Mechanics for a Playing Card based RPG?

[werescythe]

So, I've been experimenting with creating a ttrpg where instead of rolling dice, the players and the GM each have a deck of playing cards, which are used for attacks, tests, saves, etc...

The concept is that depending upon your class, you have a number of cards in your hand that you can use for your abilities. When performing an attack or test, you play a card from your hand and add your modifiers to the card for the final result.

The damage types are based off of the card suites and the damage is determined by your weapon or spell, where you either flip cards on your deck until you find the first card with the matching suite or in some cases you can search your deck for a card with the matching suite to determine the damage.

Admittedly, I'm trying to hold some secrets on the system close to the chest at the moment, so I can't go into too many details. :smallbiggrin:

---

However, I was wondering if anyone might have some fun/interesting game mechnic ideas involving cards that could be used for classes/subclasses? Any ideas/suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you and have an awesome day.

[MoleMage]

I've toyed around with cards as a mechanic on paper a few times. Some of my concepts that might fit here:

Players have a "trump suit" independent of their class or stats. They get bonuses when playing matching cards for their trump suit (like being able to increase the rank or activating a special ability).

Using card ranks for attributes (so instead of +2, or 15, you have Deuce or King).

The GM-controlled entities have hidden and visible cards, a la blackjack. The players know some of how difficult what is going to happen to them is, but not enough to reliably say "oh just throw any old card on it".

Bonuses for the party forming sets or runs (two of a kind means extra damage, three of a kind is more extra damage, a run counts as a hit equal to its highest card plus its length, you can get creative here by making it specific to character features).

EDIT: forgot another one: hand size can be used as a "health" stat. Have six cards and you take two damage? Now you have four cards. Hope you didn't lose good ones.

[animorte]

I've toyed around with cards as a mechanic on paper a few times. Some of my concepts that might fit here:
I recall discussing this with you briefly several months ago, but I completely forgot to follow-up. Consider this as such. :smalltongue:

[Old Harry MTX]

I have also thought of a ttrpcg (table top role playing card game ;D), but not in deep.

One of the ideas I had to speed up the game is to take a light version of magic the gathering, replace colors with classes, and merge land cards with regular cards (so basically you can play any card as a land to produce mana, and then whether to play it later with a higher cost).
Each card should unlock more powerful effects as the character levels up, and so on…

[aimlessPolymath]

One tactical RPG to take a peek at is Panic at the Dojo- it uses cards rather than dice, but there's a similar principle. Instead of drawing a hand of cards at the start of your turn, you roll a 'hand' of dice that are spent to activate various abilities, each requiring a different 'minimum roll' to be used.

Because each effect has a different 'minimum roll' to be used (plus some abilities that have tiered effects for using a 2 vs. a 5, for example), there's a lot of fine variation in roll results, and rolling a 5 and a 3 is very different from rolling two 4's- maybe rolling the former means you opt to use the 3 to move up to an enemy and the 5 to hit them for 3 damage, while two 4's means you can use Bring it On! (req. 4+) to challenge every enemy you see and the 4 to move away, forcing them all to spend their movement towards you.

The best part of the system is the 'a-ha!' moment where you roll your dice, look down at your results, think 'oh, this works perfectly', and use them perfectly to take apart your enemies.


EDIT: forgot another one: hand size can be used as a "health" stat. Have six cards and you take two damage? Now you have four cards. Hope you didn't lose good ones.
One way to play with this could be to have characters 'block' incoming hits by discarding cards from their hand of equal or higher total value- if they can't, they lose.
This adds an element of choice- If a big 5-damage hit is coming in, you could inefficiently block it with an 8 of your own, or use a 2 and a 3 together at the cost of your future action economy. If a foe has few cards in hand, maybe it's better to use small cards, since they're unlikely to have a small card of their own and will need to 'waste' a big card to block it.

[GeoffWatson]

Have a look at the old SAGA system, which had Dragonlance and Superhero variants. It sounds similar to your system.

[Breccia]

Make sure the characters have a "cantrip" so that, when your turn comes up, you don't just draw, discard, and say "I can't do anything".

Like, if you're the Fighter Deck, you should have an ability along the lines of "if you don't play an Attack Ability card on your turn, you may make a Baseline Attack for 2 physical damage"

If you're the Wizard Deck, you should have an ability along the lines of "if you don't play an Attack Ability card on your turn, you may do 1 damage of the type of your choice to any enemy card".

Basically, sitting and doing nothing isn't fun, and many classic card games have this happen a lot.

[aimlessPolymath]

However, I was wondering if anyone might have some fun/interesting game mechnic ideas involving cards that could be used for classes/subclasses?
It's a bit hard to conceptualize card tricks without knowing about things like how often cards are drawn, whether there are other zones (discard piles?) to care about, etc. There are mechanics I would be able to create if I knew more about the turn cycle- Breccia's suggestion makes sense for some models of card flow, but not others.

I can promise that nobody here is going to be interested in stealing your ideas.



The damage types are based off of the card suites and the damage is determined by your weapon or spell, where you either flip cards on your deck until you find the first card with the matching suite or in some cases you can search your deck for a card with the matching suite to determine the damage.
I'm a bit confused by these two, honestly- for the first, what's the difference between this and flipping the first card? The face value of 'the first card of X suit' is statistically identical to the face value of the top card of the deck.
For the second, isn't this equivalent to 'choose the result you want as long as there's an appropriate card in your deck'? Searching your deck and shuffling takes a little bit of table time, for no apparent benefit. Does it really matter whether the card is in the deck or the discard pile?
(disclaimer: there are games like Yu-Gi-Oh where something being in deck vs. in hand vs. in graveyard matters a whole lot, but it seems unlikely to be true here since you're working with playing cards)


Some random ideas for abilties, assuming that a discard pile exists and that card flow/draw is relatively slow:
-Third Time's The Charm: Instead of playing a card from hand, choose a pair from your discard and put both cards on the bottom of your deck. Use their face value, possibly with a bonus.
-Flush: Playing the same suit successively increases its power. (Keep your discard pile un-shuffled to make tracking this easy!)
-Jackpot: When you play a card, up to two other players can discard a card with the same value. For each one that does, you give them a (resource/hit point) and get a bonus.
-Cheat: Choose a card from your hand. Discard all other cards in your hand, then draw as many cards as you discarded.
-BS: Put a card face down and name it. The GM can call you out for lying, forcing you to reveal it. If they don't, you get its value. If you do and you were lying, you 'roll' a 1. If they do and you weren't lying, you get a (resource/hit point).

If card flow is fairly fast (ex. Slay the Spire, where a hand is drawn and discarded each turn, or a game where you 'draw up to hand size'):
-Stockpile: When you discard your hand at the end of the round/turn, put one card on top of your Stockpile. You can play the top card of your Stockpile as though it were in your hand.
-Flow: When you have no cards remaining, draw a card and lose a (resource/hit point).
-X/Y Combo: When you play a card of Suit X, discard a card of Suit Y to give it increased value.
-X Meter: When you play or discard a card of Suit X, put it into your Meter pile instead of discarding it. You can spend any number of cards from your Meter to enhance cards of Suit X by that much.
-Call: Instead of playing a card, name a suit. Everyone else discards any number of cards of that suit. Your card value is equal to the number of cards discarded (note: depends on hand reset timing)

Depends on suit mechanics:
-X's Wild: X suit counts as any suit for you. When played for its own suit, it has increased value. (Note: I have no idea how resolution mechanics works so this might be meaningless)

[NichG]

I guess the problem that always comes to mind when I try for one of these is, outside of combat or other situations with a well defined tempo, the ability of players to rotate their hand by doing junk actions or things like that is hard to get around. So let me give it another shot here and maybe something will stick...

Rather than using card draws to replace dice rolls, maybe the way I'd do it is to say that at any given time a character has a Constellation which is built out of a combination of face-down and face-up cards of their choice. A character can at any time 'reset their stance', at which point they redraw a number of cards equal to the number of Stars in the Constellation plus any extras from character abilities, and must assign cards to their Stars from this draw, face down.

Whenever a situation comes up that tests one of the character's Stars, it uses whatever card is there; if the card is face down, its flipped and becomes face-up. Character abilities could let someone do things like hide a second card underneath the card for one of their Stars - if the Star is tested with a hidden card underneath, the player can choose whether or not to discard the floating card and reveal the hidden one in its place.

Furthermore, certain opportunities that arise in play due to the actions and choices of others - not the character/player themselves - would give opportunities to draw a card and optionally swap a card from their Constellation for it. So the longer a character holds their Constellation, the better it will become (since they will not choose to swap low cards, but may choose to swap in high cards). At the same time, it also becomes more and more revealed, meaning that others can pick their fights or choose which aspects to attack.

The Stars could be something like 'Conflict', 'Hidden', 'Steady', 'Flashing', 'Connecting'. Something like an aggressive conflict where the character is fighting back in any form - a battle, a cooking competition, etc - would test the star of Conflict. Something like an attempt to sneak somewhere, or to keep a secret hidden at a dinner party would test the Hidden star. The Steady star would be tested by any attempt to change something about the character against their will, or in any case of something the character wishes to keep secure against the interference of others without necessarily fighting back themselves - holding ground, protecting a VIP (even against violence). The Flashing star would be tested should a character wish to do something in response to another's action, or must somehow hold control of a situation through reacting quickly and appropriately. The Connecting star would be tested in any case that a character is drawing on their link to others, their position in society, their reputation, or any sort of planning or preparation in advance (or when attempting to disrupt or interfere with one of those things).

A contest would compare the character's innate stats/modifiers with the value on the current card for that Star. A comparison of the suit of the provoking card against the card being tested could result in a modifier of +/- 3 e.g. the elemental correspondence idea mentioned. Or suits could give rise to specific side-effects - like if you win with a Heart, the other side cannot hold it against you as an excuse for antagonism so long as you are also gracious in victory, stuff like that. Or those could be class abilities that trigger on having the right suit.

Should you be willing to reveal your full Constellation, perhaps there can be extra effects if it makes a strong poker hand. Yes, you have a 3 in Conflict, but when someone attacks you on Conflict with a 5, you reveal a 3 in Hidden and Steady as well - and a three-of-a-kind is worth a +3, so you win even though it looked like you would lose.

[MoleMage]

I recall discussing this with you briefly several months ago, but I completely forgot to follow-up. Consider this as such. :smalltongue:

This does sound vaguely familiar. I'll copy paste some of my initial notes in spoilers here.


When the game begins, players each draw their hand limit from a shared deck of standard playing cards, plus 2 jokers which act as wild cards. The GM uses a separate deck for enemies, hazards, and NPCs. The GM should draw 3 cards at the start of the session. Discards should be placed face down.

When players wish to do something, each contributing player must play one of their cards from hand in an attempt to complete that action (combat works slightly differently, see below). Treat their combined card set as a poker hand, selecting the best possible 5-card result from that hand. If playing with fewer than 5 players, play one card from the deck for each player fewer than 5; if 5 players are at the table but some choose not to participate, you do not get cards for those players. If a player plays their last card as part of an action, they draw up to their hand limit.

The difficulty of an action is described in two parts: first as a set of cards which the action is assumed to have, then with a series of “+” symbols indicating that the GM should reveal that many cards from the top of their deck in addition to the specified symbol. Take the best resulting poker hand from the total cards. For example, 7+++ means that the task is always assumed to have a 7 of no suit, and the GM reveals three additional cards from their deck when determining the difficulty of the task. Some difficulties are notated with “-” instead of “+”, that indicates that the card is played face down, rather than face up. The GM may look at face down cards. Static cards can have a rank, suit, or both. If they do not have a rank, they contribute only to trump effects and flushes; if they do not have a suit, they contribute to pairs, straights, etc. but not to flushes or trump effects.

At any time, the GM may replace a face up or face down card with one from their hand. If they do so, discard the original card. When the GM runs out of cards, they may choose to draw 3 more; if they do all players draw to a hand of 5 (or their limit, if it is lower).

Each character possesses a single trump suit, which they receive benefits when using. Whenever they play a card of their trump suit, they may treat it as up to two ranks higher (for example, a character with ♤ as their trump could count a played 7♤ as either 7♤, 8♤, or 9♤). Choose the rank of a card when the set it belongs to resolves. Each trump gives an additional passive benefit to the character.

Clubs
Clubs represent freedom, air, and creativity. A bearer of the Clubs trump improves their movement rating by one rank (Simple becomes 2, 2 becomes 3, etc.). This benefit stacks with any other improvement to movement.

Diamonds
Diamonds represent peace, water, and knowledge. A bearer of the Diamonds trump may, when drawing any number of cards, discard one of the cards they drew and replace it.

Hearts
Hearts represent passion, fire, and energy. A bearer of the Hearts trump may also treat any Heart they play as up to two ranks lower.

Spades
Spades represent patience, earth, and health. A bearer of the Spades trump draws an additional card at the beginning of the game and may be healed to one more than their normal hand limit.

In combat, play proceeds in rounds. Each round is made up of the following steps.

Initiative: Reveal the top card of the GM deck and the top card of the player deck. Add these to the combat set for that round on each side.
Enemy Acts: The enemy takes one of their actions, drawing the necessary cards to do so. Players know what static cards enemies have and may see any face up cards they draw. Only one enemy may take a combat action, though other enemies may contribute to that action if their special abilities allow.
Players Act: Players may take up to two actions each, which must be different actions described below. If a player plays their last card as part of an action, they suffer one point of HP damage and draw to their hand limit. Players take their actions in any order, and players do not need to take both of their actions at the same time.
Combat: Players may add one of the cards in their hand to the party’s combat set for this round.
Special: Players may add one or more of the cards in their hand to one of the special actions described on their character sheet (see each action for the maximum cards that may be played to it). Each special action possessed by a character counts as a different action.
Move: Players may play a card from their hand to move. For this round, their movement is treated as one step higher, plus an additional step if the card discarded was a face card or of the player’s trump suit, or two additional steps if it was a face card of the player’s trump suit.
Maneuver: Players may play a card from their hand and add it to the maneuver set. When the next round starts, after Initiative, players may choose up to two cards from the maneuver set to add to the combat set for the next round. All other cards are returned to their owner’s hand.
Resolve Damage: Compare the enemy’s and the players’ combat sets. The set which is better causes the other target to take damage equal to 2 + the number of steps by which their set defeats the other set (see Hierarchy, below).
Enemy Damage: The GM distributes the damage amongst all enemies as they choose, unless a feature specifies otherwise.
Player Damage: Each player discards a number of cards equal to the damage dealt. If they discard their last card in this way, they take 1 point of HP damage, draw to their hand limit, and continue to discard.
Elemental Damage: Special actions may dictate that all or part of the damage of a combat set is of a special damage type. Characters and enemies who are weak to at least one of the damage types of a set take an additional 2 damage. Characters and enemies who are resistant to at least one of the damage types of a set take 2 fewer damage. If no damage type is specified, the assumed damage type is Physical.
Resolve Special Effects: Any special effects which say they resolve once per turn resolve now. Player effects resolve first in the order they choose, followed by Enemy effects in the order the GM chooses.
Start New Round: Start a new round of combat, beginning with Initiative.


The following examples are built on an assumption of a class system with five "roles" being Assault, Disabler, Restorer, Guardian, and Supporter. Classes are a mix of a role and a power source, with power sources having a weaker affinity for a specific role (so for example Druid is Primal/Guardian, but Primal has a natural affinity for Assault abilities so Druids also have some damage). Additionally skill tests have categories that certain archetypes are better at (Guardians are better at Stalwart challenges).

Obviously if you have another vision in mind than mine these aren't as helpful, but I'll include them anyway for the curious.


Risk Taker [Assault]: When you add a card to a Risky challenge, reveal the top card of the player deck. You may replace the card you added with that card. If you do, discard the card you originally added.
Archetype Bonus: Assault characters may reveal the top card of the player discard also, and may replace their card with either revealed card.
Special: Support characters cannot take this ability.
Tough it Out [Guardian]: When you add a card to a Stalwart challenge, you may change its suit. You do not gain trump benefits for doing so.
Archetype Bonus: Guardian characters may gain trump benefits for changing their suit in this way.
Special: Restorer characters cannot take this ability.



Sorcerer [Magic, Assault]
Sorcerers are magic users whose focus is on spells relating to combat. They have the most damage output of the magic classes, and are considered to be Assault characters. Like all magic users, they additionally have a limited ability to Support.

Passive Ability: Mana Blast
If the sorcerer has contributed at least 1 card to a combat set, they may add the Energy element to that set.
All combat sets the party creates with the Energy element deal +2 damage.
Sorcerers have their range increased by 1 rank (simple to 2, 2 to 3, and so on).

Passive Ability: Mystic Barrier
When the sorcerer contributes to a Risky challenge, after playing a card from their hand, they may draw two cards and add one of them to their hand, then discard the other one. If either card is of their trump suit, they add an additional card to the challenge from the top of the deck. Sorcerers can only use this ability once per challenge.
Cards that Sorcerers add to Patient challenges may use either their rank or their suit, but not both.

Active Ability: Intensify (2 Cards)
The sorcerer may add a single card to this ability, up to a maximum of 2 cards added. When the players successfully deal damage with a combat set, the sorcerer may choose to activate this ability. Reveal the top card of the GM deck. If the combined rank of the cards added to Intensify is greater than the revealed card (treat face cards as 10 and aces as 11), the Sorcerer may choose a single target to take additional damage equal to twice their level.

Active Ability: Magic Weapons (2 cards)
The sorcerer may add a single card to this ability as an action. When it reaches 2 cards, all players whose trump matches at least one of the two cards may add a single card to the combat or maneuver action for free, then draw a card.


To be honest, other than a couple other classes, a list of class names for each Power Source/Role combination and a tenuous early draft of "attributes", this is as far as I got. I never even figured out how Movement and Range worked (since combat is collaborative). I'll get back to it one of these days...maybe. Probably.

[ahyangyi]

Not an actual RPG, but have you played the boardgame Gloomhaven?

[werescythe]

It's a bit hard to conceptualize card tricks without knowing about things like how often cards are drawn, whether there are other zones (discard piles?) to care about, etc. There are mechanics I would be able to create if I knew more about the turn cycle- Breccia's suggestion makes sense for some models of card flow, but not others.


Hello and thank you for your feedback. I guess I can elaborate a bit more on the system.

So, yes there will be a discard pile as well as a "removed from play" pile. Cards in these piles will typically remain in these piles until an ability takes a card from one of those piles or the character has a rest, which will result in all these cards being shuffled back into the deck.

Essentially at the end of a rest (or the start of a day), the player will draw cards up to the maximum hand size as determined by their class, which will gradually increase as their character increases in level.

Outside of combat, when a player uses a card for a test or save, they will immediately draw back to their maximum hand size. During combat, players draw to their maximum hand size at the end of their turn.

I guess I probably could have explained the damage a bit better. Essentially a damage flip is when you flip cards from the top of your deck, until you come across the first card with the matching damage suite; you then take that card, add up all your damage modifiers to determine the damage and discard that card, while shuffling all the flipped cards back into the deck.

A damage draw (which might be called something else, like maybe a damage pull), is where you actually get to search your deck for a matching damage type and apply damage like you would above.

My thought was, since players are playing cards from their hands for attacks, test, and saves that it might be a bit better for damage, if it came from the deck instead. Of course, if you have any suggestions for a better way to determine damage, then please let me know, I'd love to see it.

[werescythe]

Not an actual RPG, but have you played the boardgame Gloomhaven?

I haven't but I have heard of it. Does it also use playing cards?

[aimlessPolymath]

Hello and thank you for your feedback. I guess I can elaborate a bit more on the system.
I guess I probably could have explained the damage a bit better. Essentially a damage flip is when you flip cards from the top of your deck, until you come across the first card with the matching damage suite; you then take that card, add up all your damage modifiers to determine the damage and discard that card, while shuffling all the flipped cards back into the deck.

My thought was, since players are playing cards from their hands for attacks, test, and saves that it might be a bit better for damage, if it came from the deck instead. Of course, if you have any suggestions for a better way to determine damage, then please let me know, I'd love to see it.

My general point is- why not just use the value of the top card, rather than flipping until you get a card that's a specific suit? The face value of the top card is statistically identical to the card you get after flipping, and you know what suit you're getting- something like
"Flip over the top card of the deck. For the purposes of all effects, its suit is treated as the suit of the damage type of the attack. Then, put it on the bottom of the deck."
The main benefit of this is that it's much faster and takes less shuffling.

Similarly, if you're letting someone search their deck for a card just to use its face-value for an equation, why not cut out the middle-man and let players choose the number (as long as they choose an actual card and not, like, the Seventeen of Clubs)?



Outside of combat, when a player uses a card for a test or save, they will immediately draw back to their maximum hand size. During combat, players draw to their maximum hand size at the end of their turn.
Interesting. Cards not played remain in hand, it sounds like? The ability to discard or 'spend' low-valued cards without using them for a check is actually fairly powerful here, so abilities that 'spend' cards from hand for effects can be an upside, situationally.

One concern would be characters deliberately failing low-consequence tests to sculpt their hand. A somewhat goofy (but still good!) option to solve this would be to make it more ambiguous what cards are 'good' or 'bad' outside combat, using something along the lines of a tarot draw or a table of somewhat ambiguous outcomes like this one (https://prokopetz.tumblr.com/post/700140315370209280/prokopetz-if-you-want-to-write-something-for)- low valued cards aren't necessarily bad, but they can certainly be interesting!


Some approaches to ability costing:


Card attributes:
-When you attack, if the card you played is [even / odd / X suit, based on character archetype], do a thing. (Optionally, require the attack to have hit)
--Model for "Failure with a side benefit", or rider effects on actions- this pattern lets you embed tiered and bonus effects to cards as they are played.

-When you play a card, if it matches the suit of the last card you played, do a thing or boost card value. If discards are kept unshuffled, bonuses grow higher the more cards of the same suit you play.
--A real reason to want to play bad cards- because it enhances the next card of the same suit you play! Might allow players to try and 'hold' bad cards with the intent of using them together with good cards.


Sets:
-When you attack/make a test, you can play a pair [or 3+ card straight?] instead of a single card. If you do, the card value is boosted.
--Gives some ability to 'get rid' of low valued cards without necessarily failing checks. High value cards are unlikely to be used in pairs/sets, since they're more likely to be spent rather than being considered 'bad' on their own, and also because they are probably already good enough to succeed under ordinary circumstances.


Hand sculpting:
-When you fail a check, you can discard a card.
--Character may wish to deliberately fail checks to sculpt their hand- one 'failed check' lets you get two bad cards out of your hand, not one.

-When you play a card of [X face value], you can discard a card.
--See above, except that this is likely to happen on successes, and players have more sporadic access to card cleaning- they're less likely to have the option to deliberately fail to get rid of cards.

[werescythe]

My general point is- why not just use the value of the top card, rather than flipping until you get a card that's a specific suit? The face value of the top card is statistically identical to the card you get after flipping, and you know what suit you're getting- something like
"Flip over the top card of the deck. For the purposes of all effects, its suit is treated as the suit of the damage type of the attack. Then, put it on the bottom of the deck."
The main benefit of this is that it's much faster and takes less shuffling.

I hate to admit it... but I see your logical and I have to agree (and what I mean by hate, is that I'm going to have to go into my gdoc and change a bunch a things. lol.:smallbiggrin:).

Though I guess that raises the question of how to differentiate weapons from one type to another (aside from the damage types). I suppose with the heavier weapons I would have it that the player does 2 (maybe 3 flips) of damage, but if there is an alternative way to go about it, that would be awesome.

I might keep the Damage Pull mechanic but put it on Legendary weapons instead (perhaps add a damage threshold where if you pull a card that is less than the damage threshold, it deals the threshold damage, but the player also takes the difference as damage).


Interesting. Cards not played remain in hand, it sounds like? The ability to discard or 'spend' low-valued cards without using them for a check is actually fairly powerful here, so abilities that 'spend' cards from hand for effects can be an upside, situationally.

True, it would probably be good to implement abilities (at least one for each class) that allow the players to get rid of "weaker" cards in exchange for stronger cards.

This does raise the question, what happens if the player can't draw any more cards from their deck? Should there be a mechanic where perhaps the discard pile is shuffled back into the deck, but the player suffers a detriment for it?

I will go ahead and say I am thinking of having a necromancer (probably give it a different name) mage subclass that takes advantage of the discard pile.

There's also a part of me that wants to give the warrior class a kind of combo modifier like ability/mechanic when in combat, where each consecutive hit on a creature in a turn, bumps of up the damage.

[MoleMage]

If you want to use a multiple flip mechanic for randomizing and to give different weapons different damage values, you could use a "flip until" mechanic. The number of cards you turn over is your value, not the final card.

For example, a battleaxe does Flip Until 8+ damage. You turn over a 3, a 2, and a King. You deal 3 damage (number of cards), and you use the King's suit for any suit-dependent effects.

You're gonna burn through a standard 52 card deck extremely fast if you're doing this every round, though.

[werescythe]

If you want to use a multiple flip mechanic for randomizing and to give different weapons different damage values, you could use a "flip until" mechanic. The number of cards you turn over is your value, not the final card.

For example, a battleaxe does Flip Until 8+ damage. You turn over a 3, a 2, and a King. You deal 3 damage (number of cards), and you use the King's suit for any suit-dependent effects.

You're gonna burn through a standard 52 card deck extremely fast if you're doing this every round, though.

That is an interesting idea. I'll definitely consider it. :)

So the question to ask is, what happens to the player when they no longer have cards to draw? O_O

[aimlessPolymath]

That is an interesting idea. I'll definitely consider it. :)

So the question to ask is, what happens to the player when they no longer have cards to draw? O_O

Two things come to mind:
One is fixed damage. Do you really need random damage rolls?
(I'm plugging Panic at the Dojo again- it's got really interesting turn-by-turn decisions where the uncertainty comes entirely in the form of random option availability. Spend a 5, deal 3 damage and push an enemy. No confirmation roll involved. )

Another is an advantage mechanic that involves flipping X (maybe 2-3) cards, choosing one, and putting the other X-1 on the bottom of the deck.

"Reshuffle your discard and make a new deck" is fairly common in card games. Another one option is that a character with no cards is 'exhausted'just straight up starts failing checks. Exhaustion ideally wouldn't come up in ordinary circumstances, but it adds a bit of pressure. The discard pile is only reshuffled into your deck when a new day starts.This approach works best if players aren't playing a very large number of cards each turn in combat, obviously.

This is somewhat analogous to Gloomhaven, where you have a 'hand' of cards that go to a discard pile, and you can pick up your whole discard pile at the cost of having one of those retrieved cards 'lost' for the rest of the adventure.





There's also a part of me that wants to give the warrior class a kind of combo modifier like ability/mechanic when in combat, where each consecutive hit on a creature in a turn, bumps of up the damage.

Sounds like fighters are supposed to try and dump bad cards to build up to a combo turn?

[LibraryOgre]

ODE: The One Deck Engine. (https://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2013/08/ode-one-deck-engine.html)

[werescythe]

One is fixed damage. Do you really need random damage rolls?

Yeah, I keep thinking about it and I'm leaning toward the fixed damage. In the long run it will speed up the game and won't lead to things like disappointing critical damage (when you only have 1s).


Another is an advantage mechanic that involves flipping X (maybe 2-3) cards, choosing one, and putting the other X-1 on the bottom of the deck.

Perhaps that could be a feature for some special or legendary weapons, where it has a fixed base damage, but allows the player to flip the top card of their deck and if flipped card is a higher number then that base damage, then that's the damage that's applied instead.


"Reshuffle your discard and make a new deck" is fairly common in card games. Another one option is that a character with no cards is 'exhausted' just straight up starts failing checks. Exhaustion ideally wouldn't come up in ordinary circumstances, but it adds a bit of pressure. The discard pile is only reshuffled into your deck when a new day starts. This approach works best if players aren't playing a very large number of cards each turn in combat, obviously.

Yeah, an exhaustion mechanic could work. Like sure the player reshuffles their deck, but they gain a level of exhaustion (or an equivalent) as a result.


Sounds like fighters are supposed to try and dump bad cards to build up to a combo turn?

Maybe, so far, the thought is that perhaps every time the warrior hits their target, the amount of damage their next attack does is increased by one with the ability stacking with each successful hit (with the maximum number of stacks being equal to their level), with the stacks going away if they miss or combat ends.

There could be later abilities where the amount per hit is increased to 2 and maybe there could an ability where instead of all the stacks going away, it is only reduced by 1 when they miss.

[aimlessPolymath]

Maybe, so far, the thought is that perhaps every time the warrior hits their target, the amount of damage their next attack does is increased by one with the ability stacking with each successful hit (with the maximum number of stacks being equal to their level), with the stacks going away if they miss or combat ends.
Interesting. My 'combo turn' strategy was under the assumption that the bonus would reset at end of turn.

An important point: Under what circumstances does a fighter miss?
Keep in mind, they choose the cards they play. They (probably) know their attack bonus. Are foe defenses hidden? Are they randomized?

I submit that a fighter who wishes to attack 'efficiently' would only be missing for the purpose of ejecting bad cards from their hand- once they know a monster's defense, they would never miss except on purpose, and if there's anything else a card could be spent on other than attacking, they'd never miss at all.

If defense targets are public, this would start at the start of the combat.

Otherwise, there's pretty straightforwards strategies (if defense is static-but-initially-hidden, as is common in D&D-likes) where a fighter simply attacks using the cards in their hand in ascending or descending value until they identify a foe's defense- playing in ascending value essentially means dumps cards as you go until you find the minimum value that will deal damage, then never misses for the rest of the fight; playing in descending order is just playing a game of 'play the highest card' to try and keep the combo rolling, and would benefit from the ability to 'spend' bad cards, even for no value.

[werescythe]

My thought is that the defense will be hidden and will generally stay static.



Otherwise, there's pretty straightforwards strategies (if defense is static-but-initially-hidden, as is common in D&D-likes) where a fighter simply attacks using the cards in their hand in ascending or descending value until they identify a foe's defense- playing in ascending value essentially means dumps cards as you go until you find the minimum value that will deal damage, then never misses for the rest of the fight; playing in descending order is just playing a game of 'play the highest card' to try and keep the combo rolling, and would benefit from the ability to 'spend' bad cards, even for no value.

Yeah, I'll probably try to give each class (or maybe the subclasses) an ability that allows them to discard unwanted cards.

I had thought that the rogue might have a special ability where they treat the Ace as a 7 instead of a 1.

[aimlessPolymath]

I had thought that the rogue might have a special ability where they treat the Ace as a 7 instead of a 1.
Hm. It's nice, but IDK if it's fun, if that makes sense.

The direction I'm thinking about regarding abilities is something along the lines of giving characters choices, with a few different ways to spend cards.
"Do I spend this card on to attack, or do I spend it on this other thing? If I'm playing these three cards, how do I do so efficiently?"
If rogues have a number of abilities that require them to spend exactly a 7, then that ability becomes interesting- you might have hands where you think about how to spend your available 7's between the various options- or just use them for base value. Having more cards that 'count' as 7 means that those abilities aren't as starved for cards.

The other angle I'm thinking about is holding cards for greater value- whenever you have bonuses for sets, you can immediately start to give players an implicit benefit for choosing to hold on to cards. I think '3 of a suit' is probably where I'd start these- there's no benefit to holding cards in the hope of a pair (no statistical impact to holding onto a low card rather than discarding it for X benefit in terms of expected number of pairs- since you 'draw back to hand size' each turn, you'd get more gas out of a random card from your deck, which is equally likely to form a pair). Pairs of specific suits might work? Hold onto a spade because you have a 'pair of spades' power?

[werescythe]

Hm. It's nice, but IDK if it's fun, if that makes sense.

The direction I'm thinking about regarding abilities is something along the lines of giving characters choices, with a few different ways to spend cards.

Yeah, sorry, I meant to say that's a bit of a bonus that they get. The thought is that Rogues can treat the Ace (1) as a special card and the subclass that they get at level 3 will give them special effects based on their subclass.

My thought is that at level 2, each class will be given an ability that allows them to spend cards from their hands to do things.

Rogues will have Tricks, which they can use to either hinder/distract enemies, evade traps or distance themselves from combat if necessary.

Warriors will have something similar to battle maneuvers (not sure what to call it), where they can do special things to enemies after hitting them with an attack.

Mages will have the ability to Imbue their spells, by discarding cards from their hand, adding special effects to the spell. They also have access to Rituals, which they can use to give themselves special effects as they go about their day.

I'm kind of going the Fantasy Age route, where there are like only a few classes, but there are a lot of subclasses and other features that allow the players to differentiate themselves, though I'm going to hold those close to the chest for now.

There is actually a 4th class, but I'm not sure how much details I want to give away for them. :smallredface:


The other angle I'm thinking about is holding cards for greater value- whenever you have bonuses for sets, you can immediately start to give players an implicit benefit for choosing to hold on to cards. I think '3 of a suit' is probably where I'd start these- there's no benefit to holding cards in the hope of a pair (no statistical impact to holding onto a low card rather than discarding it for X benefit in terms of expected number of pairs- since you 'draw back to hand size' each turn, you'd get more gas out of a random card from your deck, which is equally likely to form a pair). Pairs of specific suits might work? Hold onto a spade because you have a 'pair of spades' power?

That could be interesting. I'll have to try to work that it. :smallsmile:

[aimlessPolymath]

Rogues will have Tricks, which they can use to either hinder/distract enemies, evade traps or distance themselves from combat if necessary.

Warriors will have something similar to battle maneuvers (not sure what to call it), where they can do special things to enemies after hitting them with an attack.

Mages will have the ability to Imbue their spells, by discarding cards from their hand, adding special effects to the spell. They also have access to Rituals, which they can use to give themselves special effects as they go about their day.

These all sound fun!


There is actually a 4th class, but I'm not sure how much details I want to give away for them.

I'll respect this, but I disagree with the decision to hide information. What are you trying to avoid?


That could be interesting. I'll have to try to work that it.
I think the major barrier that keeps pairs from really working during combat is that you refresh to hand size, rather than drawing a specified amount- there's a lot less benefit to holding cards because they mean you also draw fewer cards.
A universal ability that would help with set-related stuff (and might smooth out turns somewhat) is something like 'Up Your Sleeve(1/turn): discard a card, but put it aside instead of putting it in your discard pile. Put it back in your hand at the start of your next turn."

-----

A separate thing I'll note is that the current models for in-combat and out-of-combat seems to have very different dynamics, as I understand it.


Outside of combat, when a player uses a card for a test or save, they will immediately draw back to their maximum hand size. During combat, players draw to their maximum hand size at the end of their turn.

Outside combat, I think you're going to have much slower card flow, and there's a way that bad cards will 'clog' your hand- as I understand it, though, in combat most characters might be playing most of their hand each turn, and refreshing much more cards; out of combat, though, people are likely to be playing and drawing one card per turn, so cards might 'clog' your hand (but on the other hand, having a lot of card flow/dumping ability isn't necessarily good, because people will just play the good cards in their hand) - except during combat, which will 'reset' your hand entirely.

One thing I'm thinking about is something along the lines of forcing characters to play two or more cards of the same suit for checks, assigning them to various aspects of the roll (aspects not assigned a card auto-fail). I'm particularly thinking about Risks, from Gunmetal Sonata (https://wingedvictory.itch.io/gunmetal-sonata)- it uses dice (d6 pools) instead of cards, but it should be a straightforwards translation to cards. Forcing the cards to be of the same suit that characters can't just always take the best results, too.

Adding Risks
Every move has a core narrative thrust - something
the triggering player is trying to achieve. But life is
never easy, and sometimes players have to fend off
additional dangers or threats while trying to
succeed at the move. These are risks.

Each risk is a possible fictional consequence of the
move, one that the player can potentially avoid
through enough competence. The GM can
nominate any number of them, using them as a kind
of difficulty slider for any given move:
• 0 risks = Textbook. PCs are likely to succeed.
The question is: how much?
• 1 risks = Complicated. There’s a lot more room
for partial success.
• 2 risks = Increasingly scary. Players may be
forced to make hard choices.

In principle the GM can nominate any number of
risks, but it gets unwieldy past two. It’s also very
important that risks don’t interfere with success on
the main move - players should still be able to
meaningfully succeed at what they set out to do
while eating every risk thrown at them. Risks
shouldn’t interfere with each other either - the best
risk set is a series of completely orthogonal things
that can go wrong, with every combination equally
easy to bring to life in the story.

That’s what makes choosing between them fun.

[section skipped]

After the dice are rolled, players aren’t just picking
the highest die anymore - they get to allocate them,
assigning a unique die to each output to generate
the final narrative:
1. The player allocates one die to the move itself.
This provides the move effect.
2. They also allocate one die to each risk. For every
1-3 allocated, the risk comes true.
The GM weaves together all the risks and the move
result to figure out what happens.


Alternatively, just requiring two cards of the same suit would effectively 'shrink' a player's hand, keeping them from just playing the highest card at any given point (bonus note: if you have at least five cards, a pair is guaranteed)

[ahyangyi]

I haven't but I have heard of it. Does it also use playing cards?

Ah, I didn't realize this question is about playing cards (that is, those standard 52-card decks), not card playing.

Anyways, since I already touched the topic, I'll give some quick introduction here.

Gloomhaven uses a combat system in which you play two cards every round. Part of character advancement is deck building.


You pick two cards but they are face-down and your teammates don't know what you picked, but you can chat otherwise;
One of your picked cards decides your initiative for that round;
When it's your turn, you execute the top-side of one card and the bottom card of the other card in any order you want.


Which means you can roughly control your move order, but never accurately, and the two-card combination usually offers a "preferred action" and a "backup plan".

You can rest and get discarded cards back, but one fewer card each time, so the cards double as combat stamina. And that also means stamina isn't just a number, but a gradual degradation of your performance: when you get more and more tired, your available actions get fewer, and you need to rest more often.

Some cards have stronger effects but are removed from that encounter immediately, so you can nova at the expense of stamina.

[Yakk]

Instead of "bigger is better", lean in on combinatorics.

Also, I'd lean in on "face down/face up" cards. Like in poker.

...

For combat, imagine if you have some cards turned up. These are how you can be attacked. To attack something, you need to be within 2 points of it -- so an 8 or 9 or 10 can attack a 10. Possibly this grows by 1 if the card colour matches, and 2 if the suit matches exactly.

Treat royalty differently. Ace might be either 1 or 11.

You'd start a day with a set of face-down cards. Your class might make you discard some and replace them. In a combat, you'd also draw some cards, and you'd expose some vulnerabilities.

Clubs: Warrior
Spades: Rogue
Hearts: Divine
Diamond: Arcane

Which means black is physical and red is magical.

Defence could work similarly, where you burn cards to knock out attackers or weaken them.