CARTE DIEM

You're a scoundrel, a lowlife living day by day, three-card tricking and pickpocketing at subway stations. To think you used to be good, one of the best. What happened to you? Did jail break you? The passage of time? Or that snake you shouldn't have fallen for? To hell with the past. All there is now is this dump you call an apartment, the bottle and your bad habits... and the endless night... and the rain.

You received a phone call from an old acquaintance, from a lifetime ago. He talked about a grand hit, a once in a lifetime heist. Like old times, but much bigger. High risk, high reward. Enough to leave this city forever. «Carpe diem» said the voice on the phone. You hung up on him. Then you looked in the mirror. After all, what have you got to lose?

CARTE DIEM is a noir tabletop roleplaying game about a group of crooks seeking a big heist that will change their life forever. Or end it.

• It has one-page rules and a second page for the GM (Great Miscreant) with random tables (VICES, LOCATIONS, HEIST, PROBLEMS), in order to generate an adventure with no preparation.

• Conflict resolution is diceless and randomless: it uses 4 cards and a bit of bluffing & psychological warfare at the table. 

• Earned tokens allow the players to seize narration rights from the GM and turn the situation around, or get in each other's way.

• The game can be set in any era, real or fictional: 1920s city, contemporary metropolis, futuristic megalopolis, as long as the setting is noir and urban.

"The night, the rain, the city - they have one thing in common. They have no end."

CARTE DIEM has been created for One-Page RPG Jam 2024.

[All the money received through the pay-what-you-want option will be donated to Befrienders Kenya, a suicide prevention NGO.]