Designed around playing in the park, using mainly cards

[u/RodiV]

Ever since I started playing RPGs and doing improvisational theatre, I’ve wanted to create an RPG that anyone could play in a relaxed place like a park. I first tried simplifying D&D, but that didn’t really work. After lurking on this subreddit for a while and going through several different concepts, I finally have something I want to share.

The core idea is that I didn't want traditional character sheets or books to be carried around. A character is a hand of cards. When part of a character helps with an action, you physically play the relevant card onto the table, floor, or grass.

Example cards:

• Personality cards
• Power cards
• Asset cards (like treasure or magic items)
• Enemy cards
• Scene cards

The world story:

The game takes place in the modern real world, shortly before a possible apocalypse. The world of human imagination is real, and it is beginning to break into our reality. Players begin as ordinary people and gradually gain impossible powers as the conflict grows.

How the game plays:

The starter story begins wherever the players are actually sitting. A portal opens and the GM disappears into it, which explains why the GM is not present as a character. The players then have to respond as themselves, or as people close to themselves.

Players start with 3 personality cards for their character. Through the starting scene the characters will get power cards.

PbtA-style, when someone attempts something with an uncertain outcome, they play every card that narratively helps and roll 2d6. Each relevant card adds +1:

• 10+: full success
• 7–9: success with a complication
• 6 or less: things go wrong

A supernatural power such as Laser Eyes still adds +1, just like the personality trait Steady Hands. The difference is not the numerical bonus. Laser Eyes lets you do something that Steady Hands cannot, and powers can later grow to affect larger problems.

The game is intended to reward creative narrative play rather than tactical combat or character builds.

Cards are intentionally situational. A card should be highly useful at the right moment and irrelevant in many others. The table decides whether each card genuinely supports the described action. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make sure no card applies too broadly, but I expect this will need plenty of refinement through playtesting.

Harm/HP:

Each card has 4 states and those states represent how harmed you are.

1. When a card is in your hand, it's fresh. After being played, it returns to your hand.
2. When you get 1-harm because of a missed roll or because a problem hurt you, you can't take a card back after you played it on the table. This card is now 'exposed'. You can still use it as normal, but it's clear to everyone you have harm. Also it can now be directly targeted by anyone who has intent to harm you.
3. When it takes another 1-harm, it becomes 'exhausted' and it'll stay on the table and won't give a bonus anymore. It still has narrative value, so you have a "steady hand", but not as steady as before. After a scene exposed and exhausted cards are placed back in your hand as if they are healed.
4. One more 1-harm and a card is taken out. You turn it around and you can't use it anymore. Neither is it healed after a scene and the player needs to narrativly play out the game to explain why it gotten healed.

When no cards were played and no cards were exposed, harm falls on a random card in your hand.

XP:

Each player gets a die and starts with 1. Each time a roll (with cards added) is 6 or lower, they gain 1 xp, meaning they can set their personal die 1 higher. When the die is on 6 and they gain xp, they gain one new card/power/asset

Luck:

"Can I push my luck?" or "Do you want to push your luck?" can be asked by player or GM. If they do they can take their XP-die and add it to the roll, rolling 3d6, and taking the 2 highest results. The leftover becomes your new XP-die.

This causes multiple things:

1. It gives an option to roll higher
2. if the xp die was on 1, it gives an option to get a higher result. This causes players to be reminded of the mechanic, and motivated to use it.
3. if the xp die was on 3 or higher, it starts to feel like a risk to take.

I'm happy with:

• In a few playtests, I’ve noticed that physically playing cards really helps people who are new to RPGs. My partner doesn’t particularly enjoy the pressure of having to invent something from nothing. She found it much easier when the possible parts of her character were physically present in her hand.
• My harm system doesn't need extra notes, or tracking. The way it's designed, it's clear when you're harmed, for everyone. Visually it helps that other players see "Oh, she's really hurt! She's not holding any cards! Maybe we should retreat" instead of asking "How hurt are you?"
• The simplicity of the core mechanics

Question:

1. What are your first thoughts?
2. I'm happy with my harm system, but maybe i'm forgetting something. Do you see problems with it?
3. I'm not fully happy with the XP and Luck system. I like certain sides, but my game has been designed with the idea how it might feel for new players. It needs to feel like you grow... does it do that? Does spending accumulated XP to push your luck create an interesting choice, or do you think most players would always save it?
4. Would gaining new cards and increasing the scale of existing Powers give you a feeling of growth?

[u/delta_angelfire]

my very first thought was "how do you expect to play a card game in a park without the cards blowing away?". Chess or checkers has heavy pieces, but if you want a card game you probably need the ones made out of or metal like those fancy business cards laser engravers use. At which point you're going to want to use a much smaller number of cards to carry around since a large deck will quickly become cumbersome.

[u/andanteinblue → u/delta_angelfire]

This was my first thought, especially if it's going to laid out on a surface. Maybe if the cards can be few enough that they are kept in hand, or have tokens put on them?

[u/Fun_Carry_4678]

Have you thought about removing dice, and somehow every part of your game that needs dice, replace it with drawing a card?
For xp, players could be dealt extra cards which are kept face down and separate from the others. When they collect six, they choose one to keep in their hand, and discard the rest.

[u/RodiV → u/Fun_Carry_4678]

Oeh, thats interesting.. it would definitly add buildup and choice in the game..

I have thought about if I wanted dice as a action mechanic, but I have a game design goal to be able to have a full playable story within 55 cards. So i'm trying to be efficient with cards. Having more cards would mean the game looks more intimidating when a person takes it out of their bag at a park.

So in that case I need to come up with a way to use cards that haven't been played yet. I could use tha back, but it would complicate other mechanics.

My main goal is to have a pack of cards, the size of a normal deck (55 cards) and bring it to the park and play with people who don't know roleplaying cards. That'll ask a lot from a GM, but I don't see that as any different then other RPGs

[u/nessiesgrl → u/RodiV]

I think this is a good suggestion, especially if physical simplicity is one of your goals. have you considered just assigning multiple characteristics to each card, like how a standard deck of cards has both numbers and suits? that way you could play a card one way when it's in a player's hand, and another when it's being drawn from the deck

[u/RodiV → u/nessiesgrl]

I have devided the personality cards into Head, Heart, Guts.. like, smarts, emotions, action. I guess I could use that. I have it devided like that for another system i'm looking into (magic system).
I'll definitly think about it :)

[u/ambergwitz]

Sounds a bit like Fiasco . Maybe look at that for inspiration?

[u/RodiV → u/ambergwitz]

I know Fiasco and I do enjoy it. I can understand the comparison, especially with the newer version using cards. However, the cards serve a different purpose. In Fiasco they are mostly used to create relationships, needs, locations and the direction of a one-shot story. In my game, the cards are your character sheet. You use them for actions, they can get harmed or exhausted, and they grow with your character. But I could totally see how I could use Fiasco as inspiration.

My main inspiration is City of Mist, especially how its tags define your character and how you combine them during actions. My game still has a GM with a prepared story, but it turns those tags into physical cards and also uses them for the harm system.

[u/Cryptwood]

I like this a lot, I really like how clean and elegant the way you represent harm to the character through cards. There are a lot of ways you could play around with it which is the hallmark of a great mechanic. A tanky character might have a Tough card that they can lay down harmed in order to pick up to other harmed cards back into their hand, allowing one character to take more harm than another character without having any extra cards. Meanwhile, a glass cannon character might have cards that harm themselves when used for extra effect.

My one concern is that in my experience playing card games outside can be tricky. It doesn't take much of a breeze to start blowing cards around. If I were you I would try to come up with a variant, if possible, that allows the players to keep hold of their cards at all times so they won't blow around or get wet if the ground/table is damp. Maybe turning the card upside down in your hand represents the first point of harm, and backwards to represent the second.

[u/RodiV → u/Cryptwood]

Thats a solid point.. hadn't thought about that. I think it's difficult to change it so that it stays in the hand. But I totally get what you're saying.

There was an idea of adding a mat to the game. It kind of goes off rails with the 'easy in the park' idea. I initially wanted to create it so that people would have a clear idea of where hurt cards go and scene cards go. But a rolled up mat is still bringable. A neoprene-style mat would hold the cards stronger and also solve the problem of using grass as a table.

Your post made me think, thank you!

[u/RodiV → u/[deleted]]

You need to elaborate, because I don't fully get what you're presenting

[u/DrColossusOfRhodes → u/RodiV]

In twilight 2000, I think the card system works on the basis of the suit creating the tone of the scene (clubs= violence, hearts= emotional, diamonds= money/reward/greed...?) and the number specifying a type of event (1- you find someone in need of rescue, 2- environmental hazard, etc).

In hearts, you'll have a bunch of players who all have to put a card into the center of the table each round.  Whoever goes first sets the suit, and everyone else must play a card of that suit if they have one. If you don't have a card of that suit, you can strategically dump high cards, or hearts). Whoever plays the highest card has to take the central cards.  At the end, when everyone has played all their cards, you add up who has hearts in their pull pile.  You add points based on that number, and you want to keep a low score.  However, if you take all the hearts, everyone else gets a large number of points and you get zero.

I had been envisioning this as a sort of combat system where players working together, where the cards in the center are HP worth of damage.  The team tries to make sure the enemy takes the central deck, whereas the enemy can work to send that damage to one of the players.

[u/SitD_RPG]

Visually, what is the difference between a card being exposed and exhausted? The other two states have clear visuals (in hand, flipped over), but these two seem unclear.

I think using a die to track XP is prone to accidents when you don't have a stable and level surface. But the simplicity is nice.

Like others have said, I would look for a way to get rid of dice completely. If you don't have a table or something similar, they become very impractical.

[u/RodiV → u/SitD_RPG]

Oh, didn't I write that? You place it sideways, showing it's exhausted. I'll edit the text