Deck of Too Many Things
The problem with the Deck of Many Things is that its effects are virtually guaranteed to send the campaign spiraling off in an unexpected direction. That’s its charm after all, but that’s also its curse. And for those of us who first experimented with the Deck of Many Things before we really had a grip on our GMing powers, it’s all too easy to let the story degenerate into shenanigans. What I’m saying is that that devious stack of cardboard is more hazardous to the health of a campaign than a Russian winter.
I’ve had two encounters with the Deck, one typical and one decidedly atypical. The first was the standard high school fare. The campaign began. We made characters, got attacked by rats, and then found the Deck of Many Things that they were carrying. (Thanks, random tables!) I forget exactly what happened to whom, but suffice it to say that by the time we were done our poor dungeon master laughed nervously, said, “I’ll figure this out next week,” and then never returned.
My second encounter was more recent. A GM friend of mine presented us with a quest hook involving “The One True Deck,” of which all other decks were but shadows. We drew because of course we did. I came away with the Gem and Laurel pulled Ruin. Since this was a super powered deck, we wound up trading back stories rather than the usual gained/lost wealth effects. Her noble fighter became a peasant, and my dirt farming wizard became a noble. It turned out to be a cool plot point rather than the annoying, “Well I guess we have to buy Laurel all new equipment” that it could have been. So…I guess my point is that a good GM and a little narrativium can turn chaos into story. Then again, that’s what we all do by default when we sit down to roll dice and play pretend.
How about you guys? Anybody out there ever manage a lucky pull from the Deck?
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I’ve only encountered it once, but we were given the option of up to 3 pulls each.
Two members of the party declined being involved outright.
One of us pulled 3 cards and while I can’t remember what two of them did, they gained a gigantic pile of XP that made it rather fortunate when they never returned to the game afterwards because balancing fights would have been impossible.
I pulled 3 as well, and all of them were great pulls. I got +2 Intelligence, a 2nd level fighter (because sure, people are objects I guess?), and an epic level sword. We narrated this result as my character suddenly knowing things… such as the Wall of the Faithless actually existing and quickly deciding to find religion. Any religion. Like…. “picks name out of a hat…Vecna it is!” And their new deity rewarded their choice with an evil sword wielding a fighter (which was a running joke for the campaign since the sword was mechanically more important than all the aspects the fighter was going to acquire by leveling for a very long time).
Pretty sure there was a fifth person who picked one card and got something silly and inconsequential.
You see? Dude gained way too many XP and then had to quit the game. I choose to interpret the anecdote in this way and will steadfastly refuse to acknowledge any extenuating circumstances.
Homebrew game, similar item. I drew “spring” from a list that was 99% mundane and immediately asserted that since it wasn’t “A spring”, it was now the first day of spring. Our DM liked ridiculousness like that, and so it happened.
I’m guessing you got a strongly worded letter via messenger badger from the local druid’s circle.
Don’t be silly; they foxed it.
ಠ_ಠ
I’ve yet to encounter or place the deck in any campaigns, but I DID manage to scare the party once by placing an ornate deck of tarot cards in a fine locked box. (The dungeon would choose the next room based upon the tarot card drawn).
I think that’s a good compromise. The deck is VERY random, but there are lesser versions out there that are still fun, but less disruptive to a campaign. Case in point: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/artifacts/minor-artifacts/knucklebone-of-fickle-fortune
I used a Deck as the MacGuffin of a oneshot recently. Only one player pulled from it… 13 times. He ended up seven levels higher, with some epic-level equipment, a level 4 fighter companion, 2 wishes, 22 Strength, 4 Int, a permanent -6 to all saving throws forever., and two avatars of death after him. Everyone else decided not to pull from it.
So…how’d the next session go?
Never met the Deck, but I have been part of a campaign where the core concept is randomly selected “trap cards” and loot items created from strings of random concepts written out beforehand.
Perhaps a little more explanation is required… basically if you see a concept in-game, then you can play a trap card to replace that concept or modify it with your trap card. My personal trap card ended up being revealed to me so I used it to make all gunshot in the universe green (playing with a synaesthete so it ended up being F-Flat Cellos too, though I was actually intending to make gunfire silent to prevent a landslide).
The random loot objects were created from a bunch of modifiers drawn up before the game by the GM and his friends, and the dice ended up rolling “+100” and “Grappling” and “Longsword”, so we ended up with swords that were SUPER GOOD… so long as you just wanted to grapple a bunch. The whole party got them, but I gave mine to my cohort because she had decent stats. (I was stuck with, after messing around with the Age rules, three stats above 10 and only one above 12. Luckily was playing a Cleric of sorts.)
All that’s pretty tame though; I’ve only joined that campaign recently… apparently they once replaced some Giant War with a KITTEN War, so kittens are now illegal and our caster ended up getting in trouble in the past for kitten-smuggling.
It was I, however, who suggested that this was fairly similar to the method of operation of the Octavo in The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, which simultaneously enthused and depressed our GM. We’re all massive Pterry fans… surrealist Narrative Causality was strong in this campaign.
I enjoy my shenanigans as much as the next gamer, but Ima be honest. That all sounds a bit… PeNgU1N oF d00m to me. Was the whole campaign steeped in this level of random, or was it grounded in some kind of sensible storyline? (Or am I curmudgeon who hates fun?)
Compliments to your and yours on your excellent taste in literature though. A framed map of the Disc World hangs in my gaming room.
This specifically was very random, though the general mechanics of the world were very consistent and everything did function admirably (this had been going on as a sort of sidelined “just for fun” campaign for the group for a LONG time, as it has a very episodic format). Every so often, you find a cool item that was generated randomly for silliness’ sake, and each player has one trap card per adventure that’s usually used on a very specific thing and without any foreknowledge, but generally speaking the world has some great character and consistency to it, when we aren’t messing with the fabric of reality.
I knew none of this going in, so I made a super-serious character whose backstory got edited so now he’s an ex-priest of The Brotherhood of Chair. He hates this world, and I love to watch him hate it. DEFINITELY not my preferred type of campaign, but it was very fun to play around with and the specific people involved could honestly make anything fun. Haven’t played with them in a while though, unfortunately.
Aha, yes! Discworld is fantastic. The last book almost ended me though… Ach well, all good things must come to an end, and this was the best.
I was going to wait until AFTER the archive binge, but I gotta say that I love your webcomic, and do tell Laurel from me that the art is simply fantastic.
Having a character you love is a big damn deal for finding fun in a campaign. Now that I think about it, that may be the most important thing (aside from good people to play off of).
TY for the love, Nitro! Glad to have you here. I’m stoked to hear more of your stories in the coming months. 🙂
Thank you! I’ve been working on polishing up the original character designs for all the classes, I’m hoping to get them posted soon. 😀
My favorite encounter with the Dreaded Deck ended in a great plot hook for our party. I was playing a Ranger and pulled twice. Can’t remember the actual cards but the first gave me three wishes (Wishes with my DM are not to be taken lightly), the second pull gave me the Emnity of a Planar Being. My DM Ruled that meant I now had a Genie who hated me following me around, and he wouldn’t leave until I used all three wishes but I knew damn well the Genie would do his best to kill me with them If I tried to use them – so a catch 22.
It was great, every once in a while the Genie would pop up in the middle of a fight and knock my quiver away, laugh and pop back out of sight. Or some such other hilarity.
Well you can’t just stop with that! How’d you get out of it? What did you wish for?
I gave my group a homebrew deck once.
They drew a total of 8 cards.
They got some sick equipment and ended up twelve levels higher.
The eighth card?
Tiamat.
I suspect that the last card was going to be Tiamat no matter what.
Our goblin got his hands on a Deck of Many Things. He drew twice and got a bunch of gold and a free level. Then he drew a third card and our Fighter ended up slaughtering our Rogue and hiding his body due to a sudden surge of sheer hatred. I forget just how we got the Fighter back to normal and the Rogue resurrected, but we took the deck away from the goblin and hid it.
Wait. You’ve got a goblin and a rogue? As in the goblin isn’t the rogue? Is that even allowed!?
The Rogue is a Tiefling like yours. The goblin is a Druid and became a priest at the local god’s church.
Well then. I guess chaos and forest fires are part of nature. Renewal and all that. 😛
Several of my friends like telling stories from a long running epic level campaign they all played before I knew them. The Deck showed up in that once when they met the Avatar of Chaos.
The game took place in the GM’s custom world, and part of that was each of the five major alignment components had a diefic Avatar that was a once mortal figure who embodied that alignment. One of the PCs was playing a Chaotic Nuetral’ character who was NOT the typical ‘I swear I’m not Evil, see it says CN on my character sheet’ types. As a matter of fact, pretty much everyone else in that party would best describe the character’s alignment as ChaoticChaotic if such were an option. So when they met the Avatar of Chaos one of the things the party found out was ‘oh crap, he’s got a Deck of Many Things, and if you ask him a question he’ll draw one card from the Deck that will effect YOU for each question you ask!’
The whole party was very quickly on the ‘don’t ask him any questions, just do what we’re here for and go’ train. Meanwhile, the Cleric of Chaos was just sitting back with a steadily growing look of ‘oh fuck’ on his player’s (and probably character’s) face.
So the Avatar of Chaos finishes saying the thing he was there for, and says “Now, before I go, any questions?” And the Cleric slowly raises his hand. The Avatar points at him, and he just asks “Am I a good servant of chaos?” The Avatar draws a card from the Deck, looked at it for a moment, looked back at the PC and just said ‘Yes’ before vanishing.
Everybody, including the Cleric of Chaos’ player, is low key freaking out because ohshitohshit, the cleric of chaos is subject to a card from the Deck of Many Things, but no one knows which one. Next fight the parties in, they’re facing off against a boatload of orcs, and the Cleric of Chaos opens by attacking one, and manages to kill it in one blow. At which point the GM looked at the player and just said “you go up a level.”
Turned out the card he drew was that if he kills the next for he fights with no help, he would go up a level.