Hi all,

I'm back after a REALLY long absence. In fact, I don't think I've been on in a year (good to see you all at last years GenCon, by the way *grin*).

Have been uber-busy this year and had zero time for writing or game development, but I have this mechanic that's been festering in the back of my head for a while so I snatched some time out of my day to put it down on "paper". I would appreciate any thoughts and solutons to the issues I present at the end (apologies for the long and probably rambling description). It's just a mechanic at the moment, I don't yet know what genre or style of game it will end up in.

Fate
"In life, you have to play the hand that fate deals you"

Concept: I'm trying to blend random resolution with strategic selection. By randomly drawing cards but then getting to choose how to play those cards, I am trying to fulfil both sides of that. The GNS feel of the game will be somewhere between Sim and Narr, I think - probably leaning slightly more towards Sim.

Genre: I'm not entirely sure yet, but I suspect it's going to end up fantastic (although it could just as easily go futuristic). At this point, I'm really just developing the system and then I'll see where it "fits" thematically.

Attributes

Characters have 4 attributes, each of which is associated with a card suit (attributes don't have names yet, at the moment they're just so you know that the basic idea of each one is)

Brawn/Constitution/Strength/etc: Clubs
Agility/Nimbleness/Dexterity/etc: Spades
Intellect/Wit/Willpower/etc: Diamonds
Charisma/Charm/Ego/Self-assuredness/etc: Hearts

All attributes are ranked from 1-5. I'm not sure how they're chosen yet but I expect starting characters will have a low attribute of 2 and a high attribute of 3-4, probably in a spread of 2,3,3,3 or 2,2,3,4 or thereabouts. Characters wont want a 1 (as will be explained below) and can't start with a 5.

Skills

I don't know yet how skills will be decided or picked but they're be in 4 categories, each linked to an attribute and they'll be capped at the attribute, so if your Diamonds attribute is 3 then you can't buy any related skills to a higher level than 3.

Conflict Resolution

I'm still determining whether the GM uses cards at all of if only the players do. I quite like the idea of only the players having cards and thus all NPC's and obstacles simply have static scores that the players have to beat. In a combat sense, you must get over an opponents static defence to hit him, and you have to get over his static attack score to not get hit by him. I'm still considering this.

Anyway, however it's done, the GM assigns a difficulty (or determines it) but doesn't tell the player. The player must equal or exceed that difficulty number to succeed.

To do this, the player has a hand of cards. The minimum number of cards a player can hold is equal to his lowest attribute, while the most cards he can hold is equal to his lowest plus his highest attribute. I think players will start with min+1 cards. Note - every player has his own deck of cards, decks are never shuffled together, each players deck is unique to that player.

Bob has 4C, 2S, 3D and 2H. He can only ever have a minimum of 2 cards and a maximum of 6 cards in his hand. Bob starts with 3 cards.

Whenever a player attempts an action, he plays a card and adds his relevant skill to the total. After the action has completed, the player draws a new card so his hand size returns to the size it began at. Cards are valued at their face value (2-10) with J,Q,K all being worth 10, and Aces and Jokers are special (see below).

Bob is attempting to scale a wall. His climbing skill is 3. Bob lays down a card with a value of 7 and adds his climbing skill of 3 making his total 10. After the attempt has been resolved, Bob draws another card, returning his hand to the size it was before the action.

When they lay down cards, players have the option of laying a second card at the same time, and adding the values together. However, the second card played will not be replaced after the action so the characters current hand size will have gone down by 1. Players cannot do this if their hand size would be below their minimum after the redraw.

Bob has 3 cards in his hand and his minimum hand size is 2. Bob can play 2 cards on a single action (taking him down to 1) because he knows that he will redraw back to 2, which is his minimum hand size. If Bob only had 2 cards, he could not play both of them on a single action because the redraw would bring him back up to only 1 card, which is below his minimum hand size.

If a player chooses not to play a second card on an action, he may do so after he finds out if the action was successful or not (in an attempt to convert a failed action to a successful one) but can only do this if the second card is of the correct suit for the action being performed.

When attempting to climb the wall, Bob played a 7 and added his climbing skill making the total 10. If Bob had wanted to, he could have added any other card, perhaps a 6, before announcing the total (which would have now been 16). If Bob had not done this, and had stuck with the 10 but discovered that it had not been high enough, he could now add a second card from his hand but only if it was a Spade, as Spades match the action being performed (Climbing is a Spade attribute skill). The GM announces that 10 is a failure, so Bob adds a 6 of Spades and the total is now 16 (which he hopes is now high enough). Of course, Bob can only do this if he has enough cards that after the redraw he will be at his minimum hand size or above.

If a character plays a trump card for his first card on an action (I need a better name for this, but when I say “trump” I mean a card that is of the same suit as the skill being used) he gets to draw an extra card at the end of the round. Alternately, he can choose to "flip", which means to immediately draw a random card from his deck (not his hand) and add it to the first card. In this way, the character can increase his hand size by 1 (playing one card and drawing back 2) or play a second card on that action for free (either because he plays one card and draws back 1 but gets a free random “flip” card added to the action, or because he plays 2 cards and draws back 2 which is zero sum). This extra redraw only ever applies to the first card played, not to the second card, thus a player cannot play an off-trump card on an action, add a trump card either before or after resolution, and then get 2 cards back.

Because cards are redrawn at the very end of an action, a character who has played a trump cannot elect to draw instead of flip, and then play the card he has drawn as his second card - the second card would have had to come from his card as it is only after all resolution has ended that the player draws cards back to his hand.

While attempting to Climb, Bob plays a 7 of Spades and adds +3 for his climbing skill, making the total 10. Because Climbing is a Spade skill and he played a Spade, Bob can now choose to randomly flip a card from the deck and add it to the total, or instead draw 2 cards at the end of the action rather than the usual 1 (Bob cannot do this if it would take him above his maximum hand size, however). If Bob elects to not flip a card, he can add a second card from his hand before declaring his total, or add a second card after the resolution as long as it is another trump card. Even if he plays (or flips) a second trump card, Bob will still only draw 2 cards back at the end of the action.

Jokers
Jokers are worth 12 points, and always count as being a trump card

Aces
Aces are only worth 1 point, but when played as a first card they always count as a trump card regardless of their actual suit and they always generate a free flip as well as an extra card draw at the end of the round. An ace flip adds its value to the ace but doesn't count as an extra card. In effect, what the Ace actually does is draws a random card and changes it to a trump card while adding +1 to it. Thus if a player plays an ace he flips another card to add to the ace, and then because the ace+flip is considered a single trump card, he may then elect to flip a "second" card or draw an extra card at the end of the round.

If a character flips an ace at any stage, it is only worth 1 point and does not automatically generate another flip. Similarly, an ace played as a second card rather than a first card is only worth 1 point.

For Bob's climbing attempt, Bob plays an ace. It doesn't matter what suit the ace is - Bob flips a free card and that card is added to the ace and considered a trump (Spades in this case, because climbing is a Spades action). If Bob flips a 9 of clubs it is added to the ace and together they are considered a single 10 of Spades. Because Bob has "played a trump card" he can choose to now flip another card to add to the total or instead draw a second card at the end of the round. If he elects to draw instead of flip, Bob could still play a card from his hand onto the "ten of spades" - any card before declaring the total, or another Spade if he added it after being told the action had failed.

That's the nuts of the system. Players can predict what's coming up in their deck to an extent because they know what's gone before, but they never know when they'll be shuffling - at the start of the session the GM randomly picks a card for each player (from a separate deck), and as soon as they play that card their discard pile gets shuffled back into their play deck (they keep what's in their hands at the time) and then the GM determines another shuffle card randomly for that player.

My questions/problems are as follows:

1) How do I determine difficulty levels for actions? The average card (taking into account the variable value of Aces) is 7.27 and the average skill level will of course be 2.5, so the average score for a single card played (accepting Ace+Flip as a single card) is just under 10 (with a range of 2-17 depending on skill), but of course players can play a second card (which has a slightly lower average of 6.66) so if 2 cards are played the average score is about 16.5 with a range of 3-30 (30 is highly unlikely, and only possible if the player plays an ace, flips a joker (so that's 13) adds another joker for 12 more and has a skill of 5). As you can see, it makes things tricky, because I don't want to make actions too hard to succeed at with a single card nor too easy with 2 cards. Thoughts?

1b) Of course, players can’t play second cards all the time, unless they’re very lucky with having the correct suit for the action being attempted – the only way to increase your hand size is playing a trump card and not playing a second card on it, while playing a second card on a non-trump card reduces your hand size. This was very intentional in an attempt to make it available less often, but does it go far enough?

2) I'm toying with the idea of having each player select a special card at character creation (there would be 54 options, of course), and grant some kind of benefit whenever they play that card. The issue is that the benefit can't be based on the value of the card since that means that characters who pick a higher card are better off - playing a 9 is always nicer than playing a 2, so if your "benefit" card is a 2 you're a little worse off. Making your special card simply count as a trump or something like that is boring, and disadvantageous if the action you wan to use it on happens to match its suit anyway. I'm kind of stuck on this one.

3) Is this entire system just a stupid idea? Of course players are going to play the best cards they can on each action (or, more properly, the lowest card they think will succeed), so it means that nobody wants to play the 2's, 3's and 4's etc. Of course, they have to since if they don't they'll eventually end up with a hand full of low cards right when they need good cards, but I still need to make sure players can't just frivolously throw low cards on meaningless actions (by not calling for checks for anything unimportant). But aren't players going to hate the idea that at some point they have to play a low card knowing that they'll fail? It seems harsher than with dice where you accept the occasional bad roll as being fate, but when you have to make the choice to play the low card (even though it was the same fate that gave you that card) it seems worse?

3b) I guess a minor mitigation of 3) is that low cards aren't necessarily always bad since you can use them better when they are trumps. If I have a nine of clubs and a 4 of spades for a spades action, the 9 will only give me 9 but the 4 will give me 4 + a free flip (average of the flip is 7ish making an expected total of 11), or I can live with the 4 but my hand size increases by one. Hmm.. does that fix 3) or not?

4) As I mentioned earlier, I'm toying with the GM not having cards but using static values for NPC/opponent/task difficulties. On the other hand, the GM using cards evens out the probabilities a little, since even a bad card can be alright if the GM also pulls a bad card, and even a great card can surprise you by failing if the GM pulls out a better one. Does this put too much onus on the GM? I don't want him to have to keep track of 6 different hands of 3-5 cards each in a large melee, for example. One way around this would be to use a mook/hero concept ala 7th sea where groups of minor opponents share a hand of cards. Is this workable or is it still too much to ask of a GM?

4.5) What about unopposed tasks? Should players making unopposed checks like climbing. swimming, shooting or whatever be facing a set difficulty number based on how hard the GM perceives the action to be, or against a random card draw modified by the difficulty (perhaps +0 for easy up to +5 for really hard, mirroring the skill system)? I like the ease of the GM not using cards, but I like the smoother probabilities of the GM drawing.

5) I made the face cards all worth 10, firstly because it’s easier than using 11,12, and 13 but also because it brings the average down by half a point. Is there something else nifty I can do with the face cards to differentiate them from just being 12 extra “10”’s in the deck?

Thanks guys,
Brian.

Hey Brian.  Good to see you here, since I'm hardly ever at the TROS board any more.

Before addressing your questions, I just wanted to point out that you've more or less parallel-invented TSR's Saga system, which I always thought was a fun set of rules.  Yours is significantly different, but I thought you might like to check it out if only for compare/contrast purposes.

Regarding target numbers, my suggestion would be to take a reasoned best guess, whip up a chart, and then playtest the crap out of it.  A few sessions will undoubtedly start to tell you what needs adjusting.  That's the "fixed tn" option.  What about using opposed actions instead?  In my experience, opposed tests are much easier to adjudicate properly.  Sorcerer and its mechanical progeny (Donjon, etc) make excellent use of opposed resolution for all actions.

If you want players to do stuff other than always play their best card, then you need to give them some incentive.  What sort of player motivations are you interested in plugging into?

I think you're right to be concerned about GM brain-drain managing large groups of NPCs.  My main suggestion is don't make the GM do any math for npc-management.

Finally, I think that you might find it fruitful to consider other states than "in the deck" "in the hand" and "in the discard" for the cards themselves.  What about a face-up drafting pile?  That's just an initial thought -- but don't limit yourself to traditional places cards "should be".

I'm intrigued -- please keep this thread going!

Hiya Darcy,

Yeah, I haven't been on the TROS forum almost as long as I wasn't on here. My inability to have any time for writing these days really soured things with the guys who bought TROS from Jake. Real shame.

Thanks for your comments. I have had a read through the Saga rules and they're disapointingly similar in places to Fate (almost the same 4 traits/attributes, very similar use of cards and "trumps", etc). On the other hand, there's only so many ways you can use cards as a die replacement so I guess it shouldn't be that surprising there are similarities (plus, I think my system is a little simpler while being no les "full", for a start you don't need a special deck of cards). I'll keep pecking away at Fate for at least the time being and see what pops out the other end; one day when I have writing/development time again I think it'll become an RPG as long as I can get the system nutted out.

One thing I really didn't like about Saga was the way it handles damage. Fate isn't going to be a combat oriented game anyway (or at least, I don't think so, I guess it could still surprise me, but after TROS I want to work on a game where that isn't a big factor) but it certainly seems to me that having low cads in your hand is already a disadvantage, so forcing players to discard point values of cards to represent damage as Saga does seems harsh - if we both take 9 points of damage, but I can discard a single "9" and you have to discard three "2"s and a "3" then you've been a lot more damaged (you've lost four cards to my one) and will take a lot longer to heal than me, from the same level of damage. In Fate, if it's an issue at all I think damage will be represented by the lowering of your maximum hand size - that way 2 players will be penalised to the same level by the same amount of damage although the one with the better attributes will be a little better off than the one with lower attributes, which makes sense to me. Over time and with greater and greater damage, your maximum hand size will eventually drop to the same as your minimum hand size, which kind of elegantly leaves you "critically injured" since you would then be unable to ever play a second card on any action (since you have no leeway on your hand size to increase or decrease it) and then if your max hand size reaches zero you're dead. Hmm, that was off the top of my head and I actually quite like it :-)

You're right that opposed task difficulty is simpler and easier to smooth out probabilities, I was trying to avoid the GM having to track lots of cards. As you say, it'll require playtesting (and I have no idea how I'll find the time for that) but I am definately leaning toward all actions being opposed.

I like your idea of different card states. I can imagine players playing cards in various states and forms in front of them, almost like CCG players (NOT that I want this to have any actual similarity to a CCG). That bears some thought - what kinds of actions or states might cards played in this fashion represent, and what am I trying to achieve with it? I'll take that and mull it over in the festering pit at the back of my head and see what grows out of it. If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.

Player motivations. You know, that's one of the hardest factors to determine, and it probably shouldn't be. I many ways I am going about this in the wrong direction - RPG design should probably be about determining what a game is all about on a fundamental level and then developing the game and mechanics around that. Instead, I'm starting at step 3 or 4 with the mechanics and looking to shoehorn a game into it at a later point. That's not necessarily any less valid, although it does make life a little more difficult. The more Sim I lean my game, the more the general player motivation leans towards "succeeding at actions I perform" which removes (or at least lessens) the applicable play involving voluntary playing of low cards. Maybe that's not a terrible thing - it's certainly the way most mainstream RPG's are structured (players hope for the best die roll, ergo players want to play the best cards). If I lean more towards Nar, perhaps awarding lower card plays with Author rights like Trollbabe (action success = GM narrates, but action failure = player narrates or something like that) than this could swing things the other way perhaps. I need to start thinking about the actual game behind the mechanics and see if that's where I want to go with this.

You've fuelled my thinking on this, which is great - thanks. Would still love to hear comments and/or thoughts (particularly on my questions from the end of my original post or ideas raised in this one) from others too!

Brian.

Just an idea i had when i read your stuff. Hopefully there is something you might use and it might be interesting reading nonetheless.
Instead of having set attributes the players construct a deck which emphasises their strengths and weaknesses.

*---
Quick example with numbers taken out of the blue : All characters get four 6's, six 5's, eight 4's, ten 3's, twelve 2's and fourteen 1's. Total  54 cards.

Each attribute/suit must have at least 8 cards in it(max number of cards in a suit will then of course be 30(average of 13,5 cards per suit)). Each attribute/suit must have at least one 1 and one 4 in it.

Now we will be constructing someone who has a strong physique and is likable maybe not the smartest and of average agilty.. lets call him Stronghandsomeanddim

Brawn/Constitution/Strength/etc: Clubs:  6 6 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 2 1    (14 cards) (total value of 51) (average value of 3.6428... )
Agility/Nimbleness/Dexterity/etc: Spades: 5 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2  1 1 1 1 1    (14 cards) (total value of 31) (average value of 2.2142... )
Intellect/Wit/Willpower/etc: Diamonds:  4 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1    (13 cards) (total value of 24) (average value of 1.8461... )
Charisma/Charm/Ego/Self-assuredness/etc: Hearts: 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 1  (13 cards) (total value of 46) (average value of 3.5384... )
----*

*Trump suit is the attribute most suited to the action.

*You can use all the card on hand for an action but you dont refill you hand untill the action is resolved and cards which arent a trump suit count as a 1 regardless of the number on them. What prevents you from just using all your cards every time then? In the above example Mr. Stronghandsomeanddim might have a  4 of diamonds(intellect) which he might want to hang onto for that crosswordpuzzletrap later on(Not sure this is enough incentive though).

*Using cards from a trump earns you a free flip(Only one free flip per action). Remember the above rule that if the free flip card is out of suit it counts as having a value of one.

*The deck doesn't get reshuffled untill the hand cant be replenished from the deck or enough ingame time has passed to warrant a reshuffle(an undisturbed nights sleep?).

*The hand gets refilled after the action is complete.

*5 Cards in a hand. (If you spend all your cards in your hand on every action it will take 10 actions to use up the deck and get a reshuffle).

*Rewards might be doled out in the form of UberTrumps(jokers) that are shuffled into the deck. These cards presumably have a value between 3 and 6 and since they have no set suit they might be used as whatever suit the player prefers when playing the card. They can only be used once and are then handed back to the GM.
Blessings/boosts will give a temporary increase in handsize.

*Optional thingie. Once before you decide how many cards you are going to use in an action you can discard two cards and draw one new card to your hand(bringing your handsize to four for that action).

*Resolution might be as easy as stating what you want and if you succeed you do whatever you said... kill the dragon, fool the priests wife into meeting you in the forest at midnight, etc..  or it might be based on how much better your result is than the oppositions.

The cons are the you will probably need a shitload of cards and making up an NPC on the fly wont exactly be on the fly :( (but i guess it quicker than rolemaster)    Then again henchmen and such might only have decks of 30 cards and lower minimum number of cards to each suit and so on or you give them a static value(maybe add a random card draw to that?) that needs to be beaten.

Hey Dan,

I quite like some of your ideas, but I don't see the core really being usable since, as you said, the group would not only need a lot of decks of cards (potentially several per player), but they would also all have to be exactly the same manufacturer and back design, and although I probably have ~20 decks of cards at home, they're all different designs and sizes (and I suspect the same is probably true of most folk).

However, I love your idea of the GM handing out special cards to add into a players deck as rewards. This has a similar feel to Deadlands where there was a big pot of poker chips in white, red and blue and the players would randomly draw 3 per session (blue being better than red, which was better than white) but the nifty thing was that certain extremely good play or extremely bad play could add a gold (good) or a black(bad) chip to the pot, and the player who drew that chip would be very happy or very unhappy (true story: in one game the players had managed to build up some serious bad karma over the course of 10 sessions or so and there were 3 black chips in the pot, along with the usual 50 white, 25 red and 10 blue. One player drew out his 3 chips for the session and got... yup, you guessed it... all three black chips. Heh).

Anyway, side notes aside, I like really that idea a lot, and it's started me thinking that maybe jokers are even better than the 12 points I suggested above (or maybe that's still good enough) but that they're not in a players deck normally, and he has to get them added in there through play rewards. Even if every player has a different backed deck or whatever, this still works, the GM just makes sure he rewards the player the correct joker for that deck.

Taking that thought further, it could even provide an answer to my question about what makes the Jacks, Queens and Kings special. Maybe each player only has a deck with Ace through 10 and removes the J,Q,K and Jokers. That gives a deck of 40 cards with an average card draw of, uh, 6.1 (the .1 taking into account the random value of an Ace) with a range of 2-10 (Well, it's possible to get an 11, but that's unlikely). A lower average makes difficulty numbers easier to calculate (even taking a possible second card into account) and then the Jacks, Queens and Kings could be reward cards or character "bonus" cards added into the deck as a reward mechanism etc (with the Jokers being very special rewards). This may even mean that leaving the face cards values as 10 would be good enough (since in a deck with 1-10, adding even one more 10 ups your average nicely) or perhaps might mean special things which could tie nicely into the theme of the game itself. Nifty idea, thanks!

Brian.

Brian, I just had a quick little idea that might kill 2 birds with one stone:

Something different to do with Face Cards, and What to do with crap Cards

I'd argue for dropping the numerical value for Face cards altogether -- it skews the probability curve anyway.  Instead, map special draw/play abilities onto them.

For instance: say Jacks let you do a "random discard draw" -- when you play a Jack, you also discard X cards from your hand.  Your actual Play is derived from X cards drawn from the deck.  Only number cards matching the initial Jack's suit are considered.  Other cards are set aside.  Redraw X cards to your hand after resolution, which may include cards set aside.  (In other words, your hand size will drop by 1 after performing this trick, since the initiating Jack isn't replaced).

Another great avenue to exploit would be some sort of tie-in to in-game setting/mythology.  Kings might have particular significance one you work out your setting, for example.

Just adding to Darcy's post.
If you want more complexity. Different suit on the jack/queen/king might mean different things. Which will give you a possible 12 abiltycards (not counting aces). Then again 3 different abilities might be enough. ;)

Maybe just a little variation is enough. Taking Darcy's example here. A Jack will allow you to redraw X cards to your hand and add 1(or some other number) to your final value  IF the suit of the Jack is relevant to the task. Jack of Clubs for strength tasks and so on.
Further complication might ensue if you play a Jack which is off suit and thus giving a penalty like raising the target number by 1 or more.

Some suggestions on what the different face cards might be.
* Redraw X cards/hand
* Reshuffle your deck
* Choose X cards from the discarded pile and shuffle them back into the deck
* Lower target number by X
* GM must reveal target number or an estimate(above ten)
* Increase/Decrease hand size by X
* Autosucced or add cool sideffectthingy to your action
* Stop the GM from refilling his hand (if you decide to go with the GM having cards as well)
* Peek at the GM's Cards/players cards

Bytheway anymore thought on what genre you are going to go with?

I quite like both of your ideas, but I think I need to be careful that I don't map too many different odd abilities onto the face cards which are, after all, 3/13ths of the deck (or about 23%, so you'll expect to get one almost every 4th card) - too many and it would overbear the rest of the play.

I was thinking of combining this with Darcy's idea earlier of using cards in other ways. How about if when you get a face card you can play it on the table in front of you, and it provides some lasting benefit (maybe for one particular scene). These cards might be ones that get added to your deck as rewards as we discussed earlier, or are maybe even bought as character benefits.

Perhaps each suit provides a different benefit (add +x to all plays, lower TN's, draw an extra card per play, etc) which is achieved by playing a face card of that suit in front of you. However, only one of each suit can be in play at a time, and it can be overridden by a higher face card of the same suit. So if a character plays the Jack of Clubs he receives whatever benefit that grants for the remainder of the scene (or however long) No other character could play a Jack of Clubs, but they could play a Queen or a King of Clubs, which would force the discard of the Jack as well as then giving them the benefit. Kings are harder to come by because of course you can't be forced to discard them.

Hmm. I think I need to start thinking more about the actual game/genre as that may suggest some more towards this, but as a general concept what do you think? Any or all of Dan's suggestions could work as benefits for these card plays.

Brian.

I like the idea, it has some serious thought behind it. I won't repeat other's comments, but as a rules lawyer, min-maxer and borderline munchkin, what is in there to prevent players from deliberately setting themselves tasks that they don't care if they fail at?

That is, if I have some crap cards, find an excuse to do something requiring a card use, then dump the crap, have a harmless failure on the task, and slowly build my hand up to a full arsenal of 10's and Jokers?

Greg Porter

One thing I noticed under the heading of conflict resolution - It really read as a task resolution vs. a conflict one.  Do you have a vision as to where you are leaning on this?  I think this could be a dandy FiTm resolution mechanic.

This has myriad possibilities. I think this could add inspiration to the outcome of a FiTm resolution, with the special cards adding variance outside the usual “margin of success or failure”.

Example:  I choose the Ace of Diamonds as my special card.  I draw one and have it as a resource to play during a conflict.  When I do so, something special comes to bear on the outcome of that conflict (I get extra cookies, or the poker game has an extra big winning pot…)

You have a mechanic poised for great player control, with players controlling resources and choosing when/how to bring them to bear.

I would consider giving the GM a “counter deck” that represents the oppositional forces set against the protagonists.  You could have the GM draw against players and set certain “chosen” suits to offer different kinds of challenges depending on the choices (made by suit) during character creation.  This could be tied to particular conflicts, or have certain cards trigger certain types of challenges within a conflict (as far as the outcome is determined).

Example: that same player from above chooses an opposing Jack of Spades card, designating that as the characters “black day” draw. If the GM pulls that card during a conflict a pre-chosen “bad thing” comes to bear on the character.  You could attach rewards to how the player deals with the challenge presented by the draw.  I would suggest that “bad thing” be something the player chose during character creation…

Attaching a good card/bad card to something important to the player to explore in play could make for a great reinforcing reward mechanic directly tied to your resolution mechanic.

Greg I don't think it will be a problem but only playtesting will show in the end.

If the players don't care whether they fail or not why would one check to see if they succeed?

Some GM's wont be able to handle those calls and will lean on the system to keep the players in check. So here's 2 suggestions.
* When you loose a task you have to randomly discard a card from your hand and draw a new card. This can of course be exploited when you're sitting with all ones on your hand to quickly redraw and improve your hand but when you got some good cards and some bad cards. Do you want to risk it?

* Depending on how much you loose a task by there might be negative effects even to a trivial task. Lift a stone? Sprain your back. Make pancakes? Burn yourself on the stove. Look after the neighbours kids? They wander into the street and get run over. Write a letter to a friend? Accidentally use the poison ink you use when sending letters to your enemies.

I personally don't think it would be wrong of the players to get and hold on to the best cards for the goal the players have set for themselves. After all that goal is going to be something that  is difficult to achieve... I hope. After all adventurers dont stand around making pancakes all day ;)
Basically the GM has to throw something that matters at the PC's at regular intervals but thats true of every RPG(in my experience) or else it gets abit boring.

---

Trentins post got me thinking about GM hands. IFyou decide to go with the GM having a deck of cards. How will you resolve situations with multiple NPC's? Will each NPC have his own hand or will they have one hand which gets it hand size increased by one for each extra NPC involved in the opposing action. How will this work with Multiple PC's against one big hand(multiple NPC's)? Will they each try to overcome what the GM plays and have different outcomes for each player or will they pool their resources like the NPC group does and win or fail like a group. What happens when you have 5 different factions all vying for the same goals but not cooperating? Five GM hands plus the hands of the players... lotsa cards there.

What about the important NPC's that the players face? Will they start with a randomly drawn hand or will they be allowed a certain number of redraws on their hand when they first draw their hand. After all the opposition is not idle just like the players they will try to get and hold on to those good cards or will they just start with a larger hand size depending on how good they are thus upping the chance of them gettting good cards?

What of static/inanimate/unthinking objects like doors, the sea, slippery walkway will they also have hands drawn for them?

Seems like alot of complication to me. I would keep the GM having cards thing to a minimum.

This brings up another question. If everything that the players go up against is represented by a targetnumber how will you resolve when two NPC's go up against each other and the outcome will affect the players but the players cant influence it? GM call, draw a card?
Or will it be made moot cuz the players have the 4 different powers(suits) of FATE at their beck and call and can subtly but effectively influence everything around them? ;)

Brian I read your thing on letting cards stay in play and give benefits for the scene.
Personally I like the idea of having each special card that gives you a benefit also give you a drawback. Like playing a card that stays in play will decrease your handsize by one untill the card isnt in play anymore.
And some questions. Does the cards that stay in play apply for all players or only for the one who played it or can you choose to give the bonus to another player?
If it only applies to one player why would you want to replace another players bonuscard in play? They might throw a fit cuz the only thing that keept them out of harms way was that card.
Are players allowed to show their cards to the other players or hint about it? How much backstabbing will there be? ;)

Some sort of genre would definitely help. I cant help thinking it should be big like Amber and Aria. Just my impression though.

Wow, lots of great comments.

I'll get my flippant response out of the way first:

Trentin wrote: I think this could be a dandy FiTm resolution mechanic.

Greg wrote: That is, if I have some crap cards, find an excuse to do something requiring a card use, then dump the crap, have a harmless failure on the task, and slowly build my hand up to a full arsenal of 10's and Jokers?

Trentin wrote: One thing I noticed under the heading of conflict resolution - It really read as a task resolution vs. a conflict one.  Do you have a vision as to where you are leaning on this?

Trentin wrote: This has myriad possibilities. I think this could add inspiration to the outcome of a FiTm resolution, with the special cards adding variance outside the usual “margin of success or failure”.

Example:  I choose the Ace of Diamonds as my special card.  I draw one and have it as a resource to play during a conflict.  When I do so, something special comes to bear on the outcome of that conflict (I get extra cookies, or the poker game has an extra big winning pot…)

You have a mechanic poised for great player control, with players controlling resources and choosing when/how to bring them to bear.

Trentin wrote: I would consider giving the GM a “counter deck” that represents the oppositional forces set against the protagonists.  You could have the GM draw against players and set certain “chosen” suits to offer different kinds of challenges depending on the choices (made by suit) during character creation.  This could be tied to particular conflicts, or have certain cards trigger certain types of challenges within a conflict (as far as the outcome is determined).

Dan wrote: Trentins post got me thinking about GM hands. IFyou decide to go with the GM having a deck of cards. How will you resolve situations with multiple NPC's? Will each NPC have his own hand or will they have one hand which gets it hand size increased by one for each extra NPC involved in the opposing action. How will this work with Multiple PC's against one big hand(multiple NPC's)? Will they each try to overcome what the GM plays and have different outcomes for each player or will they pool their resources like the NPC group does and win or fail like a group. What happens when you have 5 different factions all vying for the same goals but not cooperating? Five GM hands plus the hands of the players... lotsa cards there.

Dan wrote: What of static/inanimate/unthinking objects like doors, the sea, slippery walkway will they also have hands drawn for them?

Dan wrote: This brings up another question. If everything that the players go up against is represented by a targetnumber how will you resolve when two NPC's go up against each other and the outcome will affect the players but the players cant influence it? GM call, draw a card?
Or will it be made moot cuz the players have the 4 different powers(suits) of FATE at their beck and call and can subtly but effectively influence everything around them? ;)

Dan wrote: Brian I read your thing on letting cards stay in play and give benefits for the scene.
Personally I like the idea of having each special card that gives you a benefit also give you a drawback. Like playing a card that stays in play will decrease your handsize by one untill the card isnt in play anymore.
And some questions. Does the cards that stay in play apply for all players or only for the one who played it or can you choose to give the bonus to another player?
If it only applies to one player why would you want to replace another players bonuscard in play? They might throw a fit cuz the only thing that keept them out of harms way was that card.
Are players allowed to show their cards to the other players or hint about it? How much backstabbing will there be? ;)

Dan wrote: Some sort of genre would definitely help. I cant help thinking it should be big like Amber and Aria. Just my impression though.

Hmm.. how about this for the face cards:

There are a number of special benefits for each attribute/suit that can be bought. Each one has three different levels of effect. Buying the first level lets you add a Jack of that suit to your deck, buying the next level replaces the jack with the queen, and finally the king. Although there will be many different, say, Intellect abilities that can be bought, a character can only ever choose one, and take it up through the three levels, but he can also have one special ability for each of the other three suits.

There is no concept of trumping other players etc, these are individual. NPC's can have them and some special NPC's might even get to start with them already in play etc.

So, for eample (totally off the top of my head) you may have one kind of like:

Fast Talker (Hearts; Spirit/Charasma/whatever I call it)
This card gets added to your play deck and may be played face up on the table from your hand. This is not an action and the card is not replaced (but max/min hand size doesn't change so you can re-increase your hand size as usual). The benefit granted lasts until your next reshuffle (the card is discarded and shuffled with everything else).
Jack: Add +2 to all action plays involving convincing someone of something ('aint I so eloquent? *grin*)
Queen: Add +4 to all action plays involving blah blah
King: You may add +6 OR a free flip to all action plays involving blah blah

A character with fast talker couldn't have another Hearts special ability but could have one from each of the other three suits, so at best he could end up with up to 4 cards in play in front of him. Different cards might be worth varying benefit, and may get discarded for varying reasons (really powerful ones might only last a certain number of turns or "uses", weaker ones might remain for an entire scene even if the hand is reshuffled, etc.

If one of these cards comes up as a flip, or if the player chooses to play it as an action instead of for it's special benefit, it counts as a 10 of it's own suit. Ooh.. another possibility is that a player could play one of these cards to force a discard of the same (or lower) card of an NPC (or another player if they are in conflict), so if you have the Queen of Clubs out and it's giving you some great ability, I could play my own Queen or King of Clubs (not Jack) and both would get discarded, I have to decide if the benefit I lose by discarding my card and not playing it on the table is better or worse than depriving you of yours.

Another example of a more powerful one (again off the top of my head)
Swift (Spades; Nimbleness/Agility/whatever)
This card is played from the hand onto the table. At the time it is played, flip a random card and place it beside it. The value of the flipped card is the number of actions this card may be used for, after which it is discarded (or when a shuffle comes up...). Each time it is used (successful or not) cover up one of the symbols on the flipped card with the face card, when they are all covered, discard both cards.
Jack: You may add +2 to all 2nd cards played as long as they are trump for that action.
Queen: You may add +4 to all 2nd cards played that are trump or +2 to non-trump 2nd cards.
King: As Queen, but you may also use up one "use" of this ability to view the top card of your play deck (i.e. the one you will next pick up or flip).

The examples are totally off the top of my head and probably crap, but you get the idea. These kinds of abilities can also be nicely tailored to the final game/genre as well.

Thoughts?

Brian.

I like it. Buuuut I would let the players have up to three abilties per suit(one for each face card). Also they cant buy the second one untill the first ability is at Queen level and they can't get the third ability untill the first one is at King level and the second at Queen level. The First ability can go to King level, the second can go to Queen level and the third can only go to Jack level.

Example: You might have the first abilty at King level and the second ability still at Jack level but you cant buy the third ability untill the second ability is raised to Queen level.

Maybe one ability is enough but I like the increased character options this gives.

The only reason I didn't go with something like that was a concern over having too many face cards in the deck. If players can have 3 abilities per suit then they can (eventually) have all 12 face cards in their deck, which is a quarter of the deck. This means a lot of really high cards coming out all the time (the average card value goes up by 1.5).

Of course, it'll take them a long time to get to that and cost a lot of <whatever currency I use>, so that might not be an issue. I guess the only way to know is to playtest it both ways and see how it plays.

Hmm... another option is instead of capping the number of abilities at the suits, make a hard cap. You can have 6 character abilities total, say, so if you want JQK in 2 suits that's up to you, or if you want KKKKQQ then that's fine too, etc. This allows players who want to specialise in a certain aspect (e.g. all mental abilities, so lots of heart and diamond specials) to do so, and also Jack-of-all-trades characters are accommodated for too.

I think it might be time for a second draft of the base rules including everything we've talked about so far!

Brian.

Hy Gentleman,

Brian... you can't really measure the fright you gave me when I read your post.

I have been toiling with a system really close to the most basic concepts of your Fate for the last six months. We have ran no less than a 100 hours of playtesting and the document is running the intellectual property proccess on my country's national library.

Luckly, I have a pretty big network of players and friends able to give me feedback around here, and they all posted the same criticisms and doubts. (That's why I didnt post the concept on The Forge). Through careful research, trial and error, we overcame all such criticisms and developed a system that only resembles Saga system due to the use of cards. But all the rest is pretty original, as far as I can tell.

I thought for some minutes if I would post it or not, but I really believe that a trend may be developing and designers like you and me may be wandering and striding to the same destination, each one at their different pace... but steadily. I would love to say 'drop it, I am further ahead the road', but I cant say anything less than 'work hard, it isnt a fancy and silly project'. I would feel unmannly, crass, and very much into the feeling of paranoia and greed of our time. It would also be completely against the mindset of the community...

So, it would be my pleasure if you want to exchange ideas in order to make our products differ as much as possible and to help in what I can.

Douglas.

Hi Doug.

Well, I certainly wouldn't drop anything I was working on just because someone else developed something similar! As I said in an earlier post, there's only so many ways you can use cards for this kind of thing so there will always be similarities between card-using systems (how different are many of the die using systems out there, really?) and someone else working on something similar just means to me that it's not a stupid idea and there's potentially extra people to share ideas with!

Even if I ever did publish Fate (and that's a huge if) and you publish yours, I can't see that there's any conflict at all - although it's a niche market, the RPG audience don't choose their games based on the system alone (and that's all I have so far anwyay) so there's more than enough room for us to co-exist.

I would love to see your stuff if you're in the mood to share it (you've already seen mine, and I'll have the next draft of the rules finished in a day or two, which I will post here, so you can see that too). I don't see that we need to actively work at differentiating our products; I'm sure each will have it's own flavour and nuances. Instead, I would love to work with you if you're interested.

Brian.

Here's the second draft of the Fate rules.

I have enough now that I am going to start playtesting and nutting out some of the finer details. Genre' isn't really that important right now, so for testing I'm going to try a variety of genre's (space opera, fantasy, old west) and see if anyhting has a nice fit (although I think I already know what the final genre' will be, but I'm still fleshing it out in my head).

If anyone has any spare time and the inclination to help out, I would love to hear any playtest reports and/or further ideas.

My main concern pre-playtest is the difficulty of non-opposed tasks, specifically balancing that difficulty when players can play or or two cards on an action.

Fate
"In life, you have to play the hand that fate deals you"

Concept: I'm trying to blend random resolution with strategic selection. By randomly drawing cards but then getting to choose how to play those cards, I am trying to fulfil both sides of that. The GNS feel of the game will be somewhere between Sim and Narr, I think - probably leaning slightly more towards Sim.

Characters: Characters in Fate are those special individuals for whom Fate itself has a plan. These characters are able in some small (and varying from individual to individual) way to actually manipulate the forces of fate to assist themselves or others, or hinder their foes. Of course, some of those foes may themselves be chosen by Fate… (ok, that sounds wanky, but you get the idea)

Attributes
Characters have 4 attributes, each of which is associated with a card suit

Brawn (Clubs) – Represents a characters physical strength, hardiness, health and general well being.
Agility (Spades) – Represents both the manual dexterity of the character, as well as his reaction time
Intellect (Diamonds) – Represents a characters intelligence, mental acuity and strength of will
Personality (Hearts) – Represents the charisma and general allure of the character, as well as his ego and self assuredness

The human minimum in an attribute is 1 and the maximum is 5 (scores higher than 5 are possible, but not fir humans). All attributes start at 1 and character’s have 7 points to spend with no attribute being able to be raised above 4 at character creation (I expect the usual spread will be 3/3/3/2 or 4/3/2/2)

There are also two derived attributes:

Body (Average of Brawn and Agility, rounded down) – Reactionary attribute used when resisting physical injury that is a result of being tough and maybe avoiding some of the effect
Mind (Average of Intellect and Personality, rounded down) – Reactionary attribute used when resisting mental injury such as stress, mind attacks and so on

Skills

Skills are subdivided up into 4 categories, each linked to an attribute. Skills have a value that is capped by the attribute they’re linked to, so an Agility skill cannot have a value any higher than the characters Agility score.

Actual skills selection I have not decided on yet. I will probably go with a fairly freeform skill selection where players can choose any skill that seems to make sense (with the GM arbitrating any that seem too broad or too narrow). Even if I do go with some form of list of skills, that can’t be worked on until I have nailed down the Genre, of course.

Action Resolution

Whenever a character attempts any action, the result is determined by a combination of the characters’ talents and abilities (skill or attribute score) and random chance – or in other words, Fate.

In most RPG’s, random chance is determined by the throw of one or more dice, through negotiation, or even by the flip of a coin. Fate uses cards. A standard Fate card deck is made up of all 40 cards numbered A-10 in each of the four suits. The face cards (Jack, Queen, King) and Jokers are set aside and only used in special circumstances – more on this later. Aces are treated as having a value of 1 when they are flipped from the deck, but can occasionally have special values (see Aces, below)

When a normal person or animal attempts to perform any action, the process is simple: The character determines the most relevant skill they posess to the situation (if tey do not posess a relevant skill, the GM may allow them to use the most applicable attribute, or more commonly they are stuck with a skill level of zero) and they flip a card from a Fate deck. The numerical value of the card plus their skill level is compared to the difficulty of the task as set by the GM (more on difficulties is discussed below). If they have achieved or bettered the difficulty number, they have succeeded in the action.

James is a simple peasant attempting to catch a chicken for his dinner. The GM tells James that this will use his Running skill, so James flips a random card from a fate deck. The card is a 7 of diamonds, and James adds his running kill of 2 to make a total of nine. Because the GM had determined that the difficulty of catching the chicken was 10, James has not succeeded. He eventually slumps to the ground, exhausted, while the chicken flees into the barn.

Sometimes however, things work out even better than you expected them to. This is the raw manifestation of Fate, and it occurs whenever the card drawn is of the same suit as the suit governing the action (the suit assigned to the attribute the skill being used is attached to). When this happens, the character should draw a second card and add it to the first (plus his skill level) to determine his failure or success.

James is still trying to catch that chicken. After a suitable period for rest, he runs after the chicken again, trying to grab it. James flips a random card – a 6 of Spades. Because Running is an Agility action, which means it is governed by Spades, James draws a second card – a 4 of clubs, and adds it to his first card. Adding them together and adding his Running skill score, James gets a total of12, which is enough to catch the chicken. It loks like James will be enjoying chicken wings tonight!

Whenever an action is attempted, the relevant suit is referred to as the Trump suit. In the previous example, Spades were trumps, and so James got to draw an extra card because his first draw (the 6 of Spades) was a Trump. Note that even if James had pulled another spade as his second card, he would not have drawn a third card – only two cards can ever be played for an action.

How Difficult?

For any action, the GM determines the difficulty in the following manner:

Simple actions
Simple actions involve any action where the character is not actively working against another person or animal. The difficulty in these cases is determined by the GM as a static number that the character must equal or exceed in order to succeed. The GM should use the following guidelines

Static difficulty table (needs playtesting)
Simple task: 6 Better than 50/50 chance even with no skill
Moderate task: 8 50/50 with average skill
Tricky task: 10 Slightly under 50/50 with average skill
Challenging Task: 12 Tricky with one card, relatively easy with 2 cards
Hard Task: 14 Very hard with a single card, 50/50 with 2 cards and average
skill
Extremely hard task: 16 Impossible with one card, tricky with 2 cards
Heroic Task: 18 Impossible with one card, very difficult with 2 cards

The maximum achievable play is 25, but the odds of this are unlikely. As a general rule, difficulties over 14 should be used sparingly.

Opposed Actions
Opposed actions involve any action where the character attempting to perform the action is in conflict with another character. Attempting to catch a chicken or kick down a door is a simple action, but attempting to bribe a guard or dodge a rock someone has thrown at you is an Opposed action.

Opposed actions are performed by both parties performing a draw for their action, and the person with the higher total is declared the winner. If both receive the same total, the winner is the person with the higher total card draw (fate likes them a little better). If both parties have drawn the same value card, then the winner is determined by the person who had trump over a person who did not. If neither drew a Trump (or both did) then the contest is declared a tie, the results of which are adjudicated by the GM.

James has moved on from Chickens, and is now chasing his girlfriend, who is playfully resisting his attempts to kiss her. James flips a card and gets a 6 of diamonds, which he adds to his running skill of 2 for a total of 8. James’ girlfriend draws a 3 of Spades (which is Trump, because she’s also running) so she draws another card which is a 5 of hearts. She has only 1 point in her running skill, but this is enough to give her a total of 9, so she nimbly avoids James’ clumsy advances. If she had no points in the running skill, she would have tied scores with James, so the card values could have been compared – James had a card total of 6 while his girlfriend had a card total of 8, so she still would have won the contest.

Favoured by Fate

Some people are a little more special than the common run of folk, and are favoured by Fate itself. Such folk get a hand up when dealing with the vagaries of Fate, and (to a limited extent) can select how favourably Fate treats them. However, the more they draw on Fate and try to force it to be favourable, the more likely it is that Fate will abandon them when they most need it.

To represent this, each player or major NPC has a hand of cards. The minimum number of cards a player can hold is equal to his lowest attribute, while the most cards he can hold is equal to his lowest plus his highest attribute (characters begin play with their minimum number of cards +1). Every player has his own deck of cards, unique to that player, and constructed as outlined above (every card from Ace-10 in each suit, totalling 40 cards).

Bob has 4 Brawn (Clubs), 2 Agility (Spades), 3 Intellect (Diamonds) and 2 Personality (Hearts). He can only ever have a minimum of 2 cards and a maximum of 6 cards in his hand. Bob starts with 3 cards.

Whenever a player attempts an action, he may select a card from his hand to play a card and adds his relevant skill to the total as usual. After the action has completed, the player draws a new card so his hand returns to the size it began at.

Bob the PC is attempting to scale a wall, he has three cards in his hand. His climbing skill is 3. Bob lays down a card with a value of 7 and adds his climbing skill of 3 making the total 10. After the attempt has been resolved, Bob draws another card, returning his hand to three cards - the size it was before the action.

As describe above, if a character plays a trump card for his first card on an action, he can flip a second card (from his draw deck, not from his hand) and add it to the first card. Because the player has selected the first card, he has control over this – he chooses to play a trump rather then relying on chance to flip one as his first card.

Alternately, the character may choose not to flip a second card – this is a valid choice if he feels that the card he has played is high enough to succeed without needing a random second card to be flipped on top of it. If the player elects not to flip a second card, he may instead draw a second card into his hand after the action has resolved. In this manner, he actually increases his hand size, because he has played one card but draws back two. This option is unavailable if the extra draw would take the character above his maximum hand size.

While attempting to Climb, Bob plays a 7 of Spades and adds +3 for his climbing skill, making the total 10. Because Climbing is a Spade skill and he played a Spade, Bob can now choose to randomly flip a card from the deck and add it to the total, or instead draw 2 cards at the end of the action rather than the usual 1.

When playing their first card, if the card is not a trump or if it was a trump but the player elected not to flip a random card to add to it, the player has the option of laying a second card from his hand at the same time, adding the values together. However, this second card will not be replaced after the action so the characters current hand size will go down by 1. This option is unavailable if the players hand size would be below their minimum after the redraw. Of course, if the player has played a Trump as his first card, elected not to flip a random card, and played a second card from his hand, his hand size will remain stagnant because he has played two cards from his hand, and at the end of the action will draw two cards.

Because cards are redrawn at the very end of an action, a character who has played a trump cannot elect to draw instead of flip, and then play the card he has drawn as his second card - the second card would have had to come from his card as it is only after all resolution has ended that the player draws cards back to his hand.

If a player chooses not to play a second card on an action, he may do so after he finds out if the action was successful or not (in an attempt to convert a failed action to a successful one) but can only play a trump as the second card. This trump does not generate a flip or an extra card draw at the end of the action.

When attempting to climb the wall, Bob played a 7 and added his climbing skill making the total 10. If Bob had wanted to, he could have added any other card, perhaps a 6, before announcing the total (which would have now been 16). If Bob had not done this, and had stuck with the 10 but discovered that it had not been high enough, he could now add a second card from his hand but only if it was a Spade, as Spades are Trumps for this action (Climbing is a Spade attribute skill). The GM announces that 10 is a failure, so Bob adds a 6 of Spades and the total is now 16 (which he hopes is now high enough). Of course, Bob can only do this if he has enough cards that after the redraw he will be at his minimum hand size or above.

Special Cards

Jokers
Jokers do not exist in a players deck at all. An occasional special reward from the GM may grant a Joker which the player will add to his deck but only gets to use once – as soon as it is played, the Joker is returned to the GM. Jokers are worth 12 and are always considered Trump cards.

Aces
Aces are only worth 1 point if they are flipped or played as a second card for an action, but when played as a first card from the hand they instead have the following attributes:

An Ace played as a first card always counts as a Trump card regardless of its actual suit, and its value is equal to 1 plus a randomly flipped card. This card adds its value to the ace but doesn't count as an extra card. In effect, what the Ace actually does is draws a random card and changes it to a trump card while adding +1 to it. Thus if a player plays an ace he flips another card to add to the ace, and then because the ace+flip is considered a single Trump card, he may then elect to flip a "second" card or draw an extra card at the end of the round.

For Bob's climbing attempt, Bob plays an ace. It doesn't matter what suit the ace is - Bob flips a free card and that card is added to the ace and considered a trump (Spades in this case, because climbing is a Spades action). If Bob flips a 9 of clubs it is added to the ace and together they are considered a single 10 of Spades. Because Bob has "played a trump card" he can choose to now flip another card to add to the total or instead draw a second card at the end of the round. If he elects to draw instead of flip, Bob could also play a card from his hand onto the "ten of spades" as described above.

Court Cards
The Court cards (Jacks, Queens, Kings) are not included in a players deck by default (and never exist in decks used by common folk, hmm, I guess I need a special name for those who are favoured by fate enough to have a hand of cards, and those who don’t and who just flip a random card every action as described way above). Instead, they are added to a deck as player advantages that can be purchased or awarded by the GM.

Advantages are purchased somehow (with whatever form of experience awards etc I eventually decide to use). Each advantage falls into one of four categories (Brawn, Agility, Intellect, Personality) and has three levels of effect. Buying the first effect gives the character a Jack of that suit to add to his deck, buying the next level replaces the Jack with a Queen (and allows the Jack to be used to buy a first level in another ability under the same suit, if desired), and buying the 3rd level replaces the queen with a King. For obvious reasons, a character can only buy 3 advantages for each suit, as it is not possible to have 2 of the same card in a deck. A character may never have more than 6 advantages (which could be KQJ in 2 different suits, or KKKKQQ, etc).

When a court card is drawn into the hand, it may be played face up on the table, and it’s benefit remains for however long as is stipulated for the advantage (most advantages last for the current scene, or until the next reshuffle, or until they have been used a certain number of times). The card may instead be played as a regular card, in which case it acts as a ten of its own suit but provides no other benefit. If flipped, court cards also are valued as ten of their own suit.

Sample Court Cards (more to follow, these have NOT been playtested)

Fast Talker (Personality; Hearts)
This card is added to your play deck and may be played face up on the table from your hand. This is not an action and the card is not replaced (but max/min hand size doesn't change so you can re-increase your hand size as usual). The benefit granted lasts until your next reshuffle (the card is discarded and shuffled with everything else).
Jack: Add +2 to all action plays involving convincing someone of something
Queen: Add +4 to all action plays involving blah blah
King: You may add +6 OR a free flip to all action plays involving blah blah

Swift (Agility; Spades)
This card is played from the hand onto the table. At the time it is played, flip a random card and place it beside it. The value of the flipped card is the number of times this card’s benefit may be used. Each time it is used (successful or not), cover up one of the symbols on the flipped card with the court card, when they are all covered, discard both cards.
Jack: You may add +2 to all 2nd cards played as long as they are trump for that action.
Queen: You may add +4 to all 2nd cards played that are trump or +2 to non-trump 2nd cards.
King: As Queen, but you may also use up one "use" of this ability to view the top card of your play deck (i.e. the one you will next pick up or flip).

I didn't know the forum had a posting size limit now! :-)

Here's the rest of the 2nd draft (only a little more)

Combat and Injury

I thought long and hard about including this but hell, it practically wrote itself and, let’s face it, there’s probably going to be combat/conflict of some form involved.

At the start of any combat, all involved parties determine their initiative. This is an Agility action, so a card is played, the Agility is added to it, and that is that characters initiative for the entire combat. The character then redraws as usual. If the character had played a Spade, he could have been able to flip or add a second card, etc etc.

Combat is divided up into rounds. Each round, each character gets to make one action and as many reactions as they like.

Actions involve attacking another character, moving, casting a spell (if there’s magic) and so on. A valid action would also be playing a new initiative card, forfeiting the action for this round but acting (presumably) faster the next and subsequent rounds.

An attack against another character is an action, performed by playing a card and adding the relevant fighting skill to it. Martial skills are probably all Agility, but there could be some Brawn ones like wrestling. The total is the characters attack value.

The person being attacked then makes a reaction, which is done the same way – he plays a card and adds his relevant defensive skill (parry, dodge, whatever they are) and again they are probably mostly Agility based skills.

If the defender gets the higher total then the attack has failed. If the attacker wins then the difference between the attack value and the defence value is the margin of success. To this is added the attackers Brawn and any bonus for the weapon if weapons work that way. Subtract the defenders Brawn and any bonus for armour if there is armor etc. The result is applied to the defender as wounds. Every time the defender takes total wounds equal to a multiple of his Body derived attribute, he takes a major wound and his maximum hand size drops by one. When his maximum hand size has dropped to equal his minimum hand size, he is critically wounded (and obviously, at this point he can’t ever take extra cards or play extra cards since his hand size must remain static). Further wounds keep reducing his hand size until it reaches 0, at which point he is the same as a regular character and can only perform actions by flipping random cards. At this point, one more major wound will kill him. Characters who are not “favoured by fate” are already at this point, so one major wound is all it takes to knock them out of a fight.

Multiple opponents who are basically mooks will be treated as a group. They will have common attributes and skills, and a hand size for the group with a minimum of 1 and a maximum equal to the size of the group (they start with half this number). Each member of the group takes his own actions and may use any card from the hand as usual. Each member can only take one major wound, at which point he is knocked out of the fight and the group reduces it’s size (and thus maximum hand size) by one. Once all the cards are gone, they have all been defeated.

Magic and Spells

If this turns out to be a fantastic setting, magic will be handled by adding together spell components and attributes to get to a difficulty number to cast the spell (kind of like TROS). The mage will then have to play a card/cards to achieve this number in order to cast the spell. I think magic will be hard enough that the difficulty will almost always require a second card, so mages will only be able to cast spells when they have Intellect (diamond) cards in hand. Not sure yet.

Tres cool.

I'll be very interested in seeing how genre influences the JQK abilities -- I'm suspicious that it will.

Here's a suggestion on resolution (it's about resolution in general, but it's geared to both reduce handling time and to also streamline unopposed resolution), predicated on the following notion: the only time we're interested in performing said resolution is when one of the parties is a 'named' character (favoured by Fate).  Ergo, we're always dealing with someone with a hand of cards.

The GM keeps a face-up 'drafting' line next to his deck.  This replaces any NPC hand.  This line is X-1 cards "long" (X=maximum # of cards possible in a character's hand).

When the opposition is an npc, the NPC's "hand" is considered to be the first Y cards adjacent to the deck (Y=npc's hand size -1).  In addition, once the player has selected their card (but before it's been revealed), the GM also flips over the top card of the deck to "complete" the NPC's hand.  GM now chooses as desired from the completed hand.

When the opposition isn't an npc (unopposed), the GM determines the hand size instead of a TN.  The GM needs to consider the fact that the PC will also have a skill when setting hand size.  (I'd like to point out that this idea isn't new -- it's just a reworking of Sorcerer's system, but geared for cards.)

After resolution, the drafting line is shunted towards the deck to occupy the vacancy, and a new card is added to the end of the line.

A final thought -- Stats don't do much of anything once gameplay starts, other than in taking and dishing damage.  Since Brawn is especially important in combat, you're setting up a real potential for a "good stat".

Perhaps stats need to do something else -- and let it be something that opens up the possibility for all of them being engaged in play.

Brian: Definitely looks playable as is... except for a little clarification that might be needed.  Good luck with the playtesting.

It's abit unclear in the part that describes resolution where it says

"When a normal person or animal attempts to perform any action, the process is simple: The character determines the most relevant skill they posess to the situation (if tey do not posess a relevant skill, the GM may allow them to use the most applicable attribute, or more commonly they are stuck with a skill level of zero) and they flip a card from a Fate deck. The numerical value of the card plus their skill level is compared to the difficulty of the task as set by the GM (more on difficulties is discussed below). If they have achieved or bettered the difficulty number, they have succeeded in the action."

Say you want to jump up and reach something but you dont have the skill jump according to the text the GM might allow the player to use an attribute instead. Imagine the PC has 5 in agilty at that moment. Later on if he buys the skill jump it will start at 1 and he will in effect be worse at jumping than before since the PC always use the most applicable skill.

As Darcy suggest the attributes should do more.

Yep, completely valid point.

I've been thinking of how to utilise the attributes more. At present, the two physical attributes get used a fair bit in combat but the other 2 very little (although intellect would be used if the game features any form of magic/psi/etc), but it's uneven, you're both right.

I've been thinking that to utilise the attributes more, a possible change is to remove the skills-capped-by-attributes feature, and instead let them be purchased up to 5 as attributes can be. Next, attributes will be a little harder to improve. Skill checks would then use attribute+skill+card instead of skill+card. This means slightly more math (albiet minor) but allows some cross-use of skills such as a long and exhausting climb using Brawn instead of Agility, or knowledge of a skill using Intellect instead of the usual related skill attribute, etc.

This would push out the difficulty chart for unopposed checks by an average of 2.5 points and raise the average and maximum draw values, but that's not really a problem and playtesting will point to the right numbers anyway.

Hmm... now I have to find some time to playtest. Maybe my manager will let me slack off on this global user migration project... (unlikely *grin*)

Brian.

And yes, as Dan said, it also means unskilled checks don't break when you use an attribute and 0 skill as in hs example.

Brian.

I promised myself I'd shut up in this thread until some AP happened.  But I just can't.

Brian -- before embarking on "stat+skill+fortune", take some time to think about it.  IMHO, it's more trouble than it's worth, and you're just opening another can of worms.  Ralph's comments in this thread do a really good job of illustrating my point, and I think that some of his suggestions on combining stats & skills are also worth mining for inspiration.

I'm looking forward to your AP from playtesting, whenever the gods of commerce allow the important work to occur...