Wild Cards: The Gameplay

Preliminary Gameplay Ideas

Character Creation

When creating a character, each player is dealt a hand of 10 cards. The player assigns two cards to each of five stats (The S5 System):

Strength (physical power, equivalent to STR and CON in D&D)

Speed (general speed, dodging, quickdrawing, and such)

Skill (in this case, meaning skill with a gun, both accuracy and trickshots)

Smarts (the equivalent of both INT and WIS from D&D, how intelligent you are)

Savvy (the equivalent of CHA from D&D)

Aces are counted as a 1 when counted with a 10 or a face card, otherwise counted as 11. A stat's maximum value is 20. Each stat gives a modifier to certain 'rolls' in the same style as normal d20 games (10-11 = +0, 12-13 = +1, 14-15 = +2, etc.)

Gun Creation

When creating a character's gun, the player draws one card from the deck (Jokers, Aces, and Faces removed, at the Dealer's discretion). Exact details of the creation are yet to be determined, but each gun has stats as well (The PAST System):

Power (strength of the gun)

Accuracy (self-explanatory)

Speed (speed of the bullets themselves and/or the draw and/or the firing, how many bullets the wielder can fire in rapid succession)

Trickplay (Trickshots and such)

Each stat also has a maximum value of 20.

For comparison, a slugtosser will generally have values of 6-8 across the board, while a Shooting Iron will have values of 9-11 across the board. Cards are a different matter, and the details thereof have yet to be worked out.

In battle, the only stats usually called into play are Speed (which modifies the Speed of the gun and determines how fast you can move and dodge), Skill (which modifies the Accuracy and partially the Trickplay) and Smarts (which also partially modifies the Trickplay (maybe)). Strength and Savvy generally won't play into a gunfight, but certain circumstances may call for it (say, shoving a heavy barrel over for use as cover, or talking to an opponent to try to get their guard down, or similar).

Exact details of battle are still being decided.