Use of cards with Sorcerer rolling scheme...

[DevP]

Supposing I wanted to use my Tarot cards instead of pools of dice; the cards are easily ranked, so that is easy enough. However, Since the die size can effectively be a d78 (since all the cards can be ranked), that gives larger scores the definitive edge, to say the least.

Supposing I wanted to use a Tarot deck for Sorcerer resolution; does anyone have modification to suggest that might "soften" this whole d78 effect?

[sirogit]

Personally, I've never felt the size of the dice making a really big difference... noticable, sure, but the effect lessens and lessens the bigger the dice number gets, I'd wager d78's aren't all that mechanicaly different from playing with d20's. So I'd say you really could just keep with it.

If you wanted to alter them, don't minor arcana tarot cards have a number 1-10 ala playing cards? You could use just them.

[Trevis Martin]

I'd thought of useing regular playing cards for the game.  I thought it might be fun (though I enjoy the clatter of crazily rolling platonic solids as much as the next guy.)

I would suggest using the suits as 1-14 (Ace  through King)f with no suit ranking over another. And then you would have the trumps which go up to 22.  Just like the Tarocci game the trumps could override the regular suit cards.  Or alternitivly you could say that the player can use trumps for some kinds of special effects or something. Or you can count the major arcana exacltiy like the regular suit cards except for arcana 15 -22 would be unmatchable by anything except a higher arcana.  That shouldn't happen all that often though I don't have the head for the figures.

regards,

Trevis

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Cards as RPG mechanics are woefully underdeveloped, and lately I've been giving a lot of thought to that. But in this case, the two main advantages of cards are not actually useful for Sorcerer. Those advantages are:

a) changing probabilities for drawing as cards are removed by prior draws

b) hidden options for applying to a given situation, from a multiple draw (i.e. a "hand")

The big limitation on using cards in Sorcerer is that the full deck needs to be re-shuffled for each and every draw. The game mechanics are predicated on the idea that a roll of (say) 5d10 is what it is, at all times. So one could not draw from a deck reduced by previous draws and maintain the integrity of the game mechanics.

The first part of this limitation is a matter of handling time: put cards back, re-shuffle, re-draw. I think that the dice are faster, but this part of the cards-limitation is probably not overwhelming.

The second part of the limitation is more troublesome - multiple characters in a complex conflict. As shown by Jesse's recent thread, it may take time to re-adjust one's RPG-training to a Sorcerer-esque dice management situation. Frankly, I consider my approach to complex conflict to be easier and more content-rich than any existing RPG system, especially for purposes of play most usually associated with Sorcerer. To preserve the features I'm thinking of (and have tried to explain in Jesse's threads), you'd have to have a ton of decks around, from which each PC and NPC draws individually per deck. That strikes me as a little difficult.

Best,
Ron

[DevP]

The big limitation on using cards in Sorcerer is that the full deck needs to be re-shuffled for each and every draw. The game mechanics are predicated on the idea that a roll of (say) 5d10 is what it is, at all times. So one could not draw from a deck reduced by previous draws and maintain the integrity of the game mechanics.

How critically do we risk fundamentally screwing up the system? Needing to reshuffle frequently would of course add to the handling time. (I can shuffle playing cards pretty quickly, but Tarot cards, less so.) If I was to reshuffle roughly whenever half the deck had been used (or otherwise, whenever convenient), is there some fundamental gamebreaking that would occur?

The second part of the limitation is more troublesome - multiple characters in a complex conflict...

I was actually thinking about Sorcerer's conflict resolution in regards to the cards, believe it or not. Rather than buy more dice, I envisioned simply drawing players' die pools and laying them out on the table from a single deck, and it seemed a very easy/intuitive way of getting it done. The problem, of course, is that I was being very callous about the effect this had on the deck probabilities.

Supposing I lowered the effective "die size" (i.e. if I ignore suits and even the superior value of trumps, then the tarot deck is essentially a generator of d10s rather than d78s); another way to do it would be to try to make this essentially a d5 system, where what matters is suit/trump-ness. Would this mitigate the distortion effect somewhat?

[GreatWolf]

The problem to which Ron is alluding is that cards are not the same as dice, when it comes to generating numbers.  Shannon Appelcline has called cards an "arbitrary" method, versus dice which are "random".  The reason for this is that when a result is used up (e.g. a card is drawn), then that value is no longer available to anyone until the deck is reshuffled.

Here's the oversimple example.  We're using a common deck and reshuffling every time that the Mage or Devil are drawn.  (Seems appropriate, given the game....)  We're also going to give the Major Arcana cards their numeric value.  The deck has just been shuffled and we're ready to draw.  My character has to make a Humanity check (Humanity 5), so I draw 5 cards.  I draw the 10 of Wands, the 10 of Cups, the 10 of Swords, the 10 of Coins, and the Fool.  ("Five of a kind!" I crow while everyone else groans.)  Now you (as the GM) need to draw 5 cards.  But all the 10s are gone!  Unless you draw a Court card or Major Arcana card with a value of 11 or better, you won't be able to beat me.  In fact, you need to draw a Major Arcana card with a value of 11 or higher.  That means that you have only an 27/73 (37.0%) chance of beating me.*

Now, let's say that we were actually rolling d78s.  If I had rolled 10,10,10,10,1 (the closest approximation of my card draw), then you would have to roll 11 or better on at least one die.  This means that you have a 68/78 (87.2%) chance of beating me.  This is because the values (1-78) are available to each die that you are rolling.

The problem only gets worse as we go on.  Let's say that you drew 5 of Wands, 7 of Wands, 9 of Coins, 3 of Swords, and the Emperor.  So I pass my Humanity check.

Now I'm going to try to do something physical, like hold the door shut against the demon that is chasing me down the hall.  I end up drawing 4 cards and you (the GM) end up drawing 6 cards.  I draw the King of Cups (13), the 3 of Coins,  the 6 of Swords, and Gaia (22).  Uh oh.  You are now officially screwed.  There is no way for you to beat me.  None at all.  Why?  Because Gaia is the single highest card in the deck, using our scheme.  All you can hope to do is limit me to one victory.  My success is assured.

So, what are your chances of holding me to one victory?  Well, you will need to draw a Major Arcana card with a value of 14 or more (of which there are 7 left) or another King card (of which 3 remain).  So, your chances of getting the card that you need are 10/64 (15.3%)  And if you don't draw the Mage or the Devil, then you'll have the same problem when someone draws Judgment (and then the Sun, and then the Moon, and so on) until you shuffle.

As you can see, the probabilities of a card-based system can become easily skewed.  By using a card-based system, you are actually reducing the chaos and randomness that was built into the Sorcerer system.  This would be the same, even if you reduced the effect to a d10 generator.  You'd have to strip out all the Court Cards and Major Arcana cards above 10 to get that to work, and you'd still be messing with the probabilities.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

*These probabilities aren't precisely right.  The denominator actually starts at 78 for the first draw, then it decreases by one each time another card is drawn.  Thus, calculating the probabilities of a card-based system can be a little like shooting at a moving target.

[Ben Lehman]

Note: I have not taken the time to run the math on this.

Yes, using cards for Sorcerer gives you a different probability curve on the "roll" but, honestly, it isn't *that* important -- high scores still be low scores, most of the time.  If it's worth the flavor, it is not a huge cost on the mechanics.

Some of the tilting can be avoided by a double or triple deck.

My recommendation, however, is not to use the Tarot as a d72.  I would use it as a d14, counting suit cards at face value, which makes the math a little more controllable and allows for top card ties, which is fun, at least.

Plus, it opens up the Majors for some fun.

Perhaps the most interesting thing to do with the Majors is have them, effectively, be zeroes, but also to have their appearance influence the outcome of events in some way.  (So, say, you hit him, but you drew the Fool, so you succeed by dumb luck, or whatever.)

Another thing is to value the Majors at 0-26, which would give lower scores a much greater chance of beating higher scores, and make for a very interesting probability curve.

yrs--
--Ben

[DevP]

Hey Seth. Although I understood the general effect of using cards, I was skeptical of the actual impact. Your example made clear the more real danger. In particular, I'd worry about the cards making the game less random, just in the name of using a prop I hapen to like.

I *definitely* should not use the deck as any sort of d78, that much is clear. Indeed, it seems that the whole skewed-probabilities problem is inverse to the not-enough-dice-sides problem. The most reasonable scheme I've thought up is: (ranked from lowest to highest)

1-13 of Coins (11,12,13 = Page, Knight, Queen)
1-13 of Cups
1-13 of Swords
1-13 of Staves
the 4 Kings and the Low Trumps (13-21)
the High Trumps (0-12)

That allows for six choices. I feel that removing one of 13 cards won't *excessively* warp the probabilities, but conversely there will be a lot more ties (owing to this being essentially a six-sided die). I still feel that running on a d6 or d5 is still workable for Sorcerer, at the expense of more ties; am I right?

[Ron Edwards]

Wow, what a productive discussion. Dev, I think what you've got will, as they say, be good enough for government work. If you follow Ben's Everway-esque suggestion of using cards' image-content to influence narration (I suggest "when you feel like it" as a modifier), then this system looks do-able.

Speaking for myself, the handling time might still be a little high, and I really wonder about complex conflict situations, with four to eight characters all drawing at once. But the proof always comes in play, and I'd be interested to see how this or a similar system works out for you.

Best,
Ron

[Lxndr]

Plus, it opens up the Majors for some fun.

Perhaps the most interesting thing to do with the Majors is have them, effectively, be zeroes, but also to have their appearance influence the outcome of events in some way.  (So, say, you hit him, but you drew the Fool, so you succeed by dumb luck, or whatever.)

Now this sounds REALLY interesting.  I'd almost say "if you draw a major, it influences the action, but doesn't COUNT as one of your cards."  So if you've rolling your 3 Stamina, and you draw 10, Wheel of Fortune, 7, then you get to draw one more card, 'cause the Wheel don't count.

I agree that the 1d14 + Special would be an interesting way to handle the game.  I'd love to see the math done for this particular variation.  It'd also make Player vs. multiple NPCs more interesting if the GM had only one deck to split between his NPCs.

(Just to mix things up a bit, let's declare the following:  you reshuffle the deck whenever the Wheel is drawn, even if it's in the middle of a draw.)

[xiombarg]

I agree that the 1d14 + Special would be an interesting way to handle the game.  I'd love to see the math done for this particular variation.  It'd also make Player vs. multiple NPCs more interesting if the GM had only one deck to split between his NPCs.

I agree with that. In fact, to see an example of using the Tarot this way, check out my own Card Captors Cabal:

http://ivanhoeunbound.com/ccc.html

The above has some examples of the sort of "effects" you could map onto the Major Arcana. (And some ideas for the Court Cards, too.)

In fact, you could use a similar "trump" scheme as Card Captors Cabal if you wanted -- map each suit onto one of the attributes. If you're "rolling" that attribute and draw the correct suit, perhaps it counts as a 15 -- which makes it a 1d15 with a tendency toward high rolls. Other ways of handling the "trump suit" are possible.

If you throw out the "special" card thing and just view the Majors as varying in a 0-21 range, you could do a mapping like so:

Stamina - Coins
Will - Wands
Lore - Swords
Cover - Cups
Humanity - Major Arcana

If you do a mapping like that, you can use it to flatten out the curve somehow. Perhaps if you draw a card that's "out of suit" then it counts as a 5, or 8 less than its face value, or something. The interesting effect of the above is that Humanity rolls would have a higher range, which could be interesting.

Oh, and on handling time: A quickie way to reduce handling time while still preserving the advantage of reshuffle, mostly, is that instead of drawing a card, you cut to a card whenever you need to "roll", and then re-shuffle only when, say, you cut to a Major Arcana. In an honest group, it's almost as good as reshuffling all the time, I'd think, particularly if you have someone else do the cutting for each cut...

[Matt Snyder]

Not to derail the dicussion, but I will offer some ideas I came up with while working on Nine Worlds. And they're about as scientific as perpetual motion, but ...

(1) everyone gets his own deck (which doesn't "solve" the issue of one card being removed for "everyone," but sure makes it more possible).

(2) the GM uses a double deck, perhaps more, to simplify handling and generate more cards for multiple NPCs (again, doesn't solve, but maybe alleves the problem Ron posted about above).

[DevP]

If you follow Ben's Everway-esque suggestion of using cards' image-content to influence narration (I suggest "when you feel like it" as a modifier), then this system looks do-able.

Thanks! What I'm thinking (more sussinctly), is:
(a) The deck is essentially a d6 (but it can be 11-13 cards deep per each, so the distortion is hopefully minimized).
(b) re: influencing narration. I believe the GM usually narrates outcomes in Sorcerer, BUT I could offer the a carrot that a player may always narrate the outcome a conflict, so long as she constrains the narration by the tarot-wise meaning of the winning high-card, and she is rewarded a bonus die on her next roll for this.
(c) Would it be terrible to reconsider the deck as a d78 for the purposes of initiative? (That is, using the numberwise values as a tiebreaker beyond just the suits for conflict initiative.)

...and I really wonder about complex conflict situations, with four to eight characters all drawing at once...

While probability distortion is bad, I still feel that if there were 40 dice on the table, I'd just, well, just flip out and kill someone. But my players will *politely* inform me if this thing starts to break. <g>

(BTW, some consumer advice: this deck looks theme-appropriate, this one looks surprisingly fitting as well, but my hippydeck isn't even close. What was I thinking???)

[tetsujin28]

Hello,

Cards as RPG mechanics are woefully underdeveloped, and lately I've been giving a lot of thought to that. But in this case, the two main advantages of cards are not actually useful for Sorcerer. Those advantages are:

a) changing probabilities for drawing as cards are removed by prior draws

b) hidden options for applying to a given situation, from a multiple draw (i.e. a "hand")Best,
Ron

Hmm. To me, at least, the advantage of tarot cards is the range of interpretation, rather than the absolute value. I've been working on something like that for years (and no, it's not done). But you could certainly do something where certain suits are 'good' for certain kinds of demons, whilst the Major Arcana are sort of catch-all, story cards.

[Andrew Morris]

Hello to everyone. This is my first post on the Forge.

One other thing that I believe needs to be considered before implementing a card-based system is deck size. There are two main factors related to this:

1. Location

Are you only planning on using the card-based system at a table? If so, deck size is not as much of an issue. If, however, you are going with a card-based system so you can play in a location where dice are not the best option (on a train, in a plane, etc.) deck size becomes more important. Holding 78 oversized cards in one hand while gathering drawn cards in your other hand quickly becomes extremely cumbersome when drawing more than one or two cards.

2. Function

If you are creating a card-based system in order to run a Sorcerer LARP, you need to consider whether players will have their own decks. In that case, it becomes important that a deck is small enough that it can easily be checked for accuracy, to quickly resolve player disputes. Even if only GMs have decks, it's less likely they'll check a 78-card deck than, say, a 20-card deck. Thus, you'd never know when a GM wasn't working with a full deck (pun intended).

Just some food for thought. Good luck with the card-based system.