When Sky and Sea Were Not Named is first and foremost a game of shared imagination. The Guide describes a scene or situation. The other players describe what their heroes do. Inevitably, the players’ choices will lead them into risky situations. At that point, players take actions and break out the dice to see what happens.  

But before any dice are rolled, there’s another aspect of the game to play: a conversation. The Guide can’t possibly describe every single thing the heroes see or hear. The other players should always ask questions about their surroundings and the characters they meet. 

This conversation is freeform and doesn’t involve rolling dice, but it’s still a vital part of the game. Here are some ways to structure the conversation to help everyone get on the same imaginary page, to help players roleplay their heroes, and to help the Guide describe the world in a clear and evocative way.

Ask Questions Like a Hero

Each aspect of your hero—your origin, your calling, and the lore you know—includes a short list of questions you can ask the Guide. These questions aren’t exclusive—they’re intended to frame the kind of things your character would know and signal to the Guide what kinds of information they should answer with.

When you ask the Guide questions about your surroundings or characters you meet, name the aspect of your character that would help you discern an answer. 

Revealing the World

Inevitably, the heroes’ players will ask questions that the Guide doesn’t have immediate or specific answers for. It’s okay for the Guide to improvise rough answers and tell players the gist of what they would know without delving into the details.  

It’s also okay for the Guide to give incomplete information that’s intended to spur the hero to embark on a riskier approach to gain the answer they seek. Just because a hero asks a question doesn’t mean the Guide is obligated to reveal everything.

When to (Not) Roll the Dice

If you’ve played other roleplaying games, you may be accustomed to rolling dice to determine whether your character knows something, remembers information, or notices a vital clue. But in WSSWNN, you don’t need to “roll to know.” Rolling dice is reserved for actions that carry some inherent risk. 

That said, learning information often requires putting yourself into a risky or contested position. Scouting a temple, for example, might put you in line of sight of the monsters occupying it—unless you take the Hide action. 

Inevitably, as the heroes’ exploration brings them closer to danger, the game shifts into action. 

Characters take actions to overcome challenges and opposition. When a character takes an action, their player rolls a die. The higher the roll, the better the character does. There are four types of actions: Attack, Brace, Compel, and Maneuver.

• Attacks use melee and ranged weapons, or fists and feet. They also include taking hold of a foe to set up certain brace actions. 

• Braces are acts of strength and determination. In combat, braces include grappling or shoving foes and standing fast to raise your guard.

• Compels are acts of will and intellect. They include deceiving and persuading other characters, and bolstering allies in combat.  

• Maneuvers rely on fast thinking and agility. In combat, maneuvers include evading, outflanking, and hiding from foes.   

WSSWNN uses six kinds of dice. Shorthand notes the number of sides each die has: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. Each character uses a particular-sized die for each type of action. For example, mighty Chom the Champion uses a d8 to attack and brace, a d6 to compel, and a d4 to maneuver. Agile Wandu the Wanderer, on the other hand, uses a d8 to Maneuver, a d6 to attack and compel, and a d4 to brace.

For our heroes in the balloon, the Guide decides that safely crash-landing in a forest is a ⓧ 3 | ⬖ 6  (moderate) challenge. That means an action roll of 7 or higher is a ✦ Success, a roll of 4–6 is a ⬖ Struggle, and a roll of 3 or lower is a ⓧ Failure. 

Challenges are somewhat freeform, and the Guide and other players can use the numerical results as scaffolding for their own narrations. The Guide also determines which types of actions—typically braces or maneuvers—are applicable to the challenge at hand. 

To determine which outcome happens for a given action, players compare the action roll to two numbers: the target character’s relevant attribute and their relevant defense. All characters have four attributes and four defense stats. Each type of action is resisted by a certain attribute/defense pair.

The system works the same as for challenges: the attributes are the fail thresholds, and the defenses are the struggle thresholds. If an action roll beats its target’s corresponding defense, it’s a ✦ Success. If it beats the target’s attribute but not their defense, it’s a ⬖ Struggle. If it beats neither attribute nor defense, it’s a ⓧ Failure.

Hiding is a Maneuver action, so it’s contested by a foe’s Intellect (attribute) and Awareness (defense). The action’s description—found in Chapter 2: How to Play—explains what happens for each of the action’s three possible outcomes:

✦ Success: You’re hidden from the character(s) until after you act. 

⬖ Struggle: The character(s) can take -1 awareness to discover your position.

ⓧ Failure: You fail to hide. You remain exposed to the character(s).

In this case, Wandu is trying to hide from a pair of spindly monsters called girtablins (Intellect 0, Awareness 3) who are scouting the area. 

Against 0 Intellect, Wandu can't outright fail (only a hero with penalties on their Maneuver roll could). But a 3 doesn't beat their Awareness, so she ⬖ Struggles to hide. Like most opposed actions, Hide favors the defender on a struggle outcome. The monsters notice Wandu hiding, but at a cost—the Guide notes their current Awareness drops from 3 to 2, leaving them slightly distracted and vulnerable to future maneuvers. 

In WSSWNN, bloodthirsty monsters are real and pose an imminent threat to the people of Tel-Kanan. While violence may not be the best solution to a problem, combat is a big part of the game. Heroes should always be prepared to defend themselves and their allies!

In battle, heroes must overcome their foes’ defenses while managing their own—particularly Guard, which prevents attacks from inflicting lethal damage. The girtablin monsters, armed with long spears that keep foes away, have 5 Guard. Wandu, only armed with a dagger, has 3 Guard. She’s outnumbered and vulnerable, but she’s fast—and the monsters are distracted. 

Instead of attacking directly, Wandu considers the risky Outflank maneuver, which costs her -1 awareness. Outflank’s outcomes are:

✦ Success: Make a free melee attack against the foe and add your Agility. 

⬖ Struggle: The foe can take -1 Awareness to cause your maneuver to fail.

ⓧ Failure: You provoke a free melee attack from the foe. 

Like hiding, the outflank maneuver succeeds if it beats the foe’s Awareness, which is currently only 2. Wandu reduces her own current Awareness from 6 to 5 and rolls to outflank. 

An attack succeeds, or hits, when it overcomes a foe’s Guard. The girtablin’s Guard is 5, so Wandu’s dagger strikes true. 

Her dagger, like many weapons, inflicts damage equal to the result (7), minus the foe’s Guard (–5), minus the foe’s Armor (–1) = -1 life. A glancing blow, but the spindly little creature only has 2 Life. 

A successful or blocked attack also usually inflicts -1 Guard, as the blow staggers the foe—making a future hit more likely. The Guide signals all this to Wandu’s player with the above description, while privately noting the attack’s effects on the girtablin’s stats: -1 life and -1 guard.