CardRPG

Contributed by Ray of Ash (rayofash@earthlink.com)

Stephen Rogers has contributed an advanced version of CardRPG, with extra powers and abilities and greater scope for strategy.

Getting Started

What you need:

52 card deck, paper, pencil, calculator, 1-3 dice, and eraser.

Setup:

Take out the 2 jokers and all the royal cards (kings, queens, aces and all that) and then shuffle what’s left. Divide the deck in two and take the second deck and flip it right side up [i.e. face up] and place it on the right side of the table [this is the attack deck] and take the first deck and place it [face down] on the left [this is the monster deck]. Take one of the royal cards to be your character, then take the rest and shuffle them into the first deck.  Take your character and place him in the center of the table.

Character Sheet, stats, and battles:

Here’s where the paper, pencil, and the dice come in. To create your character sheet write this on a piece of paper:

 

Level:	Name:
Gold:	HP:	Hits:
STR:
EXP:
Kills:
PK’s:
Deaths:

What does that all mean, you ask?

• Level is what level you are,
• Gold is how much gold you have, use this to buy more attack cards,
• Name is your character's name,
• HP is Hit Points, it's how much health you get,
• STR is Strength, it determines how many attack cards you start off with,
• EXP is Experience, it determines how close you are to gaining a level,
• Kills is how many monsters you have killed,
• PK’s is Player Kill’s, its how many other players you have killed,
• Deaths is how many times you have died.

To determine your HP and STR roll 1 die, if its lower then 3 you roll again because anything lower then 3 doesn’t count, take the number you get and put it in your STR, then pull out that amount of attack cards from the second deck (the one on the right of the table). Then roll again, if the number is lower then 3 roll again for the same reason above, take the number you get and put it in HP, that’s how many hits you can take before you die. Now name your character and put 1 in level.

Here’s an example new character:

 

Level: 1	Name: Ash
Gold:	HP: 5	Hits:
STR: 4
EXP: 0
Kills: 0
PK’s: 0
Deaths: 0

Get the idea now?

Playing the Game

Now to start the game. If you haven’t pulled out your attack cards yet do so now, pull out the same amount your STR equals. If you’re STR is 4 pull out 4 attack cards and so on. Now, flip over a card on the first deck (the one on the left of the table) and put it above your character, this is a monster.

Now take 4 cards from the bottom of the attack deck and put them above the monster. These are his attack cards. Now roll 3 dice, or 1 die 3 times. If one of them is 6 roll again because sixes don’t count. Add up the total, and this is the monster’s HP.

The battle has begun. Take one of your attack cards and place it next to or on your character, this means you're attacking. The damage you deal is the amount shown on the card, say if you placed a 10 you deal 10 damage. Subtract that amount from the monster's HP.

Now it’s the monster's turn to attack. Take the card on top of the monster's attack pile and place it on or next to the monster, subtract that amount from your HP. Keep doing this until one of you dies (runs out of HP). When the monster dies, put it above the first deck, if you die put the monster on the left side of the deck. When the battle is over remove your HITS. After you're done calculating everything take all the attack cards and shuffle them back into the attack deck.

Now to add up your EXP and Gold. The experience you get is how much the [monster] card was, if it was a 6 you get 6 experience, the amount of gold you get is half of what the card is, if the card was a 6 you get 3 gold.

Death:

When you die you lose all your gold and experience. Pick up 5 cards, and continue to fight the monster that killed you, the monster gets fully healed back up to its max HP. Say if its max HP was 12, it goes back up to 12.

Leveling:

When you get 10 experience, you get to level up. Roll 1 die, add the amount you get to your STR, and pull out that amount, say if you roll a 2, pull out 2 attack cards and add that amount to your STR. Now roll for your HP, add the amount you get to your HP.

Every 3 levels you need an extra 10 experience to level. So when you’re level 3 you need 20 experience. When you’re level 6 you need 30 experience. And so on.

Every 3 levels you need to roll an extra 2 dice when adding the monsters HP. So when you're level 3 instead of rolling 3 dice you roll 5 dice, or 1 die 5 times. When you're level 6 you roll 7 dice, and when you're level 9, 9 dice. And when you're level 10, which is the maximum level. You roll 10 dice, or 1 die 10 times.

Combo’s:

During battle you can do something called Combo’s, if you have a pair of attack cards put them together and use both of them when attacking to do double damage. That’s a combo. If you have 2 10’s you put them together to do 20 damage.

Buying attack cards:

Anytime you want, you can use your gold to buy attack cards (any cards you want from the attack pile). The cost of an attack card is its face value. Say if you have 6 gold you can buy a 6 or anything under it (I.E 6, 5, 4, 3, 2).

Quests:

Each time you get 52 kills; you can go on a quest. When doing a quest, pull out 3 monsters. Each monster gets 3 attack cards. If you ever don’t have enough attack cards for anything, use monster cards for attack cards. Make sure none of them are royals. All the monsters get a turn to attack; this makes things harder. If you win you gain a level, even if you are level 10. If you lose you don’t lose anything and you fail the quest.

Ending the game:

When you are done playing, add up all the monsters in the dead monster pile (the pile above the monster deck). Add that amount to your kills. And now put all the cards away.

Continuing a character:

When continuing a character, pull out attack cards equal to half your STR. If your STR is an odd number round to the nearest whole. Say if your STR is 12 you would pull out 6 attack cards, if your STR is 7 you would pull out 4.

2 players:

When you’re playing with a friend, you start off with half the attack cards you would normal get as long as it isn’t more than 10. The player puts his character above the monster, or on his side he would put it below.

When attacking you roll to see who goes first. If its above 3 [4 or more] player 2 attacks first; if its below 3 [3 or less] player 1. When it’s the monsters turn to attack roll, to see whom he is attacking. If it’s above 3 [4 or more] he attacks player 2, and if below it [3 or less] he attacks player 1.

PvP:

PvP is Player versus Player. This means you fight against another player. It's similar to a normal battle but there’s no monster. Put the second player’s card above the first player and battle following the rules of a normal 2 player battle. Combo’s are not allowed in PvP. When you die in a PvP battle you lose a level, and all your gold and experience goes to the other player. When you win you get your opponent's gold and experience.