Tabletop roleplaying games have been around for about 50 years or so. Indeed, the grand-daddy of them all, Dungeons & Dragons (or, as it’s more commonly known, D&D), turns 50 this year. And in that time, millions of people have met together to tell collaborative stories and just hang out with people with similar interests.
In that time, there have been hundreds of types of games created. Want to try and bring down the empire in the Star Wars universe? There’s a game for that. Big fan of Howard Taylor’s Planet Mercenary Comics? There’s a game for that, too. Want to move through a world of terror inspired by Lovecraft’s Cthulhu stories? Or how about something where you solve Cozy Mysteries, a la Murder She Wrote? Or maybe you want a cozy story where grannies track down Cthulhu-like horrors? Yes to all that and more besides. Basically, if you can put a name to a genre, chances are there’s a role playing game for that, and even some that you’d be hard pressed to put a description to.
Now, there’s even a game, just for people of Tumbler Ridge.
Not, I hasten to add, about Tumbler Ridge, but for people of Tumbler Ridge. Created by local Bronson Smith, C.A.R.D.S. is a fantasy role playing game that combines elements of D&D with other role playing systems and other ideas that come from Smith’s mind.
He’s been working on the game for about a year, and stress testing it during weekly gaming sessions at the Community Centre for the last few months.
While role-playing is a popular activity, creating role-playing systems is not. Smith says the name C.A.R.D.S. is an acronym. “The D is dice, the S is social, the R is role-playing, the C is cards, and the A is activities,” he says. “It’s that final one, socializing. That’s why. That is the driving core of why I am doing this. That’s why I walk from all the way from the other side of town with a trolley all the way here to the Community Centre to set this up.”
He says that even if no one comes, he still does it, just to get out and socialize. “I think ever since 2020, people need people and interaction with other people.”
But why not just start a D&D group, or get together for a weekly game of Canasta. “I made my own, because no one explained D&D rules to me. And I wanted to come up with something on my own so that I could show people what I’m capable of, I guess.”
Unlike D&D, with its six stats—strength, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, charisma and constitution— C.A.R.D.S. has three. “Strength is used for physical actions, and also resistance for how much damage you can take,” says Smith. “Dexterity is used for moving around—how quickly you can dodge out of the way or lunge to grab something. And lastly, experience. This one is a combination of D&D’s intelligence and wisdom. I found the two to be basically the same. And experience is a good term for it because it’s overall experience of what you’ve experienced in life, and what you can use in situations.”
These are tracked on a character sheet, along with all the other important information about the character you’re playing. “It’s a very simple user interface,” says Smith. “It slides in perfectly to the dice tray, everything all nice and compact.” Smith has a second character sheet, which he uses to keep track of how your character is doing in the game.
He says right now, this is the weakest part of the whole process. “The first session for any new player has always been…clunky. They haven’t gone as well as hoped for. By the next session, I’ll have written down everything that they said they want in their inventory. And I put it on these item cards here…” Smith holds up an item card for a satchel.
To come up with the stats, players roll a 12-sided die six times, then use the three highest numbers rolled to determine their strength, dexterity and experience. Higher numbers give you a better chance of accomplishing a task. Someone with a 12 strength would get +3 to accomplish a task requiring strength, while someone with a one would have -3. To determine an action a player rolls a die, adds his modifier, and checks against the difficulty assigned to a task. So if a player needed to get a roll of ten to, say, kick down a door, they would roll their die, and add (or subtract) the modifier. If they rolled an eight and had a plus two modifier, they would accomplish a task.
Here’s where Smith’s system deviates from something like Dungeons & Dragons. Rather than being dictated totally by the luck of the dice, he has skill cards and coins.
Skill cards? Yes. “Honestly, this is the oldest concept in the game. It’s been there from the start. How they behave is whenever you roll poorly and you have a particular skill card available—let’s say you’re sneaking and you roll a one—you can submit your skill card and then roll again.”
When you play the skill card, it goes to the game master for the rest of the session, and get it back at the start of the next. “When I take away the skill card, I give you a skill coin,” he says, holding up a penny. “You can have as many of these as you like. What they do is they allow you to add to your roll. One skill coin equals to one number on your roll. Say you roll a 17 and you add three skill coins onto it, you get 20.”
You can even, he says, use skill coins to affect the actions of another player, or even a non-player character. “But if you try and change another player or non-player character (NPC) roll, it’ll cost you double. That’s kind of the storytelling aspect of the game that you can apply,” he says. “It’s not quite strong arming the GM [game master], but you can put your finger on the scale using money. Or skill coins.”
“Basically, you’re saying players can bribe the GM?”
“Bribing him with his own money, yeah.”
More to the point, he says, players receive skill coins when they use their skill cards, but also for creative role playing or doing a good move. Something heroic, or doing something in character. “And then I give you a skill coin,” he says. “Another thing with the skill coins, you can trade them in for an ability card. An ability card is your own custom action or move or whatever that you want to put on it. So if you want it to be a special anime-like move that the character can only use once per episode. So, for instance an instant kill punch. To achieve it, though, you roll all your D6s, and that’s how many skill coins you need. So you might need, say 27 skill coins to get your ability.”
In the game, players can choose to be whatever they want. “So someone might want to be a bard,” says Smith. “And under that there are sub-classes. These are more specific things for your character to do. Think of sub-classes as professions. Something that your character does for a living. For bard, we have subclasses of performer, artist, detective, trader, documenter, magician, and cook. And since there’s no magic system yet, that means a stage magician. Top hats and bunnies.”
To be a bard, the character needs to have skills, like charisma, literacy, survival, arts and crafts, and cooking. “Those are the ones that you should prioritize having higher modifiers for,” he says.
In addition to bard, other classes players can be are: healer, hunter, smith and rogue, each with its own subclasses. “I’m not going to limit the player’s imagination,” he says. “You could decide to be a smith who is a journeyman from far off lands who’s gone to look for his place in the world.”
The game is currently in a state of development. “Each week I improve upon the system. I think I found the final form. What you see here is what it’s gonna look like from now on unless something fundamental changes.”
Of course, the whole point of role playing is not to just pretend to be a bard or a smith. It’s to tell a story, and at the heart of any good story is conflict. (Or so Jim Butcher tells me.) Smith pulls out another set of cards. “These are creature cards,” he says. “That’s the universal term for them, but they can be enemy cards, NPC cards, player cards, but they all have the same design. I spent months going through designs to get it sleek and universal in design. So whatever creature I make, I can turn it into this,” he says, showing off one of the cards.
The cards each have a common iconography. Smith pulls out one of the cards. “Here we have got our outlaw, so we’ve got a picture of the outlaw. We’ve got the ranged weapon because…” he points to one of the icons. “Those are sigils. They’re just an easier visual way to tell you, ‘hey, this guy can shoot.’ Or maybe ‘this guy can move quickly to reduce the amount of damage he takes.”
The cards also show the creature’s stats and what they can do. “For instance, let’s say this guy can do poison damage. If you get hit, it can slow you down for three hours.”
Currently, the game happens in a world similar to ours, save for the fact that it happens in a medieval setting, and is inhabited with mythical creatures, with actual biology and evolutionary history. “That way they can feel more real and grounded,” he says.
He says when he runs into issues, he watches YouTube videos on world building.
He also watches videos on how to be more confident interacting with people. Which brings us back to the S in C.A.R.D.S. Socializing.
“I do have social anxiety,” he says. “That’s another big reason why I do this, to build up my confidence, to build up who I am and to show people what I am capable of and just find a social group like you see on those sitcoms, you know, where I can hang out with them on a daily basis.”
He gestures around to the props he is surrounded by, a skull, a chessboard, small bottles filled with coloured liquid. “They’re for ambiance,” he says. “I’m one for visual representation. Like for example, these bottles, I just filled them up with dish soap. I prefer to work with my hands. I’m very visual. I have music playing to draw players in into the experience that I have built for them.”
There’s even LED candles.
“Oh. Those are part of the game. I’ve removed the idea of rolling a D20 for initiative and instead just have candles so that anyone can go at any time. The turn the candle on to show that they have something they want to do, they do their thing, and then they shut off their candle when they’re done.”
For those interested in seeing the game in action, or even participate, Smith says there’s not a lot of limitations. “You won’t be restricted. You’re encouraged to be creative. The goal is to feed into your imagination. I reward you for your imagination. It’s a fairly realistic system. Not too punishing, but not too easy. It’s gritty. There are lingering injuries. There are scars. There are things both physical and mental that can affect your character. Currently, it’s a drop in thing, so you can come and go as you please. You’re not restricted by that, either. Up to five players at a time can play. That’s really the only limitation.”
To join in, or find out more about C.A.R.D.S. drop by the Community Centre every Saturday 1-4, Room 1, or search for C.A.R.D.S. on Facebook to join the online group.
Above Photo: Bronson Smith along with the game he’s created: C.A.R.D.S.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
