Judgment of the Crowd

What you need to play:

●	four to seven people; 
●	2 decks of standard playing cards, distinct from each other, one being the Conflict Deck and the other the Judgment Deck; 
●	pencils and paper; and
●	somewhere to play with a desk, where you can hear each other, and where you can play and be loud and boisterous without annoying anyone.

Duration of session

You should play for as long as you’re comfortable with at a stretch, though most people tend to find somewhere between two and eight hours to be the sweet spot. Decide as a group how long you should play. Make sure to solicit everyone’s opinion about what a good length would be, and try to come up with a final number that works for everyone.

Most decisions in the game, especially in the setup, rely on the above procedure. To enumerate it: 
●	Discuss what would be best.
●	Make sure to get everyone’s input.
●	Come up with a solution that seems to fit everyone the best.
●	Double-check that everyone’s on board with this decision.

You’re not always going to rigidly follow this procedure, making sure to get literally everything each person thinks, but this procedure is the spirit any impasse should be approached with. Do not let someone bowl over the social environment. Make sure everyone’s on-board.

If you wind up in a situation where you’re not sure what to do, either in the fiction of the game or if you reach a decision impasse as players, draw a card with a question or proposition in mind:

●	Hearts: Yes, do it
●	Diamonds: Yes, but a small change
●	Clubs: No, don’t do it
●	Spades: No, don’t do it, but use it as a seed for another idea

Duration of series

Your story may not be over after a single evening of play. Consider, about three quarters of the way through the time you’ve allotted, whether your story will be complete. Have a discussion about whether you’d like to meet up again to continue it. More generally discuss scope.

What kind of story?

First, have a conversation about what kind of story you want to make up together. Solicit an idea for a story from each person, even if it’s something excruciatingly simple (like, “I want a story about a romance that blossoms between best friends”). The important thing here is to make sure everyone’s had their say.

Try and find a way to use many of the ideas, or look for a common thread, or if everyone quickly coalesces around one idea, go with that.

What defines characters?

Decide upon four ways people in this story’s world act upon it, the Modalities, and assign one to each suit. Consider making use of the resonances of the symbols. These Modalities don’t represent necessarily how good you are at doing this thing, but how effective you are fictionally when you try using that method. Think of a clumsy person who, in the story, nevertheless succeeds at operating with perfect accidental dexterity.

As you play the game, review the decisions you made here. The choices you made for how people get things done may not wind up making sense, or may need to be altered slightly. Consider doing so.

Example (rather blunt on the imagery):
●	Hearts: Emotional intelligence and expressive ability
●	Diamonds: Money and other resources
●	Clubs: Violence
●	Spades: Hard-won skill

Casting and character building

Make a list of what characters need to be in the story, or are right for it. Don’t be concerned about how many ideas you create, but record them all.

Make sure to do the ensuing steps together with lots of cross-chatter so everyone knows what you’re up to with the character you’re fleshing out. People should feel free to work together to flesh out a character; perhaps the whole group works together on each. You decide.

Choose at least three characters you all agree will be important and flesh them out more fully. Many groups may choose to flesh out one character for each player of the game.

Give the character a name and three features to describe how they appear, smell, sound, or whatever. Write these down on a sheet of paper dedicated to that character.

Next, write down the 4 Modalities that you decided on earlier. Split up 14 points among these Modalities.

Next, write down the one thing the character is struggling most with right now.

Take time to read the characters aloud. As you do, strike the concept from the list of concepts, signifying the character is complete.

Write out the Modalities and place them in the middle of the table.

Put the concept list and the fleshed-out characters list in the middle of the table.

Flesh out new characters as needed during play.

Judgment hand

Before you start embodying characters in scenes, from the Judgment Deck of cards, each player should fish out one card of each suit to keep as their judgment hand. This will be used later.

Drama begins

Discuss what the first scene should be and cast it with at least one of the fleshed-out characters. Put two or more characters in a scene and choose people to play those characters. Among the players that remain, have one choose to be the Guide. The Guide is not in charge, but is responsible for making sure everyone is heard and synthesizing the group’s input on the story.

Begin to play the scene out. When you do something that someone else opposes, or when you try something unopposed that the group agrees is challenging, you describe the action your character is going to attempt. To effect change in the world, you need to do it through one of your Modalities, so keep this in mind when describing your action.

Everyone places a card face down, indicating what Modality they see that action as arising from, including the Guide and the acting player. The Guide collects the cards. The one with the most votes is the Modality the player must use. If there is a tie, then the player initiating the action may choose.

Once the Modality has been chosen and judgment cards restored to their players’ hands, the active player flips a card from the Conflict Deck. If that number is equal to or lower than score for the Modality being used, the character is successful.

Continue playing until the drama of that scene is played out.

Discuss what the next scene should be, cast it, and begin playing as above.

When you feel the story has run its course, you’re done.