Fortune Cards: and randomized collectible cards come to D&D

"Generating a treasure hoard has never been easier! All the DM has to do is open a pack of magic item cards and draw forth the result!"

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That would make me unhappy. I'd probably not be one to hand out random magic items after that, which would put a big dint in some of the fun of playing D&D

Compare:

"Generating encounters has never been easier! All the DM has to do is open a pack of Monster Cards and draw forth the result!"

"Making a character has never been easier! All the player has to do is open a pack of Character Cards and draw forth the result!"

"Selecting an adventure has never been easier! All the player has to do is open a pack of Adventure Cards and draw forth the result!"

"Fighting a battle has never been easier! All the player has to do is open a pack of Combat Cards and draw forth the result!"

The game practically plays itself! Draw a character, draw an adventure, draw a monster, draw a combat card, repeat until you are out of adventure cards!

Here's the main problem with all of those, for me: they remove my ability to select what I want for my table.

A D&D game that doesn't involve real choice between known quantities might as well be Progress Quest.

Now, I do think randomizing things is a lot of fun, and I wouldn't mind those as a supplement to the game, but if I had to spend $10 to get the mere possibility of an awesome weapon/monster/character/adventure/combat/whatever, I wouldn't be very interested. I'd just play Diablo, where at least my lack of control is accompanied by bright lights and cool sounds.

I mean, you could probably play a game of D&D entirely revolving around drawing cards from different collectible decks. I'm not sure such a game would really be much of a D&D game to me, though it might be fun in a totally different way.

Kamikaze Midget said:

That would make me unhappy. I'd probably not be one to hand out random magic items after that, which would put a big dint in some of the fun of playing D&D

Compare:

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HAH! I told you it would start a lot of panick


Shrug. As long as it wasn't made an integral part of the game, I wouldn't care if they started making it.

Might not be my cup of tea (I've never really dug random magic items to begin with) but if someone finds it fun- awesome.

HAH! I told you it would start a lot of panick

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I'd call "it's not what I want to play" a pretty reasonable form of panic.

Kamikaze Midget said:

I'd call "it's not what I want to play" a pretty reasonable form of panic.

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Didn't you get the memo? Any reservations or hints of dislike for the latest offerings for anything means that the sky is falling and you should seek shelter to avoid having your tinfoil hat crushed.

Honestly my take on this is that WotC has had many interesting ideas recently that have really brought me in. They're entitled to one big fail after that.

Seriously, I hope these collectible products fail and that we don't see any more of them, ever. There are other things they're coming out with (Ravenloft boardgame for one) that I'd much rather have succeed.

However, if WotC would like my suggestion, take a look at Dominion and Thunderstone... there's an idea I could get behind. Expansions that include everything? Sounds good to me!

--Steve

Honestly, I think this is a way to drive sales to the HOBBY stores AND combating piracy at the same time.

WOTC seems intent on giving customers reasons to go to the FLGS and this randomized booster idea ties into this...

For example, how much you want to bet that WOTC will tie this into Encounters somehow? So that when people play encounters at a store they also buy a random booster from said store a la FNM.

Kamikaze Midget said:

I'd call "it's not what I want to play" a pretty reasonable form of panic.

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ExploderWizard said:

Didn't you get the memo? Any reservations or hints of dislike for the latest offerings for anything means that the sky is falling and you should seek shelter to avoid having your tinfoil hat crushed.

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Relax... it was a joke!

Not sure about the randomized aspect of this, but they sound alot like the cards from the Purple Index Card thread over in the 4E houserule sections of EnWorld.

I have used them, and my players absolutely love them. I have to give up slightly more narrative control (at most, once a night per player, but my players don't always use their cards), but it seems to be a fair tradeoff, from their reactions to them.

I'll take a look at them, and maybe add a few I like to my deck of about 80 index cards I already made.

Yeah, I won't say the sky is falling until players are encouraged to buy randomized packs of power cards for their characters, with the rare cards being more powerful.

That? That'd be abusive, and not at all what I want in a game. That would be an RPG as a CCG, where players are encouraged to spend probably-absurd amounts of money to get the character they want, and where a DM loses all say in what their players have access to.

This? This is just a product I won't buy, and which puzzles me with its arbirary and unhelpful randomness.

-O

Given how little I know about Fortune Cards I'm cautiously optimistic and will probably pick up a pack. I'm always looking for ways to make things a little more interesting for my players. I'm fairly familiar with Torg's Drama Deck mechanic (to which Rodney Thompson compares Fortune Cards). The cards give players more opportunities to impact the game via narrative and/or mechanical twists that range from from taking an extra action to introducing a romantic subplot. I didn't really care much for Torg but the Drama Deck was really fun to play with and it's usually the first thing my friends bring up when we talk about the game. I personally like these sort of game concepts because it can lead to more player "buy in" and because, as a DM, I've learned to really enjoy being surprised by my players.

Here's a hypothetical example:

At the beginning of a session I take out some Fortune Cards and ask each player to draw one which they can use during that evening's game. One of those cards says "you throw your weapon/spell at e beam in the ceiling and the roof caves in, ending the battle and allowing the party to escape safely."

In the usual course of business I don't want my players doing this at their discretion: if they try it once at an appropriate moment then I might let it slide, probably requiring a roll, but if they tried to do it every time they got into a jam then I would either find myself saying "no" a lot or my world map would be dotted with an incredulous string of open-air monuments to my player's cold dice. Heck, plenty of players would never even think to attempt something like this in the first place.

But a card (or any other mechanic) which describes such an action gives the players both idea to do so as well as a mechanical "license" to do so. No matter when you use it, bringing a roof down will make almost certainly make your game more interesting. If the player uses it at the right time then it can save their butt and give them that special feeling one only gets when they perform large scale demolitions in the service of heroic action; if they use it at the wrong time then it could generate drama and spur some character development; and no matter when they use it I get more grist for my DM mill in the form of recurring villains ("We searched the rubble and couldn't find the body") and various in-world consequences that come with knocking down a building. Three cheers for the "I make the roof cave in" card, it just made the game a little more fun.

Now that I think about it, if there isn't an "I make the roof cave in" Fortune Card then I might just make my own. But that's a discussion for another day.

Nork said:

I don't like randomized collectible products.

They feel like they are predatory and exploitive products, similar to gambling. They scratch a psychological itch in the human makeup that takes a repugnant person to attempt to profit from.

The sea of unwanted common magic cards or boxes full of common D&D miniatures that people somehow end up owning, yet do not want, is damning testament to this in my opinion.

Overall, I've got a pretty dim view of randomized collectibles.

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Sounds like someone bought too many Homelands boosters back in '96

All kidding aside, this hyperbole is purely irrational and (to those who play or design CCGs and the like) at least a bit insulting. MtG players know what they're doing when they buy those cards and the people who made them aren't "repugnant." I can't even begin to fathom why you would write something so absurd. Gamers are smart people and ENWorld is full of gamers, so I don't think it's asking too much to suggest that we should all try a little harder to elevate the tone of our discussions.