Starting the Game:
either spectacularly fails or succeeds. If you
Required items: something to write in,
something to write with, and a deck of tarot
cards (digital or physical).
Begin by gathering your group. Decide who
will be the Oracle (or Game Master) and who
will be the witches. While the Oracle
controls the game it is intended to be
collaborative story with lots of input from
the Coven. Don’t plan too far ahead, see
where the story takes you.
Spend some time thinking about what your
world looks like. Are the characters robots
living in a world alongside humans? Are you
humans living in post-apocalyptic neon-lit
cities rife with corruption and capitalist
greed? Do you live in a nature-based
utopia? You can draw up to 3 cards to help
you decide or discuss with your coven.
Character Creation
Write down your character’s name and
pronouns, and describe how they look, and
write a backstory. If you need help, draw
some tarot cards and interpret them.
Abilities: As witches, you all have unique
abilities. At character creation, choose 1
ability to use. Here are some suggestions:
➢ Pyromancy (fire-based)
➢ Necromancy (death-based)
➢ Biomancy (Plant/life-based)
➢ Elemental Magic
➢ Divination
➢ Technomancy
➢ And more!
Stats: Next, decide on your character’s
abilities. When you make your character,
assign one of these bonuses to each stat:
+3, +2, +0, -1.
There are four statistics, each
corresponding to a tarot suit.
➢ Physical (Swords): How good you are at
using your body. Example actions:
climbing, punching, running etc.
➢ Magic (Wands): How good you are at
casting spells. Example actions: using
your magical powers, resisting magic
etc.
➢ Tech (Cups): How good you are at using
technology. Example actions: hacking a
computer or technological entity,
gathering information quickly, etc.
➢ Confidence (Pentacles): How good you
are at interacting with others. Example
actions: persuading or manipulating
someone, stealing something, stealth
attacks, etc.
Challenge: Challenge is a measure of how
difficult you are to best in fight. It’s the
number enemies will try to beat when they
pull cards against you in combat. There is a
challenge score for each stat. At level one,
it’s 6 plus your ability bonus. The highest a
Challenge score can be is 16.
Leveling up: Spark is awarded when a witch
score less than 3 or more than 13, mark one
Spark. Once you have six Spark, you can
level up! Gain +1 Challenge to each score,
and choose one of the following:
➢ Increase one ability score by 1.
➢ Gain a cool new tool or weapon.
Once you have leveled up 3 times, you gain
one of the following:
➢ Increase all ability scores by 1.
➢ Gain a tarot card to use later.
➢ Gain a new ability.
Actions
In Tarot Byte, instead of rolling dice, you
pull tarot cards from a deck. When your
character takes an action, pull a card from
the deck.
Suit tarot cards are numbers between 1-14
(page is 11, Knight is 12, Queen is 13, and
King is 14). If the suit corresponds to the
type of stat you are using to make the
action, add 2. Then, add your modifier for
the stat you are using. The Oracles chooses
a difficulty threshold. If you pull a major
arcana, that is considered a critical success.
The Witch and Oracle are encouraged to
work the meaning of the card into the
outcome. This works the same way during
combat.
Difficulty thresholds are as follows: 7-8 is a
mixed success, 9-11 is a success, 12-13 is a
resounding success, 14+ is a legendary
success.
Oracle Notes
Combat
Creating Enemies: To create a combat
encounter, start with making enemies. All
enemies in a will have a strength and a
weakness. An example of a strength would
be a resistance to certain types of damage
(for example, magical attacks) or a higher
stat. You can draw tarot cards to help.
Enemy stats are recommended to be more
extreme that those of players, giving them
stronger strengths and more catastrophic
weaknesses. Enemies do damage the same
way players do, pulling cards and trying the
beat the player’s Challenge level.
Running Combat: When combat begins, the
Oracle will describe the battlefield. The
battlefield can have a big effect on combat.
Is it happening in a ruined skyscraper full of
broken glass and twisted I-beams? On the
bridge of a technologically advanced
spaceship? In the middle of a busy city
street? Do you have to worry about law
enforcement crashing your fight? These are
all things that can make combat more
interesting.
Combat is Tarot Byte is more focused on
making everything sound cool than
following hard rules. At the start of combat,
whoever picked the fight starts first, be
that the enemy or the Witches. There
usually isn’t a combat order, but if the
Oracle prefers it can be imposed.
Doing Damage: When attacking an enemy, mind-control nano-bot off the robot’s
the Witch will narrate what they want to brain, releasing it from control. The robot is
do, and then pull a card the same way when no longer aggressive, and is thankful for the
taking an action. If the number is equal to or witch’s assistance, and helps the previous
greater than the Challenge of the enemy, witch get medical attention.
your attack hits, meaning your action is
successful. The Oracle decides how this
Credits
affects the enemy going forward.
Written by itch.io user necromanceable for
Example Play the 2022 One-Page RPG Game Jam hosted
by Unknown Dungeon.
The witch is confronted by an angry robot.
All graphics made using Canva.
They decide to try to paralyze the robot by
making a tech attach. They pull a 3 of cups. This work is dedicated to my lovely d&d
They have a +2 bonus to tech, so they add 2, group, I love you all! And my girlfriend, who I
brining the total to 5. Because the card is
never would have met without ttrpgs.
cups, which corresponds to the tech stat,
they add an additional plus 2, brining the Thanks for Playing! :)
total to 7. The robot’s Challenge was set by
the Oracle at a 10, so the Witch fails.
The robot, in retaliation, attempts to make
a physical attack against the Witch. It pulls
the king of of wands, and has a -1 to
physical, so they score a 13. This is lower
than the Witch’s challenge score of 8, so it
hits. The Oracle narrates how the robot
slams into the witch with their arm,
breaking their arm, making that arm
unusable until the witch receives medical
treatment.
Another witch decides to whack it with a
pipe they have in their inventory. They pull
the High Priestess, the second card in the
Major Arcana. Because it’s a major card, the
Witch has more say in the outcome.
Considering the meaning of the card
(intuition, things not appearing as they
seem) the player decides that when they hit
the robot with the pipe, the blow knocked a