I've come to a key design decision with Cardlike. I've started putting together an outline of the rules and such. Note that for the 7DRL I will be concentrating on making it into a video game. So I don't think I'm cheating by starting early...
Anyway the core of the game is the combat system. I disliked how it was handled last time. Every enemy you didn't kill rolled on a chart to see if you die off. It felt wonky. So I'd like to go with a stat driven system like most RPG's. But in a card game you can do it a little differently. You can go with a result based system over a stat based system..
For example. When you pull a dragon card you see it's stats and hitpoints and what not and start rolling the appropriate dice to see what happens. Roll to hit and damage. Modify for skill, armor and weapon. This is what roguelikes, dungeons and dragons and final fantasy do, btw.
OR you can have each monster have a different effect on the player based on a dice roll. For example when you pull a dragon the card will say "Roll a Die: 1-4 = The dragon blasts you with red hot fire. Take 2 fire hits. 5-6 The dragon swipes at you with man sized claws. Take 2 hits." Each monster would also have a 'death number' that the player has to roll in order to vanquish the beast. A dragon would be a 6, of course. Probably a red six (fire immunity).
With heavy armor you could ignore rolls of 4-5-6 (or perhaps just ignore 3 hits per turn), with light armor ignore rolls of 6 (or one hit maybe). Ring of Fire Resistance would allow you to ignore any fire damage hits. A Sword of Dragon Slaying would allow you to roll 3 times vs Dragons. A shield of reflection would allow you to bounce back 2 ranged hits worth of damage allowing you two free attack rolls. As you can see one can get very creative with this and all of the stuff is written right there on the card. It can get complex but the complexity comes in small doses because you'll only be getting a card or two per turn.
The strength here is you do not have to teach your girlfriend how to play an RPG. She just tosses a die and sees "Oh man I got clawed!" So a result approach will make it more approachable. Easy to learn.
Using stats, however, would enable me to achieve that very roguelike quality of having monsters behave just like players. They'd use the same rules. This would allow allies and what not. Hell you could even play as one of the monsters if you'd like. It also makes it easier to make minor and obvious distinctions. As in 'this monster has more defense'. A result orientated approach would make it a bit tougher to distinguish between monsters at first glance but it allows a certain uniqueness and narrative quality to the game play.
So what say you all? Traditional RPG style combat with roll to hit and armor class and what not? It's tried and true. Or an easier to play but hard to design experimental result orientated approach?
I think both will be just as easy to program when the 7DRL rolls around.
