I've been playing around with the idea of making a trick taking ttrpg. I was looking around to see what people have done with the idea before but couldn't find much, do you have anything up your sleeve?
THEME: Trick-Taking Games
Hello friend, so there’s one particular system that seems to really give you what you’re looking for: The Fight Card System, by Kayla Dice of Rat Wave Game House! That’s not all though, so I hope that whatever the genre, you find something you’re looking for here.
Transgender Deathmach Legend, by Rat Wave Game House
You are a Transgender Deathmatch Legend! You built your legend with a tapestry of broken glass, bloody fists and banging slams. You put the HRT in hurt and put the hurt on anyone who tries you. Tonight you’re going to smash your way across Slamchester cause someone owes you some fucking money! You went through two burning tables for a promoter and they’ve been ducking your calls for months, it’s time to settle things hands on. They heard you’re coming and will try and stack the deck, stop you from getting where you need to be, but just remember who you are, remember what you can to, and go get your fucking money.
Transgender Deathmatch Legend is a hexcrawl beat-em-up designed for two players. You’ll need a deck of cards to play, with combat resolved through a trick-taking game, and this book. The game is aggressively queer, overflowing with trans rage, and inspired by wrestling and fighting games.
Transgender Deathmatch Legend uses a hex crawl and playing cards with different moves assigned to the different numbers of cards. It's raw, it's bloody, and it looks like a ton of fun. If you want to hear it in action, you can catch a listen at Party of One Podcast, where you can hear Jeff Stormer playing the game with the designer!
Hands of Fate, by Halfing Caravan Games
The child was taken to the Oracles, who sat down to understand the fate of the child before them. "She shall grow to be a great warrior, but her fate is to die while protecting her friends and family from a cruel ruler."
With sad hearts, they took the child from the temple and sent her to live in distant lands with her father's cousin to be raised as a farmer.
But as Fate would have it, a cruel ruler came to the land she was raised in, and when the soldiers come to sack her village she took up arms with others. Blessed by the Goddess Athena she led the resistance from the farmers and routed the soldiers. One little act of rebellion turned into a larger rebellion until soon the Cruel Ruler brought his best troops to wage war on the Farm Girl…
A different verison of Trick-Taking, Hands of Fate uses a deck of tarot cards instead of playing cards. This game gives the players hands of cards, so they can choose to play through their scenes strategically. Since not all hands are created equal, you might draw a hand that dooms you to failure, but you still get the power to decide how you fall.
You also have different types of characters that you can play: resilient Warriors, sneaky Rogues, and learned Magicians, all with different strategies that will inform the way you play.
Kingpink: Darkness, by Anthropos Games.
The most substantial divergence Kingpink takes from many popular story games is in the way it constrains the players’ agency in controlling their narrative. In most story games, the fun comes from players deciding what they want to happen next for their characters or for the plot as a whole. In Kingpink, the fun comes from riffing on the Themes in play to figure out what happens next, relying on interpretation and improvisation more than whole-cloth fabrication.
Kingpink is about strategy combined with story, presenting players with conflicts to choose from as they move through the story. Players will also have to make guesses about what the everyone else around the table will do, making choices based on whether or not they think they have a shot at getting what they want out of a round. The store page lists eight variant play styles, so I think Kingpink might give you a lot of mechanics to chew on, and for that reason I think it’s worth checking out.
Forecaster: The Body You Share, by Rat Wave Game House.
You are an apprentice forecaster. Forecasters are responsible for sparring with weather spirits, protecting your world from natural disasters. You’ve been training for years but to physically interact with weather spirits all apprentices must undergo a journey where they will battle many tests and complete an Graduation Ritual, gifting them their true forecasting power. The ritual involves communing with a nature spirit, sharing with them a true understanding of your one self and letting them join in it. You’ve been training for years but you now have cause to suspect the ritual will fail for you. Because you are not one self. You are more than one.
Both a trick-taking fighting game and an exploration of what it means to be a system, I think Forecaster is the first game in the Fight Card system. Like many of Kayla’s games, it’s incredibly personal, and I think that’s what makes it unique. The author also takes a moment to talk about what failure in the game would look like, and how to approach it in a way that feels right for you. This is a form of safety tool that I think really fits the game that’s being written here, and I appreciate that.
Untapped Talent, by Running From Skeletons.
Untapped Talent is a role playing game for one or more players to simulate running a wrestling promotion as well as playing out the matches themselves. It provides simple rules for generating a roster for the promotion, and uses the excellent Fight Card System to resolve matches between wrestlers.
Untapped Talent is also a wrestling ttrpg, but it’s focus is different; you’re not hunting down someone who owes you money, but rather telling the story of a stable of wrestlers, played either solo or GM-less as a group. The card deck is used both to randomly generate the wrestlers and the events of the story, as well as in a match to see which wrestler comes out victorious. Every in-game year, the roster might change up, with some wrestlers leaving, and some new character entering the folds. If you want a story that happens over an extended period of time, you might like Untapped Talent.
BLOOD//RUSH, by Rat Wave Game House.
Every 90 years the orbit of Enyo’s Comet casts a bloody shadow on the Earth. The greatest warriors, all over the world, can empower themselves with dangerous elements. The shadow has been cast once again. L Redbreaker has invited you to the BLOOD//RUSH tournament, held on their mysterious private island. The prize of victory would be life-changing. Get ready to battle!
BLOOD//RUSH is a fighting game ttrpg for two or three players using a deck of cards as a trick-taking game. You play the game as a series of rounds in the tournament, moving through characters and exploring the epic highs and lows of combat sport.
A hack of Transgender Deathmatch Legend, BLOOD//RUSH expands the base rules into a game for two or three. If you want a game of high stakes, high adrenaline, and super-powered combat, you might want BLOOD//RUSH.
Some Other Thoughts…
Tarot Games Recommendation Post
Deckbuilding Games Recommendation Post
Trading Cards Combat Recommendation Post
Dice and Card Alternatives Recommendation Post
Cootie Catcher Recommendation Post
Classic Games - Remixed Recommendation Post
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