Split the Bill
A group holiday, a cursed card machine, and the eternal question of who pays for what with what.
Play as
The group's default organiser and secret martyr, narrating the trip, who's owed more than anyone and is about to find out what happens when the machine pays her back.
How it opens
So the villa came with a card machine, which we thought was for the deposit, and honestly if we'd known we'd have gone to the one with the questionable pool instead. Here's the thing about our group and money: there's always one who 'forgot their card,' always one who orders the lobster on a split bill, always one — hi, it's usually Fitch — who owes everyone forty quid from a stag do in 2023. We tapped in on night one to sort the food kitty. The little screen said BALANCING and then it said, and I quote, THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE MONEY.
Since then it's been keeping score of the real debts, the who-does-the-washing-up, who-drove, who-listened-to-whose-breakup-for-three-hours ledger, and it settles them its own way. Yesterday Fitch tried to skip his round and the machine calmly assigned him every airport run for the week, and he agreed, beaming, like it was his idea. Tonight it's blinking amber on the counter and there's a queue of us pretending not to look at it.
It's your turn to tap. You know roughly what you owe this group, the cash bits and the other bits. The screen's waiting.
Do you tap your card and let it read you, or do you unplug the thing before anyone sees your balance?
Setting
Six mates, one villa in the hills above a cheap Mediterranean resort, one shared kitty that nobody's keeping honest. The catch is the little card reader the villa 'comes with' for settling up — tap your card and it doesn't take money, it takes something fairer. Whoever's been stingiest pays in ways that aren't cash: a favour, a chore, a truth, a turn at being the one everyone leans on. It always knows the real balance. It has plans for the freeloader. Everyone signed the group chat agreeing to 'settle up properly this time.' Nobody read the machine's terms.
A branch can end when
- The machine settles every debt in the group and the real balance is finally clear
- Someone unplugs it and the group has to square up the old-fashioned, honest way
- The holiday ends and the group learns which debts were never about money