Draw

A Simple Western TTRPG

 Art by Bone Dust. Find them at artstation.com/vttp or instagram.com/bonedustuff.

The main font used is Carnivalee Freakshow. The creator suggests that you donate to the Koala
Hospital, which can be found at koalahospital.org.au.
 Draw is a TTRPG about cards and cowboys. In it, you and some friends play
characters as you complete heists, get into shootouts, or anything else.

Required to play:
• Someone to act as the Cardmaster
• One deck of cards for each player, including the Cardmaster
• These rules

Card Values:
The cards numbered 2-10 are worth their value, face cards are worth 10,
and aces are worth 1 or 11, of the player’s choice at any time (it can change, if
they choose). When determining which is higher, Ace is the highest, followed by
King, Queen, Jack, and then the numbered cards from highest to lowest.

Creating your outlaw

Health:
The most important part of any character is their health. That’s what
tells you how close to dead they are.

Whenever a player takes damage, they draw a card. Then, they either add
that card to their damage pile, or draw another card, which they must add to
their damage pile. When a player’s damage pile exceeds 21, it is cleared and they
take one damage. However, if the damage pile hits exactly 21, the pile is cleared
and they heal one health (not over their maximum). A player falls unconscious
when they reach 0 health, which means their damage pile has exceeded 21 three
times.

When a player is unconscious, they cannot take actions, and at the start of
their turn, they take one damage. If their damage pile exceeds 21, they die.
However, if their damage pile reaches exactly 21, they return to consciousness
with 1 health and a cleared damage pile. An unconscious player will stop taking
one damage every turn if someone does a successful medicine check on them, and
their damage pile will also be cleared.

For example, let’s say your damage pile currently is at 2, and you take
damage. First, you draw a card, which turns out to be an 8 of spades. You don’t
want such a high value, so you decide to take the next card. You draw a jack of
hearts, which is worse, but you must take it since you passed on the 8. Now your
damage pile is at 12.

Signature Card:
Each player in Draw gets a signature card. This card determines some of
their abilities, and is core to their character.

When you create a character, you either pick a card or randomly draw one.
This is your signature card. If your Cardmaster chooses, you might be limited to
only a select group of cards. Your signature card can replace any other card in
the game when it is drawn, as well as perform its signature ability.
 For example, if an enemy hits you and you draw a jack for damage, you could
instead use your signature card to make that be the damage you take instead.

When you use a card to replace another or perform its signature ability,
you put it into your discard pile. You will get it back and be able to use it again
when you either draw it again or rest for at least 1 hour.

Optional Rule: You cannot replace a card drawn by another player unless they
allow you to. This aims to prevent players harming each other with their
cards.

Card special abilities are determined by the suit of the card, each of them
acting slightly differently. They are as follows:

• Hearts: When someone would take damage, you may first use your card to
remove one of that person’s damage cards.
• Clubs: When someone would take damage, you may first add your signature
card to that person’s damage cards. If this would cause them to reach 21,
their health clears before they take the damage.
• Diamonds: When someone makes a skill check, you may add your card’s value
to their card’s value.
• Spades: When someone makes a skill check, you may subtract your card’s
value from their card’s value.
Proficiencies:
There are 13 skills in Draw. They are as follows:

Agility - A character’s ability to do careful movements quickly, and, if they

wish, quietly or without detection, such as climbing up an object, sneaking around,
or picking pockets.

Communication - A character’s ability to talk with others and convince

them of things, as well as to understand when someone is lying.

Explosives - A character’s ability to use explosives and not hurt themselves

in the process.

Fisticuffs - A character’s ability to beat the snot out of people with only
their bare hands.

Gambling - A character’s skill at gambling, which includes picking up on

other’s tells, and sometimes even an uncanny sense about upcoming cards.

Guns - A character’s ability to wield guns.

Horseback Riding - A character’s ability to ride a horse or similar creature
and control said creature, make it move quickly, and not get spooked.
Intimidation - A character’s ability to frighten others using threats.

Medicine - A character’s knowledge of medicine and ability to diagnose and

help with medical problems.

Muscles - A character’s ability to use their muscles to perform feats of

strength.

Safe-Cracking - A character’s ability to understand how locks and machines

work, and how to manipulate them.

Scrutiny - A character’s ability to detect subtle changes with any of their

senses.

Trickery - A character’s ability to tell lies to others convincingly.

When you create a character, you select 5 of these skills to be proficient with.
 Playing the Game
Skill Checks:
When something that is not assured to work happens (at the cardmaster’s
discretion), a player must make a skill check. These are made either as a contest
or just against a set difficulty. If it is a contest, both players draw a card
simultaneously. Then, if either is proficient, they may choose to draw another
card and use that one instead. They do not get to look at this second card
before deciding whether to use it or the first one.

Optional Rule: if you’d like to make deciding to take the second card a more
difficult choice, you can make it so neither gets to see each other’s cards before
deciding.

The player with a higher card value wins the skill check. If the two
players have equal cards, then they do the same contest again.

If it was a skill check against a set difficulty, then if the card is equal or
greater than the difficulty of the check (again, they may draw a second card as
described above if they are proficient), they succeed. In either case, the
Cardmaster determines what success or failure means.
 Additionally, for skill checks, Aces are critical successes for players and
critical failures for enemies, so these can make successes even better.

Resting:
Players can rest to recuperate their wounds. When a player’s damage pile
is not empty, for every hour that they rest, one card is removed from their
damage pile. When a player’s damage pile is empty, for every two hours that
they rest, they heal one health.

Combat:
Turn order:
In combat, turn order is determined by each player’s signature card. The
lower its value, the earlier in combat you go. If there are any ties, they go in
the following order, determined by suit: Spades first, then Clubs, then Diamonds,
and finally Hearts. Any remaining ties can be determined by skill check or
between the players. If an enemy and a player tie, the player goes first.

Actions:
On each of their turns, a player gets 10 paces (meters) of movement. Some
creatures have different movement, and if they do, this will be listed. Then,
they may take one of the following actions:

• Attack:
 A player makes an attack roll on an enemy with some weapon they can
attack them with, such as a gun, their fists, or a stick of dynamite. If they hit,
the enemy draws one card to their damage pile.

Optional Rule: if you want to make combat more unpredictable, you can
implement critical successes. Whenever a character gets an ace on their attack,
they add a bonus card to their target’s damage pile.

• Do Something:
A player does something that is reasonable to accomplish during the length
of their turn, at the discretion of the Cardmaster. This could be throwing
someone a gun, or climbing up a small object.

Players can freely talk and observe their surroundings (even if that
requires a check to see what they notice) during other’s turns.

Finally, there is an action that players can take outside of turn order:

• Draw!
When a player yells “Draw!” they immediately make an attack on a legal
target using a weapon that they are proficient with. If they are not proficient
with the weapon, they cannot make this action. Additionally, the player only
draws one card, and cannot choose to draw a second card as proficiency allows.
 This action can happen on anyone’s turn, and can go before any other action
(it cannot go before someone else’s draw action) for which a card has not been
drawn. For instance, if an enemy was throwing a stick of dynamite, a player
could only use this action before that only if a card had not yet been drawn to
do the action. After a player uses this action, they cannot use it again until the
end of their next turn, and during their next turn they can only use the
movement action.

Enemies:
A basic stat block will have four things: the name of the creature/person,
their max health, any skills they are proficient with, their movement speed, and
what card they use as their initiative score. Below are two examples:

Deputy Sheriff
Proficiencies: Guns, Horseback Proficiencies: Communication, Guns,
Riding Horseback Riding

Combat Order: 9 of Hearts Combat Order: 10 of Hearts

These two stat-blocks don’t have a line for max health or movement
speed, so you should assume that their max health is 1 and their movement speed
is 10 paces. Most basic enemies only have 1 health.
 Advanced enemies tend to be named, but otherwise have mostly the same
information. The only differences are that instead of combat order, they have a
signature card. This works the same as combat order, but means they also can
use their signature card the same way any player can. Additionally, they may
have extra abilities, which will be listed at the bottom.

Casino Boss Charles Yates Ruby ‘Gravedigger’ Goodman

Max Health: 4 Max Health: 3

Proficiencies: Communication, Proficiencies: Agility, Explosives, Guns, Safe-

Intimidation, Scrutiny Cracking

Signature Card: King of Diamonds Signature Card: 2 of Clubs

Command: As an action, Charles Go for the kill: Whenever Ruby uses her
Yates allows someone friendly to signature card’s ability, she can
them within earshot to take an immediately take another attack on a
action. different person.