Introduction
Metanoia uses a single unified mechanic for every action in the game. Whether you are fighting, negotiating, crafting, or exploring, the process is the same: build a pool of dice, roll against a target number, count your successes, compare to a threshold, and interpret the outcome. There are no separate subsystems for combat, social encounters, or skill checks.
Everything else in the rules is about how you build that pool and what the consequences of its results mean.
Ren and Identity
Section titled “Ren and Identity”The energy that powers everything in Metanoia is called Ren. It is not magic in the conventional sense. Ren is latent will, belief, and intent made tangible. It aligns with concepts, phenomena, and matter of all kinds. The way a character wields Ren is inseparable from who they are and what they believe.
Characters have Values: four core beliefs ranked in priority. Those values connect to Polarities: specific flavors of Ren tied to those beliefs. The die size a polarity contributes to any roll is determined by how important its associated value is to that character. Change what you believe, and you change how you fight.
This is the game’s central loop. Combat, social conflict, and personal confrontation are not separate modes of play. They are the same loop asking the same question: what does this moment force you to sacrifice, hold, or change?
Before You Begin
Section titled “Before You Begin”Metanoia is not designed to be played casually. If played in a beer-and-pretzels manner, it will probably not deliver on what it is trying to do. The four things below are not suggestions. They are prerequisites.
Why You Play
Section titled “Why You Play”The first conversation your group needs to have is about why you play games at all.
Metanoia is built on a simple premise: games are practice for real life. The goal is not to escape reality for a few hours. It is to use the fiction as a lens, a pressure test, and a rehearsal space for real beliefs, real values, and real questions. Alignment on this at the table makes the difference between a game that resonates and one that just passes time.
The Character as Mirror
Section titled “The Character as Mirror”In Metanoia, you inhabit a character. More than in most TTRPGs, the goal is not to tell a story about that character. It is to experience what might be called The Other: a perspective, a set of beliefs, and a set of pressures that are not entirely your own.
The character is a way to reflect on yourself. The distance the fiction provides is not insulation from the questions it raises. It is the method by which you approach them.
Trust and Care Are Paramount
Section titled “Trust and Care Are Paramount”If Metanoia is doing what it is designed to do, it will put you in uncomfortable situations. Not at the table necessarily, but in the hours and days after you leave it. The scenarios, choices, and value confrontations the game creates are meant to stay with you.
Having people at the table who know you, care about you, and can help you reflect on what came up is not just nice to have. It is part of the experience. Metanoia is a way to strengthen friendships and clarify beliefs, but only if the group has built the trust to support each other through the hard parts.
Safety tools are not optional. Discuss them before you begin.
Know Your World and Your Ren
Section titled “Know Your World and Your Ren”Deep knowledge of the world of Ithasen and the mechanics of Ren is a prerequisite for the full play experience.
Characters’ wills and intents are the means by which you gain things to reflect upon. Ren as a system works a specific way to support this: values shape power, beliefs shape access, and the world pushes back against every choice you make. Without understanding how Ren works and what the world of Ithasen is, the mechanical and narrative feedback the game gives you loses its meaning.
Not knowing the mechanics of Ren is like not knowing about gravity, heat, or that other people have inner lives. Without that foundation, and without genuine immersion in the world, the impact of the game will be diminished.
Read the rules. Read the world. Then play.
How to Read the Rules
Section titled “How to Read the Rules”The rules are organized into four areas:
- Core Mechanic: The dice pool, target numbers, success and magnitude, and boons and complications.
- Character: How to build and track a character, including values, polarities, strain, armor, wounds, and movement.
- Abilities: How active and passive abilities are constructed and used.
- Confrontations: How combat and social exchanges are structured.
Supporting rules (Realms, Awareness, Ren Texture, Favor, Rest, Equipment) sit alongside these sections and are referenced as needed.
Start with The Dice Pool if you want to understand the engine first. Start with Creating a Character if you want to build before you read.