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I look forward to seeing that. (Do you think it'll actually be finishable in a night?)

One question for you - do you ever recycle the discard pile? It strikes me that this would make a big difference in the overall tension; it wasn't clear to me which was intended in the design. Similarly, where do you figure players will get things to represent the resources gained from cannibalism - do they take them from the discard (and are they limited thereby?), do they search the deck for them, do they just try to remember?

I really like the "desperation" aspect to the questions of why seek the City. That definitely deserves a bump up in attention in the final edition.

- Eric

For reference, you're right - it says to reshuffle under the Leader's role. So no problem there, I just missed it first time through.

As for eating the dead - it strikes me that this ought to be a rare enough event that stopping to do some discard pile mining is not unreasonable. How about this: the now-deceased dives into the discard pile and draw deck, and finds cards equal to his max Strength and Endurance. Give those cards to those who choose to eat the dead. If they ask for a particular distribution of the points, he does so within the limits of what he can find in the deck; once the cards are chosen they're fixed. He then reshuffles the whole thing. The trick here is that by simply making each Food/Water card carry a unique illustration or identifier, you can have the deceased remember and/or write down which cards are now "tainted." Heck, you can get nasty and have those cards tainted from now 'til the end of the game, regardless of reshuffles.

Or, slightly better because it divorces the values somewhat from Strength/Endurance... put a set of letter codes on each Food and Water card (say, tucked unobtrusively up next to the illustration or something). "E" for the Explorer, and so forth. You'll likely need 2-3 letters per card, with cards arranged to sum to as many total points' worth for each character as you assign - no longer constrained to equal their Strength/Endurance. Then when the Explorer dies, he goes through the discard pile and deck and retrieves all the cards he finds with an "E" on them, making these available to those who choose to damn themselves thus. From now on the use of any "E" card is tainted and can't be used unless you've paid the price of cannibalism.

If you want this also gives you the versatility to make it cannibalism and robbing the dead, by putting (many fewer) "dead guy" codes on other cards. A couple 1- or 2-pt Hygiene cards with a "D" on them, for instance; a 2-pt Wine card with a "P" for the priest, perhaps. This is distinct from ordinary resources because these were resources so precious to them that they didn't even have in-game use of them themselves while alive... the Priest's cupful saved for the sacrament, the Doctor's own medications for his dicky heart.

I don't think there's any need for you to break pattern and use slips of paper or dice to carry totals.

- Eric