On the Scale

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Playing a round
5. Ending the game
6. The 20 scales
7. Tips for beginners
8. Variants

Overview

On the Scale is a cooperative guessing game: all players form one team and play together for the best score. In each round one player, the guide, secretly draws a target between 1 and 13. A scale with two ends is announced – say "freezing ↔ boiling hot" – and the guide names one thing that, in their opinion, sits exactly at the target's spot on that scale. "Bath water" might be a 10; "a snowman" a 1. The rest of the team discusses and puts a marker on the row of cards where they think the target is. The closer they get, the more points.

There are no right answers – only the guide's feeling. That's the fun: you find out how your friends think.

• Players: 2–12; best with 4–8.
• You need: a standard 52-card deck with one joker, and paper and pencil.

On the Scale is our own adaptation for an ordinary deck, inspired by Wavelength (Alex Hague, Justin Vickers and Wolfgang Warsch, Palm Court, 2019). It is new and not yet playtested.

The cards

Setup

1. Lay the 13 spades face up in a row in the middle of the table, from A♠ on the left to K♠ on the right.
2. Shuffle the 13 hearts and put them face down as the target pile.
3. Shuffle the 26 clubs and diamonds and put them face down as the scale pile.
4. Keep the joker ready. Choose who is the first guide; the role passes clockwise after each round.
5. Decide how many rounds you play: 10 is a good game (with more than 10 players, one round each).

Playing a round

1. Draw the target. The guide takes the top card of the target pile and looks at it secretly. Nobody else may see it.
2. Choose the scale. The guide draws two scale cards, looks up both scales in the list, picks the one they like better and reads it out: the first word is the left end (A♠), the second word the right end (K♠). The other scale card goes to the bottom of the scale pile. A face card means the guide may invent a scale instead.
3. Give the clue. The guide names one thing – a word, a name or a short phrase – that sits at the target's spot on the scale. Rules for the clue: - no numbers and no card names; - no words from the scale itself; - no comparisons with earlier clues or rounds ("a bit hotter than last time"); - no gestures, faces or extra hints – after the clue, the guide stays silent.
4. Guess. The rest of the team discusses freely and then puts the joker on one card of the row. When everybody agrees (or a player chosen to decide says "locked"), the guess is final.
5. Reveal and score. The guide turns the target face up. Count how many cards the joker is away from the target's rank:

Write the points down and put the target card aside. The next player clockwise is the new guide.

Example: Ben is the guide and secretly draws the 10♥. His scale cards are the A♣ (freezing ↔ boiling hot) and the 6♦ (countryside ↔ big city); he picks the first one. A 10 is fairly hot, so he says: "bath water". Carla thinks bath water is warm but not really hot – a 9. Dan says his baths are hot – a J. They settle on the 9♠. Ben turns up the 10♥: the joker is 1 card away, so the team scores 2 points.

Ending the game

After the agreed number of rounds, add up the points and see how well you know each other (10 rounds, at most 30 points):

If the target pile runs out before you have finished, shuffle the used hearts back in. If the scale pile runs out, shuffle the used scale cards.

The 20 scales

Tips for beginners

• Guide: think of things everybody at the table knows. A shared memory ("our last holiday") can be the perfect clue.
• Guide: the middle (6, 7, 8) is the hardest – look for something that is clearly "halfway".
• Team: first agree roughly (left, middle, right), then argue about the exact card.
• Team: think about how the guide sees the world, not how you do.

Variants

• Two teams (4 or more players): the teams take turns, with the guide always from the team whose turn it is. After 5 rounds each, the team with more points wins; on a tie, play one more round each.
• Harder scoring: only an exact hit (3) and 1 card away (1) score.
• Own scales: write your own list of 20 scales – it's half the fun.
• Top Ten (4–9 players, after Top Ten by Aurélien Picolet): everybody gets a secret number and the guide has to put the answers in order. You need the hearts A–10 (A = 1) and as many coins as players as the team's lives (8 with 9 players). Each round the guide draws a scale as usual and reads it out, then deals every player one heart face down – the guide too (with 9 players the guide gets none). Everyone who holds a heart, the guide first (if they have one), names one thing on the scale that fits their number: 1 at the left end, 10 at the right end. Then the guide calls the players one by one, from the lowest answer to the highest as they judge it, and each called player lays their heart face up in a row (the guide's own card too). Each time a card is lower than the card before it, the team loses a coin – but the round goes on. After 5 rounds with at least one coin left, you have won; the last coin gone means you lose at once. The same idea – secret numbers, answers on a theme, putting them in order – also drives ito (Mitsuru Nakamura, Arclight, 2019).