TerraCards

TerraCards is a collaborative location creation game. It can be played alone or with any number of friends: 4 players for the best experience with the base game, or up to 6 with the alternate team rules. Your first game will take about 30 minutes, once you are familiar with the rules playtime is around 6 minutes per player.

Do you want to build a temple? Explore a fantasy village? Learn the dealings of a trading empire? Discover the dark secretes of a kingdom? Conquer a country? Become a space pirate? Then TerraCards is for you.

As shown on the page 1 sample, during play you will:

• Determine the scale and era of the location.
  • Players can agree to or randomly determine what type of location they will create.
  • The location may be as focused as a single structure, or as wide as a collection of celestial bodies.
  • The era could be from any period in history, or far into the future.
• Generate the location's history by taking turns to add areas to the location and describe how they relate to existing areas.
• Create the location's advancing timeline by taking turns to either add new areas or replace existing areas, then describe how the location has changed over time.

As demonstrated on the page 7 sample, how it works:

• Each of the areas in a location area represented by a card from a normal deck,
  • Since our location scale is a "small settlement," each area a player adds to the settlement is assumed to be one to several buildings or a small group of people within the settlement,
• Areas each have a unique description based on the card's value and suit.
  • The card's value (2, 3, 4, etc.) determines what function that area serves.
    • The first card played in this example is a 6: resources that are available to the people of this location.
  • The card's suit (diamond, heart, etc.) determines the theme of that area.
    • The first card played in this example is a club: the area is facing a problem. Is it being occupied by corrupt people or being affected by a corrupting curse? Has a foe appeared, or is this area at odds with another?
• The player adding the area interprets and explains these value and suit prompts.
  • There are countless valid interpretations of each prompt.
    • In this example the 6 of clubs was used to describe a corrupted river.
    • It could have also been a haunted mine, a forest occupied by thieves, a magic well invaded by a bog spirit, etc.

My goal was to create a tool to generate interesting locations for TTRPGs. TerraCards provides a way for all players to collaborate in generating that content. When the heroes come upon a town they have been to before, but the players know nothing about: play a game of TerraCards. Everyone at the table will become familiar with the history of the location and its current problems.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope you find this new tool useful and enjoyable!