Future Imperfect: Appendix - 2, Action Card Hacking

Gameplay in Future Imperfect is driven by Action Cards. Action cards are designed with speed, accuracy and playability in mind. Each card is fully capable of doing anything necessary to resolve any game situation in a single draw. They are also designed to be extensible, modular and customizable. This appendix will discuss those latter points.

Using Dice With the Cards

As has been stated many time within these rules, the Future Imperfect action cards are designed to be self contained, and dice are never necessary. Just because they are not necessary, does not mean they are not capable of working together. What follows are some guidelines and suggestions for how you can create the game you want using both dice and cards together.

Exceptional Results

The action cards implement exceptional results by font and color coding a subset of cells and then allowing optional, subsequent draws to enhance the given result. By definition this means that the cards have an upper bound that dice do not. That upper bound is extremely high, however. For example, the upper bound on d10 is 64 on a single die. The chances of exceeding that result with normal dice are literally less than one in a million; it is closer to one in 5 million, in fact. Suffice to say, the chance that any player is short-changed on a result due to the upper bound of the cards is almost none.

However, exceptional results are one of the most fun aspects of any RPG. This optional system helps bring more of a sense of control to players.

Cause Section

When an exceptional result is drawn from the deck, instead of drawing another card and consulting it, as the rules direct, instead throw the appropriate die and add it, as normal. When a maximum result comes up, throw another die.

This does produce a "hole" in the results, but this only persists for one card value. Because exceptional results span multiple values, over 5 cards, the full results set is complete.

Effect Section

The implementation for effect results is not as straight forward. Effect columns only have 2 exceptional results in the deck. This is due to the nature of the effects column and the cells themselves. The effect column includes sums of the number of dice listed. This means with exceptional results, it is impossible to roll just one die, unless its a one die cell, of course, without having conditional rules. The situation is rare enough that it doesnt matter much. The solution was just to reduce the number of exceptional results.

It makes sense, because single exceptional die results are already included in the sum. Glance at the spread and it is clear that this is already taken into account. Take card 13, for example. In the d6 effect column, (6) is 30, and (7) is 37. Many other cards include instances such as this.

One other solution was limiting the results to a single draw, but that seemed hollow. Instead, the exceptional results produce large increases at the high numbers of dice, because you add a full set of dice again. c'est la vie.

The question for adding dice to cards in the effect section becomes: how many? My suggestion is 1, but experimenting with a larger set, based on the row number, is reasonable (row number divided by 2, rounded down, for example).

Equipment Failure

Most equipment failure results are simple and do not need any tweaking. The 1* result, however, is the only card result that requires external input (checking the discard pile). The goal of that card is allowing some equipment to have less than a 2% chance of breakage. Many types of equipment have failure less than 2% of the time.

One potential system is to give each piece of equipment rated 1 in reliability a second rating, such as 1/5. The second number is what would be rolled on the die after. In this case, a d20 is suggested.

For example, if a piece of equipment were given a 1/5 reliability, and the 1* card is drawn, grab a d20 and roll. If the result is 5 or less, it fails. Otherwise, no breakage occurs.

Multiple Cards

The design of the cards is facilitated by the fact that in any case, one card has everything needed. There are many reasons for this, simplicity and elegance among them. But even though the results are separately randomized, some groups or gamers might oppose the success and magnitude results being on the same card, or penetration and damage, or whatever. The game is meant to be customizable, and this customization is simple.

If your group wishes to use multiple cards for resolution, as long as it is clear which card will be used for which results, any split maintains the integrity of the randomization. For best results, be consistent and note the card split clearly in a place accessible by all players. Having a sheet of paper with card sized images, a sequence number, and the results from each noted is simple to create and handles everything.

Shuffling Variance

As implemented, the deck has 2 shuffle results in 54 cards. This was chosen for a few reasons, the most important being controlling of extreme luck in either direction. Because the set is limited, there are only so many great results, and so many bad ones. This means if a bunch of bad results have come, the good results really are "on the way", the phenomenon known as the gamblers fallacy. When extreme results are removed, the remaining results are more normalized, or skewed in the opposite direction.

This may not appeal to you and your group. The more shuffle results, the more random the cards are, with a single draw from a newly shuffled deck performing almost exactly like dice. If greater randomization is desired, shuffle after each round, or shuffle after each card ending in 0.

If more normalization is desired, choose a trigger condition, such as card number ending in 0, but do not look for the trigger condition until after the Shuffle card is pulled.

Disparate Decks

Many decks are available for Future Imperfect. Most of the decks are functionally the same, but with results arranged differently. Some have different implementations of some effects. The decks are all designed to accomplish the same goals at the same level of balance. Each player may have their own deck, and, may use any deck version they wish. Multiple deck versions work and play well together at the game table.