The Deck of Many Things
Chapter: Season Nine
Since I am between arcs, I wanted to do this last stand-alone, back-to-OG-d20Monkey style page before the new arc begins on Friday.
I really love the Deck of Many Things, but it is a tool of pure chaos and destruction for 99.9% of the campaigns it is introduced to.
As a player, I have gained levels, treasures, and fame, while losing everything and gaining the hatred of an archduke of hell. In short: Chaos, fun, and memories that I will always cherish.
As a GM, I hate the Deck. It ruins campaigns and it ruins characters. It can be a plague. Sure, there are some positive stories, but most of the time it ends in broken GMs, silently weeping behind a GM screen in the dark, hours after the players have gone home.
The only way I have ever seen the deck of many things work is as the plot of the game in the first place. You have a first session, they find a deck, they do things with it, and then based on all the wild changes the world makes with it…you build a campaign around that.
Otherwise its just a disaster waiting to happen.
Grog “Five Cards” Strongjaw
My DM just introduced the Deck into our game. It was controlled by a Romany fortuneteller. My character said “nope!” and went back to the camp. My traveling companions, two hobgoblin brothers, both paladins of conquest, drew from the deck. One got a loyal traveling companion who is also a royal pain in the butt (Knight) and a +2 battleaxe he can’t use (Key), and the other got a -2 to all his saves (Euryale).
My wood-elf hunter got a good four-hour rest.
Yeah from my understanding it’s better off a thing that get’s retooled into something better cuase it’s got way too much anti-player stuffs in it.
This would make a great t-shirt design, though.
I second that!
Third.
I introduced a Deck in my campaign during a murder-mystery investigation that turned out to be about a powerful wizard wanting to keep the Deck locked away so it wouldn’t spread chaos.
I’m not making this up, 3 players got killed. 2 straight up died, and 1 (the friend of the murdered guy) got Donjon. Then the cleric drew the Fates card, and wished that the Deck had never been in this city.
So now in my world the great wizards have all documented The Brightwater Paradox in which the timeline of the prime material was fucked with by the Deck irreversibly.
But, all the characters are now alive, and even the murdered guy is back ^w^ So I got to have my cake and eat it too.
This is fantastic.
I’ve never experienced the Deck myself, but from a prospective standpoint it seems to me the best way to work with it in a campaign is to draw the cards for the players behind the screen, thereby fudge them if necessary, and roll with it in that sense. I’m sure that takes some of the fun away, but from my angle it also gives the DM more control over the chaos and therefor the ability to direct it toward the storytelling.
Here are four words that caused me to weep behind my DM screen *during the game*:
“I draw 13 cards.”
no, this happened my last game, i introduced a single use deck of many things to my players for shits and giggles, and they all drew one or two cards. then the bard, who had been in the bathroom while everyone was drawing comes back into the room. i look up at her and say “you see a deck and your companions speak a number before drawing cards equal to the number, what do you do?”
to which she responded, “16” and started drawing…
I have had the Deck show up in two LARPs.
The first was a Changeling the Dreaming LARP. After someome drew and had to fight Death*, ai realized it for what it was. One of our Knockers was about to draw from it, figuring the worst had happened, what are the odds, etc. I told him not to, listing out the possible results, good fortune and horrors**. Be then turned to another player and asked “What do you think?” “I think I’m very curious as to what you’ll draw.” …and promptly made him forget the bad stuff I had told him, leaving in the good ones.
Upshot: the Knocker lost his crafting ability, which is pretty much their literal reason for existence. Additionally, the comedy club he lived above burnt down, and then a bonus to his persuasion checks. It was not a good day.
The other one was in a boffer style LARP. They ALSO got Death. I again realized them for what they were. But it was really hard to convince people NOT to attack the damn things.
* Note that bonus Deaths only show up if you attack them. Healing and buffing, or even interposing yourself? Just fine.
** “Dude, your character wouldn’t know that…” “Do I or do I not have ‘genre savvy’ as a custom trait, as well as a profession of ‘Roleplaying Game Writer’?” “… Crap, yes you would.”
I actually ended a campaign recently that allowed players up to three draws from the deck at character creation.(one draw was mandatory)
Some highlights: The Barbarian had a castle and was SUPER DIPLOMATIC
The Archer’s soul disappeared.
The Rogue got a +5 Flaming Burst Composite Longbow(Later this became a major plot point.)
The Healer became evil and decided to report the party’s activities and position to the evil empire, eventually handing over a Major Artifact to an enemy general.
The Healer also gained the disfavor of the Goddess of Madness, who ‘blessed’ him.
Maybe I’m the only one this happened to but I started reading the cycle at the 9 o’clock position rather than the 12 o’clock position, with the result that it didn’t make a lot of sense until I realised I’d done it “wrongâ€. As a design consideration, maybe it would be better to have “step 1†at 10.30 so that it is an obvious first read for English readers!
yes, you’re the only one…
Can confirm: have ruined campaigns by introducing the Deck. Never touching it again.
I don’t get how it ruins campaigns unless ‘campaign’ involves a pre-planned future railroad by the GM.
Well, here are a few things that can happen with it (granted these are all based on me looking at what the cards do and postulating as opposed to actual experience);
1- A lot of campaigns end up spotlighting a character for some reason or another (eg Prof Wonder in the most recent arc, Sam & Brett’s thieves in Jeanie’s Karthun). Several cards in the deck can unceremoniously kill or (nearly) irreversibly incapacitate this character, rendering any lore or planning built around them worthless.
2- Characters can gain ludicrously powerful items well beyond their current level, which can easily render the next several encounters in the campaign trivial.
3- The alignment flip card alone could cause stupid amounts of chaos depending on who it hits (Imagine; your Robin Hood style Gentleman Thief rogue party member suddenly turns evil and starts robbing everyone blind, or the Ranger dedicated to seeing you through the local death woods to reach the Lich’s castle decides it’d be more fun to intentionally lead you into all the murder traps because fuck you)
4- The free Wish spell and the ability to will a past event to have not happened are game breakers, plainly and simply. This town has had problems ever since an alchemical accident caused an explosion on the level of Chernobyl 5 years ago, causing mutant orcs to pillage and raid them all this time? You’re supposed to spend several sessions struggling to reach the site and determine a solution? “I wish there had never been an explosion.” Problem solved, campaign arc over. Facing a boss monster designed to give a 3rd/4th Level party a challenge? Wish lets you cast an 8th Level spell, most of which could probably one-shot or severely weaken this boss intended to be a hard fight.
Bottom line; the thing about the deck is it’s high risk for high reward, but some of the rewards can destroy any challenge or just render entire arcs pointless, and several of the risks are no less destructive to any plans the DM has made (and before you try to say “But railroading is bad and should be destroyed”, no campaign can remotely happen without the DM laying out plans. It literally doesn’t happen.)
Any more questions?
Pathfinder’s Curse of the Crimson Throne introduced the Harrow Deck of Many Things. Of course, plotwise it’s possessed by a pair of spirits, allowing 1 redraw per character, which mitigates the badness without removing it. Still risky, still loads of fun.
As a 1-use item, it’s cool for Hail Mary! situations. Should be stressed to the players that it’s mostly negative effects, and to be used in desperate times.
I’ve used it twice. Once, it wrecked a campaign. The second time, I introduced it specifically to end a campaign that dragged on FAR too long (The World’s Largest Dungeon). It worked.
Why not homebrew a ‘Deck of mysterious things’ or something like that and make the effects a little less world-ending? If you do the art as well, I’d totally be up for buying it 😉
We used the Deck in a 4th Edition Epic Tier game. It was used once. It saved a characters life and erased a god from existence. Good day.
Heh. Speaking as a writer, and not a GM, welcome to the world of “introducing unlimited magic into any story.”
Apparently, the Deck is a specific set of cards. Maybe it just needs editing to limit the chaos a bit. A card that lets you change the entire history of the campaign might be first on the list for the trashcan.
What if you do one of those casino table things where you spread out all the cards in a fan then flip them all over? Would that count as drawing all the cards at once?
Most of the gms i first played with soon switched the DOMT from a treasure to a trap. I never knew any player to resist that one last pick.
I gave my players a chance to get the deck. They wisely chose the quest item instead.
The only time I found the Deck of Many Things to work is when it was a partial deck. With certain cards removed.
Been re-reading the comics and came to this page and had the exact same idea when I first read this page.
Need a d20Monkey version of the Deck of Many Things!!!