Cold Open — title
Whose past this is · the one-line version of what happens
Delete this box when you clone
Clone to pages/sessions/cold-opens/<slug>.html, mark it 🌊 Fluid, and link it from the
numbered entry on the queue. Read
Cold Open Design first. It opens on one line, You’re [verb]ing
, and a check on the verb. The floor is two numbered read-alouds
and one check; most checks carry texture, and every one of them writes its failure line.
At a Glance
- Who's in it
- Who plays their past self · who watches
- When
- Where it sits in time · their age · what has to be true first
- Runs
- Five to ten minutes
- Boxes
- How many read-alouds, numbered below
- Rolls
- The checks, one phrase each
- Reveals
- The thing the table did not know
The opening
The opening line
You’re verbing.
Right away, to the character the cold open is about: DC 10, the skill the verb names — how well they do it. Then read box 1.
Read-aloud 1
Second person, present tense, three to five sentences, senses first, no mechanics. End on something that
moves or something wrong. You are
— never you were.
What happens
The beats in clock order, sized to five or ten minutes. Boxes numbered down the page in reading order; checks sit in the beat that fires them.
Beat one — name
What is going on, and what the player can do about it.
Beat two — the turn
Call the check here, then read the box that answers it.
Read-aloud 2
The second box. Add a third and fourth if the scene wants them — there is no ceiling, only the floor of two.
Beat three — the close
The last image, and the handoff back to the present.
What's rolled
| Who & what | DC | Success carries | Failure carries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Player — skill the opening line |
DC 10 | They do it well. If it carries: a Dream Inspiration die. | They do it badly. If it carries: 1d4 damage and a mark — or nothing physical. |
| Player — skill | DC ? | Texture: the detail that lands. | Not the good version — and say what that looks like. |
| Player — skill | DC ? | — | — |
Roll the current sheet — the character the player has, however young the past self is. No roll decides whether the memory happened — only what is carried out of it.
What it reveals
The thing the table did not know before, in a sentence. If it needs a canon page to change, say so here and take it to Jack — never edit a 🔒 page from a cold open.