smadin

Scott

@smadin

cis, bi, Leftlib/Demsoc cusp, Socdem rising, moon in Ancom

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smadin
@smadin

TTRPG mechanics

I'm trying to think of TTRPGs whose mechanics employ a deck of cards (my mind goes to a standard US playing-card deck, but tarot cards or a custom deck—or multiple custom decks, as many boardgames use—so long as the mechanic involves "shuffle a deck, draw n card(s), determine result based on card(s) drawn", would also fit the brief.

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the original, late-'90s Deadlands (which might have even based outcomes on scoring cards drawn as poker hands? I don't 100% remember if they did this or if I'm just imagining that they might have because it would fit the Weird West theme), but if I recall correctly that setting pretty quickly got ported to, like, d20 and GURPS and had all its mechanical quirkiness sanded right down into nothing.

I'd love to know about other games that tried anything like it, though!

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Lichtenstein
@Lichtenstein

There's plenty of card-based systems around, but tbh they rarely deliver on the potential.

Most don't really do much what a handful of d10s wouldn't do, just with extra busywork, others tend to have some jank to it where the "minigame" of hand management kind of overtakes your freedom to act in a way that can feel weirdly arbitrary.

There's a lot to be done with cards and I always have like two half-finished projects taking a stab at it myself, but it's just all far trickier in practice to ensure added value over dice than it'd seem.

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ZER0SEN
@ZER0SEN

The great grandaddy of them all was TORG (The Other Roleplaying Game), which used that it called a "Drama Deck" for combat. It was a high 1990's simulationist system, so it tried to emulate everything possible and was insane and clunky as that sounds. Worth checking out for its craziness.

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