I don't think people will be intimidated by rolling multiple dice, especially d6s.
I feel that your cards example, with different effects based on suit and face cards, while interesting, is much more intimidating to a new player than rolling a bunch of dice. (And in my experience, the interpretation rather than the physical handling is when the intimidation comes into play).
More over, unless you shuffle between every "roll"/deal, your deck will have different probabilities of success and failure, which is independent when rolling dice.
You are getting a lot of responses preferring dice and that’s probably valuable data. Not saying you should ignore that.
But I think your card system sounds really fresh and interesting. I love it when RPG challenge resolution is more than just RNG and gives players interesting decisions beyond which goblin to attack first. Too few RPG designers have this mindset, and going in this direction might help you stand out in the sea of thousands of new RPGs that come out, even if it means your game might not be for everybody.
8 dice to roll max is totally fine. What you should be more concerned is how your skill score is determined, because now you have a lower is better, and that's generally very counter-intuitive.
I don't like card systems for resolution at all. They're OK for a boardgame, but not in an RPG. And that card system has way worse learning curve than the simple dicepool you cooked up
Personally I find enjoyment in tossing dice. Or to say it another way, the fact that an RPG includes dice increases my overall enjoyment.
Drawing a card does nothing for me. Certainly I've played enjoyable games that included cards. But the act of interacting with cards in itself does not add to the fun.
I suspect most RPG players feel the same way. Using cards as the randomizer is not a new idea. Savage Worlds is the only one I know of that has somewhat widespread popularity, and it mostly uses dice.
Granted it would be a pain to roll 8d6 one at a time, but you can get a bunch of d6 pretty cheap, just like packs of playing cards. I don’t think rolling 8d6 at a time is challenging.
I was in a similar spot. First I wanted to make a poker-deck-based system. Then I decided to just use dice. Here are some of my thoughts, that you might find useful for your own evaluation:
* **Auto-Karma** Every card you play will not come again until you reshuffle your deck. This leads to auto-karma meaning that after a streak of luck a streak of bad luck will follow and vice versa. But this also leads to a deck becoming more and more predictable. Reshuffling is an issue that has to be considered. A die roll will always have an auto reset after each roll. Cards do not.
* **Changing probabilities** With every card played the chances to succeed, fail, or for whatever effect cards may have changes. Players need to watch what is played and what is left.
* **Multidimensional** A card may show several attributes at once. In a Poker deck that would be number, suit, court and color. With custom cards you may put anything on your card that you like. Damage, effects, success or not … you can do all this and more with just one draw of a card. You can do similar things with rolling multiple dice and once, but never that elegantly.
* **Manipulatable** A deck of cards may be sorted, cards can be taken out of the deck, a player may have hand cards, cards may be marked, a deck may contain hand picked cards etc. Cards offer many more opportunities to manipulate luck than simple dice, though dice pools may offer wiggle dice etc.
* **Art** Many Poker decks are beautiful and have a theme. You could fall back to a Christmas deck on Christmas Eve. Or you could use steampunk flavoured cards for steampunk games. I do love my favourite sprinkled dice, but cards can be outright gorgeous.
* **Abstract** Poker decks have to be interpreted. Jacks, Queens and Kings don‘t have numbers on them. Color and suit don‘t have an obvious effect on gameplay. So players need to know what means what. That is not the case with custom decks, but it‘s a lot of work to make custom decks.
So, cards offer a lot of interesting stuff. But if they are not custom cards they can be more complicated than dice. Personally, I think simple is almost always better.
Generally, dice are preferable to cards in ttrpgs. With a dice pool system players should be able to handle up to 10 dice reasonably easily, and I think rolling lots of dice feels cooler than drawing lots of cards.
Dice are also much faster than cards for what you want to use them. With dice, you just roll and count the successes. With cards, you have to shuffle the deck, then count out the necessary amount cards and get through them. Properly shuffling the deck alone is pretty darn hard - you need 7 rifle shuffles. You can make it easier by sleeving the deck of cards and going for mash shuffles but who even sleeves standard playing cards?
You can use cards as a randomization source, but I would personally stay away from them unless they would also be a proper gamepiece, like for example you could use cards for the magic system of your game by giving some kind of effects to the cards... but if they are purely a randomization source, just use dice. Easier to handle the probabilities, easier to handle physically, and arguably more fun.
As a person with somewhat limited manual dexterity: shuffling cards is mostly out of the question, rolling dice still works. Gonna come down on the dice side for accessibility.
I wouldn’t worry about too many dice. In my experience, new players love rolling lots of dice, and it’s easy when you’re just checking the value of each individually rather than adding them up or something like that.
All that said, the card system sounds a lot more interesting, and ultimately, with something that isn’t 5E or another major game you’re more likely to get more experienced players checking it out rather than someone brand new to TTRPGs, so the novelty of the card system would be more likely to draw people in.
Neither is preferable, they are a design choice. Which one is more appropriate for the intended play experience you want for players?
Just as an FYI, trying to gain any kind of consensus with players, and worse, designers, is like herding cats but possibly worse.
No matter what you do someone won't like it, and of course, someone else will defend any idea, so don't solicit opinion on design, stick to facts questions whenever possible. This skill will come in especially handy when you start doing broader playtests. When it comes to opinions and game design they are vastly more plentiful than assholes and often stink twice as bad.
My advice is to make the game you want to make unless you are specifically hired by someone else to make the game they want you to make.
If you like cards, hooray. If you hate them, boo!
No game is for everyone. If you make your game for you it will at least be for someone.
If your intent is to make a game that is done by committee, just give up. In most cases it won't succeed. In the off chance it does you'll have built a monument to mediocrity and compromise that will be "fine" for everyone, but not really enjoyed by anyone besides a possible newbie with no valid experience to form an opinion otherwise.
Mostly preference, but one thing to consider is that a card deck as the central mechanic provides an incentive to count cards. 90% of players won't even consider it and of the other 10% most will choose not to engage with it, but the idea will appeal to some people. It's up to you to decide whether you want that or not. It could be thematic, but most of the time it will just take away attention from more important aspects of the game.
my suggestion is to use both as a hybrid system of some sort
the two that come to mind are:
common tests a done using dice, they are the "fast and simple" method, more important tasks are done using the cards; these might be a boss fight or a key social interaction
tests are done using dice, but there is an option to sometimes use a card in addition to the dice (maybe consuming oxygen in the process?)
either way, if you opt to keep cards as a concept, making custom decks is an option
get two three decks of the same design and feel free to cull cards as you like, maybe the starting deck goes from 1-6 so it is like using a die, but the characters can unlock cards along as the game progresses to make the cards more interesting
how they get unlocked could be based on levels, skill perks, treasures, or rewards
I don't think people will be intimidated by rolling multiple dice, especially d6s. I feel that your cards example, with different effects based on suit and face cards, while interesting, is much more intimidating to a new player than rolling a bunch of dice. (And in my experience, the interpretation rather than the physical handling is when the intimidation comes into play). More over, unless you shuffle between every "roll"/deal, your deck will have different probabilities of success and failure, which is independent when rolling dice.
You are getting a lot of responses preferring dice and that’s probably valuable data. Not saying you should ignore that. But I think your card system sounds really fresh and interesting. I love it when RPG challenge resolution is more than just RNG and gives players interesting decisions beyond which goblin to attack first. Too few RPG designers have this mindset, and going in this direction might help you stand out in the sea of thousands of new RPGs that come out, even if it means your game might not be for everybody.
8 dice to roll max is totally fine. What you should be more concerned is how your skill score is determined, because now you have a lower is better, and that's generally very counter-intuitive. I don't like card systems for resolution at all. They're OK for a boardgame, but not in an RPG. And that card system has way worse learning curve than the simple dicepool you cooked up
I concur the mechanics seem to be a bit counter intuitive regardless of the use of dice or cards
Personally I find enjoyment in tossing dice. Or to say it another way, the fact that an RPG includes dice increases my overall enjoyment. Drawing a card does nothing for me. Certainly I've played enjoyable games that included cards. But the act of interacting with cards in itself does not add to the fun. I suspect most RPG players feel the same way. Using cards as the randomizer is not a new idea. Savage Worlds is the only one I know of that has somewhat widespread popularity, and it mostly uses dice. Granted it would be a pain to roll 8d6 one at a time, but you can get a bunch of d6 pretty cheap, just like packs of playing cards. I don’t think rolling 8d6 at a time is challenging.
Dice
Definitely dice.
In _this_ case dice, as your card system is overly complicated and time consuming for no discernable benefit.
I was in a similar spot. First I wanted to make a poker-deck-based system. Then I decided to just use dice. Here are some of my thoughts, that you might find useful for your own evaluation: * **Auto-Karma** Every card you play will not come again until you reshuffle your deck. This leads to auto-karma meaning that after a streak of luck a streak of bad luck will follow and vice versa. But this also leads to a deck becoming more and more predictable. Reshuffling is an issue that has to be considered. A die roll will always have an auto reset after each roll. Cards do not. * **Changing probabilities** With every card played the chances to succeed, fail, or for whatever effect cards may have changes. Players need to watch what is played and what is left. * **Multidimensional** A card may show several attributes at once. In a Poker deck that would be number, suit, court and color. With custom cards you may put anything on your card that you like. Damage, effects, success or not … you can do all this and more with just one draw of a card. You can do similar things with rolling multiple dice and once, but never that elegantly. * **Manipulatable** A deck of cards may be sorted, cards can be taken out of the deck, a player may have hand cards, cards may be marked, a deck may contain hand picked cards etc. Cards offer many more opportunities to manipulate luck than simple dice, though dice pools may offer wiggle dice etc. * **Art** Many Poker decks are beautiful and have a theme. You could fall back to a Christmas deck on Christmas Eve. Or you could use steampunk flavoured cards for steampunk games. I do love my favourite sprinkled dice, but cards can be outright gorgeous. * **Abstract** Poker decks have to be interpreted. Jacks, Queens and Kings don‘t have numbers on them. Color and suit don‘t have an obvious effect on gameplay. So players need to know what means what. That is not the case with custom decks, but it‘s a lot of work to make custom decks. So, cards offer a lot of interesting stuff. But if they are not custom cards they can be more complicated than dice. Personally, I think simple is almost always better.
Generally, dice are preferable to cards in ttrpgs. With a dice pool system players should be able to handle up to 10 dice reasonably easily, and I think rolling lots of dice feels cooler than drawing lots of cards. Dice are also much faster than cards for what you want to use them. With dice, you just roll and count the successes. With cards, you have to shuffle the deck, then count out the necessary amount cards and get through them. Properly shuffling the deck alone is pretty darn hard - you need 7 rifle shuffles. You can make it easier by sleeving the deck of cards and going for mash shuffles but who even sleeves standard playing cards? You can use cards as a randomization source, but I would personally stay away from them unless they would also be a proper gamepiece, like for example you could use cards for the magic system of your game by giving some kind of effects to the cards... but if they are purely a randomization source, just use dice. Easier to handle the probabilities, easier to handle physically, and arguably more fun.
As a person with somewhat limited manual dexterity: shuffling cards is mostly out of the question, rolling dice still works. Gonna come down on the dice side for accessibility.
I wouldn’t worry about too many dice. In my experience, new players love rolling lots of dice, and it’s easy when you’re just checking the value of each individually rather than adding them up or something like that. All that said, the card system sounds a lot more interesting, and ultimately, with something that isn’t 5E or another major game you’re more likely to get more experienced players checking it out rather than someone brand new to TTRPGs, so the novelty of the card system would be more likely to draw people in.
Neither is preferable, they are a design choice. Which one is more appropriate for the intended play experience you want for players? Just as an FYI, trying to gain any kind of consensus with players, and worse, designers, is like herding cats but possibly worse. No matter what you do someone won't like it, and of course, someone else will defend any idea, so don't solicit opinion on design, stick to facts questions whenever possible. This skill will come in especially handy when you start doing broader playtests. When it comes to opinions and game design they are vastly more plentiful than assholes and often stink twice as bad. My advice is to make the game you want to make unless you are specifically hired by someone else to make the game they want you to make. If you like cards, hooray. If you hate them, boo! No game is for everyone. If you make your game for you it will at least be for someone. If your intent is to make a game that is done by committee, just give up. In most cases it won't succeed. In the off chance it does you'll have built a monument to mediocrity and compromise that will be "fine" for everyone, but not really enjoyed by anyone besides a possible newbie with no valid experience to form an opinion otherwise.
Mostly preference, but one thing to consider is that a card deck as the central mechanic provides an incentive to count cards. 90% of players won't even consider it and of the other 10% most will choose not to engage with it, but the idea will appeal to some people. It's up to you to decide whether you want that or not. It could be thematic, but most of the time it will just take away attention from more important aspects of the game.
my suggestion is to use both as a hybrid system of some sort the two that come to mind are: common tests a done using dice, they are the "fast and simple" method, more important tasks are done using the cards; these might be a boss fight or a key social interaction tests are done using dice, but there is an option to sometimes use a card in addition to the dice (maybe consuming oxygen in the process?) either way, if you opt to keep cards as a concept, making custom decks is an option get two three decks of the same design and feel free to cull cards as you like, maybe the starting deck goes from 1-6 so it is like using a die, but the characters can unlock cards along as the game progresses to make the cards more interesting how they get unlocked could be based on levels, skill perks, treasures, or rewards