Trump: The Roleplaying Game built around a deck of cards.

Character Information:Name: The character's name.

Strong Suit: This effectively determines half your "Class," and represents your, well, strong suit. When using a card from your Strong Suit, it automatically wins ties regardless of how it's used.Example: Johnny Night wants to shoot a wiseguy who's trying to kill him. They each play a card face down to resolve the attack, as normal. The cards are flipped, and the thug has an 8, and Johnny flips an 8. Normally, Johnny would lose, but because Clubs is Johnny's Strong Suit, he instead wins and nails the chump in the shoulder.

Weak Suit: This is the other half of your Class, representative of what you're bad at. Playing a card from your Weak Suit reduces its rank by 1. If you're playing it in an appropriate circumstance, this stacks with and cancels out the bonus that normally applies.Example: Johnny must now attempt to attempt to talk his way out of a barfight before things get ugly. He plays a 10, and the Dealer reveals a 10. Normally, using a Diamond for such a finesse-based task would raise the rank of his card, and he'd succeed. Because Diamond is Johnny's Weak Suit, however, that bonus is nullified. Players lose ties, so the next thing Johnny sees is a pool cue coming at him.

Hand Size: This is analogous to both Health and Level. Everyone starts with a hand size of 2, enough that if they're lucky, they can use a Pair. The most elite people in the world can get up to a Hand Size of 8. Mythical heroes get up to a hand size of 10. Your Hand refreshes to its full size at the end of a scene, and losing your Hand doesn't necessarily mean you're getting injured. The consequences of having your hand emptied are up to the Dealer, based on the situation. Losing all your cards during a shootout might mean death, but losing all your cards in an argument may simply mean you lose the argument.

Story Chips: Story Chips are sort of like Experience. You can get Story Chips in two ways: Earning and Betting.Earning: By doing good role-playing and acting in-character to solve difficult problems, you can win Story Chips.

Betting: You can Bet Story Chips on actions at the Dealer's permission. This represents putting your all into a long shot, taking the perfect shot, or turning an enemy to an ally with a few words. If you succeed, you keep the Chip you bet, and then another Chip as winnings (possibly more if the bet was particularly insane). If you fail, you lose the Story Chip, on top of any negative consequences for failure.

Spending Story Chips:You can spend a Story Chip to throw out a number of cards up to your current hand and redraw up to the number you threw out,

You can spend a Story Chip to increase your chances of succeeding by raising or reducing a Card's Rank by 1

You can spend Story Chips at the end of a session to gain certain in-story benefits for later (buying out a company, getting a new gun, making new contacts)

Signature Card: Once a character has a Hand Size of 5, they can choose a Signature Card. This card is representative of your character, and has a special benefit attached whenever it's used under the right circumstances. This card can be the any numbered card, excluding those from the character's Weak Suit. The chosen card then has two conditions attached. These conditions have to be specific enough that it isn't going to come up constantly, but common enough that it's liable to come up during play, and when those conditions are satisfied, a specific benefit happens.Examples:Johnny Knox has the Six of Clubs as his signature card. Any time he uses the King of Clubs to make a trick shot to disarm an enemy, he can make another disarming shot at any other enemy immediately, using the Six of Clubs as the card drawn. This second shot does not receive the Signature Card benefit. When used to successfully intimidate a person, that person will be compliant the next time he needs to intimidate them without need for another attempt.

Suits:Clubs: Aggression, Choleric. Clubs are best used for performing acts of violence and aggression, whether it's shouting down an opponent in a debate, kicking the crap out of a guy, or mowing people down with guns.

Diamonds: Finesse, Sanguine. Diamonds are best used when a gentle touch is required. Sweet-talking a cop out of giving you a ticket, handling delicate objects, and solving cunning puzzles.

Hearts: Instinct, Phlegmatic. Hearts are best used for acting on your gut and following your instincts, whether you have a bad feeling about a guy, or you just can't shake the sense you're being watched.

Spades: Endurance, Melancholic. Spades are best used for hard work, practice, and learning skills. If you need to keep up with somebody in a foot chase, take a punch, or cram for a test, Spades is your best bet.

There are also some decks with additional or alternate suits. Feel free to use them with this, especially if you're playing in a fantasy or sc-fi setting and want to separate magic and/or high-tech into its own suit!For example, a Fantasy setting might include Tarot suits that represent the branches of magic:Pentacles: Life and healing magic, animals, plants, nature. Magic manipulating the raw, natural parts of the physical world is governed by Pentacles.

Wands: Action, forces, creation. Wands are used to hold and control raw physical forces, from fire to thunder to motion, as well as the conjuring and creation of nonliving things.

Cups: Emotion, protection, communication. Users of Cups facilitate communication and perform spiritual healing, or else bend the hearts and emotions of others to their yoke.

Swords: Wisdom, Strength, Perception, Knowledge. Swords magic can imbue new properties onto things, as well as gathering knowledge and information about them.

Mechanics:Every action is resolved with the playing of cards. The cards are played as follows:The characters attempting and receiving the action each play a card from their respective hands, face-down, on the table.

At the same time, all involved players and the Dealer reveal their cards.

Look at the cards for both value and suit.For each card, determine if the suit matches what the character is trying to do. If so, increase its Rank by 1. Aces become Ace+, which is basically the only way to beat an Ace.

If the card is from the player's Weak Suit, the card's Rank is reduced by 1.

If a card is a Joker, then its player automatically and spectacularly fails. If both cards are Jokers, they both fail spectacularly.

Compare the values involved.If this is a team effort, the highest Ranking card of each team is used.

If there is one character taking action against multiple opponents, each opponent's card is compared separately from all the others, and each character succeeds or fails independently.

Highest value wins, and the Dealer wins ties.

Hands are combinations of cards that can be played to grant minor benefits at the Dealer's discretion. The Dealer can play Hands, too, mind. How big and far-reaching a benefit depends on the Hand used, and what exactly the Hand's effects are is up to the Players and the Dealer. In addition to gaining a benefit from a Hand, you can block the effect of another character's Hand by playing an equally or higher-ranked Hand. When comparing Hands of the same type, the higher-ranked hand is the one that uses the highest-Rank card (so a Full House of 3's and 8's is lower-ranked than a Full House of Kings and Deuces). The Hands (from lowest to highest) are as follows: Pair, 2 Pairs, 3 of a Kind, Straight, Flush, Full House, 4 of a Kind, Straight Flush, and Royal Flush (The Dealer may optionally allow Five of a Kind if players are using multiple or nonstandard decks). Benefits range from small and short-lived with a Pair, to grandiose and astounding with Royal Flushes.

The Discard: When playing cards, either to resolve an action or to play a Hand, the played cards go in the discard. Cards lost simply due to playing them are always immediately replenished by drawing from the deck, while cards lost due to damage aren't redrawn until the end of a scene. Once your deck is empty, fear not. Just reshuffle (or have the Dealer or another player reshuffle) your Discard pile into the deck.