Drawback negotiation

Pale Jack ships 18 drawback arcana. Each imposes a constraint or a cost in exchange for a benefit. Unlike normal arcana, drawbacks don’t enter your tray silently — the player must explicitly sign the contract.

The negotiation prompt

When you tap BUY on a drawback in the shop:

THE TERMS

iron vow

YOU AGREE
You will not double down.

IN RETURN
+50 chips on every stand.

60 chips

[DECLINE]  [ACCEPT]

ACCEPT runs the actual purchase + capital deduction. DECLINE leaves the offer in place for re-attempt. The flow is the same for shop purchases, chair-placed drawbacks, and any future drawback acquisition path.

The catalog

Arcanum	Tier	Cost	Return
The Iron Vow	unc	No double-down.	+50 chips per stand.
The Sealed Pocket	unc	No Refusal.	+30 chips per win.
The Bound Tongue	unc	No surrender.	+40 chips per hard-16 won.
The Open Window	unc	No Refusal on first card.	+1 sanity per cleared room.
The Stricter Ledger	unc	−20 to mult cap for the night.	+50 chips per cleared room.
The Ace’s Burden	common	Aces don’t contribute to mult.	+6 chips per ace played.
The Will of the Late	rare	Cannot win Room 1.	+500 chips at dawn if reached.
The Long Bargain	mythic	All purchases cost 50% more.	At dawn, remaining chips ×1.3.
The Loan You Cannot Repay	rare	Capital resets to zero entering Room 2.	First three wins after pay 5×.
The Six-Day Wager	unc	One fewer hand per room.	First blackjack each room pays 5:2.
The Cup at Six	common	Sanity cap is 3 instead of 6.	+5 chips per hand at sanity ≤ 3.
The Bone Pact	rare	−1 sanity on every hand played.	First blackjack each room pays 7:2.
The Empty Hand	rare	Odd hands of the room: no charms fire.	Even hands: +5 mult.
The Owed Letter	unc	−25 chips per cleared room.	+400 chips at dawn.
The Smaller Chair	unc	Cascade chain ends after first fire.	+25 chips per arcanum-fire.
The Vow of Withdrawal	rare	No double, no split.	+1.5× hand value on every surrender.
The Vow of the Plunger	rare	Doubled bust costs 2× capital.	May double on any total.
The Stranger’s Half	rare	Split-lose costs 1.5× capital.	May split any pair.

Why explicit acceptance

Without the prompt, a drawback would sneak into the tray, the player would discover the constraint mid-hand (“wait, why can’t I double?”), and the design would feel like punishment rather than contract. The prompt converts the moment into a transaction the player chose with full knowledge of the terms.

In-fiction framing

The dealer treats every drawback as a contract he is required to process but personally hopes you decline:

“You signed. I did not have you read it twice. I should have.” — arcanumAcquired, drawback flavor

“The terms have been agreed. He files them carefully.” — acceptance follow-up

Where this lives

• lib/sim/arcanum.dart — Arcanum.isDrawback, drawbackCost, drawbackReturn getters.
• lib/ui/drawback_negotiation_prompt.dart — the modal UI.
• lib/ui/shop_screen.dart — gates drawback purchases through the prompt.
• test/sim/drawback_marking_test.dart — verifies all 18 are marked.
• test/ui/shop_drawback_gating_test.dart — verifies the gating UX.