I’m using a deck of cards! I know, very innovative.

Stats

Still arranged with dice faces – d4, d6, d12… – for convenience, and because I like it.

The stats themselves are simplified, between Physical and Mental actions/activities, which themselves are subdivided into ‘Attack’ and ‘Defence’ equivalents. They are:

Physical:

• Prowess: Perform active tasks. Such as lifting objects, attacking an oponent.
• Resilience: Resist hardships. Such as perform long tasks, resisting an attack.

Mental:

• Inspiration: E.g.: Convince someone of your words, use magic.
• Willpower: E.g.: Resist being swindled, resistance against magical effects.

Basically yes, Fabula Ultima with different name.

Difficulty

Here is where the deck of cards comes in.

54 cards. Standard deck of 52 plus the two jokers.

Shuffle the deck, pick a card. If the card picked is equal or lower to the attribute being tested – e.g.: drawing a 5 with the relative stat being a d6, it is a success; otherwise, it is a failure.

Ace is always equals to 1.

optional: if the drawn card is exactly equal to the stat – e.g.: 8 vs a d8, it is a critical success. There is no critical failure.

If a joker is pulled, then something completely unexpected happen.

optional: draw a second card after the joker, to determine if the unexpected is good or bad for you.

Once the card is used, it goes to the discard pile. The exception being the joker.

The joker card is always returned to the deck, and the deck reshuffled. But only the remaining cards.

The discard pile is reshuffled into the deck only when the deck has run out.

Oracle

By default, an oracle is a simple yes/no against a difficulty value. Something unlikely would be a d10, and only the face cards would mean it happen. While something likely would be a d4.

I understand it is not balanced. It is not meant to be really.

optional: use the colours and suites to have a more granular answer:

• Cups & Diamonds: no change.
• Clubs: Yes, but / No, but
• Spades: Yes, and / No, and

Got a joker in the oracle? Go wild!

Make a dragon eat the oracle or something.

Final Thoughts

I don’t think there is much more to add, if anything at all.

Will I actually use it? Probably not, maybe for a single session, a few dozen years from now or something.

But it was fun thinking and writing about it.

#SoloRPG #RPG #Oracle #CharacterStats #PlayerCharacter #Difficulty #CardDeck