Two Cards, Two Parts

So, I'm looking at the tarot cards as inspiration. And I know that one part of reading tarot cards is that when a card is dealt upside-down, it is called "reversed" (usually—I'm not a New Ager. Don't judge). Anyway, the reverse card is kind of like the bad stuff. If one card means "energy" for example, the reverse is something like "lethargy". Anyway, I'm thinking about two sets of cards since I don't want to rely on how they get dealt. One will represent the "positive" meaning and another card will represent the "negative" meaning. Now, keep in mind here that I'm using these terms for lack of better ones, especially when one might consider cards like Death or The Devil as intuitively not something too positive.

But each card could have two "parts" because I want there to be consequences or something. A "positive" card might give a player a nice advantage or bonus, but there's a cost. For example, say a cyborg uses a gadget to perform some task. Well, the "cost" would be something like "wear and tear" that would accumulate, forcing the cyborg to either repair it or risk it breaking altogether. On the other hand, a "negative" card would have a second part, but that might be something called "opportunity". Yeah, the adept got dealt a negative card, but the opportunity might be that their biological alteration just became more resilient or something (I'd still need to work it all out).

And it wouldn't just be physical things. Maybe some consequences would be reputation—the cyborg increases her social standing despite getting a negative card, or a Vampire is able to elude the authorities despite his prey getting away.

The minor arcana cards could be more specific to certain subspecies based on the suit, too. Or certain aspects of the body, mind, heart, or spirit. Or perhaps pertaining to certain professions/jobs. Major arcana cards could act like major boosts or critical hits/failures. Anyway, I'm liking the potential. But it's making me wonder if instead of a TTRPG, that I'll end up making a card or board game by default. ...for the record, I'd like to aim for the TTRPG.

Face Cards

In modern playing cards, there are three face cards for each suit: King, Queen, and Jack. In tarot, there are four in most: Knight and Page morphed into the Jack at one point. The usage of four interests me, of course.

But when researching, I learned that another tarot set where the face cards were divided among bi-gender lines: King-Knight-Page and Queen-Mounted Lady-Maid—another interesting difference. I got excited at the possibilities, such as playing with the Maiden-Mother-Crone motif. But then I also became aware of gender dualities and queer/non-binary identities. It made me think and expand a bit.

I have to think more about this, but what if my version of face-cards includes non-binary cards as well? Now, I wouldn't spend energy coming up with non-binary or queer "face cards" and probably not even label the cards so directly. However, I did consider something like the Androgynous, the Drag Queen/King (performance artist), the Transgender, and the Gender Fluid. But, again, I'm really going for the underlying archetypal meaning and not a direct allegorical approach, not to mention that queerness is more diverse than just four types.

Anyway, this will again take more thought, like all my other thawts so far. But I'm excited about the possibilities and being able to transcend the traditional decks.

I was looking at using the cards in a way where you add up the numbers on the cards, 1 through 10 plus higher for the face cards. But as I looked at what kinds of results occurred, I soon realized that it would quickly become rather cumbersome. Adding up a ton of numbers just is too much cognitive load.

One thought I had was to limit the number of cards in the hand or are playable. The challenge is to make the levels relevant. i.e. a Level 1 player is not going to have the power or flexibility of a Level 7 NPC. So, how do I make the cards usable but also scalable? I'm still thinking about that.

What to Measure?

So, I think one of the first things I need to ask myself in relation to this is "What do I want the cards to actually do for the action?" So, I think I need to figure out just what it is I want the cards to measure.

With dice, you roll for each attribute. Roll for Intelligence or Constitution (in D&D clones). Now, since I'm jostling and packing the attributes, this can also get a little rough. But what if I use Connie Alexander's (Coyote & Crow) groupings of Power, Finesse, and Reserve? Let's say the cards give a certain amount of Power in one of my four categories (Body, Mind, Spirit, Heart) with variations depending on the subspecies (Ssp.). Let's say the player wants to use their cybernetic rail gun to shoot out a streetlight. They pick their cards, and being a Cyborg, they get a certain amount of Power icons, Finesse icons, and/or Reserve icons. The rail gun requires a certain amount to operate, and the action takes a certain amount of finesse (dexterity, say) to hit the target. If the cards provide the amount of those, the action succeeds (while also accumulating consequences, like battery drain or wear/tear on the equipment, or stress on the person...TBD).

Seven Icons and Counter-Icons

After thinking it a bit, and experimenting with some icons, I've decided which of them I want on the cards. They are paired, conceptually. Some are opposites, but not always. I'll explain as I list them.

The most obvious pair, in my mind, is Energy and Wear. Energy is universal to represent the amount one needs to activate the individual powers or perform activities. It's either straight mechanical, like when a Cyborg activates their gadgets, or when an Augment uses their biological enhancement, or when a Psychic uses their powers. It will likely be the primary means of doing things because power moves so much. Even a regular "Pure" Human expends calories to perform tasks. The converse of Energy--although not exactly its opposite--is Wear. In fact, the more Energy is expended, that usually means that whatever is used is probably going to experience more Wear as a result. But this isn't always the case. Sometimes, glitches just happen as much as lemons. It's a primary consequence to Energy usage. So, perhaps they can both appear on a card.

The next obvious pair is Health and Injury. Those are opposites. These are even more obvious. Weapons will deal their own damage, but Health & Injury are still factors. Illness, for example, Health could heal from injuries and illnesses.

The next four relate more specifically to Mind, Social, Emotion, and Spirit. The Next couple are not opposites at all, or even exactly compliments. Learning is a Mind-related Icon. Knowledge is gained with these. A more negative icon is Fatigue. Like Wear, it measures more of a mental overload that dampens the rest of the levels.

On the Social front, a more direct pair of opposites are Favor and Scorn. Favor is simply a "like" in social media, or some kind of approval. Scorn is a "thumbs down" kind of disapproval. It's pretty straightforward. One could seem to succeed, but if it makes others mad, then it could be more of a pyrric kind of victory.

Emotionally, the pair of opposites here are Refresh and Stress.

Spiritual uplift will be called Ardor, whereas Torpor impacts spirituality. These might have a larger impact on the Psychics.

The final pair is Wealth-based between Coin icons and Debt icons. These will have impacts especially when making economic deals, in gambling, or other such issues.

Now, I have to figure out which cards get which icons and how many. It fees natural to have the Coins/Debt last.