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The harrow deck of weal and woe.
The thing that decked me.
The problem is... the Deck of Many Things is *very* iconic, and very D&D. Like, there's no way to build the thing that it is that isn't making... the thing that it is, you know?
The Desk of Many Things
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Do they need to replace it? I don't think I've ever seen an item this disruptive seeded into an adventure path and I doubt we ever would have anyway. It's a fun item to exist as a possibility for GMs fo throw out. We all like that it exists. But it can probably continue to be exactly as present in games as a legacy item. It will remain usable until PF3, at least. And a lot of things could change by PF3. To pick an extreme example, Hasbro could purchase Paizo and turn Pathfinder into the new official "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons."
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The deck of many things is possibly the single most appropriate item to leave in the hands of the community to deal with. I would personally just say good riddance if I were Paizo.
The Bulkhead of Many Things, coming to a seafaring campaign near you.
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The 1st edition Advanced Player's Guide has a d20 that created powerful random results when rolled. I'd bring that back.
I definitely employed it in my (A)D&D2 games. Twas a fun bit of randomness.
(And yeah. If I were an exec at Hasbro, this definitely would be one of my strategies since AD&D and D&D comfortably co-existed for almost 2 decades.)
I wouldn't expect it. Paizo won't be bought out cheaply, and what they have is not the sort of thing that lends itself easily to destructive monetization foraging. Further, you know that Hasbro isn't going to want to deal with a shop that has a heavy union presence.
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If only a 3-book Adventure Path about a magical deck of Golarion-specific cards existed, that would sort everything right out… :p
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I mean it doesn't HAVE to be a deck possibly?
"Have you tried not being a deck?"
It's going to be a version of the Harrow, which the timing renders hilarious.
You forget Pathfinder already has, in canon, a perfectly valid alternative which already appeared in one streamed game:
The Desk of Many Things, by Jason Bulmahn.
Paizo won't be bought out cheaply, and what they have is not the sort of thing that lends itself easily to destructive monetization foraging. Further, you know that Hasbro isn't going to want to deal with a shop that has a heavy union presence.The other thing to keep in mind is that Paizo is a privately-owned company. And Lisa has, in the past, worked for WotC (and I think, when it was under Hasbro ownership). She's now comfortably retired.
She and Eric have shown their true colors with leading the ORC charge. The likelihood that she'd sell to Hasbro rather than create a B Corp, or an employee-owned company seems vanishingly small.
There's no way to use shareholder leverage to compel her to do anything but what she's already doing.
Edit to add:
And remember that Paizo management recognized the union and began bargaining without forcing a unionization vote. This is not a company run by extractive capitalists.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that Hasbro purchasing Paizo is likely. Just pointing out a lot could happen by PF3 and this is a PF3 problem.
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I'd argue that that is exactly what they should be doing.
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I had my group find a leather bag with a pair of dice in it. Artifact level magic.
I had a chart. Some things were good. Some things were bad. Some were real good. Some were real bad.
Easiest thing in the world.
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I don't think we need rules for "this is the item that blows up your campaign." GMs who want that for some reason can easily adapt prior rules.
I still have fond and not do fond memories of the similar Bag of Beans.
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Not that you need rules to blow up your campaign. Anyone can just make that happen.
The role of the Deck of Many Things in my experience has been pretty much limited to:
- The GM wants to blow up the campaign, but wants the players to feel like it was their fault.- One-Shots.
The dice of several possible outcomes.
Key to Lockbox of all that stuff on antiques roadshow.
Moving dolly of pick one thing from this abandoned storage locker and go with it.
Goblet of 'hey bartender, surprise me.'
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Pandora's Box.
The dice I made only had 4 permanent things on them. A couple good, a couple bad.
The rest were 24 hour durations on the buffs and penalties. Not game breaking at all.
The GM can make a very minor item or very major. No reason to break a campaign.
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I've included the deck in almost every campaign I've run for the past twenty years. I've only had one where the players didn't draw from it. (They gave it to Murlynd as an apology for lighting his house on fire.)
Lots of good memories. It never blew up my game, but it did sometimes cause it to veer in a new direction.
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Thing of many decks. An odd box with an animated hand inside which produces cards at request.
Do they need to replace it? I don't think I've ever seen an item this disruptive seeded into an adventure path and I doubt we ever would have anyway. It's a fun item to exist as a possibility for GMs fo throw out. We all like that it exists. But it can probably continue to be exactly as present in games as a legacy item. It will remain usable until PF3, at least. And a lot of things could change by PF3. To pick an extreme example, Hasbro could purchase Paizo and turn Pathfinder into the new official "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons."
Yea. The Deck can either end a campaign or make the PCs powerful enough to steamroll. Death,Void,Ruin will effectively end a PC.
The Deck of Manly Things?
A series of *redacted* pictures that cause the drawer to burst out in laughter, sorrow, or active disinterest?
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Really, do we *need* something to replace it? We could continue using the deck of many things without issue
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In case my above post was too glib: the Stolen Fate adventure path, which wraps up this month, is literally all about a Golarion-specific deck of unique magical cards. The Deck of Destiny it centers will be fully up on AoN soon, but most of it's already there now.
Semi-related. Has anyone noticed Archives of Nethys has a widget at at the bottom left of the screen that gets rid of the menu called Deck of Many Things?
Paizo has the Harrowing Deck, so they could have a magical version that duplicates what the Deck of Many Things.
Semi-related. Has anyone noticed Archives of Nethys has a widget at at the bottom left of the screen that gets rid of the menu called Deck of Many Things?
They might need to change the name soon due to OGL.
Before when it was more separate from Paizo, I would have disagreed. But now, you're probably right.
Archives won't have to change the name, Archives will still be using the OGL for all the material that was released prior to the ORC.
Maybe. Things that were published under Open License can probably continue to be hosted online as they are. Obviously new publications will be covered under ORC.
However, what I'm talking about is slightly different. The web page itself, has a widget that refers to the Deck of Many Things. Because it is a web page, I believe it may be considered as a "current publication". I'm not a legal expert or an expert in publishing, but if I were Paizo I would probably remove/change that reference since it's not to the published game item covered on OGL but to the web page button functionality. To me, it's a grey legal area that's best avoided.
Not that you need rules to blow up your campaign. Anyone can just make that happen.The role of the Deck of Many Things in my experience has been pretty much limited to:
- The GM wants to blow up the campaign, but wants the players to feel like it was their fault.
- One-Shots.
I've never played with the deck - just read through it. And yeah, I agree. I can only think of a few reasons why I would ever bring it into a game:
1) I don't want the players to feel like they have control over their characters.
2) I think they should make new characters.
3) I don't like the direction the campaign is going and want a new campaign focused on dealing with the results of this deck's existence or its effects on one or more of the party characters.
4) I want to be able to justify not being a GM for these players any more because they 'aren't willing to play along and take risks'.