What's the point of the weak side of a card? Why would anyone ever bother?

Usually because you have other cards that work better in different stances. If you are completely aimed toward one stance, you may never run into it, but if you switch from conservative to aggressive depending on the situation, you may have cards that you use in one stance over another, but would still like to have available from time to time.

I think i'd rather just have 2x as many cards and just one effect.

jh

Emirikol said:

That may be, but no one is giving you (or anyone) that option.

Most of the time a character will be geared toward one stance or the other, red or green, sometime cards are better for one stance over the other. If you are geared toward concervative stance then you probably won't take a card that has a crappy green side, but to make a well rounded character, even one who is deep into a stance one way or the other, you will need to buy abilities that aren't always the best for your chosen stance.

As a second side effect some status effects or crits make it very hard or hazardous to stay in a particular stance, so if your a reckless junkie and you suddly find yourself gaining extra fatiuge and/or stress and/or wound when performing reckless actions then it may suddly seem like using that crappy green side might not be as bad as the alternative.

As a GM I've stared moving the players stance meters a lot more. Its a bit more interesting and less predictable when players stance isn't totally under their own control, and in my opinion under certain circumstances, a lot more realistic, its really hard to stay so cool and reserved when your long lost son whom you've searching for for years is being held with a knife to his throat. Or really hard to be totally gun-ho when you failed that fear check against that deamon.

BCA said:

Good ideas. I'll be stealing them, I think.