A downloadable game

Download NowName your own price

"The world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased, unprejudiced, fair!" - Harvey Dent, Twoface

This is the product of hacking of other coin flipping RPGs (Prole by Highland Paranormal Society most notably) with some of my favorite ttrpg features. This meant adding some major mechanics like XP, skills, character introduction, some death and damage mechanics, and XP as a in-game currency to manipulate results! All these mechanics are on the back side of the card, and its about the size of a playing card! 

PS:  You'd be surprised how many movies use coins as major plot point.

StatusReleased
CategoryPhysical game
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(1 total ratings)
AuthorTall Montreal
GenreRole Playing
Tagscoin, kids, Minimalist, pen-and-paper, Simple, Tabletop role-playing game

Download

Download NowName your own price

Click download now to get access to the following files:

Wander 91 kB
Wander Print Layout 788 kB
Wander using Dice 77 kB

Development log

Comments

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Brilliant idea. I love it.

So glad ya like it! I think it's pretty nifty as well :))

Do you ever play it anymore? I couldn't find it on drivethrurpg or dmsguild.com. Am I missing it? Or did you decide to not put them there. If so, why?

I actually haven't used drivethru or dmsguild, I've just posted here pretty much as a creative outlet! Not against publishing all my stuff on those sites though!

(1 edit)

I've been tinkering with Wander for use with friends.  I'd like to share the edit with you. I hope you don't mind or think I'm being presumptuous.

I formalized the wording of the rules. I also added a rule for healing and changed the rule for starting HP that disconnects it from being reliant on attributes (because I think it warps character creation) and connects it to a new XP incentive, as well. It all still fits in the same area and in a slightly larger print.

That's the back. On the front, I broadened the stat descriptors.

muscle : body

wits : mind

agility : soul

charm : persona

core belief : tenet

Muscle and Agility both fall under "Body". "Soul" is added for games with esoteric elements, such as magic or psionics. Now that I think about it, "charm" is probably preferable to "Persona" (but it's what I have on the document for now). I only changed "core belief" to "tenet" because I needed the space.

The back reads as so. I incorporated the headers into the first lines to save space but in the original umber color for legibility. The body is black. All is bold.

CHARACTER. WRITE A NAME. FLIP A COIN SIX TIMES AND WRITE THE NUMBER OF FLIPS WON, PLUS 1, AS HP. FILL THE FIRST BOX OF TWO ATTRIBUTES AND A SKILL BOX. WRITE A TENET. INTRODUCE YOURSELF. “MY NAME IS  NAME. I AM FROM PLACE. PEOPLE NOTICE MY APPEARANCE AND ITEMS WHEN THEY SEE ME. I’M ATTRIBUTE AND SKILLED AT SKILL. I BELIEVE TENET.”

GAMEPLAY. A GM FACILITATES AN ADVENTURE. WHENEVER YOU ATTEMPT A RISKY ACTION, THE GM PICKS AN ATTRIBUTE. THEN YOU FLIP A COIN. FLIP AN ADDITIONAL TIME FOR EACH FILLED BOX OF THAT ATTRIBUTE AND AGAIN IF YOU ARE SKILLED AT THE ACTION. IF YOU WIN A FLIP, YOU SUCCEED AND DESCRIBE THE RESULT. IF NOT, YOU FAIL AND THE GM DESCRIBES THE  RESULT.

DAMAGE. MINOR = 1HP; MODERATE = 2HP; MAJOR = 3HP; MORTAL = YOU DIE. WHENEVER YOU REACH 0HP OR LESS, FLIP A COIN. IF YOU WIN THE FLIP, YOU PASS OUT. IF NOT, YOU DIE. IF YOU ARE DEALT DAMAGE WHILE PASSED OUT, YOU DIE.

HEALING. ONCE A DAY, AFTER 6 CONSECUTIVE HOURS OF SLEEP, FLIP A COIN. IF YOU WIN THE FLIP, YOU RECOVER 1HP.

EXPERIENCE. FILL AN XP BOX WHENEVER YOU FAIL AN ACTION, SURVIVE AN ADVENTURE, OR MAKE A HARD DECISION IN ACCORDANCE WITH YOUR TENET. IF YOU AREN’T PASSED OUT, YOU CAN SPEND XP. 3XP = A FAILED ACTION HAS A MIXED RESULT; 5XP = GIAN 1HP; 7XP = FILL A SKILL OR ATTRIBUTE BOX.

Another idea I have is adding a 7 HP cap denoted with HP boxes to fill, instead of a number to write. I envision it would match the line of XP boxes, except near the top. TBH, the only reason I didn't already do it is because I don't yet know how to "draw" it.

What do you think? (If anything.)

I forgot to mention that I scripted a procedure for contested actions but couldn't fit it into the card space.

“Whenever an action is contested, each contestant flips as many times as they can. Whoever wins the most flips succeeds. To break ties of number of flips won, contestants flip until only one wins.”

Honestly I like a lot of it - a few thoughts:

- This was one of the first rpgs I even took on designing, and though I like it, there are definitely some improvements I'd add now. I like to think I've gotten slightly more elegant with my design, and I think some of the things you've added are stellar.

- I in fact in my first back-of-napkin writing of this game thought to use  the "mind body soul" framework for attributes. But in full honesty I value the variation of classic dexterity versus strength. i, additionally wanted to leave a "charisma" and "intelligence/wisdom" type skill to provide a variation for numerous magic systems that could be used. all in all, i feel as though I like the attributes I had picked for the meaning behind them, but do like "persona" more than charm.

- tenet is a much better word than core belief. I like that.

- i personally do like the hp system I had put in place as it feels it honors some more old school methods of your attributes influencing your other dependent variables of stats (aka wizards end up being glass cannons, etc.), but can understand the desire to start at a more even playing field! 

- healing mechanic is great, i like it - just didn't end up putting it in, but i agree on the method of doing it. might offer 2 hp rather than 1 hp because 1 hp doesn't go very far post a fight.

- i like the max hp idea to 7. over the years of my rpg experience and growth, i've also come to love the "if you bounce back from passing out, you grow stronger and gain hp" method some games use, as I find it encourages risky and fun play and develops a grizzled character. that could potentially be another way to gain hp if you're someone who isn't gonna focus on physical attributes. but also using the 5 xp to gain hp is a good idea too. not as narrative engaging in my mind perhaps, but still great!


all in all, great edits all around. nothing about hacking an rpg is presumptuous, if anything it feels honoring to have you hone it to something even better!

(+4)

Hi, some questions:

  • why did you make the "dice" version harder than the "COIN" version? 5+ is 33% vs coin flip (50%)
  • is the "mixed result" bump you get for 3XP meant as a PbtA-style "you do it, but with a cost / hard choice" ?
(+3)
  • I made it a bit harder because I wanted it to feel a little harder - with some playtesting the 50/50 felt a bit easy. For a quick pick up game with coins is no big deal, but for me, making it slightly more difficult with the new dice mechanics made it feel like I could use it for a more long term setting (I'm thinking of using it for a play-by-post campaign over discord because the system is extremely simple and there wont be any confusion over rules). You're totally free to not use it and just go 4+ is a success!
  • Yup! That's what I was going for exactly! I find that the mixed success adds some of the most fun narrative flavor in my pbta game sessions.
(+2)

Thanks for your explanations. Totally agree about mixed success!