My interest in a resource card-based accessory for Dungeons and Dragons is also inspired by the thought that it would facilitate the introduction of new players into the role-playing hobby.
It would take very little time for each player to grab some dice, a character illustration card, a player attributes card, and a half-dozen item, skill and spell cards, slide them in the sleeved booklet, and be ready to play a game of DnD. The illustrations on the card would be a quick visual cue to those new players, telling them what those item, skill and spell cards do.
For the DM, all they would need is dice and adventure map, and a couple of stacks of cards beside them: a monster deck, treasure deck, and some clue or adventure hook cards. That would facilitate improvisation, as the DM would be as surprised as the players as the characters explore and the DM draws cards to see what is discovered.
7 comments:
I could use that!
Starting to sound a bit like a board game. What you've described is not all that different from something like Runebound, Descent, Betrayal at House on the Hill, and the latest WotC board games.
I do get where you are coming from, though. Personally, I'd want to limit cards to spells, magic items and expendable items.
To my way of thinking, cards are great for things that get appear and disappear frequently...or things that "break" the baseline rules. They are less necessary for things that are more fixed (armor, weapons, attributes, money, etc.)
I am enjoying your musings on this issue.
As it looks like we're going to be playing Mongoose RuneQuest II, I've been thinking about making a series of cards for the 'combat manoeuvres' and the relevant spells, just so the players are able to make informed decisions pretty quickly. Like Mel says, it is things like that which break the system baseline (roll under skill%, which is on the character sheet) on a regular enough basis that cards will be helpful.
I can't draw though, so how I will illustrate 'riposte' or 'bladesharp' I'm not sure.
Fantasy Flight's latest version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a bit like what you're describing. or this here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1693797308/compact-heroes
For players it's nice to have item cards for easy reference. For a GM cards like these might be great for on the fly adventuring:
http://resourcefullrpg.wordpress.com/
http://www.storyforgecards.com/
cards that prompt creativity instead of telling you exactly what to do which I could see leading to a more board gamey experience.
DM: OK. You burst through the door.
DM: Entering a 15' x 15' room. With a pile of rags in the SW corner. Inside the room is...
DM: An ancient Red Dragon...uh...but that's just a tapestry on the far wall...yeah.
DM: Four Goblins! What do you do?
So yeah. Resources, Spells and such yes. Dungeon not so much. Monsters. Yeah. But not as a random stack-just as a easier to handle stat block.
What's wrong with having wandering monster cards to pull from a deck instead of rolling a die and looking up on a wandering monster chart?
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