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Our GM ran us through the House of Cards adventure that was published in, I think, Dragon or DUNGEON Magazine. You end up running through most of the deck and bear the brunt of the most destructive cards.
I like our GM. I really do. But the above absolutely sucked. A couple of us got screwed while two others made out like bandits. It was zero fun for me. Just random character destroying effects with no logic or purpose, and intra-party disparities to serve as a permanent reminder of it.
The deck is best used when the GM manages the possible outcomes, and has hooks for how to undo or mitigate the nastier effects. Otherwise, it's just narrative-wrecking randomness for its own sake with a side helping of F.U.
Tell them it's a deck of many things, but in reality it's a deck of illusions. Have all the effects take place after everyone has drawn.
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I wouldn't use it. Especially not with low level parties...
Low Level Problems
Player 1 is a fighter. He draws balance. He switches alignment. You can work with that. Everyone laughs as the chaotic neutral fighter turns lawful neutral.
Player 2 is a monk. He draws ruin. He loses everything he owns. Everyone laughs as the monk is now naked. But hey, he's a lvl 1 monk. No harm, right?
Player 3 is a cleric. He draws flames. An evil outsider wants to end the cleric's life. Cool, right? A nice plot hook.
Player 4 is a cavalier. He draws throne. +6 diplomacy and a castle? Not game breaking...but very in character. And can be the subject of plot hooks.
Player 5 is a bard. He draws skull. A dread wraith comes out. The party watches helplessly as he died. Sucks...but only lvl 1, right? It's fine.
Player 6 is a sorcerer. He draws jester. He gets 10,000xp and 2 more draws. Out comes key 'gains a major magic artifact' and sun 'medium magic weapon and 50,000xp'
So out of your 6 man party...one player is dead. Another has his alignment changed. One is now naked, another has a cool plot hook, another is now much more diplomatic and has a castle...and your last one is lvl a lvl7 sorcerer with a major and minor magical artifact.
Congratulations...your campaign is now impossible to play.
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I wouldn't use it. Especially not with low level parties...
Low Level Problems
Player 1 is a fighter. He draws balance. He switches alignment. You can work with that. Everyone laughs as the chaotic neutral fighter turns lawful neutral.
Player 2 is a monk. He draws ruin. He loses everything he owns. Everyone laughs as the monk is now naked. But hey, he's a lvl 1 monk. No harm, right?
Player 3 is a cleric. He draws flames. An evil outsider wants to end the cleric's life. Cool, right? A nice plot hook.
Player 4 is a cavalier. He draws throne. +6 diplomacy and a castle? Not game breaking...but very in character. And can be the subject of plot hooks.
Player 5 is a bard. He draws skull. A dread wraith comes out. The party watches helplessly as he died. Sucks...but only lvl 1, right? It's fine.
Player 6 is a sorcerer. He draws jester. He gets 10,000xp and 2 more draws. Out comes key 'gains a major magic artifact' and sun 'medium magic weapon and 50,000xp'
So out of your 6 man party...one player is dead. Another has his alignment changed. One is now naked, another has a cool plot hook, another is now much more diplomatic and has a castle...and your last one is lvl a lvl7 sorcerer with a major and minor magical artifact.
Congratulations...your campaign is now impossible to play.
Could the solution be to apply all the effects to all the members of the party? I mean, I hate the item with holy passion, but suggestions in this thread about having it be a start of an adventure make sense (it helps if you're running a sandboxy homebrew campaign rather than an AP), and it just hit that if you just make the effects apply to the whole party, there is no imbalance.
Does anyone have a link that describes the Harrow Deck’s original effects? I can’t seem to find one anymore.
Example where the idiot card reduced all mental stats to 3 and the Eclipse permanently drained a level...
Okay, this actually took me a while.
One of the reasons there's no link is that it appears in the CotCT AP - had to remember that and go flipping.
So... no links, alas.
Buuuuuuuuuuu~uuuuuuuut, when has that ever stopped me?!
Here we goooooo~ooooooo:
Spoiler:The Avalanche: The character is imprisoned, either by the imprisonment spell or some powerful being.The Bear: The character gains the lycanthrope template, becoming a werebear. This lycanthropy is considered to be inherited for the purposes of curing the curse.
The Beating: While in combat, the character is always considered to be flanked. Attackers gain a +2 flanking bonus on the character and may sneak attack at will.
The Betrayal: The character’s animal companion, familiar, cohort, or other NPC ally is alienated and forever after hostile. If the character has no such allies, the enmity of some powerful personage (or community, or religious order) can be substituted. The hatred is secret until the time is ripe for it to be revealed with devastating effect.
The Big Sky: This card grants the character the one-time ability to avoid any situation or effect—even an instantaneous occurrence. The card cannot enable something to happen; it can only stop something or reverse a recent occurrence. The reversal is only for the character who drew the card; other party members may still have to endure the situation.
The Brass Dwarf: The character becomes immune to one energy type of his choice. He also gains vulnerability to another energy type of the GM’s choice.
The Carnival: Upon drawing this card, The Carnival is set aside and the GM draws additional cards until he has one card of each alignment. These cards are laid face up for the user to view. The cards are then flipped face down and the GM quickly rearranges them. The user then selects one card, taking that card’s effects as normal.
The Courtesan: The character’s favorite item—preferably a magic weapon—becomes intelligent. Use the rules for intelligent items on page 268 of the DMG to randomly generate the item’s abilities. If the character has no items, an intelligent item soon falls into the character’s possession.
The Cricket: Upon drawing this card, the character may draw up to 3 additional cards. In addition to those cards’ effects, the character’s base land speed increases by +10 feet for each card he draws.
The Crows: The character must make a choice between his most valuable item or a major ally of the GM’s choice. Whichever the character does not select is destroyed or slain and cannot be restored by any mortal means.
The Cyclone: An elder air elemental appears. The character must fight it alone. If the character cannot defeat the elemental in 1d6+1 rounds, he is transported to the Elemental Plane of Air.
The Dance: Whenever the character rolls initiative, he now rolls 2d20 and selects whichever result he prefers.
The Demon’s Lantern: An enemy gains a powerful fiendish ally of the GM’s choice.
The Desert: The character and up to 10 allies or 2,000 pounds of goods may travel to any location on the same plane instantly. The character must know exactly where he wishes to travel, such as a place he has been or a location on a map, but not a vague or hidden location, like the richest dungeon in the world or the Lost City of Ird. The transportation ignores all barriers against teleportation or other magical effects. The character may use the effects of this card whenever he wishes, but only once.
The Fiend: A powerful evil outsider takes notice of the character and sets plans in motion to destroy him.
The Foreign Trader: The mysterious entity known as the Foreign Trader appears and offers the character any treasure he wishes in return for years of his life. If the character accepts, he must choose to age a number of age categories (see page 109 of the DMG). The character takes all the ability score penalties for his new age, but gains none of the benefits. For each age category he advances, however, he gains 10,000 gp worth of credit with the Foreign Trader, which can be spent on any magic item in the DMG. Any credit a character does not spend is lost. After the character is done spending his credit, the Foreign Trader vanishes. Years taken by the Foreign Trader can only be restored by deific intervention. The Foreign Trader does not trade with characters who cannot die of old age. If the character is immortal, the Foreign Trader vanishes, leaving behind another card. If the character declines to bargain with the Foreign Trader, the trader disappears in a puff of acrid yellow smoke.
The Forge: The character must choose one weapon or piece of armor in his possession to be reforged into another weapon or piece of armor of equal or lesser gp value. For example, should a character choose to have a +3 longsword reforged (18,315 gp), he could have it transformed into any one of hundreds of items, like a +1 axiomatic scimitar (18,315 or a suit of +3 full-plate of silent moves (12,300 gp). Any gp value not spent is lost.
The Eclipse: The character gains one permanent negative level.
The Empty Throne: The character inherits a noble title and 25,000 gp soon after drawing this card. The GM decides the particulars of when and how this occurs.
The Hidden Truth: This card grants the character the one-time ability to call upon a source of wisdom to solve any single problem or fully answer any question upon his request. Whether the information gained can be successfully acted upon is another question entirely.
The Idiot: The character’s Charisma, Intelligence, and Wisdom are all reduced to 3.
The Inquisitor: This card grants the character the onetime ability to force another creature to answer a single question truthfully. The card does not grant the user or creature questioned any special insight. Thus, a creature might still answer a question falsely if she believes the falsehood, and, if truly ignorant, informs the user that she doesn’t know.
The Joke: Upon drawing this card, The Joke is set aside and the user selects one of his allies. Three new cards are then drawn by the GM. The user’s ally gets first pick of one of these cards and gains the effects. The user then selects one of the remaining two and gains that card’s effects. The final card is discarded.
The Juggler: The user gains a +2 bonus to two ability scores of his choice, but must swap them with one another.
The Keep: The user gains a castle. The castle appears in any open area he wishes, but the decision where to place it must be made within 1 hour of drawing the card.
The Liar: The user’s most powerful, most valuable, or favorite magic item (GM’s choice) manifests a curse. Roll on the Cursed Item table on page 272 of the DMG to generate this effect, re-rolling results for specific items.
The Locksmith: This card grants the character the onetime ability to open any one binding, door, lock, or portal, or other locked barrier. This also includes magical gates or portals that require specific objects to activate.
The Lost: The user can never gain another level in whichever class he currently has the most levels in.
The Marriage: A comely genie of the user’s preferred gender appears and proposes marriage. Should the character accept, he must organize a lavish marriage ceremony by the end of the week and ever after be bound to the exotic outsider. If the user declines, the genie is heartbroken and returns to her home plane, provoking the ire of her associated elemental court. The genie’s type, personality, actions, and possible retribution are determined by the GM.
The Midwife: The user gains exactly enough experience to advance one level.
The Mountain Man: The user grows one size category, gaining all the benefits and penalties of increased size. His equipment does not increase in size.
The Mute Hag: The user’s most private secret - as determined by the character and GM—becomes known by anyone who sees him. If the character has no such secret, an entirely believable lie is spread instead.
The Owl: This card grants the character the one-time ability to scry on any target anywhere for 1 minute. The target, however, is immediately aware that she is being scryed upon by the character.
The Paladin: The character is granted a holy avenger. This weapon functions in all ways as a normal holy avenger except that the character can choose to thrust the sword into the ground, causing the weapon to transform into a paladin two levels higher than him. The paladin wields her own holy avenger and aids the character in any way her alignment permits for either one battle or 30 minutes outside of combat. Once this time is over, the paladin vanishes and the holy avenger is forever reduced to a +2 cold iron longsword.
The Peacock: The character’s skin hardens, becoming rigid and pebbled. He gains a permanent +2 bonus to his natural armor, but takes a –2 penalty to Dexterity.
The Publican: The GM chooses one of the character’s enemies. This enemy has a complete change of heart and now favors the character.
The Queen Mother: 1d4 formian warriors appear to serve the character. These creatures eagerly seek to help and protect the character, but likely don’t understand his culture. Unless the character speaks Formian, he cannot verbally communicate with these followers. If a formian dies, a new formian appears to replace it a day later (this does not penalize the character’s chances to attract followers).
The Rabbit Prince: All attacks the character makes that threaten to critically hit a foe automatically confirm. Conversely, all attacks made against the character that threaten to critically hit also automatically confirm.
The Rakshasa: The character becomes the puppet of a mysterious enemy. The GM chooses how this card is fulfilled—perhaps the character is possessed by a spirit, perhaps he loses bodily control under certain circumstances, perhaps some entity can choose when to manipulate him from afar. The character gains no information on what controls him or how unless the GM allows it.
The Sickness: The character becomes afflicted with an incurable disease. Roll 1d10, comparing the results to the table on page 292 of the DMG to determine the disease (the GM may create his own chart if he wishes). While the disease cannot be cured, the effects of the affliction can be negated through the use of spells like restoration.
The Snakebite: The character’s alignment switches to the opposite alignment—lawful good characters become chaotic evil, neutral good characters become neutral evil, and so on. Wholly neutral characters get to choose their new alignment. If the character fails to act according to his new alignment, he gains a negative level.
The Survivor: The next time the character is reduced to –10 hit points, he is instantly restored to full hit points. If he is killed by an effect that slays him without dealing hit point damage (such as disintegrate), the effect fails to kill him and he is restored to full hit points. If he is killed by a hostile environment (such as a lava flow or teleportation to a dangerous plane), he is transported to the last safe place he occupied, and is restored to full hit points. This card does not save the character from effects that would permanently disable him, like petrification.
The Tangled Briar: A slain enemy returns to life and seeks vengeance. The GM decides how the enemy returns to life and what form her retribution takes.
The Teamster: Upon drawing this card, a powerful being appears before the character and tasks him to undertake a dangerous quest. If the character proves resistant to undertaking the task, he is afflicted by geas/quest until the quest is completed. Upon completing the quest, the powerful being reappears, granting the character a lavish reward. The specifics of the quest, the powerful being’s identity, and the character’s reward are determined by the GM.
The Theater: The next time the character kills a creature, he is granted a +2 bonus to the same ability score as the creature’s highest ability score.
The Trumpet: This card grants the character the ability to summon an outsider of his alignment once per day. This outsider must be of a CR equal to or less than the character’s level.
The Twin: The character physically becomes a member of the opposite gender.
The Tyrant: Upon drawing this card, an incredibly powerful evil entity appears, subdues the character, and drags him off to its foul lair. The specifics of the evil creature, its lair, and whether or not the PC is retrievable are decided by the GM.
The Unicorn: This card enables the character to undo one past choice or regrettable action. The fabric of reality is unraveled and respun, potentially restoring creatures to life or altering the course of history depending on how the character acted and how he wishes he would have acted. The player chooses what situation he would have acted differently in and how and the GM determines how reality changes to reflect that act. The change primarily affects
the character, affecting others as little as possible.The Uprising: Instantly, 3d6 unruly, accident-prone 1st level commoners appear and choose to serve the character as followers. If these followers are killed, the character takes the usual penalties to attracting further followers. Knowledge of these commoners’ mistreatment or deaths spreads far, with the GM determining any repercussions.
The Vision: The character receives two visions, along with the knowledge that one vision is true and the other false, though he does not know which is which. The GM determines the specifics of these visions. The visions may be views of the past, present, future, cryptic symbols, or complete fantasies.
The Wanderer: One of the character’s mundane possessions becomes a magical item worth 20,000 gp or less. The GM determines which item manifests magical properties and what those properties are.
The Waxworks: Upon drawing this card, 1d6 exact duplicates of the character appear within a 20-mile radius. These duplicates have the alignment opposite the original character’s and oppose his goals.
The Winged Serpent: The character is granted a single wish. This wish functions similarly to the spell wish when it comes to affecting rules and statistics, but can also change reality in ways outside the bounds of the spell’s effects - such as rerouting a river or ending a war. The GM decides what the wish can and cannot accomplish.
Okay, so that's a heck'v'a thing.
Full disclosure, I didn't type all of this at this exact moment - I had previously copied it into a Word document, found that document, and copy/pasted. I did confirm that the "GM" terminology was in the original 3.5 edition AP, and that everything I checked in my document had identical wording. I put it in spoiler, because long post is loooooooo~oooooooooooong.
Hope that helps!
Could the solution be to apply all the effects to all the members of the party? I mean, I hate the item with holy passion, but suggestions in this thread about having it be a start of an adventure make sense (it helps if you're running a sandboxy homebrew campaign rather than an AP), and it just hit that if you just make the effects apply to the whole party, there is no imbalance.
The Deck is really "best" (and I use that term loosely) around level 10 to 12. There, a 50,000 XP bonus is all but guaranteed to bump a character up by a level, 50,000 gp is "only" doubling one character's WBL, a 10,000 XP hit is harsh but not campaign-breaking, a 4th level Cohort is less than what Leadership would give you, and so on. Only the 1d4 Wishes are potentially game-breaking.
And there are still enough serious risks for this level. The Void and Donjon are harsh, but the GM can create challenging but manageable quests there so they just amount to GM fiat...though these won't be much fun for the affected player as it more or less eliminates them from the game for several sessions. The Dread Wraith is the harshest since it's probably a permanent death sentence to most classes. And of course losing all magic items, or all your property, is going to hurt (though the higher your level, the bigger the potential impact).
Could the solution be to apply all the effects to all the members of the party? I mean, I hate the item with holy passion, but suggestions in this thread about having it be a start of an adventure make sense (it helps if you're running a sandboxy homebrew campaign rather than an AP), and it just hit that if you just make the effects apply to the whole party, there is no imbalance.I wouldn't use it. Especially not with low level parties...
Low Level Problems
Player 1 is a fighter. He draws balance. He switches alignment. You can work with that. Everyone laughs as the chaotic neutral fighter turns lawful neutral.
Player 2 is a monk. He draws ruin. He loses everything he owns. Everyone laughs as the monk is now naked. But hey, he's a lvl 1 monk. No harm, right?
Player 3 is a cleric. He draws flames. An evil outsider wants to end the cleric's life. Cool, right? A nice plot hook.
Player 4 is a cavalier. He draws throne. +6 diplomacy and a castle? Not game breaking...but very in character. And can be the subject of plot hooks.
Player 5 is a bard. He draws skull. A dread wraith comes out. The party watches helplessly as he died. Sucks...but only lvl 1, right? It's fine.
Player 6 is a sorcerer. He draws jester. He gets 10,000xp and 2 more draws. Out comes key 'gains a major magic artifact' and sun 'medium magic weapon and 50,000xp'
So out of your 6 man party...one player is dead. Another has his alignment changed. One is now naked, another has a cool plot hook, another is now much more diplomatic and has a castle...and your last one is lvl a lvl7 sorcerer with a major and minor magical artifact.
Congratulations...your campaign is now impossible to play.
Were I that sixth level, at least, I'd totally lend out my major magic weapon (), and medium wondrous item (), to somewhat offset the +7 levels I've just gained . In fact, I'd grant one thing to monk and one to the fighter. Could be especially cool if the GM, thinking about it, made it weapon and/or item that might be useful against said outsider with plans against the cleric.
I will point out that those XP do grant diminishing returns, though. Interestingly, it'll also put you to 8th level if you're at 2nd or 3rd or even 4th level; once you've hit 5th level (or 6th or 7th), it'll put you to 9th. If you're already 8th level, +60k will get you to 10th, but by this point, that two-level gap is a looooooot lower. At 10th level, it'll get you to 11th. At 11th level, it'd be able to get you to twelfth if you've already got some xp under your belt. From there it's "More xp, but not enough to level."
As an aside, though, in the above scenario: that game is very playable. But, and here's where many are right, it greatly depends on the nature of the group.
I mean, if I was really serious about running this whole thing to the ground, I don't need the DoMT - I can just hit 9th level as a wizard, then spend ~731 rounds in a demiplane, hit level 23, and call it day. Most people don't particularly want to do that, though.
So... wat do? Well, for one, were I that group, I'd use the advantage handed to me to make a more interesting playing experience for everyone. Always wanted to play a mystic theurge (or, really, anything else that's not a full caster)? Now's your chance: no need to slog through the low-level nastiness to get the prerequisites - you're done! This allows you to experiment with styles you wouldn't otherwise, or might not be considered optimized or even viable. Have the group work together to make choices so that the higher-level one would work to help or empower the lower levels - this works for martials (teamwork feats, or Aid Another or "tank it" builds) as well as casters or skilled classes - and work to develop viable strategies together. Distribute the wealth as-needed. But that's just me. Your table might be different.
Again, though, the above scenario is actually a pretty nice one. Randomized items, like the Deck', don't always fill in boxes so neatly. You, as GM, need to think about what you're willing to accept, and how you're willing to run it, before you ever put the item down, in the first place.
The 'Deck (and things like it) is a legacy item from days where character death and weird events weren't so frowned upon. But it's also still able to be used in modern gaming... if you and your group can handle it and would enjoy doing so, or if you (the GM) are willing to modify the chances for events to happen.
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Regarding the "all magic items with a 30' radius are destroyed" card, I have no idea what version of the deck it's from or if it was just made up. I doubt it was used to reduce the number of magic items in play since all players were far below WBL throughout the campaign, due to a combination of totally random magic items for sale in cities, and large amounts of magic medium/heavy armor and magic martial weapons dropping when most characters in the party were not proficient in either.
I just summarized the effect. At the level we were at, she had no chance of soloing an Elder Air Elemental, in fact it would probably have killed the whole party. It killed her in 2 or 3 rounds, then took the body back to the Plane of Air, so she might as well have been vaporized instantly for all her ability to do anything about it.That's... still the wrong effect.
An elder air elemental appears, and the character must fight it alone. If the character cannot defeat the elemental in 1d6+1 rounds, he is transported to the Plane of Air.That effect only applies to exactly one character, and, if the character is unable to complete it himself, he gets transported to the elemental plane of air, instead of instant death.
That is exactly what happened. Another player drew the Joke card and chose her as the unlucky ally. She picked the Cyclone card at random since no one knew what any of the cards did, and as luck would have it, it was the wrong "choice". She had to fight it alone, was too low a level to defeat it, and didn't merely fail to kill it in time but was killed by it. Then, having failed to defeat it, she was taken back to the Plane of Air.
Nonetheless, being killed by an elder air elemental isn't permanent - it's not even that bad. One raise dead or reincarnate later, and you're back in business.
If you argue (as it seems you played it that way; that is a valid way to interpret it) the corpse is what's transported (so, a person is killed and then transported) that could be more problematic... but it could also serve as a quest... and is a mere one magic item away, if you pick the correct magic item (and back in 3rd/3.5 that correct magic item was always "candle of invocation").
We were (IIRC) 6th level so the kind of magic needed to bring that character back was still well beyond us, and the GM was rolling completely random magic items available for purchase at each city.
The deck is a great item. The players can choose to engage with it or ignore it, so its not forced upon those who don't want to use it. Its not disruptive IMC, because my campaign is the story of the characters, rather than a set adventure path. If one PC gets imprisoned far away, the game becomes "How do we rescue him" - new adventure. If another character earns the enmity of a devil then that devil make a move against him - another new adventure.
If you are playing a planned-out series of adventures the deck may be a problem. It may also be a problem for low level PCs
Many of the effects of the Deck outright kill a character or otherwise remove them from the campaign. You could go on a quest to get them back, but it will probably mean that player is rerolling anyways just so they don't have to stay at home for the next few weeks. Or the character might just get f$!$ed over permanently (or effectively permanently, if your campaign doesn't go to high enough levels for Wish/Miracle), and without even getting a story hook out of it.
Sure we have the choice not to draw from it. My character chose not to draw from it in that particular campaign, but again: One character was killed by someone else's draw. The first player to draw from it got three really good cards, which made most of the other characters want to draw as well (and our characters, unlike some of the players, had no knowledge of what the Deck could potentially do). One other character urged everyone not to draw from the Deck (to the point of metagaming), tried as hard as he could short of violence, and hid the deck as best he could given the circumstances. Not only did it not stop people from drawing, but one character surreptitiously retrieved the deck and kept trying to convince random townsfolk—and new characters joining the party—to draw from it.
Even if it is a story of the characters rather than a planned adventure, it's not just randomness but silly, stupid randomness, to the point that suspension of disbelief is strained and the narrative suffers. Frodo puts on the One Ring; a clown appears, points at him and laughs, making him permanently dumber. Oh man, I can't wait to find out what'll happen next! Narratives, even those made up on the fly, should be constructed by writers (DM's, etc), not a Mad Libs page with the blanks filled in by randomly drawn Cards Against Humanity, or the Family Guy Cutaway Gag manatees. If your DM is good at "managing" the Deck so it becomes a good source of plot hooks and doesn't derail the campaign, why use the Deck at all? Why not use those ideas for plot hooks and make them the consequences of choices that are more meaningful than choosing or not choosing to draw from the Deck?
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Are the same people decrying the silly stupid randomness of the classic deck the people who regularly decry a GM modifying anything for the storyline sake as cheating and ruining the game? The IDEA of a Deck of Many Things is great, and potentially a boon to the characters advancement in a storyline. Demanding it only be used unmodified by current power levels and storyline is flipping ridiculous. The classic deck used on a brand new level one party is strawman level silly.
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Gygax would never have put a DoMT in a first level adventure
Yeah, he's not THE standard, but he's the creator.
Point is, the DM has all power to change anything he sees fit... if he uses an unmodified deck, he has to be ready for the results, if he does not want to deal with the power and randomness, he can stack the deck however he wishes.
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Are the same people decrying the silly stupid randomness of the classic deck the people who regularly decry a GM modifying anything for the storyline sake as cheating and ruining the game? The IDEA of a Deck of Many Things is great, and potentially a boon to the characters advancement in a storyline. Demanding it only be used unmodified by current power levels and storyline is flipping ridiculous. The classic deck used on a brand new level one party is strawman level silly.
No, I'm decrying it because of its silly stupid randomness. GMs inventing new monsters or twists? Great!
A campaign forced to end because a random card you drew made your character catatonic? Not so great.
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Yea, verily yea! Part of the fun of D&D is finding awesome artifacts that can bring you great treasures or terrible horrors. They aren't to be used lightly, but a good Monkey's Paw or Deck of Many Things can add a lot of fun to a gaming session.
I even have the shwifty Deck of Many Things card set from Analog Games. Heartily recommended.
Are the same people decrying the silly stupid randomness of the classic deck the people who regularly decry a GM modifying anything for the storyline sake as cheating and ruining the game?
Not me. Part of a GM's job is to override the RNG for the sake of a good narrative, which usually means fudging a roll here and there. The Deck produces random happenings of such enormous magnitude on single RNG events, that a GM would have to modify it extensively or override it constantly in order for the campaign not to suffer. At that point, why use a Deck in the first place? Why not throw out the Mad Libs book if you know you're going to extensively edit it anyways?
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If the Deck is not actually random then yes, that is a form of lying to me. Random number generators in the game exist for a reason ... The GM can literally make anything they want happen in the world, if they want a plothook to occur then it does. They can even generate them randomly with the Deck, if they so choose, but why involve the players? Why pretend that the players are the ones doing anything?
The DOMT dates back to 1st Edition days, the Gygaxian era when the game was played very differently. The rules were inconsistent, the game was not well balanced, and it was literally all about combat. Character backgrounds were maybe a paragraph, if that, and the concept of a "campaign" was in its infancy. Mostly, it meant buying TSR modules by their level rating, and moving from one unrelated module to the next with no connecting world between them. Even Gygax's Greyhawk world was just a mishmash of random stuff, and it wouldn't pass the snicker test today as a campaign setting.
Back then, random destruction of a character or even an entire party was just something that happened. Artifacts existed with screwy powers and drawbacks that broke the game in ways that wouldn't even be up for discussion today. Killer DM was a title people aspired to because of Tomb of Horrors. If your character died you just rolled a new one. (All the characters of a given class were basically the same, anyway, except maybe for magic users due to school specialization and spell choices.)
It wasn't until we started seeing things like Dragonlance that the idea of "character should live to see end of campaign", "world should be internally consistent", and "play fair" really became a thing.
The game is a lot different now, and virtually all of those changes are for the better. Many are due to the influence of other RPG systems that steadily improved on the concept and emphasized interactions over melee. Though D&D and its variants are still largely about combat and the sheer randomness of dice rolls, there's more of a focus now on role play, non-combat encounters, and awarding XP for solving problems that don't involve murderhobo'ing your way from A to B.
The "pure" DOMT from the Gygaxian era really has no place in the modern game system. Campaigns shouldn't fall apart due to one random, disconnected event because that just isn't how the game is played today (unless everyone is in agreement for old-school hack-and-slash). Obviously, some randomness is necessary, but yelling "badwrongfun" at people for daring to fudge the deck and its outcomes or use it as a plot device is basically insulting people for caring about the quality of their group's game experience.
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The deck of many things has some huge, glaring problems, but, to me, the biggest one is simple-
the deck is basically made of anticlimax.
When you draw from the deck, you can get a fortune, alignment change, wish, killed, or deprived of all wealth with
no story, no reasonable events leading up to it, no climax.
Even if the climax is getting a deck of many things, you have made the climax of your story into "random things happen".
I honestly cannot image a climax is a good climax where the outcome has nothing to do with what the players did. (Unless you're playing a cuthulu game)
So, if I want to see a deck of many things, I want to see it watered down, made scalable and manageable, instead of into the artificial, nonsensical climax of a story.
When you draw from the deck, you can get a fortune, alignment change, wish, killed, or deprived of all wealth with
no story, no reasonable events leading up to it, no climax.Even if the climax is getting a deck of many things, you have made the climax of your story into "random things happen".
I honestly cannot image a climax is a good climax where the outcome has nothing to do with what the players did.
Look at it this way: the lead up to the event isn't finding the Deck, it's choosing to draw a card from it. So the story could be, "the character got into such an impossible situation due to an earlier mistake she decided to take an insanely risky gamble in a desperate attempt to save the day and it worked/backfired horribly".
Or, apparently in a lot of cases, "the character got bored so decided to take an insanely risky gamble to see what would happen."