help with a conflict resolution mechanic

[MPOSullivan]

heya everyone.  i've been working on this new game recently and i've got a conceptual question for the system.  the game is sci-fi/fantasy that has a setting that emulates european scifi comics like Metal Hurlant, Metabarons and the Incal and sixties scifi novels like Dune.  Other influences include the Illiad (think small, Mike, that's what i say) and the tales of King Arthur.  It's a bigger than life universe and i've been trying to create a system to encourage gaming within that mode.  

so, i've got this mechanic.  it's an attribute+skill pool system using playing cards with the jokers included.  players draw a number of cards equal to their attribute+skill and are looking for cards from that draw that match the suit that goes with their attribute.  the system allows winners of the draw to narrate outcome, sort of in the same fashion as Dust Devils, except there's no "bouncing" of narrative to other players.  (that's an important difference in this game due to the weird way in which experience is earned.)  

example: brad's character is trying to decifer an old text.  his characters Mind attribute is 4, and his linguistics skill is 2, for a total of six cards.  he draws six cards trying to get as many diamonds as he can, since diamonds is the suit for all Mind related draws.  

Ideally, the system gives enough information about success that the players can narrate their own outcomes, but doesn't get chunky with a lot of numbers.  there's also a karma mechanic that allows characters to redraw cards that they don't like based on ratings regarding their Destiny and Fate.

so, okay, my question is this: Do the numbers on the faces of the cards matter?  when i was first designing the system, i didn't care what the numbers were on the cards that came up, just as long as they were of the matching suit.  then i thought that a lot of tied draws would probably come up because of that and started saying that perhaps a draw should be the highest single card from the matching suit and the number of cards drawn from that suit, like if a player drew a jack, 9 and 4 of the appropriate suit, he would have Jack/3 or whatever.  This way of doing it reminded me a little of the Godlike "Height/Width" mechanic.  then i started thinking that only the cards that were higher than the highest card of the losing character should count towards success, a la Sorcerer.  I'm stuck gentlemen and i need a little guidance.  I'm really looking for what you guys think each different kind of system would "feel like" during game play.  which would best emulate a game set during the Iliad or something big like that?

thanks in advance and I hope things are doing well for all in the new year.

laters,

   -m

[Matt Snyder]

Couple questions. . . .

What happens when Brad draws no diamonds? Does he fail in the conflict, even with a good Hearts hand? Does he alter his process from "mental stuff" to, say, "social stuff" (gets someone else to decipher the text for him)? What are the jokers for? Simply wild card suits for matches? I assume so.

On to your specific question: "Do the numbers on the faces of the cards matter?"

My first reaction is simply that they (the numbers) become tie-breakers. I use a very similar mechanic in Nine Worlds. Players match "Fates," which are the number of same-suited cards in their played cards. In the case of tie, we look at the numbers on the cards to determine a winner. There are many ways to use the numbers on the cards. You could use high card to break ties. You could use the totals of the cards played. You could rank suits such that one suit always beats another suit, but loses to yet another. Etc.

Also, you seem to be looking for a means to determine "successes," and you used the Godlike and Sorcerer mechanics as possible guiding examples.

I guess I'm not sure where to guide you, really. You/we could create lots of mechanics that would work, but I'm not grasping your game concept enough to say, "Yeah, this mechanic works better than that one does." I'm not sure what feel, as you say, you're looking for.

(And, incidentally, Im having a tough time wrestling with how playing cards are better suited than dice, other than "gee, playing cards are neat!" Do you have a reason for using those over dice? Will dice -- or anything else, whether fortune, karma or drama, etc. -- work better for this?).

Can you clarify a bit more? What is this game about? What do the characters (and players) do when actual play happens? Yeah, I'm familiar with your cited inspirations, but I'm not clear what it is I'm supposed to draw from those examples other than "epic-ness."

[MPOSullivan]

Heya Matt, thanks for the reply.

Okay, first things first, you asked a lot about setting, so here you go.  

Bruise (that's the name of the game, btw) is a science fiction role-playing game set deep into the future of humanity. The human race, after many petty wars and squabbles found themselves unified under the banner of the Grand Covenance, an imperial government with a senate, similar in structure to the Roman Empire's government, called the Corpus Politik, and led by the Immaculara Rex, an imperial god-head, kind of like a Pharaoh more than anything else. After thousands of years of peace, enforced by the Immaculara's policing force, the Protectorate, humanity had spread across the Known Universe.

(This is all background though. What really matters is that at one point, approximately five hundred years before the start-date of the game)... the Immaculara became paranoid and fearful of his own people. On the fringes of the Known Universe uprisings were beginning to come in to bloom. The utopia that had been promised by the Grand Covenance was a fruit with a very bitter taste indeed. The Immaculara had to act quickly to quell these insurrections.

His hands tied by the Ashra, a set of laws and tenets that the Covenance was built on, the Immaculara couldn't execute his enemies.  He devised a way in which he could punish these 'enemies of the state and its citizenry', guarantee their death, and have his hands free of blood.  There was a planet on the fringes of the empire that was called Bruise.  Numerous attempts to colonize it ended in disaster, millions of colonizers killed seemingly by the planet itself.  So the Immaculara started sending political dissidents there.  This alone wasn't enough to quench his thirst for vengeance against those he perceived as slighting him personally.  Thus he added to the punishment, removing from the convicted any memory of their personal lives, even the crime itself, leaving behind only what the poor soul knew of the empire he came from, setting him to wonder why he must die and, even more painful, what they may have left behind.  As time went by, more and more broken laws found them punishable with forced exile to bruise.

The Covenance sent these convicts to Bruise to die, but they have underestimated the will of these exiles.  Over the few hundred years that have passed since this punishment had first been instituted many convicts were indeed killed by the harsh land and inhabitants of the planet, but some few fierce and willful souls were able to survive.  Over time these few became first communities, then grew to become factions and even in some cases city-states.  

It is here you have been sent to die.  It is here that you shall live.


Okay, that was all cut and paste from my intro text for the book, but that's the setting. Players are dropped onto the planet in small, teardrop shaped pods nicknamed wombs with nothing to help them survive but a 'Skin', a piece of nano-organics that works in a fashion similar to a still suit but coats the person's body in a thin sheet of material that looks like black mercury.  the surface of the planet is littered with technology that was left behind by the original colonizers, vehicles and pieces of tech, and even their colony-craft, called 'City Blooms', for they look like gigantic metal flowers after landing with buildings and other structures sprouting out of their petals.  As noted above, society has started to take root on the planet amongst those that survive.  people have taken over some of the more usable City Blooms and made them into settlements which have grown into city-states over time.  

There are a number of layers to the game, hopefully.  Players can simply elect to have fights with lots of monsters on the planet and not really do much in the way of exploring.  But, for those that want to explore their characters, there is the question "why do you want to live?"  Players are encouraged to think not only how to survive, but why they want to survive.  Their old life has been taken from them, so they have a new one before them.  What do they do with it?  I have a mechanic in place where characters have a Destiny and Fate, opposed outcomes for their future, diametrically opposed but not black/white good/evil.  It is up to the character and the player to guide his character toward one or the other. Do they become heroes, trying to help other convicted, or do they take advantage of them, becoming slavers or marauders.  Do they try and establish a new society, or do they lean towards anarchy?  It's really a game about what a character will live for, and perhaps what they will die for.

A little rambling, yes, but I think that answers one or two of your questions.

And back to the mechanics stuff, my first reaction was to use the numbers on the cards as tie breakers as well, but that evolved in my head as I noted in the first post into me becoming confused as to what would best emulate the setting and feel of the game.  I was hoping to use a success system to allow players to gauge their outcome.  A player with only one success would be have a very tight outcome, while one with, say, five of them would have a fantastic outcome.  

Seeing as how I’m not going so much "black/white" as I stated above, I’m leaning towards something that uses the numbers to give a little variance in play, but perhaps just going by suit would be enough.

And as to whether off suit cards would apply would matter on if I used the numbers on the cards or not.  If I did use them, then I would probably say that cards from the same color (i.e.: black vs. red) could be used, but at a penalty, and only if you had no cards from the correct suit.

And as to why I like card-based mechanics?  It’s actually quite simple.  I have always preferred games where the materials that were needed in order to play where relatively easy to get. I mean, I understand that my game will either a) be found by a gamer in a gaming store or b) found online by a gamer, both of these options meaning that the player probably has a monogrammed dice bag full of d12 (I know I do).  Still, I’ve always enjoyed opening a book, or looking on the back cover, and reading phrases like "only needs two six-sided dice to play" or "play uses a standard deck of playing cards".  This is stuff that is easily found around the house and, if my game ever gets into the hands of a non-gamer that's interested in gaming, I want that person to have no difficulty in getting his hands on the right materials for play.  That’s also why I don't use tarot decks any more, though I used to all of the time and thought they were great.  Most people just don't have a tarot deck lying around the house.

Hope that answers the questions.  Thanks in advance, as usual.

laters,

   -m

[Loki]

Quick question re: cards. Does the deck get shuffled between contests, or is the intention that successes are streaky and/or become progressively harder to achieve?

In other words, when the deck gets smaller, if most of the diamonds have been drawn, suddenly none of the characters can succeed at their mind-related skills. Likewise, players can count cards (or at least guesstimate) and decide that because there aren't many diamonds left, they'll solve the next problem using force, etc.

That could work in certain games. I'm just wondering if that's part of the design or an unintended result of using a deck of cards. Cards are cool.

[MPOSullivan]

haven't decided yet whether the deck would refresh after draws or not.  the "fickleness" of fate thing would be fun, but i'm still thinking on it.

laters,

   -m

[failrate]

Definitely use the value of the suit for tie-breakers.

Since you have already pointed out that your world is in shades of gray, then you'll want a resolution system with scale.  If two people draw, and the tie is broken by the higher-valued card, then the success should only be marginal.  If you want something more dramatic than this, then you can create opposition rules that allow the winner something like an attack of opportunity.

When resolving contests, I would just compare the total number of successes, and not take into account the values (unless there's a draw).  Otherwise, how would you resolve a situation where one person drew only an Ace of Spades, and the other side drew the 2, 3, and 4 of Spades?  I think of a number of different techniques, but they mainly result in the same results, so...

I agree with the use of cards for the tactile.  However, other advantages exist.  If a player were able to hold unused cards in their hand until a future contest, they could build up a stockpile of desired cards in secret in order to unleash them at difficult tasks.  If you wanted to add a layer of complexity (or perhaps an alien-technology-based "magic" system), you could even create "spells" formed of combinations of cards ("hands").  Either way, I like the idea of someone being able to hide their result until everyone puts it down on the table, which allows players to bid against each other and the situation (and the GM).

[MPOSullivan]

I think you’re right, failrate, with the “tie-breaker” mechanic.  Same with you, Matt.

Okay, so this is where I’m at right now.

Conflict Resolution

·   Each player has their own deck of standard playing cards, jokers included (I think.  I haven’t decided exactly what I want them to do yet.).

·   All actions are declared with implied intent.  "I want to lunge forward and swing my sword at his legs."

·   Player draws (attribute + Skill rating) in cards, looking for cards of the same suit as the attribute being used.  Cards drawn of the appropriate suit are called successes.

·   All draws are opposed, i.e. the GM also makes card draws for conflicts that don't involve NPCs (like breaking down a door or whatever).

·   Players compare successes.  Most successes wins.  The difference between the two is the Margin of Success.

·   Winning player narrates the scene, describing what has happened during the conflict based on the Margin of Success.

·   In case of tie, highest single card of the appropriate suit wins the draw in terms of narration, but the outcome puts neither player into a winning situation.

I think this works well as the experience system for the game hinges on the narration mechanic.  Players get experience based on how they narrate their actions in play and only get experience on things that they are actually doing.  I was thinking about having narration “flip-flop” like in Dust Devils, but I don’t know if that would hurt my experience mechanic.  I’ll post my bible notes on it here and maybe you guys could help me out with it.

As part of the mechanic to help players feel like they are contributing to an epic game, experience is handled a little differently.  Instead of the normal experience points awarded at the end of the session, players are instead given Legacy Points during play.  These are awarded for times when a player narrates a success well or when he pursues his goals.  These are translated into "Lines of Litany".  Each point becomes a line describing what happened when the player got the point and ties that action to a particular trait.  

Example1: Brad describes a particularly stellar outcome for his action in a combat.  The GM awards him a point of Legacy.  Brian writes on his Litany "Zar quickly dispatched a hated Slaver of Karak with cunning use of his blade. (Swordplay.)"  This not only shows how the point was spent, but why he got the point in the first place.

Characters also have personality traits called Memes.  These are given depending on a characters destiny, fate, crime, past and one freebie.  Players also get Legacy Points from using these in game play, as they generally get you into more trouble than good.  When a meme comes into play during a game a player gets one Legacy Point which can be assigned to any trait, but must be explained as to why the two have been linked (at least that's where I’m at now, as kind of an extra award for getting yourself into trouble a lot.).

Example 2: Brad's character has the Meme: Deadly Curiosity.  In the pursuit of his curiosity, Brad's character Zar finds himself in the middle of a huge battle between two tribes of Marduk, fierce barbarians from the icy southlands.  For following his character's Meme, Brad is given a point of Legacy.  These kinds of points can be assigned to any trait.  Brad has being seeing a lot of fighting lately and would like to see his Motion attribute go up to help him get out of those combats.  He writes on his litany "With uncanny celerity Zar is able to weave his way through the fray that he bravely attempted to investigate (Deadly Curiosity/Motion)”

Thus, as games develop into continuing stories, players actually have a record of their past exploits.  These Litanies also translate into a trait called Renown.  Quite simply, it's how well known your character is, and is directly related to the number of lines in your litany you have.  What you are known for is derived from the kind of person you come of as from your litany.  The litany acts as a "living legend", growing with your character as he grows.

Initially I was fearful that if I had the “flip-flop narrative” that players wouldn’t feel like they had enough control of their characters and would feel like they were missing out on chances to earn Legacy Points.  But, I also started thinking that if a player were able to tell a really interesting way of losing a conflict, he could learn from that as well as have his “myth” grow, thus earning a Legacy Point.

Example: Sean’s character, Soma is in a fight with a couple of slavers.  One of them has attacked him with a stun baton.  The two players draw and Sean loses, but he also has the high card and gets to narrate the outcome.  “The slaver makes a feint for my face, one that I sadly fall for.  He strikes me in the stomach and I fall over, clutching at the wound.  I look up, pure contempt in my pale eyes and spit at him as he prepares the manacles to be placed on my wrists.  He silently promises that the next time these two fight, he will be the one standing over the other’s broken body.”
 Sean’s GM likes the description of Soma’s loss and decides to give him a Legacy Point.  Sean writes his Litany line as follows: “Soma loses his valiant battle for his freedom with the Slavers, but he does not walk away from the exchange with nothing, having learned more about his weaknesses as a fighter.  He vows that the next time this happens, he will be the victor. (Melee)”

Okay, so what do you guys think.  Also, quick note… are my posts too long?  I try to explain everything pretty thoroughly but I’m fearful that I’m going into things too much.

laters,

   -m

[octobernight]

Zathreyel -

Cool, I ran into something extremely similiar in my card based game.  Maybe if I explain my system, you can give insight into a problem I had.

I use a Tarot deck for mine, but it runs the same way.  4 Stats and 16 skills which are governed by those stats.

For unopposed checks, I let the Tarot Reader (TR) decide the difficulty of the check.  He sets the "hand value" that the PC must beat to pass the check.  The PC draws as many cards as Stat+Skill level.  

Here's where I'm not sure to proceede, but the problem is like yours.  I can't decide whether to make it so Suits matter or not.  For example, if something is really difficult, it might require a 1 pair.  However, I'm not sure if I should require the pair must have a card with the correct suit in it.

Anyway, if you're interested, to test my system, I wrote a chat program with a card handler function in it.  If you want to test your system online, you could do so very easily with it.  It's a chat client with card capabilities in one.  Also, feel free to IM me if you want to discuss systems.  I'm usually on AOL messenger at laplaceDemon.

[MPOSullivan]

heya octobernight, thanks for the response and interrest.

i guess i should ask you the same question that i was asked by matt snyder: what do you want to do with the game? what's the feel of it? what's the setting and how could you best manipulate your mechanic to emulate it?

i'm guessing by the fact that you are using tarot that your game probably involves magic (if not, you are wasting a great atmospheric element in the tarot cards). also, are you using the major arcanna in the draw deck?

if you wanna answer these questions, it's probably best to start your own thread in the indie game design section. that way you get equal amounts of attention to your game and questions as i would mine, and things stay more focused.

and, looking over things from above, is my system getting too close to Dust Devils? Matt, what do you think. i don't want to ride any coat tails.

laters

[Deadboy]

Zathreyel, your system is intriguing, and some of the suggestions given to you sound cool, too. However, it seems to me like you're wasting the potential of the cards by only using suit and not face value. With your system, depending on the type of draw you're looking for, you have a 1 in 4 chance of success per card draw you get, getting down to the very basic math of the thing.

Also, it'd be a system I'd be very nervous about using as a player -- I'll take you're example of 4 Attribute, 2 skill as hopefully something that approximates a middle-of-the-road skill test. It's very possible and frequent to draw six cards and not get 1 or even 2 suits (you're likely to get at least two and probably three). Of each of those suits you did get, you're likely to have 1 or 2. Which means most skill tests are going to be passed marginally with 1 card or with whatever level 2 implies. Three or more cards of the same suit will be seen less than once per game drawing six cards.

You'll also only have a few basic levels of difficulties. In theory, you'll be limited to a maximum of 14 difficulties (13 in a suit plus joker), which doesn't sound bad, but in practice you probably won't see someone draw more than 4 more than once every blue moon, even if they're drawing 10 cards. You'll find that marginal success is probably way too easy for certain tasks, while higher levels of success(3+ cards, and which should be needed if the player is attempting to pull off a task which should be more difficult than normal) are more difficult than they should be for someone accomplished at a skill. Cards can be a little TOO fickle for my tastes, especially when all you're looking for are flushes.

There's also the problem, if each player has their own deck, of deck-stacking. Even fairly honest players have been known to nudge dice from time to time, and it's even easier to cheat with cards, because you can manipulate results for a future test when no ones looking, unlike with dice where a careful GM can make sure to watch everyone's rolls.

The card counting thing could mean trouble, too. If players don't shuffle after every draw, expect to see a player who has been really lucky his last few draws suddenly refuse to act, or a player that has been really unlucky his last few draws act with reckless abandon, knowing the cards he needs are all that's left.

Have you ever played the Doomtown CCG? There was an example of a good card-based rules system. It used poker hands to determine success and was tons of fun to play. Admittedly, any particular hand type is more difficult to draw, but because there are a number of a different avenues you can pursue depending on what you drew, it creates lots of strategy. It may be adaptable to a multi-player RPG, though it won't let you past the cheating factor.

So I guess that brings it back to a basic question asked earlier in this thread by someone else... what exactly are you hoping to accomplish using cards instead of dice, other than being different for the sake of being different? How do using the cards better serve your game than dice could? I mean, I understand you're whole game premise, scif-fi, epic, stranded on world, needing to survive, etc. I don't see how that links with the cards, however.

Lastly, I just needed to sneak in a comment about characters needing to know "why they are trying to survive." Keep in mind this may be an important question for someone who lives their lives philosophically (ie, someone with a tendency to overthink things), but the average person's (and thus the average player character's) answer to that question is, "well, duh." Most people don't need a good reason to live. Living is a means and an end in and of itself. So you might not see as many role-playing possibilities as you were hoping for come out of that. WHAT the player character intends to with their life might hold a few more possibilities, but the average PC response will be "survive" or "adventure with this adventuring group," or, probably, a slightly more complicated answer that essentially amounts to about the same thing. HOW they intend to live their new lives is probably the best question that will come up the most -- do they sacrifice all they believed in for the most practical solutions, do they sacrifice morals altogether, or do they cling to all they believe no matter what the consequences?

[MPOSullivan]

Hey, a long post from someone that's not me.  I feel like I belong now!  

Thanks for the reply, Deadboy, and you do raise a number of intriguing questions.

On my walk home from work yesterday I realized that the system, as it stands right now, is the equivalent of rolling bunches of d4s, hoping to score four on all of the dice.  I’m not sure that this is what I’m going for.  You guys have been nudging me subtly towards either abandoning the deck of cards or taking more advantage of it, which of course is right.  Sometimes your own perceived greatness blinds you, I guess.  

What I’m really trying to create with the system is a role-playing interface that evokes a sense of grandeur and has some in-system encouragement for players to use their creativity during gameplay.  My GNS-mode stuff isn't all that strong but i'm leaning towards a game that is both setting and character based Narrative, if that's possible.  I have a great world for characters to interract with and i want to use the world to help explore the characters beliefs and what they stand for.  Basically it's a room with two walls for story ideas to bounce off of.  

I lean towards the use of card-based systems for the reasons stated above, mainly item availability issues.  I have lost sight of the advantages that one can garner from the use of a card-based system, leaning simply towards the little bit of color that arises from the use of suits.

Perhaps, to take advantage of what a deck of cards offers, players would simply compare the high card to a difficulty, and then the suit of the card guides the player towards the way that the character overcomes the opposition.  This would, of course, mean that the winner narrates outcome instead of having flip-flopping, but that’s alright by me as long as there is some kind of way for the players to narrate outcome mandated by the system.

Here’s a revised step-by-step for the conflict resolution process.

Conflict Resolution

· Each player has their own deck of standard playing cards, jokers included (I think. I haven’t decided exactly what I want them to do yet.).

· All actions are declared with implied intent. "I want to lunge forward and swing my sword at his legs."

· Player draws (attribute + Skill rating) in cards, looking for highest cards drawn.

· Cards are compared to a difficulty rating.  (I’m not sure if the difficulty should be static or of the GM should draw a set of cards as well to find difficulty.)

· Highest number wins. Every card scoring equal to or over the difficulty is a success.  Successes are a benchmark for quality of outcome.  Suit of the highest single card drawn shows the “flavor” of the outcome.  

· Winning player narrates the scene, describing what has happened during the conflict based on Successes and Flavor of the draw.

· Players reshuffle deck after every conflict resolution.

So, as always, here’s an example of play.

Example: Jonathan’s character, Zel, is in a desperate brawl with some Legionnaires of Karak for her life.  She’s managed to take one of their swords and is trying to fight her way to freedom.  Jonathan declares “I’m going to try and run up to one of the guards and run him through and keep running, pushing him like a linebacker.”  Mary, Jonathan’s Tale Weaver giggles a little at the description and tells hi to draw Body + Melee as she draws cards from her deck for the Legionnaire’s defense.  Both call out their high card, Jonathan getting a Jack and Mary coming away with only a 9.  Jonathan looks at his hand as sees that four of his cards beat the 9 , a pretty high number of successes.  He also notices that his high card is a Heart, meaning will, charisma or spirit will be involved in the outcome.  He narrates the outcome as follows:
   
“In one last desperate attempt to get past the Legionnaires, I bring up my blade and lets out a horrible cry, running forward my face, my eyes.  I grit my teeth and keep pushing, pure determination lifting my enemy up off of the ground and forcing him backward.  He grabs feebly at the hilt of the sword as I shove him back with a growl and force my way through the line.  After a couple of steps, I tip my sword down and the legionnaire slides off of it with a horrific sucking sound, but I don’t stop running.”
   
Everyone at the table makes a wincing face for a moment at the description and then Mary chimes in with “Well, I guess that description earns you a Legacy Point.  What do you guys think?”

How does that sound?  I’m still a little worried about the number of successes that can be generated by the conflicts.  Maybe if I set all conflicts against static difficulty numbers, a la Whispering Vault that would help build up some extra successes as well as cut down on the amount of cards on a gaming table.

I would like to include rules for things like holding cards for future actions and such, but I’m fearful of coming up with anything yet until I get my basic card mechanic done.

I'm not to concerned with deck-stacking, mainly because i don't think that a mechanic should have to take into consideration the tendency for players to cheat.  that's something that each GM should deal with in their own way.  The easiest way i can think of to solve this problem though is to allow the Gm to call for a shuffle of any deck before any draw is made.  this should throw of cheating players, unless of course they work in Vegas or Atlantic City.

the mechanic you mentioned for the Doomtown CCG is actually used in Matt Snyder's Dust Devils to great effect.  Much better than i could, though i did make another gambling-based RPG using the Blackjack rules in Criminal Element (forthcoming improved pdf coming soon, i swear!  my old host took the old one down fro his site, so you guys are gonna have to wait a week until i buy my own site and download it!)

Oh, yeah, characters also have Destiny and Fate ratings, which are a Karma-style mechanic that allows players to discard any number of cards from their draw that they want and draw new ones to replace them.  Maybe that’s the way for characters to get more successes.  I’d do an example of that, but my post is already getting kind of sizable.

and yeah, perhaps the "why do you want to survive" thing was a little poorly phrased.  the real center of all things is the life-long question "who am i?"  the game's all about identity and potential.  you stated it well with your rephrasing into "how will you spend your new life?".  see, that's why i come here, people help refine the hell out of you ideas and tell you when you state things incorrectly.

[failrate]

I've been thinking this over, because I've been thinking about making a minimalist game about courtly battle based on The Riddle of Steel and Niccollo Machiavelli's The Prince.  Anyway, the long and short of it is that there are of course attributes and skill ratings, blah, blah, blah...

I'm basing my whole system here on one deck.  This way, there is always a trump.  The idea is that a player can maintain their hand indefinitely, always holding the highest card in any particular suit.  If a player knows they hold the ace and can trump all others, they'll likely hold onto that card for as long as they can (until they really need it).  However, in the spirit of some kind of "Stun" rules, it might be nice that some kind of effective attack (like a play of a 2 or something to recall the rules of a  certain drinking game) representing a seditious force (akin to the spy in Stratego, which was weak, but could take out the strongest pieces) that could force a player to discard and redraw or reshuffle the deck.

I like cards, because it would allow a player to hold on to cards of their strongest suit (a warrior would build up large amounts of high-valued spades, for example) to use at critical times.  This creates an interesting, non-trivial bidding situation where someone will be willing to suffer some pain in order to gather their strength for a powerful counterattack.

Example:  

Baldric the Brutal is fighting with Saliari the Skinny in a rapier battle.  Baldric has a Strength of 4 and a Swordsman of 2 for a draw of 6.  Saliari has a strength of 1 and a Swordsman of 3 for a draw of 4.  Baldric draws an Ace of spades, a six of clubs, four of clubs, a Jack of Diamonds, a two of hearts, and an eight of hearts.  Saliari draws a 3 of spades, a Jack of Spades, a nine of hearts, and a six of diamonds.  For this example, let's assume that both Baldric and Saliari had no cards held from their last conflict.  Saliari plays his two Spades (as they are the applicable in physical combat), but Baldric does not play his Ace (as the best it will do is is defend against one attack).  So, Saliari strikes with two spades.  So, I'd guess that Baldric would take two points of damage (unless Royal cards had some kind of critical effect).  The next round, Baldric draws three spade cards, and Saliari draws one.  Baldric plays four spades total (one of which is an Ace, which would cause hella' damage if Royal cards had critical effects) against Saliari's one spade.  


Examples of ways a character could begin conflict holding cards would be practice or meditation.  For example, in the above conflict, either Baldric or Saliari could have put themselves at a greater advantage if they had Practiced their Swordsmanship that day before the Duel.  The GM could then sift through the deck for the first Spade.  That player would then get to hold onto that card to use until someone played a 2 on them.

In keeping with my concept of both players and countries (based on Machiavelli's The Prince), a separate deck representing the different nations or factions could be used for conflicts of the national scale.

[MPOSullivan]

nice system failrate.  simple enough for people to grasp easily, got enough room for some serious depth.  any ideas on setting, or are you just going with the time period Macchiveli lived in?  

if you really want a macchiavelian thing going on you should definetly throw in some kind of mechanic where players can steal cards from each other.  

you also mention something in there about using seperate decks to represent different nations?  hm, maybe you could use the system to tell the stories of nations?  each player is a different country, including all of the colorful people within its borders.  players draw, say, five cards to start off with, each going into a different trait like Politics, Military, Treasury, Naval Power, stuff like that.  a card represents either one important person (Lord Develle, General of the Legions) or a group of people (the School of Advanced Thought and Theory).  evertime you draw a new card you can describe what the card represents and what they're capable of and stuff.  then you and your buddies have big ol' wars.  just an idea.  mind you, it's late and i'm tired.

i have to say, as soon as you bring up the whole "Card Mechanic" thing, people become kinda polarized.  some people love 'em, others kinda get riled by 'em.

in either case, Bruise is shaping up nicely and i'm hoping to have a playtest pdf in a week or two for anyone willing to check it out.

laters

[Deadboy]

Glad I could be of help. I certainly like the sound of the newer mechanic than I did the older, which is, as you realized, the same thing as rolling bunches of D4s, looking for 4s.

I have to wonder, though -- what happens in the case of a tie in an opposed test? I can see lots of cases were both sides will have an ace. Possibly make it further decided by the suit?

[MPOSullivan]

heya, deadboy, thanks again for the reply.

i've been thinking about that too.  while i've been writing the text for the playtest PDF i've been trying to figure out the vagaries of the system.  My first reaction is to just look at the next highest cards of each player and compare those.  whoever got the higher wins, but the first cards used wouldn't count towards calculating the successes, but probably would for the Color of the draw.

example:  two players draw their hands and both het a Queen as their high card.  Each player looks at their hand and finds their next highest card.  Player One has a Jack while Player Two has a Nine.  Player One wins the hand, but doesn't count his original queen into the total for successes.  

or, i was thinking maybe the characters would go couer de couer and square off or another rounf, increasing the stakes in some way.  i'm still kinda mulling it over.

but hey, thanks for the kind words.  more on this tomorrow after i sleep.

laters.