Hey guys, I'm finding the harrow readings to be very confusing. Is their one reading per player or is it a group thing? What sort of things do I foreshadow and how does this work with the different card flavours? Help please!
Thanks
|
one per player. because it determines how many bonus the player will be able to use duing the book's adventure
I can gives you an exemple of my last reading (book 2 : seven day to the grave)
in advance sorry for the translation.
Here is the reading of our Magus:
Past: The teamster, the waxwork and the fiend.
present: the tyran, the rapid prince and the avalanche
futur: the tangled briar, the beear, and the marriage.
For each column, Look first for perfect match, then for misaligned or oposite match then for partial match.
in this first column only the Fiend is to be red. The card says "dark intelligent ennemy" I told him "in a recent past, I can see that an evil and dark spirit woke up"
in the second colum, the tyran is misaligned and the two others are partial match. SO I told him "The card says that this dark influence cannot yet use its full power" "I see that many different fights will show up in front of you but also a disaster is comming"
in the 3rd colun. the bear is a partial match and the briar is an oposite match. "In the sky, the shadow of an ancestral evil bring darkness on your future but on the ground, the rieng of strengh will raise savagely"
As you can see I gives a lot iof information even with "perfect match" cards, because it gives more flavour to the reading.
the evil shadow is the dragon, the brute force are the grey maiden and the different fights are the different part of the scenario "hungry deads", "color of death" and so on...
In our group I do one group Harrowing, with the total number of associated cards being their Harrow Points (each gets that number). I foreshadow a bit what the book says, making it fit with matching cards. Then I let them pick one card associated with the chapter at random to see what battle each individual gets a bonus for.
Note that I have a deck, and pull out the associated cards, then add in the cards they call out in that chapter, and add maybe another 1/3 of the deck and shuffle that, then deal a few times with the smaller deck until get a spread I like. Sounds confusing but I try for a semi-random spread that has at least 3-4 chapter-specific cards that I can talk about. If I don't like it, or I want specific cards, I just move them around. It has taken me a few tries but I think I'm getting better at it.
Really they are there to foreshadow what you want, or set the mood for the chapter. The books talk about foreshadowing specific enemies, but I don't like giving my group too much right at the front or they may jump to conclusions too early. Just an example, I foreshadowed Chapter 3 too well, and they became paranoid of everyone and everything, and I didn't get to play out Laori the way I wanted.
|
|
BTW, in carrion crown there is a new way to read cards for those with the harrowed feat.It is based on the alignement of the card instead of its symbol/caracteristics
ps) I made an excel sheet that run the reading for me showing wich card is in wich position. It's less fun but with 6 players it's mandatory.
Yes, the Harrowed feat and the Harrower Prestige class will be different. It just depends on what capacity it is being used in. If it's just the mechanic for Crimson Throne, it is to determine Harrow points for the chapter and give each player an advantage over a particular bad guy encounter. The other two will adapt it differently. Depends on how much you want it in the game.
You wanna get real crazy with a deck, you get the Harrowing module. Characters get sucked into a demiplane where the card 'characters' come to life! Very Into the Looking Glass. Haven't run it yet.
I do it like CaroRose, with one reading for the entire group. I tend to do a full spread with the entire deck, and just improvise on the results. Try doing a few practice runs for yourself, just so you get a feel of how to take the vague descriptions and spin them with what is coming up in the adventure. Make sure you have a clear idea in your mind about what the players are likely to face when you Harrow and don't be afraid if you are stumbling through it. I still feel clumsy when I interpret, but my players say that they really enjoy it.
|
Something that might be helpful. I tried to do a "show" drawing and really random drawing. What I mean by that is that i stacked the deck with a spread i wanted to use to tell the story. Then I drew a spread to see how many points the group got at random. kinda cheating, but if you're having trouble getting things to make sense on a random draw, it might help. Heck, if your players aren't familiar with the harrow, you can just read the cards however you want to tell the story you want to tell.
I used the 'cheap sleight-of-hand' trick:
(1) Do a normal Harrowing by yourself.
(2) Spend some time writing out the story that goes with it.
(3) Stack the deck so your Harrowing is on top.
(4) Shuffle behind the GM screen with your Harrowing excluded, so it sounds like you're shuffling, but you really aren't.
And a Harrowing is:
- Each player draws 1 suit card to get their special ability for the scenario, then returns it.
- The entire group gets a Harrowing.
I made a 'Harrow Helper' on an Excel sheet to help with my readings... It has a representation of the card spread, and drop-menues in each place to choose the cards that came up on the table.
The sheet then states all the card representations (aligned or misaligned, true or opposite, as per where the card came up), in a neat line-by-line format, so you may write beneath each line to "transform" what is initially written to what it means for your game.
Basically, it bypasses all the searching for definitions when the cards are dealt out.
I'll be trying it next game and tell you all how it went.
Ultradan
Wow, that sounds really cool. You should let us know how it went, and if you're feeling generous, maybe share the sweet fruits of your labor?
I did something similar only by hand and stacked the deck ahead of time.
Even better! (Mine didn't do the actual picking of the cards)
Thanks
I do it like CaroRose, with one reading for the entire group. I tend to do a full spread with the entire deck, and just improvise on the results. Try doing a few practice runs for yourself, just so you get a feel of how to take the vague descriptions and spin them with what is coming up in the adventure. Make sure you have a clear idea in your mind about what the players are likely to face when you Harrow and don't be afraid if you are stumbling through it. I still feel clumsy when I interpret, but my players say that they really enjoy it.
This is almost exaclty how I did when I DM COCT as well. The harrow deck is your friend, and is met to be vague. It allowed my PC to read way into it, and set up a lot of great red herrings. It also allowed me to give some direction to keep them from leaving the sandbox altogether and some hints.
I had a great harrowing moment in Skeletons of Scarwall. I made a statement about 'the two who are one will do battle, and one must be sacrificed', and one of the players latched onto it and assumed it had something to do with Serithiel. Another one assumed it was dealing with someone who had a split personality, and they were all terribly surprised when it turned out to be the mechanic involving the "traitor" (who was less a traitor and more 'opposite side of the coin' in my game) and the "friend"
Like any good Tarot Reading, feel free to work from more than just the strict definition of what the card means. Play up where it is in the alignment spread, what the card looks like, in what order it's played, and all of that. If you put your harrow deck in sleeves to obscure the back (so you don't know which way 'the right side' is), you can even play up whether the card shows up right-side-up or upside-down
Unlike most Tarot Readers, you actually have the gift of foresight. You get to know what's going to come up in the campaign, so you can drop vague hints about it.
mine is here:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/14722510/the%20harrowing%20helper.xlsm2010 excel sheet
Thanks, this looks great.