Once you start playing, you will find that scenes tend to flow naturally, so you will rarely have to check whether a scene has ended.
That said, some rules and effects rely heavily on the scene structure: many spells, for instance, last "until the end of the scene". Pay attention to these!
When the heroes’ goals clash with those of another faction, things can get heated and the Game Master may declare the beginning of a conflict scene — be it a battle, a breakneck chase, or a tense audience with a king. During a conflict, the camera “zooms in” and the characters’ actions are tracked in greater detail.
You can find more about conflicts starting on page 58, but you should read the rules for Checks first — they’re on page 38.
There will be moments in the game where the story moves at a slower pace — a trek across the plains, the long descent down a cavern, a night of rest in town, or even a month spent waiting for an ally to recover. Instead of a moment-by-moment scene, we can describe these situations as a sequence of short frames that shows our heroes as they perform a variety of activities.
During an interlude scene (or "interlude"), each Player describes the general task their character performs, whether it's searching the village for someone or staying on the lookout for dangers in a dungeon. However, if a Player wants to have a detailed interaction with someone or something, you should switch back to a standard scene.
Interlude scenes are especially useful when characters want to pursue long-term objectives, such as Projects (see page 134), or to describe journeys (page 106).
If the Game Master wants, they may play a scene in which no Player Character is present, and in which the Players are simply spectators, separate from their characters.
These Game Master scenes can be used to foreshadow an event, introduce a future threat or show a Villain in action: they work just like cut scenes in a video game, or pre-title scenes in many movies and TV show episodes.
Game Master scenes are an excellent way to add depth to antagonists and provide a sense of narrative tension.
Philip Forlenza (Order #)