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A House Is Not a Home • 2017 rpg

Joe Beason • n/a

You and a companion play family members having a horrible fight about a third relative. You’ll pace and direct the fight through building a house of cards.  Lean pairs of cards against each other to make triangles, and place cards across pairs of triangles to build bridges.

Angriest starts the argument, and builds the first triangle. Then alternate, building a new triangle or a bridge.  Build new triangles next to old ones so a bridge can be laid across them, or on a bridge to start a new layer.

As you build a triangle: insist, blame, harden.  If this also starts a new layer: insult, threaten, escalate.

As you build a bridge: empathize, reconsider, soften. 

The argument ends when one player gives in, both agree to stop fighting, or the house collapses.  

Then begin an epilogue conversation, sometime later, at a family gathering in honor of your relative.

If the house did not collapse, your relationship endured.

If the house collapsed, but only partially, it’s the first time you’ve really spoken since the fight.

If the house collapsed completely, whoever placed the last card died sometime before the gathering, before you could make peace.  Nevertheless, hold the conversation.

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