Last Year's Magic - A role-playing trick-taking card game | playtest draft 0.1

This is the full text of a playtest draft of the game I am developing, Last Year's Magic. It's a tabletop roleplaying game, but also a trick-taking card game. It was originally designed by Sean Smith, Jason Dettman, and me as part of the Threeforged game design contest.

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This is a game about people with a fondness for the little-known and obscure, who present themselves with ostentatious affectations in their manner of speech and dress, and are sometimes seen with eye-catching facial hair: Wizards.

Here's a fundamental truth about magic: it doesn't work for everybody. In fact, if it worked for everybody it wouldn't be magic, it would just be normal. Here's another fundamental truth: wizardly magic is based on knowledge. You have to know things about spiritual power, the deep structure of the universe, the connections among things, and the imposition of will upon reality. Naturally, in concordance with the first fundamental truth, this knowledge wouldn't be magical if everybody knew it. As such, wizards prize esoteric knowledge that sets them apart from the rest of society. Of course, some people merely pretend to have knowledge instead of actually possessing it. What separates a real wizard from a charlatan is that they know real stuff, they're not just making it up. As such, it's important to most wizards that they let you know what they know, so you can tell they're a real wizard who knows stuff that's worth knowing.

Each of you is playing a wizard in a magical fantasy world who has chosen to spend the evening in pub that's well-known (among those who are in-the-know) for its exquisitely authentic local flavor. It's an inauspicious night, however, as everything is beset by problems. But there are two sides to every coin, because every problem is also an opportunity for you to explain how best to solve it. And, as luck would have it, there are several other wizards in the pub: exactly the sort of people who can fully appreciate your expertise.

Beginning the game

Think about what sort of wizard you are. Describe yourself as you enter the pub and take a seat at a table. If you aren't sure, cast your fortune to get a hint from the Great Beyond: Draw two cards. Oftentimes, some combination of features of the meanings, symbology, or folk-interpretations of the suits and values of these two cards will reveal your True Self.

Suit	True Meaning	Folk Interpretation
♥ Hearts	Spiritual Power	Elves, faeries, the forces of nature
♦ Diamonds	The deep structure of the universe	Dwarves, wealth, the subterranean
♣ Clubs	The connections among things	Animal-men, goblin-kind, and the monstrous
♠ Spades	The imposition of will upon reality	Humanity, tools, and war

Value	Folk Symbology	Folk Interpretation
A	Hermit	The desire to keep to yourself
2	Lover	The desire to make someone happy
3	Fool	The desire to amuse the group
4	Hero	The desire to protect the group
5	Devil	The desire to tempt someone
6	Traveler	The desire to experience something new
7	Death	The desire to end someone
8	Brute	The desire to display dominance
9	Elder	The desire to understand the environment
10	Artisan	The desire to make a lasting impression
J	Child	The desire to play
Q	Mother	The desire to teach
K	Father	The desire to provide

Example: Brad draws two cards to discover what the universe says about his wizard and gets the 5♥ and the 6♦. Looking over the interpretations, Brad decides that he is a Faerie wizard who enjoys tempting lesser mortals with magical bargains and, because of his desire to see and experience new people and places, has traveled far and wide, including into the subterranean depths of the dwarven kingdoms.

If anyone used cards to cast their fortune, shuffle them back into the deck.

Deal the cards out so that every player has an equal number of cards in their hand, to a maximum of 7, placing the remainder face-down in a deck (if all the cards got dealt out then each player must choose one card from their hand to put in the deck).

After each player's wizard is introduced, feel free to roleplay your interactions in the pub for a bit. When the action hits a lull or a player takes a larger than normal draught of their drink, something happens. The first player who notices the lull and touches the deck has a premonition of danger.

Playing a Round

The player with the premonition draws zero, one, or two cards from the deck (your choice, constrained by the number of cards available) to determine the nature of your premonition:

Zero cards: An incursion from the Outer Void
One card: A stranger approaches (use the symbology and/or folk interpretations of the suit and value to glean more details)
Two cards: Use the combination of suits to determine the nature of the problem (sometimes the symbology or folk interpretations of the values of one or both cards also gives hints)

Suits	True Meaning
♥♥	An incorporeal spirit
♥♦	Agent(s) of the cosmic powers
♥♣	Magical monster(s)
♥♠	A natural disaster
♦♦	A magical anomaly
♦♣	Politics
♦♠	An imbalance in fundamental forces manifests, or balance reasserts itself
♣♣	Strife or schism within a group
♣♠	An organization devoted to a purpose
♠♠	An elaborate plan nears completion

Say whatever you wish to your fellow wizards about your premonition. Then, as it is a True Prophecy, it begins happening. Describe what the other wizards and any other pubgoers see, hear, feel, etc. that would confirm this state of affairs.

Example: Dana, sensing a lull in the conversation about Brad’s travels through ancient Dwarf mines, reaches out to touch the deck, signaling that she is having a premonition. Dana chooses to draw one card (a stranger approaches) and gets the 3♥. After a moment of thought, Dana says, “I sense the presence of Djinn! It is a fiery prankster who foolishly believes that it’s arsonist ways amuse and delight all who feel the heat and look upon the fires it creates.” After I say that, everybody starts to smell smoke, and a few patrons point up at the roof beams which appear to be smoldering.

Initiating a Round

Now that a problem is clear, it is time for the wizards to discuss how a problem like that ought to be solved. Whoever foresaw the problem starts off the round by making a suggestion about how magic could address the issue. As they do so, they put forward a card from their hand face-down, keeping in mind the convention that different card suits correspond to different elements of magic:

♥ Hearts corresponds to spiritual power
♦ Diamonds corresponds to the deep structure of the universe
♣ Clubs corresponds to the connections among things
♠ Spades corresponds to the imposition of will upon reality.

Any act of magic will be comprised of all elements, but it's only natural for people to feel that any particular act of magic will give primacy to one of the elements. (Even though you are the one making the suggestion you may not be the one to carry it out, so remember to frame your suggestion as what the correct course of action is, not a declaration of what you will do.)

Proceeding clockwise around the table, each other wizard in turn cites some argument or source of authority that would endorse or support said suggestion, while putting forward their own face-down card to represent their position. (Remember that this is commentary and analysis of the suggestion that's already on the table, not a counter-proposal or alternate suggestion.)

Resolving the Round

After each player has commented upon the premonitioner's suggestion, reveal the cards. The suit that showed up most often in the trick determines the prime factor. If there's no suit which has greater representation than all other suits then it's not verified and it's a null result – the player who led the round should describe how the problem has transformed and escalated while the discussion occurred such that the original suggestion is now moot, and the player to their left will initiate another round by suggesting a solution to the problem as it now stands. The cards from the null round are shuffled into the deck.

Otherwise, if there is a prime factor, whichever player has the highest value of the prime factor suit wins the trick and takes the cards and places them in a pile in front of them (don't add them to your hand, and keep each trick in its own pile for end-of-game scoring). If all the cards are the same suit the magical idea is so popular that the power has been diffused out of it and it's a bad trick. Otherwise it's a good trick.

If you win a bad trick, describe how your wizard attempts to implement the suggestion and how it fails to resolve the problem due to inefficacious magic (maybe they honestly believed it would work, maybe they were guilted or shamed into going through the motions, all that sort of stuff is up to you, but the description must involve the wizard attempting to carry out the suggestion and failing to get the result). Also describe how the problem is even worse now, either due to the failed magic or merely because it has escalated because it wasn't addressed in an effective manner. Then the player to the winner's left initiates a new round to deal with the problem as it now stands.

If you win a good trick, describe how your wizard implements the suggestion and how it resolves the problem. Then everyone roleplays their interactions in the pub until there's another lull or long draught and someone has a new premonition.

Ending the Game

After everyone's hands have been exhausted, determine who is the best wizard: add one point for every card of the prime factor suit in every good trick that you won, and subtract one point for every card in a bad trick that you won. The number of points can clearly be used to determine the status among the wizards, although most wizards know that it's more appropriate to signal this through passive-aggressive condescension or barely-disguised jealousy (depending on the polarity of the status relationship) rather than open acknowledgment. Use your knowledge of the relative status of the various wizards to inform your roleplaying in a final scene as the evening winds down and you all depart the pub.

A note on strategy

There's no strict rule about how tightly connected your suggestion or commentary must be to the suit you play. It's usually useful to have at least some relationship, but due to the scoring mechanism there are downsides to being too obvious but also downsides to being too obscure. Remember that the suggestions and citations of authority aren't necessarily expressions of personal endorsement by your wizard, they could just as easily be passive-aggressive baiting or shade-throwing. But if you win the trick, you're on the hook for it anyway.

Example of a Round of Play

[Anna notices Curt finishing his drink and reaches for the deck to start a new round. She gets a 4♥ and 7♦.]
Anna: My eybrows shoot up on my forehead. “Be mindful, friends. An army of demons approaches!” Just then the door of the pub slams open and an out-of-breath peasant stumbles in. He says, “Gods preserve us, there's an army of demons bearing down on us!” Everyone in the pub turns to look at me and I nod sagely.
[Anna looks at her cards]
Anna: Pfah. Demons should be no trouble at all. If one of us simply invests a part of themselves into a Baleful Wail of Bansheekind the demons' weak spirits will be stripped from their corporeal shells and the whole lot of them will fall down dead. [she puts a 9♥ forward, face down]
Brad: That's certainly one way to go. Zarmak's “Among the Damned” does claim that corporeal demons have especially tenuous connections to their spirits, what with the Curse of Arg-Anak clinging to them. [he puts a J♥ forward, but emphasized connections to make it ambiguous whether he was focusing on hearts or clubs]
Curt: The Baleful Wail of Bansheekind is certainly what Tendrik the Hermit would recommend in situations like this. [he puts a 3♥ forward].
Dana: A Grand Reaping would be the Alarak School's procedure for severing those spiritual connections, but if Denzigar's Conjecture is correct then a Baleful Wail would be sorcerously equivalent as long as you account for the phase of the moon. [she puts forward a 10♣]
[They reveal the cards. Three are hearts and one is clubs, so the prime factor is hearts. Brad's J♥ is the highest value card in the prime factor, so he wins. It wasn't unanimously hearts so it is a good trick.]
Brad: I stand up, stride over to the door, clear my throat for a second, and then open the door. My mouth opens and it sort of keeps opening, like my jaw has gone all weird and stretchy, and an ear-piercing shriek comes out. All the glassware in the pub shatters, but outside the demons just start slumping down to the ground. I say “there, that's sorted,” and I ask the barkeep if he has anything that wasn't made of glass that he can serve ale in.

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If you'd like the rules in a PDF you can get it here, although the layout is very bare-bones.