Card Based RPGs

Bump for interest? I've found at least two systems to add to my list: No Dice pure roleplaying system and Cards and Quests. Although the latter might only be useful for looking at conflict resolution. Are card based RPGs not a thing on this board?

>>48598292
They are few and not very popular. Cards are a bit more fiddly than dice.

John Wick's "Eldritch High" uses a mechanic where each player has their own deck which they draw from in place of dice rolling and collect cards to spend later, but its built around cards as spellcasting in a high magic setting. It might give you a place to start, though.

>>48598809
Thanks, I'll add it to my list.

>>48598605
That's why I'm trying to find as many systems as possible. I was reading through the Tokyo Nova ruleset and I think that those rules are pretty solid despite using a deck of cards. I think the idea has merits but I only see stuff like Deadlands using poker hands and such when I started looking for other systems.

>>48597340
Dark Souls board game

Kingdom Death: Monster

Hand of Fate (video game)

Runescape card game (video game)

they use their own unique cards, but the methods by which they resolve should give you ideas on how you want to work with regular playing cards.

>>48597340

http://www.ganakagok.com/

To explain a little bit about the setting, the manga takes place in a place called the Borderlands which is a dilapidated version of modern Tokyo. People are transported there after witnessing a massive firework go off however people are always being sent there so it's not like people showed up all at once.

Denizens of the Borderlands must compete in death games in order to extend their visas. If there visa runs out they are killed by a laser that is fired from above the clouds. Trying to leave the Tokyo area by land or sea nets a similar result. The only areas that are supplied with power are places called Venues which are where the death games take place. Once a game becomes active the venue is sealed off by invisible lasers until the event is completed.

Games are broken up into 4 categories ; Hearts, Clubs, Spades, and Diamonds.
Hearts represents Psychological challenges (putting your life in your own hands), Clubs represent Interpersonal challenges and emphasize teamwork, Spades are physical or stamina challenges, and Diamonds are intelligence challenges (usually logic puzzles, quiz style events, or room escape puzzles). Obviously all these type of events are lethal but survival nets you an extension on your visa. Games are also ranked on difficulty, to for example the 4 of Spades is a game of "tag" in an apartment complex with the players going against an uzi weilding, horse masked figure. But the 7 of Spades is setup as an endurance run where players have to survive a 10km stretch of subway tunnel with numerous challenges including tigers, flooding and crocodiles, intense cold, and intense heat. Some type of power is at play here because events can incorporate some wild things but whoever is running these games is not known to anyone yet.
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>>48600845
>>48601504
Thanks adding it to the list. I'm looking for systems that use a standard playing card deck but finding how other systems use cards will help out for sure.

>>48602045
I had planned to use dread since I was probably only going to get one-shots out of this kind of setting and stats don't really seem to matter. but it was expressed to me to find a more longterm solution so this could become a kind of pickup game for my group. That and recent chapters have characters utilizing a more diverse range of skills like archery and combat skills so finding a system that doesn't abstract them too much would help.

I could just use my go-to GURPS but like I said, i want to use the card aesthetic to tie into the main series.

>>48602061
I believe Deadlands has a card resolution option. Fate does, but I think it uses a special deck. I wonder why there is no game using the Major Arcana.

Dead of Night might help you out. It's as deadly as Dread, but not as random. Everything boils down to survival points which serve as health, sanity, Fate points, and PvP bidding war currency. The characters have some at first, but they run out quickly. Unlike Dread they run out about equally fast for all players.

If you want to give your PCs powers then Don't Rest Your Head is definitely worth a look. It also builds a downward spiral where players doom their characters, but it's more personal. The characters have 2 kinds of powers, one mundane, one reality changing. The game uses Discipline, Exhaustion, Madness, and Pain as dimensions a scene can develop in. Those would have to be modded to fit your Hunger Games.

>>48604317
>Dead of Night
>Don't Rest Your Head
This sounds right up my alley for what I want to do. Having a slow burn for characters as an event goes on would make for interesting scenarios. Plus there is a heavy element of people being self interested that runs through these types of stories. Thanks.

>>48605019
No cards though, sorry.

>>48605041
That is fine. The card are a bit of a novelty right now but if I can make or find a system that has good enough conflict resolution mechanics that uses them I will go ahead and integrate them on to whatever other systems I find. But I am going for a more resource for survival oriented feel and the two systems you recommended are very good starting point for that.

>>48605019
What DRYH does exceptionally well is character focus. Each character is made by answering 5 questions which directly relate to the dramatic tension and trajectory of the personality. Then each scene is centered on one character, and is entirely derived from the answers to those questions. The others can add a die to the pool at best.

The mechanical undercarriage is brilliant and simple, yet delivers a complex dynamic. The players raise their bad stats to get more dice and more power. But they risk eventually peaking out and losing control. In DRYH that means falling asleep which implies you have no protection and are basically dead if not worse.

The GM doesn't decide what happens, the dice do. It gets random and you have to think fast. All the GM does is give the dice result a story context and flesh out ideas from the character sheet of the player.

Then there's an economy of coins which come from pain dominating in an unmodified roll, then the GM gets to use them to skew other rolls, at which points the player get them to recuperate with. It's really well made.

The setting from DRYH is functional but nothing special. It tethers on the edge of hilarity with comic book parody villains, but that's just a generic leg up into improvising adventures. The license of the Mad City, a mirror world of all urban history, dadaistically blending and contrasting architecture and reality from different eras and continents, is what really makes it great. Every nightmare who lives there was a hero just like the PCs once. Then Madness won them over, and now they are terrible monsters, often innocuous but always deadly. In fact the powers splat serves as a monster guide, simply use the last paragraph "What it turns you into" as a starting point.

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias episode 81 discusses Dead of Night in more detail.

>>48605444
I dig the question driven character creation. It's also why I was looking at dread for a stats free way to generate characters and backstory. Everything else sounded interesting as well. I will give the podcast a listen.

>>48606045
The podcast is about Dead of Night though.

While the questions in Dread are mainly a device to connect the player with the character and make them take ownership in an emotionally charged way, mechanically they only serve as skills and can lower the number of blocks to draw if the answer includes competence in a skill needed.

In DRYH the questions do much more. For one they are formulated exactly and not up for the GM to change. They lay out not only the character, but every scene that character will play. They are very meta and not all players manage to get into that.

>>48606314
>The podcast is about Dead of Night though.
That's what i was implying. never heard about it before today.

>>48609169
Context?

>>48604317
>Everything boils down to survival points
FInished the podcast and a couple of reviews. This would be an interesting way to have characters slowly wear down for sure. And since the types of games can be either physical, psychological, or mental in nature it works to have a flexible economy for "hit points" This was a great recommendation.

Forgot to mention as well that the story does put people into "specialty" categories. Basically whatever type of game they are best at is what is listed on their names. It's pretty obvious, the fighters are spades, thinkers are Diamonds, and people with strong desires to live get hearts, Clubs are the well rounded ones. I plan to incorporate that as well maybe with skills or with bonuses to rolls/cards.