This is something I am really looking forward to. I hope there are going to be more ideas like this one to come out of Paizo's great minds
I want to know if its still looking good for May, its only roughly 37 days away to May 1st!
Chief Technical Officer
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This is something I am really looking forward to. I hope there are going to be more ideas like this one to come out of Paizo's great mindsI want to know if its still looking good for May, its only roughly 37 days away to May 1st!
That makes it 68 days until May 31!
It's at the printer now. We don't have a verified delivery date yet, but May seems like a reasonable estimate with our current information.
please dont flame me, but could this be used in 4e?
i love the game mastery cards, so just wondering if i can use this? the mechanics cant be so different that they dont have some crossover. unless it affects the abilities.
i have a system where i hand out a card with a mechanic bonus for good role roleplaying, great ideas, sound planning, and making me laugh.
it has a +1, +2 or +3 to attacks, skills, etc. i have about 500 of them, all a little bit different. there are collection cards, if you collect 4 of the same kind, you get to raise an ability score. there are some that if you collect 3 you can recharge a daily power, and collect two to recharge a encounter power.
im sure that there are none for powers in the card set, but if the mechanics are like skills etc, then i should be able to use them.
I know this is a little different than what you're asking. The theme of using cards is very cool. I tried to start a >community project to build DM Decks< that would allow a solo player to experience a limited adventure with a bit of re-play value. It got a few nibbles of participation (along with a lot of chatter.)
I believe there is a market out there for this type of solo system.
If you're interested, please submit some card ideas to the >thread< . Over time, if enough people submit ideas there will be a repository of cards available for use, and available to stimulate the imagination for new cards.
p.s. You will have to ignore the *haters* who popped into the beginning of that thread. That was a time full of wrath and angst.
This is something I am really looking forward to. I hope there are going to be more ideas like this one to come out of Paizo's great mindsI want to know if its still looking good for May, its only roughly 37 days away to May 1st!That makes it 68 days until May 31!
It's at the printer now. We don't have a verified delivery date yet, but May seems like a reasonable estimate with our current information.
Cool, I just started up a new campaign, after ending a 3 year one, and I hope these will be easy to integrate in a campaign already a couple of months along. I would think they would be, I assume they are short and quick type of "plots".
These look great! Can't wait to get them :)
"Where'd that tentacle come from?"
These are interesting...well...from a player's pserspective.
The GM in me shudders to think what my players would do with such power to wreck my carefully crafted plot!
I found a similar (although not remotely balanced) product as a download somewhere on the web. I removed the most egregious cards, but left in several that I thought couldn't possibly be overpowered . . . .
Yeah . . . .
One card was "I was a Junior Chipmunk." It allowed the character to talk to the wildlife.
So, as the PCs were exploring an island, one player kept asking if there were any birds . . . sure, of course. "Well, I ask the bird if he's seen anyone else on this island!" He handed me the card, and I frantically thought what a bird would say.
"His chirping indicates that there are about twenty people in their nest . . . ." I decided that the bird wouldn't know prisoners from pirates. To which the players said "Crap! That's a lot! We go back to the ship and get our reinforcements!"
Seriously, a lot of fun was had with those cards (although, as I mentioned, I do remember that some cards were utterly game-breaking). These cards are on my wishlist (and will be picked up at GenCon if not at my FLGS).
They say in the instructions the last three pages of cards are the most powerful, so you can elect not to use them if you wish.
Once I get some ink for my printer *shakes fist at printer* I'm going to print them out and try them in my game.
That said, I'm looking forward to the Plot Twist cards, and plan to preorder them early next month (or just order them, if they're out by the time I get paid.)
They say in the instructions the last three pages of cards are the most powerful, so you can elect not to use them if you wish.
Once I get some ink for my printer *shakes fist at printer* I'm going to print them out and try them in my game.
That said, I'm looking forward to the Plot Twist cards, and plan to preorder them early next month (or just order them, if they're out by the time I get paid.)
Yep, those are them. I had already cut them up and didn't have the good sense to look at the original file to make sure I got all the cards out . . . .
Still fun! Especially when the captain of the ship berated the PCs for calling his crew to take care of something like seven pirates.
They say in the instructions the last three pages of cards are the most powerful, so you can elect not to use them if you wish.
Once I get some ink for my printer *shakes fist at printer* I'm going to print them out and try them in my game.
That said, I'm looking forward to the Plot Twist cards, and plan to preorder them early next month (or just order them, if they're out by the time I get paid.)
Those are hilarious. I'll be using them this week in ROTR until the plot cars show up. (And the more dangerous ones just need to be reinterpreted...)
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Chief Technical Officer
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These are interesting...well...from a player's pserspective.
The GM in me shudders to think what my players would do with such power to wreck my carefully crafted plot!
We're only showing you one side of one of the two rules cards... we also have tips and examples, and we make it very clear that everything the players suggest must meet with the GM's approval; the example even has a player who's trying to get away with a bit too much, and the GM scaling the player's suggestion back to an appropriate level.
I love it it would really help if we get bogged down or the story line isnt going were I want it to. many players love the fumble & critical deck. The friend and foes help with visuals also. Awesome!!!
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great minds think alike^^ my group has been playing with cards much like these for about two years ( we have bane and boon cards that add or subtract +1 to +5 or -1 to -5 to a die roll) we got cards like "quick and the dead" all damage is double til combat is over...deadly, "borismired" based of the ill fated tolkien character, all enemies attack the same target for a round and many other less deadly and more fun cards (annoying follower, illegal opportunity, sudden weather change) , cards like these really can spice up games (especially when someone needs a sidescene ran and you dont want everyone else to be bored, everyone is junior dungeon master^^)
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SwashCards
They say in the instructions the last three pages of cards are the most powerful, so you can elect not to use them if you wish.
Once I get some ink for my printer *shakes fist at printer* I'm going to print them out and try them in my game.
That said, I'm looking forward to the Plot Twist cards, and plan to preorder them early next month (or just order them, if they're out by the time I get paid.)
Dear me! The link seems to be down, and I cannot find any other links to SwashCards. Anyone have a link they'd be willing to share? I'd like to see if they'll hold me over 'til the Plot Twists arrive.
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Dear me! The link seems to be down, and I cannot find any other links to SwashCards. Anyone have a link they'd be willing to share? I'd like to see if they'll hold me over 'til the Plot Twists arrive.SwashCards
They say in the instructions the last three pages of cards are the most powerful, so you can elect not to use them if you wish.
Once I get some ink for my printer *shakes fist at printer* I'm going to print them out and try them in my game.
That said, I'm looking forward to the Plot Twist cards, and plan to preorder them early next month (or just order them, if they're out by the time I get paid.)
It is still cached on google so far.
Lisa,
You mentioned that you have been using these in your game. Will you please give a couple of examples of their use?
ie what situation, how used and the decision to grant what effect
I really like this idea, I have been trying different thing like this to get the player to help make a story reather then just be part of the one I am telling,
This may not be the place but what are some other Ideas to do the same thing while we are waiting for the Cards to come out.
Rut Row! Looks like the Mystery Machine is now available in card form!
Both these and the swashbuckling cards look cool. I think, however, that in order to preserve the realism of encounters, I'll probably not use them as is, and instead will have them be something like a Deck of Many Things, where they may find a card or two upon occasion, and these cards range from very minor items to artifacts in power (some of the last of the swashbuckling cards come to mind - an entire organization is annihilated?)
Looking forward to these, even if the artwork is too light-hearted for my campaign.
And I'll reiterate what I've heard before - it would be SO VERY COOL to have PDFs available for the cards, the map packs, and the flip mats - I'd love to include thumbnails of the maps in encounters, and PDFs of the cards would allow me to customize 'em, especially for ones like the item cards and the friends/foes.
These plot device cards sound really great, however, how they play out depends greatly on your gaming group. I downloaded some (free) cards that had nearly the same idea, and my players just used them to screw each other over. It was kind of funny (for me the DM), but it made the adventure much more difficult and ruined the story. So if your gaming group is a bunch of bastards like mine is, it might be better to skip them.
Having said that, I love the concept anyway and will probably end up purchasing them when they become available.
This is my little baby. I am not quite ready to reveal the mechanics and such, but rest assurred we will preview this in the Paizo blogs before it releases. I am using a variant of these cards in my home campaign and they are a blast! Paizocon attendees will be able to use them in a very unique event that we are also not ready to unveil. :)
-Lisa
I still have 5 sets of Whimsey cards. Two are still unopened in original packaging. Are these new sets different or could I just adapt those?
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CEO
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I still have 5 sets of Whimsey cards. Two are still unopened in original packaging. Are these new sets different or could I just adapt those?This is my little baby. I am not quite ready to reveal the mechanics and such, but rest assurred we will preview this in the Paizo blogs before it releases. I am using a variant of these cards in my home campaign and they are a blast! Paizocon attendees will be able to use them in a very unique event that we are also not ready to unveil. :)
-Lisa
The concepts are pretty similar between Plot Twists and Whimseys. Of course, the production value on the Plot Twist cards is about six thousand times better than the cards that we had printed in black and white at a local printer and then hand collated in Mark's kitchen, but 23 years and all the technology advancement from then can make a difference.
Mechanically, the biggest difference is that we added a section to the cards that gives folks the option to have a specific mechanical benefit rather than the inspecific plot twist. It is sometimes hard to come up with a way to use the cards to change the plot line, so we wanted a way to use the cards that is more specific, such as a single +20 to a Diplomacy roll. Both sets of cards could have been used to create the same effect, the rules specific thing just makes it a bit easier for players and GMs if they have a tough time coming up with the new plot lines.
I am using the old Whimsey cards currently in my Rise of the Runelords campaign and they are still great. I plan to switch to Plot Twist cards when we move to Kingmaker in a month or so.
-Lisa
Just got these with my monthly shipment and I'm eager to put them to use in my campaign.
My players are not very roleplay heavy and I try to encourage them to talk to NPCs more and do stuff in town rather than just set-out for the next encounter, but I think they think of the time between fights as superfluous.
I'm going to introduce these cards to the game immediately (giving each player 1 random card per class level) and hope they encourage the players to pay more attention to what's going on around them when it isn't their turn (since they can be played at any time) and encourage the players to pay more attention to the events when outside of combat. Basically, I'm hoping that granting the players the power to affect the plot themselves at any time will encourage them to be more involved all the time.
Overall, I am liking what I see in the cards and am thinking about implementing them in the Legacy of Fire campaign I am running. Some of the mechanical effects though seem to be out of balance with the others.
+10 on a skill check? No problem.
Target finds a object that appraises for 500gp? No problem
Target becomes sickened for d6 rounds? Problem. This could really shut down a combat and turn an otherwise challenging combat encounter into a cakewalk. Which is fine for most combats except for the BBEG one.
I am toying with two ideas here:
1) BBEG and 'named' villains get saves against the effects
2) removing those cards which could shut down a combat completely
Other than that, I think it will be interesting to see what the players will do with the cards.
Got mine today and I love 'em! Can't wait to use them this weekend :) Posted a review of them and everything :) Now, the question is, Lisa, when can we expect Plot Twist Cards II? ;)
Thanks for an awesome deck Lisa and Paizo :)
I'm obviously not Lisa, but I think I can help...
While the art is a fantasy affair, most of the cards have very general plot ideas. You should be ok.
That being said, they are bent for a heroic sort of game, so it may not work for more realistic campaigns.
OK,
I now have bought the cards, they are in my hands, I have examined them- but what do I do with them (yes I have read the instructions). Apart from the black option (ie +10 to a skill) which is a bit too mechanical can someone give me an actual example of how these have been used in an actual game.
I like the idea but they just look like they would be used to thwart other players. For me players that are too mechanical minded will save them up to get max benefit to 'win the game' which appears to be contrary to the spirit -- and players that are not mechanically minded dont really need them to muck around in character and would almost resent using them.
I have some difficulty figuring out how to actually use them- help me out here.
Are you the GM? If so, hand one out to each player next time you play. Tell them they can use them if the situation is appropriate to the name or example topics of the card. If you're a by-the-rules GM, only let them get the specific mechanical benefit listed on the card. If you're willing to play it a little looser, be more flexible with what the cards can do (an "unexpected arrival" card may mean helpful reinforcements for the PCs, for example).
Once they play a card, they don't get another until a condition you decide, such as "you get a card when you level" or "you get a card when you do a cool roleplaying thing."
I'm sure you'll find the players will use them to help their characters and the other PCs, or use them to hinder NPCs/monsters.
I have suggested we post a video of how you'd use them, that would be helpful and fun.
Are you the GM? If so, hand one out to each player next time you play. Tell them they can use them if the situation is appropriate to the name or example topics of the card. If you're a by-the-rules GM, only let them get the specific mechanical benefit listed on the card. If you're willing to play it a little looser, be more flexible with what the cards can do (an "unexpected arrival" card may mean helpful reinforcements for the PCs, for example).
Once they play a card, they don't get another until a condition you decide, such as "you get a card when you level" or "you get a card when you do a cool roleplaying thing."
I'm sure you'll find the players will use them to help their characters and the other PCs, or use them to hinder NPCs/monsters.
I have suggested we post a video of how you'd use them, that would be helpful and fun.
Thanks for this response, I appreciate it. I am the GM and am about to start running a lengthened Curse of the Crimson throne campaign and am wondering whether to use the cards.
Have you, or anyone else, got a couple of examples of actually using them in actual game play? What the situation was- which card was used- how they were used, what the player suggested- what the DM did, etc
Edit: To me I always found it really useful to read the actual descriptions of play, or character creation in the PHB or DMG. I reckon a vidoe would be helpful as well. Sometimes seeing how things are used (or reading a description of them being used) gives a better idea of how to use them than reading instructions about how they are meant to be used...ie kicking a ball.
An example how they've been used in my game:
One character, a barbarian shield maiden, is in the midst of a battle after being taken prisoner by some 'Chelaxian Dogs!' With her weapons taken away, she decides to incite a riot and pulls at her chains for a weapon. Using the 'Broken' card, she asks to rip the chains from the wall and fashion a makeshift weapon. Thinking it a fairly reasonable request, I allow it. Using all of her strength, she rips the chains from the wall and proceeds to POUND on the guards, freeing the other prisoners in the process.
Because of her act of heroism (all the other prisoners were innocent), I grant her another pull from the deck.
The rules I use for card replenishment are:
• If a PT Card is used for a heroic deed, draw a new one after the round is done.
• If the PT Card is used in a selfish manner, draw a new card at the next level.
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Another example, against the big bad, our rogue used the "Not as it seems" card to give him an opportunity to Stealth as the big bad missed him in the melee, thinking he was just a shadow.
The "Not Black or White" card was represented as the blessings of Gorum upon his Barbarian Priest in making the weapon deal horrific wounds to his foe.
One that wasn't allowed was the Rogue previously tried to play the card to say that the cursed pick he picked up wasn't really cursed, it just looked that way. That was a bit of a stretch for the card so I refused.
[EDIT} I give them new cards every level. However, to use the card, they have to justify and describe the effect they want. Then I decide if it's reasonable. Using the card to completely bypass a threat or negative consequence will probably not be allowed.
I'd say "Not Black or White" for a cursed pick shouldn't mean that it's not cursed but that it should have some beneficial properties along with the curse, making it a quandary whether to use it. Like giving someone a vorpal chakrum that on a critical hit, beheads an opponent, and on a critical fumble, beheads the wielder.
An example how they've been used in my game:
One character, a barbarian shield maiden, is in the midst of a battle after being taken prisoner by some 'Chelaxian Dogs!' With her weapons taken away, she decides to incite a riot and pulls at her chains for a weapon. Using the 'Broken' card, she asks to rip the chains from the wall and fashion a makeshift weapon. Thinking it a fairly reasonable request, I allow it. Using all of her strength, she rips the chains from the wall and proceeds to POUND on the guards, freeing the other prisoners in the process.
I've been really torn about these.
One of my big beefs with 4e it that (caveat: for me) the mechanics of the game completely blow me out of the game world, or at least try to. That's why I have avoided trying to use the plot twist cards - as much as I like the idea, the actuality makes the game world seem a lot less realistic. It's similar to how I detest action points. They make perfect sense for a game - but they're virtually impossible to explain in game-world terms ... why would someone suddenly get extra actions? A haste spell is well-explained in game-world terms. But action points>
On the other hand, if the players were to use them as Sketchpad has said, I can see that being reasonable. It still stretches the reality of the game somewhat, but it's a rare event and in this case well explained.
In my case, I think I'd make them some kind of divine boon, rather than "at every level". Thus, when they did something heroic, it might be recognized by the gods and they could pull from the deck.
Any more recent commentary on using these?