Tabletop 2

This is a continuation of the previous post.

After some thought, I've decided to change the dynamic slightly. Most of the rules are the same, but see how you like these dynamics:

The cards that are dealt to a player are not from a central deck: each player has his own deck of cards. When he uses a card in an action, it is set aside and not shuffled back into the deck. Much later - say, every time a character gets a significant rest - these cards are shuffled into the deck.

Also, emotion cards, while still having the same draw dynamic, don't follow the same "face cards/low cards win" dynamic. Instead, they win based on whether they are light side or dark side (red or black).

What this means is that there is an interesting dynamic for continued play, rather than simply being about an encounter.

See, at the beginning, your best bet is to use a lot of concentration to trade bad cards for good cards - slow, careful progress. But the thing is, the good cards are put aside after you use them, and the bad cards are shuffled back into the deck after you concentrate away from them.

As you start to wear on towards the end of the deck, you start getting fewer and fewer successes in your basic five card hand, because you've stacked the deck against yourself. This means that you have to start relying on emotion, since the emotion scoring dynamics are different, so those bad cards aren't bad.

Of course, some people will want to use emotions right from the start, and that's where a simple new rule comes in: you can either use an emotion or concentrate. If you concentrate, you can exchange one card per round, as explained in the previous post. If you use an emotion, you instantly get a bevvy of emotion cards, each of which has a 55% chance of being useful.

So, sure, you can use emotion right from the start. The benefit of this is twofold. First, you don't stack the deck. Second, you get instant results rather than waiting. Of course, you also burn through more cards.

Of course, a clever jedi could use his concentration skill to try to barely succeed in early confrontations, going for a maximum of failed cards while stacking the remaining deck in his favor. This careful, reserved approach will result in a powerful endgame, but will take time and be unimpressive at the beginning.

If you run out of cards? You're too exhausted to try anything. The result of starting to run low on cards should be very similar to RPed exhaustion: either you go out quick and then faint, or you carefully conserve your energy, performing poorly and not getting too excited.

I think it's a cool idea!

It does change the emotions-increased-by-jokers thing... but in RPs favor. People who are emotional right from the start are very likely to pull jokers in their emotion cards, increasing their emotions. However, people who are only emotional after half a deck of careful winnowing are less than half as likely to pull a joker in their emotion cards.

I honestly don't know whether such a mechanistic approach will work, but assigning it to the GM is a difficult proposition...

Anyhow, what do you think of the new mechanics?