evidence required.
Continue: Read an ending and close the session.
The shelf clears one decision at a time. Rhea writes a smaller garden plan and sends it as a request, with room for an answer.
First secure the immediate goal at Promise vault. Choose this ending only after final method A is used at Renewal shelf.
New intake closes. The tokens rest safely behind glass while invitations go out for patient, individual conversations.
First secure the immediate goal at Promise vault. Choose this ending only after final method B is used at Renewal shelf.
The archive’s rule, not broken promises alone, causes the overload.
Timeline record
Proceed to Promise vault
Destination note OR Physical trail OR Witness statement
Resolve the archive without overriding absent people.
Safety marks · the marked safety instructions supply a fallback.
Give Rhea a choice about her own promise.
Method diagram OR Fallback instruction
h-order: The archive’s rule, not broken promises alone, causes the overload.
h-fallback: Pause the service as a fallback.
h-method: Consent-based revision clears deposits.
h-note: The archivist is in the vault.
h-trail: A physical trail reaches her.
h-witness: A witness supplies the destination.
h-safe: Resolve the archive without overriding absent people.
Record the ending, one memorable choice, and any unresolved work. Ask what was enjoyable and what needs to change. The time plan is a starting point; adapt it to your group.
Start at Archive lobby. Card desk and Delivery steps are independent investigation routes; both connect to Promise vault, which leads to Renewal shelf. All marked connections are bidirectional. Return uses the known route to Archive lobby.
At Promise vault, the marked entrance reaches the immediate problem. Approach A: Invite present owners to choose cards; move absent owners’ tokens to a dated waiting shelf. Approach B: Close intake and schedule private renewal appointments. Both reach the onward route. Layout is schematic, with no combat grid or movement scale.
Original AI-assisted fiction. Use and adapt at your own table. Public redistribution and publication terms are to be set by the owner. This package includes no proprietary game rules.