Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Conflict No. 4: Cards

At this point it would be a good idea to include a list of the cards I've developed for use with the game.  I am working on creating sheets which the reader could use for producing hard versions of the cards, but I don't quite have that yet.  What I do have is a complete list of the cards, with the various elements of the cards recorded on that list.

Blogger isn't so great for posting tables like this, but thankfully I have the SU Wiki.  The table can therefore be viewed here.

I would suggest a careful inspection of the cards.  Several have unique properties, the play of which may not be self-evident from the table.  I will be taking that up soon (I wouldn't mind suggestions for which cards I might discuss more in depth).

In the meantime, I've posted a few cards on the blog here, and I'd like to take this opportunity to present a breakdown of what the various parts on each card are called and how they apply:

I worked with a bunch of templates for separating the various descriptions into separate boxes and frankly, it all looked very busy and crappy.  My original mockup included a box at the bottom which designated the modifiers, but I found that during play no one ever looked over their cards like they would a poker hand.  Since there's no need to conceal the cards in the game, at all, all players I took note preferred to spread the cards out in front of them, so they could see them all and pick out what they wanted.  Therefore it only required that the modifier be placed in a central location on the card where it could be easily seen.

Well, the cards themselves should keep the reader busy for awhile, so I'll sign off on this post.

Hurm.  As an afterthought, I wanted to say that I knew back in January that if I didn't get a jump on the general idea before revealing it to anyone there'd be nothing but arguments about what would make 'appropriate' cards.  D&D players tend to be very oriented on the same pellets-for-pressing-the-bar, and not generally open to a new set of rewards.  Most would tend to think the cards ought to be somehow based upon level or class.  I have made a few cards that apply to certain classes that have social characteristics .... but I would not encourage a card for fighters, or a card for mages, etc.  A strong element here is that the reward system - gaining new cards - is NOT based predominantly on class or level, but upon active achievement of GOALS.  Status is far and away the most fluid possible gain for most players, and the goals there are about social influence and gain.  I recommend to any DM making use of the system, and inventing their own modifiers/cards, that they should generate cards according to individual success, and not the standard D&D mileposts.

6 comments:

  1. In regards to two specific cards:

    Nobility and Officialdom (though others, such as Well Dressed, may also apply),

    Should they have any benefits to resistance, or perhaps simply to cancel out the same card?

    Right now it would stand that a well dressed Baron would gain a +5 bonus speaking to either his extravagantly dressed king or a filth covered peasant. Is that intentional?

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  2. Yes Zzarchov, but with the understanding that the King will have considerable resistance bonuses, while the peasant may have none. It is not only the bonus of the speaker - it is the resistance of the listener. Therefore, I do not have to impose penalties to the speaker for the listener's rank ... those penalties are already there.

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  3. Alexis,

    The table is great! Thanks for putting that up on the wiki. Also, I applaud you for releasing this to the general public without attempting to commercialize it first. Putting out quality material like this for free does a lot for your personal brand (as it were) and makes it more likely that in the future you will be able to sell materials. I digress, and we can talk about this at a future date.

    I'm writing to call attention to the Fortitude card in the table. It's the only one that references a number of cards for a bonus rather than a die roll modifier. Is this a typo? If not, would you grace me with a few sentences on how this should be implemented? If you already have, would you mind berating me for my ignorance and failure to read your previous posts with anything resembling comprehension?

    Thank in Advance!

    Carl

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  4. I will add the Fortitude card to those needing to be discussed.

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  5. @Carl:

    I would guess that you could use any that you hadn't discarded already in future rounds.

    Speaking of which, how long is that temporary discarding? Does it last a round, until your next interaction with them, or until you gain new cards?

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  6. As a general guideline, C'nor, the cards are discarded during the conflict. It is judged that if the cards don't affect that person the way you want today, you will have to wait until tomorrow (I imposed a +1 resistance for each attempt at the exact same argument, and limited each argument to one day).

    I should say, however, that it is up to the DM how long the interval should be, or how much penalty should be imposed for a second and subsequent tries. A DM should make the card system personal to his or her world.

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