Chapter 43 — The Oracle
At a normal table, when a player asks is the airlock guarded? or does she believe me?, the GM answers — from prep, from the fiction, or from judgment. Without a GM, you ask the dice instead. The oracle is the tool that answers yes-or-no questions about anything you don't already know, and it's the one piece of machinery GM-less play adds to the game.
It is built entirely out of rules you already use. You roll 2D6 against 8, exactly as you do for everything else (Chapter 5), and you tilt the odds with Advantage and Disadvantage, exactly as the fiction warrants (Chapter 6). There is nothing new to memorize — only a new thing to point the familiar dice at.
Index§
- Asking a question
- The spark — when the dice show doubles
- What Intrudes (1D6)
- Beyond yes-or-no
- At a glance
Asking a question§
- Phrase it as yes-or-no, out loud or on the page, before you roll. "Is the dock crowded?" "Has the rival crew already left?" "Does the old debt still mean something to him?" Decide what a Yes and a No each lead to before you see the dice (Chapter 42 — the fair-play contract). If you can't say what either answer would change, you don't need the oracle; just narrate.
- Judge how likely Yes is — Even, Likely, or Unlikely — from the fiction as it stands, the same gut call a GM makes. When in doubt, call it Even.
- Roll and read it against 8.
| You judge Yes is… | Roll | Odds of Yes |
|---|---|---|
| Likely | 2D6 with Advantage (3D6 keep highest 2) | about 2 in 3 |
| Even | 2D6 | about 2 in 5 |
| Unlikely | 2D6 with Disadvantage (3D6 keep lowest 2) | about 1 in 5 |
8 or higher is Yes; 7 or lower is No. That's the whole core of it.
Two things to notice. First, the oracle reuses the system's slightly pessimistic curve — even an "Even" question leans a little toward No, because in a galaxy this hard, the world more often complicates than obliges. Lean into it. Second, the oracle's Advantage and Disadvantage are free. They model the world's likelihoods, not a character's effort, so they cost no Momentum and never touch that economy (Chapter 7). Momentum is for the rolls your Wanderer makes; the oracle is the GM's voice, and the GM never paid Momentum to make a ruling.
The spark — when the dice show doubles§
A flat Yes or No is most of what you'll get, and most of what you need. But when the two scoring dice come up as doubles — any matching pair, the same two dice you'd read for the answer — the dice spark: the world adds something you didn't ask for. A spark always colors the answer:
- Doubles on a Yes → "yes, but…" — you get what you asked, and a complication rides in with it. Yes, the dock is crowded — but one of the faces in it is looking for you.
- Doubles on a No → "no, but…" — you're denied, but an opening appears. No, the rival hasn't left — but they're loading in a hurry and short-handed.
A spark happens on roughly one roll in six at Even odds, and a little more often when you're rolling Advantage or Disadvantage (the third die makes a matching pair likelier). That cadence is deliberate: frequent enough to keep the world surprising, rare enough that most answers stay clean.
When a "but" alone isn't enough — when the scene wants a real jolt — a spark is also your cue to roll a full interrupt: throw the situation open to an encounter (Chapter 41) or the What Intrudes table below. Use it when you want the world to act; let the "but" stand when you don't.
Exceptional answers§
The two most extreme pairs are sparks that speak louder:
- Kept dice show 6-6 → "yes, and…" — an emphatic Yes, more than you hoped for. The guard isn't just absent; the post's been abandoned for hours.
- Kept dice show 1-1 → "no, and…" — an emphatic No, worse than you feared. Not only is the door locked; the attempt has tripped something.
Because these are doubles, they always carry a twist or an intrusion with them — the strongest answers are exactly when the world stirs. (Rolling Advantage makes 6-6 reachable and 1-1 nearly vanish; Disadvantage does the reverse. The likelihoods bend the emphatic results the same way they bend the plain ones, which is just as it should be.)
What Intrudes (1D6)§
When a spark calls for more than a "but," and an encounter table (Chapter 41) isn't the right shape, roll here for what kind of unbidden turn the world takes. Read it against where you are and what's unresolved.
| 1D6 | The world… |
|---|---|
| 1 | …brings back something unresolved — an open thread, a debt, a face from a Life Event (Chapters 22, 44) |
| 2 | …raises the stakes: a clock you're racing ticks, a threat draws nearer (Chapter 33) |
| 3 | …shifts a relationship — a Contact or faction reveals where they really stand (Chapters 34, 35) |
| 4 | …introduces someone new, with an agenda of their own (Chapter 39) |
| 5 | …turns the environment against you — a hazard, a failure, a change in the weather (Chapter 13) |
| 6 | …hands you an opportunity, real but costly — the good break with a price on it (Chapter 38) |
Beyond yes-or-no§
Not every question fits a Yes/No. When you need an open answer — what's in the crate? who sent them? why is the town afraid? — don't force the oracle. Reach instead for the generator that fits the question (the whole of Part IX is built for this) and read its result as the answer. The oracle decides whether; the toolkit decides what. Chapter 44 covers weaving the two together into a session.
At a glance§
Ask yes-or-no. Judge the odds. Roll 2D6 vs 8 — Likely with Advantage, Unlikely with Disadvantage. 8+ = Yes. Doubles spark a twist: yes-but / no-but, or an interrupt. 6-6 = yes-and; 1-1 = no-and. The oracle's Advantage/Disadvantage is free — it never touches Momentum.