One distance. Three ways to represent it.

Distance determines whether movement can reach its destination, an attack can reach its target, and an area can include a position. Metres are the source unit for Narateer distances. The current Scene Mode determines whether those metres are expressed through concrete fictional relationships, Zones, or Spaces.

Changing Scene Mode changes how a distance is represented. It does not change the underlying mechanic, eligible actor or targets, direction, scale, or established outcome. The rules for the action being resolved remain authoritative: see Actions, Movement, Combat, and Equipment.

Distance at a Glance

Use the least detailed mode that still makes the current decisions clear. A mode never replaces a required roll, cost, target, route, or other specific procedure.

Core Terms

Measuring distance answers how far. It does not by itself make an action legal. The acting rule may also require a valid target, line of sight, line of effect, a legal route, ammunition, a particular weapon state, or another condition. Cover and barriers remain relevant even when the target is within range.

Range

Single and Paired Range Values

A single Range value is its maximum range. A paired weapon value is written as Effective Range / Maximum Range, in metres. For example, a Bow with 60 / 120 has an Effective Range of 60 m and a Maximum Range of 120 m.

For a ranged weapon attack:

• Within Effective Range: The attack takes no range penalty.
• Beyond Effective Range but within Maximum Range: The attack has Disadvantage.
• Beyond Maximum Range: The attack is invalid with that weapon.

Range applies separately to each attack. In a Ranged Exchange, the initiator must be able to reach the target with the initiating weapon. A responder may choose Ranged Clash only if their own weapon can reach the initiator. See Ranged Exchanges.

A rule that names a different consequence for its Range overrides this general procedure. A range penalty does not remove requirements such as line of sight, line of effect, ammunition, cover, or a loaded and ready weapon. Advantage and Disadvantage follow the normal Edge rules and do not stack with another source of the same type.

Reach Ratings

Reach Rating determines whether a held melee weapon can reach a target. It is not a distance in metres and does not grant Advantage or Disadvantage by itself.

Reach Rating 1 can target an adjacent Space. Reach Rating 2 can target up to 2 Spaces away. Reach Rating 3 can target up to 3 Spaces away. A target in the same Space is at distance 0, although occupancy and the declared action must still be legal.

In Story and Cinematic Modes, preserve the difference between ordinary, extended, and exceptional reach whenever combatants contest engagement, interception, or a narrow approach. Being in the same Zone does not automatically place two combatants within melee reach.

Story Mode

Story Mode records spatial relationships instead of counting units. Establish the relationship clearly enough to resolve the declared action, then preserve it until someone changes position or the fiction changes.

Useful relationships include:

• adjacent to or within melee reach;
• nearby but outside melee reach;
• within Effective Range;
• beyond Effective Range but within Maximum Range;
• beyond Maximum Range;
• clustered around a chosen point;
• separated by a barrier, hazard, elevation, or broken line of sight; and
• reachable only by crossing a named route or obstacle.

Use the character's movement allowance, the established terrain, and the declared route when deciding whether movement changes one relationship into another. Greater movement must permit a correspondingly more ambitious reposition. Follow the movement mode, cost, route, and any required check in Movement; Story Mode changes only how the result is represented.

For a ranged action, identify its range band before the player commits the action's resources. Weapon differences still matter: a Bow can establish a valid relationship across a greater separation than a Throwing Knife. For an area, identify the concrete cluster, line, cone, or nearby group that matches the effect's written origin, shape, and extent. Tell the player which intended positions or targets the area can include before they commit.

Cinematic Mode

Cinematic Mode divides the scene into Zones. A Zone is one tactically distinct area, such as a chamber, rooftop, bridge span, clearing, or section of a street. Its fictional footprint may be irregular, larger, or smaller than 10 m. That fictional footprint does not change the formal 10 m conversion used for printed distances.

Two Zones are adjacent when their boundaries touch or the fiction places them immediately beside one another. Two Zones are connected when a legal route allows movement between them. Movement follows connected Zones. Range is measured through the fewest adjacent Zone steps; it does not require a legal movement route, but line of sight and line of effect still apply.

Characters and objects in the same Zone are 0 Zones apart. They may still be separated locally by cover, a barrier, elevation, melee reach, or another established position. If separation inside one unusually large Zone could change a Range band or movement outcome, split that area into additional Zones before the player commits resources.

Zone Snapping

To convert a printed distance or allowance:

1. Calculate the complete distance in metres, including any multiplier.
2. Round that total to the nearest 10 m. When the total is exactly halfway between two steps, round up.
3. Divide the rounded distance by 10.

Zone Count = Rounded Distance in metres ÷ 10

This produces the following pattern:

Convert each named quantity separately. A paired weapon Range converts its Effective Range and Maximum Range separately. An area's radius, length, width, or other written extent converts as that same extent; do not replace it with a different shape.

A result of 0 Zones does not erase an established local position, grant free movement, or fill an entire Zone. Follow the specific movement or effect rule for its zero-Zone result. When a rule preserves a local area, that area covers only the local part of the chosen point's Zone, not the entire Zone.

Tactical Mode

Tactical Mode represents the scene on a square or hex map. Each Space is a 2 m unit. A character normally occupies one Space unless a rule states otherwise.

Convert a distance from metres to Spaces after calculating the complete metre value:

Space Count = floor(Distance in metres ÷ 2)

Round down any fraction. A 25 m distance therefore becomes 12 Spaces. A non-zero area extent that converts to 0 Spaces includes only its origin Space unless its rule states otherwise. A movement allowance of 0 Spaces cannot move the character into another Space.

Counting Spaces

Count the first Space after the origin as 1. Each orthogonally or diagonally adjacent Space counts as 1 Space on a square map; each edge-adjacent Space counts as 1 Space on a hex map. The distance between two positions is the fewest such steps between their Spaces.

Measure range by the shortest direct Space count, not a legal movement route. Blocked terrain does not make a target further away. Instead, walls, cover and other obstructions determine line of sight, line of effect, and whether the target is valid. Movement must still follow a legal route and cannot pass through a blocked corner or occupied Space unless a rule permits it.

For an area, declare its origin and written shape before resolving it. Using the 2 m grid scale, measure from the chosen point to the centre of each Space. A Space is included when its centre falls within the area's boundary, unless the effect supplies a different inclusion rule.

Area Effects

An area effect must state or inherit:

• its origin or chosen point;
• its shape, such as a radius, line, cone, or other defined form;
• its extent in metres or another formal unit;
• which creatures, objects, or positions inside it are eligible targets; and
• any rule for barriers, cover, or line of effect.

Translate those same facts into the current Scene Mode. Do not replace an effect's written extent with a generic size category, change its shape, make it selectively ignore allies or enemies, or expand or reduce it for dramatic effect.

• Story Mode: Name the concrete cluster, line, nearby group, or other relationship covered by the written area. Preserve its relative scale and direction.
• Cinematic Mode: Snap each written extent to Zones. A specific effect must say what happens when a non-zero extent snaps to 0 Zones; a preserved local area covers only part of the chosen point's Zone.
• Tactical Mode: Convert each written extent to Spaces, place the written shape, and use the centre-of-Space inclusion rule.

Line of effect and barriers can exclude positions inside the measured area. Cover modifies an affected target only when the effect or the relevant cover rule says it does. Tell the player the area and known eligible targets before they commit resources.

Worked Examples

Movement to Zones

Velka has BM 13 m and Runs for 26 m. Twenty-six metres rounds to 30 m, so her movement allowance is 3 Zones. She may move through up to 3 connected Zones along a legal route.

Weapon Range Across Modes

A bandit 6 Zones from Kaelen is within his Light Crossbow's Effective Range, so the attack takes no range penalty. An ogre 40 Spaces from Kitrina is beyond her Bow's Effective Range of 30 Spaces but within its Maximum Range of 60 Spaces, so her attack has Disadvantage.

Area to Spaces

In Tactical Mode, Thurmalina's effect with a 4 m radius becomes a 2-Space radius. She chooses the origin, then includes each Space whose centre lies within that boundary. A wall may still block line of effect to a Space inside the radius.

Summary

• Begin with the distance in metres. Changing Scene Mode changes its representation, not the underlying mechanic.
• Story Mode expresses distance through concrete fictional relationships while preserving reach, scale, direction, targets, and outcomes.
• Cinematic Mode uses Zones. Snap printed distances to the nearest 10 m, rounding halfway values up.
• Tactical Mode uses 2 m Spaces. Convert the complete distance, then round the Space count down.
• A single Range value is its maximum. A paired value gives Effective Range, then Maximum Range.
• A ranged weapon attack beyond Effective Range but within Maximum Range has Disadvantage. Beyond Maximum Range, the attack is invalid.
• Reach Ratings preserve the same distinction between ordinary, extended, and exceptional melee reach in every Scene Mode.
• Range does not replace line of sight, line of effect, cover, route, occupancy, or any other requirement of the action.
• An area keeps its written origin, shape, extent, direction, and eligible targets when translated between Scene Modes.