Mechanics Have Feelings Too: Playing Cards

Playing cards have a small but growing presence in tabletop rpgs. Games like Savage Worlds use a standard set of playing cards for an individual mechanic, while other games like Punk Galactic or Capers perform all of their mechanics with playing cards. But why do things with playing cards? What do they add to our games?

Let's take a look at the individual parts that make up playing cards and then relate that back to the game itself. The two major parts of a deck of playing cards are the information and the memory. 

The information contained on a single playing card is deceptively large. A single playing card contains four pieces of information that combine to create one unique card out of the 52-54 cards in one deck. These bits of information are Color, Suit, Type, and Value. Color is simply Black or Red, an even 50% split (26/52) in a full deck. The Suit is one of four options that split the deck into even groups of 25% (13/52). The Type of the card is slightly more open for interpretation, but I split it into three groups, Numbers, Face Cards, and Aces, creating an irregular distribution of probabilities. Finally, the Value of the cards, which for some cards is the Number on the card, while for others, are pre agreed values for those cards, for example Jacks = 11, Queens = 12, and Kings = 13 would be a good use of Values here.

But what does this mean for our tabletop rpgs? How can we apply this? 

If we check back to our five pre-established in-game feelings (covered in a previous blog post) we can quickly map some of these bits of information to them, to answer these questions.

  1. I expect to succeed

    1. All cards except the Aces (48/52) = 92% or higher

  2. I will probably succeed

    1. Three suits (39/52) = 75%

    2. Non Face Cards, or 10 or less as a success (40/52) = 77%

  3. I hope I succeed

    1. Colors or two suits (26/52) = 50%

  4. I will probably fail

    1. One Suit (13/52) = 25%

    2. Card Value above a 10, or only a face card (12/52) = 23%

  5. I expect to fail.

    1. A card of one value, aka all Kings or Queens, (4/52) = 8%

    2. One unique card (1/52) = 2%

Great, so the built-in information easily maps to our in-game feelings, and can be done without using the numbers on the cards. Once numbers are taken into consideration, even more can be achieved

But looking at examples of how a single card represents a change in the narrative, only gets us so far. That is because a single card is only part of the unique aspects of a deck of playing cards mechanic. That other aspect comes from all of the cards together, the deck. The deck and its memory.

Memory

A standard deck of 52 playing cards has 52 unique cards. When one card is played, another of that same card cannot appear, meaning the deck has a “memory” of what has happened. Then when the deck is shuffled, this memory resets. So between these resets, how does the memory impact our feelings in the game?

First we can look at the math. In a simple example, if 10 cards have been played, and all of them are black, then the chances of drawing a black card goes from 26/52 (50%) at the start of the reset to 16/42 (38%) at the present. Simultaneously, the chances of drawing a red card goes from 50% at the start of the reset to 26/42 (62%) at the present. This shift in probabilities is something we can feel as players. As long as the memory of past cards played is visible, as players we are influenced regarding the upcoming checks, based on the remaining cards in the deck. One does not need the precision of a blackjack card counter to make informed decisions about the probabilities, a quick glance is enough to give us an idea of the deck’s trend, and influence our feelings in the game.

So the memory of the deck, as revealed by the played cards, informs us of the shifting probabilities in the games we play. That informs our feeling: lots of red cards have been played, or I have seen mostly diamonds and spades these last checks, or there are a lot of low cards. All of these can impact our feelings of our chances and inform any choices we can take with the cards for future draws or plays. But to utilize the memory of the cards, there needs to be a choice.

This choice can manifest as a hand of cards, or a choice of which ability to use, as long as the card that appears matters. For example, imagine you have abilities that work better with low valued Club suited cards and abilities that work well with any value Heart suited cards. The current play deck is noticeably smaller in your game and has seen a lot of red cards drawn and a lot of high value cards. So, while normally, the Hearts ability will be more useful 25% of the time, in this case, choose the Club suited ability because the memory of the deck has increased its chances of being more effective. 

But that is the important part, choice, because without meaningful choice in the system, the memory lacks meaning.

This is just laying the foundation of using playing cards in tabletop roleplaying games by establishing the core concepts we need to consider. Like dice, this will take a few articles as we can still talk about the reset mechanics, draw mechanics, a hand of cards, shared decks, and more.


This article is part of the Indie Game Developer Network’s blog series. The content of this article reflects the views of but one member of the IGDN. This IGDN blog article is brought to you by Brandon Gutowski of the C22 System. If you want to get in touch with the contributor he can be reached on Twitter at @c22system, on Facebook @PagodaGamesLLC, or visit their website at www.c22system.com.


Brandon GutowskiMHF2