Character Creation: Part 4

Feb 18

Final Marks/Abilities

We’re getting into the mechanics of the game and adding marks to to our decks that lean into how these characters work in the context of the gameplay. The marks are there to modify cards, change the order of play, and manipulate the deck.

The Game

This Game was played using the Mavericks system. An RPG utilizing a deck of cards to tell the story and put fate in the hands of the players. It’s a story-forward roleplaying experience that encourages the players and dealer to work together to create the story. Check out the System Reference Document on Itch.io

https://the-indecisionist.itch.io/mavericks

The Cast

Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky. Check out her other podcasts, Not Your Demographic, X-Treks, and Spooky Thirties.

Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all social media channels and at Pixies and Pins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.

Omar Burgos is @Taleweaver Check out his work on the Tale of D20s TTRPG channel. More information at https://ataleofd20s.com/

Ben Banks is @Dj_blindian on Instagram and Soundcloud

I’m Ansel Burch and you can find me @TheIndecisionist on all of the meta properties and on Bluesky.

———

Special thanks to Cameron Evesque Davis for the song you’re hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast. Find her work on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/cameronevesquedavis

This show is an Indecisionist Production. Go to Indecisionist.com to find more of my work including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG Pickup Con, and my other time travel podcast, Time 2 Party.

As you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being.

Transcript

Ansel Burch 0:06

I welcome adventurers from across time and space. Five creators have been brought together from across the internet for one purpose and one purpose alone, to travel through time and have a good time doing it. When big changes happen to the timeline, the change attracts other time travelers like gravity, they won't be able to move past it until they fix whatever was messed up. So our heroes are stuck together, but only for the time being. You

Ansel Burch 1:00

Music.

Ansel Burch 1:03

Welcome back, friends to for the time being, it's so wonderful to have you all joining us for this amazing adventure. I am thrilled to be welcoming you once again. I am Ansel Burch, the indecisionist, your dealer for the game

of for the time being, we are playing the Mavericks system, a system that I wrote through indecisionist Productions. It is a game based around a deck of cards as the random number generator and the artifact of play. And in this episode, we are finishing up our character creation process. That means next episode, two weeks from this release. You're gonna get our first adventure. And guys, it's, it's gonna be so good. We're going back to ancient Sumeria. We're gonna it's, it's good, it's good stuff. We're throwing our characters into the deep end, and they are gonna see some, some wild stuff out there, in in the world.

But first. But first, we are going to finish off the mechanics of the characters with the final marks. These final marks are going to be what define the characters skills outside of their sort of core character creation sensibilities. And at the end of today's episode, I have a special treat, completely unprovoked, the amazing Stella cheeks did an interview on my own podcast asking me about the inspirations for the game, and that stuff is tucked in there towards the end credits. For your enjoyment, to get a little bit more information about the game itself and what inspired it. If you do have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at the indecisionist or any of our cast members on their handles, and we'd love to hear from you how much you're enjoying the show. Let us know what you're thinking about these characters and what you're hoping they get up to as they go through their various adventures

and now with no further ado. All right, so we have one last thing to do, and it is in some ways the most complicated,

Ansel Burch 3:07

Okay, I'm ready. This is meta. This is gonna step outside of our character creation storytelling and get into mechanics, okay, and then we're gonna deal seven cards out. Yep, I'm

Sarah Moore 3:22

two,

three, just one of the other jokers,

567,

Ansel Burch 3:32

all right, so you can set the rest of the deck aside for now.

Sarah Moore 3:37

Okay, I didn't get any of my marked ones

Ansel Burch 3:39

Interesting. Okay, cool. So you are now going to take a look at the top half of the marks chart, the standard marks, standard marks. These marks are like special powers and abilities. Okay, they modify the cards in a way that is sort of independent of your characters, like story, but still, I think can inform that story if you want the two. So for example, if you could lean into the war cards if you wanted to be, you know,

Ansel Burch 4:11

aware of your fighting spirit, you can lean into riches if you wanted to go in that but ultimately, what you want to think about is, what are the cards that you just drew, and how do you want to modify them? So I'll give you some time to take a look at all of the descriptions, because there are descriptions for each of the marks. Yeah, and let me know if you have any questions. So

Sarah Moore 4:49

mark the back of the carb. That's face value. That's interesting. I. So then when we're drawing, I guess, okay, do give me a quick rundown of how, like a skill check?

Ansel Burch 5:11

Oh, yeah, of course. Okay, so if we were doing a skill check, then if it's just you, then you and I are going to both draw cards. And if my card is higher, then you fail. If your heart is card is higher, you succeed. Got it nice and simple. If you want to test your luck, you're going to say you're going to declare a suit. If the card you draw off the top of your deck is that suit, then you get lucky. And whatever it is happens, you know, so if it's just like, I want to go outside and see if there's a guy selling fruit, and yep, it's a club. There's a guy out there selling fruit. It's just definitely, is there to luck, no skill, just a thing that happens where it gets interesting is whenever there's a conflict, whether it's a social conflict or like an actual like physical combat, that's a span of time, right? So we're going to represent that span of time with three cards, and those three cards will represent them the beginning, middle and end of that conflict, no matter how long it takes. So this could be a two minute bar fight or a three year war. We're going to represent it with these three cards, okay? And the there are a couple things that the marks affect that are relevant to that. And one of those, one element is that you are allowed, you as an individual, are allowed to Monty Hall yourself as much as you want, any face down cards that you dealt out, you can flip them around as much as you want. So if you have a clairvoyance mark, you know where the most important card is, or where a very important card is, you could put that card in, you know, in at the end, where it's going to impact the result. Or if it's a bad card, you can put it in the middle, where it doesn't matter so much. Or you could take advantage of one of your other powers to, like, replace it, or something. Okay, so that is, that is the big thing to be aware of there, is that you can switch them around, and your cards are face down, as are my cards. So if you take any of these that that allow you to remove a card from the spread or affect an opponent's card, that's what you're doing. You're, you're you're looking forward to the end of this fight and changing the outcome so it gives you more like board control effect,

Sarah Moore 7:51

okay, um, I feel like she, as an actress, would be good at charm. Charm feels, I feel like, and I feel like I have a six, and I feel like double face value to a 12 would make that good, like, I feel like it would be wasted on, like a face card. Yes, absolutely.

Ansel Burch 8:12

I mean, if you put it on face, that face card is unstoppable, right? Yeah, no one will ever be higher but a six. I mean, that makes a boring card into a quite respectable one.

Sarah Moore 8:25

Yeah, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna take charm and put it on the six. Um,

Ansel Burch 8:32

oh, and sorry, I did get around to this. So you're gonna put seven marks on these cards. You do not have to put one mark per card.

Sarah Moore 8:41

Oh, interesting. I can put them wherever I want. You could

Ansel Burch 8:44

put all seven on one card, if you felt so inclined.

Sarah Moore 8:49

I have a two of hearts in here, and I feel like I'm really interested in having that be a sacrifice.

Ansel Burch 8:56

That's Yep,

Sarah Moore 9:01

because that feels like, like an interesting I think she would view it in a way of, of like, well, I clearly can't do this, but I have been in a lot of movies, and like, You're the star of this one. So I like, I think she sees everything in like, that kind of like movie terms, like, this is your scene. So this is your scene. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the thing that heroically, that sacrifices out of kind of the same, yeah, you know, if I'm going to have a death, that's going to be the best death. So I have a joker.

Ansel Burch 9:46

Okay, that's a Joker's code is

Sarah Moore 9:49

a zero.

Ansel Burch 9:52

So if you look at the bottom half of the of the chart from Boon down the. Value of the card does not matter, yeah, so that those are good ones to look at for this. You could also do another sacrifice if you want that to be like a thing that comes up more frequently. I,

Sarah Moore 10:12

I like, um,

I like stunning for this one. I think that's very interesting.

Ansel Burch 10:30

Yeah, Stunning. Stunning is one that I'm particularly excited to see in play more. It hasn't come up yet much in my play tests, yeah, because there's an obvious choice of like, okay, well, the antagonists who only get my three cards right, antagonists are going to be out for the middle or the end of the fight or whatever. But I think there's also an opportunity to, like, save somebody else from repercussions by like, Yeah, you get to take a breather for this middle card,

Sarah Moore 11:03

yeah, yeah. So,

Ansel Burch 11:06

yeah. I think there's, I think there's a lot of potential, but the stunning mark, so that's, that's a cool one to put in.

Sarah Moore 11:11

I have an ace of hearts, and I think I'm going to use, I want to put confidence on that one.

Ansel Burch 11:18

Yep, good choice,

Sarah Moore 11:21

because that's sort of almost a guaranteed, yeah,

Ansel Burch 11:24

something pretty crazy would have to happen for me to beat you. In fact, I don't think I can beat you unless my antagonist has a special power, which is possible. I don't mark my cards. Wow, the dealer doesn't mark their cards. Instead, characters of NPCs of importance, get a power. And so sometimes that power is like, every time they draw from this suit, they draw a second card and take the hire. Anytime they draw from this suit, they get to add a number to it. And there are a couple, you know, powers that are sort of built in, but yeah, so it would be very hard for me, as the dealer, to beat an ace at ties go to

Sarah Moore 12:18

the player. I also really like Doom, and I think the queen is gonna be doomed. Yeah?

Beep, beep, beep, 1234, but I know you said I didn't have to, but I like spreading them out. I think

Ansel Burch 12:39

that's, oh yeah. I mean, mathematically, that's the most advantageous way to do it, because by the end of this you have, I think, if I'm remembering correctly, 19 marked cards in a pack of 54 Yeah. So like the odds are in your favor of drawing one at least a couple times during the course of the session, if not, yeah, times, yeah.

Sarah Moore 13:06

I'm going to put clairvoyance on this four, because it's, it's little so I'm going to put a and then you just mark the back of the card with its face value, or one mark from its face. So I'm just gonna put a four,

Ansel Burch 13:21

just to let let yourself know that one dead not don't count on that. Yeah,

Sarah Moore 13:26

that's a pretty bad one. That's pretty little. And then I have this 10, I'm gonna have it be riches, okay,

Ansel Burch 13:36

that that makes it another hard to beat card. Yeah?

Sarah Moore 13:39

Yeah, I'm I'm trying to, like, I understand that, like, I don't know. I just feel like, because she's kind of lived this charmed life that I think she just bulldozes into what she wants. And I think that the way that she does that is by just like, blatantly refusing to believe that it's not a thing she can do. Which is why? Which is why? Like, increasing, like, I was like, I know this is an ace, but I'm just gonna increase it. Like, let's make things bigger, right? Which is maybe not always the smartest choice mechanically, but like, but it edit. I think it makes the most sense for her, which is why, when things don't go her way, she's just like, sort of stymied. Like, what do you mean, really, to work like, this should have worked. This has always worked before.

Ansel Burch 14:42

I don't know Excellent. Well, that's your character. You did it. Yay. She'll need a name, for sure. I feel like I have

Sarah Moore 14:50

a name for her. Yeah, I have it in. I put it in the. For the time being. Hold on. Let me see. Oh, right. Jeff helped me come up with a great one, because we were like, We need to have one. Elena, Elena Rhodes, which sounds both like a classic movie store movie star or a porn star, because all of those names sound the same, like a 30s, 40s starlet or a porn star, all have that same sort of

Ansel Burch 15:29

ring to it. Yeah. Very, very rhinestone couture.

Unknown Speaker 15:40

There she is. We did. She did.

Ansel Burch 15:44

All right. So we have your impediment. So the last thing to do, and this is the thing that gets a little bit meta

now that you've draw, you shuffled your cards together, draw the top seven off of the deck. Some of these will may be ones that you've already marked. Some of them may not be that entirely the luck of the draw

Stella Cheeks 16:03

shit, a lot of them are, I really shuffled. You saw me. I shuffled heavily. I shuffled heavily. This is not fair.

Unknown Speaker 16:12

This might actually be good for you.

Stella Cheeks 16:14

This can't be right. Out of the seven, I drew five with a mark on them. Wow. I mean, do you want to show me? I shuffled through like, half of that conversation I did. I was doing the flippy. I was doing the, like, the side shuffle. I shuffled the shit out of this. You did. I watched it. People heard it,

Ansel Burch 16:36

yeah, yeah. But we got the

Stella Cheeks 16:38

ASMR, all right, fuck. I want you to know that I drew all three of my ally cards

Ansel Burch 16:45

really. Okay, that's cool. So take a look at the standard marks. So the top half of the dev the marks chart. Okay, you are going to you get seven marks to put on these cards. You do not have to put one mark on each card. You do not have to use all of the cards, and you do not have to pick seven different marks. If you want to put the skill mark on every single one of these bitches, you totally can. So if that's clear enough, then I will let you read through the marks, ask any questions you may have. If you have a card that's already marked like your your ally cards, you know that's going to be a success, right? Those ally cards are already very strong, and they're going to bring another card into the fight that might be a good opportunity for, like, the confidence mark, that might be a good mark for a good opportunity for the clairvoyance so that you know it's coming, something like that. Whereas, if you've got a low card, you know, or a middle card, if you've got, like, a six or an eight, that might be a good one for the skill or war marks, because those are going to double the value of a decent card and make it a better card. And then you want to think about those are the ones where you think about, like, what kind of character is this? Am I a skillful character? Am I a violent character? Am I a social character, that sort of thing. So I'll let you read through these. Ask any questions you may have, especially now that you've since you drew so many Mark I know, like the the way that they play together, that's definitely something I'm interested in. Your thoughts

Stella Cheeks 18:40

on Well, I did this the skill one. I drew four of spades which had nothing on it, so I bumped that skill level.

Ansel Burch 18:48

Okay, so that'll be an eight, if, when you try, which is still not amazing, it's better, decent, right? Yeah, it's better, right? So that's a much, yeah, it's made way better, twice as good. You might say, I think, and I like the idea of you being especially skillful based upon your like, tinkery take things apart, instincts I love. I think

Stella Cheeks 19:09

I'm going to, because the Queen was the source, right? So I'm gonna think I wanna do clairvoyance on that one. Does that make sense thematically? I like it. I think that makes sense there. Draw an additional card from your deck into this round and choose the better of the two, either

Ansel Burch 19:26

the marked card or the one you draw. And if you're wondering, does that counteract the enemy card or the enemy mark? Yes, okay, well,

Stella Cheeks 19:34

I didn't draw any enemies. Okay, I'm gonna take back the skill. One good thing, it's wet. Ah. Okay, all right, I'm gonna do that skill one, but I'm gonna do it. Okay, wait, where was this one? I'm gonna actually boost No, because that's already kind of high. But thematically. It makes sense. What the ah, Well, which one are you thinking about? Okay, because, like, the 10 of Clubs was the like, how do you present to the world thing? I feel like nothing that skill wise. Like, makes sense.

Ansel Burch 20:16

Yeah, totally. I think the skill mark on that it that makes that card nigh unstoppable. It becomes a 20 value, yeah, just higher than any card naturally in the deck. I'm gonna do that. Yeah, I think that makes total sense,

Stella Cheeks 20:29

because, like, how I present to the world, I think, is how I how I'm thinking this character, I feel like this character isn't very it's just not, like, very manipulative, right? So I think, like, even though maybe she has all this family shit or whatever, like, This is who she wants to be, so she works very hard to be that person.

Ansel Burch 20:50

You've up skilled as a result. Yeah, I like

Stella Cheeks 20:52

that. Okay, so ruin would be something. If you drew your enemy card, you would want to put ruin on it, because it's bringing it down a little

Ansel Burch 21:02

bit, right? Yeah, okay, yeah. Ruins, a really good one, you know, in all, in a couple different ways, but that would definitely be a way to use ruin. Well, no, actually, sorry, I'm was thinking of a different one. Ruin. I win allows you to lower the face value of a different card, so probably my card, the dealer's card, by three. So like, if you know you like that eight, if you're like, hey, this eight is a decent card, but not a great card. If I can low, if you can lower my card by three that eight might become more powerful or more capable of getting across the goal line.

Unknown Speaker 21:56

Okay,

Ansel Burch 21:59

I feel like sacrifice and confidence or sacrifice would be an interesting card for you to or mark for you to work with as well. Yeah, if you have any really low I

Stella Cheeks 22:07

was thinking of either the sacrifice, if this card fails, double the value of an allies card in the same complex

Ansel Burch 22:22

so like, if you know your this card is shit,

Stella Cheeks 22:27

but I drew pretty high. Oh, I guess I could do this, like, four, right? Because that would be, that's a good one. Chance is pretty good. That's not going to do it. So I do sacrifice on that one, right? That's what we're talking about. Okay, so I've done three marks so far. I do want to put one on each one. No, you,

Ansel Burch 22:44

you drew five marked cards. They're put one on each card. Why not?

Stella Cheeks 22:50

Okay, I want to put the charm on the jack of clubs, because that's like my bestie. And I'm like, thinking that my bestie is like, like a snake oil salesman, not like, not actually sneak a little salesman. But like somebody who could, like, what's that phrase, sell a red popsicle to a woman in white gloves? Like, I feel like that's my friend, because I'm like, the awkward one, and he's like, No, yeah, I'm feeling that for him. I RAM.

I don't do confidence on my other ally card.

Ansel Burch 23:31

Oh yeah, that makes total sense, especially because

Stella Cheeks 23:33

that's my unnamed familial card. So I feel like there's some, like, maybe pride wrapped up in there, which could be interesting. Yeah,

Ansel Burch 23:43

gifts for others. Yeah, you do come from wealth, so maybe that's your, your like, abundance mindset, yeah, oh,

Stella Cheeks 23:51

man, some of these are really good. Okay, I know I don't want to do the war one, and we did.

Ansel Burch 24:02

You. Can use skill more than once, or charm more

Stella Cheeks 24:04

than no but I like want to have like variety that's fair.

Ansel Burch 24:15

You haven't chosen any Doom yet.

Stella Cheeks 24:17

Yeah, wait, what did I do on four sacrifice? Not ruin, okay, sacrifice, yeah, I was looking at Doom or I was looking at

Boone. I guess I was looking at Doom or boom. But I guess Doom,

Ansel Burch 24:48

Ah, sure, and doom is not dependent on the card succeeding. Or, Yeah, that's true. It just happens.

Stella Cheeks 24:58

Yeah, I. I feel like that's one that, like everybody's gonna want to take maybe I want to do one that's not

Ansel Burch 25:06

fair, if it helps. I don't believe any of the other people who have built characters. Okay, well, then I'll do it

Stella Cheeks 25:15

whatever. I don't know how this. I feel like I drew that weird. Okay, I got skill, I got charm, I got sacrifice, got clairvoyance. I feel like the way I drew confidence and I drew Doom are similar, but I just put a C in the middle, so I'll know that it's confidence. Um, wait, 1234561234566,

right? I do seven,

Ansel Burch 25:50

yeah, so one more

Stella Cheeks 25:52

I want to do. Oh, man, I do not know what this

Unknown Speaker 26:01

look.

Stella Cheeks 26:05

I want to do. How do you say augury? Is how you say it augury? Yeah, this is on my

Ansel Burch 26:11

or augury. If you want to give extra British

Stella Cheeks 26:13

nature card, which I drew. This totally wrong. I can't see that. Oh, wait, it's like a little swoopy doop on top of a straight line. Yeah,

Ansel Burch 26:23

because this one is, it's like a Napoleon. Okay,

Stella Cheeks 26:27

is on my Wait, maybe I don't want to do that.

Ansel Burch 26:35

So since you're thinking about it, something that I don't, I doubt that you've read the whole system down. Sorry. The reason that this is is good is you are always allowed to Monty Hall yourself. So the cards that have not been revealed of yours, you're always allowed to switch them around. So once you've dealt out the three cards that define this combat. You can move them, and that's one of the reasons that clairvoyance makes sense. Because you can move the clairvoyant. You can move the card to where you want it in the pack. In the story, augury allows you to look at any of the face down cards in the spread, which is pretty huge,

Stella Cheeks 27:22

yeah, I like that because that's on my nature card, which was the like, duty to others type deal. And I think,

Ansel Burch 27:30

yeah, taking things apart and figuring them out, yeah, so

Stella Cheeks 27:33

that, yeah, and being like, Ah, how do I fix this? It's like, in masks, the like, what here benefits me most, or whatever, yes, yeah, I put one on each

Ansel Burch 27:46

There you go, and you did it. That's, that's the whole character generation process.

Stella Cheeks 27:50

And I have to fill in some blanks, like, yeah.

Ansel Burch 27:54

I hope it's, I hope it's given you some inspiration. It seems like it's, it has any, any thoughts you want to, like, continue teasing out before we call it.

Stella Cheeks 28:05

I'm just trying to think of, like, what I should look like as an alien, because I feel like I can't come rock, like rocking in in the medieval times with like, blue skin, right? I mean, I could. Nothing's stopping you. I feel like it needs to be like, like a Vulcan or like Klingon thing, where it's like, I mean, it's a little weird, but it's not like, that weird. Yeah, it's passing like, I mean, Klingons are pushing it, but you know what I mean, where it's just like, Yeah, I mean, you're an alien, depending on which Klingon, yes, right, depending on which Klingons, you're like, weird, but like, you're like, not that weird.

Ansel Burch 28:41

You could also go with the Lalo projector. Like, oh yeah, this isn't my real face disguise situation. Have you watched a resident alien?

Stella Cheeks 28:55

No, but I should, because I love Alan Tudyk. We What were you watching the other day with Ellen today? Oh, I've been watching a lot of night movies, and we watched a night sale, and I was like, I forgot, I want to go. And then we were watching with the Harley Quinn TV show. And I was like, God, why is he so good and everything? He's so good.

Ansel Burch 29:11

He's so good

Stella Cheeks 29:13

is that he has, like, a human skin projector. It's a gross way to say it,

Ansel Burch 29:22

yeah, he Well, his character, like he changes to the molecular level into a human when he arrives. It's this whole like transformation sequence, very werewolfy style. But he has to kill a guy to steal his his body or his

Stella Cheeks 29:39

gotta crack some eggs, you know? Yeah, right, yeah. I'll think about that, because I think it could be fun to do that. But also I feel like there's something to be said about, like, the mysteries of like, why does this alien look so much like us?

Ansel Burch 29:59

Which is fun. Yeah, it gives us that like, Progenitor, Yeah,

Stella Cheeks 30:04

or like, maybe there's a reason why I'm always being pulled to Earth type deal,

Ansel Burch 30:09

yeah, if you're, you're the planets are connected in some way. I do like the idea of a small enough difference, like box

Stella Cheeks 30:19

ears, you just put a fucking beanie on,

Ansel Burch 30:23

yeah, yeah. You put a beanie on, and as long as nobody picks the beanie off, you're cool. The second your hat comes off, your head, your

Stella Cheeks 30:30

your bone, alien man, yeah, nobody

Ansel Burch 30:34

on earth could have those ears. No way.

Stella Cheeks 30:38

Yeah. So I want to think about that, like, what? What does that look like? I wonder if it's something with your hand. I was just thinking that. I was just thinking about it being a limb based, revival, limb based difference.

Ansel Burch 30:53

I'm swearing Celera, take a party sort of person, yeah. If you've got, like, extra dexterous fingers, or more of them creepy

Stella Cheeks 31:02

fingers. Doesn't have to keep my hands my pocket the whole time. Yeah, I want to think about that, because I think that could be cool. But I am thinking like a limb thing.

Ansel Burch 31:21

I think that's cool. I like it. Or maybe your hands are the other way around, yeah? Like a rakshasa, or

Stella Cheeks 31:28

just, like, big monster claws. Just kidding, yeah, big, big, yeah. I think it's got to be like something too, like a weird eye color, so people just assume that I have, like contacts in and then it's like, I feel like, for sure, yeah, it could just be some surfacey stuff, like they did in like, the 1960s uh, Star Trek, where it's just, like, that's just like some weird purple blush, but like, it could be, you know, purple skin, or whatever

Ansel Burch 31:59

my people have eyes, yeah, right.

Stella Cheeks 32:04

So, yeah, but I am kind of feeling a hand thing. I want to think about that. That's cool, yeah, what if it's like a mortal kombat thing where it's like something comes out of my hand? Oh, yeah, that's gross. That'd

Ansel Burch 32:20

be dope. I

Stella Cheeks 32:21

think about that all the time. I think about like, what if my hand is just split open, like, Scorpion, why do I think about that so much? Like that

Ansel Burch 32:30

tells

Speaker 1 32:31

tells us something about how much Mortal Kombat you've played. It's an excellent game. I'm not really a video game girly, but I do love fighting games. I want to beat the shit out of everyone

Unknown Speaker 32:39

same I'm terrible at them, but I still love it

Stella Cheeks 32:42

fun as hell reporting, because we're just

Ben Banks 32:44

okay. So I've got nine of clubs, two of spades, three of diamonds, five of hearts, seven of spades, four of clubs, 10 of spades. Okay, let's do like a more tactician build. I think that would be fun. Okay, if you look at the last four on the chart, fate, augury, stunning and clairvoyance are a little bit more tactical.

Ansel Burch 33:11

They let you move more cards around in the field and see other people's cards so you can kind of understand where to go. So those are good control cards or control marks to have.

Speaker 2 33:27

Okay, let me do, let me put fate on the 10 of spades, and then I'll put stunning on the seven of spades. I will do the augury on the five of hearts. I will do clairvoyance on the nine of clubs, and then I get three more seven marks total, seven total, yeah, I'll do Doom on my four of clubs, and then I'll do sacrifice on my two of spades, heck yeah. And then I

Ben Banks 34:13

think I'm gonna do fate again on the three of diamonds, heck yeah. Those are my marks. Excellent. Your deck is prepared, your character is made, but, yeah, I'm excited.

Ansel Burch 34:25

All right, so I'm assuming your card is marked and you've made your notes.

The next step is to shuffle all those cards back into the deck. Shuffle it until you feel you've shuffled it enough.

Omar Burgos 34:45

Gotcha. Gotcha, all righty, you.

Just

making my last notes on all the cards, if I put them in there, yeah, oh, yeah. Disgust.

Ansel Burch 35:15

We are in no rush whatsoever. In fact, we're making great time. I

registrations are rolling in for pickup con. It's very exciting.

Omar Burgos 35:53

Nice. Okay, so put putting them all in and doing some ASMR shuffles. I

Ansel Burch 36:20

Wow. I don't know why I got a push notification about this, but lease in LA found a man had stolen 2800 boxes of Legos. What

Unknown Speaker 36:43

that is wild. Yeah, that

Omar Burgos 36:49

was a bad shot. Let me try again. Okay, final cell, fool Legos. What do you do with those Legos?

Ansel Burch 36:58

I mean, I mean, I presume he was selling them on the secondary market. But

Omar Burgos 37:02

Legos, I mean, I guess, oh yeah,

Ansel Burch 37:06

Legos are expensive.

Omar Burgos 37:11

Oh no. My shuffling powers are dying. They just fell out of my hand. What's going on? No, I hate it when the pants question

Ansel Burch 37:17

everything. You're like, what do

Omar Burgos 37:21

I know how to do this. That was a good one. Okay, I'm good. You got

Ansel Burch 37:26

your groove back? Yes.

All right, if you've shuffled as much as you feel you want to shuffle, you're going to then peel off the top seven cards. You can deal them face up. Question,

Omar Burgos 37:50

our joke was supposed to be in the deck. I didn't take them out. Okay, so I just drew one of them. Oh, no, I did you one of my adversaries.

Ansel Burch 38:01

Oh, that's great.

So these seven cards are now your palette. You get to put seven marks on these cards. You can choose which cards you mark. You can choose how many marks go on each card. The only rule is you are putting seven marks. So that is the limit. You could put all seven on one card. You could put one on each however you want to split that up seven marks onto these cards. So because you've dealt an adversary to yourself, you could offset that if you wanted to, you know, represent that you maybe came to an understanding with that and with that enemy. At some point in your past, maybe you've you've offset that enmity, and you can add an ally mark to it. Well, you couldn't put an ally mark on it, because that's a special mark, but you could put us one of the standard marks on to you know, lessen the blow or adjust the effect if you wanted to.

Omar Burgos 39:32

I mean, that sounds like a good idea. But I also drew the 10 of spades, which was my other card from my first five.

Ansel Burch 39:42

I mean, that's a that's one of your, one of your background marks, right? Yeah, yeah. So that the value of that card is going to go up by six anyway.

Omar Burgos 39:58

So I should say, Okay, I wouldn't need. Save for that. But

Ansel Burch 40:01

you can do something like the the confidence card. If it's a card you know is really good, you can put the confidence mark on it, and if that card succeeds, you're going to you're going to increase the value of a different card by three so you can buff one of your allies, or maybe the next card that you draw in that same spread.

Omar Burgos 40:28

Okay, so

Ansel Burch 40:30

if you've got a really good one, you could do that. Similarly, if you've got one where you you're pretty confident it's going to fail, there's the sacrifice card which doubles the face value of an allies card if it fails. Oh, you boon. Boon is the one that would offset enemy card.

Omar Burgos 40:50

Okay, okay, I'm definitely going to do that with the six of hearts here. One of them viziers. Maybe I have them in my pocket, I don't know. Yeah. And now I do the devil's card. I have 666, funny. Okay, so I think I will definitely put the boon on that one. So I have six left. I'm a fan of even spreading, but I might leave one of them blank. So all right, but we're done with the six of hearts. Good. Now,

Ansel Burch 41:24

are there any things about your character that you don't feel are represented? Yet? That might be something we can add marks to indicate in this part of the character creation process. Yeah. So

Omar Burgos 41:38

I have the 10 of diamonds, and I know that means, you know, like merchants, stock, riches and all that. But he does have, he's not a bad guy. He could be slightly tyrannical and be in his head, but in the end, he does want what's best for his people. So I feel like we haven't represented his Kinder side. All cats like to be, you know, can be friendly at some point. Yeah, yeah. So I wanted to make the 10 of hearts maybe even though, yes, it may come off as caddy, but his remarks do have a sense of sincerity to them. He definitely has this lack of empathy where his words are just he doesn't realize he's saying it. He's like, I don't mean to be mean, but I'm just telling the truth kind of thing, but, but when you get to know him and realize who he is, this could be more of like showing Okay, so he does care in his own special way. What would would that be charm? No, no,

Ansel Burch 42:38

it could be charm. Yeah, I was trying to think about that, but I feel

Omar Burgos 42:44

like it's a high card. There'll be ways to double the faith value, right? Because there are 10 a high card,

Ansel Burch 42:52

10 is pretty high, yeah. I mean, the king is the highest with a value of, well, no, an ace is the highest with a value of 14, so 10 is pretty close. Hmm, okay. I mean maybe sacrifice to indicate that you're willing to put other people ahead of yourself. Work on that 10, but you could certainly mark a card with sacrifice.

Omar Burgos 43:21

Okay, okay.

Ansel Burch 43:28

I mean, wouldn't work. They all work. It just it would be less likely to be effective on a 10.

Omar Burgos 43:36

Maybe I'll maybe 10 be the one I won't touch. And let's look at so I have a joker card. What? What is the Joker card?

Ansel Burch 43:47

So the Joker has a value of zero.

Omar Burgos 43:52

So doubling that is useless, yeah,

Ansel Burch 43:54

doubling it would be useless. Adding numbers to it would be useful, potentially. It's also a great one for the sacrifice card, because, you know, it's gonna fail. It can't not fail

Omar Burgos 44:12

that. Yeah, I think I'll go put the Joker as a sacrifice card.

Ansel Burch 44:19

The joker is also a good one to look at for fate and augury. So because the it's not dependent on the value of the card, fate allows you to change the order of other people's cards. Augury lets you mark the back of the card with the Joker, so you know it's going to be a joker before you flip it.

Omar Burgos 44:51

I like the Fate card because it's because it's a joker. So I feel like get to play around with fate.

Ansel Burch 44:57

It's, it's you messing with people. Yeah.

Omar Burgos 44:59

Yeah, okay, so I'll do that. So that's two. I do the six of clubs. Since that is a low card as the, not as low, I was like, what I like it to be, to ensure it, but it's still kind of low middle pack. So I'll put that for the sacrifice. Okay?

Ansel Burch 45:18

And keep in mind you can use these, these marks more than once. Okay, so if you wanted to have a whole deck of skill marks, or a whole seven skill marks, you could all you could do that

Omar Burgos 45:29

the six of spade, I will do as because spades are about war. I'm gonna use that as as the war card and double its value in conflict. So I'll put war for my six of spades, the ace of clubs. That's pretty high card. So if we know it's going to be successful, how about the confidence?

Ansel Burch 45:54

That's a good one for confidence. Yeah, so

Omar Burgos 45:58

ace of clubs is confidence. Okay, the 10 of spades, I will put riches in there, because increasing in by three would just get it up there to, like a one of those, like, Joker King, Queen, kind of cards, just get it up, yeah. Like riches through war. Because, of course, most of my money, a lot of my money, came from war. You go All right, so 10 of spades, I'm gonna put riches All right? So that just leaves one more that I will probably, usually, you can, I will

Ansel Burch 46:50

double up. Yeah, you can absolutely use the same mark more than once. I will

Omar Burgos 46:55

use the Joker as both. Oh, wait, can you? Can you put a different mark on the same card, like two different marks on the same card? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm gonna have the Joker as fate and, uh, sacrifice as well, if that will work, so I could change the order and then use it too, because I know it will fail even though I have it. So on top of using its fate ability, right? Would that? Would that be how it would work? Even if it fails, I still get to use his ability, but the card still fails, right?

Ansel Burch 47:31

Yes, absolutely. So, yeah, so you can use the fate ability and the sacrifice if you wanted to, yeah.

Omar Burgos 47:37

So I have two sacrifices to show that he really does have a heart of gold. Yeah, he's

Ansel Burch 47:42

he's humbled down in there. Or alternately, he's a good chess player and knows when well that piece is trash. Yeah,

Omar Burgos 47:52

yeah. I like how that sounds better. So many good ones here. Nice. Yep, I think I like that. 10 of spades, which is king of club, sacrifice, six of hearts, the boon jokers, the fate and sacrifice. Six of spades is war. The ace of club is confidence and nothing on the deadlines.

Ansel Burch 48:24

I I like this a lot. I think you've done very well with your character creation, and that Omar is that you have, you have done all of the things to create your your deck, your deck is now your character sheet for all intents and purposes, and as you play with it, it will grow and change. You will add more marks as we go, as bad things happen, some cards may become scarred, and in some cases, the mark of humility may make you better through your failures. But ultimately, this deck will continue to grow and change as your character does. Awesome. So yeah, I am so stoked to learn more about your character. Have you come up with a name i

Omar Burgos 49:18

i did, but I didn't write it down like it was definitely a very Egyptian, like name, but you call him something for short, like, and it was like, like in doc, Sam moon or something like that. And it's like, Andy for short, but something like that. But it sounds similar to that. I'll have it completely finished out. I want to make sure it actually I want to do more. I love Ancient Egypt. It's one of my favorite civilizations to study, and I want to kind of dive in as some significant, yeah, ancient. Egyptian words that will symbolize this. And then I can turn into like a like Andy, for sure. And you can call him that, but he has, like a full, like, long, hard to pronounce name that I will practice and perfect. And then like, and then, yeah, have that be his name. So I will definitely be coming up with something I like, where that's going.

Ansel Burch 50:26

Okay? And the last thing I will ask before we end today's session, is there anything about this character that you know of right now that you're really excited to bring into the game that you want to make sure is present like an element or reveal there's something that's been inspired that we haven't talked about already, that you like, really want to make sure makes it out into the into the sessions that we get to play.

Omar Burgos 50:58

So he's a cat, like, he's an actual cat, cat. He's not really more so, kind of like, if you watch Sabrina, the with most general heart now, Salem was like a talking cat, but really a person, but cursed and all that. I kind of want to play on that where he can with the small elements of magic and being able to invoke best that I want to be able to transform into, like, a very feline featured human when needed to, like,

Ansel Burch 51:27

like the cat from red dwarf, yes,

Omar Burgos 51:28

yes, heck yeah. And have that come into play, and maybe not have everyone know that yet, it's kind of like his secret identity, even from those unless you're really close to him. But like, when it comes in handy, such as, like, we don't allow pets here, and it's like, I have a servant, don't worry. And then I don't know something that we go play around where I like it this character comes up, and

Ansel Burch 51:53

maybe he looks a little bit like your old servant, as, like, an homage, yeah.

Omar Burgos 51:58

But then I have, like, still those same cat eyes.

Ansel Burch 52:02

You can tell creepy diamond cat eyes. Yeah, I like that. I think that's a really cool idea. And yeah, I, I will definitely endeavor to give you situations where you need to, need to get up to those kinds of shenanigans.

Omar Burgos 52:23

Definitely. And I do want it to be some sort of like, and I haven't thought about, I mean, we could think about together like a detriment, like, why he wouldn't just always be in human form? Like, it's like, I only go into the Maham for me, because when I'm most vulnerable, like, I don't have access to, like, my, my true cat like abilities and my, my like, super wit when I'm in this I'm like, encased in human, like, skin that, like, really prevents me from connecting with the cat goddess and and everything. So, like, I feel like out of my element, like, when a cat's wet, it's like, yeah, body. Well,

Ansel Burch 52:57

it's funny you say like when a cat's wet, because it immediately makes me think of Aquaman. Or if there's like, Oh, I've been away from my fur too long, I'm losing my powers, or something like that. Like, there's a ticking clock on you.

Omar Burgos 53:11

Yes, yes. I like that. If he stays too much of his human form, he may be stuck that way, and his kind of abilities will not be there. But like, if, if we need to be incognito. I need to be in this form, like you'll see me sweating when they try and leave the situation. I just go back into my cat form, but then it will delay the amount of time until I can go back to my human form. So if it's like, we're in a dicey situation, and, like, all eyes on me, because, of course, he's going to be extremely charismatic, but like, overly charismatic, more narcissistic that spotlights on me. But like, if the spotlights on him is and his clock is ticking in his human form, maybe like a tail pops out and he kind of hides it behind his ears start to pop out at no moments, because he can't just hold it in. Or if he takes too much of a big hit, he just transforms back correctly. Oh

Ansel Burch 53:58

yeah. Like, like, a wild shape, yes, yes. Actually, that's a great way to do it. Maybe, yeah, if you, if you treat it like that, when it if, if you take a hit, which I'd say we could probably also include, you know, in social conflict, it just sort of knocks you out of it, or has a potential to do. So I think that's a really cool idea.

Omar Burgos 54:25

Yeah, I like it, yep.

Ansel Burch 54:28

Ah, what a cool character concept. Thank you. Thank you for bringing him. Thank you for creating him to with me. This is very exciting.

Omar Burgos 54:39

It's my way to like be out because I'm a dog person. I love dogs. I think cats are jerks, but now I could the

Ansel Burch 54:48

hilarious part is like, I'm a cat person, and yeah, cats are jerks. Yeah, that is an accurate that's why we like them.

Omar Burgos 54:56

Like I could finally play the thing. Now that I hate cats, I think they're cute ish, but now I can actually live as a cat,

Ansel Burch 55:07

yeah. And who doesn't want that? Right? Awesome. Well, thank you again. And yeah, let's I guess next time we talk in front of these microphones, we'll be playing our first session. Yes, I'm excited. Oh, so cool. All right. Well, I will end the recording there.

Stella Cheeks 55:30

Ansel, what inspired you to create this game?

Ansel Burch 55:33

I've been listening to a show campaign. They they did a Star Wars campaign for a long time, and now recently, they've been doing an original world where they are airship pirates, which is very cool. They have this deck of cards that they use in in their game that it's basically like a tarot deck, and they use it to, like, inspire stuff, sort of outside of the standard game mechanics. And I was really enjoying that. And then there was another card game I heard about that that used a deck of cards and an augury sheet to sort of like guide you through their game. And so there was just a lot of, like, card stuff kind of going on, melding around in the old brain pan, and for whatever reason, I thought to myself, What if you could use a deck of cards, and originally they were tarot cards. What if you could use a deck of tarot cards as your random number generator, as your as your dice? But also some What if the deck of cards took on extra money. So part of my thought was, you know, how some people buy, like, a set of dice for their character, and they're like, Yeah, this is my these are my dice for this character, and these are my dice for this character. And then, you know, you get really attached to them, and they go on a shelf,

Stella Cheeks 56:59

and you know, then your game falls apart, and it's how you fall sorry, exactly,

Ansel Burch 57:04

yeah, well, what if you had a deck of cards? I like it, you know, deck of cards is, is, you know, you could go, you could go super cheap, you can go real expensive. You can mark these up as you go, and it, it becomes an artifact of your game. I love that. And so, yeah, it was just sort of this combination of factors that kind of conspired all at the same time. But yeah, at its core, I really wanted, I originally wanted to build a car a game around tarot cards, but I got a lot of feedback that nobody wants to mark on

Unknown Speaker 57:43

which? Which is fair? Yeah, I could. So

Ansel Burch 57:47

until I come out with a very cheap way to produce markable tarot

Stella Cheeks 57:53

cards, they have cheap demons you could get. Oh, yeah.

Ansel Burch 57:57

I mean, I can print a deck of tarot cards right now. They're just kind of a pain in the ass to shuffle, cut out. If you print them on the good card stock, they shuffle actually quite nicely. All right? I just used, like, matte card stock, and then I used a big paper guillotine to cut them all down. Paper guillotine, yeah, they turned out really nice. They're just it takes forever to make a single deck. And I'm like, Nah, that's a lot of cards I need to I need a factory that will do this for me.

Stella Cheeks 58:27

What a cool idea, though. You should not give up on your tarot deck. Oh, I'm

Ansel Burch 58:31

not. I originally developed Mavericks, which is what the which is the version we're playing for the podcast, with the intention that you could choose either you could do Tarot or standard playing cards. And then from there, I kind of got some feedback about the Tarot thing. And was like, Okay, it's also there was a lot of concern about, is it fair to use a tarot deck when you also against a standard 52 and I was like, Well, fair doesn't really matter. We're telling a story together. It's more about the probability of your marked cards coming up, as opposed to getting inspiration from the Tarot. But you know, whatever if, if you care about fair, sure

Stella Cheeks 59:16

that's give a shit about fairness. You're,

Ansel Burch 59:20

you're on a team. You know? You're on a team, right? It's, it's really just fuck me over that you want to do. But then the other piece of feedback that I got recently from a publisher, it was saying you really need to focus this in on a genre, because people don't buy a game system. They buy the store. Yeah, that that you tell from it. So I'm developing two offshoots from this. One is going to be a the the one I'm going to put out for. Gen Con this year is called cards, and it's a criminals game. So you're going to it's, it's for rakes, rogues, rapscallions, roustabouts and ne'er do wells. And it's the same base mechanic, but there will be like, randomized tables and charts for criminal based attributes and random characters based upon which cards you draw, right? So it's going to give it a little extra criminal flair to put on top of the base engine. And I'm going to do a pirate one, and I'll probably do two more. So there's like one for each set I'm Yeah. And the idea is that all of these are built on this core system, and if they take off, if there's enough interest, then I can start doing like, oh, well, here's a custom set of cards that you can buy from me for each setting, or these ones, have, you know, pre printed on them, all the characters from the cards deck, that sort of thing, as well as maybe, like, Okay, here's a, here's a, a five pack of cheap tarot cards. Yes, please draw on

Stella Cheeks 1:01:18

them. Please draw on them well, and that's so interesting too, because Tarot people, you know, treat it. Some people are like, Oh, tarot. And like, I get it my tarot deck, I wouldn't draw on it because she reads me to filth every time. But like, tarot, like, was a card game. Like, it has a history of being played as a card game. Like, that

Ansel Burch 1:01:39

was the original intention, yeah. If it weren't for that cool art, we'd still be playing. But

Stella Cheeks 1:01:45

nope, it's got cool art and they're expensive,

Ansel Burch 1:01:50

yeah, yeah, the cool art and the gold Yeah, with kind of Yeah. Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky

Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all of the social media channels and at Pixies and Pins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.