Hello all.

This is my first foray into designing a game, as opposed to house-ruling an existing one into oblivion. This is very much modeled on my first exposure to roleplaying games (Shadowrun 2nd edition) and I tried to cut away everything that bothers me about that game, and getting to what is for me "the good stuff". Namely: co-operation, trust and tactical decision-making, that's not based on arguing about the SIS.

[hr]
Retro-Runner is a mission-based cyberpunk game. Players plan and complete missions, that will give them reputation. Until one of them decides to leave the biz behind, by betraying his team mates. It’s designed to play fairly quickly. Or at the very least to not get bogged down in debates about the minutiae of a fictional futuristic setting.

The game uses two regular card decks. One for the players to use, and one for the GM to use.

Each mission is divided into five steps.
The Offer
This covers a kind of character creation and setting the number of scenes the mission will consist of.
The Plan
Turn order of the players is established. There’s also a rough sketch of what the mission will
be like. 
The Job
The misson is played, scene-by-scene. Co-operation is essential to the team’s success.
The Getaway
The team tries to get away with their “loot”.
The Drop-Off
The team trades in the loot for reputation.

At any one point during “The Job”, the players can choose to betray each other. The game then switches to a elimination-type situation, where the traitor tries to kick the rest of his team off “The Job” and then has to successfully get away in order to win.

Now the various elements in more detail:

Characters
Every character has the following scores: The four aspects (Street-Sam, Hacker, Techie, Face); Gear (equipment) and Reputation (the higher the better).

Every player assigns the following values to his Aspects and Gear: 3 – 2 – 2 – 1 – 0

The numbers determine how many cards the players get at certain points during the game. Later on the players will be able to increase their values by spending reputation. This doesn’t increase their hand size, but it allows them to draw more cards and choose the best three, two or one of them.

The Offer
Each player chooses one of his aspects as his “niche” for this mission. Players can choose to pick the same Aspect as their niche; it just means that this mission has strong emphasis on that type of conflict.

Then the GM deals one card from the GM deck to each player. The group picks as many cards from them as they want and then add their values together, to determine how many scenes the Job will have. (Numbered cards are 1-10, Face cards are 10, Ace is 1 or 11).

The Plan
Every aspect has a card suit it belongs to. Street Sam – Spades, Hacker – Diamonds, Techie – Clubs, Face – Hearts. Now each player gets as many cards of the appropriate suit as his Aspect score says. All those cards are drawn from the player deck. The remaining cards are shuffled together, before each player randomly draws a card for each point of Gear they have.

The GM draws 12 cards + 1 card for every point the team has in Gear. Then the planning begins.

Starting with the player to the left of the GM, each player describes how his character found something out about the target of the mission. It should be fairly vague to allow for some wiggle-room later on. Then the player “tags” another player, who writes down the turn number. That is, the player tagged by the first players writes down 1, the player tagged by the second player writes down 2, etc. This will be important during “The Job”.

He then hands over a card to the GM face-down. The GM now has to put one of the cards from his hand into a separate deck (also face-down), according to the following rule: the card must be of the same suit OR of the same value or lower. If he can’t, he has to put the player’s card into this new deck and discard one of his own. This new deck is called the Job Deck.

This goes on clockwise for each player until one of them refuses to give the GM another card, or until the Job Deck has as many cards in it as the number of scenes, the players agreed upon during The Offer.

The players and the GM get to keep whatever cards they have on their hand, if any. Any cards that have been played during The Plan and not used for the Job Deck are shuffled back into the player’s deck. Then the Job Deck is shuffled.

The Job
If the players have less cards than the sum of their aspects (not including Gear), they draw new cards from the player’s deck.

The GM draws as many cards from his deck as there are cards in the Job Deck, then he discards down to the same amount. He should start “The Job” with one card for each card in the Job Deck.

Now the team works their way through “The Job” in the order they established during “The Plan”. Each scene is framed by the GM, taking a cue from what was established during “The Plan”. Then the player whose turn it is, draws the top card from the Job Deck and looks at it in secret. He now has to follow up on the GM’s narration, by introducing some kind of obstacle or difficulty that keeps him from achieving his objective in this scene.
He can now choose to ask for help from another character, which would give him a second card during conflict resolution. Or he can choose to go it alone, thus getting to play only one card.
The player must not reveal the exact value of the card he has drawn. He may also only hint at the suit of the card through narration, i.e. “I notice that the guards are heavily armed and looking for me (SPADES)” or “the door is using a mechanical lock (CLUBS)”, etc.

The Job Deck card is put in the middle of the table.
The active player puts one of his cards face-down in front of him. 
The helping player, if there is one, puts his card next to it.
The GM draws two cards and puts them face-down in front of him.

The Job Deck card is turned over, along with the active player’s card and with the first of the GM’s cards. The Job Deck card is added to one or the other, according to the following rules:
if the Job Deck card is of the same suit as the active player’s niche, it counts in his favour.
if the Job Deck card is originally from the player’s deck, it counts in his favour.
Otherwise it counts in the GM’s favour.

The players involved in the conflict may spend one of their Gear points, to replace the Job Deck card with the top card of the GM’s deck.

Whichever side has only one card face-up now, reveals their second card. Unrevealed cards return to the player’s hand.

Add the values on each side together and compare. The higher one, wins the conflict. If the player wins, he gets to keep his opponent’s cards as reputation tokens (more on this in The Drop-Off). He has to split them with the other team-member in this scene, if his card was revealed during the Conflict Resolution. If there is a tie, the cards are simply discarded.

If the GM played to cards and lost the conflict, he draws one new card from his deck.
If the GM won the conflict, he draws a card from the hand of the player who’s next. In addition to that, if the second card on the player’s side was not revealed during the conflict, the GM gets that card as well.

The players can draw new cards (at any one point during the Job) by “putting it on the line”. This “it” being either one of their aspects (allowing them to draw that amount of new cards) or their life, thus allowing them to draw an entire new hand in addition to the cards they already have, and discarding down to their regular hand size. If the players lose any one conflict after “putting it on the line”, their respective aspects are reduced to zero (player’s choice if there is more than one) or the character dies, if he risked his life.

The GM draws one card for each time the players use “putting it on the line”. The GM should also keep track of how many conflicts the players lose.

The Getaway
Once the Job Deck is empty, or the characters decide to abort the mission, they need to escape to safety. If they are successful, they can move on to “The Drop-Off”. If not, they might lose their aspects, their reputation or their life.

The GM flips over the top card from his deck, this is the getaway-card. He then plays one of the card on his hand face-down next to it. The player must now play a card of the same suit. He can also choose to play one or more of his reputation token cards, that he has hopefully collected so far. Those cards’ suits are considered wild.

The cards are then flipped over. If the GM played the same suit as the getaway-card it is added to it. Otherwise, the GM’s card is ignored. The player beats the getaway-card(s), he gets away clean.

If not, he suffers the effects of “putting it on the line”, if he did so earlier.

If he didn’t, the player loses as many reputation tokens as there were unresolved or lost conflicts+3. If he has no reputation tokens, he loses that amount in reputation. If he cannot pay reputation, his niches are reduced permanently by the amount missing. If he cannot pay this either, the character dies.

The Drop-Off
Each character who is alive and still has reputation tokens, gets the chance to gain some reputation.

First all cards are shuffled back into their respective decks. For each reputation token the players spent, they draw cards according to their niche in this job. For each card that is of the same suit as their niche, they get 1 point of reputation.

The Betrayal
The only way to successfully finish a character, to effectively “win” the game is by betraying your team mates.

At any point during the Job (including the Getaway, but not the Drop-Off), a player can choose to betray his team-mates. This means he is now actively working against them.

The traitor can pick a new niche for himself. The GM must give him three cards from his hand according to that niche, if he can. Then he picks one of the other team mates as his primary opponent. The rest of the team can now choose sides. The GM can either get on the traitor’s side, or stay out.

Play out a regulear conflict, but instead of flipping over a card from the Job Deck; you draw a card from the GM’s hand.

For the Traitor to “win”, he must beat all the other players and then get away successfully. If he wins, he gets the XP tokens of the other players, and gains reputation according to the respective Niches he has beaten the other players in. The traitor may spend his XP tokens to steal a card from the GM’s hand.

All the effects of “putting it on the line” and Gear use still apply.

[hr]

Argh. accidentally posted too soon .

A few things about the game: "the Betrayal" is at the core of this game. It might look like an after-thought, but it's what's supposed to drive the tension of the game. Will somebody betray us during this mission? I want the betrayal to be painful and a big threat to the players. Betrayal should be both tempting to the players as well as really scary for those who might be betrayed. Is it?

I really want the game to get harder and more demanding on the players as it progresses, without the mission becoming a lost cause. I don't think the way the cards are circulated reflect this as well as they could. Any suggestions?

Finally, I want to the rules to be compact and clear. Are there any glaring contradictions in the rules? Is there something I really should get rid of?

Any general comments on the game are also highly appreciated.

hmm...let me just first say that I'm a fan of shadowrun and I think that what you're trying to do sounds good...a few questions:

1.  Why cards?  It almost feels like a hybrid CCG and RPG here.  I don't know if that is your intent or not, but that is how it comes across to me at least.  In my expeirence, most gamers tend to be more comfortable with dice.

2.  How heavy of an emphasis is RP going to get in this game?  It seems like you've limited the choices PC's have on playing by assigning them a "niche", and that might turn some people away, if they can't play, say a techie who has good computer skills or some combination thereof.

3.  What is the world like?  Is there magic/other races?  Is it futuristic or today?  Is it corrupt?  How much of an inpact will the world have on the game.

All in all, it seems fun, but a little too CCGish for a RPG.  Again, I don't know if that was your intent, so if that's what you're trying to do, I would say you succeeded admirably.  If not, I would consider trying to make it a bit more in-depth.

You've said you want the possibility of betrayal to be real, and to drive the game.  But it's not clear from a quick read of the rules why a player would opt to betray.  What's in it for him?  You've suggested that it's the only way to end a character's story, but that doesn't seem to me to be a real strong driver that would make players want to screw their buddies.  Here's where a Prisoner's Dilemma-type game mechanic could really pay off:  cooperating pays off better than everybody screwing off, but the player  who betrays first gains some advantage that makes it really delicious to be the first one to screw over the other guys.

If I remember my caper pictures correctly, the possibility of betrayal isn't a snap decision; it's built into the job by the betrayer in the planning phase.  This should be incorporated as well.

@Bill
My comment on betrayal was probably not really accurate. Betrayal as the only "winning condition" is something of a fill-in to be honest. I don't want it to be too tempting so that players ignore the mission and race to betray each other first. Betrayal should be something that becomes more and more tempting as the players finish more and more missions. It should slowly emerge as the game is played over a period of time. As players get more and more used to trusting each other, Betrayal should become more and more tempting.

As for including it into The Plan, I think there's too much randomness and luck involved for anything like this to work well. There's also the fact that the group might pick up on somebody planning a betrayal, thus completely changing the game dynamic. It fits with the caper-theme, and I'd really like to have game where this does happen. But as I imagine the Betrayal here, it is sudden, unexpected and (hopefully) shocking.

@lizard
1. I felt that cards worked more elegantly than dice. Especially in the way that suits can represent certain aspects. I don't really mind a CCG-feel. I want the rules to be central to the gaming experience, and not just a sandbox for people to roleplay in. I think there are a lot of good games that already do this.
2. The niche is just their part in the mission. Niches can change from mission to mission, and a niche just means that this is the character that the others rely on for situations of that niche-type. So if your niche is Techie for this mission, the team will call on you whenever a scene is Clubs, and the active player has run out of good cards. As for RP (which I take to mean in-character interaction here), I want it to be something that improves the gaming experience and ties it together; but it's not the focus. The focus is the mission; getting your character out alive and hopefully with an increase of reputation.
3. To be honest, so far the setting is generic Gibson-ian cyberpunk . The setting only serves to provide the basis for these missions and for the slightly paranoid relationship between the team-members. It could easily be changed to another style or period, as long as it provides those two things.

Ooooh. I like this. And I have no time for Shadowrun, so I think it's safe to say you're transcended your inspiration bigtime.

And "Leapin' Lizard," yeah, dice are more traditional for gamers, but most people play a lot more cardgames than dice-based games (let alone dice-based games where you have to add and subtract the die roll from fixed scores), and this is absolutely packageable so that non-gamers snap it up with delight. Plus Georgios isn't just using cards as random-number generators, he's having players keep hidden sets of them, which is hard with dice, and making use of the suits, which is something dice don't have at all.

What particularly pleases me is that there's a very definite "story structure" built into the game (offer-plan-job-getaway-dropoff), supported by a strictly interlocking set of resource constraints (the cards) and an unforgiving escalation mechanic that directly ties risking yourself to your chance of success ("putting it on the line"). That's as opposed to "hey, GM, make up an adventure that's challenging but, y'know, absolutely certainly not going to kill any PCs, and if they get stuck or do too well, start fudging die rolls." That traditional approach is actually pretty good if the objective is to experience "what it would be like" to be shadowrunners or dungeoncrawlers or whatever, but lousy for constructing a tight, tactical challenge.

Quick suggestions for now, since I'm taking a break in the middle of a massive deadline at work:

0) [so I forgot one and had to go back] I'd lose the Shadowrun-specific terminology - "hacker" is understandable and evocative for anyone who ever watches movies or TV, but "Street Samurai" is a big "huh" to people who don't know that one particular game. Not sure of a good one-word replacement -- ninja, ronin, killer, trigger, gun bunny?

1) The card-play tradeoffs are a bit confusing to me. I'm admittedly terrible at that stuff, but the flow (the "economy") needs to be crystal clear, not only for your future players but so you yourself can see where it works and where it doesn't.

2) 3-2-2-2-1-0 is not a very big spread: basically each character is a significantly better than average at one thing, significantly worse at one thing, crap at something else, and totally average at 50% of his or her abilities. I'm less worried about niches than "Lizard" is, but I'd suggest a somewhat larger scale on the "above average" side to allow for more differentiation than "ok, I'm the fighting guy, you're the computer guy"; there's no need for too many degrees of crapness - these are the heroes, right?

3) You need to do more with the card suits. Right now, it looks like it's mostly "color," since players can freely choose their own obstacle and its suit; I know they don't pick the GM's suits, but it's not clear to me how much chance they have to try card-counting and guessing what the GM's likely to have left to play, which would make for a real strategic dimension. I'd experiment with things like interlocking ladders of trump suits (e.g. spades always beat hearts which always beat clubs which always beat diamonds which always beat spades, or something), and restrictions on what kinds of cards can be played after what other kinds of cards. Miller's With Great Power... does a fair bit in this direction, though I still think not as much as could be done with cards.

4) The players specify details of the situation both in The Plan and in the Job, correct? What incentive do players have for creating really cool, challenging situations that make for exciting narration? This is the imaginative engine of the game, and tapping the players (instead of "the GM does it all") is absolutely essential, but you need to hold out some reward to get people to screw themselves. Look at Clinton Nixon's The Shadow of Yesterday... (free version online), specifically his "Keys" -- most of which amount to "you get XP for endangering your character or making them miserable in some way." As someone who's GM'd a Yesterday game for about five sessions now, I can tell you it's amazing how imaginative players can be in screwing their characters over when the game rewards them for doing it.

5) Like Bill, I'm not really seeing the incentive for betrayal. And I definitely don't think betrayal should end a PC's story. Perhaps being a successful Traitor this time is the only way to "earn" the right to GM next time, with each GM's first Job always being how the other PCs try to take revenge on the GM's old character?

P.S. : And "Lizard": Welcome to the Forge! Do you mind if we call you by your real name?

Oh, and re (4) - check out Matt Wilson's playtest draft of Galactic (with playtest threads here, here, and here). As I read it, it has a very interesting structure where the players tell the GM the elements of their upcoming mission ("planet" here, as it's a space adventure game) and then divide up a pool of difficulty dice among them, basically staking different amounts of their success on different parts of the mission.

Sydney, thanks a lot for the lengthy reply. (And thanks to everybody else who's posted so far, your comments have all been very helpful and insightful.)

I'm not sure if the card-play tradeoff is too convoluted or whether I'm just crap at explaining it more clearly. Right now, it's a bit of both I think. I'll try to make it more transparent on the next rewrite.

As for the spread, it's really just a question of card numbers. There are only 13 cards of each suit, so there's only so many cards each player can keep on his hands. I do allow players to draw more cards than they can keep, thus giving them a little more control over their hand. But that requires spending Reputation to improve the character's Aspects. I've been reluctant to allow more than one deck for each side, as I think it messes with the tactical element of the game. Playtesting will hopefully reveal more.

One of my original ideas included ranking card suits. For example: if the Job Deck card is Hearts, value of Spades cards are reduced by 3, Diamonds are reduced by 2, Clubs are reduced by 1. I've shelved this idea for this first draft, as I feel it makes the whole thing too complicated, but I might re-introduce it once I get the numbers to work right to add another tactical element to the game. I want the tactical element of the game to work off of both card-counting or card-estimating and bluffing.

As for narrating scenes, in this game cards trump narration. If the cards say the scene is Hacker-based (i.e. Diamonds), then that will play a significant part in the conflict (for good or ill). The cards more or less tell you what happens, the players merely translate them. I'll try to make this clearer in the next rewrite. Narration is mostly used for embellishing the card-play; making it relevant for the events that the players make happen. But there's no advantage for screwing your own character over. This kind of play distances the character's well-being from the player's enjoyment. In order for the Betrayal to really work as I envision it, the character needs to be very close to the player. It's not a betrayal among characters, it happens among the players.

But I am toying with the idea of adding some kind of fanmail-like mechanic (like in PTA) in which a particularly well narrated (i.e. fitting or just plain cool) conflict generates some bonus for the player.

Betrayal is the key and the core. So far, what I'm seeing is a fairly fixed and easy sequence for establishing the framework within which betrayal is viable.

In The Mountain Witch, putting Trust in another character means that character can help you significantly. But it also means they get monster bonuses if they betray you.

Although I don't recommend merely aping The Mountain Witch, I do think that your stated desires for this game will need a similar two-pronged approach to betrayal.

Best, Ron

[Pointing at Ron] Listen to that guy[/pointing].

Plus your emphasis on niches and the caper model -- where everybody has a particular piece of the plan to carry out, and everyone has to rely on everyone else doing his or her part -- makes the whole "how far do I trust them?" issue especially double-edged.

Georgios wrote: A few things about the game: "the Betrayal" is at the core of this game. It might look like an after-thought, but it's what's supposed to drive the tension of the game. Will somebody betray us during this mission? I want the betrayal to be painful and a big threat to the players. Betrayal should be both tempting to the players as well as really scary for those who might be betrayed. Is it?

I want a gradual shift of focus to occur. At first, the game is all about working together and finishing the mission. As the players gain more and more reputation, I want the game to drift towards what I want to call "Paranoia Chicken". The fear of being betrayed by your team mates should make you more and more paranoid, until you snap and pre-emptively betray them, just to be safe. Towards the end of the game, I want the player to constantly ask himself: do I continue to trust them in this mission or will they screw me over if I do?

That's why Betrayal needs to be "scary". It should be something that is threatening to the player. I'm worried that Betrayal comes across as a little too soft, and Teamwork as not important enough. The way I designed the card numbers, I want the team to have to risk their abilities or their lives in almost every mission. The players should almost always run out of cards halfway through the mission. This way Betrayal becomes dangerous, because if the player loses the conflict against the Traitor after having risked his life, the character dies.

I can see though, that Betrayal as it works now, isn't tempting enough for the players. There's not enough incentive to betray your team. It's important though, that players should not be able to predict when somebody will betray them, simply because they count numbers on the player's sheet. I want Betrayal to be a decision that's based purely on the player's estimation of his team members. That's why I put a vague "to finish your character's story and win the game, you must betray your team" in there. If you want your character to get a happy ending, you must betray your team... otherwise somebody else will do it, and your character will likely die at their hands.

Hi Georgios,

I suggest a different way of looking at it ... instead of scary, Betrayal should be high-risk, high-pay. Yes, a player might describe that as scary, but if it really were, people would avoid doing it. You're making it pretty clear that Betrayal is something you want people to consider doing. But you don't want it to happen right away.

Well, that is extremely easy.

1. The payoff for Teamwork and the payoff for Betrayal should both increase throughout play.

2. Teamwork should be easy to increase and should have a real, necessary benefit from the very start.

3. The payoff for Betrayal should only be available later during play, whether as a function of existing Teamwork, or due to some other late-scenario feature of play.

(note: neither Teamwork nor Betrayal necessarily have to be actual scores or values; I'm speaking of them in the abstract at this point. They could be scores, they could be maneuvers or options of some kind, or whatever.)

To use The Mountain Witch as an example again, when play starts, minimal benefits are gained by fairly small starting values of Trust. But to face the risks, Trust becomes quite necessary, at least with one or two other characters. And then, when Trust levels are fairly high, only then does Betrayal kick in, because its effectiveness is determined exactly by the amount of existing Trust.

Best, Ron

I must admit that I'm a pretty traditional table top roleplayer, so the whole card thing and the "niches" made me a little nervous at first.  However, after reading over some of the more recent posts, I have to say I'm getting more of a feel for the game.  You're right though, Betrayal should be scary because it is a very real possibility that one of your fellows will betray you.  I can see it now, but I agree with Sydney and  still think more variety in the spread is needed than just cards.

Thanks for the welcome, BTW, my name is Liz (hence the terribly creative handle :)

Excatly, Liz. Betrayal isn't something players should be scared of doing, but something that they don't want done to them. The fear of being betrayed, should make them betray their team first. Of course, there's also the possibility of being so cold and calculating, that you don't mind abusing your fellow players' trust and just betray them, whenever you feel like it.

Ron, you're right, Betrayal must become more and more tempting to the individual players as the game progresses. As a player you need to ask yourself, are the missions we've played together so far and the trust this has build more important than what I get out of betraying the team? And if so, do I trust the other players to see it the same way and not betray me?

I just need to find a way to make betraying more tempting with each passing mission, while being betrayed gets more and more threatening as well. I'm not yet sure how to do this.

Some more random thoughts about the betrayal issue:

1.  What is the reward for betraying?  What is the punishment?  That is, what kind of harm will it do to your reputation should you betray your commrades?

2.  An idea to build it over time might be something like points for a job.  Asimple job would be worth so many points, depending on what your taking, but a complicated job would be worth lots of points because you are risking more by being caught.  Or, you could also have "reputation" points that would reflect your group (or individual) skill.  The more reputation pooints you have, the more money someone would be paying you to complete the mission.  If you betray, your reputation points go down because people don't trust you, but you get to keep the money from that job for yourself.

3.  What if you can rig up a betrayal where your group does not suspect you of betraying them?  What kind of reward/punishment would happen then?

Alright. I've been thinking about the comments and feedback, and have drawn up a new addition to the rules.

[hr]
The Offer (revised)
Each player chooses one of his aspects as his “niche” for this mission. Players can choose to pick the same Aspect as their niche; it just means that this mission has strong emphasis on that type of conflict.

Then the GM deals one card from the GM deck to each player. This card is "The Money". Players will be able to use this card during The Job, The Drop-Off or The Betrayal. 

during The Job - players may swap "The Money" with a card they had to discard during a scene.
during The Drop-Off - the player gains "Reputation" for each card that is the same suit as his Niche or as The Money. If they are the same, each Reputation point gained here is doubled.
during The Betrayal - If the Traitor successfully beats the rest of his team, "The Money" is multiplied with the Renown score and added to the Player's reputation.

The length of The Job is no longer calculated during The Offer. Still working on coming up with a good way to set the length. For now I'll go with a fixed number of 11.

Renown - This is the team's reputation. For every mission that they finish successfully, this is increased by one. Renown is decreased, if the team fails a mission. Renown is added to every player's Reputation score at the end of The Drop-Off.

Successful Missions - A Job is considered successful, if the Job Deck has been cleared, and the team has won more than half of the scenes.

Failed Missions - A Job is considered failed, if the Job Deck has not been cleared. It is also considered failed, if the team has lost more than half of the scenes. Renown is then reduced by the number of scenes that the team missed to finish the mission sucessfully. If they had to win 6 scenes, but only won 3; renown would be reduced by three points. Renown cannot go under 0.

[hr]

Still working on: Job length (I want the players to be able to influence this); adding the option of backing out of a conflict (to allow players to get even with an earlier traitor, without having to betray the rest of the team); making Reputation matter.

That last one is especially important. Right now, it's just an empty score. I'm hesitant to give Reputation some kind of mechanical effect, as I don't want a successful betrayal to lead to "run-away leader syndrome" or some kind of "death spiral". I'll probably have to do away with the "a successful betrayal ends your character's story", too.