Death, the discovered country (LoF, part 6)

In role-playing games, how to deal with the ultimate failure, death?  There are plenty of ways to punish players for lesser failures, and as the Knight at the Opera points out, defeats other than death are a space with a lot of potential.  

I love the deadly nature of N/OSR play: allowing players to lose the game makes ‘winning’ all the sweeter.  But I also love the deep character investment of players in trad games like 5e, the hilarious backstories, and the poignancy of loss when they die.  

This post is about how I put those two things together, and designed a different way to die in RPGs.  The design goal: Let players fail, with major consequences, and yet keep playing their characters in a way they enjoy.  

I *think* this death mechanic is more or less new to TTRPGs (likely I am wrong though).  This post is not a full description (future blog post!) because I am tired of super-long posts.  This is also not a discussion of all the ways that different RPGs handle death (another future blog post!).  This death mechanic likely is not be for everyone. But I can report that it has played well–it works for my weekly OSR-flavored 5e game, and for Mausritter with my kids.  The players don’t want to die, but when they do, it doesn’t end the game or mar their characters.  

This is the last of the tricks I use to create a landscape of fear around my players.  They are more likely to take risks if they know they will survive them, after a loss.  Oddly, it does not dampen their fear–they know the GM will strike them down in a heartbeat, and that dying sucks.  It’s just not the end...if you can keep paying.

“But that the dread of something after death, / The undiscovered country, from whose bourn /  No traveller returns, puzzles the will, / And makes us rather bear those ills we have, / Than fly to others that we know not of?”

–Jean Luc Picard

Trick #4: The Nine Lives of Revenants

In a nutshell: the PCs make a deal with a strong magical entity to bring them back, but the required costs escalate with every resurrection.  Death is not free.

In this version of death, kicking the bucket has consequences, but it is not the end.  At least…at first.  There are a lot of possible options to consider (future post!), but they all share a similar outcome: many resurrections, with a cost.  

When a PC dies, I pause the game and we step out for a GM-player side chat.  There they visit the magical entity they made a deal with (their Patron), and choose whether or not to pay the cost to come back. The PC doesn’t remember meeting the Patron to sign the deal, and they cannot speak about their Patron to others.  This makes their first resurrection something of a surprise, and keeps them from spoiling the surprise for the rest of the PCs (or sharing their Patron’s demands).  In my games, I tell level 1 PCs that they vaguely remember making a deal with someone about death, but they don’t remember the details about coming back.  

The key feature of these costs is they are future focused: the loss of future experience points, treasure PCs can’t spend on future gear, or bonds and memories that no longer will benefit them in a tight spot.  They don’t alter the player’s vision of the character right now, but they do dim their future prospects. The consequences of death matter, but since they are in the future, there is wiggle room to fight them.

And most importantly, the costs of death focus the PCs on the elements of the game world that the GM feels matter most.  Death creates motivations for further adventure, and ties a PC to the world. 

If the GM wants to draw the players into treasure hunting and mercenary deals, ever-increasing amounts of gold and treasure are required to bring them back each time.  If the GM wants PCs to sign on working for different factions in the game world, simply give those factions the ability to sponsor resurrections and have death alter how experience is earned.  Once a PC can only earn full experience points by completing secret missions for their faction, they have motivation!  Similarly, if a PC comes back from death with lost memories and a paucity of bonds (all of them eaten by the Patron), they will be incentivized to create new ones with a vengeance.  

In this style of play, death becomes a (painful) learning process.  The N/OSR movement has long been an advocate of throwing out game balance, and the death mechanic presented here is intended to support that style of play while also allowing players to keep their (suitably chastened) heroes breathing.  At least, for now.

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The Landscape of Fear series so far:

Part 1: Fear of monsters is central to society. If NPCs fear, the players will too. 

Part 2: Fear is an easy shortcut to player engagement.

Part 3 The first step to fear: making PCs care about failing.  OSR and traditional RPGs often fail at this task.

Part 4: Next, foreshadow overwhelming danger: immediate and future.

Part 5: Place attractive rewards/traps in their path.  Keep the surprises coming, slowly spiral events out of their control.

Part 6 (this post): The center can hold?  How to encourage both failure and recovery from failure.

Fear hooks and the Quantum Horror (LoF, part 5)

Tempting, dangerous choices, clear rewards with unpleasant surprises–that is the key to helping PCs to simultaneously feel fear and agency, I think.  This is the ‘mess around and find out’ post in this series on fear in adventure games.

I mean, who wouldn’t throw those dragon teeth?

The Quantum Horror: Fear vs. agency

Fear is fueled by three main things: uncertainty, surprise and loss of control, and high stakes.  If the PCs care about failing, and are properly uncertain from foreshadowed danger, then all it takes is an overwhelming surprise to make them afraid. 

If you were running a horror game, that’s all you would really need.

But in a game focused on heroic adventure, players expect to make choices that matter, to have “agency” to drive the narrative.  No matter how well they foreshadow it, if a GM inflects terrible, fear-inducing events on the PCs, those events preempt player choice. The PCs may feel like the GM is using them to tell a pre-ordained story, or that the GM is unfairly not allowing them to flee the horror.  For example, no matter what PCs do to avoid Strahd, their choices don’t matter: they have to kill the Count to leave Barovia.¹ 

I call this conundrum, the Quantum Horror.  

The Mothership Warden’s Operations Manual² states that “Horrors occur because at some point a line was crossed that wasn’t meant to be crossed.” They name this event the "Trangression", which wakes the Horror from its slumber. It goes on to state, “Usually, your players only realize that they have Transgressed by the time it’s too late.”  This is typical for the genre: the Transgression often does not result from player choices.

Horror RPGs and modules work because player choice comes in upstream--this is what they signed up for.  In adventure games, GMs need to allow player choice before inflicting Fear or Horror. So how to get PCs to actively choose Fear³, and avoid this Quantum Horror problem? 

The Beauty of Temptation

If you are part of my weekly game and crew the good ship Murderbucket, please stop reading, some of the examples below will be spoilers.

The main trick I use is temptation.  I know my magpie players well enough to guess where they will do, and what shiny objects might attract them. So I place those shiny objects in their path (I follow the nicely stated philosophy of the “Quantum Ogre Reborn”, but you can do this with blorb prep as well). Just like adventure hooks, I put out a bunch of shiny “fear hooks”.  

A fear hook has just enough information to tell players that something bad might happen, and just enough reward hinted at to make players interested.  The fear hook might be a literal shiny object, like a treasure chest full of gold that fell out of the enemy airship as they fled.  Or the fear hook might be a difficult but beneficial choice, like helping the elves forge an alliance with vampires to destroy the orc legions.  

Although they are similar, the main differences between an adventure hook and a fear hook are expectations and outcome.  In general, players expect that they will survive an adventure hook presented by the GM, and that the eventual outcome will be a reward for completing the adventure hook.⁴  

With a fear hook, the reward is clear and and often immediate, and the expectation is a possibility of real danger.  Fear hooks are an attractive short-cut: sometimes the risk pans out and you get a new magic sword.  Sometimes it doesn’t, and you get a flaming sentient pyromaniac axe who burns down your ship.  But because fear hooks are tempting, shiny objects, they invite Transgression.  

When a player bites and interacts with the shiny object, they get both rewarded and cursed.  The curse might be literal, like the mimic measles inflicted by opening a suspect treasure chest.  Or the curse might be metaphorical, a bad deal or reputation that will come back to bite them, like their vampire allies luring them into Barovia after the final battle.  Either way, just like the Road Runner, the players are slow to learn because the reward is worth the cost.  Even though they know there are no free shortcuts to power, they take them anyway.  On that road, they don’t mind the imposed Horror, because their poor choices clearly caused it to arrive.  This is the critical difference between running a horror RPG and running a fear-driven adventure game: player choice is paramount.   

Trick #3: Tempting Dangers, Beautiful Curses

“Temptation is the fire that brings up the scum of the heart.”

–William Shakespeare

Before I go further describing tempting fear hooks and curses I have used, I should say that neither Identify nor Remove Curse work perfectly well in my home game.  Remove Curse and Identify are some of the worst spells in any fantasy RPG.  You take curses–magical, wonderful, terrifying,  incredible calls to adventure–and make them all fixable with a 2nd level spell any tin-pot cleric can cast.  Similarly, Identify takes magic items–mysterious, mythical objects that bend reality and beg for quests to know them fully–and turns them into a 3x5 notecard filled with lore and game-rules that you hand to the player. 

Taken together, that’s some serious lost-opportunity, let’s-play-it-just-like-Gary-did-because-we-don’t-want-to-lose-players Grade A bullcrap.  It’s 2026, we can hack a better game.

So when my players get cursed?  Remove Curse is for Lesser Curses like grumpy weapons and having your hair fall out.  For the real stuff, that spell is a balm, not a cure: Greater Curses piss on being removed easily.  Identify tells you everything about normal magic items, but sentient magic and serious Curses can hide their full powers, or twist what it says.  Nothing is truly safe, until players take the leap of trying it out.  Foreshadowing can hint at danger (and should!), but if they want to take the negative-energy Artifact for a spin, they will reap the whirlwind.  

Treasure-curses: actual shiny objects

At this point, there are so many entertainingly treasure-cursed PCs in my weekly game, it’s a badge of honor.  Good curses play on classic fears: death, the dark, disfigurement, abandonment and so on.  One PC is cursed with rapid vampirism and has a magical sword with a ghost chained to it.  Another wakes up every week to a new dead body, chopped up into bits at their feet.  One has lost their father inside a magical scroll, and a fourth exorcised the mimic measles only to attract the enduring attention of a Greater Mimic, whose colony is spreading through their hometown.  All these curses are pure adventure fuel: annoying enough for them to search for a cure, but not debilitating enough to make gameplay less fun.  

When they find a magical item, they don’t know how it works right away.  They can experiment, try it on for size, use a spell, etc.  But Identify can mislead them–one beloved example is the Ring of Animal Friendship that Identify said would let them speak with animals.  What was left out is that the spell requires a check, and if they fail, they only speak that animal’s language for the rest of the day.  They love it when a player can only bark and point for half the session.

Poor choices: metaphorical shiny objects

A player should know they are making a poor choice as they make it.  A poor choice is most obvious to a player, especially in retrospect, when it follows fictional or real-world expectations: easy treasure is often cursed, friendly strangers bearing gifts should not be trusted, complicated or stupid plans will fall apart, bad deeds will out, karma is an asshole, heroic deeds require heroic sacrifice, and so on.  Poor choices are also obvious when each option is a bad one, but a choice still must be made.  Do you ally with the vampires to save the elves, search desperately for another option, or try to go it alone in fighting off the orcs? 

If every choice has a drawback that is clearly seen by the players, and they choose the one with a clear immediate reward (the vamps can save us!), a fear hook has been set.  Then player choices, both the difficult ones and the truly bad ones, can come home to bite them.  

That time they robbed the dragon when he was away?  Turns out that dragons home in on their gold like heatseeking missiles.  When they tried to use that fact to take out all of the other problems in the valley (planting dragon gold in various lairs)?  That plan backfired because they made poor assumptions.  The young pickpocket they reflexively killed?  His friends await their return, sharpening their knives.  The time they heroically saved a dragon egg and refused to give up an evil artifact to interested parties?  They are now hunted by two armies.  

At every step, the bad bargains the PCs make give the GM room to inflict Fear and terrible events on them.  Their choices matter, and I like to make sure they always find out exactly how and why their karma bit them in the butt.  I also like to scale the consequences exactly to the degree they should have known better, or worked harder to find another solution.  I think a curse is a choice-robbing bag of no fun if it comes out of nowhere–I want them to be half-expecting the blow they know they deserve for doing something so ill-considered.  Which brings us to an oldie-but-goodie in the game of inflicting fear, jump scares.  

Jump Scares: courting danger

Normality, then break.  Comfort, then loss.  Security, then danger.  It’s changes in rhythm that can really drive an emotional response. Jump scares are an old horror movie staple, and the movie characters often initiate it–they go into the creepy house, they swim in deep waters, and they check the fallen body.  

To replicate that experience for PCs, use fear hooks.  Maybe the ‘fallen’ enemy was carrying a magical wand: is she really dead now?  Maybe there’s a magic sword they need in the cursed house.  They can only find the black pearl in the deepest waters, but they are haunted by ghost octopi.  They enter the pirate lord’s treasure room, expecting traps, and disturbing the clearly magical pile of rubies in the middle causes the door to slam shut as the room fills with water.  

Fear hooks and jump scares can be used to fix lackluster encounters.  Late-acting poisons, sudden changes in environmental conditions, the arrival of deadlier or magical enemies.  One session my PCs were running through a cursed tomb (with three undead knights), and finding all of the encounters easy and not threatening.⁵  The end-of-session vibe was kids in a candy store, next session we loot everything.  I had wanted the tomb to be spooky, and had failed miserably.

Between sessions, I had an idea⁶; What if I placed three tempting magical crystals in the empty tombs, one for each buried knight?  The first two were quickly snatched up and revealed to be stone-scrolls (i.e., spells in Mausritter, ported to DnD).  The third crystal was glowing⁷, in a room by itself–clearly special in a haunted tomb.

And when a brave PC picked it up, I pulled on the fear hook.  The lights went out and the groaning voices of the defeated knights could be heard, rising again.  Darkness had been cast on the tomb: the PCs banged into random walls and quickly began to be strafed by the undead knights they thought they had destroyed, claws and swords flashing out of the dark.  Now, with the tables turned, they RAN, leaving a retainer for dead, hoping they could run the right direction and, in the end, barely making it out alive.  

Jump scares are immediate payoffs to fear hooks, and work well when the Transgression is obvious.  

Combat as Fear Hook: Losing Control

“I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.”

-Darth Vader

I run an OSR-flavored 5e game each week.  And of all the OSR principles, ‘combat as a fail state’ is hardest to enforce with 5e mini-superheroes.  The players know their PCs are hard to kill, and monsters have to earn their respect.  That said, this problem is not uncommon with high-level OSR games either–that’s why Tucker’s Kobolds exist, after all.  Combat SHOULD be scary. 

Unsurprisingly, I find the most common poor choice my 5e PCs make is a frontal attack on a superior foe⁸. They see a reward, they see clear and present danger, they still go for it.  Instant fear hook.  

It’s important to note here that a given group of enemies may, or may not, be a real danger to the players mechanically in a fair fight (see, Tucker’s Kobolds).  The point is, combat is a fail state and all enemies are dangerous, no matter how weak-seeming.  So, when my players misjudge a foe that they should be running from, rather than mechanically bolstering the foe on the fly, I instead pull on that fear hook. Taking advantage of their choice to enter combat, I change the game under their feet.  

A big part of fear is losing control of the situation.  In a combat arising from a fear hook, every round some new surprise awaits the PCs that makes it harder.  The mob begins throwing stones.  The undead monstrosity bursts into the city above, gobbling up bystanders and getting stronger.  The guards of the ancient city are protected by a mythal: anyone casting magic on them is lit by faerie fire and has to deal with wild magic after-effects.  Reinforcements arrive.  Water floods the room.  And so on.  I keep the surprises coming, and I slowly spiral events out of their control.  It’s to their advantage to end things, quickly, and to never give the enemy an even break–just like real-world violence.

If and/or when the players survive (and regain control), they are going to feel like real heroes.  Proper heroes run away when needed, and eventually win because they survive, make clever choices, and keep pushing down dangerous paths.  Fear makes their choices matter, all the more.  

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The Landscape of Fear series so far:

Part 1: Fear of monsters is central to society. If NPCs fear, the players will too. 

Part 2: Fear is an easy shortcut to player engagement.

Part 3 The first step to fear: making PCs care about failing.  OSR and traditional RPGs often fail at this task.

Part 4: Next, foreshadow overwhelming danger: immediate and future.

Part 5 (this post): Place attractive rewards/traps in their path.  Keep the surprises coming, slowly spiral events out of their control.

Part 6: The center can hold?  How to encourage both failure and recovery from failure.

1 Strahd is the ultimate Quantum Ogre. Although Ravenloft is a popular adventure, it only works because players know the deal before they start. Imagine being excited to save the elf kingdom from orcs, then walking through some mist and ending up in Barovia week after week because your GM likes vampires.^↩

2 Even though it is a sci-fi horror game, the Mothership Warden's Operations Manual is one of the best how-to GM guides I have ever read. Every adventure game GM should check it out.^↩

3 Don't get me started on how Daggerheart does this, it's good design, but consider this more broadly--Fear empowers enemies in Daggerheart, but I am talking about taking the stupidly dangerous path, not mechanically suffering when you rest.^↩

4 Few GMs actively try to tempt their PCs to go fight a monster many times stronger (not without tons of clear warnings first, anyways), or let the PCs earn nothing in return for questing.^↩

5 Not an uncommon experience when running 5e: between Darkvision, turn undead, and superpowered PCs, it's hard to scare them into running from low-level undead in a dark tomb.^↩

6 Dungeons are scary places and should feel so. The lack of darkvision for PCs in Shadowdark RPG (and its ubiquity for monsters), and the emphasis on torches underground, is designed to generate an atmosphere of fear. So I thought, what if I could do that for vanilla 5e?^↩

7 True to my Quanturm Ogre Reborn prep, I had originally placed the crystal in a glowing sarcophagus, but the PCs chose not to open it. So I moved the glowing crystal to a nearby room, no one the wiser, and they picked it up there. They still wonder was was in the casket.^↩

8 Current game culture for 5e enables this sort of behavior by removing tough monsters from your game (only level-appropriate encounters allowed!). One way to fix this is to choose really tough monsters, so that they absorb all the party’s damage without blinking and then hit back like a truck. Another way, and one I prefer at my table since I like monsters to be real-feeling, not auto-scaling in difficulty with PC level, is to simply present PCs with a range of challenge difficulties.^↩

Daggerdeck: Playing Daggerheart with cards

If you forgot or don’t have d12 dice, you can play a game of Daggerheart that uses playing cards in place of d12s.  This post details a few alternative ways to roll Duality Dice with cards, from basic rolling to fun mini-games--I call it Daggerdeck, a simple add-on to Daggerheart.

When I return from vacation, I will upload a formatted Daggerdeck rules doc to Itch, PWYW, that has a few more examples of play (future link here). If you playtest these rules yourself and have questions or feedback, please comment down below. And before I get started, I want to acknowledge again that the idea for these cards-as-dice mechanics came from the inimitable Dadstep, over at the To Be Resolved blog. Enjoy!

Game 1: Simple rolls

If you remove the Kings from a deck of playing cards, drawing a card is just like rolling a d12 (Ace=1, 2-10, J=11, Q=12).  The odds are exactly the same, on average, for a given number to come up.  

So here’s how to play Daggerheart without any dice:

• Step 1: Get a standard 52-card deck, removing any Jokers. One or two decks of cards will do for the table, but if each player and GM has a shuffled deck of cards, you won't have to re-shuffle as often.  

• While playing, discard any Kings that appear, in a separate pile.  Replace them by drawing from the deck.  

• Step 2: Each time a player needs to roll Duality Dice, they deal themselves a hand of 2 cards face up. This pair of cards is their roll.  

Total up the roll by adding the two card values.  To determine if they rolled with Fear or Hope, players use these rules: 

1.  If both cards are red, they roll with Hope.

2.  If both cards are black, they roll with Fear.

3.  If red and black are drawn, the red is Hope, the black is Fear: higher wins.

Example 1: Player deals a Jack of Hearts (value=11, red) and an Ace of Spades (value=1, black).  Their total is 12 on their Duality Roll, with Hope (red>black).

• Step 3: If you have advantage/disadvantage, draw and place a third card near your pair, sideways.  If it is greater than 6, subtract 6 from its value (so a 7 → 1, etc.).  Then add or subtract the card value from your roll total.

• Step 4: Put played cards in a discard pile next to the deck. When a player is out of deck cards, shuffle the discards.

Game 2: Three-roll draw

This version of rolling Duality Dice with cards injects a bit of strategy into the game–players deal themselves a hand of three cards, which represent pre-rolled dice.  Players can choose which card to play and make interesting choices (do I want a high roll with that Queen of Spades, even if it means I get Fear?).  There are also optional twists to the game that make it even more fun.

• Step 1: Get a standard 52-card deck, removing any Jokers. One or two decks of cards will do for the table, but if each player and GM has a shuffled deck of cards, you won't have to re-shuffle as often.  

• In this game, KEEP any Kings that appear.  Kings are wild, but the deck chooses the value, not the player.  When they are dealt, draw another card from the deck to replace them in the hand.

• Step 2: From the deck, each player deals themselves a hand of 3 cards. Players should hide their hand of cards from other players.  

• Step 3: Each time a player needs to roll Duality Dice, they play one card from their hand, and turn over a second card drawn from the top of the deck.  This pair of cards is their roll.  

Total up the roll by adding the two card values.  To determine if they rolled with Fear or Hope, players use these rules: 

4.  If both cards are red, they roll with Hope.

5.  If both cards are black, they roll with Fear.

6.  If red and black are drawn, the red is Hope, the black is Fear: higher wins.

• Step 4: If you have advantage/disadvantage, draw and place a third card near your pair, sideways.  If it is greater than 6, subtract 6 from its value (so a 7 → 1, etc.).  Then add or subtract the card value from your roll total.

• Step 5: Put played cards in a shuffle pile next to the deck. When a player is out of cards in their Hand, they deal themselves three more from the deck.  The deck is reshuffled from the shuffle pile when it runs out of cards.

Players knowing that they may roll poorly or well ahead of time can be justified in game by saying they know if they feel tired and down, or feel like a million bucks.  Don’t you always have a good feel for if you are up to a task?   If you are exhausted, can you gather your energy for one big push?  

Twists:  Twists are optional, and are rated on a scale of changing gameplay.  One star = minimal changes, two or more stars = noticeable changes. 

Twist #1: Play Two.*  This twist allows the player some control over getting a good result when they need it, at the cost of worse luck later.  

If there are two cards that add up to 12 in their hand (for example, a Jack and Ace, or a 5 and a 7), a player can play two cards from their hand at once, separately.  They place the cards face up on the table and a bit apart: one card is played to the left, one to the right. 

The player then draws two cards from the deck; the first is added to the left card to make a pair, and the second to the right card to make a pair.  

The player then chooses which pair of cards on the table to use for this Duality Dice roll.  The other pair returns to their hand, to be played later.  

Twist #2a:  Play a Double (Hope).** This twist allows a player to have instant luck, but at the cost of spending Hope.  

If a player has a two-of-a-kind in their hand (for example, two sixes, of any suit), they can spend 2 Hope to play their two-of-a-kind pair for their roll.  They place the two cards face up on the table, touching.  

• If a pair of Kings is played, it is an automatic double.  The player draws one card from the deck to determine the value of the double (for example., if a six is drawn, the King double becomes a double of sixes, with a total of 12).  

 GMs: If you allow this twist, the chance of a critical roll is doubled.  Players could also use this Twist to pass moderate checks by choice, if they have the cards, but that will only happen in a fraction of dealt hands.  So this twist comes with a cost, spending Hope.

Twist #2b:  Play a Double (Risk).** This twist allows a player to have instant luck, but at the real risk of a bad-to-middling roll instead.  Either use Twist 2a, or 2b, but not both.

If a player has a two-of-a-kind in their hand (for example, two sixes, of any suit), they can play their two-of-a-kind pair for their roll.  They place the two cards face up on the table, touching.  

• If a pair of Kings is played, it is an automatic double.  The player draws one card from the deck to determine the value of the double (for example., if a six is drawn, the King double becomes a double of sixes, with a total of 12).  

The odds of a two-of-a-kind when you have three cards are roughly 2x the odds of rolling a double with dice.  So this twist comes with a real risk. 

The risk: The player must draw two additional cards from the deck and flip them over.  If  the total value of the deck pair is higher than the total value of their double (a pair of 8s is 16, etc.), they lose the benefits of the double!  Instead, players total up the double like a regular roll, and roll with Fear.  

With this cost, it’s risky to play any double that’s less than a 7: the odds are against you that it will stay a double. 

GMs: If you allow this twist, the chance of a critical roll is doubled.  Players could also use this Twist to pass moderate checks by choice, if they have the cards, but that will only happen in a fraction of dealt hands.  This is why, to offset this benefit, all failed doubles roll with Fear.  If you think this is too harsh, let the deck  hand’s cards determine Hope or Fear.

Twist #3: Cards on the table.***   Instead of players holding their cards in their hand where others cannot see them (or otherwise hiding them), they lay them on the table face up.  This may be the default for play in some online set-ups.  This twist is equal in terms of odds of different rolls, but players will change their choices and strategize around poor or high rolls they see coming for their party. 

Knowing that a fellow player may roll poorly can be justified in game by saying they look uncertain or beleaguered, or visibly need to recover their energy after a big effort.   Similarly, a good hand can be thought of as a player brimming over with vitality and good vibes, clearly having a run of good fortune.  And as always, players may still find disappointment, or hidden reserves, in the Deck. 

Twist #4: Choosing Advantage.*** This twist allows a player to spend 1 Hope to avoid drawing a card from the Deck for their advantage/disadvantage (A/D) rolls.  Instead, they can play a card from their hand sideways as their A/D card.  

The catch to this twist is that the GM can also spend 1 Fear to determine the advantage/disadvantage card for any draw.  They play a card from their hand, overruling the existing A/D card.  Players cannot play over the GM’s card.

Game 3: Five-roll draw

This version injects more strategy into the game–players start with a hand of five cards, which represent pre-rolled dice.  Players can choose which card to play and make interesting choices (do I want to try for a high roll with that Queen of Spades, even if it means I get Fear?).

• Step 1: Get a standard 52-card deck, removing any Jokers. One or two decks of cards will do for the table, but if each player and GM has a shuffled deck of cards, you won't have to re-shuffle as often.  

• In this game, KEEP any Kings that appear.  Kings are wild, but the deck chooses the value, not the player.  When they are dealt, draw another card from the deck to replace their value and suit.  

• Step 2: From the deck, each player deals themselves a hidden hand of 5 cards to hold, and deals two more cards face down in front of them (face down cards are called Hole cards).  

• Step 3: Each time a player needs to roll Duality Dice, they play one card from their hand, and turn over a second card drawn from the top of the deck.  This pair of cards is their roll.  

Total up the roll by adding the two card values.  To determine if they rolled with Fear or Hope, players use these rules: 

7.  If both cards are red, they roll with Hope.

8.  If both cards are black, they roll with Fear.

9.  If red and black are drawn, the red is Hope, the black is Fear: higher wins.

• Step 4: Put played cards in a shuffle pile next to their deck. When a player is out of their face-up cards, they deal themselves more from their deck and replace any missing Hole cards.

• Step 5: Once a player runs out of deck cards, they reshuffle their their deck.  

Players knowing that they will roll poorly or well ahead of time can be justified in game by saying they know if they feel tired and down, or feel like a million bucks.  Don’t you always have a good feel for if you are up to a task?   If you are exhausted, can you gather your energy for one big push?  

Twists:  Twists are optional, and are rated on a scale of changing gameplay.  One star = minimal changes, two or more stars = noticeable changes.  If you have been reading all the rules to this point, only Twists 1 and 2 differ from those in Game #2.  

Twist #1: Play Two.*  This twist allows the player some control over getting a good result when they need it, at the cost of worse luck later.  

If there are face-down Hole cards remaining in front of them, a player can play two face-up cards from their hand at once, separately.  They place the cards face up on the table and a bit apart: one card is played to the left, one to the right. 

The two face-down cards in their Hole  are then flipped over, one at a time.  The first is added to the left card to make a pair, and the second to the right card.  

The player then chooses which pair of cards on the table to use for this Duality Dice roll.  The other pair returns to their hand, to be played later.  

Face down cards are not refreshed until all face-up cards in a player’s hand have been played.

Twist #2a:  Play a Double (Hope).** This twist allows a player to have instant luck, but at the cost of spending Hope.

If a player has a two-of-a-kind in their face-up hand (for example, two sixes, of any suit) AND two Hole cards remaining face down, they can spend 3 Hope to play their two-of-a-kind pair for their roll.  They place the two cards face up on the table, touching.  

• If a pair of Kings is played, it is an automatic double.  The player draws one card from the deck to determine the value of the double (for example, if a six is drawn, the King double becomes double sixes, with a total of 12).  

GMs: If you allow this twist, the odds of a two-of-a-kind when you have five cards are roughly 5x the odds of rolling a double with dice.  Players could also use this Twist to pass moderate checks by choice, if they have the cards, but that will only happen in ~20% of dealt hands.  So this twist comes with a cost, spending Hope.

Twist #2b:  Play a Double (Risk).** This twist allows a player to have instant luck, but at the real risk of a bad-to-middling roll instead.  Either use Twist 2a, or 2b, but not both.

If a player has a two-of-a-kind in their face-up hand (for example, two sixes, of any suit) AND two Hole cards remaining face down, they can play their two-of-a-kind pair for their roll.  They place the two cards face up on the table, touching.  

• If a pair of Kings is played, it is an automatic double.  The player draws one card from the deck to determine the value of the double (for example, if a six is drawn, the King double becomes double sixes, with a total of 12).  

The odds of a two-of-a-kind when you have five cards are roughly 5x the odds of rolling a double with dice.  So this twist comes with a real risk.  

The risk: After playing their double, the players flip over their two face-down Hole cards.  If either card in the Hole pair is higher than the number of their double (a pair of 8s is number 8, etc.), they lose the benefits of the double!  Instead, players total up the double like a regular roll (a pair of 8s would be 16), and automatically roll with Fear.

With this cost, it’s risky to play any double that’s less than a 9: the odds are against you that it will stay a double, and instead become a low-to-medium roll with Fear.

GMs: If you allow this twist, the odds of a two-of-a-kind when you have five cards are roughly 5x the odds of rolling a double with dice.  Players could also use this Twist to pass moderate checks by choice, if they have the cards, but that will only happen in ~20% of dealt hands.  This is why all failed doubles could roll with Fear.  If you think this is too harsh, let the Hole hand’s cards determine Hope or Fear.

Twist #3: Cards on the table.***  Instead of players holding their cards in their hand where others cannot see them (or otherwise hiding them), they lay them on the table face up.  This may be the default for play in some online set-ups.  This twist is equal in terms of odds of different rolls, but players will change their choices and strategize around poor or high rolls they see coming for their party.

Knowing that a fellow player is likely to roll poorly can be justified in game by saying they look uncertain or beleaguered, or visibly need to recover their energy after a big effort.   Similarly, a good hand can be thought of as a player brimming over with vitality and good vibes, clearly having a run of good fortune.  And as always, players may still find disappointment, or hidden reserves, in the Deck. 

Twist #4: Choosing Advantage.*** This twist allows a player to spend 1 Hope to avoid drawing a card from the Deck for their advantage/disadvantage (A/D) rolls.  Instead, they can play a card from their hand sideways as their A/D card.  

The catch to this twist is that the GM can also spend 1 Fear to determine the advantage/disadvantage card for any draw.  They play a card from their hand, overruling the existing A/D card.  Players cannot play over the GM’s card.