Yu-gi-oh!

[Trickster]

As the title suggests, how would one make a Yu-Gi-Oh style character? I picture this more as a conjurer

Furthermore, how would one customize their "Deck" or incorporate the sacrifice mechanic?

[Doctor Despair]

Cards Over Swords, obviously

[holbita]

So hear me out... have you heard of season 0? because some kind of wizard specializing in curses and enchantments would work nicely there.

if you want more of the traditional feeling... summoner, just pick your archetype and stick with those summons...

And do not try to bring fusions, synchros, xyz or inks into this... pendulums surprisingly are fine, just do a multi summon.

[pabelfly]

Maybe you could have a deck of cards which you draw from. Each card corresponds a monster you will summon, or a buff or debuff spell your character has (buffs being the equivalent of spells and debuffs the equivalent of traps), and you pick from the cards you draw to do what you want to do.

[Jowgen]

So hear me out... have you heard of season 0? because some kind of wizard specializing in curses and enchantments would work nicely there.

if you want more of the traditional feeling... summoner, just pick your archetype and stick with those summons...

Going old school is pretty cool, but you know what would really get your game on? Like, chilling out max in the schoolyard style?

Going for a Yugioh GX flavour.

Have your DM fluff you a minor plane to act as a home for your "Duel-Spirits" summons, which can just be regular stablock monsters, but with some licious fluff and maybe the occasional one with an ongoing memory/personality you can interact with.

The Cards in your deck can be custom magic items, with all sorts of usage restrictions applied to keep the cost down.

Monster Cards would just be Summon Monster, each only able to summon 1 pre-set type of creature, with the additional limitation of only being usable 1/encounter, and those using Summon Monster 5-6 or 7+ having the additional requirement that x number of other summoned creatures must be dismissed to be able to activate it.

Spell and trap cards I think should just be based on existing spells in D&D.

The whole category of item can carry the general restriction that you must have at least 40 of them in your possession to be able to activate them, must select them at random, can at most hold 6 in your hand and it takes a swift action to draw another 1 (or 6 at the start of your first turn in initative). Bonus points if drawing requires a verbal activation command of "DORO MONSTA KADO".

Bonus

[Rynjin]

Spehres of Power for Pathfinder actually has a Card Casting tradition that might work. It's very obviously meant to more mimic how Magic works, but works for Yugioh as well as long as you stay away from the optional bits.

Monster Cards would just be Summon Monster, each only able to summon 1 pre-set type of creature, with the additional limitation of only being usable 1/encounter, and those using Summon Monster 5-6 or 7+ having the additional requirement that x number of other summoned creatures must be dismissed to be able to activate it.

Of course the guy named Jowgen would try to limit you to just Normal/Tribute summoning. =p

[liquidformat]

• Check out the alternate rules for summoning pg37 of the DMG
• add in Themed Summon Variant
• add in the buff/debuff and other such spells and you have yourself your deck of cards.
• From there just go with an Wizard variant that uses cards instead of a spellbook
• spells/day is your card deck for the day? and change it to a random spontaneous caster?