THE ZONE Reference

# Key Moves

The key moves are a spiralling set of tools to help you escalate the experience and make things progressively worse for everyone in the expedition. Each one plays off the previous one. Use them frequently.

They build on each other:

  • Use Take Stock to add detail
  • Use Something's Not Right to escalate
  • Use Not So Easy to overcome obstacles and mutate your characters

All of the moves can be used by anyone, at any time.

# Take Stock

HOW TO USE THIS MOVE

  1. Starting with you, every player adds a sensory detail about the scene (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, or how your character feels). You can skip yourself if you don’t have anything in mind
  2. When everyone has spoken, return to collaborative storytelling

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Tips

  • Use it to quickly add delicious sensory details from the collective genius of the players. It's about the subjective experience: how does it feel to be there?
  • Especially good for setting up a new location or whenever things feel fuzzy

# Something's Not Right

HOW TO USE THIS MOVE

  1. The person who triggered the move says "Something's not right..." and what they think might be wrong
  2. Another player says “It’s worse than that...”, and describes how
  3. The player who said SOMETHING'S NOT RIGHT incorporates the escalation, and storytelling continues

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Tips

  • Use it when you need to ramp up the danger in a scene.
  • Especially good if you suspect there's a good Not So Easy situation but things aren't quite there yet

# Not So Easy

HOW TO USE THIS MOVE

  1. When someone describes their character doing something 'Not So Easy', interrupt by triggering this move (Anyone can say it! You can even call it on yourself)
  2. The person trying to do the thing restates what they wanted to happen, then draws a Not So Easy card to find out if it does
  3. That player then weaves the outcome and its complications (usually a mutation) into the story, and play continues

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Tips for Not So Easy cards

  • Not So Easy cards are the heart of this game; you're playing at the right level of intensity if they happen frequently.
  • They also give you power after death. The player with the most controls the endgame.
  • Don't leave a scene unless you've earned at least one!
  • Don't trigger more than one Not So Easy for a given problem
  • If you have many more Not So Easy cards than your other players, it's probably a a sign that you should be calling them on others instead of yourself

← Mutation →