Would this work as a system?

[Undrave]

This is just something I wish to discuss with people who enjoy discussing system crunch.

I had this idea a while back that came to me and I'm wondering if people think there's something there: Combining an RPG with deck building mechanic.

Basically, your character would have some stats on a simple board, maybe some equipment cards attached, and everything they can DO would be represented by a card in a deck.

During combat, you get to fill your hand up to five cards from your deck for your turn (Or maybe refresh entirely to five cards?). Then you play them to get various effect like attacks and heals, but also defensive reactions and discard them as you go. Some cards would ask you to discard other cards to fuel them, other would ask you to pick up Fatigue cards. You can refresh your deck by picking up more Fatigue cards as well. Fatigue cards don't actually do anything but pollute your deck, and if you end up forced to draw a hand of nothing but fatigue card, you pass out. If you can't block an attack with Fatigue based defence or your stat, you get a Wound card which is just as useless, but maybe more so.

Wounds on the other hand would REPLACE cards from your deck and you'd place the replaced cards aside. If you are forced to pick up a full hand of wounds, your character dies!

Resting would remove fatigue, while wounds would need longer healing to remove.

When you win XP it's represented by a card in your deck that acts as a boost to your other stuff until you can find a trainer or something where you can trade your XP for new moves. Or you can trade it for more of the moves you already have.

For skill resolution, each card would have either a success or a failure symbol in the corner, and when you want to resolve a skill you shuffle what's available in your deck and draw a number of cards equal to your Skill proficiency level and you need to go up to a certain number of successes. Maybe some cards would have more successes and some failures would cancel out successes? Strong combat cards wouldn't be good for skill resolution and vice versa.

On the other side of the screen, Monsters would be simplified and the DM would have 'tactics deck' in level of complexity and enemies would dictate what tactics they can draw (stuff like 'use special ability and then move away' or 'Use basic attack' or 'run away' or 'two monsters attack together' etc). I'd imagine three levels of tactics and you can draw number of monsters +1, including 1 card that's a step above in term of complexity.


Just a random concept that's been ruminating in my mind for a while that I needed to express somewhere. None of my friends care much about the crunchy side of RPGs so I haven't found anyone to really talk about this with.

 

[Numidius]

Reminds me of Dominion the boardgame

 

[John Dallman]

Well, it probably could work, but refining it into a working system would take a fair bit of playtesting. I don't see the appeal, myself: it restricts my control of a character and adds lots of randomness, which doesn't seem to be representing anything in the character's situation.

 

[prabe]

It reminds me a lot of FFG's Arkham Horror Card Game. It was one of those things that seemed cool in principle but which turned out in play to be nothing but frustration. It was like playing the world's worst TTRPG, through the worst possible adventure path, with the world's worst GM.

 

[Undrave]

Well, it probably could work, but refining it into a working system would take a fair bit of playtesting. I don't see the appeal, myself: it restricts my control of a character and adds lots of randomness, which doesn't seem to be representing anything in the character's situation.

The randomness would only be when using a skill, otherwise you'd pick which ability cards to use per turn. I guess it would be more of a card pool than a card deck in the traditional sense.

 

[Numidius]

For skill resolution, each card would have either a success or a failure symbol in the corner, and when you want to resolve a skill you shuffle what's available in your deck and draw a number of cards equal to your Skill proficiency level and you need to go up to a certain number of successes. Maybe some cards would have more successes and some failures would cancel out successes? Strong combat cards wouldn't be good for skill resolution and vice versa.

I like the combat stuff. Not so much the above skill check; seems flat, like not as tactical as combat, and just a card randomizer.
I suggest adding some more choice and will to risk, a gamble of sorts, ala black jack.

 

[Undrave]

I like the combat stuff. Not so much the above skill check; seems flat, like not as tactical as combat, and just a card randomizer.
I suggest adding some more choice and will to risk, a gamble of sorts, ala black jack.

Yeah that part was just something I came up with...

Black Jack is a cool idea... How about this...

Cards have success and failiures. When you want to do something you don't know how many success you need (beside vague 'it looks hard' or 'it looks easy'), or maybe you do and there's a degree of success thing in place? Anyway you start pulling cards, one at a time. You stop whenever you think you have enough successes or you get to a number of failures exceeding to your skill rating at which point you automatically fail?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't see the appeal, myself: it restricts my control of a character and adds lots of randomness, which doesn't seem to be representing anything in the character's situation.

Combat is supposed to be random, and the cards could reflect that.

One of the things I noticed about D&D 4E and Pathfinder (as well as other games, like World of Warcraft), is that you end up at a point where you can plan most of the fight ahead of time. Maybe you have a flow-chart, to account for known unknowns, but it's rare to have situations that you can't do what you wanted to do. If you have certain abilities, then that's enough for you to make a fairly solid plan about how you'll use them together for greatest effect.

By adding the randomization factor, you get more interesting gameplay without requiring as many complex rules interactions. Even something as simple as a melee attack can be an interesting choice, if it's not always available to you.

 

[Numidius]

Yeah that part was just something I came up with...

Black Jack is a cool idea... How about this...

Cards have success and failiures. When you want to do something you don't know how many success you need (beside vague 'it looks hard' or 'it looks easy'), or maybe you do and there's a degree of success thing in place? Anyway you start pulling cards, one at a time. You stop whenever you think you have enough successes or you get to a number of failures exceeding to your skill rating at which point you automatically fail?

Nice and easy. What is missing are the roleplaying bits, I mean descriptions that change a bit the situation, the fiction, as you pull cards.
I suggest that the Gm (if there is one...) narrates the success cards: meaning how the PC gets closer to the goal; the player narrates the failure cards: how the PC finds obstacles on his way to the goal, then gets wounded/shocked/confused. If the players pulls the last failure, the Gm narrates how the Pc is KOed/dead/beaten/etc.
The above descriptions might include elements/Npc of the scene, not only the clumsiness of the Pc.
These elements can be represented by actual cards displayed on the table, now that I think about it.

 

[Numidius]

Combat is supposed to be random, and the cards could reflect that.

Random, or uncertain? The sistem of the OP looks more like the latter, at a first glance