WHICH QUEST? · 9:07am Mar 26th, 2019
On the weekend I ran a TRPG for some friends. I have (virtually) no experience GMing, and I'm bad at improv, so I was nervous and awkward the entire time. 
Somehow fun was still had. 
I don't want to tell session anecdotes. Just there's some features of the game's rules that I found inspiring...
The game I chose was Witch Quest, originally released in Japan in 1991, but a later PNP version released online was translated into English. It resembles Kiki's Delivery Service quite a lot. Overall the rules are kind of clunky and old-fashioned, but I liked the creativity shown as it tried to sidestep RPG conventions.
1. Dice
Kind of a minor point here. Skillchecks are performed by rolling two 6-sided dice, times the level of that skill, and a "success" is when you roll doubles of any number. This is just a 1/6 chance, so why not make it a simple 1d6 roll? Partially I think it's because the game is aimed at beginners, for whom remembering to look for matching doubles feels more special than aiming for the 6 (or the 1, every game does this differently). But also I think it's just fun to see that common coincidence of doubles appear. (much like how you get "rewarded" for that in Monopoly with another turn)
Actually casting magic is different though. You roll two 6-siders and then multiply the numbers, trying to get below a difficulty rating determined by several factors. I don't think I've ever heard of a game that multiplies the dice against each other, it's almost always addition. I doubt there's any elegant reasoning behind having a 1-36 result, though it makes the fluctuations in magical skill adjust difficult spells more significantly than easier spells (changing 4 to 5 makes a difference; 22 to 23 means nothing). Personally I think it's just there for flavor, to make the odds slightly more complex.
The dice rolling isn't great or anything, just a little different.
2. Cat
In this game each witch has a special cat familiar, and they're controlled by a pair of players (with odd numbers, the GM fills in the last pair). The witch and cat depend on each other with different roles and abilities, to the point where they actually share the same character sheet. There's a lot of cute mechanics, more for having fun roleplaying than practical. The cat is kind of a support who can give assistance on dice rolls, but also can be more directly physical and allowed to get into trouble than the pacifist witches (they even have their own seperate list of cat spells, which are hilarious).
What I like about this is it's an immediate hook for player interaction. You depend on your partner, so you'll discuss planning actions primarily with that partner before everyone else. In a larger group of players, it's useful for when the GM has to divide attention toward someone else.
3. Cards
The big gimmick in Witch Quest is that it comes with its own deck of tarot cards, custom designed to fit the fantasy setting. There's 29 cards, each numbered and corresponding to the 28 days of the lunar calendar, with the extra #0 card "Trickster" that defies all logic and meaning. 
It exists both in-character and out-of-character; the rulebook describes several divination spreads for fun, but it's also a major part of character creation. Optionally, they can be used for scenario inspiration, or as a makeshift fantasy name generator.
Mostly I find it fascinating that it went the extra mile to create an original tarot from scratch with its own symbolism, structure, and patterns. I've seen some custom decks with fancy art, but I've never actually seen anyone deviate from the traditional Rider-Waite system this much. I really wonder why they're so conservative.
(exception: special shoutout to horizon, who has used pony shipfic game cards for tarot readings 
)
While skimming the history of the Tarot a few days ago, I found it amusing that in most of europe they were just the standard deck used for games. They were created for play, and later on picked up its mystical reputation for fortune telling. Those 19th century occultists (falsely) claimed all their systems went back to ancient egypt as part of some mystical tradition or whatever to make them sound legitimate.
Why are they so obsessed with playing cards and ancient egypt anyway.... OH MY GOD THEY WERE YU-GI-OH FANS. THEY MUST'VE BEEN SENT BACK IN TIME! 
After several centuries of printed paper, out of the cards used for gambling, a belief system for communicating with the divine is born. Deus Ex Ludus. I actually don't think it's that strange it caught on. Mysterious and interesting things happen when people play games.
So the above rules for Witch Quest come off as cute and quirky, but also I think they hit the nail on some of the things that make TRPGs fun. The rituals of rolling dice and the tension of seeing what'll happen, to the player interaction when sitting around a shared table... it's connected to the act of drawing illustrated cards and looking for striking symbolism or coincidences. I know there's a certain perspective of TRPGs as trying to simulate a physical world, and the GM serves as input/output. But the dice aren't there merely as a random number generator, but as a sort of mini-game that's fun in a tactile sense. Just now we derive meaning from what numbers show up.
Change the components and you're changing the game itself. As an example, Slay the Spire is a dungeon crawler but uses no dice at all, just an ever-changing deck of digital cards that you play out for offence and defence. There's a lot of TRPGs out there that try to set themselves apart by finding brand-new ways to interpret dice input than D&D, but I'm more fascinated by how Witch Quest comes up with slightly nontraditional components and uses for dice. There's a different feeling to it.
Do I actually recommend playing Witch Quest? Well, maybe not, the execution isn't that amazing. The rulebook is only 40 pages, so it might be more fun to just read through that because it's so lighthearted and charming. I do like the witch tarot though, I'm kinda tempted to make my own physical version of that. Maybe. 
totally unrelated but neat: a simple TRPG designed with tarot cards as the only component
Glad you had a good time!
Glad you had fun! Sounds pretty awesome. :)
Because it scales very differently with skill level. If you have a 4th-level skill, then "take 4 dice, roll a 6 on at least one of them" would be about a 50% success rate [ 1-(5/6^4) ], while "roll doubles on eight dice" is guaranteed.
Thanks for the shout-out. Interesting to hear of other games using a Tarot mechanic. (https://rpggeek.com/rpg/7440/Fortune's Fool does too; I own a copy but have never gotten a chance to play.) I know Deadlands also does poker hands. It's an interesting game space because it really encourages theming.
"Deus Ex Ludus" is extremely underrated. Games have taught me more of God than all the churches on the planet.
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Each skill level rolls two dice, but every roll is independent of each other, instead of a dice pool. Not as fun or intuitive this way, I know! 1991 game design. (it never requires more than 2d6 at a time, so again I think it's meant for new players without a dice collection)
Sorry, I may have described that rule too vaguely.
the poker hand mechanic sounds kinda fun. I don't have anything against dice, but I think they establish a specific type of pacing, where a player takes many actions to even out the risk. a hand of poker is a bit slower paced and more delibrate, which sounds fitting for the wild west theme.