I understand (and appreciate) the three cards per scene limitation as a mechanic to prevent one person from hogging all of the story. However, it forces a mechanical definition on how long or how complicated a scene can be.

What if a player was limited to playing a number of cards per post, (say, 3) but a player's cards become available again once other players have also played cards?

A numerical example:
Alice, Bob, and Charlie are playing in a scene.
Alice writes a post and plays two cards toward a challenge.
Bob writes a post and plays one card toward a challenge.
Charlie writes a post and plays three cards toward a challenge.
The three players have each played at least one card, so each player has one additional card available to them. That means that Alice can now play two cards (3 - 2 + 1 = 2), Bob can play three cards (3 - 1 + 1 = 3), and Charlie can play one card (3 - 3 + 1 = 1).

This lets the players interact with challenges in a more fluid manner, and because they are still limited by the challenges, they can't run away with the story.

How about allowing the Narrator to decide when cards refresh?

Maybe you could consider making the whole card-system configurable: Usually players have 3 strength and weakness cards (+ wild cards) per scene and can play 3 cards per scene. That number (3) could be configurable - maybe even after a game has started. You could let the player hands grow, to make characters more complex as the game progresses. And at the same time challenges more complex as the game progresses.

Or, if the designers are completely opposed to having more than 3 cards played per scene per player, I'd still love it if challenge points were unlimited. At the moment, I find that the limit on challenge points means that the narrator can easily fall into "railroading" their players to follow one linear path.

I'd like to offer multiple challenge options to players in one scene, beyond the limit of their cards, and see which ones interest them. The ones they can't spend their points on will either have an uncertain outcome, or just not be brought up at all (if players have no interest in seeing it through). It'll provide more open-endedness to the scenes.

Hi Stephen,

I think Mischa meant the limit on cards played per scene, not per turn.

The scenes / challenges themselves sometimes require more length than only 3 challenge points per character. Perhaps, an option to refresh automatically mid-scene or as its own special move... would help remedy this, as well.

This way challenges in one scene could be unlimited, if the scene warrants.

As for turn limits... I think those are quite necessary. Playing all of your Strength / Weakness cards in one shot would make no sense.

Whoops, sorry for the double post.

Yup, I get that you want balance. Might be nice if the narrator could "bank" unused challenge points if needed, or have twice the number of PCs worth of bonus points at the start of the game, maybe get an extra one every two scenes or so.

That makes mechanical sense, sure. Any narrator tweak should probably be labeled with your caveat.

But say as a follow-up challenge that's only evident as the fiction unfolds, or if the narrator can "bank" points early for later surprise use... Just a way to bend the requirement a little. :)