Player rules

You can view the full rules from the downloads page.

Components

Players in Atma begin by choosing a character. Each character consists of a small 8 card deck, featuring:

• 1 character card - This card lists your character’s 5 stats, your health, and your basic ability. You’ll have this card in every game.

• 4 move cards - These cards grant you an additional ability.

• 3 super move cards - These cards grant you a powerful new ability, as well as an increase to one of your stats.

On the back of every card is a story from the character’s past. You can read these to familiarize yourself with the character’s lore and get a head start on roleplaying them, but don’t treat them as sacred. Adjust or interpret the backstory as you see fit or as makes sense for your group or play session.

There’s one other card that players are likely to deal with:

• 1 reference card - This card details the 5 stats on one side, and explains the default moves that every character can use on its other side.

Setup

To begin play, select a character deck and a reference card. Play the reference card beside of your play area.

Play your character card, 2 random moves, and 1 random super move, all light side up. Read your character’s lore to know them better, then flip your first 2 cards (character and 1st move).

The GM will ask you to introduce your characters to each other, and to explain how you know each other and why you’re here. This is your opportunity to use — or discard! — your character’s lore, and to begin crafting your own take on the character. If you don’t understand something in the lore, decide what it means to you, or ask everyone else for suggestions. As you get comfortable with the characters and gameplay, you may choose to make large changes to a character’s backstory and motivations — that’s okay!

Goal

In Atma, you are trying to complete a story goal described by the GM. To accomplish this, you’ll navigate 3 scenes, each of which will have its own goal that must be completed. Work with the GM and other players to explain how these scene goals lead towards the story goal.

Each time you complete a scene goal, you unlock a new ability! Finishing scene 1 earns you your 3rd card (move #2), and finishing scene 2 earns you your 4th and final card (super move).

Play

To play, narrate what you do! Do this in response to the GM asking, “What do you do?” or when you think of a great idea.

So what can you do? Anything that makes sense in the story! A character with wings might fly. A character with a knife might slash something. A super smart character might know dozens of languages. The GM will help mediate what makes sense, as will the other players.

Your characters aren’t invincible; sometimes the GM’s narration will result in harm befalling you. When this happens, place a token atop one of the heart icons on your main character card. If you cover all your hearts, you collapse; lower all your stats to -1 until someone helps you up.

Moves

Some actions that you narrate may have a chance of failure. When this happens, it’s called making a move, and the success or failure of that move is determined by rolling two 6-sided dice. The GM will also tell you which of your stats to add to the roll.

• A move succeeds if the combined total of the dice, your stat, and any other values is 7 or more.

  • A success means you get to narrate how your move plays out in the story!

  • On a total of 10 or more, your move is not just a success — it’s a critical success! If the move dealt harm to something, you can deal 1 additional harm.