Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="loverdrive" data-source="post: 9760673" data-attributes="member: 7027139">Because you aren't relying on random chance to succeed, if you have high cards you can spend them on actions that otherwise would probably fail.It would work even better in a system where stats give bonuses to a roll (as opposed to dice pool size, like in Blades) -- an athletic character will be able to spend low-ish cards to still succeed on athletics checks, and save high cards for stuff they aren't particularly good at.Like, let's say you have Athletics +7 and Persuasion +0. Against a standard DC 15, any 8+ card would be a success for an Athletics check. Since skill checks are binary pass/fail, using 15 for an athletics check would be a waste: you are losing an option to successfully use Persuasion for no gain whatsoever.If you have high cards, you have a lot of options, including those that are beyond your normal specialization -- you might try to defuse the situation peacefully, and only resort to showing your brawn when cornered (hold only low-ish cards).With a normal D20 roll, I personally would avoid ever rolling Persuasion and bank on 25% of success, and let a charismatic bard do the talking, unless really really hard pressed.I don't think engaging with mechanics of the game and roleplaying are in any tension. One can pretty easily focus on roleplaying while also counting cards. If anything, I myself do a pretty bad job at roleplaying when I'm bored and have nothing to chew on.Sure. You gain some, you lose some. I think this sense of randomness is a reasonable price to pay for more depth.On the other hand, cards would allow to model things that are pretty hard to model with dice, like feints. Say, if we replace static AC with some sort of active defense with simultaneous card reveal. I'm a level 5 Fighter with two attacks per turn. I make my first one, you play your high card to defend yourself, but ha! it was a feint, I played a 1, making you waste a good card on a dud!Is my next attack going to be real? Or maybe I'm bluffing and I don't have any good cards at all, poking and probing at your defenses to create an opening? Keeping your cool and not leaving oneself exposed is an important part of fencing, and there's just no real way to convey such a feeling with dicerolls.Yes, but I think it's a good kind of complexity. It makes the game deeper, and also isn't particularly taxing. You are literally holding cards in your hand, there's nothing to forget like with some fiddly situational modifier rules.</blockquote>

Verification