New (Year's) Resolution: Tarot Blackjack
W. F. Smith at Prismatic Wasteland has put out a blog challenge for the New Year wherein posters posit new, and likely wildly untested, resolution mechanisms. I've been having fun reading these (see some examples in the linked post up top and some of my faves here, here, here, and here) and felt like throwing my hat in the ring. I will start with the baseline resolution mechanics and then offer some optional additional rules.
Tarot Blackjack
Baseline
I prefer "Tarot Draw-High-Under" but it's a bit wordy, huh? This mechanic assumes that characters have attribute scores in the range of 3-18, such as those generated by the 3d6 down-the-line method, and that the group has at least one "standard" Tarot deck of 78 cards with 4 suits of 14 cards and 22 Major arcana. This is a minimum--feel free to use funky decks with additional cards or even additional suits, but you're on your own1 at that point.
To resolve a given character action which is uncertain and with interesting results, a player will test their character's relevant attribute by drawing one card from the Tarot deck. The value of that card is compared against the attribute value, with the goal of drawing at are below the attribute to succeed. Drawing equal to the attribute is a critical success, that is it always succeeds and, depending on the system2, might apply an additional effect--bonus damage, extra effect, or a separate boon. For those cards traditionally without values, I have used the following:
| Card | Value |
|---|---|
| Page | 15 |
| Knight | 16 |
| Queen | 17 |
| King | 18 |
| Ace | 20 |
The only other special rule is the Fool Rule: upon drawing The Fool (o), count the action as a success and shuffle the deck immediately.
That's it!
How does this compare to d20, roll under?
The short of it is that with Tarot Blackjack, success is slightly more likely, especially with below average attribute scores, while Critical Success is about as likely. The optional rules for Critical Failure, below, are about as likely as well.
Fitting with existing systems
This fits seamlessly with roll-under systems or really any system that uses attributes in the 2-19 range. If your system uses "Advantage" (Whitehack, Errant, The Black Hack), that is, roll twice and keep the better and the inverse with Disadvantage, simply draw two cards and keep the better (or worse) as your result. Remember the Fool Rule! It could cut your advantage (or disadvantage) short.
If your chosen system uses numerical bonuses (+/-) to a d20 roll, simply add this bonus to your attribute score as your new "target" score, and draw against this with the same rules for success and critical success.
Critical Failure
If your rules crave a Critical Failure result, I would recommend either 20s or 20+ result in Critical Failure. Or tie it to certain Major Arcana.
Contested Rolls
Contested "rolls" follow standard roll-high-under rules: the higher success wins, with a critical success beating a normal success. GM draws first. Remember the Fool Rule!
Optional Rules
Themes
I think to fully utilize a Tarot deck you have to lean on the imagery and symbolism, at least a little. It's all baked in, and it both varies greatly deck-to-deck while often using a semi-historic lingua franca of symbols you can almost rely on to be present. There are an infinite number of ways to tie these symbols in, but one that tickles me is to tie each Suit, including Major Arcana as a suit, to a Theme. Whenever the GM or player needs additional spice to a result (especially a failure), invoking the corresponding Theme can give the necessary inspiration. This also reinforces the mood of the setting and campaign based on how the Themes are selected. I would set up a simple table like so:
Our themes are…
| Suit | Theme |
|---|---|
| Major | |
| Swords | |
| Staves | |
| Cups | |
| Coins |
Or
The world is...
| Suit | Theme |
|---|---|
| Major | |
| Swords | |
| Staves | |
| Cups | |
| Coins |
I will expound more on how you could use this approach in a future post.
Many Decks
The GM, and each player, each have their own "standard" deck. Use the rest of the rules for Tarot Blackjack as-is.
You can have fun with this one if you begin tying character mechanics into the cards, either with card mechanics or tying into the imagery and symbolism.
Why?
I just think Tarot is cool. Since I read about the His Majesty the Worm project by Josh at Rise Up Comus, the thought of using them as a resolution mechanics has been bouncing around in the brain. I do think using Tarot will really start to sing if you can hook in the imagery and symbolism into the fiction in play, or the mechanics on the character sheets. The trick is to keep it elegant and math-lite, which is what I consider Roll-High-Under to be in the first place.
Alternate Rules
- Crits (success or failure) only happen on a corresponding success or failure with a Major Arcana card. Treat the suit cards as normal but without Crits.
- Treat Aces like in Blackjack--as a 1 or 11, then draw another and add the values. This tilts the odds towards success, so consider how this will affect play.
- In an Advantage or Disadvantage draw, if the suits match then either treat this is as an additional bonus in the fiction or as an available re-draw.
Stay tuned in another future post for how to replace X-in-6 odds with Tarot draws.
Thanks for reading!
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