I've thought more about this theoretical card-based RPG that I may start working on eventually. I'm thinking, at this point, that I'd like equipment, magic/psychic abilities and pretty much everything else to be represented by cards. I believe that with careful design, these cards could be treated as collectible and sold in random packs without completely breaking the game.
So I guess my question is, does it fundamentally ruin an RPG to make basic equipment subject to random draw?
Is it truly possible to eliminate the character sheet as a means of tracking your character if I want to incorporate skill use, ongoing experience, and the usual RPG things?

CCG's, even RPG ones, only loosely rely on random draw. People tend to buy full boxes of the game to get all the cards they need to play, or to get enough cards to share. Although you can create random starter sets that contain random cards that are playable (Suggested, and is doable), I wouldn't worry too much about starting equipment. The market usually takes care of that itself.

Really, take a look at http://www.dragonstorm.com/. It's one of the ways it has been done. There was one other that tried it, but I honestly don't remember it's name.

Check out Descent, for several reasons:

1.) It is a wargame-y dungeoncrawl game. Although there are character sheets, all the skills, equipment and money are represented by cards and tiles. It does what you talk about.

2.) It has TOO MANY tactile elements, and gets TOO fiddly. Although the game (put out by Fantasy Flight Games) is awesome fun, it requires a banquet hall table to have sufficient play space. Play a game to get a sense of how fiddly is too fiddly.

Now... Go check some of the old threads in Publishing about CCGs.

Specifically, I want to flag some things:

1.) Card production gets fairly expensive, fairly quickly. I wanted to create a squad-based game where individual troopers were represented on collectible cards.

2.) Randomizing the cards, and having "collectible" cards makes it really expensive.
********* Take a look at Nate Peterson's Final Twilight. It's a game that's bought in factioned, pre-constructed decks. It's a collectible card game, but the sets are not randomly assembled. That cuts down on production costs, and makes assembling the decks a lot simpler, I believe.

With CCG's, the idea is that if you want options, and potentially better options, you need to buy more. Is "buy more to have more options" an ideal you want this game to promote?
This is a real question, not a sarcastic or rhetorical one. I actually want to know the answer.

The other is card games are insanely expensive to produce.
As always, I'm looking for new methods and may have a quasi-resonable one for the angle that I work, but it definetly delivers a different product than the likes of Magic & what not.
I had a discussion quite some time ago regarding these kinds of designs, and I want to ask a question: aside from the tactile feel of cards, what would a customized, randomized deck offer a player that a character with restrictions on what they can do based on prerequisites/die rolls does not? Or, in different terms, assume you have one copy of a card in a thirty six card deck. That can just as easily be represented by 12 or 2 on a 2d6 roll, which has 36 possible outcomes. So where does the deck benefit players? What does it do that is so radically different to justify the expense to yourself for production and the likely expense of a player purchasing it?

Otherwise, from a pure production standpoint, if you have about three to ten thousand to put into this and you have a solid answer for the above question, go for it, otherwise design the game so that its not a "collectable" focus and take advantage of people able to print their own materials.

What cards (can) bring:
* No more looking stuff up - you have whatever you need written on the card itself. I used that for my DnD sorceress - I just copied summaries of the spells on cards and threw the card to the DM when playing it.
* Quick player creation - nobody has to write anything down
* The DM can introduce elements he'd like the players to have ("I need a spellcaster" "I need a cop") without going all the way to pre-rolled characters (convenient for "one-shot" games)
* The DM can use the cards to introduce the settings, giving the players an idea of what kind of stuff they're likely to run into (

Anyway, that's how I think of cards - I have my own system I'll be testing soon, 'll come and report about it here :) I'm thinking of index cards made to be used only once for a specific scenario, not glossy printed cards. I have a pile of cards I'm experimenting with next to me (drawing some random ones, trying to make a character, then merjing / modifying cards I don't like ...)

I already talked about this a while ago here, but I've been busy in the meantime :P

Index cards are great for those type of things. I actually used that for a D&D home campaign I ran years ago, it was a breeze ^_^ Threw together cards for my most commonly used opponents, kept track of pertinant stats, even left space on the back so I could use them as a scratch pad as my crew tore through them~ And while yes, "cards" can bring that, they are essentially still notes, just written on a handy card. I'm wondering what features exclusive to cards, decks, CCG cards, etc. are vital to the proposed design.
My utility would have been greatly diminished if the cards were actually printed in the fashion of a CCG card.

You ask if it will ruin a RPG to have random equipment. Well... if you want to play a game with random equipment the answer is no obviously and if you want to go into Moe's AdventuringGearshop  and buy a specific piece of equipment the answer will be yes.

More interesting is why collectible and will it work will it be fun and meaningfull? What are the metagaming effects. Example:  What if the GM (assuming your game uses a GM) has 5 dollars to spend on cards while player1 has 50 dollars to spend on cards. Will this mean that player1 will trounce the GM everytime they play? If this isnt the case why collect them at all if they dont give you an edge? Why should the players buy extra cards if they can make their own? Why is one character sheet with all the data on better/worse than 10 separate cards with the data spread out on them?

Only RPG I ever saw who sold random cards for their RPGgame was Everway and nobody ever bought those. They didn't fill the same function as your cards at all. In fact they served no purpose at all so thats probably why noone bought them.

One last thing. Check out Capes if im not misstaken it has a way of building characters with uh card thingie templates or something. I've not actually read it myself just had a very brief glance at it but maybe someone who has can fill you in.

Well, lots of things to answer, so here goes:

I think first that I need to stress that this game would not be a traditional CCG, but an RPG that has CCG elements. The mechanic I'm envisioning is use of a game-specific deck of cards from which the players match suits to determine their degree of success.
The only random elements would be the equipment, spells, psychic abilities, and certain combat options. These would not be randomly drawn in game-play, but would be "randomly" distributed through the booster packs or whatever. The use of cards would also be limited (somewhat) by character advancement and attributes. For example, a character with low Strength could not use a machine-gun.
Similarly, I imagine that NPCs could be sold as quick-stat cards in non-random packs.
While there would certainly be an advantage to buying a lot of cards, the advantage of the rare cards would not be so overwhelming as to break the game.

To me, the entire purpose of this is to ask "Can this draw some portion of the huge CCG crowd into role-playing?" I don't think this is an optimal way of doing an RPG, I prefer the dice method that we've already settled on as a community default. But if this is a doable project and it can bring new people into role-playing, then I think it's extremely worthwhile.
I think the best example of the completely bizarre effect rareness can have on people is the treasure tokens from TrueDungeon. TrueDungeon is a live-action dungeon that only takes place twice a year at the two GenCons. Character equipment is represented by wooden treasure tokens about the size of a 50-cent piece.These tokens cost $10 for a bag of 10 random tokens and come in common, rare, very rare, and ultra-rare flavors.
Now, since TrueDungeon is essentially D&D, the equipment is straight out of D&D. But. The Ultra-Rare weapons? Are +2 weapons. The rare weapons are +1 weapons. On the open market, a +1 weapon token sells for $4 while a +2 weapon sells for $100. This is a tiny difference in function, but people go completely crazy trying to get this slight advantage that they're only going to use once a year for a 2-hour game. And to some extent, trading tokens around makes the game fun and helps build a tighter community.
So that's basically where I'm coming from on this mechanic idea. Can I lure CCG players into a gateway RPG game? And can an RPG be effectively played with cards and still maintain most of the classic RPG elements like experience, without having a character sheet at all?

Also, Flammifer, a lot of what you're saying is why this idea started to be attractive to me. Why not just put all spells on cards and flip them to the GM as you use them? Looking things up is el gnarlo.

Will your game have the same after market value? What makes those chips worth something is going to be totally different than what makes your cards worth something. TD is a huge event, sponsored at a huge event, and has a lot of asthetic appeal to it. Your game, while it may technically utilize the same concept, will lack that, and there it will suffer if thats what you're looking for.

I'd hazard a guess and answer your primary question as "No." This following is purely opinion, but opinion born of running a card game in the market for the last couple years: You would in no significant way convert CCG players to RPG playing. Half of the reason several games a year die is because players cannot support the CCG economy as it stands: between the five VS System releases a year now, it seems, the three to four Magic releases a year, and the good old standbys of YuGiOh and Pokemon releasing sets on a half-way regular basis, and about half a dozen newcomers that are either indie or the next lisenced "hit", CCG player's pocketbooks are already tapped out. I get SO many remarks about how glad someone is when they find out Final Twilight is not collectable, and the same is true of Eye Level Entertainment's Nature of the Beast card game. CCGs are seen as a money sink, pure and simple. The major lines that people play are the lines where there is a return on the investment: direct power over a significant number of people or the ability to sell $4 worth of cards for $50.
Now then, try to come up with a sales pitch to a player with a restricted income who would, if this follows typical rarity schedules, need to make a significant first investment to even have a worthwhile assortment, have to come up with not one other opponenent, but two, or three, or four. Now, inform them it is randomized, that they will have to search for the card they want, but (assuming you fit the Forge model of a one-man operation) without the assistance of widespread retailer support or a massive secondary market where the cards only appreciate in value. Really, you can't. Too many downsides. And if you're pitching to someone who is possibly considering Role Playing, convince them that dropping the $60/$90 for unlimited play in D&D/d20 is a weaker investment OR, assume they're at the Forge booth at GenCon and have $90 worth of games under arm (Even at $15-20 a pop, thats a nice armful) that your option is better.

These are things that make a CCG popular, specifics and generality: Length of play, about 20 minutes, fits nicely in the "Hey, let's do something!" mind set; Initial outlay, $10, its enough to get started; Return on investment, as mentioned earlier, the ability to sell this card I just drew for $50 on eBay! WOOT!; Easy to find support & players, just look around the local hobby shop!; Only need one opponent, unlike RPGs that need about three players (which is why I can never start a campaign and have a heck of a time playtesting, schedules don't work out); Easy to carry (which could still work for you, depending on how many cards are in a "deck"). Tying it too closely to an RPG brings out the worst elements of each: expense, time commitments, etc. and kills the RPG's strongest trump, the ability to create limitless material.

SO:
Can I lure CCG players into a gateway RPG game? Likely a great, big no.
And can an RPG be effectively played with cards - Theoretically, yes, and I'd love to see it, but not collectable in any way, shape or form. PDF is too powerful to ignore, copy down all EQ and spell information to business cards and let the players print at will.
and still maintain most of the classic RPG elements like experience, without having a character sheet at all? - Some record is always handy, but likely yes. Replace "experiance" with some kind of direct tangible at the conclusion of a task, such as "Knows Dragon's Weakness" or "Commands Respect of the Kingdom", and translate those into in-game effects. If you look at it right, all the "Experiance Points" are is a numerical gauge of the same narrative things, IE high level means respect, high knowledge implies potential in regard to slaying dragons, whatever~

Use the card's strengths, the ability to quickly analyze collections of items, experiance, and reference material, to your advantage. Don't get hung up on the marketing end of the "collectable" or secondary market values, otherwise it'll ruin the design because making it work will be contingent upon making it popular, and without millions to pour into marketing, you have to make it work before its popular.

And one other note: CCG players would be PISSED if their rare is trumped by a common card. Seriously. If there is no advantage to buying more, players won't buy more, and the product packaging design would fail.

I think this is one of those 'fantasy heartbreaker' type of ideas: its something that lots of people think of and then they run into the realities of executing it.

Quite a few years ago, I had the idea of a CCG-RPG which scrapped the character sheet; your deck would be your sheet! The better your character was, the more souped up your deck could become, adding cards or replacing low powered cards with higher powered ones... I had all the rules worked out carefully and they played on the visual aspect of the cards, with Attributes and Skills represented by symbolds printed on the corner of the cards. There were even rules for using those card pages which let you keep your cards in a folder (ok, that was ripped off from Richard Garfield's Filthy Rich game)

Then one day, it just hit me; who was going to buy all those cards? I sat back and looked at the typical investment required by a group of average role-players and realised there was just NO market for a game like this. Whats more, even if the cards were cheap or role-players had more money, there was the frustration of not being able to pick a character option simply becuase no-one in your group had that card! Can you imagine producing a splat book for a typical RPG with the new rules and options printed randomly across the whole print run? "Sorry, you can't take that spell; its on P.32 and my copy doesn't have that page"

I think a card based RPG CAN work, but NOT as a CCG; as has been suggested, you would be better off producing the cards as pdfs and letting players print off their own cards as needed; that gets around both of the biggest obstacles to a game of this type in one fell swoop.