Respite in a cubicle for "Perks and flaws"

(People, remember to save drafts so you don't accidentally remove a chapter by "randomly closing tabs to get more tab space." 50 tabs is sometimes not enough... - CM)

You've been busy! You've roamed the booths of various artists for hand crafted items. Taken a few pictures of very well done cosplays - Some even seem to have gotten surgery to get the right look, which you must admit is next level dedication to the craft. And you've managed to catch one panel with the creators of a new 3d-animated show based on one of your favorite shonen mangas!

Alas, there were no seats left so you had to stand through the panel, and now you're beginning to feel the strain in your legs. That you've gotten a pair of new shoes you though you'd walk in today didn't help either. So you're currently strolling around to find a good spot to sit and rest your weary feet.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of readily available seating for convention goers like yourself. Or you're just the last one to notice that your feet are hurting. As you come across a hallway to the gaming department, you glance through the entrance notice there's quite a few cubicle booths with very few players sitting around the tables.

Now, it would be awkward to just sit down at a semi-filled table and not know a thing about the game they are playing, so you walk past a few occupied cubicles looking for a suitable booth. And, as luck would have it, you find yourself at a completely empty booth.

There's a round table with a deck of cards and the banner across the cubicle entrance says "Perks and flaws - Play test, rookies welcome!" You look around and see no cubicle owner, so you shrug and sit down, sighing with relief. There is a small stack of printed rule sheets, so you pick one up and give it a read, skimming through the most important bits.

"Perks and flaws - A casual card game to bring new perspectives into your life - an Omni-enhanced product!"

"Every player draws seven cards from the deck. Each card has a perk, a flaw, and a modifier. The acting player is called the Caster, and the caster chooses a Target. The Caster puts down two pairs of cards where the you apply the perk from the top card and the flaw from the bottom card, as well as a single modifier card. The Target gets to choose which pair they will acquire, but the modifier is always applied. After the turn is done, the Caster draws cards until their hand is full and the unused cards are dropped into the discard pile."

"Perks and flaws can be altered by spending Credits. The flaw card gives a certain amount of Credits to the target, and the modifier also adds Credits for both Caster and Target. The Target may choose to use the Credit to boost one of their perks, reduce one of their flaws, or they can save it for a future perk or flaw."

"Downtime: It is recommended to play the game with downtime between every two rounds, where the first round targets are distributed round robin and the second round is a free-for-all. Default downtime duration is one day. During downtime, you may choose to increase two flaws to gain more credits to upgrade your perks or downgrade other flaws. Downtime flaw increases brings twice as much credits as flaws bring during normal turns. You may also spend credits during downtime to alter unfortunate situations from not developing as they seem to be developing, but those points will then be unavailable for other perk upgrades."

"Default winning conditions is that you have to upgrade perks worth a credit score of 15. The first player to get to that spot gets an extra ten credits to adjust their end result, as well as applying one of the cards on their hand. Second place gains five points. Third place gains nothing and fourth place has to strengthen their flaws for four points."

Well, that's a lot of rules you think to yourself. There's more details, like default awareness and autonomy and other options... but before you get time to read more you hear a harrumph at the cubicle entrance. You glance up and see what you hope might be a fellow chair seeker looking for leg respite.

Interaction time!

[CM] I'm interested in inviting my readers and followers to join me in developing this story! I've made a little Discord server (at https://discord.gg/CBecrugDx8 ) that I invite you to join if you have the time!

I've made a rough excel sheet with the cards I've made so far that is available for review and some polish before we get into the first chapters. Don't look at it if you don't want to be spoiled, but if you want to see what might happen, here's a link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v_xRt8uYXoD050zek8t5Ujua8So8fblkOhgqeo6RzSM/edit?usp=sharing

Also, I'm interested in having someone run a few of the fellow "Perks and Flaws" characters, for a more authentic "RP" story that should be over in a few rounds. This isn't intended to be a four hour fire-and-forget RP session, but a longer collaboration. It would be fun to get 3-4 characters with a bit more depth and background than what I can hand wave into existence, and it is a bit more fun to share in the creative process in my opinion.

If Discord is not for you, make a comment or your own branch from the spreadsheet above! Duplicate the sheet, copy a random shuffled list from sheet 2 column C, into sheet 4 B26, and draw cards as you go through the game. It's a work in progress and there's plenty of stuff to be done, but it should be functional enough to use for some fun random stories!

Edit: Also, this storyline is inspired by 1futa1's "Games of transformation," ( https://chyoa.com/story/Games-of-transformation.38205 ) and I apologize in advance to not adding this story line in their original story! I'd probably have posted this in there if I wasn't looking to recruit some of my followers that have been bookmarking my stories!