Idea for a new game (no working title yet)

[Phillip]

This will be the first time I have posted an actual idea for a game here on the Forge.  Here is a basic outline of what I have in mind:

Concept:  If you know how to do something, you can ALWAYS more or less succeed, but with success comes negative consequences.  All you can do is work a little harder to minimize what might go wrong.  The story is driven by conflicts and challenges that arise.

Genre:  The system would be 'universal', but tailored to fit the desired genre by changing the Realms

Mechanics:  A standard deck of 52 cards is used for resolution.  Character aspects are divided into Realms (for lack of a better term); the Realms are what determines which genre you are playing in.  Each Realm is assigned a suit in the deck; card values are not important (except for determing Ceiling; see below).  Each player will have a hand of cards.

Conflict Resolution:  A conflict will apply to one of the four Realms.  The players will play from zero to four cards with suits matching that Realm.  The Narrator will draw a number of cards inverse to the number played:
Cards Played/Narrator Draw
0/5
1/4
2/3
3/2
4/1
Any cards that come up with a suit in that Realm represent a negative consequence; the number of matching suits determines the severity.  The Narrator will keep the draw secret from the player.

The trade-off is that the player can conserve suits matching his Realm by playing low sets, but he can expect the potential of more severe consequences; or he can play more cards and lessen the potential severity, but risks running out of cards of that suit.  

Characters:  Characters would be defined by one of the four Realms, and a Specialty within that Realm.  Players can only play a maximum of 1 card outside of their main Realm.  A Specialty subtracts one from the Narrator draw if the conflict involves his Specialty (and of course is in the correct Realm); therefore someone playing 4 cards with a Specialty has no chance of failure in such cases.  

Redrawing Cards:  This is where I am stumped; there needs to be an attribute or mechanic for determining when / how many cards are redrawn.

Ceiling:  The Narrator can flip over a card and use the value to put a ceiling on the number of cards to be played in the Realm for that suit, perhaps by dividing the value by four and rouding up.  A King could mean that NO cards can be played for that Realm.  Specialties would still apply in any case.

Character vs. Character:  Each person involved chooses how many cards to play for the Realm; the winner dictates what happens to the loser, the severity depending on the difference.

Example:  Star Trek.  The Realms can be done by uniform colors-
Diamonds- Command; Spades- Engineering and Security; Hearts- Science and Medical; Clubs- ? (only 3 colors!)

Chief O'Brian has to repair the transporter.  His main Realm is Engineering; his Specialty is Transporter Systems.  The player decides to play 2 Spades.  The Narrator draws 2 cards (3 minus 1 for the Specialty).  If no Spades come up, O'Brian is in the clear.  If 1 Spade comes up, the Narrator can decide that there is a minor but annoying incident (an alien ambassador beams up and his ceremonial garb is messed up).  If 2 Spades come up, a transporter accident occurs (Commander Ryker has a duplicate created).

Questions:  How do you determine how big the hand size should be?  When and how many cards are redrawn?  

What do you think?

[Phillip]

I have been thinking further on this- maybe the resolution system should be changed, to make it more story-driven.  It may only work for soap opera-type stories or Wurthering Heights material, but here you go.  The Narrator would draw based on the cards played, but he would draw one extra card to determine which Realm the complication applied to.  For example:  Hearts- Relationships; Spades- Fortune.  Lord William Chatsworth III wants to seduce Lady Diana Thorne-Smythe.  This is in the Relationships Realm.  Lord Chatsworth plays 2 Hearts.  The narrator draws a Realm card, then 3 cards to determine the severity of the complication.  The Severity draw is 2 Hearts and 1 Spade.  If the Realm card is a Heart, then the Narrator could say that Lady Thorne-Smythe's jealous husband confronts Lord Chatsworth (the 2 Hearts).  A Spade could mean a minor financial setback for Lord Chatsworth (the one Spade)- maybe he has to give the Lady a small gift to prove his affection.

This could be applied to other genres, but it would be more difficult to define the Realms to determine a consequence from a different Realm than the one in use for the conflict.  Perhaps in the Star Trek example, the Realms would have to be changed to something like this:  Hearts- Relationships with the other crewmembers; Spades- Career (your function on the ship).  In the Star Trek example, O'Brian could suffer in the Hearts Realm while performing the transporter repairs in the Spades Realm (perhaps Keiko becomes jealous that he is neglecting her, or he could have a rival for his position, or Ryker gives him a negative evaluation).

[Mike Holmes]

There was an idea a little like this, IIRC, a ways back. Instead of Realms, the term used was Arenas. Anyone remember what I'm talking about?

Mike

[ZeOtter]

Hi Phillip, I like this idea I always like playing with cards.  I mechanics are simple and easy to follow, I had a bit of a hard time following you at first but when I read the Star Trek example it all fell into place.  

As far as your question on hand size goes, I would build that into your character creation process?  When players build their characters they could buy their hand size as part of the process.  I would put a cap of this for beginning characters at 7.  Why 7 you ask?  That gives the player 1 chance to play all 4 cards in a test.  It makes them have to stop and think on how to spend their cards and at the same time gives them some room to maneuver.

On the question of how they replenish their hands, I would choose to base it on their successes.  Something like every successful test gets them 1 or 2 cards.  

So if they start with 7 cards they spend 4 and get a pretty good chance at a automatic success, that will get them lets say 1 card.  They now have 4 cards left in their hand, which still gives a really good shot at their next test but if they use all 4 again are going to only have 1 after that.

Anyway that is my thoughts on the matter, good luck with the design and feel free to ask me any other questions.

[pete_darby]

Dammit! Now I can't get straight in my head what comes from this system I've been working on, and your one!

I think my problem is mostly that you've expressed in the mechanics for creation of conflicts pretty much exactly what I wanted to put down, but couldn't express in writing type words which come out onto the screen thing.

In other words: I like this, will be using it in my design, and will give you proper respect should I ever get my game into publishable form.

[Phillip]

Cool.  Just mention my name in the design notes.  You may want to wait if someone responds about Mike's question, because he is saying that someone posted a similar idea.  
I will give my game a writeup, and maybe we can compare the final results for more ideas.

[Bill Logan]

My opinions:

I like this a great deal.  Have you ever seen Avery Business Cards?  It would be really cool (and very professional-looking) if a genre included a set of cards designed to match the realms of that genre.   Why be limited to four realms and why a standard playing deck?  Why not have a Star Trek deck and a Fantasy deck and ...  you get the idea.  The Avery Business Cards product is a $10.00 purchase and allows for 120 cards.  Plus you can print pretty graphics on the backsides to look really professional.  I've tried this myself in some expiramental game mechanic concepts and I like it a lot.

However, your system lacks difficulty progression.  What if the action conflict is particularly challenging?  What if it is player vs. player or player vs. NPC?  I don't particularly like the idea that the number of cards drawn by the GM is based on the number of cards drawn by the player.  I think it should start here, but should vary by complexity:

   DIFFICULTY      GM # CARDS
   Easy                     -2
   Routine                 -1
   Challenging           +0
   Complex               +1
   Difficult                 +2
   Hurculean ??         +3 or more

Character vs. Character should work as expected: each character chooses how many cards to play, each penalized by 1 card if the other is a "specialist".  But if one character is particularly disadvantaged, the other player should get to draw extra cards as shown in the DIFFICULTY tabe.

I think starting PCs should have a hand of, say, 5 cards.  Experience should increase their hand of cards (as they endure more and more life & death situations, their bag of tricks starts to increase).  I think any time they are successful at a given action, they should be allowed to draw only a single card as a reward.  This discourages playing too many cards unless the player is CERTAIN he MUST succeed, as it significantly limits him later.  GMs could then use extra card draws as incentives for characters to perform certain things.  For example: in a fantasy game, the barbarian in the group gets a free card draw each time he destroys a magic item.

What about health & damage & combat?

[Phillip]

Thanks for replying, Bill

Why be limited to four realms and why a standard playing deck? Why not have a Star Trek deck and a Fantasy deck and ... you get the idea.

Yes, you could do this.  As a matter of fact, my brother, who is an artist, is (supposed to be!) working on an idea like this, except the deck would not be geared to a particular genre (like the Archetype cards from Lon Koenig games).  The point of choosing a standard deck, however, was to have a resolution mechanic that uses readily-available materials.  Of course, nothing stops you from writing on a standard deck of cards.

However, your system lacks difficulty progression.

That was on purpose.  It is primarily supposed to be a narrativist game, totally driven by the consequences of the characters' actions.  Anyone can try almost anything- success is not important; it's the negative consequences that your action causes that matter (you are always screwed- how badly is all you don't know).

I think any time they are successful at a given action, they should be allowed to draw only a single card as a reward. This discourages playing too many cards unless the player is CERTAIN he MUST succeed, as it significantly limits him later.

Hand size and how/when you re-draw cards is what is tripping me up.  Hand size would probably be the same for all starting characters, and your suggestion about drawing on a success is similar to ZeOtter's suggestion in an earlier post.  
The fundamental mechanic is that the more cards you play, the less chance of consequences, but there needs to be some balancing factor to prevent players from playing lots of cards in a Realm.  One way might be to have a rating in each Realm, and subtract the number of Realm suits you play until you run out.  Doing this, players would re-draw each time they played.  There would need to be a way to replenish this total (like a characteristic you could 'burn', or maybe discarding cards and not re-drawing, temporarily lowering your hand size and thus your options).  You could also discard and not redraw instead of taking a complication, or to lower the intensity.  
I'm not sure that using the mechanic of tying the redraw to successes and/or doing things within motivation is a good idea- it seems to limit options too much.  With the original game premise, that you always succeed but something else goes wrong, negates tying re-draws to successes (unless the premise is changed).  Remember, a player can choose to play NO cards- he still gets the immediate task done, but he has to pray the sky doesn't fall on him as a result of Narrator draw.  I also think it should be something that limits you on the number of cards in a particular Realm.  

GMs could then use extra card draws as incentives for characters to perform certain things. For example: in a fantasy game, the barbarian in the group gets a free card draw each time he destroys a magic item.

Now I really, really like this idea.  Re-drawing when you fulfill one of your motivations.  Why didn't I think of that?  Perfect way to persuade players to play in character.  May have to amend some core assumptions to accomodate that idea.

What about health & damage & combat?

Remember, the game is about negative consequences, and is narrativist driven.  You check for the consequences and they happen, or like I said above, you can lose a card from your hand to lessen or remove them.