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.

    How this Collection Works

Every post will have the name of the project and the day. For example, if I am working on a project called the As-Nas Hack and it is the second post about that project, the title of the post will be:

The As-Nas Hack: Day 2

I'll have text about what I'm working on, various ideas, etc.

On Day 30, there will be a link to the RPG. The goal is to have a finished game that may need playtesting and editing. Games will be released with an Open License, either OGL or Creative Commons with a very permissive license.

The goal is to explore games that are different than my typical fare by mechanic, genre, or both.