Message:We don't actually know the nuke will blow up - it seems like it didn't the first time.
Is there a way to track the history of the nuke? Was it launched and failed to detonate for some reason, or never launched? (Hack to profit?)
Of course for narrative purposes, we know it's live. Demons wouldn't go through all this trouble for a dud.
I like the set number of cards much better than reducing a threat number. The tables are brutal. Unlike classic Cutlass where it seemed like the tables were relatively neutral , these tables are a lot of "roll to prevent something bad" -- and often something bad happens regardless. Surviving cards feels like a proper horror game where the PCs are just trying to survive against the odds in a brutal world. There's also the problem that doing it the other way, waiting for the right card to flip (not inverted) to reduce the threat by one, was a potentially endless situation. (And maybe it was just our luck, but it seemed like there were more cards that potentially increased the threat than decreased it.)
And the game is still properly difficult. As the final battle for life Sunday showed, Tony's character would have been lost -- at least wounded and captured -- if it wasn't for a quick GM fiat "one final card flip to determine his fate". And we haven't even faced a dragon yet.
Replenishing accoutrements between sessions makes losing one less consequential, but probably works better for 4+ hour, full scenario game sessions.
Overall I've been enjoying the system a lot. Thanks for running!
Yours,
Iron Squires
03-Oct-2022