RPG Gear: Playing cards

[MGibster]

In the Old West, cards did not have numbers, and were square cut. Rounded corners and numbers did not appear until the late 1870s, and did not find common use in the West until years later.

I hate using those because it takes players a while before they can stop thinking about what the card is before just knowing it instantly on sight.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Cool and affordable.

I was going to come back and suggest those.

 

[Umbran]

PEG, Inc. does produce their own cards for use with Savage Worlds. They're larger than a standard deck of cards which is actually kind of nice when using them for the game. But I'm guessing you might want some cards related to the theme of whatever game you're playing.

Yeah. PEG does scifi cards, fantasy cards, and so on, but they don't have a set that fits the specific western/scifi/horror mix that is Lost Colony.

 

[Staffan]

I hate using those because it takes players a while before they can stop thinking about what the card is before just knowing it instantly on sight.

I can see your point, but the way I see it is that if you're going to be fancy, you want to be real fancy. If I just wanted normal-looking playing cards, I have those too. But if I'm going to get a fancy deck, I don't want just a different card back or palette swap. Give me something that's actually different. And the card still has the suit and value in each corner, which should be enough for clarity.

Also: this is specifically in the context of Savage Worlds, where you usually only deal with one card per person at a time. The usual use of cards is for initiative, where each combat participant draws one card each round, and you act in order of card value (aces high, Spades before Hearts before Diamonds before Clubs). There are also some other places in the rules that use cards as randomizers (e.g. if you have a used vehicle in ETU, you draw a card to see what's wrong with it), but the only thing in the rules I know of that uses the cards as actual playing cards is when a Huckster makes a deal with the devil (which is a Deadlands-specific mechanic and limited to a particular type of character, albeit one of the coolest types).

 

[aco175]

I was going to recommend the larger font cards vs the normal ones, until I saw these super-sized ones.

I also see that you can customize the image on these ones, which may be handy.

 

[Umbran]

Also: this is specifically in the context of Savage Worlds, where you usually only deal with one card per person at a time. The usual use of cards is for initiative, where each combat participant draws one card each round, and you act in order of card value (aces high, Spades before Hearts before Diamonds before Clubs). There are also some other places in the rules that use cards as randomizers...

And chase scenes, which is a clever mechanic.

 

[Voadam]

Since you are using them for mechanics like initiative I would suggest ones with the numbers versus the ones without to make figuring out if it is a seven or eight quicker in combat. For authenticity and verisimilitude since it is future Weird West and not historical past Weird West having the innovation of numbers in addition to the visual makes sense.

Good luck in finding Sci-Fi/Horror/Western ones. Maybe search for Firefly themed decks?

 

[Jack Daniel]

Some years ago, I used makeplayingcards.com to put together a French tarot deck based on my favorite old poker deck plus the Tarot de Marseilles:

 

[Staffan]

And chase scenes, which is a clever mechanic.

I haven't had much need to use it yet, seeing as it's an ETU campaign. There'll probably be more call for it if/when we play Han Cluster.

 

[Umbran]

I haven't had much need to use it yet, seeing as it's an ETU campaign. There'll probably be more call for it if/when we play Han Cluster.

I'm doing Deadlands... in Space! If I don't have characters racing across an alien landscape on giant lizard mounts and speeder bikes, or dodging around in an asteroid belt, I'm not doing my job right.