There’s really nothing quite like rolling dice. The tactile feel of the dice in your hand combined with the anticipation of the what they’ll produce is something you can’t replace. But some- times you want to give your players even more control over your game and dice just can’t give you that. That’s why we’ve created a way to resolve Tests using regular playing cards. This system variant is entirely optional and you should find out if your group is interested in trying it before bringing it into your game. Some players aren’t interested in giving up their dice, no matter how cool the alternative may be.
Instead of using dice, everyone uses playing cards. Take two decks of regular playing cards and remove the face cards and the jokers to create your play deck. This should accommodate up to five players, including the Storyguide. Add another deck to the mix for every extra two players. Be sure to shuffle the deck well. Place the play deck someplace where everyone can easily reach it.
Each player at the beginning of the session draws a hand of five cards with which to play. The Storyguide never draws a hand – he always draws straight from the deck and never knows what he’s going to get. Every time a player plays cards to resolve a Test, he should immediately draw to bring his hand back up to a total of five cards. If you so desire, you can give your play- ers the option of keeping their hands from episode to episode. Just make sure they each write down the cards they had in their hands at the end of the session and give those cards back to the appropriate players at the begin of the next episode.
To resolve Tests, a player chooses a number of cards equal to the rating of his level of expertise to use, instead of rolling the same number of dice. The rules for success apply as usual – choose the highest card, add together a number of multiples, or add togeth- er a straight of three or more. Players must always play the num-
ber of cards required by their Character’s level of expertise and any Specializations. If their total equals or exceeds the Difficulty assigned by you as Storyguide, the Test is a success as usual. If a Specialization would take the number of cards they need to play above five, they must play all the cards in their hands and draw cards from the top of the deck until they reach the number of cards they need. If anyone chooses to spend Drama Points, draw one card from the top of the draw deck for every Drama Point. Whenever you run out of cards, just reshuffle the discard pile and keep going.
Critical Failures are hard to come by using this system. There are only four aces in every deck, so an average play deck with
only have eight aces. It is improbable that a player will end up with enough in his hand and be forced to play in such a way as to constitute a Critical Failure. That being said, make sure that Critical Failures really count if you use this variant. If they hap- pen infrequently, they should hurt.
This rules variant provides a new opportunity for reading results for success – the flush. A flush is when you have three or more cards of the same suit. Whenever you play cards, regardless of what results you choose to use to determine your success, you get a +2 to your result if you play a flush. If you ever find yourself playing five cards and all of them are of them are flush, you get a +6 to your final result.
Overall, this rules variant gives players an additional level of strategy as they build their hands. They control which Tests they’re cool with failing and when they ditch low cards, as well as how they build their hands to succeed at critical Tests. And
unless they have good poker faces, the growing dread shows on their faces as their bad hands grow or the smug grins show as their hand flourishes. If you’re good at reading people, you can put them in situations that reflect where they’re at hand-wise. As Storyguide, you always draw from the top of the play deck, no matter what for which you are drawing. It’s not about your building great hands with which to thwart your players, it’s about giving them an edge while you facilitate the story and roll with whatever punches show up. Plus, it makes your players feel that much more like they have an edge in a setting that is more than a little dangerous.
Sometimes unscrupulous players will try to put themselves in un- critical situations that call for Tests so that they can burn a bad hand. Feel free to call BS and disallow such Tests. Force them to use the Automatic Success rules and just roll on by. Make them hold onto those bad cards for real Tests – that’s the price they pay for using a variant system that overall gives them more control.
One of the most important facets of this type of play is that players are not allowed to count cards, nor are they allowed to go through the discard pile to see what cards remain in the play deck. This variant already gives players more control and no one should use it to try to manipulate the game. Encourage them to simply stay with the excitement of the game instead of trying to play the odds. If your players are the types of people who are likely to do this and unlikely to shy away from discouragement, it’s probably better for you to stick with dice in your game.