We had our regular game session today and at the end of the battle against a small dragon army, our goblin druid gets a Deck of Many Things. Our GM homeruled that one could draw as many cards as they wanted from the deck. The goblin draws a card and gets jewelry. He draws another card, gets gold. The third card drawn is blank. He thinks the deck is broken and goes to see one of the other characters to ask about it.
Unfortunately, the card drawn had cast a magic spell on that character to make him hate the goblin with an unending passion. He's also one of our heavy hitters and proceeds to one-round the poor little goblin. This is all witnessed by the rogue that was crashing on the couch for the night. Fighter asks rogue to help him hide the goblin's body. Rogue proceeds to try to stab Fighter. Fighter then kills rogue.
We the players are stuck just watching this whole scene roll out without any way to stop it because none of our characters are there. Everyone's laughing from the sheer ridiculous of it. The Fighter's player is a bit devastated as he liked the goblin.
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That's what happens. You only put the DoMT into a campaign when either it's going nowhere and you need a twist, or you've stopped giving a damn and are rwady for it to end.
Our fighter has been captured by the kingdom's guards and is being interrogated because our goblin had a familiar that went to get help. The rogue was also a spy for the queen. So we might be losing our fighter too.
So, was the decision to try and hide the goblin slaying a player choice or GM forced "choice". Actually either way bodes ill for the game. So does any player choosing to take three draws from a deck without extensive party back-up. Beer and pretzel playstyles?
A little of both, I guess. The fighter was made to hate the goblin so much that he didn't want our wizard to resurrect him.
Ok, so one of the guards found the deck, so it looks like our fighter won't be going to jail after all. Sadly, I don't know how it's going to end as we had to end the session for the day. We will find out for sure next time.
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This is why my characters never draw from a Deck of Many Things.
At the very least this is why "draw as many times as you want" will inevitably go incredibly poorly. In a "draw one or two time" situation, you might get lucky, but "just keep drawing" is "draw until something terrible happens and you don't want to draw anymore."
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You do not draw from the DoMT. Ever.
-- You put them in the engraved tortoiseshell box that your own Harrow Deck of Secret Schemes came in, and then sell them to your worst enemy through an intermediary.
"For a mere 20,000 gold, it's a steal at 40% off!"
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Only two people? The deck usually kills entire campaigns off.
Seriously the only thing you should draw when a deck of many things is introduced is a bubble bath. Then throw the deck on and cast lightning bolt if no toasters are around
No use, the DOMT is an artifact, it will take a lot more than that to destroy
No use, the DOMT is an artifact, it will take a lot more than that to destroyOnly two people? The deck usually kills entire campaigns off.
Seriously the only thing you should draw when a deck of many things is introduced is a bubble bath. Then throw the deck on and cast lightning bolt if no toasters are around
Then we must cross the lands of Mordor and cast the deck into the fires of Mt. Doom!
myself, I'd just try to see what happens when I throw it into a Sphere of Annhihilation...
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It should be renamed to the Deck of All Dooms. All dooms? Not really, but All sounds better than the Deck of Some Dooms.
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Deck of many things? stay away.
but ..there are ways to work around this.
so much so that my Fortunate wizard\Harrower(10) with his crafted Silent Aviary was forced to retire after less then a month of redrawing from his deck.
(4 cards once per day pick the best, if all are bad use command word and fail the save on purpose then planeshift + teleport back). was getting silly really.
Yeah, my character is going to stay well away from that deck. At least since the guards had found the deck before the session ended, we might be able to find the bodies of the rogue and goblin to revive them. So we may be able to get out of this without any lasting damage. Hopefully.
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Gamers are a lot more risk-adverse these days, as evidenced by the move to point-buy, fixed hp/level, fixed starting wealth, resurrections with little in the way of permanent serious consequences, etc. It’s not inherently right or wrong, but a different direction than most early systems took where exciting but dangerous things like the Deck of Many Things arose.
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Additionally, this part of the community tends to be very averse to GM agency. All possibilities must be written down and preapproved, which is a recipe for failure. Dave Hargrave used various graphic Tarot decks and used the visual symbolism, classic symbolism, and game history to fake up interesting events/effects. It was great, and tended to advance the storylines. I rather expect that many readers here would consider such playstyle anathema or even blasphemy. I hope the events take your game forward, Heather.
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Reincarnation?Yeah, my character is going to stay well away from that deck. At least since the guards had found the deck before the session ended, we might be able to find the bodies of the rogue and goblin to revive them. So we may be able to get out of this without any lasting damage. Hopefully.You haven't forgotten that the fighter still hates the goblin, right? There really is no way to end that condition.
Well, when we first met him, the goblin was always wearing a dragon costume and insisting he was a dragon. Then did some retraining and became a druid who could turn into a dragon. So if someone casts reincarnation and he comes back as an actual dragon, he'll be super happy about it. He'll probably buddy-up with the metallic dragon god's aspect that hatched a few "months" ago.
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Deck of Many Things comes from the days when characters getting killed permanently was just something that happened, and you went on. any given adventure there was a fair chance that your character was going to die, and death (even if you could get raised) had consequences. Characters dying, or feeling forced to retire because their CON was now in toilet wasn't unusual.
The game has changed. The deck hasn't as much as so it doesn't 'fit' with other aspects of how we play now so well. If you don't want the possibility (likelihood if enough cards are drawn) of an injection of old school character death, then by all means, don't draw for the deck!
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I started playing D&D in the early 80's so I am more than familiar with the old-school gaming style. As Dave Justus points out, back then, characters dying left and right during a campaign was just a thing that happened. Death traps were a thing. TPK's were a thing. You just accepted it and moved on.
Of course, back then, there were no customization options, either: all characters in a class were carbon copies of one another, which made them interchangeable. You lost your party wizard? No problem. You roll up a new wizard at the same level and you're back in business, just with a new name. It's a different game today. The fun comes from cooperative play, elaborate stories that you tell together, characters with rich backgrounds and campaign hooks, and so on. No one wants to lose a character that they've invested months or years in because they drew a card from the deck and some random thing happened.
I don't miss the old style of play. The DoMT doesn't fit in today's game system unless all the players are on board with a hack-and-slash style throwback to the days of yore. If that's your thing? Then great! More power to you.
In our 3.5 campaign about, oh, 10 years back or so, our GM ran us through a conversion of the House of Cards module from, I think, Dungeon magazine. You basically end up drawing every card in the deck, or close to it, and it was nearly a campaign-wrecking experience. I walked away from it with a bad taste in my mouth because it escalated "unbalanced" and "unfair" to untold heights.
I just found something out. I can cast Reincarnate now! We leveled up on that session from fighting the dragon army. I hadn't updated the sheet until today and my now 12th level Hunter gets to pick out another 4th level spell. One of those possible spells is Reincarnate. I can legitimately cast that spell on our dead goblin and rogue and bring them back to life.
It's either that or the spell Stripe Scales. It reduces a creature's natural armor by one per 3 caster levels. Since we fight a lot of dragons, that spell might come in handy more often.
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Our draws from the harrow deck of many things ended up giving two members of the party a couple of ridiculous 1/day summons that far outshine anything the party caster can conjure up. One of them is a noble shaitan. : / As for me, one of my character's magic items at random was cursed somehow. My character has no idea that this has happened and will likely discover it at the worst possible time.
The deck giveth, the deck taketh away.
Today was the next session. We found someone who could cast Wish and ended the fighter's hatred of the goblin. Then we brought the goblin and rogue back to life. We told the goblin not to draw any more cards. We shall see how long that lasts.
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I started playing D&D in the early 80's so I am more than familiar with the old-school gaming style. As Dave Justus points out, back then, characters dying left and right during a campaign was just a thing that happened. Death traps were a thing. TPK's were a thing. You just accepted it and moved on.
Of course, back then, there were no customization options, either: all characters in a class were carbon copies of one another, which made them interchangeable. You lost your party wizard? No problem. You roll up a new wizard at the same level and you're back in business, just with a new name. It's a different game today. The fun comes from cooperative play, elaborate stories that you tell together, characters with rich backgrounds and campaign hooks, and so on. No one wants to lose a character that they've invested months or years in because they drew a card from the deck and some random thing happened.
I don't miss the old style of play. The DoMT doesn't fit in today's game system unless all the players are on board with a hack-and-slash style throwback to the days of yore. If that's your thing? Then great! More power to you.
Funny story, I was working on a "carbon-copy character" generator for a particularly brutal campaign involving an endless tribe of kobolds fending off adventurers and not pissing off their dragon boss. Their names were to be based on the most likely way they would die, like "Tastes Delicious" and "Wolf-bait"
Alas, my current group was uninterested since all my other games have been the newer style of games with deep customization. Anyway, just wanted to reinforce this particular message as the "real" reason for the divide on the DoMT. These days, rolling up a new character is a ton of work and emotional investment rather than just rolling up "mcwizardton the 3rd"
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It's awesome that the DoMT is still killing party members when it pops up. You just don't see it anymore, and the chaos that ensued is exactly what should have happened.
It's nothing to be afraid of, but drawing from it willy-nilly is asking for trouble.
Always draw from the deck in an area of bright sunlight in case it's wraiths. Give your backup magical items to your friends in case you draw the card that evaporates your magical gear. Be a Tiefling or Aasimir so you can't be separated from your soul and sent to the void. There's only a couple bad cards. Lol.
But if you have a DoMT and you don't draw from it, you are lacking in a sense of adventure and kinda missing the point of the game, in my opinion.
The session ended an hour ago. At the end of it, just for fun, the GM had us all draw one card to see what we'd get. Not for real, just to see what would have happened. I drew "Imprisoned in the card" while another player drew "Gain one level." It was pretty funny.
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I still have my Deck of Many Things cards that were an insert in Dragon Magazine ages ago. But I still haven't used them, because the groups I play with don't find the dangerous randomness of things like the DoMT to be much fun. (We haven't played Tomb of Horrors for much the same reason.)
OTOH, I've long wanted to create a dungeon that was based on the DoMT, with a room/encounter themed to each card. For that, I might put the deck in the dungron, or use it to determine the order of rooms.
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There's only a couple bad cards. Lol.
But if you have a DoMT and you don't draw from it, you are lacking in a sense of adventure and kinda missing the point of the game, in my opinion.
Alternatively, a player or table can not take enjoyment from gambling.
That isn't to say I don't take gambles in games. Boardgames like Forbidden Island and Pandemic I've had rounds where I've deconstructed the odds and determined a certain amount of risk needs to be taken if we're going to win as a team. A gamble which occasionally pays off, and occassionally doesn't. There's a distinctive gain though.
The DoMT is gambling for the sake of gambling. Not everyone garners enjoyment from that. You can have one bullet in a gun in Russian Roulette, but there's generally a pot to win. The DoMT's good cards are the pot, but most if not all if you get them will still derail the party.
If say you draw the Jester for 10,000 xp. That player will gain at least one level. This adjusts the APL of the party, which is now work for the GM. The power leveled character will now either trounce all encounters, or the lower leveled characters will struggle with the bumped CR (or both).
The Gem, is the only card in the deck which doesn't in some way alienate the drawer, since wealth can be shared. However 50,000 gp depending on level can still derail a story.
The DoMT needs to have something the party wants or needs to be a worthwhile gamble. A party will potentially walk through a trapped door because they need to get to the other side.
Final point on it. People tend to play Pathfinder in general not for the rewards, but the adventure. There are dozens of APs with a quest reward. The Playtest was the most recent one I ran, chapter 1 had a reward of 75 gp. The players didn't care about the 75 gp, it was the adventure. The DoMT's rewards are purely monetary for the most part. Reward for reward's sake, which defeats the purpose of why most people are coming to the table. A player can be super hyped over a free level, but at the end of the day they won't be fulfilled like having gone on their quest and earned it.
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OTOH, I've long wanted to create a dungeon that was based on the DoMT, with a room/encounter themed to each card. For that, I might put the deck in the dungron, or use it to determine the order of rooms.
You can find a PDF of Dungeon Magazine #19 online pretty easily.
Of course, back then, there were no customization options, either: all characters in a class were carbon copies of one another, which made them interchangeable. You lost your party wizard? No problem. You roll up a new wizard at the same level and you're back in business, just with a new name.
...or you had to make a new PC at level 1, rolling 3d6 for every stat in order, depending on your campaign traditions.
And it's also possible for Pathfinder games to have the 'interchangeable character' problem. "Oh, I get a new 15-point-buy PC at the same level? I'll just make another fey foundling Aasimar paladin then."
I have seen players who literally just write a new name on the same sheet. Whatever works for you. Does anyone actually believe that their table is playing the one and only
right way?
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If there's a right way to play, I'm pretty sure just writing a new name on the same sheet whenever a character dies isn't it.
RPGs can be narrative (in which case every character should contribute a unique story and personality to that narrative) or they can be gamey (in which case death should matter, because if nothing has consequences, game events and decisions aren't meaningful) or they can be both. If a campaign isn't working on either of those levels, you're doing it wrong.
OTOH, I've long wanted to create a dungeon that was based on the DoMT, with a room/encounter themed to each card. For that, I might put the deck in the dungron, or use it to determine the order of rooms.
If you did end up doing that, I would be interested in reading the write up of it. I like that idea.
IDIC
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My PC is always the eldest of quintuplets - the younger ones idolize and emulate him, so end up with the exact same stats. That gives me 4 spares if the main dies and they inherit his stuff.
Like clones but genealogical.
You've reinvented Paranoia.