Storium Card Tweaks

Storium Card Tweaks (SCT) is a script for Storium that is designed to greatly expand the card mechanics available. Using this script allows you to assign polarity (i.e., being strong or weak) to assets, goals, and subplots, as well as rewrite assets into strengths or weaknesses. Please note that this script is intended for more experienced Storium users, as it increases the complexity of the card mechanics, and narrators have to be quite a bit more careful in order to not unbalance their games. On the other hand, if you’ve been around a while, or are just a fast learner, you might want to give these new mechanics a try!

The polarity of an asset, goal, or subplot can be set in its description: if the first character of the card’s description (not the name) is + (plus), then the card will be considered strong, and if the first character of the description is - (minus), then the card will be considered weak. Descriptive text like +Counts as Strong+ or -Counts as Weak- also works as long as it has the correct first character; I recommend doing it this way in order to activate the script as well as make the card’s function obvious to players.

You can also rewrite assets into strengths or weaknesses, via the normal interface, using the “Change Card Type” button that has been added at the bottom. The normal cost of 1 card to rewrite an asset still applies, so a stack of 2 will grant one strength or weakness card. This should generally be the usual use case, since throwing around large numbers of strengths or weakness cards is typically not a good idea anyway. As with any Storium game, narrators can (and should) request revisions on any asset rewrites that go against the spirit of the game.

SCT also allows narrators to (somewhat indirectly) award wild strength or weakness cards. If an asset’s description begins with the special character sequence ::>+ then the rewriting interface will offer the option to exchange it for wild strength card(s). Similarly, an asset with a description beginning with ::>- can be exchanged for wild weakness card(s). These special asset cards cannot be played directly, and must be rewritten into strengths or weaknesses. As before, the normal cost of 1 card to rewrite an asset still applies, so a stack of 2 is probably the most useful to hand out. Large stacks of wild cards will lead to… interesting results.

You can't just directly hand out strength or weakness cards, because Storium’s server doesn’t like it if you do that, and I didn’t want to do anything that would generate errors or otherwise cause any problems for people not using this script. A game being played by SCT users will still be functional for anyone not using the script– the only difference being, if you use strong/weak assets (or goals, or subplots) then people who don’t run this script won’t see the altered card polarities, so some challenge outcomes may seem to make less narrative sense. However, all moves and card plays remain the same and the game will otherwise function perfectly normally.

As of version 1.1, SCT supports "randomly drawn" cards. If an asset's description begins with the character sequence ::?? then the asset must be rewritten, and it will be rewritten into a card from the random deck. As usual, the normal rewriting cost applies, so be sure to hand out these special cards in stacks of 2 or more. A random deck can consist of strength, weakness, asset, goal, and subplot cards. Designate a card as part of the default random deck by placing the JSON {"deck":true} as the first line of the back of the card. You can denote the back of the card by putting ... alone on a line. Note that the ... specifier is what the script looks for, so you need it even if you’re written enough text to go to the back of the card. You can also name a deck, such as {"deck":"mycards"} and then specify {"drawfrom":"mycards"} on the asset card that will be rewritten to draw from the "mycards" deck. This may be a bit complicated, so here is an example of a valid random card: https://i.imgur.com/uV9m2k3.png

Version History

1.4

Fixed a bug preventing the narrator from playing an asset card that needed to be rewritten.

1.3

Increased the version number because leading 0's are ignored and it considered the new version a downgrade.

1.1

Now supports "randomly drawn" cards.

1.02

Fixed completed challenges showing up as complete at points during the scene where they were not yet complete.

1.01

Fixed a glitch that caused the "Change Card Type" button to sometimes not appear.

1.0

Initial release.