Cool mechanics for a TTRPG! My friend and I are really into these kinds of games, and have actually been toying with the idea of playing a card-based version, then you come along with just that. We enjoyed the way rounds work and the way limb damage works.

Unfortunately, we were only able to run an encounter with 2 people, one as GM and one as PC. This may have been a mistake because the PC got absolutely demolished by the Dreadwolf. Playing with 2 people also made it hard to play cooperatively for obvious reasons, so we needed another player to fully test that aspect of things. I know TTRPGs typically require GMs, but I wonder if there's a way to automate the monster's actions by randomly drawing from their deck. Cards are a really useful tool for that kind of thing.

Another problem came up with how we were using Interrupts. It seemed like the PC was constantly being interrupted by the monster's actions. There's something really cool about being able to see the timeline and make decisions based on that, but I could see getting into situations where either the PC or the monster is constantly getting interrupted if they take actions that cost more than 0 time. 

I like that you included skill checks, but they were a little confusing. What number was I meant to judge the player's success against?

Overall, you have a cool foundation here. I could easily see this being turned into a cooperative board game like Gloomhaven with some automation and some tweaking, but it could just as easily be a full TTRPG with some elaboration (which it sounds like you are working on).

Can't wait to see the finished game!

Very interesting submission and I like the idea of using the deck of cards for actions and items. I absolutely love the theme and would jump at the chance to play this game!

I worry that as an RPG you expect too much prior knowledge from players - that they understand certain concepts and ideas. A good example of this is on the monster stats - they all have a Heart value, but I have no idea what that means! Having said that, I'm not much of an RPG player, so I'm not sure if I'm the target market for this game.

We're a basically 100% unfamiliar with RPG systems (I know...) so this was a bit of a puzzle for us. I'll admit we didn't fully get it to the table because neither of us felt confident enough to take the role of a DM. 

However, I think it's genius to create a system based on a standard deck of playing cards. Really takes the "what die do I use?" and "what's my modifier?" obfuscation out of it. Though it might be a bit of hurdle to apply different qualities to pairs of cards. As this is a work in progress, consider creating a clear player aid to make action selection as simple as possible.

The "rails" system of combat seems like it would add a different type of tactical interest to a fight that I don't think I've seen before. Questioning why a monster is taking an action in slot 8 as opposed to slot 5 feels unique and pretty dang cool.

It's not strictly co-op, but one versus many is co-op adjacent. ;) 

I'm curious to know about the rest of the system. Does action selection such as spells, skill checks, and ... cantrips(?) work on a similar card-based system? Are those things included at all or is it a little more free-form? I applaud anyone looking to create a fresh RPG - it's a lot!

Cheers!

ps. Apologies if you got a bunch of notifications on this, my computer really wanted to send you this comment a million times.