Similar to how players generate and spend Momentum, the gamemaster generates their own pool of points to spend, called Threat. The gamemaster spends Threat to alter scenes and empower NPCs much as players use Momentum to empower their characters. Threat is also a means of building tension—the larger the Threat pool, the greater the potential danger or challenge to your characters.
While your characters don’t know about Threat, they will have a sense of the stakes of a mission and of the potential risks. Threat is described in full in Chapter 9: Gamemastering.
Threat comes from action, much as Momentum does. Player characters and NPCs alike increase Threat during play, and the gamemaster spends that Threat to create consequences and raise the stakes during scenes. Threat serves as a visible “cause and effect” for the game, with actions and consequences linked by the rise and fall of the Threat pool.
The gamemaster begins each adventure with 2 Threat for each player character present, though this can be adjusted based on the tone and underlying tension of a given adventure. If the stakes are high, the gamemaster may choose to begin with more Threat per player character, while a calmer, quieter scenario may reduce the gamemaster’s starting Threat.
Whenever the game mechanics say to “add X Threat,” it means to add the listed number of points to the gamemaster’s Threat pool.
Threat and Player Characters
Players add to Threat in a number of different ways, typically representing taking risks or allowing the situation to escalate, including:
COMPLICATIONS: When you suffer a complication, you (or the gamemaster) may choose to ignore that complication, adding 2 Threat per complication ignored.
ESCALATION: At times, the gamemaster (or the rules) may rule that a specific action or decision risks escalation, by making the situation more dangerous or unpredictable. If a character performs an action that risks escalation, they immediately add 1 Threat.
Using lethal force—making an attack with the intent to kill—is always considered escalation. Carrying large and obvious weaponry, such as phaser rifles, bat’leths, or similar, can also count as escalation.
IMMEDIATE MOMENTUM: Whenever you wish to use an Immediate Momentum spend, such as buying extra d20s for a task, you can choose to pay some or all of that cost by adding Threat instead. Add 1 Threat to the gamemaster’s pool for each point of Momentum you would have otherwise spent.
Player characters typically do not spend Threat: it is spent to challenge the player characters and to make the adventure more exciting.
Threat and the Gamemaster
The gamemaster may add to Threat in the following ways:
NPC MOMENTUM: NPCS with unspent Momentum cannot save it as player characters can: NPCs don’t have a group Momentum pool. Instead, an NPC may spend Momentum to add to Threat, adding 1 Threat for every Momentum they spend.
THREATENING CIRCUMSTANCES: The environment or circumstances of a new scene may be threatening or perilous enough to warrant adding 1 or 2 Threat to the pool automatically. Similarly, some NPCs may generate Threat simply by arriving in the scene, in response to changes in the situation, or by taking certain actions. This also includes activities that escalate the tensions of the scene, such as NPCs raising an alarm.
The gamemaster can spend Threat in several ways, as detailed in the Threat Spends table.
What Can I Use By Generating Threat?
You can generate Threat in place of spending Momentum on immediate Momentum spends. That means, once you’ve rolled your dice pool, you can only spend the Momentum you have generated and the Momentum you have in the group pool—you can’t generate Threat for the gamemaster to Obtain Information, for bonus Stress, or any other Momentum spend that isn’t Immediate.
Several of these apply primarily during action scenes, and are described in full in Chapter 8: Conflict.
IMMEDIATE MOMENTUM SPENDS
BUY d20s: Add d20s to your dice pool. The first d20 adds 1 Threat, the second generates 2 Threat, and the third generates 3 Threat.
KEEP THE INITIATIVE: Pass the order of play to an ally, rather than an enemy, for 2 Threat.
Threat Spends
Threat Spend Effect
Complication The gamemaster may create a complication in the form of a trait by spending 2 Threat. This must come naturally from some part of the current situation.
Environmental Effects and Narrative Changes The gamemaster may trigger or cause problems with the scene or environment by spending Threat.
NPC Complications If an NPC suffers a complication, the gamemaster may buy off that complication by spending 2 Threat.
NPC Momentum The Threat pool serves as a mirror for the players’ group Momentum pool. Thus, NPCs may use Threat in all the ways that player characters use group Momentum.
NPC Threat Spends On any action or choice where a player character would normally add one or more points to Threat, an NPC performing that same action or making that same choice must spend an equivalent number of points of Threat.
Reinforcements The gamemaster may bring in additional adversarial NPCs during a scene. Minor NPCs cost 1 Threat each, while Notable NPCs cost 2. Adversary starships cost Threat equal to their Scale. Note that this does not apply to NPCs present at the start of the scene, only additional NPCs who arrive while the scene is playing out, and there must be some logical reason why those reinforcements have arrived and where they’ve come from.