Can I set it up so that each player has their own individual card deck?

I'm looking to playtest a homebrew system, which involves each player putting their own deck of (custom) cards together. The players select what goes into their personal deck, so they'd have to see the cards for that, but the cards they draw from the deck for tests are random (hence the players shouldn't be able to select a particular card from their "hand") and shuffled immediately back in so the odds stay the same. Can I do this with Roll20's cards system? The closest approximation I've been able to piece together from the the wiki page is this: - Players can see deck - Players can draw - Cards in deck are infinite - GM & players can pick a specific card from the deck (to set up their own personal decks/ "hands") - Discard Pile disabled - Played to the tabletop face up - Players & GM see the number of cards in everyone's hand, but not front of cards The last point is where I'm stuck. Does this mean that the player who possesses the cards will still able to see his/her own cards? Do the settings in general sound like they'd give rise to the mechanic I'm looking for? Thanks in advance.

Liressa, the GM of the game will have to make the custom decks and then assign them to the players. That said, there is nothing you've described that the Roll20 card decks can't do.

- Cards in deck are infinite I don't think you'd want this for your case. Assume you have two cards, A and B. Having this on would mean that a Player could draw as many times as they want, each time having a 50% chance of each card. So, they might draw the hand: A A B A B B A A B A BB I think that's not what you want. - Players & GM see the number of cards in everyone's hand, but not front of cards. This is talking about the GM and other players see when looking above the player. So, you'd want this on for poker, but off for a game where you want everyone to see the resource cards each other person has (My wife plays Settlers of Catan that way).

Liressa K. said: I'm looking to playtest a homebrew system, which involves each player putting their own deck of (custom) cards together. The players select what goes into their personal deck, so they'd have to see the cards for that, but the cards they draw from the deck for tests are random (hence the players shouldn't be able to select a particular card from their "hand") and shuffled immediately back in so the odds stay the same. Depending on what you mean by "putting their own deck of (custom) cards together.", there might be some additional hoops to jump through. If you mean: Each player is using some external program to make images of custom cards which they will send to you and you will create a deck for that player with, you should be fine. You have a custom deck of source cards that all the players will choose from to build their own personal deck, you'll need to do some things. You can't make decks directly out of other decks right now. You'd need to approach this the same way as above, but with the players picking their deck from cards you provide.

Thanks for the responses. I guess I should have been a little more specific... There's one central set of cards (that I as GM provide). Players "build" their own decks out of these (which would be the central "deck" in Roll20speak I guess), and then draw from their own decks/"hands" (similar Magic: the Gathering, or Thunderstone). Players should be able to pick which cards go into their own deck ("hand" I guess in this case) but should not be able to see the cards in their own hand, so that the cards they draw are random. When I say "a player draws from the deck and then cards are immediately shuffled back into the deck" I'm speaking of his or her own personal "deck" they built, which I guess is represented here in Roll20 by their "hand" instead, as that was the closest approximation I could find. I thought that "cards (in the central deck, I assume) are infinite" would fit, because this way two players who both wanted a certain card in their decks could have it. Is this not how this works? It doesn't matter if players see which cards are in another players's "hand"/personal deck, only that no one can point at a specific card and say "pick that one! that's the one that'll give you/me success!" Usually when we speak of "hands" of cards, the player who "owns" the hand can look at all the cards and select them at will depending on what they are--this is the mechanic I want to ensure is not possible, otherwise my randomization mechanic flies out the window. Can I set it so that even the person to whom a "hand" belongs cannot see the cards in their hand?

Players can always see which cards are in their hand. There is not a setting to prevent this. So, conceptually your game is set up as if there is a specific deck of cards (pretending a standard 52 for discussion). Players would pick the cards they want from it to build a new deck. Player A might pick all the Kings, player B might choose Jack, Queen, King, Ace of Spades. Both end up with the King of Spades and that's ok?

Yes, because for all intents and purposes the decks are independent of each other. In any major "standard" roleplaying system, one character's dice rolls and stats do not influence those of another character. (Yes, I've run across mechanics where one player can help another, but that only influences the outcome of the attempt, not the other character's odds of succeeding on their personal roll.) Actually, a better analogy would be that each player has his or her own standard deck of 52 cards, picks the cards s/he wants to use (according to the rules, limits, etc.), and sets the others aside. I just didn't see a way to do that with the Roll20 architecture, so I thought the "decks and hands" setup might be an adequate substitute. Apparently not, though, which sucks. Thanks for taking the time to clarify and answer my questions, though. ^^

Ok, I played around with this a bit and I found a process that will work for you: First, create your base deck. Second, you can use the Duplicate button (I totally just found this, BTW, which makes this much much easier!) and create copies for each player. Third, deal all the cards in each deck to a different player. Fourth, have them give you all the cards they don't want (or, if you're playing too, have them give them to another player account you setup, possibly called Discard. When they've given all the cards they don't want over to you or the Discard player, accept them. Fifth, have them discard all the remaining cards in their hand. You can now shuffle the discard deck to get the minimal built deck. As long as you don't use Recall to get all the cards (and use the discard action), it will behave just like a deck of cards. Just to avoid confusion, I suggest you create different colored backs and have each player set their color to the color of the deck they are using. The easiest way to discard is to hold shift and drag all the cards in your hand to the table, then select them all and hit delete. Hope that helps!!!!

Thank you, this helps a lot! No further questions, and thanks again for taking the time to help me out.

No problem!