Action: A Mix-and-Match Roleplaying Card Game

Easing a bit off of the Pause train for now to present to you an easy-to-learn card game.

Action! is a roleplaying card game for four to ten players. One player assumes the role of the Director, who chooses a Genre for the other players, who assume the role of the Actors, to play out a scene in. Each Actor has a Character archetype and a primary Attitude to use while playing out the scene. The Director can choose to CUT! an Actor from the scene, after which the role of Director goes to the left and a new scene begins, with all new Genres, Characters, and Attitudes to go with it.

The complete rules and cards can be found here.

Please note that when printing out the file, print it out double-sided so that the cards' obverse and reverse match to cut them out with ease.

Pause // Playtest Rules 0.5.1

Allright y'all, quick addendum to the new ruleset concerning Sync and Lock Out. I forgot to put all that in when publishing these rules in the first place. My apologies!

Playtest Rules 0.5.1

Pause // Playtest Rules 0.5

Finally got the new rules all put together in a neat PDF package. Bear in mind that it is formatted to be printed out, so there are page numbers and headers on alternating sides of each page as you read the manual. There are also blank pages and blank spots throughout the manual as a placeholder for future illustration when I can get to it. For now though, here's the rules. Merry belated Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Playtest Rules 0.5 on Rapidshare

Pause // (WIP) Playtest Rules 0.5

In both an effort to make the game as smooth to play as possible, as well as to define rules for the investigations which are supposed to be so important to the gameplay experience of Pause, I have come up with some very notable rule changes for the upcoming version 0.5 of the playtest rules. Some of them are as follows:

• Adding sub-stats called Aspects, three for each Trait, in order to allow the player to better define his or her character. They also contribute to possible Merits and Flaws, which can be used as situational modifiers to dice rolls. (Yes, I'm borrowing this from World of Darkness. Deal with it.)
• Adding a shared team metric called Sync and removing Critical Status, as it got too clunky and was notably easier to revive from Lock Out than to heal the team member in the first place. Damage beyond a character's health is dealt to the team Sync, resulting in negative effects upon the team. Sync can be changed through other ways too.
• Reducing the number of Domains from seven to six. Also changing their function a bit - they can be used for situational extra dice before a roll.
• Lock Out will be tied more to the team's Sync than their individual health levels. The exact effects of Lock Out are to be determined.
• Actions are now all one point of Personal Time to use. More difficult actions have higher target numbers, as usual. More PT can be used to gain an advantage. Domain points can be used for extra dice in situations where they can be used rather than PT. Sync can be used for extra dice in dire situations.
• Consolidating the Within a Pause and In Between Pauses sections into one section about gameplay.
• Gameplay will now be divided into Scenes, which can be a combat or part of an investigation.
• Turn order now remains the same during an entire Scene rather than being rerolled each turn, unless characters wish to swap their places once during the Scene.
• Customization of actions and Domains still cost additional PT, but DO NOT add dice to the roll.

With so many rule changes already in the works, as well as others which I am considering, it makes sense that I will have to rewrite entire parts of the manual to accommodate the changes. Please be patient while I do this, as well as to make the manual into a more presentable piece of work (hooray Adobe InDesign!), not to mention that work still has me in a wonky-as-hell schedule thanks to the holiday season. Thanks for the continued support and I hope to keep hearing more suggestions and criticism from y'all!

Pause // Playtest Rules 0.4

Updated playtest rules!

• Character Creation
• Added a section on creating a character's concept
• Domains
• Down from 10 Domains to 7 Domains
• Domain scores are re-interpreted
• Domain uses are re-interpreted
• Examples now in priority of target number
• Anchors
• Weapon mode is now as flexible as tool mode
• Damage
• Got rid of composite damage (Light+Moderate, etc.)
• Personal Time Recovery
• Got rid of the excess ET dice rule
• Breaks
• New appendix with a better description of them
• Aberrations
• Got rid of the particular examples
• Improved Aberration generation in its appendix
• Character Sheets
• Changed them to reflect the rule changes

Pause // Playtest Rules 0.3.1

Well, I guess I lied when I said I would take a break. There were a few clarification issues brought up by the playtesters about the game about the Breaks as well as part of the character creation process, so I addressed them here. Also included now is an alternate rule regarding the modifiers, so check that out as well.

Taking a Break

More like taking a break from Pause and focusing on something else. I've also been taking more time to focus on ye olde job searche. I have also been revisiting an older game idea I called Iconoclast.


In Iconoclast, every player had control of a fictionalized pop culture Icon, be it an analogue of a rich corporate executive, a clueless celebrity princess, a greedy televangelist, or a haphazard politician. Players could then link Puppets - entities who could defend the otherwise defenseless Icon - and Toys - abilities which can be used for instant effects later in the game - to their Icons. Further cards could be linked to these cards, so forth and so on.


Iconoclast was all about positioning the Puppets and Toys. Certain cards could only link in certain directions in relation to the originating card, and linking them in certain ways could trigger bonuses upon the involved cards. Also, the stronger the card, the more cards in your hand it would cost to place the card in the first place.


While promising, Iconoclast proved rather unwieldy in playtesting. First of all, each player had his or her own array of cards surrounding his or her Icon. While good in theory, this required a large playing space for each player in the later stages of the game. Secondly, the rules got a bit complex and difficult to explain, which caused all sorts of grief when trying to make it understandable to the players. Soon enough, I dropped the project, but somehow kept the cards from the playtest.


I would like to revisit the idea of a modular card game, but with some notable fixes. 1) Make the array of cards shared among all players, perhaps leading to more shrewd and treacherous strategies. 2) Make it more rules-light to increase accessibility and playability. 3) Maintain the parodying theme, but make it more relevant to current culture.


Ideas and suggestions are always welcome!

Pause // New Wiki

Nothing new with the rules, but I have compiled them in a wiki format as well as created a playtest setting. You can find both at Obsidian Portal. Although it's not labeled as such, I am indeed looking for players for the playtest. Feel free to let me know if you're interested.

Pause // Playtest Rules 0.3

Hello there. It's been a while since there was an update, but I have been working on the first fixes for Pause. And here they are! Enjoy!

Pause // The Unfinished Dissertation

And now, storytime!

Welcome to ThatNewGame

First and foremost, thank you for visiting ThatNewGame. I hope that you will enjoy the blog as much as I will writing it.

ThatNewGame is the blog of board, card, and pen-and-paper games I currently have in development. This blog is here to 1) provide news about these games in development; 2) provide in-progress materials for playtesting; and 3) provide a platform for playtesters to give feedback. This blog will also be a launch pad for other game ideas that I may have, but not ready to develop quite yet.

As for the reason of creating ThatNewGame, it's quite simple. I believe that gaming has become more and more of an open-source affair. Development has become far more transparent than before given the advances in the Internet. I also believe that gaming, in general, has the power to bring people together, even (and sometimes especially) in hard times. The synthesis of open game development along with the fundamental social value of gaming is what makes ThatNewGame special to me. Hopefully, you will share in that vision, or at least enjoy the product of such synthesis.

J. S. Cervini