Aidanika 22 Jun 2011 23:21
The whole world loves card games, it seems. Actually, what the whole world loves is ways to expand and improve their favorite RPG, but one of the biggest non-combat activities your PC can engage is are themselves, games. So lets say you want to have games within your game. But it requires some careful design less you have trouble with making those mini-games engaging, timely, and uncomplicated. And fun. Can't forget fun.
So, I thought about how a card game would work (actually, I've tackled the project of a Final Fantasy card game a few times in my life, this must be the fifth version of such a thing), and here's what I've come up with:
Decks contain 20 cards. Actually they are more like two decks. Your Deck and Your Hand. You pick out which 10 cards you want for you hand at the start.
Assign the cards in your hand to the numbers on a d10 (If you're playing in OpenRPG, you'd sent a node to the GM. If its an actual tabletop game, you'd just write this info on an index card or something). Do the same to your Deck. This will be for drawing/discarding at random. As the game goes on, cross cards out as they are chosen, and reroll when you roll up a card you've already drawn.
The victory condition of the game is to dwindle your opponent's hand down to zero. Everytime you lose a battle against your opponent's creature, you roll d10 to determine a random card from your hand that you discard. UNLIKE OTHER CARD GAMES, YOU NEVER ADD CARDS TO YOUR HAND BY DRAWING FROM THE DECK. So, watch out.
You also assign from 1-10 any terrain cards that will best match your creature cards. Both your terrain cards and that of your opponent will be combined together to make a d20 table. (Since all your cards are actually going to be recorded on your character sheet, there is no risk of confusing whose is whose like a real card game.)
Next, you roll a d6 to see who attacks first. You spend turns attacking and defending.
On your attacking turn (which is your opponent's defending turn):
-You draw a Terrain card (the GM randomly generates a terrain type from the combined terrain deck with a d20 roll). Terrain cards award certain types of cards with Bonuses and penalties.
-You can choose to either attack or bide your time. Beware. If you bide, you must discard a card from your deck (roll a d10 to determine the card that gets discarded.) Biding is very important if you have a creature already out from a previous turn, but the GM just rolled an unfavorable terrain card (Note: you can only Bide on your attacking turn!)
-If you choose to attack, you must play either a creature from your hand (which will deplete your hand), or draw a random card from your deck (which might lose anyway.) SKIP THIS STEP IF YOU STILL HAVE A SURVIVING CREATURE FROM A PREVIOUS BATTLE
-your opponent plays their creature (from the same method) and you both roll a d6, adding the terrain bonus. This is a creature battle
-If one creature rolls a result lower than the other, that creature is discarded AND its player must discard a random (roll d10) card from their hand. If there is a tie, both creatures are discarded but neither player has to discard from their hand.
On your defending turn (which is your opponent's attacking turn):
-A Terrain card is drawn. (the GM randomly generates a terrain type from the combined terrain deck with a d20 roll). Terrain cards award certain types of cards with Bonuses and penalties.
-If they don't already have a creature out, your aggressive opponent can choose to attack you on this battlefield, or puss out. Be sure to mock them mercilessly if they choose the later.
-If your opponent attacks, and you don't have a creature out already, you must either pick one from your hand (and deplete it), or draw one at random from the deck (roll d10, reroll discarded cards).
-your opponent plays their creature (from the same method) and you both roll a d6, adding the terrain bonus. This is a creature battle
-If one creature rolls a result lower than the other, that creature is discarded AND its player must discard a random (roll d10) card from their hand. If there is a tie, both creatures are discarded but neither player has to discard from their hand.
The creatures:
Creatures have three traits: Element, Class, and Type.
Elements-There are 14 elements; Fire, Ice, Water, Electric, Stone, Air, Light, Dark, Metal, Nature, Time/Space, and Non-elemental. Non-elemental cards ignore any penalties meant for other elements.
Type-There are 4 types of creatures; Humanoids, Animals, Constructs and Mythicals. Humanoids are intelligent, bipedal creatures (most of the job cards actually switch between what Race they actually are. That Ranger card you have could be anything from a Human to a Goblin to a Dark Elf to a Seeq.) Animals are usually nonsentient creatures that inhabit the wilderness. Constructs are things made up of non-living materials yet move as if alive anyway. Mythicals are special. They range from Demi-humanoids to rare intelligent beasts, but they are all comfortable in terrain that wouldn't suit other creature types.
Class-Class describes the supernatural nature of a creature's attacks. The five classes are Magical, Otherworldly, Gigantic, Esper, and Normal. As you may have guessed, Normals do not supernatural qualities as such and are safe from any penalties that might otherwise suppress them.
One final note: Keep in mind that you may NOT have more than one copy of any creature or terrain card. This is to stop people from say, loading their deck full of Gilgamesh creature cards along side all manner of Peculiar cities.
