thread: 2011-10-19 : Murderous Ghosts for Halloween
On 2011-10-21, Vincent wrote:
Tim: In the earliest version of the game, the rhythm of the books and the rhythm of the draw converged, so that all the high-stakes draws came when you were about to get a high hand, and when you were in danger of busting, it was always a low-stakes draw.
Now the books stagger and double-step all the time to throw that convergence off, and the GM has some fun baffles to throw in your way, and the draws are harder too. But if you know the rhythms you can still play to bring them back into alignment.
Which is to say: playing to win means timing your busts. To a bystander it looks like you keep just getting lucky, but it's because you're making your high-risk draws on your strong hands.
The coolest part to me is how the fiction plays into it. The fictional decisions the GM makes about her ghosts now affect the next 3 or 4 draws, so timing your busts means adapting constantly, as best you can, to the precise individual ghosts the GM's describing.
Anyway, it's still a gambling game, you're still vulnerable to the pure perversity of a shuffled deck, no matter how sharply you play. But 3 games out of 4, sure.
