Strain is crying out to be a push-your-luck mechanic rather than just a rise or fall gauge. It has to be said that the three prompts of Tact, Loss and Strain have been perfect align in that respect, because in my head, mechanically, they just fit the way that I’ve sketched them out.

In coming at Strain, I have to nod toward games that have similar, but different, mechanics, like the Stress and Panic of Mothership. However, there’s a definite difference, even though they’re both measures escalating toward an undesirable outcome.

It’s Your Funeral

Let’s assume that Strain starts with a track of six boxes. You can opt for more or less, but the number of boxes should match the sides on a die.

Where Mothership and Sanction vary is that a player can voluntarily take Strain to push themselves beyond their normal limits (whereas, Stress in Mothership arises from adversity and failed rolls, even though you, as player, have the option to hold up your hand and accept a point because it makes sense).

How the benefit of Strain manifests depends on the Genre Setup. One approach to Strain might be as an alternative to Fortune, so you can spend Strain to re-roll a Challenge.

But, there could be more, and I suspect I will come back to something like Strain when I finally write QkSLVa—a Genre Setup about ordinary people chemically enhanced to fight vampires and werewolves in a world on the brink of eco collapse.

You could spend Strain to trigger an additional Action within a Moment. In combat, you might strike twice. Hacking a computer, you might roll a second Challenge and creep closer to filling the task’s clock (With Guile Incantation and Faith, Timing, p 12) in half the time. In a chase, you might get much closer far quicker. That sort of thing, but it needs a spend of Strain.

Perhaps you could break Initiative. It isn’t usually a thing in Sanction, but even in a narrative flow of working out who goes next, you can spend Strain to cut in and act now. Maybe, when the GM explains what opponent A is about to do, you say, “That’s interesting, because I can sense what’s coming from the way you’re acting and realise I can’t allow it. I spend a Strain and…” then explain, make a check, and ideally change the path of events for the better.

If you didn’t get things your own way, Strain might allow you to ignore Hits or Consequences on a one-for-one basis. If you take a Hit, drop a Strain on the table to ignore it until the end of combat. For Consequences, I think it makes sense that a Strain delays three of them, meaning that you also, effectively, hold off a Hit until later. But, at the end of combat, everything drops on you, a hero reduced to a puddle of pulp and gore.

You get the idea of what Strain might do. It could even allow for purely narrative acts, or at least storytelling that you might otherwise resolve with a roll if it got that far. Holding a door closed for a few extra moments as undead batter on the other side and your friends try to make distance—spend a Strain. A bridge buckles as panicked villagers try to cross it, the ropes unwinding, the timbers cracking—spend a Strain to grasp hold and keep the bridge together or slap on a few temporary patches and fixes.

Borrowing Success From Future You

Strain doesn’t necessarily do anything when you take it. It’s a spend now and worry about it later so of thing, not too dissimilar to a Supply Die throw where you’re firing arrows or bullets without knowing how close you’re to running out.

Certain situations or Challenges should require a Player roll against their Character’s accumulated Strain on a die that matches the number of boxes. In our example, that’s a 1d6. And you want to roll higher than the current level of Strain. The more you’ve accumulated, the greater the chance something gives. At Strain 6, there’s no place to go.

If you throw and roll high, Strain bites back. Exhaustion, panic, blackout, corruption, psychosis. Something happens that puts the character in harms way because they’re pushed too hard.

In QkSLVa, for example, psychosis is the prize for overdoing it. You’re so pumped full of weird preternatural pharma, the push just makes you snap and you become the sort of monster you should be fighting.

But, that’s a key thing to keep in mind. Strain needn’t mean psychological stress at all and it doesn’t manifest during accumulation. Strain is the price of exceeding your limits. It’s a push-your-luck mechanic that lies in the hands of the player.

When should you ask a Player to roll against Strain. I think that’s tied to the Genre Setup. Like Supply, you might opt for at the end of a Scene. You might also ask a Player to roll after a Challenge Falters, especially if the situation has a lot of pressure or tension, or maybe you don’t have a clear idea of the harm associated with the outcome of falling short. There’s a degree of flexibility here to match up with the backdrop of the setting.

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What happened last time the Strain overwhelmed your character? I look forward to reading about it in your RPGaDay post.

#RPGaDAY2026