Using the Devil's Picture Book as a dice substitute.

[mortmere]

It's already been mentioned that the d4 is not something we all know or love. Instead of using a different dice ladder though I suggest using a standard deck of playing cards, which is much friendlier to non-gamers and adds immensely to the atmosphere and setting.

Separate court cards. The number cards are your standard d4; clubs count zero (discards, or 4s), hearts 1, diamonds 2 and spades 3. This deck includes the Intimacy bonus as a standard draw.

Court cards are separated into two decks for the further bonuses. Red Jack 1, RQueen 2, RKing 3; BlackJ 4, BQ 5, BK 6.
The Sincerity deck, obviously, also gets the two jokers for seven and eight. Decide for yourself which is which, I can't do all the thinking around here.

Equally, if you want to faff about with the value of suits or court cards, feel free to follow personal preferences; try to keep it simple and memorable though. The bonus decks are pretty simple to live with, since they come into play infrequently enough to allow shuffling between every draw.

My question regarding mechanics though is about the number-cards deck, which allows forty draws before it will need shuffling. Given that each draw is a serial reduction of future draws, rather than being a pure randomiser, what will the effects on play be?

I should add that I got my copy of the game through the post today, loved it entirely, and dreamt up this mechanical monstrosity without having yet played. I think I'll be using it for whenever we do get started, though.