The Flow of Play

The flow of campaigns and sessions can be broken into major parts. We use these parts throughout this book to better understand the major components of a campaign.

The first major components are Chapters of the story. Each Chapter is a major arc or aspect of the story. For example, your players need to find their way out of a city, but this process takes multiple sessions involving escaping a dungeon, finding locals to help them hide, getting ready for a trip, and then escaping the city itself. Like a chapter in a book, the completion of these events often constitutes a chapter in the story. Chapters are often great points at which to award Milestones for characters that symbolize the growth of characters.

Chapters provide natural breaking points for both story and character development. They allow players to reflect on what their characters have accomplished, how they’ve changed, and what new challenges await them. For GMs, chapters help organize long-term story arcs while providing flexibility to adapt to player choices and unexpected developments.

Awarding Milestones:
Milestones are moments when characters can gain more abilities and powers. The rate at which one awards milestones often varies based on the desired pace of growth. Multiverse characters are functional without Milestones and show a fair amount of skill with their starting abilities. As such, Milestone awards are more related to the style of play than a requirement. Some campaigns can be “low power” where Milestones will be awarded after a few chapters or not at all. Other campaigns may want quick advancement, awarding a Milestone at every chapter or even more frequently. Most campaigns are somewhere in between, and a good rule of thumb is to follow the complexity of the encounters. If encounters are becoming such that players continue to struggle, then it is time to encourage growth. Such growth is not only rewarding for players, it allows GMs to provide more complex situations and scenarios for their players while keeping it fun.

Scenes

Chapters are then made up of Scenes with typically 2-3 scenes during a single session. A scene is an important element in the Multiverse system as not only does it help the GM think about scenarios as combined encounters, but it is also a common “time limit” on abilities. Scenes can be combat, which is measured from the start to end of combat. They can also be extended time, such as travel to a different town (until a rest window). In general, scenes represent a discrete period of time, no more than a few hours or a reasonable time that makes sense given the situation. The duration of power activation is then a matter of tension. Combat requires more energy than a leisurely discussion at the sauna. Both may be valuable and important scenes, but the stress on a character’s abilities is different.

Types of Scenes: Here are some examples of scene types, but these are only loose guidelines.

Action Scenes: High-intensity moments like combat, chases, or dangerous stunts
Social Scenes: Negotiations, investigations, or relationship-building encounters
Exploration Scenes: Discovering new locations, solving puzzles, or navigating hazards
Downtime Scenes: Rest, recovery, shopping, or pursuing personal goals

The key to good scene pacing is variety. A session with three consecutive combat scenes might feel exhausting, while three social scenes in a row might feel slow for action-oriented players. Mix different types of scenes to create engaging rhythm and give all players opportunities to shine.

Scene Transitions: Moving smoothly between scenes helps maintain narrative flow. Sometimes transitions happen naturally through player actions, while other times the GM needs to actively shift focus. Techniques include:

Cut to Black: End one scene dramatically and begin the next in a different location or time
Follow Through: Let one scene’s consequences directly lead into the next situation
Time Skip: Jump forward to skip boring travel or waiting periods
Split Focus: Alternate between different groups or viewpoints

Rest Periods

Between scenes are Rest Periods. These can be short rests (a few hours) or long rests (a night’s sleep). Technically, AP refreshes with a “long rest” for everyone, but in truth, it refreshes with enough downtime between scenes that the GM feels the players had time to regain their energy. A long rest is the natural breaking point, but GMs should feel free to adjust based on the situation and actions of the day.

The concept of rest in Multiverse is more about narrative pacing than strict timekeeping. If your characters just survived a harrowing dungeon escape and are hiding in a safe house catching their breath, that might count as sufficient rest even if only an hour passes in the story. Conversely, if they’re forced to keep moving through dangerous territory for days, the GM might delay AP recovery until they finally reach true safety.

Managing Resources: Rest periods create natural tension around resource management. Players must decide when to use their powerful abilities and when to conserve AP for later challenges. GMs can use the promise or denial of rest to create dramatic pressure. Sometimes the heroes must push forward despite exhaustion because innocent lives hang in the balance.

Turns

When working through scenes it is important for GMs to guide the actions so players can take turns each participating and adding to the story. While the turns may not be explicit, it is suggested to get an idea of what players want to do, then continue from there.

Free-Form Play: Most of the time, Multiverse operates in free-form mode where players naturally take turns describing their actions and the GM responds with consequences and new developments. This creates organic conversation and collaborative storytelling. The GM’s role is to ensure everyone gets opportunities to contribute and that no single player dominates the scene.

Structured Turns: Sometimes, the role of taking turns needs to be precise. At this point, the GM may move actions to a turn-by-turn basis. While combat is the most obvious case, it doesn’t have to be combat. Any case where time needs to slow down so players can carefully think through actions, such as disarming a bomb, escaping a burning building, or other actions where order of choices matters, it makes sense to slow down relative time into turn-by-turn based play.

When to Use Structured Turns:

Combat situations where positioning and timing matter
Complex skill challenges requiring coordination
Tense situations where seconds count
Any scenario where player action order affects outcomes
When players start talking over each other or acting simultaneously in ways that create confusion

Initiative Systems

Turn-by-turn based play often needs an order. There isn’t a single rule to follow, and should ideally be based on group and play style. Here are a few options and suggestions for determining “initiative” order.

Rolled Order: Have players roll their Agility die modified by any passive abilities that may affect the situation. Are they on a ship? Then someone with Blessing of the Seas may have an advantage adding their ability die to the roll. Are they in a storm? Then Blessing of the Storms may give them a slight advantage. We suggest keeping this order for the entire scene. If someone wants to move down in their order, that is allowed, but the next scene it resets.

Agility Order: Simply place ordering based on Agility die type. This often works better for non-combat scenes, but actions such as fleeing need to happen in turn-based order. This method is quick and requires no rolling, making it perfect for situations where you need to establish order quickly.

Everyone Together: This play style is fun, especially when using theater of the mind (not using maps to visualize the scene). Have all players announce their actions, then the GM handles those actions based on the NPC actions — essentially everything happens together. This has the advantage of less debate and adds to the chaos of battle. The next round continues the same way. When using this style, actions such as death and knockout happen at the end of the turn, so even a creature dying may have gotten one last strike.

Initiative Cards/Tarot Cards: Assign a card such as a tarot or playing card to each player and NPC. Each round, shuffle the cards, then flip the cards over to determine the order. This ordering causes a little bit of chaos while keeping a set order each turn. This method works especially well for groups that enjoy the unpredictability and dramatic tension of not knowing who acts when.

Narrative Order: The GM simply decides who goes next based on what makes the most narrative sense. This gives maximum flexibility but requires a GM who can make quick, fair decisions while maintaining dramatic flow.

Downtime
Not everything is an adventure. Treat downtime as a single scene with the caveat that the number of actions can be limited. Players can use downtime to train, build up their bases, create items including Artifice, or work on rituals (see Artifice and Rituals in Equipment). Downtime scenes are particularly important for character development, relationship building, and exploring personal storylines that don’t fit into action-packed adventures.

Session Structure

While every session is unique, successful Multiverse sessions often follow certain patterns that help create satisfying experiences:

Opening: Begin with a brief recap of previous events and check in with players about their characters’ current goals and mental state. This helps everyone get back into character and reminds the group of important plot threads.

Hook: Present the situation or challenge that will drive the session. This might continue from previous sessions or introduce something entirely new. The best hooks connect to character motivations and give players clear reasons to get involved.

Development: The bulk of the session involves players pursuing their goals, facing obstacles, and making choices that drive the story forward. This typically includes 2-3 scenes of varying types.

Resolution: Sessions work best when they provide some sense of closure, even if larger story arcs remain unfinished. Players should feel like they accomplished something meaningful, learned something important, or made progress toward their goals. Particularly good GMs know when to have a resolution, and when to leave the players on cliff hanger. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a resolution, just a moment of “until next time.”

Looking Forward: End with hints about future developments or ask players what their characters want to do next. This helps with session planning and keeps everyone engaged between sessions.

With that in mind, the following sections detail some of the many actions players can perform during a typical scene, including extended actions and combat.

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