Card Drawing

The Card Drawing System

"Fortune Favors the Quick Draw—When the Cards Are in Your Favor"

In the Weird West, playing cards are more than just tools for poker games and sleight-of-hand tricks. They're woven into the very fabric of how fate unfolds—determining who acts first when bullets fly, and channeling supernatural power for those who know how to twist reality itself. Whether you're a gunslinger waiting for your moment to draw or a huckster bargaining with forces beyond mortal ken, understanding how cards work in Deadlands is essential to survival.

Two Types of Card Systems

Deadlands uses playing cards in two distinct ways:

Action Cards determine the order of actions during combat and other tense situations. Everyone draws cards from an Action Deck, and the Marshal counts down from Ace to Deuce, calling out when each character can act. This creates a dynamic, unpredictable flow to gunfights and brawls.

Huckster Hexes use poker hands to determine the strength and success of supernatural spells. When a huckster casts a hex, they draw cards and try to build the best poker hand possible. Better hands mean more powerful effects—or at least a spell that doesn't backfire catastrophically.

Action Cards: Initiative and Combat Order

When violence erupts or time becomes critical, the Marshal declares that the game is now in combat rounds. Each round represents 5 seconds of frantic action. To determine who acts when during those 5 seconds, everyone draws Action Cards.

Drawing Your Cards

At the start of each combat round:

Step 1: Make a Quickness Roll
Roll your Quickness Trait against a Fair (5) Target Number. This represents your character's reflexes and readiness to act.

Step 2: Draw Cards Based on Your Result

• Success (5+): Draw 1 card
• 1 Raise (10+): Draw 2 cards
• 2 Raises (15+): Draw 3 cards
• 3 Raises (20+): Draw 4 cards
• 4 Raises (25+): Draw 5 cards (the maximum without supernatural aid)
• Going Bust: Draw no cards this round (you're flat-footed and can't act normally)

Maximum Cards: Under normal circumstances, no one can have more than 5 Action Cards without supernatural powers (like certain huckster hexes or Harrowed abilities).

Example: Sarah makes her Quickness roll and gets a 16—that's 2 raises! She draws 3 cards from the Action Deck: a Queen of Hearts, an 8 of Diamonds, and a 4 of Clubs. She'll be able to take 3 actions this round, one on each of those cards.

Taking Actions

Once everyone has drawn their cards, the Marshal counts down from Ace to Deuce. When your card is called, you can take one action—making an attack, casting a spell, reloading, moving and shooting, etc.

The Countdown: Ace → King → Queen → Jack → 10 → 9 → 8 → 7 → 6 → 5 → 4 → 3 → 2

When your card comes up, flip it over and tell the Marshal what you're doing. Then resolve the action using the appropriate dice roll.

Ties: If multiple characters have the same card, check the suit to determine who goes first:

If the posse and the Marshal both have the same card and suit (since they use separate decks), the actions are simultaneous.

Long Actions

Most actions take one card to complete—firing a gun, swinging a fist, or diving for cover. Some actions take longer:

Multi-Card Actions: Many spells, certain mad science devices, and complex tasks have a Speed rating. This tells you how many Action Cards you must spend to complete the action. You spend these cards over as many rounds as it takes, then resolve the action on the last card spent.

Example: A huckster wants to cast a hex with Speed 2. She spends her Queen of Hearts this round and her 8 of Diamonds next round. On the 8, she makes her hexslingin' roll and resolves the spell's effects.

Holding a Card Up Your Sleeve

Sometimes you want to wait—to see what an enemy does, or to interrupt someone else's action. This is called "cheating" and represents holding one card "up your sleeve."

How to cheat: When one of your cards is called, instead of taking your action, announce you're holding it up your sleeve. Place the card face-down under your Fate Chips. You can only ever have one card up your sleeve at a time.

Using your cheat card: You can play your held card at any time—even earlier than its normal value in the next round. When you use it, flip it face-up, take your action, and discard it.

Interrupting someone else: If you want to interrupt another character's action with your cheat card, you must beat them in an opposed Quickness check (TN 5 for both). If you get a success, the actions are simultaneous. If you get a raise, you act first.

The Jokers: Wild Cards

Jokers add dramatic twists to combat rounds. You can never hold a Joker up your sleeve, and each has special effects:

The Red Joker (Good News)

Drawing the Red Joker is a stroke of luck. Your character can act at any time during the round—even interrupting someone else's action without making a Quickness check. You have complete control over when you act this round.

Bonus: The player who drew the Red Joker gets to draw a random chip from the Fate Pot. Congratulations, partner—Lady Luck's smiling on you!

Downside: Since you can't hold a Joker up your sleeve, you only get this advantage for one round. Use it or lose it.

The Black Joker (Bad News)

Drawing the Black Joker means something went wrong. Your character hesitates—maybe wounds are slowing them down, their gun jams momentarily, or they're distracted by the chaos around them.

Penalties:

• Discard the Black Joker and any card you have up your sleeve
• The Marshal gets to draw a random chip from the Fate Pot (representing the bad guys getting lucky)
• At the end of this round, your side's Action Deck is reshuffled (putting the Joker back in circulation)

The posse doesn't get a Fate Chip draw when the Marshal draws a Black Joker. Life ain't fair in the Weird West.

Surprise

When something unexpected happens—an ambush, a creature leaping from the shadows, or a sudden explosion—characters might be surprised. The Marshal calls for a Cognition check:

• Fair (5) TN: If you were expecting danger (but not this specific threat)
• Incredible (11) TN: If you were completely off-guard

If you fail the Cognition roll: You don't draw any cards and can't act for the first round. You stand there slack-jawed while your brain catches up to the situation. Next round, you must make a Fair (5) guts check to shake off the shock. If you succeed, you can act normally from then on.

Huckster Hexes: Poker and Power

Hucksters tap into supernatural power by bargaining with malevolent spirits called manitous that dwell in the Hunting Grounds. This mental duel is represented by a game of poker—the huckster must build a strong hand to force the manitou to channel its power into a spell.

If you're not playing a huckster, you can skip this section. But if you are—or if you're just curious about how hexslingers work their dark arts—read on.

How Hucksters Cast Hexes

Step 1: Make a Hexslingin' Roll
When a huckster wants to cast a hex, they roll their hexslingin' Aptitude level, using the die type of the Trait the hex requires (listed in each hex's description). They're trying to beat a Fair (5) TN to make contact with a manitou.

Example: Velvet Van Helter wants to cast "soul blast," which uses the Spirit Trait. Velvet has hexslingin' 5 and Spirit 3d10. He rolls 5d10, trying to get at least a 5.

Step 2: Draw Cards
If you succeed on your hexslingin' roll, draw cards from your personal huckster deck:

• Base draw: 5 cards
• Raises: +1 card per raise on the hexslingin' roll

The more raises you get, the more powerful the manitou you've contacted—and the more cards you have to build your poker hand.

Step 3: Build the Best Poker Hand
Look at all the cards you drew and build the best 5-card poker hand you can. (You can use any 5 of the cards you drew, not necessarily all of them if you drew more than 5.)

Step 4: Check If You Succeeded
Each hex lists a minimum poker hand required for success. If your hand meets or beats that minimum, the hex works! Better hands often mean stronger effects, longer duration, or greater range.

If you fail to meet the minimum hand: The hex fizzles. You contacted the manitou, but couldn't force it to channel enough power.

If you go bust on the hexslingin' roll: Don't draw any cards at all. The hex automatically fails and you take backlash (see below).

Poker Hands Reference

For those unfamiliar with poker, here's a quick reference of poker hands from weakest to strongest:

Jokers in Huckster Decks

Jokers are wild cards in a huckster's deck, but they come with risks:

Red Joker: Acts as a wild card with no penalty—but only if the huckster has skill level 3 or higher in that specific hex. If the hex is below level 3, the Red Joker causes backlash (see below).

Black Joker: Always causes backlash, no exceptions. The manitou you contacted is particularly nasty and takes a swipe at you even if the hex succeeds.

Both Jokers Together: Even if your hex succeeds spectacularly, drawing both Jokers means you're in for serious supernatural trouble.

Backlash: When Magic Bites Back

Bargaining with evil spirits is dangerous. When things go wrong, the huckster suffers backlash—supernatural harm inflicted by an angry or mischievous manitou.

You take backlash when:

• You go bust on your hexslingin' roll
• You draw a Black Joker
• You draw a Red Joker while casting a hex you have at level 2 or lower

What does backlash do? That's up to the Marshal, but it's never good. Common backlash effects include:

• Wind damage: Spiritual exhaustion that drains your stamina
• Wounds: Actual physical harm from the manitou's malice
• Unintended effects: The hex works, but hits the wrong target or backfires
• Psychological trauma: Fear, temporary insanity, or nightmares
• Gaining Dominion: The manitou gets a stronger grip on the huckster's soul (very bad for long-term survival)

The severity of backlash usually depends on how badly things went wrong. Going bust is worse than drawing a single Joker. Drawing both Jokers? May the Lord have mercy on your soul.

Example: Casting a Hex

The Situation: Velvet Van Helter needs to cast "soul blast" to drive off a devil bat attacking the posse. Soul blast requires a minimum hand of Ace and uses the Spirit Trait.

Step 1: Hexslingin' Roll
Velvet has hexslingin' 5 and Spirit 3d10. He rolls 5d10 and gets: 3, 7, 10, 10, 4. The 10s are Aces! He rolls them again: 6 and 8. His two highest results are 16 and 18. He takes the 18.

With an 18 against TN 5, that's 2 raises (beats TN by 13). He succeeded in contacting a manitou!

Step 2: Draw Cards
Velvet draws 5 cards (base) plus 2 cards (for 2 raises) = 7 cards total. He draws: 8♠, 8♥, 8♦, K♣, 5♦, 3♠, Red Joker.

Step 3: Build Best Hand
Velvet has three 8s—that's a Three of a Kind! Since he has "soul blast" at level 4, the Red Joker counts as a wild card with no backlash. He could use it to make Four of a Kind (four 8s), which is much stronger than the minimum Ace required.

Step 4: Check Success
The hex works! Not only did Velvet meet the minimum hand, he crushed it. The Marshal rules that the soul blast does maximum damage on the damage table for Four of a Kind. The devil bat takes a massive spiritual wallop and goes down hard.

Reshuffling Decks

Action Decks: Reshuffle immediately if the deck runs out mid-round. Also reshuffle at the end of any round in which a Black Joker was drawn.

Huckster Decks: Hucksters should reshuffle between scenes or whenever it makes narrative sense. Some groups reshuffle after every hex; others wait until the deck runs low. Talk to your Marshal about their preference.