Recording Wounds with Playing Cards

Editor’s Note: This is an Alternative Rule.

Ordinary playing cards can be used to keep track of wounds. Give a player one face-down card when his character is Hurt, and another face-down card when his character is Very Hurt. He gets rid of them when the character is healed. Face-up cards represent fatigue the character is reeling from exhaustion. He gets rid of those by resting. (A character becomes fatigued by physical or mental activity, work, stress, etc. Casting spells, using psi powers, etc., may or may not count as fatiguing mental activity.)

Each card the character has represents a -1 to traits that would logically be affected until the third, which represents incapacitation.

The cards may also describe hit location, if desired: a black card is the torso, while a red card means an extremity.

The lower the red card, the lower the extremity; the higher the red card, the higher the wound on the body.