Traveler's Gambit: A GM-less TTRPG - Post Mortem

Table of Contents

• What is Traveler's Gambit

I play a LOT of roguelikes, games like Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, Brogue, or Caves of Qud. I also am a huge fan of TTRPGs like Cairn by Yochai Gal, Electric Bastionland by Chris McDowall, or Knave by Ben Milton. Often, I find myself wishing I could have the experience I get from those roguelikes in my lightweight, OSR TTRPGs. So, I figured I could make it myself, something that would be easy to pick up for newbies, able to be run long-term without a GM, and that really drove home the gritty, hardcore surival mechanics in my favorite games. Easy right?

What is Traveler's Gambit?

Traveler's Gambit is a fully GM-less, playing card based TTRPG system. In practice it often plays more like a boardgame almost than an RPG, but it has a knack for generating some great stories when played in a more traditional way with a GM.

I'll try to give a quick overview without going too far into it, you can download the full SRD from here or read it online here; be warned it is a bit crunchy, and has no content with it, it is a blank slate for you to build off of.

It utilizes two decks of standard playing cards, in an attempt to make the game as accessible as possible (everyone has a deck or two of cards somewhere right?). One deck is for generating the world and the events that occur within it, the World Deck, and the other is for the the players use, the Draw Deck.

Characters

It might be best to describe the character before anything else, as it explains the buttons a player has to push during gameplay.

Traveler's Gambit characters have 4 ability scores, known as Domains, those being Combat, Finesse, Resilience, and Knowledge. Along with the Domains, characters also have 3 stats to track, Action Points (AP), Grit, and Focus. The Domains and Action Points are fairly self explanatory, but Grit and Focus may not be.

Grit serves as a way for a character to push their luck, it can be "spent" to add to the total of an attempt to push a bad hand over the edge. It is limited however, you only get 5 + Resilience per day to spend. Players can assist another player's attempt by spending some of their Grit, encouraging players to pool resources and work together.

A character's Focus is the size of player's hand of cards. These represent the character's will power, their ability to perform under pressure. At the start of a new day, a player will discard their currently hand draw new cards up to their Focus score. They do not get to draw more until the next day, once it's used, it's used. You can use as many focus cards in a single attempt as you want, but it might leave you struggling at the next attempt.

Resolution System

The resolution system in Traveler's Gambit is built to very tactical, apply some randomness but forcing players to manage their resources carefully. What would generally be called a "check" in most TTRPGs is called an Obstacle. Obstacles have a few components, the Target Number (TN), the Success Count (S), and the Tags, usually written as TN # / S # [ TAGS ].

To overcome an Obstacle, players make an Attempt, playing cards from their hand and attempt to meet or beat the TN as many times as the Success Count marks. The attempt gains bonuses based on the Domain used for the attempt, any Grit spent, or any items with tags matching the obstacle.

Should a player not be able to meet the TN, or maybe just wants to save resources, the can make a Chance Draw. The player first draws a card from the Draw Deck. If the card is a face card, they automatically suceed at the check and finish their attempt. Every other card is a failure.

When making a Chance Draw, any Ace's and 2's are critical successes and Critical Failures respectively, with a critical success gaining the character a Knack, and a failure a Scar. These are permanent effects on the character, changing their Domain scores, giving them new abilities, or increasing costs of actions.

The final piece, and arguably the biggest, both in terms of crunch and impact, the the tag system. Every item, every obstacle, every character background and location has tags associated. The

I'm actually most proud of this resolution system, it is fairly intuitive, allows for a good amount of player agency while still remaining tense. The Knacks and Scars, which I have taken from games like Knave and Cairn, serve as methods of progression for the characters since there are no levels, the world leaves it's mark on the characters as the play.

Origins

Originally, Traveler's Gambit started life as a game titled "After the End", a game that was almost a direct recreation and distillation of the game Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. It was a gritty survival game, with base building, heavy resource management, and a focus on community building and tough choices. The core gameplay works out in three distinct phases: Overland Travel, Combat, and Base Management.