The Group Deck

[Jason Morningstar]

Hey all,

I was thinking about an effective and low maintenance way to simulate factors that would impact a collective group of player characters, like hunger or illness.  This led to some cogitation on the nature of individual attributes in a group setting.  Attributes (strength, agility, &c) are often called on in play to resolve specific physical challenges most of the time.  Why do they have to be static?  Assuming every character is reasonably competent, why not have them fluctuate – allowing characters to have an off day or be totally in the zone.  This can provide dramatic complications and successes for characters who, were these factors static, could count on steady success or failure, session after session.

The solution I came up with is to use a "group deck" of cards that players use to collectively form their characters current state of being.  They choose which cards to take, and the cards change from session to session.

Two cool added benefits – your entire "character sheet" is six cards, and each of those cards has additional fun stuff for your character to do printed on it – an action for you to incorporate into the session.

So imagine a card:  It has a number on it (from 2 to 5) and some printed text like "JUST KEEP POUNDING ON IT – repair or maintain a balky piece of technology" or "LOOK WHAT I FOUND – scrounge up a valuable or useful item" – hooks for the player to do something special in play if they wish.

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Premise:  As global civilization collapses, you must hold on to what you can.  Will you survive?  More importantly, can you build a community that makes surviving worthwhile?  

Setting:  The modern world, reworked by five billion dead and the complete destruction of centralized authority.  

Character creation:  Players choose three broad skills to define their character.  These skills, along with three attributes, will vary in effectiveness from session to session based on the cards the player chooses from the group deck to represent them.  The cards available in the group deck will ebb and flow based on the fortunes of the group it represents.  

Conflict resolution:  Roll 2d6 versus the current card values of the relevant skill or attribute, doubled.  Card values are 2-5, so basic success varies from 17% to 91%.  To apply a skill you do not have, roll against the most relevant attribute but do not double it.  

Rewards and penalties:  Based on the group deck – as the group gains confidence and skill, the GM grows the deck, offering a wider array of choices and higher point cards.  If the group is swept by some illness or is starving, fewer cards mean lower stats and fewer options.  

Injury:  When a character is injured, the damage is noted in number of cards.  The player must discard that many cards and replace them from the (finite) group deck, which will result in lower value attributes or skills.  Eventually somebody will need to draw a card and there will be none left.  I'm thinking this signals character death, but read on...

* * *

My initial question relates to damage and injury, which seems broken right now.  Since it is a collective mechanism, people will die like flies when the cards run out.  

How can I stick to this card-swapping mechanic and make damage and injury sensible?  My goal here is no paper, no record-keeping, and a system that reflects personal injury as well as its overall impact on group performance.  I think the way I set it up above is broken, so I'm looking for other ideas.  

My rules so far are here, if you'd like more detail:  http://www.meekmok.com/sassy/projects/the_group_deck_v1.txt

Thanks for your input and help!

--Jason

[greedo1379]

Assuming every character is reasonably competent, why not have them fluctuate – allowing characters to have an off day or be totally in the zone. This can provide dramatic complications and successes for characters who, were these factors static, could count on steady success or failure, session after session.

I read this and right away thought "Isn't that what you are using the dice for?"  I dunno, take that how you will.

I do like the idea of using cards to represent damage and damage resulting in decreasing abilities.  

What about... what do you call 'em... contested conflicts?  Like an arm wrestling match or something.  You wouldn't want player A to just take a Strength test.  You would want both of the contestants to do it.  Or have some effect anyway.

When taking damage, would the players get to choose what card they discard and what card they get to replace it with?  Can they discard a skill and replace it with a completely different one?  So Timmy the Paramedic gets knifed.  The player discards the Paramedic 4 card and replaces it with Super Commando 5...

What if your players decide to start out with super wussy characters and keep the good cards in the deck for when they start getting beat on?  (Although that could be kinda cool too.  Like watching a Rocky movie or something.)

I don't think you have that bad a system really.  You also need to include some mechanic to shuffle discarded cards back into the deck.  That would be the medic or cleric first aid type action.  It does link all the players into a closely knit group though because if one fails they all fail basically.  Kinda cool I think.

[Jason Morningstar]

Thanks for your comments.

What about... what do you call 'em... contested conflicts?

Each participant rolls; best roll wins.  GM will need to assign values to NPCs, obviously.  That's my take on it - not sure it needs to be more complicated than that, although I agree it should be explicit.

When taking damage, would the players get to choose what card they discard and what card they get to replace it with?  Can they discard a skill and replace it with a completely different one?

Yes, player gets to decide which card to discard and re-allocate (that's my initial idea, anyway).  Skills are defined at character generation and can't be changed, although their value can through the card loss mechanic.  Maybe only attributes should be effected by damage and injury - I'm open to suggestions.