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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5942429" data-attributes="member: 8835">My perception (not the same as fact) is that cards are clunkier, not any better than dice, and adds a new mechanism that is harder to automate (ex. for VTTs)Decks have to be shuffled, which ends up being an interruption to game play.  Specialized decks (non-standard cards) add a cost/entry fee to new players.  And probably need to be shuffled often enough to negate any randomization balancing.Math-wise, I'm not so sure of how much load-balancing of luck there is either.  with a 52 card deck, if you're hoping for cards from the higher half of the deck, 26 of them are crappy cards.  So you're first draw is 26 in 52 are crappy cards.  Your second draw is 25 or 26 in 51 are crappy cards (25 if you actually drew a crappy card, if you drew a good card, then the original 26 crappy cards remain as outs for you to draw).Technically, the percentage is moving, but not by big factor (.9%) and that % is good or bad, depending on what you last drew.  There certainly is some luck adjustment, if you drew low, you have a slightly better chance of drawing better, and vice versa if you drew high.  But it's a small percentage.Lastly, automation is a big problem.  i've been looking into VTTs lately.  And one of my generaly pet peeves about RPGs rubs up against the same problem VTTs have.  It seems every other game designer wants to devise some other randomizer mechanic, almost solely for the objective to be different.  This hurts VTTs because it complicates matters to support a given game when its randomizer mechanic is unusual. Rolling some dice, adding a number and comparing to some target number is very easy to implement and automate.  Every other mechanic adds a barrier to supportability in a VTT.As such, I'm not keen on different mechanics for the sake of being different.  I do think a fair counter to my arguments is if you have a fast, easy mechanic that also introduces other desirable side effects.  Using a cards in Deadlands made sense, just from an ambience view (most folks can associate cards and westerns pretty easily).</blockquote>

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