Card-Based Success Checks

Simple mechanic to determine binary success/failure based on comparing two cards. I intend to use this system for my settlement game.

Premise

Each card has a rank: Ace > King > Queen > Jack > 10 > 9 > 8 > 7 > 6 > 5 > 4 > 3 > 2 > Ace

Each card has a suit: Diamonds, Clubs, Hearts, Spades. Some suits have automatic success conditions against other suits. For example, Clubs beat non-Clubs at fighting. Hearts beat non-Hearts during harvest.

Otherwise, cards of higher ranks always beat cards of lower ranks. King beats 6, and 6 beats 2.

Ties are always ambiguous.

Usage Notes & Caveats

Cards represent abstract binary oppositions in a challenge. Two cards are compared, one held by a player and one drawn by the referee. When 2 beats Ace, it should not be narrated that 2 had more technical skill than Ace; instead, Ace overestimated its own strength, or 2 exposed a weakness.

This has more interesting implications for non-combative situations. Say that there are two peasants, Heart-6 and Diamond-2. The referee draws a Spade-4 to determine the harvest that year. Spade-4 is greater rank than Diamond-2, so Diamond-2 produces no food. Heart-6 is excellent at harvest because of its suit, so it produces food.

Say that the referee drew Heart-8 instead. Diamond-2 automatically loses because the opposition is a Heart. Heart-6 can be directly compared in rank to Heart-8 because they are of the same suit, in which case Heart-8 wins. Thus Heart-8 may indicate an especially difficult harvest season, or a long-term failure of the peasants to maintain the fields.

The randomness of cards is extremely limited. Thus, they should not be used to represent random success odds against a consistent target, but consistent success rates against an unknown target. An adventurer in DND always has a 2-in-6 chance to break open a door. However, a Club-n card can beat any non-Club card at combat, or any Club card less than n. This is a completely different paradigm to approaching random scenarios and player agency.