Chapter 6.2: Gamemastering Commissions

A commission begins with a problem and an authority boundary. Prepare enough to know what is already moving when the crew arrives. Leave the method and final judgment open for the players.

Begin with a commission profile from Chapter 2.5. Its compact schema supplies a default objective, pressure, procedure, and boundary. Replace any element that does not fit the people and place at hand, then prepare the brief below.

Commission Brief

Write one page or less before building scenes.

1. Need. Who needs help, and what is happening now?
2. Objective. What result has Mission asked the crew to pursue?
3. Tier. What scope and pressure does Chapter 2.6 suggest?
4. Mandate. Which actions beyond the Charter are authorized, if any?
5. Directives. Write two or three instructions specific enough to affect a choice. Include any hard prohibition.
6. Known facts. What does the crew receive before choosing Assets and Loadouts?
7. Mandate Assets. What equipment, transport, records, specialist support, or other resources does Mission know the objective requires?
8. Unknown turn. What fact changes the apparent shape of the work after play begins?
9. Escalation boundary. What possible choice would require a wider Mandate?

The brief states what the Empire believes. It may contain incomplete information. Do not conceal information the cysuits, ship, or ordinary records would supply.

List Mandate Assets before the crew chooses Prepared Assets. Supply every item Mission knows is required for the assigned work. These items consume neither a Prepared Asset choice nor personal energy credits. Prepared Assets cover extra approaches and contingencies selected by the crew. If an obvious requirement was omitted during preparation, correct the omission in play without charging the crew or taking away its Prepared Assets.

Prepare the People and Pressures

For each faction or important NPC, write:

• what they want now;
• what they fear losing;
• what they know;
• what they will offer;
• what makes them stop, leave, or change position.

Give each faction at least one course of action it will take if the crew does nothing. This keeps the world moving without prescribing the crew's response.

Prepare two to four active Traits for the opening scene. Add one Progress or Trouble Track when sustained work or a deadline will shape play. Avoid running several tracks unless their interaction is the point of the commission.

Build Scenes

Most commissions need three to six scenes. Prepare situations, not a mandatory sequence.

• Arrival: the first concrete sign that the brief was incomplete.
• Contact: someone affected by the problem asks for a specific response.
• Investigation or work: the crew learns enough to choose an approach.
• Pressure: an adversary, deadline, or hazard acts.
• Decision: two valid obligations pull in different directions.
• Aftermath: the people present respond to what the crew chose.

Players may combine, skip, or reorder these. Move information to the place their actions reach. Do not protect a planned reveal from a method that would genuinely discover it.

Difficulty and Consequences

Difficulty belongs to the obstacle. Commission Tier changes scope and pressure, not the competence of the universe. State Difficulty and the likely consequence before Momentum is spent.

A failure changes the scene. Useful consequences include:

• time passes and a Trouble Track advances;
• an adversary acts first or gains position;
• access closes;
• a resource becomes depleted;
• the crew succeeds with a cost;
• a Trait worsens or appears;
• someone forms a reasonable conclusion from what they observed.

Keep clues available. Failure may change the cost, timing, or source of information. It should not end an investigation because one roll missed.

Using Threat

Threat sharpens pressure already present. Chapter 3.2 gives the complete menu: adversary dice and Actions, NPC Complication prevention, Complications, reinforcements, environmental changes, Reveals, Reversals, and chapter-specific spends such as raising a Trouble trigger's Impact. State what changed in the fiction.

Threat does not cancel a sound plan after the fact. It cannot revoke information already established, make a prepared Asset disappear without cause, or turn an NPC's decision into its opposite. A large pool gives the gamemaster room to let the commission push hard. It does not require spending every point before the commission ends.

Authority and Consequence

Do not create drama by making correct Doctrine compliance secretly wrong. A failed intervention may expose incomplete understanding or a cost the crew must repair. It does not prove that absence would have been the ethical rule.

When the Boundary of Escalation applies, keep the crew active. Holding the line, protecting people, gathering evidence, negotiating time, and preventing an irreversible act are all play. Waiting for a Mandate never means leaving.

Boards of Inquiry examine decisions whose consequences warrant review. Use one to ask what the crew knew, what authority it carried, which alternatives it considered, and what repair follows. A Board is not a device for taking earned Standing away. Current restrictions use Traits under Chapter 2.6.

Debrief

Close a commission by asking four questions.

1. Who is safer or better supported because the crew came?
2. What remains unresolved or requires another hand?
3. Which decision will follow the crew into later work?
4. Did the crew meet Service, Judgment, and Craft?

Award Standing. Clear commission resources. Discard Momentum and Threat. Record continuing Traits, relationships, damaged systems, promised Offers, and open Mandate questions before the next commission begins.

Tier Templates

These are preparation guides. A conversation can settle an apparent conflict in one scene. A single broken valve can occupy a session when the whole station depends on it.