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Mystery envelopes
Seal your outcomes in envelopes, shuffle them, and let somebody choose one to open.
Made by the PaperCarnival team · Updated
Nothing sealed yet
Write your outcomes in the Outcomes tab, then seal them.
6 outcomes. They stay in this browser and never reach a link.
Start from a ready-made set
How many envelopes
Between 2 and 24 on the table.
When there are not enough outcomes
Spare envelopes hold a blank, so a table of twelve can hold three prizes and nine nothings.
Sound
An envelope makes a tearing sound as it opens. What was inside is always written on it as well.
A prize table without the prizes
The envelope on a table is one of the oldest pieces of stagecraft there is, because choosing feels different from being given. A wheel tells you what you got. An envelope lets you pick, and picking the one on the end because it looked lucky is most of the fun even though it changes nothing at all.
Everything is sealed before anybody chooses, which is the honest way to do it. The envelope you point at was already holding whatever it is holding, and the tool has no opinion about who picked it.
For a draw where the winner is a ticket rather than a choice, the raffle drum does that properly, and for a list of things to pick from without the theatre, the bag of tokens is the quicker page.
Kept in this browser under pph.envelope.items, pph.envelope.count, pph.envelope.pad and pph.envelope.muted, and nowhere else. Accounts, printing, storage and what the page loads are answered on the FAQ.
Questions
- Does choosing an envelope change what is inside it?
- No. Every outcome is shuffled into an envelope before anybody chooses, so the envelope you pick already held what it held. That is the difference between a sealed table and a tool that decides as you go.
- Can some envelopes be empty?
- Yes, and that is usually the point. Turn on filling the rest with blanks and a table of twelve can hold three prizes and nine nothings, which is exactly how a prize table at a fair works.
- Can the same envelope be opened twice?
- No. An opened envelope shows what was inside and stays open, so the table always shows what is left rather than quietly recycling.
- Where are my outcomes kept?
- In this browser and nowhere else. They are never uploaded, and a share link carries only which ready-made set you started from and how many envelopes are on the table.
More from Pickers and random draws
Bag builder
Tokens go in and rules decide what happens when they come out: back in the bag, out for good, or bring friends.
OpenBlind draw
Face-down cards nobody can see. Everybody takes one, then they all turn over at once.
OpenClaw machine
Steer the claw and drop it. The prize is a fair draw, and the grab chance is printed on the cabinet.
OpenEverything in Pickers and random draws, and every family on the tools page.