Okay you back? Because I want to share some card ideas arising from that fun conversation and his genius blogpost. And if you don't think cards are cool in RPGs, I include a neat dice alternative at the very end, scroll down.
Cards are neat--suits are basically d13s, and you can convert them to d12s by removing the Kings. Ace low, Queen high (Dadstep prefers the d13--which I think is neat and am going to playtest. An Oracle in the middle?!).
But with a 12-card-per-suit system, Dadstep saw that, when you draw two cards from a shuffled deck and compare their color and rank (number), you have the exact same 2d12 Love-Anger reaction roll odds! Here's his system in a nutshell:
A) Draw two red cards, that's good. High is Love, Low is Anger.
B) Draw one red and one black, Red is Love, Black is Anger.
C) Draw two black cards, that's bad. High is Anger, Low is Love.
Easy peasy! But that simple system opens up three cool variations on the opposed reaction 'roll': Hitting, Hands, and a Dungeon Deck.
Hitting
In my original post, I suggested players get a +3 to the Love and/or Anger roll if they do a good job negotiating, moving the monster's reaction over a bit. With cards, to give players a reward for good negotiation, you could instead deal a third card to pick two from, like Monster Texas Hold 'Em. So if we have 9 Anger (Black) and 7 Love (Black), then PCs parley and GM deals 4 Red, the players can pick 7 Anger (Black) and 4 Love (Red), a bit better. This *might* be too generous on occasion, but it sounds fun to play!
Hands
You could deal out a hand of five reaction cards to the players at the start of the session, and then let them replace a drawn reaction card via good negotiation (with one of their cards). If they run out, deal them more, shuffle their discards in. Let them discard at will, but their hand size is permanently reduced. Best use for a 12 Anger is to make an annoying Friend run away? Anyway, fun mini-game!
Dungeon Deck
Alarm dice (Prismatic Wasteland) and Tension Pools (Angry GM) are ways to add to your risk the longer you dally in the dungeon (and especially if you make noise). The dungeon grows more dangerous as you go in, alerting and disturbing the inhabitants. Can we do that with cards instead of dice? Sure thing!
Enter the Dungeon Deck. Every time the PCs meet a monster with violence or let them flee in Fear, take the black cards from that reaction draw and add them back randomly to the reaction draw deck (discard the drawn red cards, insert drawn black cards, cut the deck). The players will see this, and when a card shows up again to cause a monster to react with Anger, they will not be pleased. The deck grows darker over time--the sense of menace visibly grows.
For fun, you could pull reaction draws from the deck and never shuffle, so players can see they have limited goodwill that is being expended (a real Iconoclasts vibe). Or every time the players successfully rest (or depart the dungeon), you could shuffle the deck, putting the red cards back in. Like with the Alarm Die, dungeon diving becomes a push-your-luck experience.
Personally, I plan to playtest a d13 Dungeon Deck ASAP with my weekly 5e group. I fully expect them to lose their cool as those clubs and spades return to say hi in future sessions...
Exciting week, as I am near to finalizing Shadowfeats, my first RPG publication with 130 Feats and 135 Quirks for Shadowdark character customization. If you want to be notified when it is live on DriveThruRPG, please send an email to thorn at dreamshrike dot com, subject 'Notify Me'.
ps--
Do you need more fun card play ideas? Check out this midnight cardstorm from Rise Up Comus.
pps--
If you love dice and want Dungeon Dice instead of a Dungeon Deck, try this: Add +1 to the Anger roll for every encounter they choose to solve with violence (if they could have negotiated and chose not to), and -1 to the Love roll for every fleeing monster. Reset on rests. The word gets around: the Monsters run out of places to hide from the party pretty quick, and put their backs against the wall!
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