"Poker Cards as Randomizer" Topic

Some game designers use poker cards as a way to randomly determine outcomes, rather than use complex charts or complicated dierolls.

How do you feel about using poker cards when gaming?

We use them in many of our games, especially any using "The Sword and the Flame" or one of its variants which use cards to sequence moving and firing. Also the new "To the Strongest!" rules which we're starting to play use cards to resolve weapons fire and close combat.

Jim
jacksongamers.net
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I employed it in my plastic army men rules, as an experiment: each card corresponded to a troop type (Infantry, MG'ers, Bazooka's, Snipers, Tanks, Cannons, etc.), along with a wild card which allowed each side to pick one troop type to give an extra action to, that Turn (run through the deck). Each side was given a color, and a particular card for each troop type. It allowed for random activation of troop types, for each side. Sometimes the cards seemed to favor one side, in succession, but you knew who was left to activate that turn, for each side, depending upon the wild cards (one wild card per side).

Honestly, I found it both exciting, and frustrating. We kept mental track of the cards left in the deck, so as the turn progressed, we knew what was left. Sometimes it would have us on the edge of our seats, with anticipation; other times, we would be resigned to a beating we knew was coming…

Overall, I liked it. It created a different order from the traditional, I-Go/U-Go. I actually prefer this to the more straightforward approach of each side taking their turn, activating everything they have, during their turn. The drama of wondering whether you will get the critically needed unit activation before your enemy does, is what makes it exciting. Cheers!

as long as its only one or two decks, Im ok with it. anything else is ludicrous.

Do you call them poker cards in America ? Don't you play any other card games there?

Do you call them poker cards in America ? Don't you play any other card games there?

Yes, we play other games than poker in the US.

Maybe he is saying "Poker" to distinguish from a Pinochle deck or other specialized decks or as to indicate the card size?

To the OP, Charlie Company uses cards as a random generator to determine mission, location, and enemy forces. I like it.

Ordinary deck of cards = poker cards

We use them in our scenarios all the time for all kinds of things, so, yes, I think it is a great idea.

Do you call them poker cards in America ?

That's what I've always called them, but I recently bought some, and the box says "Playing Cards" and "Decks Paquet".

If you don't stop you'll go blind, or at least get a case of pinochle!

As to the question, I've always preferred a dice bag of various chits to cards. Looks better.

Regular cards come in two widths. Poker decks are wider than bridge decks.

If you use whist cards as a randomizer, you still need a table lookup to know what they mean. Unless you use the numerical values, in which case you could as well use dice.

These days, it's very easy to make your own cards, print them, put them into card sleeves. So, use cards without an additional look-up, but put all the info on the card itself.

They're OK in some instances, but more limiting than dice. In general, I don't care for the changing probabilities of future events due to cards that have already been drawn no longer being in the deck. In situations where I think they are OK to use, I still prefer chits, etc., drawn from a bag to cards – no shuffling!

Unless you use the numerical values, in which case you could as well use dice.

Individual dice rolls are independent of each other. Card draws without replacement are not. They behave differently.

but more limiting than dice.

With replacement, you can do everything that you do with dice by using cards. Without replacement, you can do things with cards that you cannot do with dice.

I still prefer chits, etc., drawn from a bag to cards – no shuffling!

Also, no stacking. With stacking, there are things you can do with cards that you can't do with chits in a bag.

Dislike poker cards however I don't mind specific game related cards regardless of function.

Many years ago, I read an article in a magazine about using cards. The idea, as I recall, was to draw a card to determine which unit type you could activate. There were more cards for cavalry than for infantry and more infantry than artillery. So over the course of a game, the cavalry would move more often, e.g. I tried it with some homebrew Boer War rules that never got out of development, and it seemed like a workable idea.

Individual dice rolls are independent of each other. Card draws without replacement are not. They behave differently.

True. But I still want to see in what games this is used as an actual design decision (i.e. going through the entire range of outcomes before replenishing the deck), instead of it just being a "feature". As far as I know, moast games that use cards just use them as an alternative uniform-spread randomizer, and don't explicitly rely on the interdependency of future card draws.

Most games using cards have a "reshuffle deck now" card, to eliminate the predictiveness when the card deck runs low.

I can't speak for all or most games.

The whole point of using cards in my games is that all players know the initial distributions, so over time players gain better and better knowledge of the specifics of the tactical situation.

Kind of like actually being in combat. I know what my intel says. As I conduct more and more operations, I get a clearer understanding of the scope and range of my opponents.

And it doesn't even have to be intel related. Using controlled randomization, I put together a reasonable weather system without using a nomogram or Markov model.

About half of these use cards in ways other than surrogate dice. Most notably:

A Season in Hel – semi-predictable weather
Crossing Lines – combat identification
Monster of the Week Club – strategic plotline
Surprise Assault – tactical intel
Psycho Killer – plot line and tactical surprises
Buried Treasure – operational level intel
Octipi Wall Street – tactical ambiguity
Haywire – operational deployment

One advantage of cards over dice. No cocked dice, dice on the floor, or arguments about whether a dice need to be re-rolled. No players shaking the dice in their hands for ages. Cards are faster. Just draw the card!

Played a game at Salute a few years back called 'Diamond Geezers' based on 70s cop shows.

Every stat was rated on a scale 1-3 (they had names, like 'poor' etc) and so was action difficulty. Actions were resolved by taking the next card, and cross referencing the stat with the difficulty. I didn't see the make up of the deck, but I am assuming the Hard/Poor combo had the least 'Pass' in the deck, and Easy/Expert had the most.

There was one card 'Diamond Geezer' which was an automatic pass. I think the Umpire also adjusted for role playing.

Are poker cards different from a deck of playing cards? Did you mean poker chips?

All,

There is NO magic associated with using playing cards. Because the chance (i.e. probability) you associate with any card you select (i.e. outcome) can be determined and accomplished by rolling dice.

When using a deck of poker cards, you have two options: 1) You can replace the individual card back into the deck that you are pulling from, or 2) You can choose to not replace the individual card. Replacement leaves open the possibility that the individual card can be randomly chosen a second time.

If you are drawing cards without replacing them, then it is impossible to pick the same card twice.

To better illustrate my point, you can ask ourselves "What is the probability of drawing two aces from a standard deck of 52 cards?"

There are four aces within a 52 card deck, so the probability of drawing one ace is 4/52 or 7.7%. If you replace this card and draw again, then the probability is the same, 4/52 (7.7%). Given that these events are independent, you multiply the probabilities of the 1st draw (4/52) x (4/52) 2nd draw = 16/2704, or approximately 0.6% of drawing two aces in a row.

Now what if we do not replace the cards. The probability of drawing an ace on the first draw is still 4/52. However, for the second card, one ace has already been drawn, leaving three remaining out of a total of 51 cards. The probability of drawing two aces in a row, without replacement is (4/52) x (3/51) = 1/221, or about 0.4%.

My point here is that knowing what the probabilities are that 'YOU WANT TO ASSOCIATE WITH YOUR RESULTS' is more important than the manner in which you determine them.

Simpler is usually better.

Regards, Analsim