Pick A Card, Any Card
For my "Illegal Gods" game, I'm playing with the idea of using your typical 52-card deck for resolutions, but I don't want just a high-card, low-card solution.
My first thought was that the type of God one was working for might be relevant to the suit. Love, peace, and harmony Gods would be represented by Hearts. Wealth and power Gods would be represented by Diamonds. War and implements of destruction Gods would be Clubs (knocking people over the head), and of course you'd have your agricultural Gods because you need to call a spade a Spade.
I didn't like that, because, frankly, the God of Runny Cheese ("I think the cat's got at et,") doesn't really fit into those categories. So I thought maybe I could set the suits into being active Churches of their own, maybe some sort of anti- or competitive-to-the-PC NPC organizations. Unfortunately, that took away the whole idea of using the deck for resolutions, unless it's a, "You try to do X. Draw a card. If you draw for example an 8 of Spades, the Church of the Outie Bellybutton has sent 8 minion squads against your cadre..." So that's out.
I could do it semi-Tarot style, ala a number of homebrews or even Everway, but that's not quite what I want, either. Lazy (Okay... let's call it, "Negotiable"?) arbitration is OK to play, but it's not good design.
Any thoughts?