Role-Playing Games, Improvisation and Storytelling
N-Dimensional Tourists is a lightweight, generic ruleset for fiction-first, narrative roleplaying.
Instead of dice, it uses the Space·Time Deck.
Well, after the Triumphs and four suits (Paper, Rock, Blade, Serpent), it is time to conclude the Space·Time Deck with its last suit: the Suit of Unknown (you are free to call it the Suit of Spock)!
Unknown symbolizes:
imagination; intuition; perception; illusions; dreams. Whenever you draw a card of this suit, you are encouraged to integrate any of these concepts to your interpretation.
The cards:
Ruler Dragon Treasure Soldier Builder Seeker Lover Servant Home Foot (blank, customizable) Teddy bear (blank, customizable) Credits Cards David Teller.
Thanks Alex Schroeder for putting together the Indie RPG Planet! I believe that the Indie RPG community was sorely missing something like this.
Did you think the Space·Time Deck was done after
the Triumphs; the Suit of Paper; the Suit of Rock; the Suit of Blade? Were it only that it were so simple!
Here’s the fourth suit: the Suit of Serpents.
Serpents traditionally symbolize:
speed; stealth; adaptation; survival; lies; forbidden knowledge; forbidden power; temptation. The cards:
Ruler Dragon Treasure Soldier Builder Seeker Lover Servant Home Foot (blank, customizable) Teddy bear (blank, customizable) Credits Cards David Teller.
Most Role-Playing Games resolve conflicts with dice. But since we have a Space·Time Deck at hand (or any other kind of Tarot-like Deck), let’s see if we can use it to bring about a different manner of resolving conflicts.
About Conflicts A Conflict is a scene in which two parties or more have agendas, which cannot be fulfilled simultaneously. In most role-playing games, the most common form of conflict is the combat, but that is by no mean the only form possible: conflict could be car races, social wit, political campaigns, chess, battlefield strategy, attempting to ruin your opponent’s reputation or fortune, popularity contests, football matches, etc.
After the Suit of Paper and the Suit of Rock, here comes the Suit of Scissor (or perhaps Blades – name to be finalized).
Warning Museum-level nudity.
Scissors/blade traditionally symbolize:
forced change; violence; destiny; death. The cards:
Ruler Dragon Treasure Soldier Builder Seeker Lover Servant Home Foot (blank, customizable) Teddy bear (blank, customizable) Note that the blue borders are not part of the cards.
While the Time Federation is forever limited by its Prime Directive, the militarist branches managed to get away with murder, kidnapping and torture by finessing paradoxes. Some cadres of the Time Federation wanted the ability to counter-attack, and managed to create a covert operations branch called the Time Adjustment Foundation. And further is exactly where it goes.
After the Suit of Paper, here comes the Suit of Rock.
Warning Museum-level nudity.
Rock traditionally symbolizes:
stability; reliability; power. The cards:
Ruler Dragon Treasure Soldier Builder Seeker Lover Servant Home Foot (blank, customizable) Teddy bear (blank, customizable) Note that the blue borders are not part of the cards. They are just there to delimit the safe-to-draw zone.
A few weeks ago, we introduced the Trump Cards of the Space·Time Deck. It’s time for a second delivery: the Suit of Paper.
Paper traditionally symbolizes:
knowledge and wisdom; deduction; riches; fragility. The cards:
Ruler Dragon Treasure Soldier Builder Seeker Lover Servant Home Foot (blank, customizable) Teddy bear (blank, customizable) Note that the blue borders are not part of the cards.
The 22 Trump Cards of the Space·Time Deck are now on their way to proof printing! We should receive the proofs in early December. If everything is alright, we should be able to sell them through DriveThru by End of Year.
There are gods in this story, almighty or as near can be. This is not their story.
These gods shape and make history of mankind, Earth and beyond. This is not the story of mankind, Earth or beyond.
Let it be known that the gods have children, and that some of these children will ascend to godhood, while others will stop mere heroes or monsters, and the rest will fail and fall.
Here’s a possible idea for a setting. It owns to Hurlements, Nephilim, Highlander, Continuum.
The story is set on our Earth, past, present and future.
The heroes are immortal, Wandering Spirits. They have existed on Earth since before Mankind, and will still be there after Mankind. In a way, they are gods: free to roam at will, to experience it all, without fear of consequences. In another way, they are but prisoners, condemned to live and relive the history of the world, either as passive observers, or as mere humans, borrowed for a day or a lifetime.