Hi, my copy of PtA arrived yesterday, and it really looks like a lot of fun! Only catch for me is, I'd like to play it with my online group and I'm not sure how to emulate the playing cards. The chat program we use has dice, but no cards. So I came up with one possible way to use PtA's mechanics on that client, tell me if it'll screw up the odds too much. And of course, any suggestions for good dice mechanics will be appreciated.

First, each player rolls a number of d4s equal to the number of cards she's been dealt. 1 = Hearts, 2 = Diamonds, 3 = Clovers, 4 = Spades.

For example: 4d4 ( 4 3 1 3 ) -> 1 point

Then, each player rolls a number of d12s equal to the number of cards she's been dealt. 1 = Ace to 12 = Queen.

For example: 4d12 ( 12 9 12 10 )

Read together, the deck would be Queen of Spades, Nine of Clovers, Queen of Hearts, and Ten of Clovers. Of course, there's nothing whatsoever to stop a player from "drawing" two identical cards, which is just one idiosyncracy among many.

Basically this dice mechanic is the equivalent of taking out all the Kings from the playing card deck, drawing a card, returning it to the deck, then re-shuffling the whole thing before drawing another card.

Man, the first edition of the game already used die mechanics. As you can imagine, those playing card suits and whatnot are not used for anything particular in the game, so you can just scrap them. Here's the low-down:

Use pools of d10 instead of cards. Each player rolls, and odd numbers are counted as successes. The highest single result determines the narrator. In the case of ties, look at the next numbers down, or reroll as necessary, or leave the conflict unresolved.

See, that's pretty simple.

Thank you! That'll do perfectly. Was the number of d10s Screen Presence [+Traits] [+Fanmail], too?

Yep, the rules work the same otherwise, or that's what I've heard (I don't have the 2nd edition book).

Yes, every time the rules say "a card," substitute in a d10.

The switch to cards was for two reasons: 1) to make tiebreaking a little easier, and 2) to eliminate the need for a flat dice-rolly surface. Now you can play in the car, or while balancing on a tightrope. Wait, three reasons: 3) speed: for most, it's easier to spot red vs. black than to find odd numbers on dice.

Another big benefit is accessibility.  Most non-gamers or first-time gamers aren't going to have a stack of d10s, but they will have a deck of cards.

Incidentally...clovers?

The time I produced, I didn't really care for how it worked with cards, though I may not have been doing it right.  I was using cards from the producer's deck as audience pool directly, and realized afterward that it was skewing the numbers badly.  (In my defense, I have an almost-four year old who kept claiming all of the bits I wanted to use for audience pool and fan mail, so we used what we could.  "Andrew, can I just have these 18 here?"  "No, mines!")  The plus was that we played lounging around the living room rather than sitting around a table. 

I'm thinking about using dice for the next one.  I bought half a dozen d20's marked 0-9 twice, with a plus on one set of 0-9s.  I may just use those, a couple of other d20's, and mark the odd faces red and even faces black with crayons. 

Chris, if you go to use d20s, you can even make the whole counting easier. Just say numbers 1-10 count as successes and highest roll wins narration rights. No need to get stuck on the even/odd distinction at all. you still have a binary chance on each die to get a success, and handle narrative right independent of successes.

Regards,
    Harald

Well, yeah.... but I really like the fact that, per the first edition rules, the highest number that was a success (9) could still be beaten out for narration (10).  That was damn cool, and I'd still kinda like to keep that in some way.  But yeah, originally I was going to do almost what you suggested (actually was going to have any face with a + on it be success, and highest ones place digit got narration).