Deck Burner

Deck Burner is a mode of play designed to swiftly resolve a conflict. I’m personifying that conflict with the term Adversary here, but the conflict in each story will be different, and it might not involve a specific person. My hope with this framework is that by the end of the game, your group will have either overcome the Adversary, or deepened their resolve against it.

For this variation, all you need is a shuffled deck of cards and enough dice for everyone to roll their skills.

Once the cards are dealt out, follow the Basics of Play to play out rounds of Individual Scenes and Group Scenes. When a player chooses a skill, they must draw a card from the top of the deck and then choose a skill that matches the suit of that card. After each scene is over, discard all cards that were played during that scene.

When framing scenes in Deck Burner, Complications that come out of Individual Scenes are direct intervention by the Adversary, and resolving them in Group Scenes is the characters engaging with the Adversary directly.

At the end of each Group scene, if the players have the high roll, decide:

• The Adversary has been defeated! End the game here.
• The Adversary has retreated to a more strategic position! Keep playing until the Adversary is defeated.

After each round of scenes, take a short break to let everyone breathe, stretch, grab a snack, drink some water, and take care of any other needs. When the group comes back together, take a moment to get everyone settled and decide whether to repeat the pattern or end the game here.

Need to pick it up later? That’s okay! You don’t need to keep track of which cards were played for this; just shuffle the deck anew next time and pick up the story where you left off.

For pacing, I recommend ending your first session with a Deck Burner concluding with a Group Scene that escalates the conflict. That way, you don’t have to keep track of accumulated Complications between sessions.