Who doesn’t love the feel of having a hand full of choices and a deck full of possibilities? Don’t get me wrong, I love rolling a big handful of shiny math rocks as much as the next guy, but decks have an impressive stack of features that makes them extremely well-suited for crafting stories in tabletop roleplaying games.
♥️ So buckle up for a deep dive into the horrifically nerdy stuff I’m obsessed with: ♥️
Game Mechanics.
Straight out of the box, standard playing cards immediately present several pieces of information that are loaded with potential. Each card has:
♥️ A number value
♦️ A Suit
♣️ A Color
♠️ And other unique properties.
(Is it a Face card, or not? Does each Face card have its own unique effect? Are Aces high or low? What about Jokers?)
Decks have been used for divination and fortune-telling throughout history. Countless games love to use cards as an oracle tool to randomly determine what happens next, and these pieces of information all contribute to unique effects.
Of course, you can simply design a specific prompt for each of the 54 cards in the deck. That works well for big random tables to give inspiration. As the core mechanic of a game, it can feel a bit rigid if it’s not well-tempered with both guidance and open-endedness like The Quiet Year. But each individual piece of information provided by a card can also be used to prompt a unique vibe.
For example, Songs and Sagas has the GM reveal cards to determine the difficulty of challenges that the players face, as well as an oracle for determining specific outcomes. All Red cards lead to good stuff, with Hearts being better than Diamonds, and all Black cards lead to bad stuff, with Spades being worse than Clubs. The color of the card matters most, and the suit of the card provides an extra layer of nuance.
Games like Carta use cards as pieces of a map, with each representing the next step of your exploration. The variety of information on the card correlates to prompts and mechanics for telling the story of this exploration.
Never tell me the odds!
Cards can be used to produce a random output just like dice, but a deck of cards is profoundly modular. Removing cards from the deck throughout the game is one of the most interesting and tactile ways to alter the flow of fate in your story.
♦️ Modifying the deck feels delightfully tangible to the players. ♦️
If I say “the curse gives you -2 to all attack checks” it feels a bit flat—and almost exclusively a bummer. but if I said “remove the King of Hearts from your deck and give it to me, please,” then it actually feels like a part of you is missing. If your character relies heavily on either the suit of Hearts or Face cards, then it will feel extra devastating, and much more juicy when you finally break that curse and get your King of Hearts back!
In games where you keep some cards in your hand, the composition of the deck is constantly changing. Everything in your hand is not in the deck. This gives you a glimpse into the endless possibilities that are yet to come, and often ways to manipulate those possibilities.
Songs and Sagas does this brilliantly, by rewarding you with Red cards (mostly) when you succeed in your trials. These cards can be spent to do cool things, but every single Red card in your hand means that the deck has more Black cards in it. The more you hang on to those cards, the more challenging the game becomes, so the cards in your hand become a resource that is constantly flowing.
This automatically balances the amount of bonuses the players get by increasing the difficulty of the game in perfect proportion.
This is great game design because it acts not only as a pacing mechanism for increasing tension and drama, but for making the players feel like they have earned their success in the face of ever-escalating stakes.
Plus, you get the ability to “count cards” as a freebie. You don’t have to make a rule for it, because players don’t need to count cards, and if they do, it will only serve to help them better understand the game and how that pacing mechanism works.
Or you can embrace the chaos of not knowing the odds and have just as much fun.
Marking Cards
Now here’s where things really get spicy when it comes to storytelling games:
♣️ Each card has plenty of space to write on! ♣️
You have infinite creative freedom to directly alter the fiction with specific, randomized results. It’s a unique kind of deckbuilding that doesn’t require any premade cards other than the standard 54.
My favorite example of this is in Unbound, where each player has their own personal deck. You will mark several cards in your deck with prompts for specific storytelling mechanics throughout the campaign. When that card comes to play, the narrative must incorporate it.
Another favorite mechanic from Unbound is that when you are knocked down in combat or another dangerous scene, you have to draw a card, and mark it with a Scar.
But, if the card you drew was already scarred, you die instead.
Each player has their own deck of cards as a tangible, tactile expression of their character. Cards are used not only to represent chance, but also a character’s stamina, capabilities, scars, and the current condition of not only their bodies but their place in the fiction.
A Winning Hand
A deck of cards presents endless possibility for game design. Particularly when you combine the oracular excellence of the cards with the flexibility of a freeform narrative. For me, cards feel like such a rich and tangible way to interact with the game and to physically represent narrative elements. Cards are an excellent prop that come loaded with meaning that you can easily use to fuel your creativity.
But, what are the downsides?
Mostly that you don’t get to use your massive collection of sparkly little dice. You don’t get to feel the heft of rolling 12d6 for your upcast Fireball spell, or the drama of watching your well-tumbled dice roll slowly across the table until it slips over the edge and the roll is lost to the void.
(Doesn’t count if it’s not on the table. Everyone knows that. Unless you’re playing on the floor, of course.)
In truth, well-designed dice mechanics could theoretically allow you to recreate any of these deck mechanics, provided you have enough dice, and the time to develop complicated mechanics to emulate a deck of cards that already contains a multiverse of possibility right out of the box.
You can get a cheap deck of cards for $2 at the dollar store, and write on it with a $1 sharpie. Or, if you have a really nice deck you want to use, you can easily draw up a Deck Sheet to write each card’s effect without marking your precious collectibles.
Perhaps there’s an argument to be said that tying specific story elements to a single deck of cards introduces far too much random chance into the narrative.
It certainly can! In Unbound, a lucky or unlucky string of draws can change things drastically. I can see these unexpected prompts being a challenge for some players.
I enjoy it as a creative constraint.
I actually enjoy dice for a similar reason. When I’m GMing, I sometimes hear my players tell me a number that gives me a flash of inspiration for exactly how events play out. Some of the fun is in describing the differences these numbers make.
Plus a lot of us just love random chance. It’s not for everyone, (looking at you Randomless Renaissance). What matters is the kind of game that YOU want to make and play. Games that flavor player agency will need to have mechanics that give players plenty of choices for interacting with that deck of cards.
That’s exactly what I’m aiming for in my upcoming game, Rite of Remembrance.
Stacking the Deck
When I first encountered Songs and Sagas, my mind was blown by the deck mechanics, but I wanted more. Inspirations from S+S and Unbound clicked for me, and I dreamed of mechanics to fulfill this craving.
A dream came to me of Memory Stones that magically connect a clan of people by the spirits of their Ancestors. The people would offer their Memories to the Stones, so all of the generations to come would have access to them in communion with the Ancestral Memory.
As players advance, they would inscribe cards from the shared deck with their character’s Memories. When these Memories are drawn, the player would have access to the power of the Memory, no matter which character they are playing. Now, I just needed a reason for them to keep dying, so they can make new characters to benefit from the memories of those who came before them.
♠️ That’s where the powerful necromancer Overlord comes in! ♠️
There is so much more to say about Rite of Remembrance. It’s a Spirits and Stones role-playing game carried in Songs and Sagas, and inspired by the cultures of my own ancestry.
Plus, it uses both decks AND dice!
Soon, I’ll be taking you on a deep-dive of Rite of Remembrance, sharing the lore, art, mechanics and development process of the game.
And I’ll be looking for playtesters, too!
So go pick up a pack of playing cards and thank your Ancestors for the games and stories they’ve passed down to us since the very first hand was dealt.
Announcements!
Folks, you only have 8 days left to get the Healthy Gaming Bundle; 24 games and other creations designed with your health in mind! All proceeds from this $5 charity bundle go to supporting my father in his cancer recovery.
Check it out, share it around, and buy a uniquely helpful bundle of games for a good deal and a good cause 💙
Upcoming Projects
Rite of Remembrance - Writing
World-Weaver’s Oracle - Writing
The Healthy Adventurer Expansions - Planning
SkyDream - Publishing
Age of Conquest: Mercenary - Playtesting
Fisher King - Playtesting