DriveThruRPG’s heist-themed TTRPG festival PocketQuest is running and Geek Native has been catching up with the indie creators.
The rules for PocketQuest are straightforward but challenging, as the heist game must be a self-complete download in just 25 pages. Designers don’t get to refer to a second book of core rules.
Kevin Helock‘s Pocket Aces: A Game of Psychic Heists passes muster, coming in at 24 pages and needing no other reference book.
In fact, Pocket Aces does not even need dice. The TTRPG uses playing cards instead, making it suitable for trains, playing in the bus on a road trip, or when the puppy eats anything that falls off the table.
In Pocket Aces, players are thieves trying to steal secrets from the minds of their targets.
The download includes;
- Instructions for the card-based Pocket Aces game system
- Six casino-themed character classes, each with its unique heisting role
- Tips for GMing a game using Pocket Aces
- A sample heist outline to get you started
Kevin told us,
My favorite aspect of making my title was the challenge I gave myself: to design a rules-lite TTRPG that could be played with nothing more than a short rulebook and some standard playing cards. What at first seemed like a small change ended up having huge ramifications for gameplay, with the shift from dice to cards and thus independent to dependent probability meaning I had to pay very close attention to how the game balance shifted over the course of play as cards were removed from the deck. Thinking outside my usual box was a fun exercise, and one that’s made me hungry for more experimentation with different game mechanics.
I guess there wasn’t a nearby mind with the idea fully-fledged and from which a psychic thief could lift it!
Pocket Aces is a Pay What You Want game with a suggested price of $5.
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