How to play Twisted: a new player's guide

The four factions

Twisted has four factions and 66 playable characters in all.

Build your Company

Your force is called a Company. A standard game uses Companies of about 200 points. Pick characters freely up to the agreed total, with two things to watch:

• Unique characters. A character with an Engine Eyecon on its card can be taken only once. Characters without it can be taken more than once.
• Leftover points can buy equipment from Dr Disraeli's Delights: unique items that give your characters bonuses and special abilities.

If your Company includes an Alchemancer, choose the Invocations they will have available before the game starts.

Guild of Harmony allies

Each Guild Creed has a preferred alliance:

• Anarchists may ally with the Dickensians and the Scions of the Sands (but not if the Company includes Horace De Havilland).
• Ethicists may ally with the Servants of The Engine and the Scions of the Sands (but not if the Company includes Avatar of Set).
• Pragmatists may ally with all factions.

An optional rule, Shifting Loyalties, makes Guild allies unpredictable: at certain moments you roll to see if they stay loyal, and on a bad result they may skip an activation, leave the table, or even join the enemy.

The one roll that runs the game

Twisted uses an opposed D20 system. Both players roll a D20 and add the relevant Characteristic. The highest total wins. On a tie, the player holding Favour of The Engine wins.

• A Natural 1 always fails and a Natural 20 always succeeds.
• In combat, a Natural 20 is a Critical Hit: it hits automatically, the target gets no Defence roll, and the target's Armour is halved (rounded down).
• Pre-measuring is always allowed. Measure any distance at any time before you commit to an action.

Reading a Character Card

Every character's card lists the same Characteristics:

When Life drops to or below the red boxes on the card, the character is Wounded: every Characteristic except Armour drops by 2. At 0 Life the character is Out of Action and removed from the table.

How a turn works

Each character gets two Actions per turn: Move, Ranged Attack, Interact, Use Ability, or Alchemancy. Using both Actions to move lets you Charge or Run. Close Combat is not an Action: it happens automatically when opposing characters are in base to base contact. Every turn has four phases:

1. Sorting Phase. Arrange your Activation Deck in the order you want your characters to activate.
2. Eye of The Engine. Draw one Eye of The Engine card from the shared deck (two if you hold Favour, and keep one).
3. Activation Phase. Players alternate, one character at a time, each taking its two Actions. The player with Priority goes first.
4. Maintenance Phase. Expired effects end, ongoing effects like Bleed resolve, Stun clears, Out of Action cards come out of the Activation Decks, and the Eye of The Engine deck is shuffled.

Priority can change hands during the turn: you earn it by Wounding an enemy, taking one Out of Action, or achieving an objective. Whoever holds it at the start of the next turn activates first.

Favour of The Engine

At the start of the game, each player rolls a D20 and subtracts the number of characters in their Company. The higher result starts with Favour of The Engine; the lower result gets Priority for the first turn. Favour gives three benefits:

• The Engine's Intervention: you win tied opposed rolls.
• The Engine's Blessing: once per turn, one of your characters may re-roll any one die.
• The Engine's Aid: draw a second Eye of The Engine card and choose which to keep.

Favour can be lost. If your Blessing re-roll comes out worse or still fails, Favour passes immediately. You also lose it if you Tempt Fate and draw a card with a red Eyecon.

How to win

Victory Points decide the game. Add them up at the end, and the highest total wins.

• Reducing an enemy to the Wounded state: 1 VP.
• Taking an enemy Out of Action: 2 VP.
• Achieving a Primary Objective or a Taxing Task: varies.

Characters with the Insignificant ability give only half these points, rounded down. And if every one of your opponent's characters is Out of Action, you win no matter what the totals say.