Saturday 9 August 2014

RPG A Day 9: Favourite Die / Dice Set

#RPGaDay

Day 9 Question - Favourite Die / Dice Set

As I mentioned in answering the same question in the 30 Day Vampire Challenge, I don’t really have dice superstitions or find them pretty. But that was just for Vampire, so here I guess I can expand to other RPGs and randomisers which aren’t actually dice.

The Marvel SAGA card set packs a lot of nice ideas into a small space. You get to choose which “roll” to use from your hand (which varies in size with how capable your PC is) and since the suits map to the game’s stats and using the right kind lets you add another card from the deck (or more if that trumps as well) the highest number isn’t always the best. There’s also a fifth suit, DOOM, which goes to the GM after use and can pretty effectively model the villain-beats-everyone cliffhanger of ongoing comics (although not as well as being able to do it at will). You take damage from your hand, so could be unexpectedly flattened if you take damage while holding a bad hand. The positive, negative and neutral symbols are keyed to recovery from damage as well, so they can bring in sudden reversals and second winds. And there are the optional events, boosts for character callings (Guardian, Repentant, Etc.) And there’s always the option to have a random superhero or villain from the card art pop up and join in a battle in New York.

This does, as that big paragraph indicates, make it pretty game-y and a bit tactical rather than fading into the background, but the added element of gambling and picking tricks can be a lot of fun.

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