Rascals (Caradoc Games)
$12 print+PDF on Exalted Funeral
What it is: a short sci-fi themed heist-driven RPG in 35 pages, powered by a deck of cards. Rascals is something of an oddity in the indie zine reviews I have made so far in that it uniquely deviates from pretty much any RPG I have experienced, diving deep into card game territory, while still alleging it is an actual RPG. I imagine it can and is played by those who love it as such, but if you are not overly used to card games, this game is probably going to feel completely off to you on many levels. Unfortunately I am one of those where the concept of card game based mechanics is just a bit too much for me; the level of card involvement I am able to handle is of the Savage Worlds variety (so, cards are useful tools for randomization and initiative, but not mechanical drivers). Rascals takes the idea to a whole new level.
The System: Rascals is driven by two decks of cards, one for the players, who will get a hand of five cards and a set of rules on how to play the cards based on their character role, and one deck for the house, which is the GM. You have something called hustle, which powers special actions, lets you discard and redraw, and is also your damage stat. You also have insight and a set of special card playing abilities based on your player role, which might be the brain (mastermind), the face (swindler), the muscle (fightr) or the stick (driver or thief). For example, the muscle can spend a point of hustle after all cards in a challenge are revealed to draw another card and add it to his existing card. Stuff like that. It's not very intuitive for me, so I will draw these examples (pun intended) from the book to demonstrate that which my poor non-card-minded-brain finds unfathomable.
Once you settle on your role you can start with one trick, which is a way to play a card for effect. Example: a brain may take "Grand Strategist" which lets them pull the top four cards on the House deck and reorder them as desired and replace on the deck. It's...interesting. I am getting weird shades of the early nineties when everyone I knew was suddenly into Magic The Gathering and any other of the myriad card games in existence. It is possible, I bet, that someone really into a game like MTG might find Rascals rather simple and easy to grasp, maybe.
Task resolution involves the House assigning difficulty and then that determines how many cards are drawn. Players draw cards in accordance with the ability under task, and presumably can call on their tricks to influence the result if appropriate. There's a good 3 pages on how to perform these action and challenges and interpret the cards.
It goes on like this; this is a card game powering an RPG. If that sounds cool to you, I suggest you check it out, but Rascals hurt my brain in a way none of these other zine RPGs even came close to (for the most part). So rather than try to bitterly wrap my head around it I am going to concede its an interesting concept that seems like it might work for the right group, but I am not going to be in that group.
The Setting: Rascals has about 3 pages in total on its setting, which is a cluster of 234 star systems which only recently ended a brutal conflict. The player characters are the elite special agents and spies of this conflict, now technically retired, when only a few short years later a new and threatening plot brings everyone back together. In addition to the brief intro to this setting there are about five pages of card-driven randomized details for creating a conflict. It provides enough info for a good House (GM) to improv into it. Aside from that....there's some minor info on ships, gear and weapons, but atypically for most scifi it is largely vague and deliberately not given as much mechanical importance.
The brief setting in Rascals would be a good starter outline for a Traveller or Mothership campaign, or even a concept that could be fleshed out in Death in Space. It's the foundation of this game system, of course, but most of the Rascals rulebook is about explaining the card mechanics...the bulk of the setting is purely a suggestive outline.
Supplements: I have seen at least one sourcebook/scenario for Rascals on Exalted Funeral, but that is it.
Who Should Buy This? I have not, obviously, thought of playing this game as the card-based mechanics are just anathema toward what I want out of an RPG. The card-based approach is just too abstract and unrealistic for my tastes. I might be willing to try it if someone else ran the game, but I sincerely doubt I would be able to get in the right mindset; the card mechanics are just too specific in their approach, and I may just be too old a dog for new tricks. But that said, I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from checking it out if the card mechanic concept sounds interesting to you. There are gamers out there with a much more methodical, technical mindset than my own, for whom the abstract card mechanics may make more intuitive sense, and this system might very well appeal.
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