Generic, simple, card-based narrativist drama

[Kalandri]

The details of this game were inspired by and stolen from so many other things I can't possibly list them.

Standard GM/Player arrangement. Deck of cards (with two jokers) and some sort of counters required.

All characters have a favored suit. The suits represent themes/classes/races/species/elements/monkeys/HiggsBosons/TunaCasseroles/whatever. Depends on the game setting. Let's go with Avatar, since that's a rockin' show and the trailer for the Shalalamadingdong film adaption has recently come out:

Spades: Harmonious Air
Diamonds: Serene Water
Clubs: Strong Earth
Hearts: Intense Fire

So your character has that.

Now, your character has notes. Notes are basically any kind of contradictory statement about your character. You may have as many as you like, and change them whenever it makes sense to do so (this is character advancement).

Now for the mechanics!

Free narration with veto rules a la Wushu. Suddenly that gets boring.
Conflict time! Set the stakes if you must, but a generic "I say what happens if I win" deal should do fine.
GM says "first person to get X number of points wins."
Everyone draws a card from the deck. The GM draws a card for every player he is against and picks the highest of his hand.
Put down cards in whatever order makes sense. Highest card gets a point. All cards discarded, repeat until score is reached by someone.

Now time for the special rules:

If you draw a card that is of your favored suit, you may draw again and choose the higher card. If you draw another card of your favored suit, you can even do it AGAIN. The GM's favored suit is predetermined like the player's.

Players get a number of tokens to spend. Spending a token lets you pretend your current card is your favored suit so you can draw again. If you draw a card of your favored suit, you can draw AGAIN. Yeah lots of craziness can ensue. If you spend a token, you must somehow tie the fluff into what your favored suit represents. For example; Aang the Airbender pulled a 2 of Diamonds. Uh oh! He closes his eyes and listens to the wind... aaand BOOM relies on the wind to carry his blow... or whatever. He did something airy and harmonious so he gets to spend that token and draw again. If you'd like you can untie this from the suits and get creative with it; Luke Skywalker's favored suit represents "Jedi" but spending a token for him means he's drawing upon the dark side! Dun dun dun! You can only spend a token once per turn.

GM's can spend tokens too (and it does the same thing), but it works differently. Instead of drawing from a pool, the GM can spend an infinite number. The catch is that for every one he spends, a free token is given to the players (they get to divvy it). In-game, this represents the bad guys doing a little bit of ass-kicking, but you always know the karma comes back on them, right? GMs still can only spend one token per turn.

If your roleplayed really well, or were a good sport or had your character do something stupid but in-character or something, the GM might throw you a token for free.

So you drew a Joker? Time to pee your pants because you MUST trade your current score with another player of your choice (the GM is fair game). If you are winning, this sucks. If you're losing, this is awesome. The cards are discarded and the round is skipped. This represents something totally random happening.

So you lost but you REALLY want to win? Fine. All you have to do is risk your character's involvement in the story (usually that means death). The conflict is re-done from the beginning, only if you win, you win, and if you LOSE, you STILL win, except you die for your victory (or give up adventuring out of emoness, if that's more classy in your opinion). Hows that for drama?

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So the magic is.....

This can create a real explosive situation when coupled with the right kinds of suits. Tying the themes of the game to the mechanics has a tendency of pushing the themes into the game. Try Vince's Afraid rpg;

Lost
In Trouble
Unprepared
Alone

Now imagine someone having to spend a "Lost" token. Think of the kinds of metaphors that spring to mind. Delicious. This is more than just flavor, it's cheating.

The notes are mostly a means by which the GM can attack the player's character in the story. If I wrote something like "I love my job but it always gets me hurt" then BANG that's a string the GM can pluck in the next adventure. It's beautiful.

Combine this system with a DitV-level adventure creation tool and you have a solid genre-emulation game.

[Kalandri]

Heh, I forgot to specify exactly what kinds of questions I was looking for;

What kinds of problems do you see with the mechanics?

What kinds of things would you change?

What sorts of settings would be difficult to apply this to?

What game system does what this is trying to do, but better?

[Grimgor]

It looks kind of fun, but also kind of bulky. Depending on how many points you have in mind, if we say five, it might take quite a while to resolve a conflict and it could risk getting kind of samey. Maybe saying everybody draws two cards, if one's your focus, you add X to your total value, highest one wins (draws each draw a new card, Joker means that you take a card you can't see off someone else, who then draws a card to replace it), would be more easily resolved. I just think if you got into a fight and one Conflict is every swing, it could get really old, which brings me to: I think this would be difficult to apply to conflict heavy settings, due to the potential length of the Conflict resolution.

That being said, I like the idea of it. I once played Once Upon a Time (create a story with the cards in your hand) and it seems sort of the same. Different mechanics, of course, but the basic idea is sort of similar. I could see this being used as an improvished 'hey let's do *something* roleplayey' kind of game, of which there is not enough in this world.

[Kalandri]

For me this game rushes by fast, and I was wondering what you were talking about...

...every conflict is not one swing; every conflict is a whole encounter; guess I should have specified that

In any case, a point value between 2 and 4 makes the best pace imo.

[Grimgor]

Should perhaps have had a deck of cards handy to try it out. My concern is the extra draws, mainly. It seems like you can execute it in a more streamlined fashion through some other mechanic and I called it bulky because due to the otherwise potential fast pace of the game, it might seem flowbreaking to have some lucky nut draw four times in a row. It might seem like a small thing, but that was my concern. I think it could be faster by saying it counts as a card two higher or something like that.

[noahtrammell]

  Also, you could come up with rules for skills, etc.  For example, say a team has a character who has a skill of 1 in fighting, then the number they're trying to beat starts out 1 lower.  Maybe they can make the enemy's 1 higher, too.  Also, I could see this being really with teams coordinating to beat multiple goals.  Spending tokens/drawing more cards could represent special attacks, etc. 
  I really like this system just because it's so simple and, therefore, you can do so many things with it to give a different flavor to each conflict.  I think you really could add a lot of strategy here by layering on the rules.  Then, whoevers running the game can just pick and choose the different layers of tactics and strategies to add on, depending, for example, on whether he's doing a "Me Smash!!!" superhero game or a "Mental Battle"-style martial arts campaign.
  Do you envision publishing it as just a freebie or taking it somewhere in your own games.

[Kalandri]

I don't have any visions of publishing this lite game; it's free for anyone to use.

I do agree that the strategic options are somewhat limited to "Should I risk a token or not." People who want to think a little harder might find it too lite, and interestingly enough, all the game's freedom can be paralyzing to the uninspired.

As far as skills and such, the older conceptions of the game did have things like that. The problem was, I realized that no system based on skills could be fair; who's to say "Fighting" is equal to, say, "Use Rope" (yes that was a D&D jab ) The problem came up when I envisioned a game based on the Halo video game series; things like "Talking" and "Diplomacy" tend to take a backseat and diminish the fun.

I feel divorcing the rules from the game world was necessary. Notice that the rules only deal with themes! A hobbit gardener can defeat Sgt. Maximilian Fightmaster if he hes enough heart... you know, like in the movies.

The point being, all the rules are just manifestation of your character's theme. If your Firebender knows swordplay or boxing or calligraphy or whatever that's your deal. I can play a superheroes game with Batman and Superman and both players will have a place in the story, without one overshadowing the other because Superman happens to have a Strength Score of 18 billion.

[Kalandri]

@Grimgor: I feel things like arithmetic slow games down far more bracingly than the "WTF HE DREW ANOTHER ONE LOL" moments

[noahtrammell]

  I can see this working either for a) really really good roleplayers who are more focused on story than tactics OR b) people who have little roleplaying experience.  It seems like it could have that addictive quality of "War" and could serve as a good intro to gaming without all the rules.  I don't know how I'm going to use this, but I'm definently keeping it in mind for a quick pick-up game between, say, mages.

[Kalandri]

^ Funny how it hits the two extremes there; people with no roleplaying experience, and people who are super good at rp.

I definitely see that in the game; I do not however see an elegant way of nailing the middle ground.

[Bill_White]

Think about this: instead of free narration up to the conflict point, use a card draw to generate situation by inspiring narration. You can easily tie this to a PC's notes, perhaps by rewarding players with the in-game currency when they tie their notes into the current situation.

[Kalandri]

^ I.... really like that idea. Thanks!