How i ruined an awesome DnD game in one session

>be me, DMing for a group of friends all of us fairly new to DnD
>introduce this mystical powerful gnomish wizard-trickster to my low level players
>they love him because he lets them gamble for magical loot, so he is an occasional recurring character
>They are in the city of neverwinter and happen by Velkyn's Mystic Emporium of Wonders
>he gives them a quest, but before they leave they decide to peruse the magical artifacts
>They spot a runic wooden box with a magical deck of 22 cards inside
>Figured fuck it, and the Gnome sells them the Deck of Many Things (this is where i fucked up)
>I figured fuck it, they will draw a shitty card and not want to use it anymore
>first person who draws it gets the fucking Throne. The criminal rapist Ranger is now a landed Lord.
>They proceed to draw on the deck like fucking crazy
>18 cards later the group now consists of two wealthy lords (one with a keep and one with a manor and vineyard), level balancing is all over the fucking place (literally ranging from level 3-10), one player is now the secret mortal enemy of the powerful Gnomish Wizard, and two are now the mortal enemies of Orcus himself
The only immediately shitty cards they drew were two skull cards, which summons an avatar of death which is a chump. And the two warlocks who sold their souls to gain their powers got the void, which sucks out your soul, but since they didnt have one anyways, literally nothing happens.

Never use the deck of many things. It ruins perfectly good DnD games

the Gnome is Velkyn

Well they have to clear their land dont they? Just kill them at start from scratch.

>and start*

>And the two warlocks who sold their souls to gain their powers got the void, which sucks out your soul, but since they didnt have one anyways, literally nothing happens.
Now that's just not how it's supposed to work.
Warlocks sell their souls as a payment in the future, to be taken upon the point of their death.
They can't go through their day to day without a soul.

There's no fixing this. And the next game won't be better.

>Low level
>artifacts like the deck of many things

That's just fucking stupid to do as a DM.
Punch yourself in the fucking face, and toss your DM permit in the trash.

Yeah, its the level differential that bothers me the most. Like it is impossible to balance these encounters now. an Umberhulk for the level 10 is a death sentence for the level 3 and what is hard for the level 3 is stupid easy for the level 10.

Oh and did i also mention that now two people have multiple wishes?

> inb4 antifrogposters

>Punch yourself in the fucking face, and toss your DM permit in the trash.
nah

Split the party. give the lvl 10 classic gandalf treatment.

Ahh you messed up :(

things I learned from this session:
>the Deck of Many Things should never be used

Have the God of Luck detect the sudden overuse of the Deck Of Many Things and make it his duty to scourge the party.

They are currently trying to talk the guy with the wishes into using one wish to bring them all to level 10. Id be fine with it, since it will at least balance out combat

Fuck off, frogposter.

fuck off anti-frogposter!

As expected of frogposters.

You have learned an important lesson, OP.

Also, your campaign sounds fine, just different from what you have planned.

What if she's a goddess?

Tie it all in! The point of the deck is to generate plot points. A gnomish wizard has besought Orcus for the ritual to become a lich, and the party members have unknowingly stolen it. The ritual is secreted somewhere among the old family estate, which is now in danger. Done.

Then it would be the Goddess of luck. Are you stupid?

Then she'll be too busy shopping and playing with barbies to care about OP's silly party shenanigans

>be running Pathfinder Kingmaker
>decide to drop a deck of many things about the time before the lich
>two veteran D&D players go NOPE
>two newbies go "what the hell? why not"
>one draws the "fight death" card and fucking dies like a bitch
>one draws the sex change card and becomes a grill
>one of the vets decides to go for it
>draws the fight death card and dies like a bitch
>last player was undecided, chances it
>draws the fight death card and dies
>last player standing who didn't draw laughs at all of them
>"i fucking told you"

>How i ruined an awesome DnD game in one session
Interesting. I wonder how you managed to do that...

>>They spot a runic wooden box with a magical deck of 22 cards inside
...ooooh.
Yeah.
That'll do it.

For those interested, but fear 22 cards isn't enough...

Dear OP
There's an extended deck in 3.5 that also has cards that end up changing a persons type, subtype or species, and in some cases alignment.

And she'd have -2 strength!

Please, no frogposting on Veeky Forums. Thank you.

Edit the deck of many things to fit your group OP. That's the only way to use it.

>More than one of them draws from the Deck of Many Things
What edition was this? I was under the impression that in all editions of D&D, the Deck works by you announcing how many cards you want to pull, and then when you're done, it disappears, to reappear later somewhere else.
That being said, since back the first DM we had established as a group rule to never give anyone the Deck of Many Things, literally the only campaign I ever had it pop up was a 3.5 one I ran where the entire premise was that someone managed to cosmically bumfuck the universe because of the Deck of Many Things, complete with an epic poem about the origins of the Deck and how the entire pantheon of D&D is only in charge instead of a proper God, because Olidammara was a piece of shit and tricked God into drawing a couple of cards.

All that said, you could just sit down with your group, explain to them you had no idea how far the Deck could derail the campaign, and offer to retcon the session (provided the story didn't already drastically change because of it) so that instead of the Deck of Many Things, they found like a long lost jewel, the return of which to some noble in the land would surely fetch a great prize, maybe even a favour from the powerful lord (such as the clearing of the Ranger's charges, or what not).

New GM's fuck up dude. It's expected.

i mean they all made out like bandits, they would never go for that. really the high level isnt as much of an issue as the low level in balancing encounters.

If i can find a way to get the level 3 to a level 9-10, then i can handle anything else