...They say it eats campaigns, but what if it IS my campaign?
So I want to run an adventure for my players built around the Deck of Many Things.
So the major problem with the Deck of Many Things is that it's basically not evolved to any significant degree since first edition. Back then it may have been amusing to have your buddy next to you draw from the deck and get all his magic items taken away and lose a level, or to lose 1d4 intelligence, but as the game has changed to have a heavier focus on storytelling, the deck has not. I aim to fix this but it is a daunting task.
Essentially I want every card to be INTERESTING. It doesn't necessarily have to be GOOD for them, just interesting.
Some of the cards lead easily into an adventure, like the Throne, which gives a player rightful ownership of a keep which is filled with monsters. But things like The Void are just LOL SUX 2B U WANNA ROLL ANOTHER CHARACTER?? That's not interesting, it's just sadistic.
I'm looking for ideas for effects the cards might have. I'm planning to change the cards to all be Major Arcana of the tarot deck, if that helps anyone think of ideas.
There does need to be enough good effects in the deck to keep the players drawing but I want to make the effects that are just smacking the players with a newspaper go the fuck away.
Pick up an actual book on tarot and start reading it. Each card has a meaning, and you won't have a better starting point than that.
In terms of actually giving you ideas, perhaps the direction of the cards could affect them. Cards can have an upright or upside-down definition that changes the context. So, each card has a 50/50 chance of being a good or bad version of the core concept it is supposed to represent.
Nathaniel Parker
basing it actually on the tarot is a thought but 44 effects seems like doubling the problem. And I'm trying to avoid things like 'a magic item disappears'. If it has things like the magic item gifting I'd rather do it as 'a magic sword shimmers into your hands' but THEN the demon that sword belonged to is now angry and looking for it...
Not necessarily that as a replacement for the Key effect though, since the card that makes you an enemy Devil is already a pretty good plot hook on its own.
maybe I'll try to find more info on tarot as a starting point.
Oliver Baker
Old story I have told several times but my old DM once had us run a Card Captor Sakura styled game where each of he cards in the DoMT gained sentience and took on a form that would fit for said card (balance was a platinum coin standing on its edge). We had to hunt down the cards and try to undo the damage they had done.
Brandon Harris
>or to lose 1d4 intelligence Literally didn't matter back then.
Stats in d20 and stats in OSR are incomparable, they have such radically different value. See also: >Back then it may have been amusing to have your buddy next to you draw from the deck and... Back then they place actual bets of actual money on what pretend levers would do. That's why there were so many unlabeled levers with weird effects in Gygaxian shit.
Caleb Ortiz
just to give a quick rundown of the idea they're going to be hired to delve an ancient crumbling dungeon by a mysterious woman who asks that they retrieve a box for her. She will insist that they MUST UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES open the box (yeah, I've got that kind of group). After they return to deliver the goods at the designated time and place, she'll never show up.
I may reveal later that this woman may or may not be an ancient forgotten Goddess of discord...
Right, and if you go look at the OG DoMT it's almost unchanged from then. It's SLIGHTLY less punishing now, in that it can no longer make you level 1 in a party full of level 9 people, but it is still full of stuff that made sense in gameplay in 1975 and makes no fucking sense in 2017.
Back then it wasn't THAT big a deal if your character just straight up got imprisoned forever with no save. You'd just roll up a new character. That's why there's MULTIPLE cards with a variation on that shit.
Isaiah Thomas
I was thinking about something along these lines a while back and had an idea. its not fully formed...but maybe it can be workshopped here.
the deck is an actual tarot deck on the table and its a game mechanic. At any point during combat or adventure, a player can flip over the top card of the deck. The flipped over card maintains an effect throughout the game until a new card is pulled. (there is only one card ever active.)
but here's the catch. other things can trigger a 'drawing of fate' where a new card overrules the one before it. if they crit fail a combat roll. Boom. new card. possibly good, possibly bad.
Henry Hall
a videogame, the binding of isaac had some interesting interpretations of the major arcana (and nordic runes too, in fact) for ingame effects, so it might be worth looking up the BoI wiki for ideas. there's also pills and playing cards in that game, although the playing cards largely just affect the number of consumable items you have (coins, bombs, etc) with exception of the joker, which immediately warps you to a devil deal/angel room.
other than that, just doing some research on interpretations of the cards' meanings will be your best bet for inspiration.
Asher Butler
>Building a better Deck of Many Things I started work on this a while back. I gotta go and then sleep soon, but I'll be back with what I had later.
I can tell you I had a much different approach. My issues with the Old school DoMT: >Immediately recognized: The players, if not the characters, know exactly what to expect, what to hope for, and if it's worth it.
>Win or Lose Results: The player draws randomly and has no choice, which is okay. But then once the card is drawn, that's it, there's no give or leeway or player affect on the range of effects.
>Character Ender Results: Some results whether put your character in a position to retire or out of commission entirely. Fair enough, but that ends a story when you want to start one.
I came up with a solution, but I never got around to modifying all of the cards and I only remember a couple.
I'll be Bach.
Bentley Lee
There's a 4e adventure based entirely around the Deck of Many Things. It's one of the better ones.
Madness at Gardmore Abbey, iirc.
Brandon Morales
>What's that you say? >There's a 5e fan made conversion of the adventure based entirely around the Deck of Many Things?
Madness at Gardmore Abbey I just found this.
Lincoln Bell
Reposting from for inspiration
Tyler Robinson
Just use the actual Tarot. Every card has effects, even the individual minor arcanas. There's a difference between each individual swords cards, and they have both a positive and negative.
Between 14 Cups, Swords, Sceptres and Pentacles you should be able to get every effect you want, even if you cut the number of effects (both upright and reversed) down to the regular DoMT
Michael Edwards
>If it has things like the magic item gifting I'd rather do it as 'a magic sword shimmers into your hands' but THEN the demon that sword belonged to is now angry and looking for it...
>44 effects seems like doubling the problem, because DoMT is 22
Duh guy. That's why you choose TWO tarot card to merge into every one Deck of Many Things card. That way it always does two things. Interpret one in its positive way, and the other in its inverse position bad way.
Elijah Lewis
>basing it actually on the tarot is a thought but 44 effects seems like doubling the problem. Tarot has only 22 cards in its major arcana, guy what are you talking about?
Robert Peterson
that's 56 cards he has to think things up for
Xavier Ward
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the best tarot doesn't have "reverse/flipped/whatev" side, because it is so great. Even the back side acknowledges this by making it asymetrical.
>but the best tarot doesn't have "reverse/flipped/whatev" side, because it is so great Sounds like the shittiest tarot to me.
Isaiah Evans
What shitty tarot deck is that?
Robert Allen
Because mistah Crowley, however fucked in the head, was the smartest guy ever, and he created the Thoth tarot as his magnum opus. And it's just so goddamn good that it doesn't need shitty inversals. The symbols, positive and negative, are all there, at face value.
Grayson Ross
>crowley >smart
you mean con artist? I mean, I guess if you consider Trump smart for how he's gotten where he is then Crowley would also fit the bill. I would hardly call being a master manipulator being of high intellect and knowledge though.
Angel Sullivan
Well you'd have to smart to get a sizable chunk of the population to believe your bullshit.
Kevin Brooks
He was also a chess grandmaster and a great alpinist. Crowley was a genius, he invented meme magic, fought against occult nazis, and said fuck it in the middle of a ritual which involved a fuckton of demons and fucked off somewhere else, without banishing them. Crowley is an epic level warlock/wizard gestalt
Adam Reed
>and said fuck it in the middle of a ritual which involved a fuckton of demons and fucked off somewhere else, without banishing them sounds like a huge manchild desu
Evan Brown
No, he really had more pressing matters to attend to than the ritual in progress, I just can't remember what it was.
Owen Ortiz
Stack the deck
Ryan Smith
>said fuck it in the middle of a ritual which involved a fuckton of demons and fucked off somewhere else, without banishing them Any support for that other than his own word of mouth? Cause he just sounds like the world's biggest chuuni to me. Like, for real, that sounds like something the awkward kid in middleschool says to try and make people think he's cool but it backfires because they can all tell he's lying.
John Jenkins
>great alpinist since when does climbing mountains make you smart?
Cameron Gutierrez
I can't find any information about him being a chess player, much less master, other than stuff created by hermetic practitioners.
Got a source on that a little less obviously biased?
James Brown
Check the Yorke microfilms in the occultism and magic general, over at /x/. Other than that, I have seen a couple of play by plays of his games on jewtube. Check chess game databases. Again, the Yorke microfilms. And he went on official government business from the ritual, so records exist. I was just defending the man. It doesn't make him smart, but it gives him CON, which means more buttsecks
Parker Cruz
>No, he really had more pressing matters to attend to than the ritual in progress, I just can't remember what it was. Naruto was coming on.
>Any support for that other than his own word of mouth? Cause he just sounds like the world's biggest chuuni to me. Yep, see?
Nathan Jenkins
>Again, the Yorke microfilms WAIT ARE YOU TELLING ME WE HAVE RECORDINGS OF ACTUAL DEMONS BEING ACTUALLY SUMMONED?@! WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE WHERE CAN i WATCH THEM
Julian Rivera
I went to his link, there is no proof here, only a text-only pdf that's just a bunch of lists.
Lucas Ortiz
You have seen the INDEX, there's 30ish gigs of content. The index tells you what is where. The best parts (pottery, dramas and shit) aren't in the mega, unfortunately.
Levi Thompson
I was thinking of running a campaign like this. I'm kind of imagining a less malicious deck than the one in Lucifer; the party gets a job to hunt down the tarot cards. Some of them don't care and will return immediately, most will fight or flee
Carter Baker
what makes the Thoth so great?
Benjamin Sanchez
That guy's husbando made it, and that's it, probably.
William Jones
...
Justin Parker
Here is a novel Idea. Instead of building a better deck of many things, how about having your players MAKE the deck of many things?
One of the cards is a knight card which gives you a follower. Instead, make a cool npc Paladinbro, have him follow the party around for his quest to finding his very own dawn.
Upon compleation the knight is no more, but a card sits where he once stood. It's a tiny paper slate with a picture of the knightbro with his dawn. >You have just assembled one of the pieces of the Deck of Many things.
Levi Miller
>here is a novel idea >instead of the idea you have how about a totally different idea which is thematically completely opposite to it
Well, uh. I appreciate your input.
Jordan King
Storytime. I must know more.
Benjamin Garcia
Soooo play Card Captor Sakura?
Alexander Hughes
>44 effects seems like doubling the problem. >OP wants a new version of the DoMT but less than 44 cards....
>>instead of the idea you have how about a totally different idea which is thematically completely opposite to it Okay! How about 79 cards from 1983?
Daniel Bell
Okay, I hoped to type up my replacement "deck" before I posted and now I ran out of time and I'm away from the computer that had what I was working on.
But I can tell you about my premise: The party discovers a large bag, hidden in a chest, carried by a dying old woman, delivered by a stork, however you like. The bag is full of apparently mundane items: a hand mirror, a small rock, a bracelet, a horn, a torch, a simple pendant, an empty glass jar, a brick, a ribbon, a rusty key, a bandanna, a mask, a banana peel, an obviously fake giant gem, etc. Crap items, really. But the bag and all the items radiate powerful magic. Dumping the bag doesn't work as they won't come out more than one at a time. Reaching in to grab a specific item doesn't work as they seem to somehow slip, jumble, and move as you grab. You can reach in without really looking, and grip something strangely amorphous and pull out an item. Some items have immediate effects of you don't put them back immediately. Some have magic only known when you use it. And some have unkown magic that sits waiting for the right moment to trigger.
The mystery and possible unique or creative player uses of these items are what make it interesting. Even though I remained pretty faithful to the original.
I'll post em when I can. Bump it from the last page with a guess trying to match items with cards if you want to. I'd be surprised if someone gets more than two right.
Oliver Lee
This the one?
>DM has us hunting down a minotaur that keeps challenging anything sentient it comes across to a battle of strength >If they lose they are beaten to death >If they refuse him they are beaten to death >We never found anyone who actually won >When we find and eventually kill this bastard its body turns into a card >A card from the deck of many things (strength to be exact) >DM tells us that until the deck is assembled the cards work differently >Once a week we can use the card to get a special effect >Each card will choose a master when defeated and only that person can use it unless they relinquish it to another >It took us getting three cards before we realized that we were playing Card Captor Sakura the DnD game
I cant even begin to describe how dumb I felt for not catching it immediately
Logan Baker
That sounds amazing and I'm super tempted to steal that idea. Any more stories from that game?
Samuel Clark
Probably. I remember reading a longer version, but I'm not that user. Just creatively bumping the thread. I'll delve deeper later.
