A tabletop roleplaying game · In playtest
No dice. You draw what you can reach.
Fool's Wager is a card-driven RPG about skill under pressure. Your deck is the set of techniques your character can summon in the moment. When two sides clash, both draw, and the gap between the cards decides how sharply things go.
Try an opposed draw
Margin decidesDeck level = skill + a third of the attribute, from 1 to 11. A Master still fumbles sometimes. An untrained hand still gets lucky. The curves here are illustrative while the printed decks are tuned.
How it plays
Your deck is not your character sheet
A master knows hundreds of techniques. In the heat of a fight, a negotiation or a chase, they can only bring what's in hand. Fool's Wager is built around that gap.
Draw, don't roll
Both sides draw from decks matched to their skill. A bigger gap gives a sharper result: a glancing blow, a solid hit, a devastating one, or a clean counter.
Training shows
Cards are tagged by context. A soldier's combat techniques don't help at a banquet. They can still act, but their signature moves stay in the deck.
Every number means something
Low Pain Tolerance is an old wound that never healed. A Master's moves cost less time because the technique has become reflex. The rules tell the story too.
Every conflict uses one engine
A chase drains Stamina. A horror scene erodes Composure. A debate attacks Conviction. Combat is just the conflict that goes after Pain.
Your deck is your character's voice. Attributes shape how loud it is. Cards shape what it says.
No hit points
Five ways to break
Damage lands on five separate tracks, and each one heals at its own pace. Some recover in a breath. Some carry into the next scene, or the next session.
Pain
Blades, fists, falls, fire
Unconscious, or forced to surrender
Per injuryComposure
Fear, horror, humiliation
Loss of control: flee, submit, lash out, crack
Each new sceneConviction
Argument, temptation, doubt
The belief is abandoned. They give up or switch sides
Only through storyStamina
Chases, climbs, long fights
Collapse. Cannot stand or act physically
Every round at restFocus
Sustained effort, mental strain
Concentration drops and careful work fails
Every round at restEvery track uses the same ladder. Wounds make every meaningful action cost more, so a hurt character can still push, just not for free.
The economy of a second
Chips for effort, time for action
Five colours of effort
Each pair of attributes, physical and mental, fills one chip pool. At the start of a round everyone sets chips toward what they plan to do, then all plans flip at once. Changing your mind mid-round costs a chip.
One round is one second
Timing Points are your budget for that second. One TP covers about a foot of sprint. The fastest character acts first, and skill makes each action cheaper. Overspend and the debt carries into the next round.
Bring your own world
One rule set for swords, engines or starships
Fool's Wager ships without a setting. The same rules run high fantasy, steampunk, science fiction and modern occult. What would be magic in one world and exotic technology in another is called Energics, drawn from eleven sources.
Creatures are measured on three scales: body, mind and spirit. A house cat, a giant and a god can share the same table, and the scale gap tells you who can actually hurt whom.
Ready to play
Six characters, six ways to play
Each comes fully built with attributes, skills, talents and a 100-card deck.
Kira
A veteran who never made peace with the last war. Disciplined steel, and a wound that won't fully heal.
Sera
Draws power from knowledge itself. Quick-witted, learned, and dangerous when given a moment to think.
Marcus
Small, quiet and persuasive. Lives with chronic pain and gets through doors that should stay shut.
Tormund
A half-giant who builds with the same hands used for fighting. Steady, heavy and hard to move.
Brother Aldric
Touched by the divine. Heals, steadies and speaks with the weight of faith, even under fire.
Lyra
Runner, tracker and trapper, with a little of the wild in the blood. Good at a bit of everything.
Where it stands
On the table now
The full rules are written and the first physical cards are going to print. Playtesting is underway with four ready-to-run scenarios, from a single teaching fight to a three-scene descent.
- First Blood 1 scene · learn to play
- The Hollow Shrine 3 scenes · combat
- The Salt Road Toll 2 scenes · combat & social
- The Drowned Belfry 3 scenes · up to extreme
Playtest sign-up
Take a seat at the table
Tell us a little about your table and you'll be first in line for playtest kits, development notes and news when the game opens up. It takes about two minutes.