Open roleplay + deckbuilding? What do you think?

[RylesMeta]

Hi! First post here.

Imagine that in combat, you have very few standard actions. A Standard Attack is a roll plus a stat on your character sheet. Other than that, you can maneuver, you can run, you can try to save dying party members. Everything else is a card drawn from your deck.

Cards drawn from your deck are built off of everything that makes up your character, including:

• class
• types of weapons / magic
• the actual equipment
• events that have happened to you
• your character goals
• standard things that everyone gets, like drawing more cards, healing your stats, or a "Gambit" in which you describe a cockamamie action DnD-style with higher risk/reward ceilings.

The number one problem that I personally have with DnD is how often you end up doing the same thing. Eldritch Blast. Attack the enemy four times. Rage. My hypothesis is that a deckbuilding system achieves the following:

• Emphasizes class fantasy: All of your cards synergize, center around a conceptual theme reinforced by mechanics, and allow you to do things that nobody else can do.
• Prevents stagnant combat: The best option is not always obvious. Sometimes you have a bad hand. Sometimes you have a good one, but have to choose between cards.
• Directly builds your character through play: Get rewarded with new cards as you defeat powerful enemies and experience events in the campaign. Get cursed with bad cards that you can't remove when bad things happen.

What are the cons?

• Reduced player agency: You can only do what's in your hand, plus some boring necessary stuff.
• Material overhead: Cards are expensive.
• Ease of cheating: Cards can be marked, snuck into a hand, snuck out of a deck. (I wouldn't worry too much about this, and in fact I'm thinking of drafting a class where literally cheating is the core mechanic).

Does anything like this exist? Does it sound like fun?

 

[payn]

I think this will just lead you to the same place. A lot of how a table plays is based on examples of play on the table. A lot of folks use the rulebook and character sheet because its the most tangible. Going off script takes practice and routine. This will have to start with the GM. Try having an enemy tip over a book case creating an obstacle between half the party. Or use smoke bombs to obfuscate location. Little things that will spice up the combat. Encourage PCs to do similar things. Of course, this relies on a table getting used to the philosophy of rulings over rules which takes a lot of trust and practice. If you want something more rules over rulings, yet mechanically interesting, Id look at games like 4E and PF2 as starting points.

 

[RylesMeta]

I think this will just lead you to the same place. A lot of how a table plays is based on examples of play on the table. A lot of folks use the rulebook and character sheet because its the most tangible. Going off script takes practice and routine. This will have to start with the GM. Try having an enemy tip over a book case creating an obstacle between half the party. Or use smoke bombs to obfuscate location. Little things that will spice up the combat. Encourage PCs to do similar things. Of course, this relies on a table getting used to the philosophy of rulings over rules which takes a lot of trust and practice. If you want something more rules over rulings, yet mechanically interesting, Id look at games like 4E and PF2 as starting points.

I don't understand. What I'm proposing is a system where cards have specific, mechanical actions, but the availability of the "best" action is limited by the number of that action you have in your deck and by the fact that you can only play cards from your hand. By including "open roleplay" in the thread subject I mean to say "GM-style storytelling", but once combat begins the rules of combat apply.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Hi! First post here.

SNIP FOR SPACE

Does anything like this exist? Does it sound like fun?

A number of systems have a card feature.

It does not sound like fun.

 

[Umbran]

Does anything like this exist? Does it sound like fun?

Sounds a bit like Gloomhaven, to be honest.

Cards drawn from your deck are built off of everything that makes up your character, including:

• class
• types of weapons / magic
• the actual equipment
• events that have happened to you
• your character goals
• standard things that everyone gets, like drawing more cards, healing your stats, or a "Gambit" in which you describe a cockamamie action DnD-style with higher risk/reward ceilings.

What are the cons?

• Reduced player agency: You can only do what's in your hand, plus some boring necessary stuff.
• Material overhead: Cards are expensive.
• Ease of cheating: Cards can be marked, snuck into a hand, snuck out of a deck. (I wouldn't worry too much about this, and in fact I'm thinking of drafting a class where literally cheating is the core mechanic).

I think you are missing a con here, related to "material overhead". But, it isn't about the cost, it is about the realities of cards.

By which I mean that cards must be printed before play begins. That requires significant limits on player choices and design implementations. Cards for goals would require players pick from a list of pre-printed goals. Cards for things that have happened in play would need to be pretty generic, and so on.

 

[aramis erak]

A number of systems have a card feature.

It does not sound like fun.

DragonLance Fifth Age, the cards are a dice replacement, but it's like having 5d9 prerolled in front of you and picking which to use, then rerolling just the used die.
Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game does exactly the same, except that it's a dissimilar sized 2die distribution

Where it adds fun is in the memory effect of the deck - unlike dice, you know that a run of bad will be followed by a run of good... and vice versa... add that, in DL, it's ONLY player hands, and DL plays different simply because of choosing the effort level.

What the OP is describing, however, seems pretty similar to the Pathfinder card game... which I've not myself played, but have watched a bunch. It could very easily be used for actual RP, rather than the boardgame it currently does. I just can't afford it to try it in that mode.

 

[AnotherGuy]

This is not E-warring but what the OP is describing is what some initially perceived 4e to be since the powers were essentially displayed in a card-like format. Now that can be done with any edition but I think 4e was the first. I have 2 players at my table that use spellcards for 5e..

IMO, if D&D combat has devolved to a point where combat is monotonous there are easier ways to spice things up than integrating a deckbuilding system.

 

[RylesMeta]

A lot of what I'm thinking about is leveraging the strengths of the fact that combat is played with cards. There's so many ways to put twists on it:

• Cards that start in your hand at the beginning of every combat
• Cards that you keep in a "pocket" so that they're always available
• A 'mimic' class that primarily fights by copying other players' cards
• A class whose core mechanic involves the player themselves cheating at the table
• Abilities that manipulate how many cards you can draw, hold in your hand, or play in one turn
• Enemy attacks or events that "curse" you with bad cards that get shuffled into your deck
• Balancing the use of cards with temporarily spending stat points to create risk / reward

It goes on and on. If you're going to implement cards as a system, doesn't it make sense to lean into ways that the concept of what's playing out in the game can translate into impactful mechanics?

The number one problem after gathering feedback here and speaking with other people is this: "I want to use my best move but it's stuck in my deck."

I can create a narrative reason for why your access to known moves is limited, though I think it'll feel contrived no matter what. There's plenty of mechanics that allow you to mitigate or outright deny the RNG of drawing cards (especially if you have cards that allow you to "search" your deck or "scry" the top X cards to pluck out the one you want then reshuffle), and it seems that there's a potential happy medium where you give players some agency back without defeating the purpose that is Your Hand Is Different Every Turn.

Edit: The reason for limitation that I'm leaning towards is "fury of combat" - in combat you don't take in all important information at once, your perception is limited. The cards in your hand are the things that you are aware in the heat of the moment that you can do. Players have a bird's eye view that ironically doesn't reflect simulated combat.

 

[Pobman]

Hi! First post here.

Imagine that in combat, you have very few standard actions. A Standard Attack is a roll plus a stat on your character sheet. Other than that, you can maneuver, you can run, you can try to save dying party members. Everything else is a card drawn from your deck.

Cards drawn from your deck are built off of everything that makes up your character, including:

• class
• types of weapons / magic
• the actual equipment
• events that have happened to you
• your character goals
• standard things that everyone gets, like drawing more cards, healing your stats, or a "Gambit" in which you describe a cockamamie action DnD-style with higher risk/reward ceilings.

The number one problem that I personally have with DnD is how often you end up doing the same thing. Eldritch Blast. Attack the enemy four times. Rage. My hypothesis is that a deckbuilding system achieves the following:

• Emphasizes class fantasy: All of your cards synergize, center around a conceptual theme reinforced by mechanics, and allow you to do things that nobody else can do.
• Prevents stagnant combat: The best option is not always obvious. Sometimes you have a bad hand. Sometimes you have a good one, but have to choose between cards.
• Directly builds your character through play: Get rewarded with new cards as you defeat powerful enemies and experience events in the campaign. Get cursed with bad cards that you can't remove when bad things happen.

What are the cons?

• Reduced player agency: You can only do what's in your hand, plus some boring necessary stuff.
• Material overhead: Cards are expensive.
• Ease of cheating: Cards can be marked, snuck into a hand, snuck out of a deck. (I wouldn't worry too much about this, and in fact I'm thinking of drafting a class where literally cheating is the core mechanic).

Does anything like this exist? Does it sound like fun?

As an avid board gamer and lapsed RPGer, I have been wondering recently where the RPGs are that use board game mechanisms like deck building, worker placement etc. So I am glad I saw your post.

Out of all of the board game mechanisms, I think Deck Building would be the most suitable for RPGs, as the arc of Deck Building can be similar to the Hero's Journey as No Pun Included describe in this video. There is also the obvious equivalency that most RPGs have some type of levelling up and Deck Building by its very nature is a constant progression of improvement.

Feel free to PM me if you make any progress with this.