This exact situation is why I keep evolving ever more true names for myself. Let’s go with “S. Kaiya J.”
S. Kaiya J.
Creator of
Recent community posts
You know, this is the second time that I’ve heard of this very rare ending occurring! The very first playtester for Her Odyssey drew the jokers as the 53rd and 54th cards of his deck, and his wanderer ended up inciting a mages’ revolution to make their false home into something that could be called a true home. I hope that you enjoyed your wanderer’s journey and that she finds a way to carve out a home for herself as well!
Hi there! There isn’t an official alternative printed in the game since so many aspects of the game involve interacting with the physical tower in a way that dice pools and other typical Wretched & Alone tower-alternatives can’t model (for example, choosing how many blocks to build up the tower with in each layer, and inserting tarot cards into the tower between layers). That said, here are some alternatives I can recommend you:
- You can use both hands when placing and removing blocks, or use some other method to help steady yourself.
- You can forgo the use of the Jenga tower entirely, ignoring all prompts to build on and remove blocks from the tower.
The tower falling is only one out of four potential ending conditions, and most playtest games ended before the tower fell. You’ll still have interesting choices to make and multiple paths towards different game-end conditions if you remove the tower from gameplay.
That’s a reasonable concern! You can just place the cards at the bottom of your deck rather than using a discard pile.
(While you could certainly shuffle the deck between every draw, it’s a variant rule for a reason - I find it changes the feel of the game a slight but significant amount. It’s great if that extra layer of uncertainty is what you want to opt in for, but placing the cards at the bottom of the deck is a better way to get the standard experience if that’s what you want!)
They lead to different game experiences - the tarot gameplay is a little more introspective and full of weighty questions, and the playing card experience is a little more about figuring how far you can trust people - so the preferred way is whichever one of those sounds more fun! Personally I would play the tarot card version.