Glossary

Active character

When more than one player character is present, the character whose action the roll answers. The Tell and the Impression are read through them alone. The others get only what the active character shares, or what is plainly observable to anyone present. One roll per moment — never one per character.

Aim

The thing the character is trying to get done right now. You set it during Ignition, and it goes on World Pressure beside the Stake — it is the arc, not the first scene’s question. It works best when it is clear, actionable, and under pressure.

Approach

The character’s face of the Pressure d8 — CAREFUL, RECKLESS, STRATEGIC, URGENT, SECRETIVE, DIRECT, METHODICAL, OPPORTUNISTIC. It says how the character instinctively acts before they know the complete answer. Read only in a backwards reading, and read first, before the Result — that is what makes it a firewall. It is rendered into one concrete Impulse, which can be Followed or Resisted. See Backwards reading, Impulse.

Backwards reading

The reading to use when you know something the character doesn’t and could use it to pick their best move. It needs a real point of contact — a door opened, a room entered, a person approached. Read the Approach first, turn it into one immediate action, Follow or Resist, resolve the action with your host RPG, then read the waiting Result through what that action and that outcome let the character experience. Do not read the paired Complication. Do not roll again after the action. See Forwards reading.

Beat

A Pressure Clock fills one Beat at a time. Each Lens roll produces a Conflict Tag and a Resistance value, and that value is added as Beats to the clock. Once the total reaches the clock’s size, it fills and the world Commits. Resisting an Approach in a backwards reading adds one more Beat under the same tag — never untagged.

Belief

What the character currently takes to be true — one claim the world hasn’t confirmed, a theory or a prediction, in their voice. Beliefs are written on the Pressure Card’s ledger with a rating from 1 to 5: 1 a hunch, 2 reason to think it, 3 a conviction. Write them using only the Tell, the Impression, and your host RPG’s outcome — never what you know and the character doesn’t. The rating is the Yes/No likelihood, and it measures how far the record on the Card supports the Belief. It moves one step per Fact that bears on it — a Commit, a host result, the source, a tested Belief — up or down, and by nothing else. A Commit never writes a Belief; the character does, from any source. A Belief is tested when you judge the moment has come (see Belief test), and every open Belief is tested when World Pressure fills. A Belief can never be certain: 5 is the ceiling.

Belief ledger

The part of the Pressure Card that holds the character’s mind: Beliefs, rated 1 to 5, and Questions, unrated. Ratings move only when a Fact bears on them — one step per Fact, up or down — and never on an Impression. Four states of knowledge on one card: observed is the Tell, inferred is a Belief, unresolved is a Question, confirmed is a Fact.

Belief test

Asking the world whether a Belief is true, when you judge the moment has come. Roll the Yes/No dice at the Belief’s rating, Twist die alongside. Read in order: answer die against the rating for yes or no — doubles for decisive — twist die on a 1 or a 6 for and or but. Confirmed, the theory holds or the prediction lands — wrong, the character was mistaken, duped, or the world went another way. Doubles on a yes closes the thread — doubles on a no means the character was led, and names an author. Never repeated. Either way the line leaves the ledger and its answer joins the Facts — wrong is a fact too, and the Belief does not return to 1 to be rebuilt; if the character still believes something, that is a new Belief at 1. If the source already answers, there is no roll.

Commit

When a Pressure Clock fills, the world changes. That change is called a Commit. It may happen in front of the character or somewhere beyond their awareness, but either way it is now part of the fiction. The Dominant Tag shapes its flavour. A Commit is a Fact: it moves any Belief it bears on, and it never writes one. You can use the word as a verb or a noun: the clock Commits, and afterwards there is a Commit.

Complication

The object’s face of the Pressure d8 — DELICATE, VOLATILE, CONNECTED, FLEETING, CONCEALED, OVERT, LAYERED, EXPLOITABLE. It belongs to the thing being perceived and adds a second fact that makes the Result not simple: ORDERED + CONCEALED is a clear chain of command whose source is out of sight. Read only in a forwards reading. A Complication modifies the Result — it never introduces an unrelated event — and you never pay to rewrite one. See Forwards reading, Pressure d8.

Conflict Tag

The label that tells you what kind of pressure the world is applying: Threat, Exposure, Cost, Pressure, Control, Clue, Reputation, or Uncanny. Each tag comes paired with a value, +1 or +2, and that value becomes the Resistance added to the active Pressure Clock. The tag names the kind of pressure a Result adds, not whether the roll was good or bad. See Reputation for the one tag with a rule of its own.

Confrontation

The scenario-level crisis that arrives when World Pressure fills — the climax the session has built toward. The Stake comes due, in the shape of World Pressure’s Dominant Tag, and every open Belief is tested. Read off the Pressure Card and resolved with your host RPG. See World Pressure, Stake, Belief test.

d10 / d12 toggle

See Result die.

Dial

The part of a Palette that speaks to the dice — and it is not a new mechanic. The Dial is a genre’s read on the core d10/d12 choice, naming the moments in that genre that call for the d12. Everything else in a Palette changes only reading. See Palette, Result die.

Diegetic authority

What the player holds in Lens: free to act as the character, but not free to decide what the world means. In a forwards reading you have earned the answer, and you simply choose what to do with it. In a backwards reading, Resisting the Approach borrows a sliver of that world-deciding authority — and pays for it with one more Beat under the same tag. You never pay to rewrite a Complication. That would be the author’s chair.

Dominant Tag

When a clock fills, look at which Conflict Tag contributed the most Beats. That tag is dominant, and it shapes the Commit. You only ever have one Dominant Tag. If two or more tags tie, the dominant one is the most recently rolled of the tied tags — the earlier tag remains on the Card from when it was rolled, part of the situation, but it does not shape this Commit.

Fact

Anything confirmed on the world’s side of the Pressure Card: a Commit, a host result, a reveal from the source, or a tested Belief. Facts are true whether the character knows them or not. A Fact that bears on a Belief moves its rating one step; Beliefs never move Facts.

Family

One of the five columns of the Lens Tables, each answering a different kind of question. Perceive: what do I notice? Discover: what do I find out? Relate: what happens between us? Act: what happens when I commit? Endure: what does it do to me? Each family has five tables and its own index page. See Lens Table.

Felt

The first of the States of Concrete (see also Pattern, Commit, Target). At the moment of the roll, a Lens result remains felt, not fixed: the plain fact of what is objectively there, the character’s subjective read of it in the Tell and the Impression, the Conflict Tag added to the clock. The result is allowed to remain what it is — a felt orientation — without being forced into explanation. Most rolls stay at Felt.

First Action

The immediate thing the character tries from their Position in the Opening Beat. It should be concrete and physical. It describes the attempt, not the result, and you set it during Ignition.

First Question

The uncertainty hanging over the First Action. This is the question the world now has to answer. It should be framed from inside the character’s experience, not from an outside, authorial view. Ignition hands over to play at this point.

Follow / Resist

The choice on an Approach, in a backwards reading only. Follow the rolled Approach — make it the character’s next real action — and when the Result is revealed, record its Resistance as printed. Resist — choose a different Approach — and when the Result is revealed, raise its Resistance by one under the same tag. Resistance never loses its tag. Resisting changes only how the character comes at the moment. It never changes the Result, turns a failure into a success, removes an obstacle, hands over knowledge the character hasn’t earned, or decides how the next action turns out. There is no Follow or Resist in a forwards reading — you have earned the answer, and you choose freely.

Forwards reading

The reading to use when the character has earned the answer — a host check has succeeded, or no check was needed. Read the Result, read the Complication, state the Tell, state the Impression, record the Resistance. Result + Complication = the GM’s answer. There is no Impulse, Follow, or Resist. You legitimately know the new information, and you choose what the character does next. See Backwards reading.

Friction

Whatever is directly in the way of the Aim. Not a separate line of Ignition: Friction is the without, before, or while that turns the Stage into the first Pressure Clock’s question. Strong Friction feels immediate and tangible, and it should be able to worsen under pressure.

Golden Question

“Whose eyes am I behind — and what is objectively true?” The core Lens principle, asked as one question before every roll. The first half puts you behind a specific perception — usually the PC’s, sometimes an NPC’s, never a detached overhead view. The second keeps the facts clean: you may know more than the character does. Lens lives in that gap. Ask it before you roll.

Hook

An optional blank-page tool, not a step of Ignition. A Hook ties one detail from the character sheet to one fact about the setting or scenario, then makes clear why that matters now. It has two parts: the Anchor (“If I have ___, then the world has ___”) and the Trigger (“Right now, ___”). Skip it for anything with a source.

Host RPG

The roleplaying game you are already playing: its rules, dice, procedures, and character sheet. Lens does not replace any of that. It sits over the top, shaping pressure and perspective, while the Host RPG still decides the outcomes of actions. (Also called your game or your RPG.)

Ignition

The procedure for starting play, restarting when play stalls, or re-establishing the problem after a major shift in the situation. Three lines, each with a table behind it — Aim (from the source), Stake (from the sheet, Loss d6), Stage (the first lead and what presses, as a question) — and two clocks: World Pressure, labelled with the Aim and the Stake, and the first Pressure Clock, which is the Stage’s question. Written bare, so World Pressure reads as one sentence. The richer the source, the fewer lines you write. Hook and Opening Beat are optional blank-page tools, not steps.

Impression

What the character presently takes the Tell to mean — how the moment lands on them, in one plain sentence. It is always subjective. It may be partial or mistaken, and it must never contain information the character has not earned. The Result supplies the fact. The character’s skill or vantage supplies the vocabulary for understanding it. See Tell, Belief.

Impulse

The one concrete, immediate action rendered from the Approach — what the character does next, using only what they presently perceive. It exists only in a backwards reading, where it can be Followed or Resisted. A good Impulse begins with a verb, can happen on screen, and produces an obviously different action when Resisted. It never decides whether the action succeeds — the host RPG does that.

Jumping Lenses

Superseded. Earlier drafts of Lens used this term for rolling from an NPC’s point of view. The canonical framework is now the three Stances taught in Chapter 5: Read for Perspective (use a result to colour an NPC moment without opening a clock), Shape Behaviour Through Commit (let the world push back through the PC’s Commits without rolling separately for the NPC), or Give the Perspective Its Own Clock (open a Pressure Clock for the NPC, run it the same way the PC’s clock runs, with Commit and Belief both written from inside the NPC’s perception). Chapter 5 sets out how pressure routes in each case.

Lens

Both the name of the overlay system and the principle behind it. Lens keeps play rooted in character-centred perception. It governs what is noticed, how pressure is felt, and the way the world pushes back through lived experience rather than detached summary.

Lens Result

See Result.

Lens roll

A single roll on a Lens Table: the Result die and the Pressure d8, rolled together, once for the question in front of you. It returns a Result and — depending on the reading — a Complication or an Approach. From these you state the Tell and the Impression, and record the Resistance. Roll after a successful host check, or when no check was needed. Never roll to recover a failed check, never roll for flavour, and never roll twice for the same moment. See Forwards reading, Backwards reading.

Lens Table

One of the 25 tables, arranged in a five-by-five grid. The columns are the five Families — the kind of answer you need. The rows are what you are dealing with: the whole scene, someone with a mind, one particular thing, something hidden or dormant or lost, or something as it unfolds. Each table carries twelve Results, a tailored Pressure d8, and one worked example. Choose by what the character is trying to do, never by the name of a skill. See Family.

Loss (d6)

The Ignition table that says where on the character sheet to look for the Stake: someone, standing, something held, freedom, the self, a secret. It only points; you name the actual line.

Opening Beat

An optional blank-page tool: the moment the character steps into the problem, written out. It is built from Position, First Action, and First Question, and written as a short present-tense paragraph at eye level. It should end on the uncertainty that launches play. The first paragraph of the session, if you want one.

Palette

A genre-facing reading layer for Lens results. A Palette has four parts: the Dial, the genre’s read on the d10/d12 choice; Tag Reconciliation, how each Conflict Tag reads and commits in the genre; the Translation Guide, what each of the 25 Lens Tables tends to mean in the genre; and Specialist Notes. A Palette adds no rules and changes no table’s outcome. It changes only the sound, texture, and tone of a result.

Pattern

The second of the States of Concrete (see also Felt, Commit, Target). As Lens rolls accumulate on a Pressure Clock, the Conflict Tags form a pattern. The pattern matters before it becomes literal — a sequence heavy with Exposure says the situation is pushing toward being seen; heavy with Pressure, that strain or dread is building; heavy with Control, that options are narrowing. The pattern tells you the kind of trouble gathering before it tells you the explanation.

Position

The character’s exact physical placement right now. Unlike Stage, which gives the broader scene context, Position puts them somewhere concrete and immediate. A good Position leaves them close to the Aim and in contact with at least one piece of Friction or Stage.

Pressure Card

The running record of what has solidified during the session — the world’s side and the character’s. It carries the clock, the tag record, the Facts, the Belief ledger (Beliefs and Questions), and World Pressure with its Aim and Stake. Facts are the world’s. Beliefs are the character’s working understanding, rated. Read it as an oracle mid-session: a Belief that contradicts a Fact means the character is simply wrong, and that is story.

Pressure Clock

The local tracker for mounting consequence around whatever the character is doing right now. Name it from the character’s point of view, set its size, and then add Beats from Lens-generated Resistance until it fills. What it measures is not progress toward success, but movement toward consequence.

Pressure d8

The second die in every Lens roll. It has two faces: the Complication, the object’s side, and the Approach, the character’s side. The eight pairs are the same on every table, in the same order — DELICATE / CAREFUL, VOLATILE / RECKLESS, CONNECTED / STRATEGIC, FLEETING / URGENT, CONCEALED / SECRETIVE, OVERT / DIRECT, LAYERED / METHODICAL, EXPLOITABLE / OPPORTUNISTIC — though each table describes them in its own terms. Read the Complication in a forwards reading and the Approach in a backwards one. Never read both faces in the same roll.

Question

A line on the Belief ledger for something the character has not leaned on and you have deliberately not decided — is the sire lying? Written with a question mark and no rating. It becomes a Belief the moment the character leans, and until then it is answered only by play: a Result, a Commit, the test of another Belief. Never off-screen. This is how a solo player keeps a secret from themselves — not by pretending not to know, but by declining to decide.

Reputation

The Conflict Tag that records how the active character is regarded: their standing within a group, or the trust, respect, recognition, legitimacy, or suspicion directed toward them by another intelligence. It is never a third party’s standing. A divided community, a disputed source, or a subject’s self-damaging admission take Pressure, Clue, or Exposure instead.

Resistance

The mechanical output of a Lens roll: a Conflict Tag plus a number, printed on the Result. The number is fixed by where the Result sits on the table — +1 on results 1 to 6, +2 on 7 to 10, and Uncanny +2 on 11 and 12. That number becomes Beats on the current Pressure Clock. In fictional terms, Resistance is the world pushing back. In a backwards reading, Resisting the Approach raises the revealed Result’s Resistance by one under the same tag.

Result

One of the twelve rows on a Lens Table: a short capitalised name — ORDERED, WRONG FIT, LINE DRAWN — one plainly written fact, a Conflict Tag, and a Resistance value. The Result is the principal answer to the table’s question. Results 1 to 10 are grounded and work in any setting. Results 11 and 12 are the uncanny, and only the d12 can reach them. A Result never decides whether a host action succeeds, and never restates what a successful check already gave you.

Result die

The d10 or the d12 — one or the other, chosen roll by roll. Roll the d10 when the answer must stay inside the world’s understood rules. Roll the d12 only when this particular answer may break them: results 11 and 12 are the uncanny. Magic, monsters, and starships don’t call for the d12 by themselves. A familiar spell or a known creature rolls the d10. Never a session-long setting.

Stage

The wider scene context: where this is happening, when it is happening, and what active conditions surround it. Stage is established during Ignition. It is more than scenery. It should be capable of noticing the character, interrupting them, or making the Aim harder to achieve. Phrased as a question about the first lead — can I reach it before / without / while what presses? — it is the first Pressure Clock. Never the Aim as a question.

Stake

What the character stands to lose if the Aim fails, drags on, or exacts too high a price — a line on their sheet you can point to: a partner, a rank, a home, a memory, a secret. You set it during Ignition; the Loss d6 says where on the sheet to look, and you name the actual thing. The strongest Stakes are concrete, personal, and capable of changing the world when they land. The Stake is World Pressure’s label: when the countdown fills, the Stake comes due, in the shape of the Dominant Tag. It is the one line of Ignition no source can write for you.

Stances

The three ways to turn the Lens onto someone other than the acting character (Chapter 5): Read for Perspective, Shape Behaviour through Commit, or Give the Perspective its own clock. (Earlier drafts called these the three dispositions.)

Target

The fourth of the States of Concrete (see also Felt, Pattern, Commit). When a tag is building toward dominance and the player does not want to wait for it to commit, they can target it early — naming the most plausible current source of that pressure in the fiction and acting against it through the Host RPG. Targeting is choosing to force the latent pressure into a form that can be confronted now.

Targeting

Naming the most plausible source of a rising tag and acting against it through your host RPG before it Commits; a success strikes the tag from the record, though its Beats remain as untagged fill. See Target.

Tell

The one concrete sign the character experiences, rendered from the Result and — in a forwards reading — the Complication. Something they see, hear, feel, smell or taste, measure, read from an instrument, or notice moving, changing, or absent. The character’s skill, action, equipment, or means of perception chooses the sense. The Tell is evidence, not explanation: state what is there before what it means, and keep any unseen cause, intention, or motive out of it. That belongs to the Impression. See Impression, Belief.

Turn Spark

A d6 prompt for shaping a Commit when a clock fills but the consequence is not yet obvious. On 1–2, think Commitment: options narrow. On 3–4, think Escalation: the situation worsens or intensifies. On 5–6, think Revelation: something hidden comes to light. If the fiction already makes the outcome clear, there is no need to roll.

Twist

An optional second d6 rolled alongside Yes/No Dice, adding an and (reinforce) or a but (complicate) to the answer. See Yes/No Dice.

Uncanny

Both a Conflict Tag and a results-range. As a tag, Uncanny names pressure from the otherworldly, the impossible, or the universe behaving at the edge of comprehension. As a results-range, uncanny refers to rolls of 11 and 12 on every Lens Table — reachable only on the d12. Uncanny is relative to the setting: a familiar spell or a known creature is not uncanny. The result must violate what the characters themselves understand to be possible, and each uncanny Result is worded so that no ordinary explanation can account for it.

Untagged fill

Beats that fill a clock but never enter its tag record — a tag struck by Targeting, or a tag-less child clock. They move pace; they never shape the Commit. Resisting an Approach does not produce untagged fill: its extra Beat carries the Result’s own tag.

World Pressure

The scenario-level countdown, labelled with the Aim and the Stake. Every time a local Pressure Clock fills, World Pressure advances by +1, carrying that clock’s Dominant Tag, whether the local clock ended in success or failure. Set its size according to how long you want the scenario to run — or to the fiction’s own calendar where it has one. When it fills, the Stake comes due, shaped by the Dominant Tag, and every open Belief is tested. That is the ending, whatever the state of the Aim.

Yes/No Dice

An oracle for objective binary facts your RPG, module, or setting does not already supply. Ask a clean yes/no question framed so that yes is the expected or leaned-toward answer. Set a likelihood from 1 to 5 by how likely the yes is. Roll a d6: if the roll is equal to or less than the likelihood, yes; if higher, no. A 6 never says yes. If the answer is certain, don’t ask — roll the Twist die alone for texture. An optional Twist die adds and (reinforces) or but (complicates) modifiers. Lens is about pressure and perception, not fact-finding — use Yes/No Dice when facts matter and the existing fiction is silent.