Persuasion Examples

The previous post on Persuasion rules was concise, but needs some illustrating.

Our initial encounter is fairly straightforward: the party has been caught wandering the city after curfew. There are 4 watchmen and 6 party members. The watchmen are Novice Ascetics while the best Orator in the party is Apprentice.

The watchmen draw a Jack of spades but, because they have no ranks in Ascetic, draw a replacement card: the King of diamonds. I keep drawing until we get a number card: the 9 of diamonds. Even though the Orator is a Novice Grokist, I still play this card faceup. I shuffle the deck before the players draw. The player draws 2 cards, the Queen of diamonds and the 9 of clubs.

The player chooses the Queen, and the players succeed - they pay the requisite amount (the daily wage) and may be about their business. If they for some reason chose the 9 of clubs, they would fail and must pay 512 * the daily wage (this is less terrible than it might sound: in the players' current city, Tal Afar, the wage is 8 bronze pieces, making the required bribe equal to 17 gold pieces). If the players cannot or will not pay, the watchmen in question will hound the party for the next 9 days. Regardless of whether they pay or not, the watchmen insist the party return indoors (and will fight if the party refuses).

As a second example, a new party wishes to access the University of Reyjadin's archive on ritual magic. The attending archivist is a grumpy old woman who has no time for dirty adventurer types. She is a Professional Ascetic, while the party's best Orator is but Apprentice. Because the player cannot play enough cards, the attempt ends immediately, with no consequences for the party (although, consequences will certainly follow trying to access the archive anyway).

If the party then spends some time developing their rhetorical skills and return once their Orator is a Specialist, we draw cards. The party's Orator is an Apprentice Grokist, which reveals the first two of the archivist's cards. I draw faceup the 10 of spades and the 10 of hearts, and then draw facedown the 5 of spades. The first card, the 10 of spades, determines the trump (spades).
The player then draws their four  cards: the 9 of diamonds, 6 of hearts, 10 of clubs, and King of clubs. They may only use 3 of their 4 cards directly against the archivist and must choose their 3 before the archivist's final card is revealed. They choose both clubs and the 6 of hearts, since it matches suit with one of the faceup cards. The 9 is removed - it can be used to modify the played cards, but can't directly attack one of the archivist's cards.
I reveal the archivist's final card, the 5 of spades, and the player now must decide how to allocate their cards. They can't beat all of the archivist's cards and are now trying to mitigate the damage from failing. Because each undefeated spade will remove one of their cards, they can't avoid the penalty from the 10 of hearts. Consequently, the players are stuck outside of the archive until the archivist cools down (10 days later).

For a third and final example, our now-Specialist Orator encounters the same watch patrol as before. The watch draws an 8 of diamonds, played faceup, while the player draws 4 cards: the 7 of hearts, Joker, ace of spades, and King of spades. The player chooses the 7 of hearts to oppose the watch's card. They discard a card to transform their heart into a diamond, and, because the card is now a diamond, they spend double the daily rate to increase the 7 to an 8, which defeats the watchmen's card. The players pay the watchmen 18 bronze pieces and go about their way.