How Tabletop Mode Works
Dice, stats, momentum, sworn vows, and real death: the Ironsworn-style Tabletop mode, explained from first roll to final fate.
Updated July 16, 2026
Tabletop is a dice-driven game mode built on the Ironsworn tabletop system: your character has five stats and a momentum track, your typed actions become moves resolved by real server-rolled dice, your quests are sworn vows with progress tracks, and death is permanent. The story is still written by the narrator, but what happens is decided by the dice, and the narrator is bound by the result.
Starting a Tabletop saga
Pick Tabletop on the first step of character creation. You will allocate a fixed 3, 2, 2, 1, 1 spread across your five stats, choose three starting assets from a curated set, and see the warning that matters: in Tabletop, death is real. Tabletop is rolling out in early access to Paragon members first, and every new saga opens with the story grounding the vow your motivation seeded.
Stats and the action roll
- Edge covers speed, agility, and precision.
- Heart covers courage, charm, and loyalty.
- Iron covers strength, endurance, and force.
- Shadow covers stealth, deception, and cunning.
- Wits covers insight, knowledge, and awareness.
Type what you do, exactly as in any other mode. When your action looks like a move, a suggestion chip appears naming the move and the stat it rolls with; tap ROLL and the server rolls one six-sided action die plus your stat against two ten-sided challenge dice. Beat both challenge dice for a strong hit, one for a weak hit, neither is a miss, and matched challenge dice twist the scene. Then send your turn: the story narrates that exact outcome, including the price a miss demands. A move sheet is always available if you want to pick a different move or read the full rules text.
Momentum
Momentum runs from -6 to +10 and measures how much the story is on your side. Hits build it, setbacks drain it, and negative momentum that matches your action die cancels that die outright. Its real power is the burn: before a bad roll is written into the story, you can burn your banked momentum to flip the outcome, resetting momentum to +2. The receipt shows the burn preview whenever it would help.
Vows, journeys, and progress
Quests in Tabletop are sworn vows with a rank and a ten-box progress track that fills as the story advances. Undertaking a journey opens a track the same way. When the story brings a vow's work to completion, its fulfillment roll happens as part of that turn and the receipt shows the dice; you can also fulfill a vow or finish a journey yourself at any time with a progress roll from the move sheet's Tracks tab. Fulfilling vows is what pays experience, and a missed fulfillment keeps the vow standing: the story was not done with it after all.
Death is real
When your health reaches zero you Face Death on the dice, and the roll is automatic. A strong hit means you cling to life; a weak hit costs your spirit; a miss ends the character's story permanently. There are no revives and no retries, and the save becomes a finished saga. That permanence is the point: risk in Tabletop means something no other mode can offer.
Assets and experience
Assets are ability cards: companions, paths, and talents that describe what your character is uniquely good at. You start with three from the creator, and vows you fulfill pay experience you can spend on new ones (3 XP a card) from the asset browser in the move sheet.
The oracle
The oracle answers questions the story has not settled: what the ruin holds, how the stranger reacts, what the weather turns. Consult it from the move sheet and its answer weaves into your next turn. The narrator also consults it behind the scenes when a miss demands a price.
Editions by genre
Fantasy-leaning genres play with the classic Ironsworn move and oracle set; science-fiction genres play with the Starforged set. The right edition is picked automatically from your saga's genre, so a space saga rolls Undertake an Expedition where a fantasy one rolls Undertake a Journey.
Licenses and credits
This work is based on Ironsworn, created by Shawn Tomkin, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Tabletop mode uses material from the Ironsworn Rulebook, the Ironsworn Assets Master Set, the Ironsworn: Starforged Rulebook, and Ironsworn: Starforged Assets, all by Shawn Tomkin, via the community Datasworn data project. SagaBound is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Shawn Tomkin or Tomkin Press. The same credit appears at the foot of the in-game move sheet, next to the content it covers.