Native Rules

Playing Mar de Oro

What a session of Mar de Oro feels like, and the habits that make the Native Rules sing.

From intention to outcome

State the goal: what changes if this works?
Describe the method: what does the character actually do?
Choose the relevant Skill and Capability.
Establish Risk and Effect before rolling. Players can change approach, find Cover, create Setup, use equipment, improve position or abandon the attempt.
Roll 2d6 + Capability. Apply a Specialist Die only when a narrow Strength directly fits.
Apply the result once. On 7–9 the action succeeds and the established consequence also happens.
Describe the new situation; it determines what can happen next.

One roll answers one meaningful question. Do not turn it into separate attack, defence, armour, damage and morale rolls unless a rule explicitly creates another decision.

Native Rules, Chapter 9, p. 80.

At the table: the Receiver Room

A pressure line screams in a damaged airship receiver room. An armed guard waits behind a waist-high console while a Fortera pattern feeds back through the machinery. The GM starts a 6-segment Receiver Cascade clock because the failure worsens if nobody acts.

Read the trouble

Scout: “I study the gauges and vibration. What's actually failing?” GM: “Observation +2, with your relevant Strength's Specialist Die. Low Risk, Standard Effect; the danger is lost time.”

The Scout rolls 3d6, keeps the highest two and adds +2. Success reveals a feedback loop and marks 2 segments toward understanding and controlling it.

Make an opening

The Officer warns the guard about the feed line to draw his attention away from the Engineer. The GM calls Command Setup, Serious Risk and Standard Effect, naming a guard shot as the danger.

A 7–9 creates the opening and the guard fires back as the stated consequence. The Officer chooses +1 Effect for the Engineer's next directly supported action. The consequence does not cancel the successful Setup or add another Setup benefit.

Reach the regulator

The Engineer isolates the damaged branch: Engineering +2, Serious Risk. The Setup raises Standard Effect to Great; a rupturing line is the named danger. A 10+ repairs it cleanly and marks 3 clock segments, with no extra repair roll, damage roll or machinery save.

Deal with the field

The Fortera Musketeer uses Sense to identify the remaining field feedback. Redirecting it at the intended scale is one Capacity above the safe limit. The GM names Strained as the Overdraw cost before the player chooses to continue.

The Fortera Working succeeds, redirecting the remaining problem into a grounded fitting. The character marks Strained: a known price, not a surprise punishment.

Now the guard matters

The receiver settles, but the guard still has a pistol behind the console. Switch to Personal Combat when order, movement, Cover and Facing matter. The repaired receiver changes the room's danger; it grants no hidden combat bonus.

Source: pp. 81–82. The PDF describes 2 then 3 progress segments on a 6-segment clock, then resolves the remaining problem through Fortera without specifying a further segment award. This reference preserves that sequence rather than inventing a total or extra roll. Dialogue above is condensed, not a verbatim transcript.

The shape of a session

Open with a situation that already has pressure in it: a deadline, an order, a rumour with a cost.
Let the characters choose their approach. The rules reward a plan far more than a good roll.
Put at least one clock on the table where the players can see it.
Escalate Risk only when the fiction has earned it, and say so out loud.
Close on a consequence the table will still be thinking about next week.

What the rules reward

Preparation, position and honesty about danger. A character who scouts, sets up, and brings the right tool is playing the game as designed. Firearms, Fortera and formations are all decisive when used deliberately and punishing when improvised.

Tone

Mar de Oro is age-of-sail politics with a strange physics underneath it. Keep the harbour, the paperwork, and the chain of command real; the wonder lands harder when the world around it is ordinary. The How Mar de Oro Plays chapter covers the play philosophy shared by every way of running the setting.