Beautiful Trouble: A Strategy Card Deck

Sale price$40.00

Beautiful Trouble is a strategy deck that is made up of key strategies and tactics that have inspired centuries of people-powered victories. It’s full of mini-games and inspiration. 

Use this deck to get creatively unstuck, design an action that pops, flashcard your way through social movement history, learn and teach organizing, win grassroots victories, or just have fun staying up late with friends playing Radical Charades.

"Elegant and incendiary."

— Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything

"A crucial resource for change-makers."

— Archbishop Desmond Tutu, anti-apartheid and human rights activist

Here's what comes in the box:
126 over-sized cards
How to Play Booklet
Bullhorn and 100,000 people not included
01

For the Grassroots, By the Grassroots

These Strategy Cards were compiled by over 170 grassroots activists from across 5 continents in 7 languages, featuring notable movement strategists including Arundhati Roy, George Monbiot, and Mark and Paul Engler.

02

Six Mini-Games

The cards in Beautiful Trouble can be used for a variety of purposes, and the deck also comes with rules on how to use them to play six different mini-games! These games are: 

  1. Cardstorm!
  2. Radical Charades
  3. Design a Creative Action
  4. Cards for Humanity
  5. Divine the Future
  6. Eternal Debates
03

Tons of Information

Each card falls into one of the following suits (categories):

  • Tactics: Forms of creative action
  • Principles: Hard-won insights
  • Theories: Big-picture concepts and ideas
  • Stories: Accounts of memorable actions and campaigns
  • Methodologies: Strategic frameworks
  • Debates: Eternal controversies
04

QR Codes

Each card includes a unique QR code. Use your smartphone camera to automatically pop up a link to the full version of each card in the Beautiful Trouble online toolbox.

01

For the Grassroots, By the Grassroots

These Strategy Cards were compiled by over 170 grassroots activists from across 5 continents in 7 languages, featuring notable movement strategists including Arundhati Roy, George Monbiot, and Mark and Paul Engler.

02

Six Mini-Games

The cards in Beautiful Trouble can be used for a variety of purposes, and the deck also comes with rules on how to use them to play six different mini-games! These games are: 

  1. Cardstorm!
  2. Radical Charades
  3. Design a Creative Action
  4. Cards for Humanity
  5. Divine the Future
  6. Eternal Debates
03

Tons of Information

Each card falls into one of the following suits (categories):

  • Tactics: Forms of creative action
  • Principles: Hard-won insights
  • Theories: Big-picture concepts and ideas
  • Stories: Accounts of memorable actions and campaigns
  • Methodologies: Strategic frameworks
  • Debates: Eternal controversies
04

QR Codes

Each card includes a unique QR code. Use your smartphone camera to automatically pop up a link to the full version of each card in the Beautiful Trouble online toolbox.

“This invaluable tool will spark a million creative actions that might just change the world for the better.”

— Søren Warburg, ActionAid Denmark

“Beautiful Trouble helped provide critical support — from strategic training tools to advice on deploying creative actions. It was a big hit!” 

—Raquel de Anda, No Border Wall Coalition, Laredo, TX

Beautiful Trouble: Strategy Card Deck is a collaboration between The TESA Collective and Beautiful Trouble.

Our games are made sustainably - in the US and Europe.