So I'm wondering if such a thing exists, but I'm looking for some kind of card game to play that also combines tabletop rpg roleplaying type mechanics. Not just a game of poker cards or something but something with like actual monsters or characters on the cards and some kind of rule system for like dnd tabletop type shenanigans.
When we were little my friends and I did this with magic with out older brother's cards.
Wed build kingdoms out of arrays of lands and use spells and place monsters on them one at a time and then move them around the array.
So like I'd use rising tides sinking hope on a mountain to turn it into an island and drown a monster, then my buddy would unlife a forest to make a bunch of zombies spawn from it.
It was kids being kids and making shit up whole cloth and we'd go until only one king was left.
It was like commander but before that with roleplaying and diplomacy.
All the cards were recontextualized into how they affected the map or the monsters, because we werent using life points, didnt know what they were.
Why not play a game set in a weird west style saloon.
Your characters are all gamblers in addition to whatever their background is, and the assumption is that you adventure, in order to gamble the proceeds away.
Natural progression would go
>Barely tolerated if you pay first and drink up fast
>Grudgingly allowed to hang around
>Welcome as a hanger-on
>Regular
>Familiar Face
>Local color
>Part of the furniture
>Literally bought the shop
Naturally, as you get more welcome in the saloon, the small staff will tell you more secrets, that lead you to mini-dungeons that you play between poker games.
Naturally, these dungeons would be sprinkled with artifacts that could be used to cheat at poker.
Poker games are resolved by playing actual poker, for ingame money.
Use whatever RPG system you like, but pare it down for weight, maybe keep it to core.
>Game in a game
I can't tell what you're asking for. An RPG that uses playing cards? A fantasy themed card game?
Basicly a fantasy themed card game that plays with dnd type rules if that makes sense. I probably didnt word it as well as I could have. I have seen gamest hat use poker cards but thats not what I'm looking for.
Fairy Meat uses a standard deck of cards, plus the joker instead of dice; attacker and defender draw hands basically, the better hand wins, and trumps give other bonuses or maluses, but also has character cards and stats for your various murderous woodland sprites.
It's more of a skirmish warband game though.
Also, there's that Weird West game, Deadlands, was it? uses a deck of cards; thing that's more of an rpg.
If memory serves that roleplaying system might be plundered from it if you're not too find of the setting.
Are there also games that use there own unique cards instead of poker cards? These are nice suggestions though but not quite what I was looking for. Like i want monsters and character related cards that play with trpg rules or something.
what do you mean trpg rules?
how is this different than a card game as is?
I guess like how you can do lots of crazy stuff in games like dnd within the rules as long as the dm agrees with it or something. Like ever game has rules but games like dnd allow you to get creative at times with what you can do within the rules.
Then how is a card different than a truncated pre-fab character sheet?
Its not so much wether you use a card or a sheet, I just want a card game that gives you a similar experience like dnd can give you with how imaginaitive you can get with how you use things like spells or attacks.
how do the cards factor in then?
i'm not seeing how cards change anything about the game
I just like cards with cool character illustrations or statistics.
Regicide?
I think I get what you're asking for. You want a fantasy adventure card game.
The Lord of The Rings: The Card Game is also a cooperative adventure game that you can even play solo, where you create a group of heroes and a deck of resources and companions and then go on quests and missions journeying through fantasy locations and battling monsters. It doesn't have any dice though, if that's what you're looking for.
If you want a straight dungeon crawl, then Warhammer Quest The The Aventure Card Game, which was later reissued as Heroes of Terrinoth, is one of my favorites. Has dice rolling and plenty of loot to be found. Very D&D-ish.
Then you also have the Pathfinder: Adventure Card Game, which is literally "D&D, but with cards".
You can play this game solo, and it should tick all the boxes you are looking for.
I was designing a game exactly like this but hit a wall after I did all the card mechanics and needed art.
Until I find a solution all I can suggest is pathfinder adventure card game. Escape the dark castle might it too, if you can find a copy.
Oh that sounds interesting, care to tell us more about the game? I hope you'll eventually find a solution to your problem.
I stripped down old school d&d type rules to a game that a solo player can keep track of easily and turned dungeon crawling into a card game where you draw from a deck to see what happens. It's based on a solo rpg book I wrote called Fantasu, which I've posted around a couple times.
Index Card RPG maybe? I haven't played it but here's a review. Maybe it's what you're looking for?
probably hard to find now, but this had an interesting mechanic if I remember correctly (it has been decades since I last perused the rulebooks.) If I remember right, you were dealt a hand of cards and then decided which card you'd use to attack, defend, etc. There were 8 different "suits" (1 for Str, Dex, Int, etc) and then you'd use the appropriately suited card for the action; a "Str" suited card for a Str related task was "trump" and you drew a card from the "Fate Deck" to add to your card for resolution. Something like that. I remember wanting to strip out the "Dragonlance" portion and just use the card system but I never got around to trying to do that.
There was this old shadowrun tcg where the game was based around doing runs, it wasn't that great but mostly because it was made as a tcg instead of a boxed product, but regardless I remember having a good time with it
Are we not mentioning the pathfinder card games on purpose?
Yes
https://www.amazon.com/Games-Play-Your-Head-Yourself/dp/0998379417