Which RPG or wargame has, in your opinion, the quickest and most intuitive card-based initiative game mechanic?

Savage Worlds does a decent job. Its functional and fast, but not without its issues.

Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel has an interesting turn order / initiative system where nobody knows the order until it plays out during the turn.

Quote from: Spinachcat;928277Savage Worlds does a decent job. Its functional and fast, but not without its issues.

You beat me to it. I was going to mention Savage Worlds. I like their system because it's fast and easy, but it's also a lot more random than I like. Works pretty well for SW campaigns, though.

Quote from: finarvyn;928356You beat me to it. I was going to mention Savage Worlds. I like their system because it's fast and easy, but it's also a lot more random than I like. Works pretty well for SW campaigns, though.

The original, better version of the game, Deadlands, had a less random method, because you drew more cards based on stats, so kind of a Draw and Keep situation, and more chance to draw Jokers.

I keep hearing good things about Savage Worlds. I have to play that at some point.

I have been reading about historical wargames, like Rommel in the Desert, and I have been hearing interesting things about card-based mechanics in these games.
I was wondering if anybody here has any experiences with them, and if these ideas might be applicable to rpg's.

*edit*
This one looks cool:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25021/sekigahara-unification-japan

Quote from: Cave Bear;928659I have been reading about historical wargames, like Rommel in the Desert, and I have been hearing interesting things about card-based mechanics in these games.
I was wondering if anybody here has any experiences with them, and if these ideas might be applicable to rpg's.

Wow. It's been a long time since I played that game but as I recall, you draw a certain number of cards based on your supply situation. Each card has either 1 action, half an action, or nothing. You're spending these actions to move troops. This creates a situation where neither player knows exactly what the other player can do. A neat system but probably not one that could work very well in an RPG with lots of people.

In this old boardgame called Magic Realm you had chits (which were effectively like cards) that had both a speed value and a strength value. Each player would choose a chit to play and you'd try to get the most powerful attack that was also faster than you're opponent.

This makes me wonder if there ever was an RPG where each player had their own decks to draw from for initiative? The player builds this deck, choosing between fast and weak or slow and powerful. Possibly, upgrading the cards in the deck as the player gains experience.

I had a pretty simple homebrew one I used.

The game already called for 1d10 on initiative. I just generated the numbers using cards.

Cards 2-10 counted as is. An Ace indicated both a "1 and 11" meaning you get to go first and last, thus having a bonus action.
Jack, Queen, and Kings you would hold onto and draw another card. Drawing 3 facecards consecutively, however, forfeits your action for that turn. Face cards held could be used to re-roll any failed skill roll or attack roll, or to avoid one-time damage from any single source (sort of a lucky dodge).

This sort of thing works great with, say, AD&D 2nd Ed, where it's already using a d10 initiative, and it breaks up the predictability that a 7th level fighter gets one attack on the first round, 2 on the second round, every time.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;930666Wow. It's been a long time since I played that game but as I recall, you draw a certain number of cards based on your supply situation. Each card has either 1 action, half an action, or nothing. You're spending these actions to move troops. This creates a situation where neither player knows exactly what the other player can do. A neat system but probably not one that could work very well in an RPG with lots of people.

Does it take a lot of time to fuss with at the table?

QuoteIn this old boardgame called Magic Realm you had chits (which were effectively like cards) that had both a speed value and a strength value. Each player would choose a chit to play and you'd try to get the most powerful attack that was also faster than you're opponent.

Neat!

QuoteThis makes me wonder if there ever was an RPG where each player had their own decks to draw from for initiative? The player builds this deck, choosing between fast and weak or slow and powerful. Possibly, upgrading the cards in the deck as the player gains experience.

People would accuse it of being to 'boardgamey', but it could be pretty cool.

If one were to design a card-based RPG, one would have to account for the problem of shuffling decks. Shuffling takes a really time, and it can slow combat down considerably. Shuffling multiple decks together into one big deck would help to minimize shuffling, but having individual decks for each player (as opposed to a single shared deck) would work as well. And if you are going to give each player a personal deck, then you may as well let them customize their decks.

Quote from: Lunamancer;930670I had a pretty simple homebrew one I used.

The game already called for 1d10 on initiative. I just generated the numbers using cards.

Cards 2-10 counted as is. An Ace indicated both a "1 and 11" meaning you get to go first and last, thus having a bonus action.
Jack, Queen, and Kings you would hold onto and draw another card. Drawing 3 facecards consecutively, however, forfeits your action for that turn. Face cards held could be used to re-roll any failed skill roll or attack roll, or to avoid one-time damage from any single source (sort of a lucky dodge).

This sort of thing works great with, say, AD&D 2nd Ed, where it's already using a d10 initiative, and it breaks up the predictability that a 7th level fighter gets one attack on the first round, 2 on the second round, every time.

Cool idea! There's another idea I saw on a blog somewhere where you draw cards to see which side gets to go; black means that a player gets to take their action, and red means that a monster gets to take their action. I don't remember the specifics though.

Quote from: Cave Bear;930973Does it take a lot of time to fuss with at the table?

It worked well as I recall but the main focus of the mechanic was to try and bluff your opponent. In an RPG that isn't really viable.

QuoteIf one were to design a card-based RPG, one would have to account for the problem of shuffling decks. Shuffling takes a really time, and it can slow combat down considerably. Shuffling multiple decks together into one big deck would help to minimize shuffling, but having individual decks for each player (as opposed to a single shared deck) would work as well. And if you are going to give each player a personal deck, then you may as well let them customize their decks.

The only card-based RPG that I've played is the old Dragonlance SAGA game. It had one deck and everyone drew from it to get numbers that you'd play in place of die rolls. The downside of how it worked was that you'd often have your character perform a pointless action just to get rid of bad cards. Which was very disruptive to the flow of the game. The Marvel version of the game had a bit of a fix for this where each player had a "skill" number and all cards of that number or less could be played for free on top of any one other card. This meant that 1s and 2s were actually good to hold on to. That game was actually pretty good. It's a shame that it's sort of lost to time.

To avoid the gameyness, I'd suggest something like allowing each player to draw three cards and choose one to play. That way, they aren't holding a "hand" when they aren't doing any actions. It becomes part of the action resolution method. The GM could be just drawing one card from his monster deck to compare to. I think it could work without feeling too boardgamey.

If you were going through all this trouble, you might as well make it so that the deck of cards composed the entirety of the character's class, abilities, and skills. All progression of the character was through these decks. I think there is a new Arkham Horror card game from FFG that works this way. Each character starts with a deck and upgrades their deck as they advance by spending XP to buy newer, better cards.

There was another old 90s game called "Throwing Stones" that was basically a dice pool game. You'd build your character by selecting a set of dice (warrior dice, wizard dice, etc). The game worked ok but the dice were of such bad quality that they were ruined in just a few hours of gameplay.