Draw!

This is an RPG I'm working on - all the general stuff is here, it just needs some refining. I'm hoping to do some playtesting soon, and if any of you try it, let me know what your thoughts are!

Use a standard deck of playing cards WITH two jokers. Draw a hand for every challenge, and to succeed you have to win the hand. The degree you win by is degree of success (if you win through high card, it is zero degrees). Dealer (GM) puts out 3 face up cards and draws cards equal to difficulty. These cards are shown before the players choose what cards to use. The challenge also must have a strong suit which is only referenced in case of ties.

Each player draws a five card hand at the beginning of session. May use up to the skill rating cards plus the 3 face up cards to make a winning hand. If you do not have any ranks in a skill you must use the 3 face up cards. Afterward draw until you have a full hand. All used cards go into discard pile. If there aren’t enough cards in the deck to draw, shuffle the discard pile back into the deck BEFORE drawing any cards.

Rating of hands, from highest to lowest (Aces low):
Five of a Kind: Five cards of the same rank.
Straight Flush: Five cards in sequence, all the same suit.
Four of a Kind: Four cards of the same rank.
Full House: Three cards of one rank, Two of another rank.
Flush: Five cards of the same suit.
Straight: Five cards in sequence.
Three of a Kind: Three cards of the same rank.
Two Pair: Two cards of one rank, two of another rank.
One Pair: Two cards of one rank.
High Card: None of the above.

If two hands are the same, the person with the highest card wins. If they have the same highest card, check the next highest until you find a difference. If this doesn’t work, check the highest strong card on each side, then the highest non-weak card, then the highest weak card.


When designing a game, the Dealer should make a list of 9 skills for the Players. The players then are given 6 points to distribute amongst them. It costs one point per rank up to three and two points for rank 4.

Example skill sets:

Modern Setting:
Fighting
Shooting
Research
Charisma
Manipulation
Strength
Athletics
Science
Computer

Fantasy Political Setting:
Contacts
Fighting
Archery
Magic
Faith
Manipulation
Stealth
Charisma
Etiquette

Psychic Setting:
Clairvoyance
Cryokinesis
Precognition
Psychometry
Pyrokinesis
Technopathy
Telekinesis
Telepathy
Teleportation

Each player then chooses a Strength and a Weakness (you cannot choose the same suit for both). These can be modified according to the needs of the campaign, but the default is assumed to be:
Heart: Love
Diamond: Wealth
Club: Wisdom
Spade: Authority

When you use a strong card in a winning hand, you gain gold chips equal to the number of strong cards used. You may use gold chips to draw additional cards during a challenge or lower the difficulty (minimum 1) of a challenge that the you are directly involved in before the Dealer draws the challenge‘s cards. This should be related to your strength in some way.

When you use a weak card in a winning hand, you still succeed but there are complications related to the weakness. This is represented by the player gaining a black chip. These can be used to double their skill rating for a single challenge or half the difficulty of a challenge (rounding down), but the Dealer then introduces a challenge related to that weakness immediately following the current challenge. Players may only have a single black chip at a time.