Dungeon-crawl combat system without a home

[Harlequin]

This was inspired by this thread, and if Timfire wants it, it's his.  I'm unlikely to ever go anywhere with it, myself, but figured it was neat enough to share.  It's different enough from his topic, though, not to mention long enough, that I've put it here and left just a cross-ref in that thread.

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Okay, this is totally out of left field, but it's an idea and it's free, and it sure doesn't sound like I'd be disrupting something well-formed by suggesting it. :)  Talking about card-based task-resolutions (with the assumption, "cards won't suit a system with really high points of contact, that is, many resolution events") sparks a thought.  How about stealing a thought from James Ernest?

Anybody ever played Falling?  Or Brawl, but I much prefer Falling, myself.  It's a quickie little card game - "Playing time: 45s" - which in turn owes some credit to more old-fashioned games like Armadillo or Speed.  It's a real-time card game, which means that someone (the player, in Brawl or Speed; the dealer/GM, in Falling) deals cards off of a deck as fast as they can manage to do so, and the fun is dealing with it as it comes (and inevitably outpaces you).  Falling, in particular, I find elegant; the bottom of the 60ish card deck is filled with "Ground" cards, and when you get dealt a Ground, you're dead.  Last guy to hit the ground, wins.  The play of the other cards (like Skip - miss a turn - and Hit - deal this guy double) makes it not totally random.

Similarly, Light Speed (also a Cheapass production) does a lovely job of "play it as fast as you can draw it" combined with a positional mechanic... the cards show spaceships with lasers coming off of them and shields to block incoming beams.  You draw and place from your own deck, as fast as you can, placing in any non-overlapping location on the table surface.  Then once the last guy plays his last ship, everybody else stops (so speed matters) and the ships all fire, in a predetermined order which is basically smallest-ship-first.  You use a ruler or string to extend the line of a laser from on the card, out until it hits something - a shield, ship, or the single asteroid - and resolve the hit.  Very, very simple, and tremendous fun.

And, it seems to me, hugely adaptable to a dungeon-crawl.  If I did it with custom cards, I'd probably make sets of cards showing the archetypes in various poses.  The "Fighter" stack shows him from above, sword pointed one way (with a "reach" number in inches, perhaps), shield another, in a variety of poses.  The "Archer" is similar without the shield but with better range.  If you designated peoples' (and critters') blind arcs - say, a black line around the card border, anything incoming through this line - then the "Thief" gets a variant on the same thing, with damage that differs depending on which way it's incoming.  The "Mage" gets some cards which have an arc of attack (everthing from this line through this line, within range X), some with a defensive spell, maybe even a card which doesn't show the mage at all, just his Fireball burst (which is like any character except you can't hurt it, it attacks many directions, and it doesn't replace the Mage card when played, it's added as a new feature of the table).  If you need to balance this out, it can't be played with "Mage casting another spell" as the visible Mage card, limiting your tactical options considerably.  Cleric healing, monster summoning, all easy on the same model.  Ranger as archer/fighter, too, to think of it - some cards show the bow, some show the sword, and so forth.

Give everyone a deck of a dozen cards.  No two are quite identical (although the Fighter's deck is a lot more consistent than the Mage's).  In real time, players reveal top card, and either (a) discard it, or (b) remove from the table the card showing their current image, and place the newly drawn one.  (I'd say no movement restrictions - it can go anywhere - simply because it makes it more fast and furious.  A more tactical game would result if, usually, the new card had to [say] touch but not fully overlap the old one, then hold down the new and remove the old.  Then some cards (reading, say, "Mobility") would get the privilege of being placed anywhere you liked.

Meanwhile, the GM (plus perhaps an assistant - that would be really useful) places from a similar deck of critters.  If I had the budget, I'd make "generic humanoid" cards with anonymous torsos/blades/shields, and then print a sheet of stickers: orc heads from above, skeleton heads (with hooded robe, hood back) from above, bandit heads from above, and so forth.  A Dragon deck would be all different dragon parts with lots of 'shields' and hurty bits.  If either party is surprised, they play down an appropriate set of representative cards first - this is a disadvantage because you've got no targets, the best you can do is set up back-to-back.  Otherwise just set up with nobody hitting anybody, yet.

GM needs some advantages to compensate for his being only one guy (plus perhaps an assistant) and having only two hands.  Probably this comes in a couple of forms.  One, sometimes it's numbers.  Maybe some of the generic cards say "New" on them as a keyword.  That is, this is not an old orc moving... it's a new orc you hadn't noticed.  Or maybe he can play any of them as "New" but this allows any player to say "Kill" and remove whatever orc they're currently aimed at. Bigger single foes, like Ogres, just have lots of HP.  You've got to all get your shots into place and avoid their wide-arc, high-damage clubs.  And so on.

Play goes until somebody's deck runs out, and then instantly stops.  Obviously the PCs can call "Wait! No!" to each other, but the GM won't wait while they sort themselves out.  Then take that as a snapshot of combat.  Go across the board and everywhere a sword is pointed and in range, it hurts a target.  Friendly or not... LightSpeed is notorious for friendly fire, and it balances out the advantage of quick play very well.  That's a round.  Reshuffle (perhaps not including any dead "New" keywords, to prevent looping), repeat.

There's lots one could do, with a system like this.  The stickers thing, for example... a magic sword is a sticker (or more than one) which goes over the sword icon, improving its arc, or range, or damage.  One sticker means magic which only kicks in once in a while, seen as a burst of flame or simply as magic which still leaves most of the wielding to you.  A full set of stickers (a dozen identical ones) would presumably have lesser bonuses and represent an "always active" enchantment.  Bows, daggers (for thieves), easy.  Magic boots add the "Mobility" or "Dodge -N" keywords to the card, next to a little boot icon.  Armour obviously adds defensive (shield/parry) borders where they didn't exist before.  New spells would be cards in their own right, but empowering the mage to cast more quickly/easily by adding needed icons to his cards [and thus not needing to dig for card sequences like "casting(fire), discard, discard, fireball!" quite as often].  You could build a whole game on that alone.  [Replacement cards would also work, yes.  Stickers are just appealing.]

Whew.  Talk about a design springing full-fledged into one's mind!

I'm not really looking for input, here, so much as providing this and leaving the thread open for discussion if Timfire or anyone else wants to pursue it.

- Eric