episode 024 | my turn! draw!

INTRO

SATAH: Welcome to Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. I am your host, Satah. My goal is to showcase multiple possible experiences of self-paced games by inviting guests to play them alongside me so I can compile our stories together. You can support the show financially at patreon.com/foliopod, or join as a free member to get access to the bonus podcast feed, which will shortly include alternate playthroughs of this very game. One should be up at the time of posting this episode, and the other will go out later in April.

Today we are playing My Turn! Draw!, a “hopepunk narrative prompt -based RPG about building insurmountable odds but always finding a way to prevail with a dramatic flair” by Jacky Leung.

The other Duelist of Destiny facing off against fate alongside me today is Steph Novak.

My Turn! Draw! uses card combos as moves to narrate you, the Duelist of Destiny, struggling to overcome attacks from– but eventually triumphing over– the Duelist of Fate. Fate plays the cards against you. If you have a card of exactly the same value in your hand, which are called Destiny cards, you can straightforwardly resolve Fate’s action. As the book says, “balance and harmony quell Fate,” and Fate’s action against you is perfectly countered. If you don’t have a card of the same value, you can attempt to resolve Fate’s card with a Destiny card of higher or lower value, creating more complications, or you can play from a list of other actions like Resonate, where you play two cards from your hand– two Destiny cards– treating the difference between them as the resolution value, then “narrate how you resolve fate with acceptance.”

I couldn’t really wrap my head around the mechanics until I actually played the game, and I fell in love with them. As you’ll hear, I actually played it twice in a row, as did Steph.

I do want to note that the PDF is labeled as version 0 .5, so it might not be the creator’s final vision of the game, but even if these are just the bones, oh boy, it is a wonderful skeleton. Steph and I both told very goofy, high stakes, low seriousness stories, and I’m super grateful that this game could facilitate that. It’s something I absolutely love that I think you don’t get a lot of in solo games, which… have a tendency to be, uh, very emotionally heavy? Which of course has its place and is wonderful, but oh wow, it’s so nice to just sit down and do something fun and goofy– and also pretty quick, which is a huge treat in TTRPGs. So quick, in fact, that this– as a Folio first– is a single episode series. This is the first and final episode, so let’s just get into it.

GAME: SET-UP

SATAH: Okay.

STEPH: Alright, hey!

SATAH: So.

STEPH: Let’s play some My Turn! Draw!

SATAH: In what is a first for Folio, I just recorded a game of this and then at the very end realised that I had totally fumbled the ending mechanic in a way that was kind of, um, unrecoverable! And so this is the second time that I’m playing this game. And I’m just going to release the other one as bonus content because I think that it was really fun, but I did mess up a fairly core mechanic of the game enough that I was like, “I don’t love that as a a representation of the game.” So! Let’s do it again.

[Shuffling cards in the background] This was my trial of of fate and destiny Luckily, I found out this game seems to go very quickly, which is why I don’t feel too bad about doing it again. My last game came in at about 45 minutes and it’s going to edit down to considerably less than that, I imagine.

STEPH: I think we’ll start off with concept here, because it is very simple: what if you got Jumanjied with Candyland? Or maybe reverse Jumanjied? Whatever. Candyland is real now, um, and you get through it as you always do, by drawing cards.

SATAH: SoI think that I really found while I was playing the other one that I struggled a bit with not knowing, um, what exactly the game is that– like, the form of dueling that I’m doing. So I am going to choose that up front.

Uh, obviously it could just be doing Yu-Gi-Oh, or a serial numbers filed off card monster game, but I think… at one point I kind of just had the specific image from Scott Pilgrim of the like battle of the bands and I think I want to do an amalgam of the two where… I am involved in an underground music battle scene. Where it is a battle of the bands but our sounds create monsters to fight each other.

STEPH: Uh, with this in mind, let’s answer some setup questions, shall we?

SATAH: So for the setup, in classic me fashion, I am going to answer the questions by rolling on the potential answers that they give. There are five results, or five items on each list, so I’m going to roll a d6 and ignore sixes.

STEPH: “Why are we confronting fate?” The fate that consigned us to existence in Candyland? Um, I think “someone is counting on me and I must succeed.”

SATAH: “Why do you confront fate?” [Die clatters] Got a one. “I have something to prove and I aim to be the best.”

STEPH: Hmm… wo would be counting on me in this situation? My brain has unfortunately gone, “It’s all the other little tokens.” And hey, yeah, let’s say it’s a bunch of friends. We’re all in this together. And I am taking point in the Candyland evacuation. So, can’t let them down. Absolutely not.

SATAH: “What is your style when you duel against Fate?” [Die clattering] Two. “Cunning and ambitious: I revel in a challenge and aim for an enormous payoff.” Ooh.

STEPH: “What is our style when we duel against Fate?” I think it’s “trusting and dependable.” I think that’s the move. “I remain steadfast in my convictions and believe in something.”

SATAH: So I think one thing that that looks like, in a music sense, is the heavy use of a loop pedal? Um, I have a habit of, like, it seems like I’m probably going to lose because it starts quite slowly, but then escalates to something that is absolutely uncontrollable by the other person and essentially unbeatable.

STEPH: “What do I believe in?” Heh. Funny you should ask. I believe in A, the power of friendship. And B, the inevitability of a card that will put me way ahead in this game. It’s the Queen Frostine card, the one that is farthest along on the Candyland board, uh, and a great way to shorten up games of Candyland with small children. Just stacking that early on the deck. But we’ll see how that goes, I guess. I think trusting and dependable is the move here.

SATAH: “How did you get into this predicament?” [Die clattering]

STEPH: “How did we get into this predicament?” Or… how are we in that confrontation? Huh.

SATAH: Three. “Fate has manipulated and directed me all along.” That immediately gives me the image of, like, the shadowy record exec or whatever lurking in the back of these shows.

STEPH: Hmm. Okay. You know what? [Laughs] I feel like I told on myself a little bit in my existing beef with Candyland. “I’ve made a vow of enmity against Fate and followed its trail.” I think I may have inadvertently placed myself and my friends, maybe in some sort of Babysitter’s Club-style shenaniganery, and we seek to destroy one of the more irritating games to ever exist in the form of Candyland. I’ve decided that enough is enough, and we’re going to learn to play something else. Anything else. Maybe Guess Who?

SATAH: It seems distinctly possible that part of what’s happening here is that like, they’re like, “Oh, you’re good.”

I’m trying not to be too Scott Pilgrim with this, and I kind of forget some of the plot of Scott Pilgrim. So if I rip it off, it’s probably largely unintentional.

But like, “You’re good. You should, um, sign to my label without your band and come be a pop star.”

And I’m like, “No! I have integrity!” Or whatever.

And I think that they’ve played on my ambition, right? My style of being cunning and ambitious. They have played on that to sow a little bit of division between my band and I. And been like, “Maybe you’ll be better off.”

But I’m like, “No. I am so strong and love my band.”

STEPH: “And where has Fate brought us?”

SATAH: “Where has Fate brought you?” [Die clattering] One: “a familiar place from my past, but changed, and not for the better.” Ooh!!

So first two things that come to mind are, like, the first place I ever played a show or my first rehearsal space? Or maybe even the first rehearsal space with the band?

STEPH: Well. It can only have brought us to “a mysterious realm where time and space are twisted and warped,” by which I mean Candyland Board Real.

SATAH: And it’s like… ohh. It’s gone condos or something. It’s like… we used to be able– we used to practice in, like, the basement of the record store that our drummer worked at or something like that. And it’s still… not- not- not the basement, but like, the back room, because I want the horizon to be basically the same and like seen out the window. And that store has since been… like, first it was bought by a chain, like a music chain. And then it was bought by– it was amalgamated into a different music chain. And then it just died and it got turned into some, like… just some stupid… some shitty business.

Maybe– no, I was trying to think if it could be something that is like, you know… data banks for AI. That is like– and have this be, like, a morality tale. A tale of, like, your old record space got taken over by this shitty product that is undermining creativity, uh whatever, whatever. But no. I think that’s too abstract. It’s more fun if it just got turned into, like, the equivalent of, like, a too-fancy weed store that looks like an Apple store. Um.

Maybe just bougie clothes. Oh, yeah, because– it’s- it’s totally bougie clothes, because during the course of this show, leading up to this final duel, you’ve seen, like, us making our own merch and uniforms and all that kind of stuff, and especially when we were first rehearsing.

We are in our first regular rehearsal space, but either what it is now, or what it might be in the future..? Probably what it is now, but amplified. So it’s like this shitty chain store of generic too-expensive clothes and just no speck of our stupid punky sensibility around it.

And I think that like… it’s the kind of thing where I get brought and she’s like, “Look. Isn’t this better?” This being the record exec.

And I’m like, “What?! No! This is disgusting! There’s not even a little bit of individuality left in it! Look at these drones in their t-shirts!!”

Or whatever.

STEPH: My friends and I, presumably we are teens of some flavor. You know, we’re in high school. We need gas money. We’re babysitting. The game of choice, far too often, is Candyland. And frankly, enough is enough.

We made some choices. We took action to kind of wipe Candyland off the map. Because it’s a miserable game and children never seem to get sick of it as much as we wish they would.

And in doing so, we have encountered the final boss: the greatest step in destruction of Candyland as a concept, which is of course Candyland itself. Defying destruction. Continuing on in various iterations for decades. And who knows, maybe we’ll be the ones to finally pull it off.

SATAH: Let’s, uh– let’s- let’s grab some cards. That seems like a pretty good setup.

STEPH: So let’s deal five cards to ourselves from the top of the deck.

SATAH: That is going to be my Destiny hand. And now I’m going to draw five cards from the bottom of the deck, which I find so physically difficult to do. Two, three, four…

STEPH: There’s five.

SATAH: This is the line of Fate. Let’s reveal the first Fate card.

STEPH: Alright, “reveal one Fate card from the line of Fate.” Absolutely. “Based on your answers, tailor the theme of the Fate card and narrate the starting situation. Remember that you’re in peril.”

I think the peril is just having to deal with Candyland more. Or drowning in the peanut butter swamp. One of the two. Equally horrific ends to things.

SATAH: The four of clubs.

STEPH: So our starting card is the six of clubs.

SATAH: Clubs are “a fate of danger and suspense.”

STEPH: “A fate of danger and suspense.”

SATAH: “A fate of arrogance and ignorance clouds your path.”

STEPH: “A fate of arrogance and ignorance cloud your path.” Which seems fitting. The game utterly devoid of excitement now suddenly filled with a worthwhile sense of tension and arrogance.

SATAH: And four is sort of the- the most usual answer. Card values from two to nine all get the fate prompt of “chains of Fate continually seek to bind you.” So basically just, like, Fate’s going to keep trying to beat you, to keep you down.

And I think what this means for the starting thing… I think danger and suspense, I want to take literally. I get suspended in the air. And I think that the thing that– because I’m in mortal peril, basically. I’m in peril as we start here. And the, like, arrogance– I can see, like, the record exec is still trying to convince me to abandon my band for real and join her and come be a famous pop star. “Isn’t that what you really want? Isn’t that what’s most important to you?”

And the thing that’s arrogant here is that, like, I don’t counter that in the moment by being like, “No, that isn’t what’s most important to me.” I say like, “I can get famous without you. I don’t need you. We don’t need you.”

And she does like a, “Tch. Heh. Well, we’ll see about that.”

STEPH: Have you ever seen someone over the age of, like, 10 in the face of Candyland? It’s nothing but arrogance. Especially when you can distract a toddler into looking away so you can stack the deck and make a game quick and relatively painless.

And card value two to nine: “chains of Fate continually seek to bind you.” And I think this manifests in…

Our eyes open. My eyes open. And see, horror of all horrors: a gingerbread tree before us. Smiling. It’s got little jelly bean apples on it. There’s Plumpy the Gumdrop, seated under it. Grinning, foolishly, happily, joyous to see us. No concept of what we’ve come here to do. Our grand undertaking. But that’s fine. Because we’ll get them when they least expect it. Though they might come to expect it, and we’ll just keep on trying anyway. It’s fine.

SATAH: “Spotlight, dear?” The, like, ground that I’ve been standing on raises really fast up into the air and a spotlight goes on me and I am, like, suspended in midair as we begin– like, on a- on a platform that is, like, dangling or whatever.

STEPH: In what we can only describe as a sort of Wizard of Oz moment, there is a brick road before us. Colourful, bright. I think this one might be made of chocolate or some sort of brittle. And in multiple colours, not just yellow, but such is the point of the game.

Pile of cards lies before us. The only way to win is by playing. And so we must play.

SATAH: Yeah, that’s how we begin. Let’s go to turn one.

BREAK

SATAH: Just a quick interruption here because Steph is magnanimous enough to bring this level of heat to the show with no desire to drop any plugs, but I am not this way.

First of all, you’re currently listening to my show! Thank you. Check out gaygothvibes.online to see some of my other work in games and in music. I released an EP at the end of last year, made a full-length album for record production month in February. You can get them on Bandcamp or listen to them pretty much wherever you rent your music. And, I don’t know, give me a shout if you need an editor for your TTRPG or your podcast!

And now, it’s time to see how our Duelists of Destiny ultimately prevail over the Duelists of Fate in their climactic battle.

GAME CONT’D

SATAH: So every turn, you can take one action. Let’s look at the actions and let’s see what my hand is looking like.

STEPH: Let’s check out our cards.

SATAH: So basically the ideal thing is that you can resolve Fate cards by playing a card that is the exact same value as it? If you play a card that isn’t the exact same value, then either it’s unresolved and it stays there on the line of Fate or you end up drawing a new one. Barring that, you can play something that is the same suit and a higher value, which then you treat as having the same value. And I have a queen of clubs in my hand. So I could resolve it right away.

The other thing I could do… I have two queens. I have the queen of clubs and I have the queen of hearts. So I could also Exceed, which is “discard any number of cards with the same value and remove the same amount of face down Fate cards.” And that would just kick two of the Fate cards out.

Because I’m going to want to play that queen because none of my other cards are the same value or suit. And because I know that I’m going to do that, maybe instead the action that I will take is Synchronize, which is, “Discard a card from your hand and draw two additional cards from the Destiny deck. You must immediately attempt to resolve a Fate card. Narrate how you resolve Fate with precise timing.”

And I am going to discard my nine of hearts because that is like– I’m trying to keep something of each suit in my hand because that seems to be helpful, and nine is sort of the lowest repeat suit I have. So I am discarding the nine and I’m drawing two more cards to add to my hand.

Got a five of diamonds and a ten of diamonds. So I did at least get new suits, which is good. Because I didn’t have any diamonds in my hands before.

STEPH: Alright, so we have an ace, a three, two fives, and a king with a six in hand. Okay. I think let’s Synchronize. So I’m going to discard the three that I have and draw two additional cards from the Destiny deck, which is just the top. So I’ve drawn also a queen and another king, this time of spades instead of hearts.

SATAH: And then I have to “immediately attempt to resolve a Fate card,” which, luckily I can play my queen of clubs against Fate’s four of clubs, which means that I resolve it.

STEPH: “You must immediately attempt to resolve a Fate card. Narrate how you resolve fate with precise timing.” I do not have a higher club, so I cannot just resolve this scot-free, unfortunately. And if I play below, so if I play either of my fives, that would… that’s a nothing. They would just stay there and I think might add to the line of Fate?

So I think for the sake of keeping things clean, I’m going to play this Queen of Hearts to resolve this Six of Clubs.

SATAH: Queen of Clubs. Clubs, Destiny themes: “You use your intellect. You channel unlimited energy into reckless resolution. Your tenacity brings new opportunity.”

STEPH: Hearts: “I express my emotions. I elicit vulnerability to build a connection. My innocence is pure and steadfast.” Big Candyland energy.

SATAH: And a queen is, “You draw strength from faith in someone.” Ooh.

STEPH: And with a queen, I “draw strength from faith in someone.” That’s right! The power of friendship coming in hot and early!

SATAH: So I think the fate in somebody should certainly be my bandmates, right? Or at least one of them. And I think that I can claim this both as using my intellect and a tenacious opportunity that like I am holding on for dear life to this suspended platform and I guess– this room has to be very large, which is fine. It was a back room that was also a warehouse and it’s big. Don’t worry about it. Um.

STEPH: I think this is a moment of great fortune. I think this is like drawing a double yellow and I think just for funsies, I think the starting space on which my friends and I are currently located just suddenly turns very springy, like bouncy. On a marshmallow, perhaps. And we are all launched two yellow spaces over. A significant amount of progress. And land safely.

I think we hold hands and do that sort of formation skydiving situation and land beautifully in the midst of the peppermint woods. It’s cool. There’s a sort of… dental hygiene toothpaste energy that really is sort of counteracting everything else that’s going on in the space, and frankly, it’s refreshing, you know? It– and the peppermint lumberjack is so tall, it feels like there’s– there’s really an adult in the room who would want us to brush our teeth. Much like we have all wanted our charges to stop playing Candyland, brush their teeth, and go to bed. Please, it’s ten PM and you are five.

SATAH: I think about my band. And I think specifically about a day where we were all talking about, like, ~what we’re gonna do in the future!~ And some– like, hyping each other up and someone was like, “Look. We’re gonna be so famous they’re gonna try and sell this building for a billion dollars just because we practiced here. Let’s give them something to find.” and hid… an instrument of some kind, like, in the ceiling or the walls or something.

Like a drumstick would be– like, drumsticks would be easy, obviously. Could be like something like a like a ukulele or something. But I think I like the idea that it’s drumsticks. Like it was it was the drummer, right, who– we- we practiced here because of her? The drummer, like, hid a pair of her sticks in- in a panel in the ceiling.

And I think about this and I’m, like, thinking about how strongly she believes– believed then and believes now– in what we’re doing. And I, like, strain and struggle to– I lift myself up on, like– I’m crawling up the ropes that suspend this platform and holding on as it’s swinging wildly and I get to that thing in the ceiling and probably have– there has to be, like, a moment where I nearly fail and then I, like, see her being like, “Don’t give up!” You know. Friendship power stuff? Um.

And I pull those drumsticks out. And because I have the music magic powers, um, that means I now have a weapon.

STEPH: There’s something about drawing a decent card immediately when you play Candyland that gives an incredible sense of hope. Like maybe this is going to be a really short game.

And it is joyous.

SATAH: I drop back down to the platform and start drumming a little beat. [Giggling] And it, like, warps the air around– there’s, like– special effects start and whatever to show that I’ve got powers.

STEPH: My friends and I all look at each other– still holding hands, because of course we are– and murmur to each other, “We’re doing it. This is so much easier than we thought it was going to be. I mean, to be fair, Candyland is an easy game but we thought it would really put up some more resistance. I mean, it’s– it’s like it wants us to win. It’s such an easy path.”

Who would trick us here in this beautiful, minty place? The red and the white blending into a soft pink. Nothing could harm us here. Nothing would dare impede our progress or make things more difficult.

I say as I draw another Fate card into the line. More obstacles in the way.

SATAH: And I’m going to flip the next Fate card.

STEPH: And so I’ll draw… second card.

SATAH: Seven of diamonds.

STEPH: The ace of spades.

SATAH: “A fate of stagnation and paralysis. A fate of waste and destruction.”

STEPH: “A fate of instability and discord. A fate of misfortune and chaos. This fate draws out the worst from you.”

I think, in this moment… I think it is time to turn to the classical villain of Candyland, Lord Licorice, the one and only. Because I’ve always been kind of under the impression that Lord Licorice… being not a very popular candy, and indeed making you lose turns when you land on his spaces, is also sort of a hater of Candyland. In the way that, like, the Grinch hates Whoville, you know?

And I think as we wander through the peppermint forest, there is a sudden, herbaceous, slightly bitter, and immediately recognizable smell. We all know it to be Lord Licorice, and he extends a hand.

He says, [In a French accent] “My friends, it is I, Lord Licorice. I see you have come here with one thing in mind: to destroy Candyland as a concept and a board game, to ensure that you are engaging in intellectually stimulating sorts of board games. I, too, tire of this saccharine, irritating, colorful sort of pastime. Join hands with me, and we shall decimate Candyland together. We will dissolve it like sugar in… water?”

And we all consider this because, well. The enemy of my enemy, as they say.

SATAH: Okay, “chains of fate continually seek to bind you,” yeah.

Stagnation, waste, destruction. Yeah, so I think what this is, is that in reaction to me pulling these drumsticks out of the ceiling, the record exec is furious and is like, “Fine. Well, if you’re going to play that way, then I’ll just take the whole place down.”

And like… presses play on the iPod in a holster on her belt. And a song starts blaring that creates a big ol’ monster, magic monster, uh, that is trying to tear the building down completely. Like, just like– fuck it. We’ll take it. We’ll– I- I was going to preserve this for you as something special but no, now you don’t– you don’t get to have it. I’m going to destroy it. Uh, and also keep you from like– I don’t know what other tricks you have up your sleeve so, just gonna destroy it.

STEPH: I think for a moment we are all so ready to go with it. Because, my god, finally someone who understands. You know? We– we haven’t exactly spoken to anyone else here. We’ve mostly been trying to avoid them and frankly, we would have avoided Lord Licorice if we had the chance. But you know, it’s nice to know that our feelings about Candyland are reasonable and justified.

SATAH: I’ve got a 10 of diamonds, which is the same suit and higher than the 7 of diamonds. So I am good to go on resolving that. So I could just resolve it. Let’s see if there’s anything else that I can do.

I think that I’m just going to straightforwardly– I’m going to- I’m going to resolve this Fate card. I’m going to play my 10 of diamonds on the Fate’s seven of diamonds, which because it’s the same suit and a higher value, is treated as a seven, so it’s equal, meaning “balance and harmony quell Fate. Remove both Destiny and Fate cards from the line of Fate.”

And 10 of diamonds… diamonds: “You experience growth, you initiate and pass judgment on a decision. You protect things important to you.” And 10 is, “success breeds good fortune.” Interesting.

STEPH: So what I will do here is I will resolve Fate and Destiny, and I will play the ace of diamonds in response to this ace of spades. Uh, so I am at the card’s value. “Balance and harmony quell Fate.” I “remove both Destiny and Fate from the line,” leaving me with four cards.

Ace is us bringing out the best in ourselves and diamonds are we “experience growth,” we “initiate and pass judgment on a decision,” I “protect things important to me.”

SATAH: That ties really easily into, like– protecting something that’s important to me, right? Like, this building that I think probably has, like, an illusion on it that is making it into this future thing, right? Yeah, I think I want to settle that, that, like– before, like, at the beginning, I said I wasn’t sure if this was like a projection of the future or if this was real and I think it’s a projection.

I think that right now, this building is actually abandoned. Like, the– all of the stuff did happen, that, like– it got bought by a chain and then turned into another chain, but this final step hasn’t happened yet. They just– that company went bankrupt and this building has been sitting empty, but right now is projected into this, like, bougie future thing. So I still have the chance to let it not happen, basically, is my point. Um.

And I’m gonna– I am gonna protect it. I’m gonna protect it. And I think that what “success breeds good fortune” means here is that, like, using my drumsticks… and my music magic, um, I defeat the monster, right? Like that’s- that’s sort of the big action sequence is– this monster is trying to just tear this place apart. And I managed to subdue it with my own– like, probably much weaker because drums aren’t my- my instrument. But again, I’m leaning into the faith of my– my friend who’s a drummer. And- and channeling her as much as I can.

And I imagine there’s a callback to earlier in the show, you know? Like, we had a fight where I was like, “This song that we’re writing is full of feelings. You shouldn’t be playing so hard and fast. It doesn’t fit. Why do you have to be the center of attention? Like, just be quiet.” And I end up, just in my desperation, falling into playing the thing– like, the harder, faster thing that she’d been writing, and it’s, like, recognisable. And at a certain point, I, like, mutter out loud to myself, like, “Ugh. Okay, you were right. This is better.” And that’s like– it defeats the monster. [Laughing] Um.

STEPH: We are well seduced by Lord Licorice and his too-good-to-be-true promises. Because there are at least… I have looked up a number of board versions of Candyland for this and to be perfectly frank? There are some handsome Lord Licorice iterations in here.

Which one is this? Um. Yeah– hey. 2010 Candyland Lord Licorice. He looks kind of like Captain Hook from Peter Pan. It’s a vibe.

Uh, and I think many of us do enjoy this. I think it’s really, uh– it’s enticing. In addition to the fact that we love to be able to see eye to eye with someone, even though they may be a villain. And all of us– friends, compatriots, co-conspirators– agree that yeah! Let’s stick with this guy. This is a good idea.

And then I look around. I let the smell of peppermint waft over me. In the distance, I hear the dull thwack of a candy axe against a candy tree. It’s ringing and serene. And for a moment– the one moment, the important moment, I remember, this dude is the villain of the game. His entire deal is to impede the progress of those who would pass through Candyland and seek an ending. So surely something has got to be up.

And I say to my friends, “Whoa, hey guys. Do we really need– do we need help for this? Are we the sort of people who can’t solve our own problems? Who… forever draw on cards, hoping over and over again to draw a red card to escape the molasses swamp?

“No. No. We’re the sort of people who say, ‘Look, there’s a dog outside,’ and while the toddler runs over to look for a dog that we just made up, we slide that card in. We do it ourselves. We pull ourselves up by the Candyland bootstraps.

“Also, I think we should be just a little bit genre savvy here, guys. He is the villain. Any sort of interaction with him slows us down. And do we really want to be here any longer than we absolutely have to be?”

And the gang looks appropriately chagrined. There are some hung heads, some frustrated sighs. One friend who was asking if Candyland had cell phones, and if so, would Lord Licorice perhaps like to exchange numbers so they can talk about this plan thing more? We let that one happen, for the record. Love wins.

But eventually, as the person who has taken point and is responsible for drawing the cards, I say, “Sir, I appreciate it, and I know that you do noble work, but we don’t belong here, and our quest is our own.”

And yeah, maybe he tries to stop us, but at that point I stopped listening because I drew another card. And it’s time to get marshmallows sproinged somewhere else. Let’s flip a Fate card!

SATAH: I think that success breeds good fortune is that, like, is, um– I defeat the monster so hard that it– her– the- the iPod of the record exec, like, sparks. And she, like, yells and has to rip it off and throw it, and so she certainly still has other stuff up her sleeve, but she now doesn’t have access to that specific weapon. And that- that resolves that.

So now I’ve got these three Fate cards. And I’m going to reveal one!

STEPH: Uh, the nine of clubs.

SATAH: The nine of diamonds.

STEPH: “A fate of danger and suspense. A fate of arrogance and ignorance.”

SATAH: “A fate of stagnation, waste, and destruction.” Cool.

STEPH: And “the chains of fate continually seek to bind.”

SATAH: My inkling is that I’m going to… lean into, like, the stagnation thing here of, like, the exec being, like, “Oh, what. You’re just going to play the same shitty small shows and venues over and over for the rest of your life? You could be so much bigger. Look at you.”

Um, but first I have to decide what my action is going to be.

STEPH: I think, yeah, in choosing to draw another card, to go with the existing path, we are not breaking any molds. We are indeed playing Candyland, the game that… so exhausts us. So the arrogance is absolutely there.

We spring, we sproing. Mushroom. Not mushroom. Marshmallow. Wonderful.

This one is just a blue. One blue. Lone. We move, like, two steps. Lord Licorice is still there, but, you know, with the sort of recent browbeating, he’s clearly about to make his way out.

And so, again, in our arrogance, we don’t see any possible danger here.

SATAH: So what happens when you res– when you play a Destiny that is above a card’s value? “Draw a new Fate card from the bottom of the deck and place it face down…” Okay. So I think I have to do that. I don’t have any other options right now. Let’s see. I don’t have anything that’s the same value. I don’t have anything that adds up to the value or has a difference of the value, I think. What’s 13 minus 5? Not 9. [Laughing] Close, but not 9.

So I think I’m going to Synchronize. And I’m going to discard my jack of hearts and pull two Destiny cards.

And I just pulled a diamond! So I can actually resolve that. Because what I was going to do– when you Synchronize, you “discard a hand, draw two cards, and then immediately attempt to resolve a Fate card.” I was just going to play my queen of hearts on Fate’s nine of diamonds, and then what that would do is draw a new Fate card, and so I was like preemptively like, well, I would like more ammunition, so I’m going to discard a card and then pull. But I pulled a diamond! So I’m just going to resolve it. And– and I have to talk about how I did it with precise timing.

Let’s see. Queen of diamonds. Queen is, again, “You draw strength from faith in someone,” and diamonds, “You experience growth. You initiate and pass judgment on a decision. You protect things important to you.”

I mean– I’m so glad this is another queen, actually. Like, that is so perfect. That just means that I have to draw strength from another bandmate, right?

So, drew strength from the drummer… I think I’m a… primarily a guitarist and vocalist. So let’s throw a bass player– there’s probably a bassist and, uh, someone who plays keys. Let’s make this the person who primarily plays keys, who I’m going to draw strength from.

And how do I do that? So what’s going on?

Yeah, so it’s the thing I was saying about, like, the exe, with a little bit of desperation now is like, “Why are you fighting so hard for this? This, really, is what you want to preserve? This shithole? You want to linger forever in that part of your life where you were struggling and exhausted, and this band was all you had as an escape from the real world?

“You have real talent. You could be somebody. You could be a real person. But no. For some reason, you’re fighting to keep playing the same shitty, tiny clubs over and over for the rest of your life, always being the local opener to the touring act. Why? Why are you fighting so hard for that when you could be so much more if you just joined me?”

STEPH: In the arrogance that every next step will be perfect, we fail to see the crumbling of the road ahead.

At this point, I think… hmm. What to do what to do what to do. Because I have two fives and two kings, so I have two pairs. I have spades and I have hearts, neither of which are particularly useful for me right now. Um, I could add more, but I’m not particularly inclined to at the moment… so I think what I’ll do here is I will just Exceed, so remo– “discard any number of cards with the same value and remove the same amount of face down Fate cards.” So I will take the two fives out and then remove two face down Fate cards.

“Narrate how you resolve Fate when things line up.”

And I think… I think the card gods are merciful. I think the card gods are kind. I think the path is smooth. And more importantly, we have drawn the Queen Frostine card, which, again, is the farthest you can go in a single pull. And it’s good. It’s merciful. It’s like we stacked the deck ourselves. And indeed, we may have– who’s to say if we got sucked into the exact game that we were being forced to play, which had been carefully stacked to ensure that the toddler won in spite of, uh, more competitive natures that we may have?

SATAH: The resolution card says– there’s– “experience growth, or initiate and pass judgment.” I think it’s both of those, but I think it’s like… so again, I’m drawing strength on somebody- from somebody, from the keyboardist.

And I have a moment of conflict, right? Because she’s kind of getting to me. I’m like, “Yeah. I am tired of doing the same shows, the same competitions over and over again. This isn’t the life I dreamed of for myself. I want something more. I want something bigger.”

And then I think about loading the van after a show and the keyboard player is, like, bouncing. She’s always bouncing. And I’m loading stuff and I’m just looking at her and I’m like, “Were you playing a different show from us? Because that sucked.”

And she, like, laughs and nods and she’s like, “Yeah, I mean, not a great crowd, not our best set, but you know.” And she shrugs like it’s obvious.

And I, like, shake my head. I’m, like, “I don’t know. What do you– what do you mean?”

And she’s like, “Oh! Well, I mean… I guess it sounds kind of stupid, but I love every show. I’m doing the thing that I love to do, and I love that every show is different. Even though we play here a lot, I always see a new face in the crowd. Or if it’s all the same faces, somebody’s wearing a new shirt. And they love it, you know? They want to talk about it. They want to talk about the show that they got the shirt at. Or somebody got a new job or somebody got laid off and they need tonight. They’re celebrating or they need the distraction.

“It’s never the same twice. And… I love that. It’s important to me. And I think… it would be kind of hypocritical of me if… if it’s so important that things be different, then I kind of have to accept that sometimes they’ll be bad. [Giggles] And unless I want things to be the same all of the time, realistically, I can’t always ask for them to be good and turn out well.

“So, then sometimes it’s going to be like tonight. But the important thing is, a lot of them won’t be. So I guess it’s easy for me.”

And I’m, like, grumpy because we just played a shitty show and, like, a bunch of stuff went– like, I broke, like, three guitar strings somehow, which makes no sense and just– it was terrible. We made no money. And so at the time I’m, like, grumpy and I can’t really accept it.

And I think that probably there was a big inciting incident right after that. You know? Like, big fight. And I started to get seduced to the dark side, as it were, with this record exec and experience like the– partially, like, the promises of like, “What if every show were good?” Right? “What if it was so curated– what if we controlled so many aspects of the show that it was always good? What if you were so popular that everyone in your audience was always there to see you and loved you?”

And that’s appealing to me, right? Especially when I’m struggling with that.

STEPH: The end is now so clearly in sight. Candy Castle. It’s waiting for us.

And then we realise on second or perhaps third thought, we don’t know exactly what we were supposed to do when we got there! Um, destruction is not a plan. Erasure is not a plan. There were no steps. There was a lot of, “We’ll figure it out when we get there.”

SATAH: But in this moment, it all hits me and I’m, like, laughing again, like, “Oh my god, yeah. She was right, too.”

And the exec’s like, “What do you mean?”

And I’m just like, “I mean that… look. First of all, I think you’re wrong. I don’t think that this is my life forever, or our lives forever. I think we really can do something with this.

“But you know what? Even if we don’t, even if we’ve already hit the apex? We’re at the top of our game and it’s never going to get better than this? I mean, fuck. I could do a lot worse, couldn’t I? And I think it’s worth fighting for. I think it’s worth preserving.”

And… as some new monster appears… she doesn’t have her iPod anymore. So what does she do? I’m just going to go on a tour of, like, uh, obsolete music technology. She’s, like– slams a CD– oh my god. She has, like, a CD holder on her body somehow? And she can, like, flip it open and pull out a disc and she like tosses it into a cd player and hits play. Or maybe she even throws another cd at it to hit play for her, which is, like, scandalous to me because I’m like, “That has music on it!! And you’re just throwing it around?! You have no respect for the arts!”

And, uh, I think just as a little bit of colour at this point, I’m needling her like, “Come on, you don’t even play?” And there’s, like, something about who she used to be, right? Like I’m like, “It’s in your brochure. You talk about how like you were this big deal guitarist and then you got into production and now you own this company and you won’t even play to fight me? You’re just going to play recordings? Come on.”

And she, like, sneers and she’s like, “I’m so beyond that.” [Laughs]

And I gotta flip a Fate card. And then I have to read the rules again because I keep– I- I think that this is part of what I got wrong last time, so…

STEPH: I am also realising that I now have one face down Fate card left, which satisfies one of the conditions to initiate the Final Destiny phase.

GAME: FINAL DESTINY

SATAH: “When you have one face down Fate card left on the line of Fate, or you have zero cards in your hand, you enter into the final phase of the game.” Yes! So I have revealed a Fate card. It’s the seven of hearts.

STEPH: So we have our face down card and our nine of clubs.

SATAH: Um, and I’m going to go into Final Destiny!

STEPH: Alright, so–

STEPH & SATAH: “Keep any unresolved Fate cards

STEPH: on the line of Fate.”

SATAH: Got that. One face up card, one face down card.

STEPH: “If there are more than one face down Fate card,” nope.

SATAH: “Discard any remaining cards in your hand.” Bye, friends. Discarding my four cards.

STEPH: “Discard any remaining cards in your hand.” So, pair of kings, it’s been a wonderful time, but farewell.

SATAH: “Reveal the last face-down Fate card. Use the suit and value along with any unresolved Fate cards to narrate your predicament.”

STEPH: “Reveal the last face-down fate card.”

SATAH: “Each unresolved fate intensifies the adversity and hardship in the situation.”

[Card fwip] So. That is the Jack of Diamonds. “A fate of loneliness and isolation. A fate of betrayal and apathy stalks you.” Oh no!

STEPH: It is a six of spades. “A fate of instability and discord. A fate of misfortune and chaos consumes you.”

SATAH: Diamonds, for the final card, is “stagnation, waste, destruction.”

STEPH: So, a six. “The chains of fate continue to bind.”

SATAH: And a jack is a big deal. So let’s look at that. “Trickery and misdirection deter your path.” Ooh!

STEPH: We arrive at Candy Castle. It’s there. The promised ending. The ending of all plays of Candyland forever. Milton Bradley is never going to know what hit them.

I think Milton Bradley owns Candyland. I’m not sure and I’m not inclined to check.

And then, as the fearless leader, I am obligated to ask, “Hey, so how– was there a plan? For the destruction of Candyland? Or did we just think if we won, it was gonna… we weren’t competing against anybody. We know that, right? So what do we do?”

And at this point, the group dissolves into yelling.

SATAH: So. The final setup here has to pull in the last band member. Which I guess is the bass player, we’ll say.

And this has to be the person who I’ve had the most contentious relationship with. I think that we jokingly refer to each other as exes because we dated in kindergarten, you know? In that– we got married in kindergarten and then divorced that day. And we’ve always jokingly referred to each other as exes and as divorcees, uh– as having– as divorced from each other.

And I think that… we have really leaned into that joke a lot as we have alternately and always with incredibly poor timing had feelings for each other. Always when it wouldn’t be possible to do anything about it, or… just– it never felt like it could actually work. And so we just kind of lean into that like, “Haha! We’re divorced.” type thing… when we have actually been in love! We’ve been mutually pining for each other for ages. Um.

And so I think what happens here is she walks out from behind the record exec. And she’s, like, super dressed up. And I stop and I’m like– I need a name for her. I’m just– Macy was what came to mind– just gonna be like, “Macy?”

And she’s like, “Oh, hey. Sorry. I didn’t realise I was interrupting anything. I just wanted to return this contract.”

And hands a piece of paper over to the exec who sneers and is like, “Oh, perfect! Well– it looks like I don’t need you, then,” and turns to me.

And I’m just, like, stunned. And I’m like, “Wh– what– what do you mean?”

Macy, like, walks forward to the edge of wherever they’ve been standing up at the top looking down and leans over. And she’s like, “What? You really think you’re the only one of us who has ambitions? You have no idea. And I’m exhausted by it.

“I’m so tired of you and the band. Of all of this drama. And all of these feelings. All of the fighting. I’m just exhausted. I just want to make music. And I don’t really care anymore if I do it the right way.

“So, when an offer I couldn’t refuse came along, I didn’t refuse it. But, uh… tell the other girls good luck from me, okay?” Like, winning smile.

STEPH: It is chaos. Because everybody had sort of a vague plan. You know, there are mentions of fire, and then, no, water. It’s candy, it’s sugar, obviously. There are mentions of, maybe we have King Candy hand over the crown, and we declare Candyland to be no more, and dissolve it as some sort of weird alternate state, maybe. You know, maybe we have to play by the universe’s rules. That one person is still saying, “What if we called Lord Licorice?” Which… not ideal, but hey, you do you.

At any rate, no one is able to agree. And I look down and I realise that the cards which have taken us all this way are still in my hand. I can still make a move.

We’ve reached the end. Drawing a card shouldn’t do anything. And yet… the deck is still here. And with the deck must be the power to move forward. To overcome. To find something new.

And so while they argue, I step up to the gates. Candy Castle.

SATAH: And I am going to shout at fate, “This is my final turn! I claim my destiny with this card. Draw.”

STEPH: I draw one final card. And like Martin Luther nailing the 95 theses to the door of a Catholic church, I slam that thang on the drawbridge and I say, “It’s over! We’ve won.” And I play my final card in a thundering echo that hits… what is it? Toffee? I don’t know. Hits the toffee drawbridge.

SATAH: I got a four of hearts.

STEPH: I’m currently looking at the king of diamonds.

SATAH: “Draw your final card. Reveal it in the most dramatic flourish possible. You automatically resolve the final Fate card with dramatic reversal.”

STEPH: “Automatically resolve the final Fate card with dramatic reversal.” So, this resolves the six of spades.

SATAH: “Use the card’s suit or value to guide how to narrate your extraordinary comeback and your triumph in that dire scenario poised by Fate.”

STEPH: So diamonds, “you experience growth. You initiate and pass judgment on a decision. You protect things important to you.”

SATAH: So a four of hearts. I wish it had been another queen. Wouldn’t that have been perfect?

STEPH: And “an otherworldly force or inspiration aids you.”

SATAH: So hearts are, “You express your emotions. You elicit vulnerability to build a connection. Your innocence is pure and steadfast,” which is– of course. That’s easy.

Um, it’s like… and I think the thing that’s really funny here is that it’s so fast. She’s, like, sneering down at me and I take, like, a trembling step forward. And I look up at her. And I just go, “You… you don’t mean that.”

And she gets that– has this, like, cruel look on her face. And then smiles bigger and goes, “You’re right. No, I don’t.” And, like, inexplicably, like– like, throws off the big jacket that she was wearing and reveals that her bass was strapped to her back the whole time. And, like, swings it in front of her and turns to face the exec and yells, like, “One, two, three, go!” and starts playing and then the other two bandmates, like, burst into the room and they, like– one of them, you know, tosses me my guitar and grabs– yeah. Grabs the drumsticks from me and shoves the guitar into my hands, and we all start playing together… [Giggling] to defeat the record exec.

STEPH: And I think in that moment, hand sticky from toffee, the playing card adhering to the door… I look up at what ought to be an isomalt sky with spun sugar clouds, and what I see is a popcorn ceiling. Not like the treat, like the, uh sort of hideous plaster situation that plagues some homes.

I see faces, large. Gigantic, even. Round and youthful. Toddlers. I hear them laugh. I hear them screech in delight. Double yellow, at Queen Frostine. I hear them wail in despair at the concept of a molasses swamp. I hear their enmity for Lord Licorice and his eternal hindering of progress.

I hear the thrill of victory as they, like us, arrive at the Candy Castle, but they do not arrive as… conquerors. Would-be conquerors. But as heroes, having braved every trial, every villain– “every” doing a lot of carrying in the villain sense here.

And I see that as I look around at my friends, teens who are too cool to be here, who are here for the paycheque and would rather play Mario Party,.The thought comes to me, and I shout it:

“Y ‘all, I don’t think we’re the target audience for this game.”

And everyone stops.

SATAH: And she, like, screams, you know, like, “You fool, I already have your contract.”

Um, and Macy is like– it’s like some stupid legal thing. She’s like, “Yeah, I signed it! But not in front of a notary. Did I need a notary?”

And the exec, like, screams. Like, yes, you know, the contract is null and void because it was not done in front of proper legal representation. [Laughing]

And she tries her best to summon another monster. But the CD player– like, one of- one of the bandmates, the keyboardist, like, pops open the CD player and just plunks in, like, our latest single, um. She’s like, “I like this better!”

Um, and the exec, like, just keeps scrabbling– scrabbling to try and find a way to summon her music monster, but can’t because we– she’s- she’s too scared to play the music herself and we just keep taking over all of the music players and that kind of thing.

And… what is– what is the final defeat?

STEPH: They look at me like I’m an idiot. Which is fair.

I sigh again. “What if we didn’t play at all and just sort of moderated the siblings doing it? They’re five and three. They know what colours are.”

And a moment of realisation. Joy. Freedom. Comes over their faces. They think of other children that they can force into Candyland cage matches to duke it out with each other across that technicolour board, leaving them to be utterly free to mess around on their phones and not really pay attention as long as you can hear them arguing about how many spaces you can get, or, you know, how the rainbow bridge things work.

And one by one, they disappear. Free, their souls light. But not me. I stay there, my hand stuck to the door. And I push. And the drawbridge falls open.

And I walk in. And it’s just the start of Candyland again. Though, perhaps this time, seeing a smiling gingerbread tree is a good thing.

SATAH: I think it’s almost– it’s– so we’re- we’re playing and then I’m, like, standing over top of her, and she is, like, ready for the killing blow. You know? And that a single like long note rings out and I’m looking down at her and I’m like, “Seriously, I heard you were pretty good. If you ever want to jam?”

And she, like, look of disgust overrides her fear. And she’s like, “You should have finished me when you had the chance,” and disappears. Um– oh, I like the idea that she, like, reaches up and strums my guitar and that is, like, the power, like– and it teleports her. Like, that is a power that she had. And I, like, gasp and stop the strings, but she’s gone.

And I look down and I’m like, “Whoa. She is good. We gotta be careful we don’t end up like that.”

And it’s like a big heartwarming, like, “We could never end up like that because we have the power of friendship!!” [Laughing]

And that is, uh… that is how that ends. We did it. Triumphed over Fate. [Laughing]

STEPH: So yeah, I think we have triumphed over Fate in its trials, by which I mean we’ve accepted the fate that sometimes you have to play a game that isn’t for you. [Laughs]

And yeah! That was My Turn! Draw!

SATAH: That was so fun. Oh my god. That was so fun, and also, like, what a– what a beautifully just quick experience. That was such a treat. I literally just played it twice in a row and loved it the whole time. I think the– parts of the rules were a little difficult for me to wrap my mind around and jus, like, could genuinely be resolved by, like, layout and a couple of reference tables, but it doesn’t– it doesn’t– it’s not a huge deal, because what a what a what a fun fantastic experience that was. Yay!

OUTRO

SATAH: This has been Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. To find where you can find the show, check out foliopod.carrd.co. Sign up as a paid member at patreon.com/foliopod to vote on games and participate in livestreams, or join for free to get access to the bonus feed with edited audio-only versions of the streams a couple of weeks after they happen and occasional other stuff. [Reacting to voice cracking] Whew, voice didn’t quite make it through that one.

Thanks again to Steph Novak for your incredible contribution to the show.

I am Satah. You can find my work at gaygothvibes.online and follow me on Bluesky at posatahchips.gaygothvibes.online.

Today, we played the entirety of My Turn! Draw! by Jacky Leung, linked, as always, in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and take care out there.