Inspired by a recent thread on the Forge, I felt inspired to create '1000 Blank White Cards: The RPG'. The rules to the the original '1000 Blank White Cards' (invented by Nathan McQuillan) are roughly:

• Get a bunch of index cards and cut 'em in half.
• Have each player make cards for a game out of several of them. Include several blanks.
• During play, everyone starts with five cards in their hand.
• Play procedes clockwise. On your turn, play a card and draw a card.
• If you have a blank card in your hand, you can make up a new card from it.
• At some point, you may decide you're done, or a card might tell you you're done. If there are points on the cards, the player with the most points 'wins'.

After one game, you can save the best cards for the next.

As you might expect, this game provides excellent fodder for Drift. In fact, many of the original rules above came from the game itself (Nathan mentions finding a card from the original deck that said, "Rule: draw one, play one", for example.) Other web sites out there list their house rules, too, like, "A card played in the center of the table affects all players", or "A card should consist of a title, a picture, and an effect", or "Start the game with 20 cards per person". Even the bare-bones rules above have been changed, from 'draw one, play one' to 'play one then draw one' to 'play one then draw until you have 5'.

So my version of 1KBWC:RPG comes in three sections: the fundamentals (enough rules to get an experienced gaming group going), some structure (more rules that describe a game of 1KBWC:RPG drifted towards my own personal style), and extensions (ideas to help you drift your own version).

1KBWC:RPG Rules

Fundamentals

• Get a bunch of cards you can draw on.
• As a group, decide what kind of RPG you want to play.
• Everyone who's playing should make up cards that will let you play that game.
• Mix up these cards together with some blanks and distribute some of them.
• Use the cards to play the game. Creation of new cards during play is encouraged.

For some of you, that will be enough. Go play! For the rest of us without the time or the inclination to make such a bare-bones system work, here's a bit more structure, with the caveat that everything here is intended to drift. In other words, while you might want to play it this way first, you group will probably come up with changes to make it work better for you.

More Structure

• Have everyone make up 20 cards at the start of the game. Another 8 blank cards/player are then added to make up the deck.
• Each card should be one of either Stats, Stuff, or Events.
  • Stats cards should indicate some intrinsic or learned quality a character might posess (Strength 5, Charming Personality, Swim +3, Has Evil Twin).
  • Stuff cards should be a brief description of an item one might find in the RPG game you have chosen to play (2d6 Laser pistol, +3 Sabre of D00d, Ale Ale Ale!, Unassuming barrel).
  • Event cards should have a brief description of something that might happen in your RPG (Monsters attack!, The King sends you on a quest, Avalanche!, Ejected out airlock).
• One player is chosen to be the GM. Everyone else plays a PC. Your characters have all known each other for a long time.*
• At the start of the game, each player draws twelve cards. Four are played face-up in front of the player, four are kept, and four are discarded. The four face-up cards form the basis of that PC, with Stats cards indicating something they are, Stuff cards indicating something they have, and Event cards indicating something that happened to them in the past. The four cards in their hand are things they can introduce during play. The discarded cards are shuffled back into the deck.
• The GM also draws twelve cards and discards four, but keeps all of the remaining eight to introduce during play. In general, Event cards are used to have stuff happen to players, Stats cards are used to introduce NPCs, and Stuff cards are things the characters find or that the NPCs have. They can be combined at will.
• Play starts with the GM establishing the setting, then using at least one Event card to get things rolling. The GM may describe things not actually on the cards, but it's assumed that the things on the cards are the most important bits.
• Players then describe what their PCs do in response. Any resolution mechanics that seem to need to be described may either be generally agreed upon or written on the cards themselves.
• The GM may play more cards as needed from their hand when they introduce new events or situations. For every card the GM plays, one player may respond by playing one of their own cards. Ties go to whoever's card hits the table first. (You don't have to play a response card every time.) 'Playing a card' means you introduce that card's element to the scene, with Stats cards playable to reveal things about an NPC or to introduce a new NPC.
• The GM may periodically award 'experience', which means that a player may play one of their cards face-up in front of them, introducing a new element to their character. Alternatively, the player may choose to take a played card and add it to their character.
• After any card is played, the player re-draws their hand to full (8 for the GM, 4 for the players).

*OK, this might seem a bit odd for a basic rule, especially considering that most RPGs don't start this way. But I come from an improv background (ComedySportz) and one of our rules for starting any scene was 'you have known each other six months'. Violation of this rule made for boring scenes. Try it!

Possible extensions and variations

• Mark the back of the cards in some consistent manner to indicate whether they are 'Stats', 'Stuff', or 'Events' (or something else)
• Have cards that refer to other RPGs: rules, tables, characters, etc.
• Each card should have a number and type of dice on it (2d4, 5d6, etc.)
• Use an actual deck of cards to supplement the deck (playing cards, Tarot, a CCG, etc.)
• If a player wants a new hand of cards, they may give their current hand to the GM, and draw four new ones. If the GM wants a new hand of cards, they may distribute their current hand to the players, and draw eight new ones. These donated cards do not count towards the basic 4/8 hand limit, but are not replaced when played.
• When the GM draws a card, they can either pick one from the deck or grab a new blank card. Yes, there are blank cards in the deck already, but this gives the GM a bit more power.