Turn order

Who goes first, settled in one move

Most board games start with a rule nobody remembers: highest roll, or whoever last fed a cat, or youngest player. They exist because the alternative is an argument. A dealt order does the same job without anybody having to remember the rule, and it settles the whole order rather than only the first seat.

The names come from the shared player list, so they are typed once and every tool here that has players already knows them. If all you need is one name rather than the whole order, the hat is quicker.

Snake order, and when it matters

When turns are about picking rather than playing, going first is worth something real: first pick of the teams, the roles, the good chores. A straight order hands that advantage to the same person every round. A snake order gives it back by reversing each round, so the last picker picks twice in a row and the whole thing evens out.

Reshuffling instead is the party version. Nobody can plan around it and nobody can complain about it, which is usually what you want when the turns are just turns.

Keeping the order visible

Half the value of a turn order tool is not the draw at all: it is that the current name is on a screen everybody can see. A table that has to ask whose turn it is loses ten seconds every time, and in a classroom it loses more than that. Full screen puts one name across the board.

Next and back are both there because turns get skipped and miscounted in real rooms. Stepping back crosses a round boundary properly, so undoing the first turn of round three puts you at the last turn of round two rather than somewhere impossible.

Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for

The tool runs entirely in your browser. There is no account, nothing you make is uploaded, and nothing you type is sent anywhere or put into a link.

The page itself is not silent, though: it carries advertising code and a visit counter that sets no cookie, and the cookie page says exactly what each of those does.

This page remembers your settings in your browser under pph.order.state, pph.order.rules and pph.order.muted, and nowhere else. Clearing your site data for papercarnival.com removes it.

Player names are kept under pph.players so every tool with players reads the same list. They stay in this browser and never reach a link.