I am obsessed about cards
They are just neat.
My family has been a card game family as long as I can remember.
We would do days long games of Tranca1 worth tens of thousand of points during rainy beach days. Swap partners, play tens of thousanda more points.
I learned how to play Truco2 in high school, getting scolded by teachers for playing during class, and it has permeated my life ever since. With it I met dozens of people, during college, during social gatherings. Last time I played was last year, in a work event, with bosses and now friends.
When I changed schools in fifth grade, I took a deck of cards to class and remember vividly: I offered the first student I met in class if they wanted to see a magic trick - a morose trick about organizing piles until his card came on top.
Weekends of boredom staying in my grandparents' house, building a castle of cards so tall the bottom cards would be bent.
Playing Balatro on the commute to work for the past years. Avid Hearthstone player for a decade. Slay the Spire is a card game. Death Howl is a card game souls-like.
The list goes on.
So when the ideas came to use them as game mechanics (mostly with To Be Resolved's own focus on using it for many mechanics, such as the incredible idea of land survey) it felt like leaving a fog.
These are intuitive mechanics. Everyone knows what drawing a card is. Everyone knows what discarding a card is. Everyone knows the numbers from 2 to 10, and that Aces are cool.
You have a deep fountain to drink from, allowing yourself to be crunchy without the need to be extensive.
Many other TTRPGs have done great ideas with cards, even. Your Majesty The Worm uses a tarot deck. But it was Bread for the Bukavac, an entry in the recent Appendix N Jam, that got me going.
Parallel to these, I was too thinking (read obsessing) about all these other game elements I had up in the air, elements I wished were in a game; like a game with miserable Violence, and an old love for Diogo Nogueira's Primal Quest's magic system, but deeper, and more focused.
Cool ideas from the start [humbly]
And from it came the simple and direct Prima Nomina, its first version in this blog post from a week ago (god, it has been only a week since then? I am obsessed).
But before I go on, let me preface this with a simple disclaimer.
I have not played this game beyond simulating games alone.
I know, this is a bummer, and everything from now on will be pure untested theory.
But this blog is about me writing, not playing, and I have more ideas than I have time.
Don't get me wrong: please call me out on bad ideas, oversights, and misconceptions. Nothing can replace a good playtest, but feedback and experience are also essential to old amateur me.
Moving on, the cool stuff.
Combining the names with the cards
Players may even have favorite names, but they can't always count on them. Seeing an ol' reliable being drawn becoming a reunion with an old friend. Every game being about using the names, but you can never fall into a routine. You have to keep thinking differently.
Having Affinity types for different relationships with Gods.
Instead of just having a type per God, this created an immediate flavor you can choose from. Go all in on using cards of a particular God? Going neutral? Or even deciding based on the flavor and not the buff? That's the dream.
The Test system felt simple enough.
Statistics tell me it is balanced. Affinities would create clear buffs/debuffs, and still keep it interesting.
Boons were a great cushion so the game could be playable and not frustrating.
Both by cheating results and cheating available cards, Players were as screwed.
Some things were not that good, though
The game had no goal, at all.
Players were supposed to save the world from stuff? There were no GM tools, no evolving idea except "throw them into scenarios that they must solve without violence". Incomplete.
The rolling statistics were brutal.
A 0 affinity had 1/3 success and 1/6 disaster. Boons helped, but thats 1 success every three attempts at something with a simple test. Oof.
The measure of time and loops through sessions was not really it.
Using sessions as breakpoints meant weird per session abilities; or what would happen if the cards were over before the session? Or just before the session? Would you shuffle then reshuffle next game? It gave the game a feeling of casualness, of thinking per session. All over the place.
But hey, good news. Now we have fixes!
This is because while I type out all of this, I made four magnificent [humbly] changes.
THE GM DRAWS CARDS
I mean, it was staring me from the start. The brewing idea I had all the way back (to last week) had some sort of monster hunting peacekeeping squad that had to not hurt the beasts. I lost that in the process for the generic goals.
Instead, 5 names go rogue and violent! The GM drew FIRE? Arson! The GM got TIME? Loop problems! ROOT? Tree infestation! Possibilities are endless, and as these are cards the Players potentially used before, it's like seeing a friend in a frenzy!
I truly am very happy with this, and it wad so obvious from the start. Save your buds!
ABILITIES AND CYCLES PER SHUFFLE
Again, so obviously intuitive.
Every time the deck ends, abilities reset. Boons return. Cards are redrawn by Players. But also by GMs, so new names are on the loose.
Shuffling is a rest, but also complications. Hell yes, this feels right.
DIFFERENT ROLES
Affinities are a cool idea, but flat: they mean bonuses to a suit or the other.
But damn, look at all the free real estate of the design space of cards and I am not using!
You can manipulate damage taken; the discard pile; the deck; the hands; even the boons!
So that's exactly what I did for each of those: Defender, Heretic, Seer, Catalyst and Prophet are 5 different Roles for the Players to be allwhile engaging with the main mechanic of magic casting.
This gives them 2 special abilities for each.
(All that only by looking at what already happened within the game automatically!)
ALSO, PERMANENT UPGRADES!
Make cards even more desired. Each Class has their own different buff.
The deck starts to become a story told by the table, and each name a special relationship. Hell yes.
Now it does feel like I am done with it.
Mostly because I wouldn't be able to add anymore since this is an One-Page RPG. Can you believe this all fit into one page, and not look like a block of text?
But also, the question that currently lingers in my anxious, hasty brain:
Were these good ideas going to happen anyway, or posting the game and talking about it untested and incomplete a needed step to reach a creative goal?
Am I cursed to now make every single writing thought out in the wild to work with my writing partner, the Outside?
May the Four Gods help me.