Designer’s Cards-or-Tables Dilemma

 “Random chance plays a huge part in everybody’s life.”

— Gary Gygax

To use cards or not to use cards? That’s a question some designers might consider when developing mechanics for a particular game. Cards can deliver a similar infusion of effects we get from rolling dice on random tables. Differences exist in the two systems, but the result — generating a randomized element from a thematic list — remains the same. I’m debating whether to use cards or tables for a game I’m in the early stages of developing, a solitaire simulation focusing on supplying the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. As a player I love cards: the tactile nature, the space for illustrations, blurbs of lore, and stylized icons for values and functions. But at this early stage, and from a designer’s perspective, I’m leaning toward random tables as an expedient to focus more on concepts and system rather than give in to my urge to obsess over physical components.

Cards give board games another tactile component we can manipulate (in various ways) as we navigate the gamespace and work toward our ultimate goals for victory. Many games, especially board wargames, use them to drive the central mechanic: “card-driven” games. The Commands & Colors series uses them to provide options for different attacks along three fronts. Columbia Games’ block wargames frequently use them to create variable pools of activation points, limiting what players can accomplish with their forces. In some cases cards function as signifiers of assets, like the resource cards in Settlers of Catan. Some card components are secondary or tertiary to a core mechanic: I’m thinking cards with player aids, set-up instructions, and other player-facing elements of the game like the roles in Forbidden Island and Pandemic. These have a place on the table throughout much of the game, and while play might depend on referencing them, their presence doesn’t drive the mechanics.

Cards offer completely random results that don’t repeat unless additional copies of certain cards pad the deck or the discard deck reshuffles into a new draw deck. Cards also look great and contribute to a sense of high production value. They have room for individualized graphics reinforcing a game’s theme. Their layout often contains icons and values to help players identify, organize, and deploy them effectively. They contain space for textual special rules or additional clarification tied to a particular card. Some contain textual “lore,” additional material, even quotations, to enhance the card’s identity and add to the theme.

Cards are fantastic components from the player perspective; but they heap on additional cost from a production standpoint, often driving a game’s price higher than fewer or no cards at all.

Textual tables, randomized according to a die roll, can offer similar functions as card decks, though with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. They’re a lot easier to compile and lay out, with plenty of room for text describing their effects (though keeping them concise always helps). One can also skew results up and down the random number scale depending on situational modifiers and the table’s organization. Tables don’t increase production costs like card decks do; they often use already implemented print methods, appearing in a rulebook, reference sheet handout, or even on the board itself.

Table results do not deplete with usage like cards drawn from a deck and ultimately discarded through play. This can prove a boon as well as a bane. It enables the possibility of frequently re-rolling the same result; whereas once a card is drawn, and players know the card roster for the deck, they can remain confident it won’t come up again (or that multiples will appear less frequently), possibly affecting subsequent player choices. Tables don’t have the tactile appeal of cards, nor the impression of a high production value. They’re not tangible assets one can hold, examine for game values, and physically deploy. Tables have little capacity to impart thematic lore or illustration.

Yet in developing my latest game, I’m leaning toward using tables to generate random game effects. The design isn’t what I’d consider “card-driven,” but for the two major random elements I want to incorporate, tables seem to be the easier option right now. Would I prefer to have cards? Of course. But for now, and to bring the game concept to a playtest state, I’m opting for tables.

Why Not Both?

I’ve seen a few board game implementations using tables and cards in different editions. Not in the same game, but frequently in later iterations, using the same or similar components and rules. Worthington Publishing has produced a few such games that come to mind.

The most recent example emerged from a Kickstarter-funded “travel game” (so called based on its size and small footprint on the game table), one of several smaller historical solitaire board games the company released the past few years. Pacific War 1942: Solitaire revolves around the player taking actions to advance along several key fronts in the Pacific during World War II. After the player takes actions the Japanese “bot” implements countermeasures based on a table of effects randomized by a die roll (and, cleverly, odd or even tuns, essentially doubling the results generated by a single six-sided die). I backed the game and enjoyed it when it finally arrived. It’s an abstracted simulation of historical events but proved an accurate representation of the theater-scale military campaign as I leveraged various resources and available actions to pursue a path toward victory.

The Japanese “bot” operates using random results on a table: each turn roll one die, check whether it’s an odd or even numbered turn, and implement the listed results. Overall it offers 12 different effects, some dependent on conditions on the board (and providing no action if the situation isn’t right...a welcome break for the oft-struggling player).

In the past Worthington used nicely illustrated card decks for such “bot” operations, notably in its solitaire Tarawa 1943 solitaire game; in this case, the card deck offers far more options for Japanese actions than a simple 12-entry random table (though the game also offers a deck for the player to enhance the American’s actions during the battle). One could have distilled the Japanese “bot” effects — and perhaps even the additional American resources — onto randomized tables, with results determined by a 2D6 or even 3D6 roll. This would allow for plenty of results but also weighted results, those turning up on a range of numbers, to simulate greater frequency of occurrence.

In a recent Kickstarter campaign where I backed a Midway travel game, Worthington also offered the option to add on a card deck for the Pacific War 1942: Solitaire “bot” currently represented by random tables. And although it hasn’t arrived yet, the fact that Worthington thought it worthwhile to produce a card deck to replace tables reinforces my impression that the two formats have a good degree of interchangeable functionality.

I’m sure other games exist that use tables to function like card decks, and even games re-implemented from one format to another. It’s reassuring that — at least in my earliest design stages for a game about supplying the Warsaw Uprising — choosing to simulate random elements using tables instead of cards seems a reasonable choice providing similar results; one that might give potential publishers a production option between the two.

“One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes...and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt