this mysterious 'multi-flip ' thing.

[Matt Wilson]

In the revised book I suggest an option for handling those big long tense conflicts, like chases, negotiations, etc.

In order for it to work, the producer and at least one participating player need to be playing a minimum of 3 cards each (this will work with dice, too).

You divide the conflict into three phases. Everyone who's involved, via protagonists or fan mail or whatever, assigns their cards/dice to the three phases. You need to have at least one card/die in the final phase, and you should assign a card/die to every phase if you have enough.

That means if you have only one card/die, you put it in the last one.

If you have three cards/dice, you assign one to each phase.

If you have four, you have an extra to put somewhere.

So then, you resolve each phase at a time, and determining via the usual rules who gets narration authority, and you determine the victor based on the total dice/card results.

As an example, let's say it's a courtroom scene:

• In phase one, I get one red card and you get none.
• In phase two, I get one red cards and you get none .
• In phase three, I get no red cards and you get three.

Altogether, you've won the conflict (3 to 2), though clearly I had the advantage in the first two phases. The narration for each phase takes that into account, so that for this courtroom scene maybe they had tough evidence at first, but you've pulled in a surprise witness at the very end.

It's fun when people contribute fan mail, because it tends to make the final phase really suspense-heavy (one-card contributions have to be assigned to the final phase).

[IMAGinES]

Matt, on reading this, it seems to me that you've established a genius way of handling that wonderful TV device of cutting back and forth between two simultaneous Conflicts: Once the first Conflict's first flip is resolved and narrated, you cut to the first flip for the second Conflict. (I can't help thinking of the end of the pilot double-episode of Firefly, when Mal's "get paid and get out" Conflict intercuts with Simon's "stop Dobson from taking River" Conflict.) That's perfect!

You may have already written such in the second edition, but I'd just like to let you know that I'm itching to try this - both as you describe it and as an intercut - once I manage to get my voice-chat PtA game running.

Oh, and I think I'm gonna have to by a print copy of Revised when it's available!