GM Framework

This chapter is for the GM. There are dozens of ways to run a roleplaying game; there is a particular way to run Apprentices. The rest of the book tells you what the Students can do; this chapter tells you how to run the Academy around them.

You never roll dice — the players roll, and you make moves. Follow your Agenda and Principles and the pressure stays on.

Your agenda

Your Agenda is what you're trying to do at the table. When a ruling would serve it, do it; when it wouldn't, don't.

The GM's Role

You run the world, not the story. Set situations, never outcomes. What happens is decided at the table.
You never roll. Players roll + Attribute. Your job is to describe the world's reaction: on a 10+ the fiction moves with them, on a 7-9 it costs them, on a 6- you make a hard move.
Every creature and NPC carries its own GM Moves (see the bestiary entries and NPC pages). This chapter is the general toolkit you use on top of those — when an entry's moves don't cover the moment, reach for these.
Your prep is a clock, not a script. It tells you what happens if nothing changes. The players will change it. That's the game.

Agenda

Your Agenda is what you're trying to do at the table. When a GM move or a ruling would serve your Agenda, do it; when it wouldn't, don't.

Play to find out what happens. No pre-plotted outcomes. You know the Academy's pressures and threats; you don't know who lives, who dies, who betrays whom. Every session should end with something you didn't expect.
Portray the Academy as a living pressure cooker. Grades, deadlines, rivalries, faculty politics, Enforcer scrutiny, family obligations — the Academy is never neutral. Something is always squeezing the students, and the squeeze is what makes their choices matter.
Make the students' growth meaningful. Choices should shape who they become — bonds deepened or burned, doctrines chosen, power that changes people. Reward the fiction that makes a character different at the end of the term than at the start.

Principles

Principles are your behavioral rules — how you carry out the Agenda moment to moment.

Be a fan of the students. Their victories should feel earned and celebrated. Root for them openly.
Ask questions and use the answers. "What does the library smell like to you?" "Which professor would notice you're gone?" The players' answers become canon — write them down and build on them.
Make moves that follow. Every move you make should follow from the fiction — a 6- on Shape the Matrix tears the room apart because the spell was too big, not because the rulebook says so.
Never speak the name of your move. Don't say "I'm making a hard move." Describe the floor giving way, the Enforcers rounding the corner, the spell backfiring.
Address the characters, not the players. "Your hands are shaking, and the dean is watching you" — not "you're at Disadvantage."
Make the world remember. Reputations, grudges, debts, and rumors outlive any single scene. The professor they embarrassed last term hasn't forgotten; the shopkeeper they helped sends word when trouble comes.

Master GM Moves

When the fiction calls for it — a player misses, the fiction demands, or the table looks to you — make a move. Soft moves push without locking in consequences; hard moves change the fiction decisively.

Soft Moves

Offer an opportunity, with or without cost. A tutor who can teach that glyph — for a favor.
Reveal an unwelcome truth. The professor they trusted is the one who reported them to the Enforcers.
Show signs of an approaching threat. Enforcer patrols lingering near the dormitory all week.
Put someone in a spot. The perfect time to confront them is in front of the whole class.
Offer a temptation. Forbidden knowledge is the Academy's favorite lure — Soul Magic, Mind Magic, necromancy. The taboo is a lever; pull it.

Hard Moves

Deal damage. Health boxes, Channel Strain wounds, or Sanity damage — whatever the fiction earned.
Use up their resources. Mana ticks, gear, time slots, a favor they were counting on.
Separate them. The patrol splits the party; the arena door slams between them.
Turn their move back on them. Their own declaration becomes the trap — the shield spell they raised is what the attacker uses to corner them.
Take away their stuff. Confiscation, theft, "borrowed" by the quartermaster.
Announce off-screen badness. The world moves without them: an ally goes missing, a rival publishes their thesis first, the rumor mill turns against the students.

When to Make a Move

On a 6-, the player's miss — make a hard move that follows from the fiction.
When the fiction demands it — a threat comes due, an NPC acts on their agenda.
When the players look to you — silence, uncertainty, "what happens next?"

Running the 7-9 (House Rule)

On a 7-9, the action succeeds but at a cost: offer two fitting complications, and the player picks one. The player chooses; you design the menu.

Good complications:

Follow the fiction. A casting 7-9 on Shape the Matrix should complicate the spell, the caster, or the scene — not the economy.
Two distinct flavors. Never two shades of the same consequence. One physical, one social; one immediate, one deferred; one personal, one collateral.
Escalate, don't punish. Complications change the fiction and open new scenes. Flat numeric penalties are the last resort.
Keep the pressure source honest. For magic, prefer Mana strain and collapse logic over invented costs. (See the Apprentices SRD for the quick procedure.)

Example: Zora rolls a 7-9 on Shape the Matrix to slam a training dummy with Stoss. The GM offers: (a) the spell lands, but the recoil tears her channels — take 1 wound; (b) the spell lands, but the dummy isn't the only thing that flies — the headmaster's prized lectern shatters, and everyone is looking. Zora picks (b). Now there's a scene.

End of Session

Close out the fiction and the numbers (full player-facing procedure: Progression):

Award 2-3 Study Points and Insights; award 1 Study Points and Insights on a major milestone.
Mark Spell Clock segments earned by successful casts; mark glyph learning progress.
Update Bonds with the table.
Log knowledge gained: what carries into next session.
GM-side: note divergences from your prep and what the players noticed.

Soul Integrity at the Table

Soul damage is the rarest and heaviest consequence in the game — permanent, and it can end a character's arc in True Death (see Soul Integrity). Reserve it for Soul Cohesion violations, Soul Carving strikes, and catastrophic forbidden-magic failures. Recovery is slow, expensive, and GM-paced: a sanctioned ritual, a specialist, or a story milestone — never a Study Points and Insights purchase.