Fiction-First 5e

§Core principles

The fiction is the shared imaginary world in which the characters, places, creatures, objects, and events exist. Mechanics exist outside that world as tools for the people at the table. A character does not know their Strength score, Armor Class, or proficiency bonus, and does not know that someone just rolled a seventeen. Within the fiction, they are a person with particular abilities, experience, injuries, equipment, and circumstances.

The fiction has precedence. A mechanical ability does not allow something the current fictional circumstances make impossible, and the absence of a specific ability on a character sheet does not prevent a character from attempting something that makes sense in the world.

Mechanics resolve uncertainty; they do not grant permission. Class features, Talents, and other abilities establish what a character can do reliably, not what they are allowed to try. Dice come in only where an outcome is genuinely in doubt.

Players describe intent, not outcomes. A player controls what their character is trying to do and how they are attempting it, while the DM controls the rest of the world and decides what actually happens. A player can say they want to slide beneath the ogre’s legs and reach the other side, but cannot declare that they do so.

Every action requires a method. A bare declaration such as “I attack him” or “I stab him” is not a complete action, and the DM will ask how the character tries to do it. The answer shapes which checks are called for and what the results look like. The method only needs to establish what the character is attempting and how. It is a completeness check, not a measure of eloquence: a single clear sentence and a vivid paragraph describing the same approach receive the same ruling.

The DM’s narration is the DM screen. The reasoning behind a ruling, such as a private DC, how much damage an attack is worth, or which factors made an attempt harder, is expressed through what happens in the fiction rather than explained to the players. A character visibly struggling to heft something heavy tells the table what it needs to know. Hiding the math does not mean hiding the story. Characters perceive danger the way they would in the fiction, so the DM conveys what they can see, sense, and know, such as a lock of unusual sophistication or a spell far beyond anything the caster has attempted. Players can always ask what their character expects could go wrong, and the DM answers from what the character would know. What the DM does not do is lay out the possible outcomes in advance or point players toward the right approach.

§What remains from 5e

Characters keep the six attributes, skills, saving throws, hit points, Armor Class, weapons, damage dice, attack bonuses, spell slots, levels, classes, subclasses, races, feats, magic items, damage types, resistances, vulnerabilities, immunities, Hit Dice, concentration, and initiative. Armor Class remains central to combat. Monster stat blocks stay largely familiar, since most of their complexity sits behind the DM screen, and the DM is responsible for translating them into narrative enemies.

What is removed is most of the player-facing action catalog. Specific attack options, spell lists, formal maneuver lists, and the named categories of action, bonus action, and movement are gone. Rounds, turns, and the timing of reactions work as in 5e. The sections below describe what replaces the rest. Anything this document does not address works as in 5e. Features, feats, spells, and items that depend on a mechanic this document removes or changes, such as bonus actions, spell lists, or rolling Hit Dice to regain hit points, are reworked by the DM around what they represent in the fiction.

§Turns

The narrative action

A narrative action is everything a character attempts on their turn, replacing 5e’s action, bonus action, and movement. It is bounded by what fits in six seconds and what the character is capable of. Features that grant an extra action, such as Action Surge, grant an extra narrative action.

Initiative and turn order work as in 5e, and a turn still represents roughly six seconds. On their turn, a character takes a narrative action: the player describes what they want to accomplish in those six seconds. The DM decides which parts of the attempt are straightforward, which are uncertain, and whether one roll or several are needed.

A proposal is judged by whether the sequence makes sense within six seconds and whether the character is capable of it, not by how 5e would divide it into movement and actions. Sprinting across a room, vaulting a table, and tackling someone before they reach a lever can be a single narrative action.

Movement is part of the narrative action. Distances are not measured out foot by foot, but the fiction still bounds them, and a character cannot suddenly cross 200 feet in six seconds. A character sprinting flat out, eyes locked on the ogres carrying off their child, might cover 70 feet in a turn. The DM decides whether a described movement fits and says so when it does not.

The narrative action treats a plausible six-second attempt as a single unit, rather than splitting it into a movement allowance, an object interaction, an action, and a bonus action. That does not make time loose. Six seconds is still a real limit, Extra Attack still sets how many attacks a character makes, an extra action such as Action Surge still grants a whole second narrative action, and movement stays bounded by what a body can plausibly do, even without squares or exact distances.

Narrative reactions

Reactions follow the same idea in what they can contain, but not in when they happen. A narrative reaction can only be taken when 5e would allow a reaction: in answer to a specific trigger, such as a creature leaving the character’s reach, a spell being cast when the character has an applicable reaction, or a trigger a feature provides. What changes is the content, which is judged like a narrative action, bounded by what fits in the moment and what the character is capable of. A narrative reaction is not a standing defense. A player cannot use it to declare, round after round, that their character is braced against danger in general. Taking a defensive posture, such as dodging, belongs to the narrative action on their own turn.

§Talents

What a Talent is

Talents are distinct from the attribute-linked skills such as Athletics, Arcana, or Stealth. A Talent is a natural-language description of a character’s training, profession, magical discipline, knowledge, life experience, reputation, or specialized competence. Examples include Flame Shaper, Cathedral Mason, Former City Guard, Field Surgeon, Demonologist, Desert Survivalist, Duelist of the Crimson Circle, Folk Hero, and Realmsaver. The wording matters: a Folk Hero and a Realmsaver are both heroes, but at very different scales of experience and reputation. Some Talents describe roles many people hold, like Former City Guard. Others, like Dragon Slayer or Realmsaver, describe experience few could ever claim, and they cover correspondingly more. The DM judges a Talent’s breadth from its name and description rather than from a fixed rule.

Each Talent has a short description rather than functioning as a bare keyword. The DM extrapolates what a Talent covers from its description rather than from an exhaustive list of permitted uses.

Competence changes what is rolled

Competence is a DM ruling grounded in common sense rather than a formula. The DM considers who the character is, including their Talents, class, level, and history, and judges what someone like them can reliably do.

Examples throughout this document show one possible result from one roll in one situation. A different roll, a different DC, or different circumstances can produce a different outcome.

A Talent establishes what is already true about a character. A Cathedral Mason does not roll to recognize ordinary masonry, but still rolls to determine exactly where to strike an ancient bridge so it collapses after a pursuer crosses. A Field Surgeon is capable of surgery, but operating in the back of a moving wagon may still require difficult checks.

A Talent does not grant immunity from rolling. It changes which part of an attempt is uncertain.

Feinting here is only an illustration of how competence changes what is rolled. The system has no dedicated feint mechanic, and a feint is judged like any other attempt.

Skill proficiency and Expertise add to rolls that are made, but on their own they do not change whether a roll is needed or what it covers. Competence established through Talents and class features does.

Where Talents come from

At character creation, the player writes a handful of backstory and background elements, and the DM turns them into Talents. Racial and class Talents are added on top of these. Talents are also gained through feats, class progression, Boons, and the story. Training undertaken as a downtime activity counts as a feat-level source.

Background Talents are generalized and low-stakes. They reflect a character’s life experience and can remove rolls for ordinary tasks within that experience, but they do not grant spellcasting, additional attacks, automatic success on core adventuring checks such as Stealth, or other significant combat or magical capability. Those come from race, class, feats, and Boons.

Boons are Talents granted to a character directly rather than learned or developed, whether by a patron, a deity, a magic item, or any other source. A warlock whose patron rewards them with the Elementalist Talent has received a Boon, as has a character who opens a minor enchanted tome of breath holding and gains a Talent for holding their breath.

Talent strength

Talents are written without numerical values. Numbers enter only when the DM sets DCs, modifiers, and check requirements, informed by the character’s Talents. A Talent’s strength reflects how deep, how broad, and how directly relevant the underlying experience is, and the DM weighs this when ruling on competence.

When one Talent is broader or deeper than another, it is the stronger of the two, whatever its source. When several Talents bear on the same attempt, they all contribute, and if one hurts the character’s chances while another helps, the DM weighs the net result. A Talent’s source matters mainly through the background cap: background Talents stay low-stakes, but a life spent doing something often covers far more ground than anything picked up later.

Relevance matters as well. A character who spends a story arc learning to ride gains a Rider Talent stronger than a Stablehand Talent from their backstory, since caring for horses is not the same as riding them. A background built around riding horses, however, would outrank a Rider Talent gained over a few sessions.

Acquiring and combining Talents

Characters can acquire new Talents by pursuing something in the story. Existing Talents can combine into stronger ones when the character has a foundation to build on. A character with Siege Engineer or Alchemical Crafter who shows sustained interest in magitech may gain Magitech Acolyte. A druid with the same interest but no such foundation would not gain the Talent from interest alone, though they can still reach it by a longer and different path.

Class features outside your class

A character who sets their heart on something can generally give it an honest try, including class features from outside their class. Such features are harder to acquire and narrower in application than for a member of that class. The same feature can also come more easily to one class than another depending on how it fits the fiction.

Learning outside your class takes real investment through downtime or the story. Depending on the setting and the source of the magic, that might mean finding someone willing to teach, paying for their services, gathering the inks and tomes needed for study, and spending the time to learn, resolved through a series of Arcana or other checks. It could take a single downtime block, a few sessions, or an entire arc. A shortcut, such as reading an enchanted tome of fire magic in a world where such things exist, makes the result a Boon rather than a learned Talent.

This is what separates story-based learning from multiclassing. A fighter who gains fire magic through the story rolls to cast fire effects, with checks that grow easier as they become proficient. A character with wizard levels holds the Talents that make casting within their discipline established competence, and does not roll to cast it correctly.

§Running it at your table

This document describes a method for running 5e rather than a finished conversion. Two DMs using it will reach different rulings, write different Talents, and translate the same class feature in different ways, and that is expected. What should stay consistent is the method: work out what a character’s competence already establishes, roll only what is in doubt, and let every result shape the fiction. A DM may find it useful to keep a short log of notable rulings, such as what a Talent covered or where a recurring DC landed, to stay consistent with their own past calls.

§Resolving uncertainty

When to roll

Mechanics are brought in when something about the fictional situation is genuinely uncertain. If an outcome is already established by the character’s competence, no roll is needed. When a roll is made, it resolves only the part of the attempt that is actually in doubt.

Multiple checks

An elaborate action can call for several checks, but only when it contains several separate uncertainties. Each part that is genuinely in doubt gets a check, not each verb in the description, and parts already established by competence are not rolled. Elaborate plans are welcome, and describing them as clear sequences helps the DM see where the uncertainties lie. The checks do not form a chain in which the first failure cancels everything after it. Each result is an ingredient in the narration, and the narration incorporates all of them.

Failure and competence

A failed roll does not mean the action fails outright. How a failure plays out depends on the character’s competence. For an experienced character, a poor result usually falls on the more ambitious part of the attempt or costs them something, while the part within their established competence still holds. For a less experienced character, the same result can mean the attempt itself fails.

The effects of a failure can carry forward through the scene, and a later success does not erase them. In the alley example above, the rogue’s noisy stumble and misthrown pebble might draw the killer’s lackeys even though the attack landed.

Degrees of outcome

Results do not need to be binary, and the DM judges the severity and shape of each outcome case by case. The same check can produce a clean success, a success with a cost, a partial result, or a failure with complications, depending on the roll and the circumstances.

Outcomes are also bounded by what the character could plausibly achieve. A high roll produces the best result within reach of the attempt, not an impossible one, and a low roll produces the worst plausible result, not a catastrophe beyond the stakes of the attempt.

Modifiers

Advantage and disadvantage remain available for circumstances that dramatically change a character’s position. The DM can also apply situational modifiers such as +2, −2, +4, or −4 when a smaller adjustment fits better. Rather than letting one source of advantage cancel one source of disadvantage, the DM considers the whole situation (high ground, heavy rain, poor visibility, a moving target) and assigns a single adjustment that reflects it.

Conditions

The standard conditions such as Prone, Restrained, and Blinded remain as shorthand. The fiction can also create new conditions whenever something meaningful happens: sand in the eyes, a wounded arm, a broken shield, being pinned under rubble, disorientation after teleporting, or being on fire. The DM extrapolates the consequences from what the condition logically means.

§Classes and subclasses

Class features are not discarded in favor of Talents. Each feature is evaluated for the role it should play in a fiction-first game. Some remain mechanical, some become narrative modifiers, some grant Talents, and some disappear because the action they represented is something any character can already attempt. Features that clash with this system, such as the rogue’s Reliable Talent or Heightened Spell alongside a reinterpreted Quickened Spell, fall under the general rule in What remains from 5e and may become a new effect or be replaced with a Talent.

The Champion, Battle Master, and Quickened Spell entries below illustrate how features might be reinterpreted. They are not fixed rulings for those classes, and each DM decides how a given feature translates at their table.

Battle Master maneuvers are not exclusive options. Any martial character can try to trip, disarm, shove, feint, or reposition an opponent. A Battle Master is exceptional because their training gives them greater competence in these areas, and where 5e would grant maneuver progression, a DM might grant combat Talents in its place.

Casters are distinguished by the source of their magic and the Talents their class grants, and some features cannot be reached by other classes at all. A wizard could never cast a quickened spell, however hard they tried.

Quickened Spell is one case of the general rework rule, since its original effect depended on the removed bonus action.

§Magic

Slots and scale

Spell lists are removed, but spell slots remain. A caster describes the magical effect they want and the slot level they are committing to it, or indicates that the effect is small enough to be a cantrip. The slot level sets the scale of the result. A geyser of water summoned with a 1st-level slot and one summoned with a 9th-level slot produce vastly different effects, damage, and conditions. The DM judges whether a requested effect is a fit for the level and circumstances.

5e’s spells serve as a loose reference for what each slot level can achieve, but the caster’s source of power, domain, and Talents shape the actual result, which need not match the 5e spell it resembles.

Since bonus actions are gone, a character can cast only one leveled spell per turn, unless they gain an extra action, such as from Action Surge. Cantrips are not subject to the one-leveled-spell limit, but how many fit into a turn is still bounded by the six-second narrative action. Freeform shaping does not raise a cantrip’s ceiling: however a caster describes it, a cantrip stays at the scale of 5e’s cantrips.

The same slot can serve very different uses. A caster with a 3rd-level slot and a discipline in ice might wall an enemy in, hold a line against a horde of zombies, or build a perimeter around a battle. The use case shapes the DC and the effect. Casters with similar bonuses should produce comparable results at the same level, though a specialist such as a pyromaniac would deal more damage with fire than a generalist.

Competence and casting rolls

The DM considers the caster’s magical background, source of power, relevant Talents, experience, current exhaustion, and the scale of the effect. An effect well within established competence needs no casting roll. A skilled fire mage spending a 3rd-level slot to hurl a fireball into a group of enemies simply resolves the effect on the targets and environment, and the same mage might instead heat an enemy’s weapon until it cannot be held or melt through a metal obstruction.

Magic becomes uncertain when it pushes beyond the caster’s normal experience.

Concentration and failure

The DM decides which effects require concentration and tells the player at casting, so a later spell never ends one unexpectedly. A failed or partial casting still expends the resources committed to it.

§Last Stand and dying

Last Stand

Losing a character is costly in a narrative-driven game, so Last Stand makes death harder to reach and moves much of the danger into exhaustion. Characters can refuse to go down, but every Last Stand costs exhaustion, and those costs add up the longer the party goes without a safe rest.

The death saving throw system is replaced by Last Stand and the Dying condition. When a character reaches 0 hit points, they can take a Last Stand by spending Hit Dice to regain hit points and remain standing. A single Last Stand can spend several Hit Dice at once. Each Hit Die spent this way restores hit points equal to its maximum value plus the character’s Constitution modifier. Last Stand is a special action taken the moment a character reaches 0 hit points, and it does not use the character’s one reaction per round.

Last Stand is never literal healing. It represents determination, adrenaline, endurance, luck, and the will to keep living. A barbarian with a giant arrow through her lung can grit her teeth and keep fighting, but the arrow is still in her and the bleeding is still real. A fighter who reaches 0 from a fall might have grabbed branches on the way down, shredded their hands, and lost pieces of armor before crashing into the ground in terrible shape but conscious.

Each separate Last Stand gives one level of exhaustion. Spending three Hit Dice in one Last Stand gives one level. Spending one, dropping to 0 again, and taking another Last Stand gives a level each time. The hit points are gained before the exhaustion, so a Last Stand that brings a character to exhaustion level 6 still leaves them standing, though it is the last one they can take. Likewise, a Last Stand that reaches exhaustion level 4 applies its healing before the halving.

Eligibility and massive damage

A character must be physically able to take a Last Stand. If nothing is left to stand, as when touching a sphere of annihilation or being crushed by a large boulder, there is no Last Stand. A character at exhaustion level 6 cannot take a Last Stand. Massive damage kills outright when the character cannot take a Last Stand.

Dying

A character at 0 hit points who has no Hit Dice to spend, or who does not take a Last Stand, falls unconscious and begins Dying. They gain one stack of Dying at the start of each of their turns and die at six stacks. Taking damage while Dying adds a stack, or two stacks if the damage comes from a melee hit. Any amount of healing removes all stacks and brings the character back to consciousness. Being healed out of Dying counts as a Last Stand for exhaustion, giving one level. As with a Last Stand, the hit points are restored before the exhaustion is applied. Healing a character who is not Dying has no such cost.

A Dying character can be stabilized with a Medicine check or a series of other appropriate checks. Stabilization ends the Dying condition. Ordinary stabilization leaves the character unconscious at 0 hit points. More thorough treatment, such as a character with the Healer feat using a healer’s kit and rolling well, can instead bring them to 1 hit point and conscious. A stabilized character who takes damage begins Dying again with the stack that damage adds, or two stacks for a melee hit.

Healing a Dying character at exhaustion level 6 fails and does not remove their stacks, so stabilization is the only way to end the Dying condition. A character at exhaustion level 6 cannot regain hit points, so if they are stabilized, they remain unconscious at 0 hit points until a long rest. If their exhaustion is reduced to level 5, whether by magic such as Greater Restoration or a Major Restoration potion, or by a medical kit or a series of medical checks against a high DC, they wake at 1 hit point with 5 levels of exhaustion.

§Rest and exhaustion

Hit Dice recovery

Hit Dice represent a character’s will to live, not a pool for everyday healing. They cannot be spent to regain hit points during a short rest and are used only for Last Stand. A short rest instead restores 20% of a character’s maximum hit points. Further recovery comes from treatment and supplies. During a short rest, a character can tend another’s wounds with a Medicine check or a relevant Talent such as Field Surgeon, and the DM decides how much is restored from the result and the care available. A healer’s kit supports this treatment, and potions and other healing items work as in 5e. Without a healer’s kit, a creature can benefit from treatment only once per short rest. With one, a creature can be treated more than once, but each treatment spends one of the kit’s uses. Others can assist the one treating them.

Exhaustion

Exhaustion is meant to be harsh. It is the price of pushing through, and full recovery requires reaching real safety. Exhaustion uses the table below, and its effects are cumulative. A single long rest removes all levels of exhaustion, whatever their source, but a long rest requires somewhere the party can actually rest safely for eight hours. In hostile territory, finding or securing such a place is part of the challenge. This does not make other sources of exhaustion, such as a Berserker’s Frenzy, cheap: exhaustion still stacks within the day, and a character who keeps adding to it is gambling with their life. Below level 6, magical healing restores hit points but does not necessarily remove exhaustion. If exhaustion drops below level 4, maximum hit points return to normal, but current hit points lost to the halving do not.

Exhaustion and pacing

Exhaustion builds while the party is away from safety and clears once they reach it, so Last Stand and exhaustion carry the most weight on expeditions where a safe long rest has to be earned. When a party can return to secure lodging each night, exhaustion rarely lasts beyond a single day, and the DM should not expect it to create high-stakes pressure during those stretches of a campaign. A DM who wants that pressure makes safe rest an objective, not an assumption.

§Advancement

Level continues to represent increased hit points, proficiency, spell slots, class progression, feats, subclass features, and overall capability. Feats and class progression are major sources of new Talents, so characters gain new areas of competence through advancement while their background determines much of what they begin with.