Deliberately Breaking Rules

 No, I'm not talking about cheaters, nor am I talking about fudging the dice behind the GM screen.

What I AM talking about is choosing to break the rules as a group. I think anyone who's played RPGs for a while will have played in a game where the players have house ruled some aspect of the game, but I'm not talking about that either.

What I am talking about is breaking the rules in a defined way. I guess the best known game that does this is Magic the Gathering, which has some basic easy to follow rules, but then every other card that gets played introduces a rule breaking change. Another card game that's similar is "Killer Bunnies".

Those are card games but what about RPGs you say?

The first time I heard about this in an RPG was a game of "Heroic Cthulhu" being GMed by Logan Horsford. In that game he had/has a vast deck of cards. Following a few simple rules players get a hand of cards, and through play at the table they play the cards and get given new cards.  This is all in addition to the normal role playing, not a replacement for it.

The card themselves break the rules of the game, or rather allow the players character to break the rules of the game. The simplest of cards would be something a "+10% chance on a skill check." Other cards might grant automatic success on a combat roll, a headshot with a gun, automatic pick pockets, or spotting a weakness. Each card modifies a rule, an action, scenario, plot point, and everyone effectively breaks the accepted rules.

Other cards are even more meta, allowing players to swap cards, or draw a full new hand. The entire concept of playing these cards during a game is meta, and becomes a game within a game. Its a fun thing to do, and once everyone gets used to how to play with the cards the actual playing of them doesn't get in the way of the game. The cards are an empowering thing, as a player you have a way of breaking the rules, getting past the limitations of normal play and do what would otherwise be impossible.

You can knock up a set of cards to use in almost any RPG. If you go for it, don't rush to produce the cards. Its easy to make far too many that are just +1 or +2 as those are easy to come up with. Think about it for a while, try to make as many cards as possible unique, and allowing you to do things you wouldn't normally be able to do.  For instance in D&D you might have a card  saying "You convince your target". or "You hear the trap firing and get out the way."

Now the real pitch. I made a set of cards to use in Cepheus Engine or Traveller games.