Don't wanna work on my map anymore, so it's a review time while I watch some european football.
Dragon and Warrior is a GMless game by OrionCanning where the players will craft the four pillars of a traditional RPG while drawing the maps out. Inspired by JRPGs, it looks to capture that vibe. It also uses a deck of cards, sans jokers.
This game was included in the Itch Bundle for Racial Justice
The game is for 2-6 Players, but works best with 4 players, according to the rules. One of the first things you do as a group is start to build the palette, which is talking about things you want in the game, and things you don't. These are your high concept things, not specifics.
There are 4 roles you each will use for setup: The Warrior, Treasure, Villain, and The Ally. You draw cards, and pick in order of high card to low card. Each role will be set up in the above order, with some of them having paragraphs that are to be read to the entire group.
Not mentioned explicitly, but there is a link to a google drive with them, are Conflict Cards. These are notecards that have the monsters stats on one side and the artwork and name on the other. Stats are for the Villain to know and the art is to help make the party see their enemy. There are 20 of these to construct your bestiary.
What's interesting about this is how it breaks running a game down to it's base parts, and distributes them.
The Warrior
The protagonist of our story. The Warrior will distribute points to improve their base stats between Strength, Agility, HP and MP. Once created, the other players should ask The Warrior some questions, to flesh them out, be sure to write down the answers.
The Treasure
The treasure starts their turn by naming the town you start in. They then draw the starting town, and have the ability to draw something on the map whenever they'd like. This can be inspired by a question asked by another player, or by reading the room and getting a feel for what everyone is interested in. Be sure to list who is in each building that's enterable. The Treasure is then asked questions about the town, the king's castle, and the kingdom.
The Villain
Players start by asking the Villain questions, which will ultimately establish most of what you need to know about them. The Villain gets to make the Conflict Cards mentioned above, and they usually represent a single enemy, group of enemies, bosses, or even dangerous terrain and environmental hazards. These can be your random encounters as needed, and you can stat them up as you go as the Warrior gets stronger and levels up. During a Scene the Warrior or The Villain can call for a battle, while a Warrior can only engage a fight from within towns.
The Ally
The Ally essentially controls the helpful NPCs of the world, and helps flesh out the world through the questions they're asked. They can also make an explicit Ally as a party member for the Warrior, to play a supporting role.
Scenes
The Warrior controls The Warrior, The Villain controls the enemies, while the Ally controls well, allies, and The Treasure has the reigns on the background characters that may be in the scene. The Ally and the Villain can have other players take over specific characters if desired. After the scene, the Warrior should have their first Quest.
OK, this next part is Very Good IMO and I want to just quote it wholesale.
Before The Warrior leaves, they should ask Treasure about those chests. What do they look like? The Warrior should pick one to open first, and ask Treasure what’s inside. The Warrior is crushingly aware of the dependence on equipment for survival – when The Warrior finds treasure the attention zooms in on it. The Treasure player will describe the item in exquisite detail: the way the light plays off it, the sound it makes when pulled from the chest, the feel and the weight of it. There are three types of treasure: consumables, equipment, and Quest items.
This is VERY JRPG to me. The laser like focus on treasure chests, and the hope that each one carries some cool new spell or weapon or armor? Perfect.
Also, keeping with how genre agnostic this is, they use default names for things and highly encourage you to make these things tied to the world. The basic healing item is just called healstuff, but it could be an inhaler in a sci-fi setting, some herbs with a special name, a fragile charm, or a traditional potion. It should fit with the feel of the place. The same goes for "helmet". The typical JRPG will start you with something like "Tin Helmet" "Leather Cap" or "Worn visor".
Upon defeating a Conflict, the Warrior receives things whose total level equals the level of the Conflict. So beating a level 5 enemy can get you a level 5 piece of Equipment or a Level 3 Equipment and a Level 2 Consumable.
OK, so here's something fun. I didn't touch on these, but you'll need some tokens, 3 for each player, that start off in a central pot. The Warrior can pass Tokens out to other players when they do something cool or interesting, but a player can hold no more than 3. At any time, a player can give up their 3 tokens to take over the role of the Warrior, trading their role with them. This is why you want the table to have a good grasp on the Warrior's whole jam.
Locations
The main areas the Treasure will be constructing are the Town, The Outdoors, Points of Interest, and Dungeons. The starting town is Level 1, and the connected Outdoors area will be level 2, and as you move further out, the places should get stronger, almost like a hex crawl. Points of Interest are like single spaces within a larger area, such as a tower in the woods, a spring, or the Cellar Beneath The Bar that just has a troublesome rat problem. These are often associated with Quests, but can also be added for some more ways for the Warrior to get treasure and experience.
Whenever a player enters an Area that's a higher level or equal to their level, they must fight. Each Area can contain things like towns, dungeons, or points of interest.
Dungeons are interesting. You're going to want extra paper for that, since it's treated like a separate "town". Each room in the Dungeon is it's own little encounter, and the level goes up by 1 for each floor you go down. This can make dungeons treacherous but also really good spots to acquire treasure. When a dungeon is cleared, it can become a town too. And Dungeon doesn't have to mean just an underground dungeon. It could be a sky island, a canopied forest, an old temple... and so on.
In some rooms, you can instead of have Obstacles, where the Warrior would have to use one of their Quest items to get by. Something like a magic candle or a rope or something that they needed for something. Some obstacles can lead to a battle but they don't have to.
Bosses are nasty pieces of work, having more stats per level than other Conflicts. They also have more treasure too, twice their level's worth in fact.
Combat
Let's get to that deck of cards. The Warrior and the Villain will draw cards based off their own formula (Warrior = 2+Agility, Villain = 3+(Conflict Level/5 (rounded down). You use the Cars when attacking and defending, with Aces counting as 1 and face cards, 10. King can block anything. Normally you only play one card a turn, but if the Warrior has a Dragon Token, they can spend one to play an extra card, and add them together.
The Warrior has a special Critical Hit option though. They can freely play multiples of the same number to Critically Hit. They add the total together and can only be blocked by a double/triple/quadruple of the same value or higher. They need to match however many construct your attack.
You can also Maneuver (Regain your ability to defend/oppose an attack), Use an Item, Cast a Spell, and Run Away. The Treasure should set up a good description of the encounter and how the battlefield changes, if it does. If they fight through the woods, they may end up in a clearing, for example, where a lightning spell may now hit, or they could end up under the canopy of trees where it could be blocked.
Upon leveling up, the Warrior trades his role with anyone else of their choosing, after spending the level up stat increases. I like this A Lot. This is a great way to keep everyone invested and gives the original Warrior player a chance to get involved with the worldbuilding more.
There are a few rules I left out in this 24 page PDF, but what I've read I like a lot! It seems like a great wway to kill an evening with friends, it's designed for one-shot play or a campaign, and it gets everyone involved in making a JRPG-ass-JRPG. The card based combat system seems quick and tidy as well. This feels like a good time.