Cactus Game Design Message Boards

You of course would need to develop some content: character classes or other leveling mechanic, special abilities, and scenarios.  If anyone became interested this could be developed jointly.  An example scenario on the fly:

The Philistines have been threatening Isreal and you have to retrieve some captured people from Isreal so you can encourage the Isrealites to stand up and be courageous.  You will first have to find out where they are being held, find a way in there, rescue them, and then return safely home.  When you encounter Philistine warriors, your gentleness enhancements wont do anything (they ignore them); they'll just stab you (beat you by the numbers).  You will need swords and shields.  On the other hand, some gentleness and kindness might get you the information you need from a innkeeper (the location is revealed).  Additionally that innkeeper might be willing to hide you from the pursuing Philistines (they can't attack you for a turn).  Singing David's music might not awe the soldiers but it may get rid of that demonic presence behind their Altar of Dagon (shuffle it) so you can sneak through the temple where the prisoners are held. 

This is just an example of what you could do.  Generally a lot more thought and development can yield some really interesting stories to play through.  I have wanted to play a Christian roleplaying game for a while and I think this could work.  I think this would also give you opportunity to make use of cards like David's Tent to actually do something.  So if anyone (especially with rpg experience) is interested on working on this, let me know.

Definitely but before I put hours of work into it, I wanted to see if anyone had any interest in it. 

Personally, I mostly would not strictly follow the stories in the Bible but rather parralel them.  I like players to have the freedom to explore and help determine the direction and outcome of the story.  That is hard to do if you just translate Noah's Ark or David becoming king, etc.  I would think more like Ben-hur, that is Christian fiction that asks what might have other people in that time have done?  What would it be like if you were the group of soldiers that had to wipe out the giants?  or spread the gospel to hostile Rome?  You don't play the main characters in those Bible stories but you play people that may have interacted with them. 

Of course part of what makes roleplaying great is that you can do just about anything you want and I'm sure there are a bunch of different ways this could work.

I'd definitely like to do it but a really fleshed out system and campaign or two could easily be over 100 pages and I'll admit that is a bit daunting to me.  So maybe I'll just start taking some baby steps here and see where it goes.  The more interest and support, the more reason to develop it. 

I have experience with D20, white wolf, tri-stat, and various video game systems.  It doesn't have to be a class based system but initially it seems like the best way to go for this.  Besides there is biblical precedence for this with the verses that talk about some being teachers, some apostles, some prophets, etc.  So for potential classes:

the warrior, healer, priest, servant, leader, disciple (in the broad sense), ,
and you could have specializations/prestige classes - high priest?, protector?, judge? musician, scribe, prophet, ?,

The more obvious ones to me are warrior, healer, priest. 
For warrior they could start with higher numbers 2/2? and gain at a higher rate.  They could hold one weapon class enhancement for each spot - helmet, shield, breastplate, waist, legs/feet, weapon.  As a level up ability, they could use weapons of other brigades; if you want it to progress quickly it would be one ability to use a weapon of any brigade or if more slowly than a separate ability for each additional brigade color.  Of course to make this more playable, I would probably make all weapon enhancements be weapon class - David's Sling, etc. 
Maybe warrior characters could specailize in a protective direction or bringing justice.  The bringer of justice would have more aggressive abilities like forcing an evil character to duel, keeping them from retreating, able to attack twice,
The protector might have abilities like stepping in to block for an ally, able to band to an ally and add his defensive numbers to them, sacrificing his offense for the battle to gain half that in defense,

The healer would obviously use the healing cards.  They similarly would gain the ability to use healing cards of any brigade.  They might have an ability to keep heros alive that are below 0 for a turn, give some limited protection, gain allies at locations or with groups where they healed
They could specialize as teachers that build up and send out.  They use set-asides?, gain even more allies,
They could specialize as counselors that help heal spiritual, emotional, and mental as well.  They use cards that deal with doubt, despair, madness, sorrow, confusion, etc.  Probably cards related to wisdom, hope, etc. 

Will be more than willing to help, I made my own P&P rpg with d6, and would be glad to help in any way possible.

I call being Son of God. just sayin.

In the conversation I had with JP (galadwyn) it seems like his ideas are pretty well developed. It would work similar to a WoW Raid Deck. One player has a massive evil deck (perhaps equivalent to a Type-2 deck, while three players have smaller decks with one character being designated as the hero with other characters being allys, etc. Those decks would look more like Type-1 decks. As for loot and locations, it seems like sites would be awesome for that with their abilities affecting each round of play (similar to locations in LotR card game). Finally, LOOT cards would be artifact cards that the players discover along the way. They would be able to be found as they kill enemy characters by drawing them randomly from a facedown pile or perhaps have certain artifacts associated with each site and the raid party chooses which they take. However it works out I am down with playtesting this for sure. I really don't think you would need to have a extremely detailed scenario set out unless of course we were shooting more for D&D rather than a Raid Deck.

Hey Travis, you're half right.  I actually had two different ideas here and I would like to try both.  The raid idea came first after playing WoW but that spawned the idea of building a roleplaying system.  What you said for the raiding style is pretty close to what I was thinking.  I would add some rules for various boss scenarios like, the boss draws cards equal to the number of occupied sites, etc. like the scenario we played where the boss gets stronger as the game goes on.  You're right that this style would not require a lot of extra work as most of it would play like normal Redemption.  The other is a whole different story. 

add dice.  Random isn't so fun in a TCG, but adds a lot to roleplaying.
You'll probably have to throw out a lot of cards.  Don't be afraid to ignore a card if it doesn't fit in.
Also don't be afraid to invent new ones.

There will be randomness with the cards but I wouldn't mind adding dice also.  I'm not sure where that would fit into the system, yet.  You certainly wouldn't have to use all the cards in the game but I think there are plenty to start with before worrying about making new ones.  I would be pretty free with having a card do something that fits with its title and type and not necessarily restricted to what is on the card.  For example, Truthfulness of Nathan? is an old no ability card but a character (maybe with some ability) could use it to deal with deception cards. 

I think some of the challenging and interesting part of developing this is that Redemption is not just physical battles but deals with emotional, mental, and spiritual as well.  I'd prefer to not have Purity of Enoch help you defeat Goliath and Warriors Spear help you defeat temptation.  This is where classes can help.  Different kinds of characters will be able to deal with different kinds of threats.  This is not to say that warriors can only use weapons and musicians can only sing but where they excel. 

For example, a musician is not trained in the use of weapons so they can only use one weapon card at a time and it is discarded after battle but any song enhancements used can be shuffled back into deck because they can remember the music and perform it again later.  They may also be able to hold instrument cards.  Conversely, a warrior can't use intstrument cards and they can hear a song and sing along with it but they would have a hard time repeating it on their own so they can use it one time but then it is discarded. 

I agree with Pol about the loot.  The sense of progress, accomplishment, victory and reward is generally a lot of what people like about rpgs and loot is a large part of that.  I was initially thinking of the loot being face down at the site on setup but I like the idea of random drops too.  I don't know that I'd have all drops be 100% according to their class because if a evangelist or priest character picked up a weapon, they could choose to use it themselves or trade it to thier warrior teammate. 

Pol, for the combat system, it sounds like with your Authority examples that you were thinking characters have hitpoints (their toughness?) and take damage against that like in LotR or WoW.  I'm not sure about that.  It might make for more interesting battles and it would make the healer better.  Would armor block the first x damage like in WoW?  To make battles not simply be resolved with - The Tartan blocks, I play Zeal and discard it, battle over, I would give the some of the bad guys partial immunities like The Tartan is immune to discard the first 2 times you try to discard him.  Or some bosses might have minions so if you try to convert or remove Pharoah, that can be redirected to some other Egyptian minion.  You have to deal with all of them before you can take out Pharoah.  Or you have to remove the demons from the possessed person before you convert them.    On to some basic mechanics:

In line with a level 1 character, I'm thinking that each hero starts with 10? cards in deck and a hand size of 3?  They add cards to that deck when leveling up and from loot.  Loot cards would be more physical items and leveling cards would be more things that represent character development.  I'm not sure where event like cards fit in, ie Samson's Sacrifice, ANB, etc.  The heros also can increase hand size, basic stats, gain abilities, gain an ally, etc when leveling up.  I'm not sure how to determine experience or leveling up.  Maybe each time they rescue a soul, or defeat a stronger enemy or complete an objective?  Maybe we establish point value for those things and they get levels at point intervals?  The cards from leveling would be class based and the other cards would be more random and location dependent. 

The locations are represented mostly by sites and fortresses and are layed out at the start of the game.  I envision a 5x5 grid or whatever is appropriate for your scenario.  You could also lay out other patterns like a string of sites to get to Egypt.  It would be nice to have them layed out in their approximate geographical orientation.  You can use fortresses or generic sites (dangerous road) or other appropriate cards to fill in the gaps.  Various loot, characters, enemies, traps, lost souls, etc. are layed face down on each site except the heros starting site.  The heros will all move from one adjacent site to another at the same time and usually together.  When they go to a site, then the GM player will reveal any trap cards or enemies in the top x cards there.  If there is an enemy then you go into battle.  Some changes to battle: since characters will probably end up getting multiple abilities, not all abilities activate at once.  Abilities like using different brigades are ongoing and don't need to be activated.  For the action type abilities like banding, drawing a card, etc. then when your character has initiative you can choose to activate one of those instead of playing a card for your action.  I think generally, the players heros would be banded into battle together at the start of each battle.   

Death should be possible, but not permanent.  Discard perhaps becomes lose a turn, and RFG becomes lose a level. Also, a lot of RPGs incorporate fate points or the like.  Could this possibly be dominants?

Or if you did the Raid concept discard could apply to the any ally but not the main hero.

Fate points are used when a character is about to die, or fails with epic proportions.  If they use one (normally they have 1-3) then they can re roll or overcome some previously impossible obstacle.

I am posting here mainly to be notified when someone posts here.

However.  With the advent of civilizations in Redemption this is a really neat idea.

What about scenario that pitted Three good decks against three evil decks over the territory of Ancient Israel.  We could Go Egyptians, Philistines and Cannanites against Musicians, Davids Mighty Men and judges or Genesis  Each starts at a location on a map of ancient Israel and moves around to claim territory by battling opponents.