The Bridge Hack: Day 2B

So let's work on the requirements before delving into the magic system:

Rule Requirements:

Your core mechanics cannot involve rolling a die or dice, adding modifiers, and comparing the result to a target difficulty number to determine binary success or failure.

Got the card mechanic approved. Draw a card with a lesser rank than the rank associated with an attribute. Drawing a card that matches the rank and suit of the attribute is a success.

• Your game cannot be directly Powered by the Apocalypse.

I enjoyed playing Dungeon World much more than running it. Since I am not using dice and I am not using yes, but or no, but successes and failures, I should be good on this one, too.

These requirements are meant broadly. Renaming swords to "blades" doesn't get you out of that requirement, and "swords" includes long knives, scimitars, katanas, rapiers, etc. If you're "skirting the line," you're too close. Make something different.

Thematic Requirements:

No swords.

Primary weapons will be sling, bows and arrows, wedges, and glove type things.

No guns of any type.

Drat. Okay, no guns or crossbows. No lasers, either.

No dungeons (or dungeon equivalents, like widespread ruins).

Got it. No dungeons or ruins. I'm also going to avoid ancient cities with old magic relics.

No undead.

Cool.

No demons or devils.

This actually makes worldbuilding easier for me.

No Conan-style barbarians.

CROM COUNT THE DEAD CLICHES!

No elves, dwarves, or halflings/hobbits

• Sentient dolphins that travel on land.
• Fire elementals from another dimension. (They don't look like Fire Elementals, though)
• Half Garuda/Half Human soldiers.
• Constructed beings that are well-adjusted, not created specifically for war, not golems, and accepted members of society.

There's more, but I think I'm good here. No re-skinned elves/dwarves/halflings, either.

The player-characters cannot be generic adventurers for hire.

Player Characters are agents of the Hendeciad, the eleven high priests of the human gods. They may or may not be double agents, also working for the Exo, the 12th god. Worship of Exo is not shunned, but it is rare and misunderstood. The creator God, the progenitor of the human gods and Exo is believed to be dead and therefore is not worshiped.

The Hendeciad controls a lot of resources within larger cities, but are less connected in smaller towns. They have no presence outside a specific region of the continent. The followers of Exo also have resources, but have some presence in lightly explored (and even unexplored) areas.

Character goals are usually associated with deliveries, explorations, or gaining access to mysteries. Characters that work/worship Exo may also work to reconnect different enclaves of Exo worshipers.

The setting cannot be just the standard Medieval Europe environment (peasants, barons, kings, Norman-style castles, horses, wagons, rolling farmland, etc.). It may include some of these individual elements.

No walled cities. Most cities are ruled by Byzantine bureaucracies.

If your game includes monsters, beasts, or other non-sentient opponents, they must be complex and interesting, not just a handful of simple combat stats.

All creatures were created by either the creator god, one of the eleven gods, or Exo. They are defined first by their creator, then by other factors. Combat stats are available, but the Hendeciad are not currently into military conquest.

If your game includes magic, it cannot use discrete, memorized spells with specific effects.

Card based magic system. More than that TBD.

For the purposes of this contest, "fantasy" is not a simulation of the real, actual world in the past, present, or recognizable future. Anything else is fantasy.?

Check. Not a European-ish setting. At least not on purpose.

The game must be playable. Don't submit a game where part of it is still an idea; make something up and throw that into the document. It doesn't need to be polished with all the margins lined up perfectly.?

Playable, eh? Now that will be a challenge. 🙂

    The Bridge Hack: Day 2

I saw this from Brent Newhall and decided to go for it. So the big change is going to be the rules restriction and the deadline. Here are the guidelines as presented by the rules:

FYI - I do not know if drawing a card with a lesser rank than an attribute follows the rules or not. If it does not, then I'll follow all the rules except for this one. I won't win, but it will still be a challenge.

The non-Vancian magic system is in the works and the characters will be specific and purposeful.

Thematic Requirements:

• No swords.
• No guns of any type.
• No dungeons (or dungeon equivalents, like widespread ruins).
• No undead.
• No demons or devils.
• No Conan-style barbarians.
• No elves, dwarves, or halflings/hobbits.
• The player-characters cannot be generic adventurers for hire.
• The setting cannot be just the standard Medieval Europe environment (peasants, barons, kings, Norman-style castles, horses, wagons, rolling farmland, etc.). It may include some of these individual elements.
• If your game includes monsters, beasts, or other non-sentient opponents, they must be complex and interesting, not just a handful of simple combat stats.
• If your game includes magic, it cannot use discrete, memorized spells with specific effects.

Rule Requirements (here's where things get interesting!):

• Your core mechanics cannot involve rolling a die or dice, adding modifiers, and comparing the result to a target difficulty number to determine binary success or failure.
• Your game cannot be directly Powered by the Apocalypse.

These requirements are meant broadly. Renaming swords to "blades" doesn't get you out of that requirement, and "swords" includes long knives, scimitars, katanas, rapiers, etc. If you're "skirting the line," you're too close. Make something different.

For the purposes of this contest, "fantasy" is not a simulation of the real, actual world in the past, present, or recognizable future. Anything else is fantasy.?

The game must be playable. Don't submit a game where part of it is still an idea; make something up and throw that into the document. It doesn't need to be polished with all the margins lined up perfectly.

    The Bridge Hack: Day 1

Normally I am more experimental with the 30 day games, but today, I'll start with a base of The Black Hack and make adjustments from there.

The basic premise is to make an RPG that requires only a deck of cards to determine success. No dice.

Core Mechanic
- Draw a card of lesser rank that the Attribute value.
- Drawing the exact card of the attribute is a critical success.

Determining Attributes
There are six attributes, STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA. Draw cards to represent the value for that Attribute. If a Face Card is drawn for an attribute, the next attribute cannot be a face card. If a face card is drawn, discard and keep drawing until a non-face card is drawn.

Other Things
- Each player uses their own deck of cards.
- When there are no cards left to draw, the player can take no more actions.
- After a long rest, the all cards are shuffled and available for drawing.
- After a short rest (1 hour), the discard pile is shuffled and the top ten cards are added to the bottom of the drawing pile.
- Damage done to character is measured in number of cards discarded. Two points of damage requires the character to discard two cards.

Magic Items
Traditional +1, +2 items raise the rank of the attribute. e.g. +1 Sword raised STR attribute by one rank. If it was a Jack of Diamonds before, it will now be a Queen of Diamonds when using the sword.

Some magic items can change the suit of the card without changing the rank. Another magic item makes the suit irrelevant for determining critical success.

Weapons and Shields
Shields can absorb the damage of one attack before it is splintered.

Usage Rank
Usage Rank is used for consumables. Drawing above the Usage Rank causes it to go down one rank. The Usage Rank cannot be above a King or below and 8. Usage Rank have no suit.