Idea for a new Campiagn Setting: Dead Man's Hand

[CalibronXXX]

1187808395[/unixtime]]really? He's making me like this setting idea more and more...

The two aren't mutually exclusive, at least not for me...

[Bigode]

The statement "There were great people here before, they had powers and culture, but they became small and live underground" is a fvcking euphamism for genocide. Every single race I have written up so far is itself a euphamism for genocide. The Wakyambi, the Sidhe, the Efreet, the Alfar - all of these are stories from the world to explain why there are remnants of cultures who are all fvcking dead.

In any language. In any civilization. In any corner of the world where you find stories of "elves" you are finding evidence of a crime so heinous and so massive that it defies description and becomes euphamistic legend. Everyone in this setting is an elf, and it's really offensive. It's supposed to be.

I used to think fairies, dwarves, and all that crap were parts of explanations for natural phenomena - if asked, I'd nominate the Norse/Inca (yeah, that is no typo or joke) Four Wind dwarves. Could you elaborate?

[Username17]

1187788629[/unixtime]]Mechanics wise, whereabouts do you see the number of Dice being had by characters?
And along with that, how high do you see the number of successes required for difficult tasks?

I'm imagining something like this:
1 Die= Utterly untrained and worst attribute
3 Dice= Minimally trained and/or somewhat skilled
5 Dice= Trained and/or skilled
8 Dice= Expert
11 Dice= World class
14 Dice= Friggin heroic

Difficulty vs. Successes required
1 Success= Easiest task possible that requires a check (2 Dice= 55% success)
2 Successes= Moderately Difficult (5 Dice= 54% success)
3 Successes= Tough (8 Dice= 53% success)
4 Successes= Very Tough (11 Dice= 53% success)
5 Successes= Heroic (14 Dice= 52% success)

If rerolls are allowed in this mechanic, it makes a fairly large impact, and makes the difficulties much less daunting. "Feats" that would allow one reroll in a particular skill per scene would be kind of neat.

I expect attributes are likely to run from 1 die to 6 dice (and racial mods not to be more than -1 die or +1 or 2 dice).
and skills to go from 0 dice to 6 dice.

With proper fancy equipment (say, up to another +6 dice), a very focused character should be capable of laying down epic noise and average characters would be running around with 3-5 dice in their untrained areas.

Does that sound bout right?

This actually sounds about right. Remember also that there is going to be an extra consideration of dice pool penalties which might be pretty substantial. For example, when you shoot at someone you're going to subtract their Reaction from your dice pool. So to that extent it would actually be OK for base dice pools to rise above 14.

But at base I think we're looking at Attributes going 1-7 and Skills going 1-7 and specialities and equipment bonuses bringing in up to a +6. Making the for-certain biggest dice pool about 20 dice. And then if you're confronted by a wall of smoke (-6) and a legendary speedster (Reaction 7) you're down to a 7 die pool.

-

Catharz, that's totally awesome. I had imagined them with interchangeable parts to emphasize the whole "masks and suits" aspect, but I like yours better. Makes Kachina coming of age rituals really important and cool looking.

-Username17

[Username17]

Wendigo
"If you can understand me, you will be delicious."

The Wendigo are a collection of tribes of wandering hunters and cannibals. The Wendigo are both a race and an ideology of man eating and insanity. The original people are gaunt creatures who tower as much as 2.3m in height even stooped as a mantis is. They are stick-thin and their hands end in claws and hooks. The Wendigo are all-white and their bones grind together audibly if they stay still for more than a few minutes. Wendigo have hooks on their faces which are sufficiently load bearing to hold meat.

The Wendigo tribes are very small for whenever they run out of huntable meat in an area they quickly turn on their own children and devour them. Wendigo are also known to dye captives white and force them to enact their depraved and cannibalistic lifestyle. Wendigo keep to the mountains and the forest and are constantly trying to tear down the cities made by settlers and tribes alike.

Wendigo seem to derive sustenance not from the chemistry of a food, but from its thoughts. While devouring an apple or a potato gives no nutritional benefit to a Wendigo, eating animals is beneficial and eating people the most filling of all. However, a horrible side effect of this is that while eating the livers of many people who had hopes and dreams and language will sustain a Wendigo, it will not satiate them. Worse, such over stimulation causes the Wendigo to grow taller, which in turn increases their need for their ghastly food.

Wendigo Magic: Magic, no matter how cleverly or efficiently it is used, leaks into the world and accumulates in pools and eddies. These turbulences cause the dead to rise and the night to fill with terror. In most tribes it is the job of a Shaman to mitigate these potentially disastrous results. To channel magic into places where its animating nature can be bled off harmlessly or to send it to a far away land. The Wendigo stand a sharp contrast to that aim, and most of their rites involve releasing unrestrained magic and invoking calamity upon the world or its denizens.

Wendigo shamans borrow heavily from the rituals of other tribes. However, since the entire purpose is to advance hordes of the undead and eventually swallow the sun, they rarely bother to actually learn the intricacies of these magics. Wendigo practice human sacrifice, but almost always consume most or all of the corpses before the Lurkers can take their fill. A Wendigo shaman will often stop what he is doing mid-verse and simply stare intently, waiting for the built up magics to dissipate balefully.

The one ceremony that the Wendigo seem really intent upon perform correctly is an induction ceremony. An ordinary person captured by the Wendigo will be burned and mutilated with small knives and hot rocks and forced to eat the flesh of another person. At the end of the dark rite the victim's mind is burned out and its body is recolored white as bone. While no physiological changes other than coloration seem to be changed, the new inductee will believe himself to be a Wendigo in truth – hunting people for food along with the rest of its reviled tribe.

Inspiration: Algonquian, Cree, Seminole

-Username17

[Prak]

1187939915[/unixtime]]Wendigo
<awesome and win>

I think I just found the race I'll always play...

[Username17]

Tribal discussion continues.

Ani-Yunti
"WE'VE HAD DAUNTING PROBLEMS IN MANY CRITICAL AREAS."

The Ani-Yunti appear as 1.8m tall tornadoes filled with chunks of charred sycamore. Ani-Yunti are in fact humanoids who are about 1.4m tall who are surrounded by a curtain of wind and ash at all times. Their feet rarely touch the ground. When an Ani-Yunti reaches through its wind sheathe, it makes a thunderous roar. The suspended particles in the wind sheathe are conductive, and Ani-Yunti are effectively protected from electricity. Ani-Yunti can feel the presence of metals within about 4m of their bodies even if there is solid rock in the way.

The Ani-Yunti were very sympathetic to the settlers from the Old World and aided them in many things. They taught them agriculture techniques appropriate to the land and moved storms away from their cities. The Ani-Yunti also learned from the settlers, adopting much of their magitech and building cities of their own using the fruits of Old World science. During the revolutionary period, the Ani-Yunti fought side by side with the colonists against the Old World kingdoms. Some Ani-Yunti joined the Union as citizens, and some Old Worlders joined the clans of the Ani-Yunti.

But as the Ani-Yunti became wealthy, the Southern states became jealous. The magictech devices of their cities harvested power from water and wind. They excavated copper and gold from the ground. And the plantation owners wanted it. And so a fake treaty was drafted authorizing the removal of all the Ani-Yunti from their cities, farms, factories, and mines. The Ani-Yunti were forced out of their homes at gunpoint and forcibly marched into the West, left there to live or die as the elements saw fit.

Ani-Yunti Magic: The Ani-Yunti can call and direct storms. What actually comes from these storms, be it rain or lightning, frogs or hail, is completely out of the control of Ani-Yunti shaman. By putting the proper smoke and songs into the air, groups of shamans can create the storms and move them crudely north or south, east or west. In ages past this was used primarily for agriculture as a storm upstream would send water down the rivers that the Ani-Yunti could use for agriculture. But in their new lands, the rains come infrequently and the paths of rivers are unpredictable.

The Shamans have become marginalized in Ani-Yunti tribes. Their power has been almost wholly replaced by magitech engineers.

Inspiration: Cherokee

-Username17

[Username17]

Maizenians
"The sun is the source of life, but it is also cruel and harsh. Life is a planted seed, ultimately harvested in death. If you do not resign yourself to this, how can you be happy?"

Standing 1.2m tall, the Maizenians are a plant-like people who grow edible and delicious seeds on their faces. Their feet are covered with root hairs from which they conduct all of their drinking. And while they do gain a substantial amount of nutrition through photosynthesis when their green bodies are exposed to the sun, their veins flow with bright red blood and they do have to eat food.

The Maizenians are deeply aware of the agricultural nature of their existence. The legends of their fallen empires held that people had been literally planted in the ground in order to create a constant crop for blood hungry and savage gods. Maizenians consider themselves to be food, though they generally have no particular desire to die

Some of the largest cities the world has ever seen were populated by Maizenians in the days before the arrival of the Old Worlders. Many of these cities have been razed to the ground, only to have the sites claimed by the devouring jungle which surrounded them. Maizenians avoid clothing (but not jewelry) instinctually as it blocks out the life giving rays of the sun. Under Ifrit rule, Maizenians are forced to wear clothing in public, which causes them distress.

Maizenian Magic: The ancient practices of the Maizenian priests have long been effectively outlawed by the Ifrit overlords of the lands once belonging to the Golden King and the King of Rain. The few rituals which remain are practiced in secret. Mock battles between jaguars and eagles spread strife, pull sunshine and rain out of the sky and keep lurkers away. The Maizenians who participate in these rituals have elaborate animal costumes and beat each other bloody with flails.

Inspiration: Aztec, Maya

-Username17

[erik]

Okay, I'm not much for the fluff due to my passing familiarity with most folklore that Frank simply puts to shame.

But I can do crunch. Or I think I can.

I was writing this to be somewhat compatible for True20 adaptation, but it should be aight- Feel free to ignore high tech stuff... I just figured that this system could also be used for more futuristic settings, so hey. Last disclaimer: this is kind of rough since I'm trying to jump onto a moving train (I was testing the waters for how the mechanics are supposed to flow with my previous queries regarding dice quantities), forgive me if I'm not on the right track. Even if I'm not, I figure more ideas floating out there is better than less. And I'd like to see this thing through.


Here's my layout for skills to abilities.

Strength: Physical Damage, Damage Soaking

1. Ancient Warfare
   
   • Melee
     Thrown Weapons
   Climb
   Damage Soaking
   Swim
   
   

Agility: Shooting, Precision

1. Athletics
   Acrobatics
   Ride Animal
   Ancient Warfare
   
   • Archery
   Shootin'
   Sleight of Hand
   Sneak
   
   

Reaction: Dodging, Speed

1. Dodge
   Jump
   Pilot Vehicle
   
   • Automobile
     Boat
     Helicopter
     Plane

Intuition: Notice things, Intuition

1. Artistry
   Notice
   
   • People
     Surroundings
   Track
   
   

Logic: Figure out problems, Technical Skills,

1. Artillery Use
   Computer Use
   Craft & Repair
   
   • Ancient Tech
     
     • Carpentry
       Metal Working
     High Tech
     
     • Electronic
       Gunsmith
       Mechanic
       Robotic
     Magic Tech
     
     • Casters
       Constructs (Zombies or Clockwork)
       Potions
   Lore
   
   • History
     Legal
     Local
     Magic
     Politics
     Regional
     Religion
     Science
     Underworld (criminal, not dungeoneering)
   Medicine
   
   • Animal
     Herbal
     Surgery
   Sabotage

Willpower: Assertiveness, Self-Control, Resist Magic

1. Animal Husbandry
   Bluff
   
   • Cheat
     Disguise
     Lie
   Intimidate
   Socialize
   

I was uncertain if we wanted to have splitting of magic skills so I left them be. Likewise I'm not sure how Edge is supposed to function. I was torn as to whether Damage Soaking and Dodging should get skill ranks, but if they are to compete against damage output, then I suppose that they must.

I moved a couple skills around... Jump to Reflexes, since I figure faster people ought be better jumpers than strong people... feel free to give racial mods to jumping for being huge like Jotans. Artillery seems more logic-based than coordination, so it got thusly moved.

I made skill groups, and I figure if you buy one skill say can be treated as usable as minimally trained instead of untrained. The only place I see that being a problem is the logic skills since their skill groups are much more diverse and plentiful. I'd make an exception to those and require them be bought individually for Lore and Craft.

I'll try to do a writeup on individual skills in a couple weeks or this week if I somehow find the time... I'm about to work 9 days in a row with seven twelve hour shifts and two four hour shifts though, and a trip to Missouri shortly thereafter, followed by work (my long weekend came with a price). Writeups of individual skills would include quirks like that medicine checks on unfamiliar species come with penalties (operating on a mostly incorporeal Duszek has got to be a bitch to the uninitiated).

Have pricing for buying skills by individual dice starting at -1 for untrained for no point investment.

Untrained (-1 Die)
Minimally Trained (+0 Dice)
and then be able to buy Dice on up to +7 Dice, with increasing costs for higher dice. A number of points equal to the number of dice for each level perhaps, exception being 1 point for the +0.

So purchasing from Untrained to +1 die= 2 points,
+2 dice= 4 points
+3 dice= 7 points
+4 dice= 11 points
+5 dice= 16 points
+6 dice= 22 points
+7 dice= 29 points

I'm considering raising the price increment even more since it's a bit easy to afford a +7 such that everyone will likely have +7 in their money stats and skills, especially if racial mods come into play.

Buying Attributes ought be more valuable than buying skills, they should simply be bought with different point sets so that one can't rob skills for incredible attributes or vice versa.

This kind of attribute and skill purchase method definitely favors specialized races (assuming that the +7 important skills aren't easy enough to buy that everyone has them... then you have the shitty side affect that the "superior" races wind up being tied in the skills and have extra points to spend in different areas), so the generalists really ought get more attribute bumps overall, or skill bumps to compensate.

I'll play with the math some later and consider how many +7 skills and attributes I want players to be able to have in order to set the costs appropriately. I'm thinking no more than one without crippling yourself in other areas... maybe even one +7 will cripple other areas.

p.s. Koresh it was a pain in the ass laying out the lists
(my first time using that function)

[edit: removed unnecessary weapon distinctions, removed suggestion of averaging skills for different checks, created bluff group to include cheating... and hopefully didn't fvck up the list tagging any in the process]

[Catharz]

It's been said a billion times already, but DON'T PUT COMBAT AND STORY SKILLS IN THE SAME POOL, unless the story skills come free with the combat ones.

In a game like this one possibility is to group skills by 'professions' rather than skill groups. Some groups will have prerequisite combat skills.
So if you're an Ifrit artillery man, you need to have the guns skills and the heavy weapons skill. You gain a basic understanding of Newtonian physics, knowledge of how to build and invent most heavy weapons, and you have a decent knowledge of what goes on in the lower ranks of the Sultanate army.

If you're an educated [medical] doctor, you take the 'Educated' and [medical] 'Doctor' backgrounds, which don't have any prerequisite combat skills at all (although you probably have the Guns skill anyway). You know the classics, basic physical and chemical principles, introductory philosophy of magic. You know how to set bones, an understanding of the categorization and discovery of symptoms of disease, and have the knowledge of remedies appropriate to your culture.

Anyone with the Guns skill knows how to clean a gun and do minor repairs, but you need the right background to build one.


If you have really broad skills like 'Guns' and 'Heavy weapons', the best way to deal with more precise training is specialization. A person proficient in the use of firearms might be specialized in the use of pistols.


Anyway, just throwing some ideas out there.

[Manxome]

Unless you can reasonably expect all characters to have pretty much all skills at comparable levels (or at least all skills even vaguely related to their character concept)...going "halfsies" for a roll means that it's fundamentally harder to do than any single skill, because you need double the investment for a given bonus.

If the goal is to make it hard to do, that's OK, but if it's supposed to fit the same numerical scale as other actions, that's bad.

[Username17]

1188364359[/unixtime]]It's been said a billion times already, but DON'T PUT COMBAT AND STORY SKILLS IN THE SAME POOL, unless the story skills come free with the combat ones.

This is D&D thinking. In future/modern/near-past gaming you actually can put combat and non-combat skills into the same pool and have that not be a super big deal. In any setting that is placed after the invention of the cannon and the telegraph you don't have to fight anything to move the story forward.

In an ancient setting you might be confronted with a "dragon". And then your party has to defeat it in combat. And everyone has to contribute during that combat, and it's a big part of the game and the cheese stands alone. But in a modern setting the existence of a dragon is really not life defining. You can just take the train to Buffalo or call in the cavalry (in a Western, this call will literally go to the Union cavalry). And if for some reason you did get into a fight, you'd probably want it to be "who draws first? Bang!" rather than some sort of up-and-down-stairs experience with chandelier swinging and parries and ripostes.

In a modern setting it is entirely appropriate for some characters to have no meaningful combat abilities at all. And that's fine, because combat is not supposed to be a time consuming affair anyway.

And this is why modern games groan under the strain of "classes" or "professions" while ancients games do not. In an ancients game there are certain things that your character must be able to do, and among them is contribute to major boss battles. In a modern-era game there is no guaranty that there will ever be any boss battles. Or any battles at all.

In short, hell no!

Strength: Physical Damage, Damage Soaking

• 
  Ancient Melee Weaponry
  
  • Blades
    Hafted
    Improvised/Crude (chains, tables, chairs, clubs)
    Polearms
  
  Brawl

What? Remember, this isn't supposed to be "Diablo" where Amazons use spears, Paladins use maces, and Assassins use fists - this is a Western. Some characters are "good in melee" and most of the rest are not. Having characters voluntarily not use knives they have because their Brawl skill is higher than their Blades skill is retarded.

I don't think this can be stressed enough: having a more detailed combat system doesn't make things more realistic, and it doesn't make things more enjoyable for the genre we're talking about. The combat system should be marginalized at every turn. And one of the best ways to do this is to have as few gradations of combat prowess as possible.

-Username17

[erik]

The weapon distinctions I was a little uncertain on (they were a hasty add-on as I was making out the list to post) among many things I suppose, and I'm happy to drop em.

I was torn on whether or not to make cheating simply a subset of a bluff skill group and my temporizing solution was to suggest some skills like cheating be resolved by averaging the dice of the two skills integral to the trade (sleight of hand and bluff). I think Maxnome's observation is very valid, and as such I'm liable to simply expand bluff into a skill group. It would be making Lie, Cheat, and Disguise the bluff group. I also don't have a mechanic/incentive laid out yet for making skill groups cheaper. There's lots of options, nothing I've settled on.

I wasn't too concerned about mixing in combat and non-combat skills simply because I couldn't see a viable way to separate them. Not everybody is going to have a combat machine character in this type of setting. Some people might be mad scientists who have their techotools which they give to party members (or themselves), some might be zombie lords, others might be social characters who hide during fights. My favorite RPG setting I ever played in was Deadlands, and when we played, there certainly were huge inequalties in combat prowess, but it still went swimmingly.

I'll edit out the melee distinctions now and whip up a bluff group. Thanks.

[Catharz]

1188444789[/unixtime]]
I wasn't too concerned about mixing in combat and non-combat skills simply because I couldn't see a viable way to separate them. Not everybody is going to have a combat machine character in this type of setting. Some people might be mad scientists who have their techotools which they give to party members (or themselves), some might be zombie lords, others might be social characters who hide during fights. My favorite RPG setting I ever played in was Deadlands, and when we played, there certainly were huge inequalties in combat prowess, but it still went swimmingly.

I consider 'can generate longterm buffs' a combat skill.

However, your and Frank's points are certainly valid. I suppose it depends on how you want to run the thing: I thought that originally all the PCs were supposed to be magic-charged gunslingers, but I guess it's evolved since then. I suppose that if you're going with the classic Westerns style of play, you don't need to be 'proficient' to be deadly with a rifle.

[Username17]

Tatanka
"It does not take many words to speak truth."

Tatanka are massive and hairy creatures standing an average of 2.4m tall. Their skin seems fit for a creature still larger, and it hangs down from their bodies in clumps. Tatanka have a hump which pushes their horned head forward and carries nutrients and water sufficient to keep them going for days. Tatanka can sustain activity every moment that they are awake, but Tatanka do not dream or even breathe while asleep.

Tatanka appear to move and speak very slowly, though this is in part an illusion which permeates the Tatanka people. The directly observed speed of any Tatanka action is almost comically slow: sentences have measurable and aggravating pauses punctuating them, the Tatanka puts one foot in front of the other at a painfully slow pace yet it actually reaches any destination (even near ones) in a shockingly short amount of time. The actual information passed in a Tatanka conversation is often quite high.

The Tatanka traditionally hold a certain veneration for putting up with hardship. Theirs is a warrior culture, and suffering or even dying is perhaps the easiest way to demonstrate one's worth. While the Tatanka look very much like buffalo, they are almost the opposite when it comes to diet. Tatanka traditionally hunt for most of their food and will travel long distances to accomplish this. The spatial distortion which accompanies all Tatanka is very helpful in battle, and bulls are justifiably feared.

Tatanka Magic: All Tatanka store time in their humps, but the Shamans are truly adept at using herbs and prayer to gather time and use it for things. Much of Tatanka magic is centered around medicine, and indeed all Tatanka magic is collectively called "medicine". Tatanka rituals exist which will weaken or destroy targets as if a great weight of time were placed upon them, as well as rituals which repair living things as if they had been granted a long time of recovery.

Truly accomplished Tatanka shamans grow younger over time, and end their days as calves.

Inspiration: Lakota

-Username17

[Username17]

Still working...

The Jogah
"I encourage you to think of the effects of your actions not just on yourself, but on others in the world. After all, you could be anybody and it is unreasonable to second guess your own identity in important matters."

A Jogah's natural form is almost never seen, but on those rare occasions when it is, a Jogah appears as an ovoid ripple in space roughly 1.5m in height that is most analogous to the disturbance left in a stream after a rock is skipped across its surface. Even the burbling sound the naked Jogah makes is not unlike the sound of a fast flowing brook. And yet, this information is rarely useful in identifying a Jogah because a Jogah's form changes to match a specific creature when they wear a mask made in that creature's image. A Jogah does not become "a deer", it becomes that deer. And most Jogah choose to take the forms of people – a fact which has not endeared them to the Union.

The Jogah have a history of a quite egalitarian society, whose principals were largely copied in the creation of the Union (a fact whose irony is not lost on any Jogah). The Jogah have very little concept of differences between individuals and historically have a difficult time respecting or understanding privacy or property.

Jogah can be recognized from the original person because regardless of how they appear they do not get wet. Water passes through them as if they were so much empty space. Alcohol does not do this, and enterprising Jogah have been known to fake wetness by dousing themselves in the strongest of fire water.

Jogah Magic: Jogah magic centers upon wood carving. A dedicated Jogah wood carver can create a mask which in some capacity takes part of the soul of whoever the mask was fashioned in the guise of, allowing a Jogah to wear that mask and seemingly become that person for so long as the mask is worn and the original possessor of the face still lives.

This magic is deeply frowned upon by Old World religions on the grounds that stealing portions of the souls of others is all kinds of not OK.

Inspiration: The Five Nations of the Iroquois

-Username17

[Catharz]

I love the temporospatial nature of the Tatanka. The whole 'hump storing time' reminds me a little of a book by Terry Pratchett.


And yes, the Jogah are way cooler than I envisioned them.


Any idea how the the various abilities of the cultures going to work mechanically?

[Username17]

Any idea how the the various abilities of the cultures going to work mechanically?

Mostly dicepool modifiers. I figure all the player character races will have a couple of extra stat points to throw around. Jotun, for example get extra Strength.

The best kinds of abilities are ones in which a character can ignore a penalty for doing something which is normally difficult - like the Ifrit's ability to see through flames. Normally a fire in between you and your target gives a visibility penalty, but for an Ifrit it doesn't. This is optimal because it gives a character a real bonus without ever causing anyone to have to throw more dice around.

The setting really doesn't have creatures who only have "energy" attacks, and there's no particular reason that you'd go adventuring with only one kind of caster shell - so the game won't groan under the strain of characters having actual energy immunities. Jotun simply don't freeze; Ifrit don't burn. Ani can't be electrocuted. If for some reason you'd be forced to soak damage from such a source you soak all of it automatically. At the same time however, noone really gets that for "physical damage" (though the Duszek do come close for limited periods). So there's no way that you can get yourself immunity to "bear attack" - and a bear is always going to be a meaningful threat.

Other abilities, like the fact that it is hard to judge the direction and speed of a Tatanka act as negative dicepool modifiers to other peoples' rolls. Again this is useful because it acts as a real advantage and it doesn't make the game unmanageable.

That's I think the core difficulty of the game. Having people roll more than 20 dice is undesirable, so every ability that people have should be defined in such a way as to prevent that from happening.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

For a while now, I've been wanting to write a game that actually uses playing cards to decide things. Everything, not just a few things, like I'm given to understand Deadlands does. I think this setting might be a good place to use this. The way I think it work is like this.

Everyone, DM included gets a hand of cards. We'll say for the sake of arguement that the hands are 5 cards, though the number doesn't matter to extremely much, except that the DM might get a slightly larger hand than the players. The cards are worth 1-10 points, with the ace being worth 1 point and the tens and up are worth 10 points. Better faces trump lesser ones, and the suit heirarchy has spades at best, followed by diamonds, clubs, and hearts. When you want to use a skill, you play a card from your hand and add the value of that card to the skill to get your total. At the beginning of your turn cards are added to your hand until you have five again.

There could also be extended check situations where people can play multiple cards in order to get better results, optimally in the case of an opposed check where your opponent is doing the same

Also, there are two jokers in the deck, which can be played to auto-win any check, or thrown out of any hand on any check to dictate the winner. Of course, if both jokers are in play, that person can use it to overrule your joker...

Of course, this works best in a system that uses alot of opposed checks, if not using them exclusively.

-Desdan

[Leress]

1188868698[/unixtime]]For a while now, I've been wanting to write a game that actually uses playing cards to decide things. Everything, not just a few things, like I'm given to understand Deadlands does. I think this setting might be a good place to use this. The way I think it work is like this.

Everyone, DM included gets a hand of cards. We'll say for the sake of arguement that the hands are 5 cards, though the number doesn't matter to extremely much, except that the DM might get a slightly larger hand than the players. The cards are worth 1-10 points, with the ace being worth 1 point and the tens and up are worth 10 points. Better faces trump lesser ones, and the suit heirarchy has spades at best, followed by diamonds, clubs, and hearts. When you want to use a skill, you play a card from your hand and add the value of that card to the skill to get your total. At the beginning of your turn cards are added to your hand until you have five again.

There could also be extended check situations where people can play multiple cards in order to get better results, optimally in the case of an opposed check where your opponent is doing the same

Also, there are two jokers in the deck, which can be played to auto-win any check, or thrown out of any hand on any check to dictate the winner. Of course, if both jokers are in play, that person can use it to overrule your joker...

Of course, this works best in a system that uses alot of opposed checks, if not using them exclusively.

-Desdan

That reminds of this card rpg system...
C.A.R.D.S.

[Jacob_Orlove]

That system would be much more interesting if you also used your hand as a poker hand for certain checks or whatever.

But dice pools are much much easier to balance, since every roll is an independent event. I would stick with those.

[Manxome]

1188868698[/unixtime]]Better faces trump lesser ones, and the suit heirarchy has spades at best, followed by diamonds, clubs, and hearts.

Is there some particular reason you don't want to use the bridge/alphabetical suit ordering that everyone already knows?

If that sort of card-playing system can be balanced at all, it can only be balanced in a situation where all actions are important, and probably where they're all of roughly equal importance. If you can take a free action to rotate your non-magical ring a quarter-turn clockwise and play a card on a sleight-of-hand check to prevent anyone from noticing, you will, not because there's any value in that action whatsoever, but because it will let you get rid of a bad card and draw a new one in its place.

And in any situation where you can "take 20," you take the opportunity to play cards on meaningless checks until your hand contains a royal flush, which you then save for the next action you actually care about.

You might be able to pull something off where all cards are equally valuable, but for different things--for example, if you've got a deck of rock, paper, and scissors you use for opposed checks--but letting people play ranked cards out of their hands is not likely to make a good substitute for a RNG.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

1188932365[/unixtime]]
Is there some particular reason you don't want to use the bridge/alphabetical suit ordering that everyone already knows?

Because I don't play bridge, and therefore didn't know this hierarchy system existed

-Des

[Manxome]

1188941475[/unixtime]]Because I don't play bridge, and therefore didn't know this hierarchy system existed

-Des

The standard bridge ordering is Clubs (Low) < Diamonds < Hearts < Spades (High).

Which also happens to be alphabetical (CDHS), and thus fairly easy to remember even if you don't use it much. Between that and the fact that bridge is a fairly widely-known game, this ordering tends to be the default choice any time you need to put a complete ordering on a deck of 52 cards.

[cthulhu]

1188943986[/unixtime]]

1188941475[/unixtime]]Because I don't play bridge, and therefore didn't know this hierarchy system existed

-Des

The standard bridge ordering is Clubs (Low) < Diamonds < Hearts < Spades (High).

Which also happens to be alphabetical (CDHS), and thus fairly easy to remember even if you don't use it much. Between that and the fact that bridge is a fairly widely-known game, this ordering tends to be the default choice any time you need to put a complete ordering on a deck of 52 cards.

Bizarrely Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, Spades high -> low is another popular ordering in games such as 500. However yeah, the bridge ordering is the usual best one.

[Judging__Eagle]

I'm going to be honest and say that I'm going to be using everything in this thread as ideas for stuff for my 3d animation class; the races will give me tons of wierd ideas for stuff to draw/model in the future. As well as my character design and drawing for animation classes.

Also, this has given me an idea for a setting and ideas for system(s) for a LARPing system.

The idea that I've got is people pack prop 'guns' and throw bird-seed packets to represent fire arms; the range and accuracy would be almost the same as those firearms were in real life. Swords would still be there, but since anyone can 'fire' a gun, everyone will try to get one.

Having the 'gun' skill would mean that you can fire better mechanically (maybe different guns have different limits as to how many 'rounds' you can have per container, so a revolver has you at 6 a rifle at 10 and a shotgun at 2 or 6; having a higher gun skill means you know how to reload faster or shoot better, represented with more ammo per 'round pouch').

So, the doctor and the postman both pack guns for scaring off bandits and monsters; the sheriff and his deputies can actually shoot to kill such things.


I think the thought exercise of making a 'gun-using' LARP is really why I'm talking about it in the first place.