How a room’s deck is worked out

The short version: everyone answers privately, and the deck is what all of those answers have in common. The longer version is below, and it is the part that makes the difference.

Every card answers two separate questions: how far it goes, and who it is with. Most games in this category collapse those into a single spiciness level, and that is where they go wrong — “full swap yes, same-sex no” is an ordinary position and one dial cannot express it. Neither can it express somebody who is glad to watch anything and does not want to be touched.

Keeping the two apart is what makes the grid below possible. Down one side is how far a card goes; across the top is who it is with. Each person marks their own answers, on their own phone, and the deck a room plays from is the overlap.

A yes meeting a yes plays. A yes meeting a curious becomes an invitation with an easy decline. Two curiouses is the moment the game exists for. And a curious meeting a no produces nothing at all — no card, no gap, no hint that there was ever anything there.

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