Crazy idea: Card game to simulate battle.

[Scowling Dragon]

I got it. The issue will most Dice based RPGs is that there is no skill involved.

Thats why no matter the kind fights feel boring. Oh sure magic/ tech spiffies it up with more choices but at the end of the day its up to the roll of the dice (And Building your character)

So I realized: What gives the same sort of OOMPH to a battle?

Videogames as thats about the reaction time.

And card games. Card games eliminate a lot of the problems with ordinary RPGs:

A: You don't always play max efficiency. Often time an issue is that in the fast pace of the game the player shouldn't always be able to think straight and only because of the OOC clearmindedness they do whats most efficient. This adds a level of controllable randomness. Sometimes your mind (Cards) doesn't realise that it should run 6 squares. Instead you play with the hand your given to the best of your ability. Yes the randomness could get to bad situations, but doesn't rolling a dice too? A string of unlucky rolls and your dead? At least here its more controlable.

B: There is no skill involved. Often times (Even for mages) it just devolves too who made the most efficient build. This adds a level of defence and skill.

Look at magic the gathering: The playstyles and card types involved kinda mimic a one on one battle, and by mixing them together you create a fighting style.

So what if your card deck depended on the type of character you had?

A Move is a monster, and its revealed in secret and each monster has defense and offense, and enchantments are a state of body, and Sorceries and Instants are quick moves.

STR determined the damage level of the cards
DEX determined avoiding capabilities.
INT allowed you to think fast and draw multiple cards at once and quickly select the better ones.

This is just me throwing around ideas. Im sure this has been done before. If so, give me a link. Im interested.

[valadil]

Earlier this week I was actually thinking about a card game using a traditional deck of playing cards and whether or not it would be good for RPG combat.

There are two problems I get stuck on.

First off, it isn't very believable. If my character knows 8 different ways to swing a sword at someone, but I only draw 3 of them, why did I suddenly forget the other options. To a point I think you can hand wave that away by saying that under the circumstances of battle, these are the only options you actually have. Maybe the roof is too low, so your overhand swing isn't going to happen. But I only buy this to a point and I don't think it always makes sense.

The other problem I have with this type of combat is that it works great for duels, but not so much for mass combat. I think it's okay to have a card or board game that only simulates duels, but you can't make that assumption and still call your game an RPG. I'm not saying this isn't solvable, it's just something you should think about at the beginning instead of hacking on after the fact.

[Grinner]

First off, it isn't very believable. If my character knows 8 different ways to swing a sword at someone, but I only draw 3 of them, why did I suddenly forget the other options. To a point I think you can hand wave that away by saying that under the circumstances of battle, these are the only options you actually have. Maybe the roof is too low, so your overhand swing isn't going to happen. But I only buy this to a point and I don't think it always makes sense.

Well, the other side of that coin is that it doesn't make sense when characters always fight at maximum efficiency.

[valadil]

Well, the other side of that coin is that it doesn't make sense when characters always fight at maximum efficiency.

Define maximum efficiency. I don't expect to be able to hit as hard as possible every time I take a shot, but I expect to be able to attempt to take that shot at any time. I actually liked 4th Ed but daily martial powers broke my suspension of disbelief every time they came up. I are maneuvers drawn from a deck of cards working the same way.

[Ozfer]

I actually love this idea. Are you considering making an actual system or is this just theoretical?

[jindra34]

First off, it isn't very believable. If my character knows 8 different ways to swing a sword at someone, but I only draw 3 of them, why did I suddenly forget the other options. To a point I think you can hand wave that away by saying that under the circumstances of battle, these are the only options you actually have. Maybe the roof is too low, so your overhand swing isn't going to happen. But I only buy this to a point and I don't think it always makes sense. Quite simply, you didn't 'forget' them. You simply couldn't use them do to circumstances, like footing, distance, starting stance or something else. I honestly thing such a system might better represent the dynamics of personal scale combat better than pure dice.

[Grinner]

There's a hundred little factors that affect every decision, but do you think any character would have time to fully evaluate the situation and make the most optimal tactical decision every six seconds while fighting for his life (in unison with his team, no less)?

Pretty much this:

A: You don't always play max efficiency. Often time an issue is that in the fast pace of the game the player shouldn't always be able to think straight and only because of the OOC clearmindedness they do whats most efficient. This adds a level of controllable randomness. Sometimes your mind (Cards) doesn't realise that it should run 6 squares. Instead you play with the hand your given to the best of your ability. Yes the randomness could get to bad situations, but doesn't rolling a dice too? A string of unlucky rolls and your dead? At least here its more controlable.

Admittedly, it isn't the most verisimilitudinous answer to the problem, but it's short and simple.

[Seerow]

I actually like this idea. I love CCGs and in the back of my mind I've wondered about how an RPG based on one would work out, but it's ultimately always seemed like too much work to bother.


But you could easily see how such a thing could conceivably work. I mean just as an example, there's the Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, which was a card based RPG, where you got new cards as you progressed through the game, and as you leveled up you got increased health and/or increased deck capacity (which would let you load more and higher level cards).


The biggest issue with the concept is while it works for a one on one battle, when you've got a full RPG group you've got basically 4 on 1. Is the DM using a different deck for each monster? Does he build a deck for the encounter? Does he come to the session with 5 different decks prepared, one for each potential encounter of the day? Or does the DM eschew the card game portion entirely, and run the monsters normally while the players use the cards to determine their available actions?

[Craft (Cheese)]

I once tried an experiment that worked sorta like this, but it was FATE-based. Instead of having skill bonuses that you add to your roll, you have a "skill deck" that you draw and play cards from.

Let's say you want to make a check. You have 5 cards in your hand (by default), each of them having a different skill written on it. When you would make a roll, you instead play a number of cards from your hand equal to the challenge's Difficulty Rating. If you can explain how one of your aspects helps you overcome the challenge, you can have one card be treated as two for the purposes of overcoming the Difficulty. If you can't (or don't want to) play that many cards, you fail the challenge. All cards you play get shuffled back into your skill deck.

When the check is over, for each card you played with a skill written on it that's relevant to what you were trying to accomplish, draw another card from your skill deck to replace it. If you played a card with a skill that wasn't relevant, you don't get to replace it.

In any situation where you would get a Fate point in the regular game (like one of your aspects getting Tagged), you instead get to draw a free card. You can also shuffle one of your cards back into the skill deck (without replacing it) to get a non-check benefit you could have gotten by spending a Fate point.

Instead of a list of skill bonuses, characters are differentiated by the contents of their Skill Deck.


Ultimately we went back to using dice, but I'd say the experiment was half-successful: If you don't have enough cards of the relevant skill but still want to overcome the challenge, you have to purposefully make yourself less capable of dealing with danger in the future, and you sometimes have to make a hard choice of what area you want to make yourself less capable in. (Do I dump my Lockpicking card, or my Bluff card?)

The main problem was that players were aware of what the result of anything they tried would be in advance, so they deliberately steered away from even attempting anything they knew they'd be incapable of doing. This also happens with dice, but to a lesser extent because you'll sometimes see a player take the risk and hope they get lucky.


With some tweaking it could be made to work, but I've yet to revisit the experiment. You're welcome to adapt the ideas for yourself though, if you'd like.


EDIT: Actually, writing up this post made me start thinking about it and gave me another idea.

When you make a challenge and your DM gives you the Difficulty of the task, pick up a number of cards from your skill deck equal to the difficulty. Lay the relevant skill cards on the table and shuffle the irrelevant skills back into the deck. The relevant cards stay on the table and count toward overcoming the challenge, and you can spend more cards from your hand as normal.

Let's say you want to make a Bluff check of Difficulty 5. You pick up 5 cards from your deck and get 2 bluff cards and 3 other cards. You shuffle the non-bluff cards back into your deck, then you can spend 3 cards from your hand (drawing replacements for any Bluff cards you use) to overcome the challenge.

[Slipperychicken]

This is just me throwing around ideas. Im sure this has been done before. If so, give me a link. Im interested.

Many, many times. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FightLikeACardPlayer)

[SowZ]

Thornwatch simulates battle through a card game.

[Scowling Dragon]

The biggest issue with the concept is while it works for a one on one battle, when you've got a full RPG group you've got basically 4 on 1. Is the DM using a different deck for each monster? Does he build a deck for the encounter? Does he come to the session with 5 different decks prepared, one for each potential encounter of the day? Or does the DM eschew the card game portion entirely, and run the monsters normally while the players use the cards to determine their available actions?

Hmmmm. Good point. This will require me to think for quite a bit to make right.

Edit:

Also Thornwatch DOES seem to have potential. But it seems to work a bit differently then I think would be best.

I was thinking that the card deck ITSELF was modified by your characters stats.

[SoC175]

I got it. The issue will most Dice based RPGs is that there is no skill involved. That's not the issue, that's the point.

Your character is fighting, not you. You're skill is already involved way to much due to you're Int 25 character in the end only being able to be as clever as you are.

[Scowling Dragon]

But your character could be represented in battle through its stats.

A INT 25 could be represented with a bigger hand. Or something.

[TuggyNE]

But your character could be represented in battle through its stats.

A INT 25 could be represented with a bigger hand. Or something.

There is no fundamental difference between "your skill in choosing from your current selection [of cards] is crucial to success with the pool granted [by high character stats and abilities]" and "your skill in choosing from your current selection [of spells to cast given the current battlemap] is crucial to success with the pool granted [by high character stats and abilities]", is there? There is likely a difference of degree, and certainly a difference of presentation, but philosophically, both involve the player making good decisions, or not-so-good ones, and the character empowering those decisions and forcing choices between certain limits.

I don't think card-based battling is necessarily a bad idea, although I don't think I'd personally like it much, but I also don't think it's quite as revolutionary as all that.

[Martin Greywolf]

Don´t forget the issues with this connected to real world.

Dice are cheap, plain and simple, even if you need several of then (d20 set or just more d6), cards... not so much. If you have dice-based RPG, the you need only one rulebook to get people into it. With card system, you end up needing to also have a deck of cards (several decks, one for each class? one deck with fever options?).

Homebrewing in new abilities is pretty much impossible like this, unless you supply some blank cards that a) will run out eventually and b) drive up the price even more.

Carrying around dice is just plain more convenient.

Cards can easily get damaged. And lost - while dice do it too, they are easier to replace.

Overall, the card system isn´t bad from game design perspective, once you iron out the kinks, but it just doesn´t have the breadth of players and possibilities that dice RPG will have.

P.S.: There are ways to get skill into dice RPG - granted, it´s skill at describing your actions, but still. I´m playing a Czech RPG system that forces you to describe your actions and while you could get away with simple attack attack attack approach, you can take down someone much more effectively and quickly with describing correct things.

[Grinner]

Dice are cheap, plain and simple, even if you need several of then (d20 set or just more d6), cards... not so much. If you have dice-based RPG, the you need only one rulebook to get people into it. With card system, you end up needing to also have a deck of cards (several decks, one for each class? one deck with fever options?).

Homebrewing in new abilities is pretty much impossible like this, unless you supply some blank cards that a) will run out eventually and b) drive up the price even more.

What about playing cards?

[KillianHawkeye]

Sounds interesting, but the important question is do I get to shout "YOU ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD!!!11!1!"? :smallamused::smallbiggrin:

[DoomyDoom]

I got it. The issue will most Dice based RPGs is that there is no skill involved.
I'm really not sure how it is so. Just put a novice player with little background and a long-time player into the same situation and see how different their actions (and results) would be. Rolling dice and adding modifiers is not exactly a skill, sure. It's the decisions that lead to what you roll for that are.


Card games eliminate a lot of the problems with ordinary RPGs:

A: You don't always play max efficiency. Often time an issue is that in the fast pace of the game the player shouldn't always be able to think straight and only because of the OOC clearmindedness they do whats most efficient. This adds a level of controllable randomness. Sometimes your mind (Cards) doesn't realise that it should run 6 squares. Instead you play with the hand your given to the best of your ability. Yes the randomness could get to bad situations, but doesn't rolling a dice too? A string of unlucky rolls and your dead? At least here its more controlable.

I would argue a bit here.
First thing about max efficiency. That, for one, assumes a "skill" to choose what's most effective. Talk about "no skill involved" :smallconfused:.

That aside, there is another thing that might be a concern here.
Consider a regular dice-based system. A character in it has a set of [Options] available to him. By [Option] I refer to anything: spells, skills, maneuvers, aspects, some "basic" actions - whatever it is called for a respective system, ultimately - something a character can do.
The typical resolving mechanic is [Roll + Modifiers] vs [Difficulty]. What is important here is that [Modifiers] come from player and environment, while [Difficulty] comes from GM.
What this means is that both sides of the screen have a degree of control over the outcome. Player builds his character to be effective at certain things. GM creates an environment, which allows player to put his skills to use. By adjusting DC's a GM can account for players' level of performance, make sure that certain events happen or don't happen. He has an option to make sure that this door can or cannot be opened, that this wall can or cannot be climbed etc. I'm not talking about bad kind of railroading here, but about making sure that the story goes on when it really has to.
More on mechanical side, [Roll + Modifiers] vs [Difficulty] at any given point in time means that there is a [Probability] to accomplish a task, and it is rather easy to calculate (with access to relevant character sheet). What I meant in a previous paragraph is that GM can influence that probability when he feels it is necessary.
When we use a deck of card, however, things become different. The probability from a roll goes away. Instead, we have [Chance To Draw Option X]. Basically, for each card in a deck there's a chance to draw it. I'm sure I don't have to explain that it depends on given deck's contents at all times. This means that you cannot easily and reliably predict that you will be able to [do X]. And it doesn't really feel good when your rogue cannot lockpick the door to secure party's escape because he only drew "Hide", "Backstab" and "Dodge" cards. Worse than that, GM influence is removed completely. While independency is arguably good from PvP standpoint, it is not so true from tabletop RPG one. I already described why I believe such influence might be necessary.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Something like the Baten Kaitos (especially Origins) battle system would be fun. Not sure for a tabletop RPG, though. The stress of the time limit making things hectic is a big part of what makes it work so well...

[Emmerask]

But your character could be represented in battle through its stats.

A INT 25 could be represented with a bigger hand. Or something.

Intelligence does not make you better at combat.
Combat is mostly muscle memory, ie you train an offense or defense over and over until thinking about what to do becomes obsolete.

In fact I would say that too much intelligence is actually a hindrance, you overthink your actions way too much think about consequences counter actions etc etc... and all of that just takes way more time then muscle memory.
And the more intelligent you are the harder it would be to overcome the thinking about action process (because thinking about stuff is what most intelligent people tend to do ^^).


As for the card game, there is still the randomness factor of drawing cards...granted its less random and more skill is involved then dice but still random ^^

[Scowling Dragon]

Well your right. Probably wisdom, or quick wit.

[Joe the Rat]

I always thought Lunch Money (http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG1100.php) would make for an interesting combat system.

Here are the things that make the concept work in a broader RPG sense:
Your ability (fighting skill) is represented by your hand size. The cards in your hand represent the moves for which you have an opening. Holding and discarding becomes more of a meta step, though you could look at it as holding back until the opportunity to lay out your haymaker or set up your combo comes into play.
Building decks based on specific skills or proficiencies or feats or classes or say screw it and just throw whatever together.
This has to be about maneuvers and stunts, NOT gear. "Hidden Weapon" doesn't suddenly give you one, it means you've got an opportunity to draw and strike with one. And if you don't have one, why the heck is it in your deck?

Where you run into trouble: Great for duels and free-for-alls. Sucks rocks for PCs vs. NPCs, unless you do something like draw and play a card for each bad guy. Great for mooks. I guess.

Cheap and available is important. Custom cards makes it trickier.

Even if you only break it out for duels and PVP, it's going to slow things down a bit.



Put together something simple, and try it out. Let us know how it goes.

[valadil]

Quite simply, you didn't 'forget' them. You simply couldn't use them do to circumstances, like footing, distance, starting stance or something else. I honestly thing such a system might better represent the dynamics of personal scale combat better than pure dice.

This is where I said I like that explanation only to a point.

If footing, distance, and stance are going to have a say in what maneuvers are available to me, I'd like to be consistent and I'd like to have some control over them.

By consistency, I mean consistency in what footing/stance/distance (hereafter referred to as "position") abstraction is active. If my right hook and right upper cut use the same position and I have a right hook, I would expect right upper cut to be available as well. If right hook and left hook have entirely different positions, I wouldn't want them to both be options.

Furthermore I want to control my position. If I have a move that requires crane stance, I'd like to be able to throw a kick that leaves me in crane stance. It doesn't feel right to me that I'd have a bunch of maneuvers that require a position (represented by the cards remaining in my deck), but no means of getting into that position short of waiting till I draw the card.

To back up a level, I think this doesn't work because of where the abstraction is. The system has very specific maneuvers, then abstracts out the footing, stance, and distance, but gets specific again after the fact. If position is affecting me in this way, I want to be able to interact with it instead of having it as a random limitation.

But I thought about it a bit and I think you can work around all that. Here are some ideas.

I still like the idea of having all those position variables matter. They're pretty cool, I find them realistic, and I've never played a game that handled them satisfactorily. For simplicity though, I'd boil them down into a few smaller ideas.

I'd combine stance and footing into a single stance variable. I'd change distance to advantage. I just think a yes/no/nobody is easier to track and will work well enough most of the time. If that's too abstract though, I'd also consider having a reach stat (modified by weapon) that can be invoked by some cards. 9 out of 10 times it gets ignored, but you might have a card that depends on it (dagger attack that's harder to block if you have advantage and a shorter reach for instance).

I like stances limiting moves, but I don't like the deck serving that purpose. To deal with that I'd give players bigger hands and an active stance, probably also represented by a card. I'd color code each stance and the cards that go with them, so it'd be easy to figure out which cards were playable. I would also included a number of no-stance basic moves that are playable all the time. I think I'd want these moves to always be in your hand at the start of the fight.

Ok, so far it sounds like a normal card game. Here's the part that I think is really cool. When you play a card you don't discard it. Instead you lay it out in front of you and draw a new card. You can still play cards that are in front of you at any time (this probably wouldn't apply to magic, but I wasn't worrying about that yet). Expending your roundhouse kick doesn't make sense to me. Using it and revealing that as part of your arsenal does.

I like that idea for two reasons. First off, it prevents the whole daily power melee combat thing. Secondly I like the dynamic it'll impose on a fight. You start out not knowing what your opponent can do. Then they do something particularly devastating. You know that they need advantage and it works best against your tiger stance, so you have to resist using that stance unless you have advantage. I like game mechanics where the dynamic changes over the course of the game, and I think that being able to recycle abilities will work well to encourage that.

[jindra34]

Valadil your problem isn't caused by abstraction. Its caused by over specificness of the theoretical cards. On top of requiring a rather hefty investment in cards per player. In the interest of general play and accessibility I propose it as such:

1. Each player has a deck of standard cards from ace (represnting 1) to 10, that are used in place of die rolls.
2. In combat each suit represents a different theory or focus for the next abstract period of combat, with a rock-paper-scissors type wheel of going around.
3.In mass combat each player choses their target and card before any are revealed, with the D/GM choosing for minions and dealing straight without choice. Then resolve from lowest number to highest, with characters who are successfully attacked (per the wheel above) not acting. If two characters target each other, and neither wins by the wheel compare card numbers+skill to determine result, value equal to the difference. If victory through the wheel, value is equal to card number+skill.

[neonchameleon]

I got it. The issue will most Dice based RPGs is that there is no skill involved.

If that's the case then you need to rethink the dice mechanic. There's quite a lot of skill in both D&D 4e and (some characters in) Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. (Hulk Smash, but Iron Man and Spider-Man both are fairly tricksy and work best by spending time not attacking at the start). In oD&D the mantra used to be "The art of strategy is making sure you never get into a fair fight" and the dice mostly hit the table to resolve things. There's also a Paper/Scissors/Stone element in quite a lot of them - and a number of dice based games (Dogs in the Vineyard springs to mind) have a high element of "Chicken" - what do you risk and how far will you escalate? For that matter even FATE has a lot of chicken involved.


And card games. Card games eliminate a lot of the problems with ordinary RPGs:

I think by your definition both D&D 4e and WFRP 3e are card-based. As is the 3.5 Crusader - and I think you'd prefer the Crusader's version. And yes, having changing availability of resources (however it's done) helps. It also takes a lot of customised cards (WFRP 3e tries to drown you in cards).

Another one to look at as a model is the Flexible Melee Attacks of 13th Age; after rolling the dice you can add a rider to the attack based on what you rolled - which is too reactive but I've looked at tweaking.

4e, for what it's worth, has an extra tactical dimension with forced movement being available to most classes so you can work together to push the bad guys into their own pit traps and the positioning is relevant.


Define maximum efficiency. I don't expect to be able to hit as hard as possible every time I take a shot, but I expect to be able to attempt to take that shot at any time. I actually liked 4th Ed but daily martial powers broke my suspension of disbelief every time they came up. I are maneuvers drawn from a deck of cards working the same way.

You might expect to be able to attempt to take the shot any time - but there is a cost for going for really big shots. Athletes pace themselves and get tired - and so should martial characters. (And recovery takes longer than many people think. At the outside it takes the best part of a month - a day per mile - to recover from a marathon race).

[Scowling Dragon]

I knew 4e. It was my first rpg. I stopped playing because I found it very limiting and disjointed. The occasional push/pull power doesn't do much for me.