Play aid

What follows is not to be learned: it is to be found again. The whole book is here in shorthand, for the tableTable (the)the surface in front of you: the cards drawn stay in view on it for the length of the scene.parts 2, 7, for when a gesture escapes you mid-scene and you have no wish to reopen the part that teaches it.

◆ The loop

Choose

Open

Play

Fate if you keep a majorMajor Arcanumone of the twenty-two named cards, from The Fool to The World. It does not answer: it names, and it weighs.parts 2, 4, 6

You can act Facing

You cannot Enduring

Restart

FateFatewhat comes in when you keep a major at the opening, and by no other door: the moment stops being ordinary. What it closes, only it can open.part 6 comes in only through a major kept at the openingOpening (the)the gesture that begins every scene: three cards, you keep one, you give up the other two. The only draw where choosing costs, and the only door of fate.part 3; the wagerWagerwhat fate can take, named in two clauses just before you resolve: what it takes, what happens if it does not take it. What you wager must belong on the standing page or the portrait.part 6 is declared before you resolve, and the recoilRecoilthe sentence in which the body reacts before the thought, when something closes — won or lost.parts 5, 6 follows in both cases. After three scenesScenethe unit of play: you open it, you play it, you close it.part 3 played, the floor is the world’s.

◆ What to draw

Where fate lives. Only the opening — the three cards that enter a scene — brings it in. Everywhere else, in a scene as outside one, you draw matter — one card, or three when you look at the surroundingsSurroundings (the)three cards drawn mid-scene to populate a place in one stroke: you play one, the other two stay on the table. No giving up, no fate.part 7 (part 7) — and a major weighs there without bringing fate in.

• Closed question (yes / no) → the coinCointhe oracle of closed questions: heads the first pole, tails the second. It never resolves an action.part 1. Heads = first pole / for; tails = second / against. Always propose two polesPoles (the two)the two worlds you set down yourself before tossing the coin: never a yes and an empty space.part 1; never the same question twice.
• Open question → draw a card, read freely. If the side has already fallen (you know it is good, or bad), read it on that side, from behind if need be; never to decide the side itself. (At the opening of a scene: three cards, keep one, give up the other two.)
• PopulatePopulate · widen · hook · probethe four families of question: who is there and how he is (coin) · what exists just beyond the frame (card) · what is off (card) · staying with the answer that has already fallen. (parts 1 and 2) richly → the surroundings: three cards, play one, the other two stay in place, points of interest asleep (part 7). (Nothing is lost. That is what separates them from the opening.)
• A waitWaitan open question that nobody else is looking into: it belongs to you, it ripens, it has the right never to close.part 8 or a stakeStakean open question on which somebody else is making progress: it does not forget itself, and it does not ripen on its own.parts 8, 10 → a leadLeada scene declared to make a wait or a stake move: no new gesture, only the intention changes.part 8 (your character searches) or a world sceneWorld scenea declared scene in which your character is not present: the world advances behind his back. After three scenes played at his side the floor is the world’s; never two in a row, and fate does not come into it. It moves forward what pends, or it merely lives — a breather.part 9 (the world advances behind his back). You end up deciding and striking out — even if you open new ones.
• Uncertain action → two cards, you against the world.

◆ The action — one card against the world

• Left = you, right = the world. Between minorsMinor Arcanumone of the fifty-six cards of the four suits, from Ace to King: the matter of the everyday.parts 2, 4, the higher number wins; the Ace beats the King and nothing else; a major goes ahead of any minor, and between two majors, the higher arcanum (The Fool takes The World and nothing else); on a tie, the world.
• The suit of your card says how: Wands, charging · Swords, cutting, cunning · Cups, touching, the bondBondwhat an actor seems to expect of you, written on the standing page and never crossed out: you stack, you do not correct.part 7 · Pentacles, holding, forcing · Major, the outcome that did not exist. The world’s card says how it resisted you.
• An action is played once — the stronger wins, you obey; nothing to buy back, and you do not attempt the same thing again in the same conditions.
• Won with a major → fate’s flareFate’s flareyou win, and it is a major: the success that overflows. It colors the outcome, it weighs nothing more.part 5.

◆ Fate

• In when you keep a major at the opening, and by no other door. Describe first what falls on you, wager afterward.
• The wager, in two clauses, just before resolving: what fate takes, what happens if it does not take it. What you wager must belong on the standing pageStanding pagethe page that keeps what is pending: living actors, waits, stakes, desires under way, doors closed by fate. There is only one, and it replaces the previous one.part 8 or the portraitPortraitwhat you write about someone, actor or character: a name, what he wants, his suits, and what he carries when that says who he is. Without any count, and never corrected — you write a fresh one, further on.parts 7, 11; otherwise it is not a thing, and fate is not played empty-handed.
• One single question divides the two forms: can you act?
• Facing fateFacing fatethe form of fate where your character can act: one single action, two cards, the stronger wins, wager declared first.part 6 (he can act) — one action, two cards, once. Flare and crushingCrushingthe world wins, and it is a major: it did not go around you, it went over you. It colors the outcome, it weighs nothing more.part 5 color the outcome; they count nothing.
• Enduring fateEnduring fatethe form of fate where your character cannot act: two worlds stretched beneath the major, and the coin says which one arrives.part 6 (he cannot) — read the major at length, stretch two worlds beneath it that it alone could give, and toss the coin. Neither of the two is comfortable, and each must give something to play. No flare, no crushing.
• What fate closes, only fate can open, not by an action, not by a good idea: another major, and a wager that names it. It does not give the thing back, it opens the road again. Note the closed door on the standing page.
• What you win settles in and commits you. In both cases, a recoil: one sentence in which the body reacts before the thought.

◆ The world scene

After three scenes played at his side, it is the world’s turn to speak: a turn that comes, not a permission; the count is held in your head, and the floor does not expire. Never two in a row, and fate does not come into it.

Open it like a scene, play it without your character. It moves forward what pends — a stake, a wait — and you note it on the standing page; or it merely lives, and it is a breather: nothing to write at the end. Both give him the floor back.

What to play — for you to settle: a stake, a wait, or a breather. The stirringStirringthe gesture that brings a stake to life: drawing through to a major, then playing a raising.part 10, for its part, names the stake (part 10). If nothing comes, two poles to the coin: it is your own choice you hand it, and that is allowed. A more fertile variant: ask what the world is busy with, rather than what you feel like.

The raisingRaising (the)the world scene by which a stirring is raised, far from your character.part 10 brings a stake to life: draw through to a major + world scene (it does not wait the three scenes, at the opening of a game). Restarting it afterward means making it move like everything pending: a lead or a world scene (part 8).

◆ Closing a scene

A bridging questionBridging questionthe one question you leave open in closing a scene and that does not go to the standing page: the next scene answers it, and it is what frames that scene.part 8 (which frames the next scene, and is not written down), what goes to the standing page, and all the rest, which you let die.

◆ Closing a session

Look at your stakes and find the one that has moved least. Write its name at the foot of the page: the next session opens on it, and you will have nothing to choose when you sit back down.

If it is the same one as at the previous session, it is done waiting: open a lead on it, or pushPushan actor’s desire: what he strains toward, even when you are looking elsewhere.part 7 it in a world scene (part 8), at the reopening, never that same evening. Somebody acted while you were looking elsewhere.

◆ The four golden rules

Ask before you know · Declare the wager before you resolve · Read without haste — a card gives itself in an instant or in a day, and both count · Renounce for good — choose the card that moves things forward, not the one that reassures.

◆ When you hesitate

On a rule, decide in favor of the world: it gives nothing away. On the fiction, decide fast, in the direction that moves things forward, not the one that reassures.