Thinking about a new Card-based RPG

[Philippe Tromeur]

I have a silly idea and I'm tinkering with it.

The RPG will be played with a French Deck of Cards : that is, a Poker deck without the cards numbered 2-6, and there's only one joker.

On those 32/33-card French decks, the face cards are actuelly named :
- King of Spades is David
- King of Hearts is Charles
- King of Diamonds is César
- King of Clubs is Alexandre
- Queen of Spades is Pallas
- Queen of Hearts is Judith
- Queen of Diamonds is Rachel
- Queen of Clubs is Argine
- Jack of Spades is Hogier
- Jack of Hearts is Lahire
- Jack of Diamonds is Hector
- Jack of Clubs is Lancelot
Aces are un-named, but I think I'll make them special anyway.
7-10 cards are just basic cards, nothing special.
The Joker will represent bad luck, or something.

Those names made me think of a kind of Pantheon, à la Amber...
Each player will be one of those Archetypes, and a typical scenario will be about stopping the plots of another member of the Pantheon, who "crossed over" to any period of Earth history, to manipulate it, like the Unbidden in the Whispering Vault. The players will have to find it, and bring it back to Olympus / Valhalla / The Vault / whatever.

The suits will not represent Attributes, like they do in most card-based RPG's, but twists of Fate and Fortune. I'm thinking of using the classical meanings from French Gyspy Cartomancy :
- Spades = Death / Change / Mischief / Fire
- Hearts = People / Love / Innocence / Water
- Diamonds : Travel / Cleverness / Distance / Air
- Clubs : Money / Matter / Luck (in French, clubs are "trèfle", that is "shamrock") / Earth
Kings will be movers (Alexandre = archetype of rich people, etc.), Queens will be mages (Rachel = archetype of seers, etc.), Jacks will be Heroes (Hogier = archetype of assassins, etc.).
I think players will have their face card in hand, plus maybe one or two cards from the deck. The GM won't have any cards in hand (except the face card corresponding to the villain of the week), and the resolution will be based, like in SAGA, on the cards showing at the top of the GM deck. I still haven't decided about the resolution mechanics.

There's a kind of in-game mechanic so that the PC's may guess WHO is pulling the string this time : if the players look attentively at the cards appearing on the GM's deck, they can find which face card(s) is missing. I think the appearance of the Joker will "reboot" the GM deck, to make things more random !

What do you think of the ideas so far :
- Use of a French deck ?
- In-game use of the "face" names ?
- In-game use of the deck to guess the "missing god" ?
- etc.

[ethan_greer]

I like it a lot, and I think you should keep developing your idea.  All of it sounds quite cool.

[Philippe Tromeur]

and I think I have a name, too : FACES

[Mike Holmes]

The French deck shouldn't be a big deal. One can make it from an American deck, as you point out, just by pulling some cards out, and a deck is cheap enough that I think most people would even be willing to deface one to put on names or archetypes.

Would each player need a deck?

Mike