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

[I'm A Banana]

How do you define a jerk?

Someone it is not fun to be around.

I am a little surprised that anyone has to define this.

At my gaming table, the top household income is over 300K and the bottom is up to 40K after a period of unemployment. Is the top guy a jerk if he buys a case of cards?

It depends, are they fun to be around?

Buying a case of cards if someone else at your table can certainly count as "being a jerk," since you've just given your unemployed friend a painful reminder of a big problem in their lives every time you slap down a card.

It could also not count as being a jerk, if no one cares, or you buy enough for everyone, or whatever.

Whether or not you're a jerk depends on other people's perception of you and I just realized I'm explaining basic social norms on an internet message board so I am going to stop before I go all wahooni-shaped.

 

[Nagol]

Someone it is not fun to be around.

I am a little surprised that anyone has to define this.



It depends, are they fun to be around?

Buying a case of cards if someone else at your table can certainly count as "being a jerk," since you've just given your unemployed friend a painful reminder of a big problem in their lives every time you slap down a card.

It could also not count as being a jerk, if no one cares, or you buy enough for everyone, or whatever.

Whether or not you're a jerk depends on other people's perception of you and I just realized I'm explaining basic social norms on an internet message board so I am going to stop before I go all wahooni-shaped.

For this conversation, "jerk" has been previously defined as "someone who promotes power disparity at the table". Promotion of power disparity is at best tangential to "not fun to be around".

Quote:
And the power gap makes the cards okay?

Now you've got a majority of players at the table with a 30-40 Fortune Card deck made up primarily of commons, a few uncommons, and maybe a rare or two; and one or two players who hit eBay with a vengeance and have a deck of 20 rares. So not only is there power creep, but only a minority of players gets to enjoy it.

Awesome, because what I look for in my campaigns as a player and a Dungeon Master is character disparity. That makes everyone happy.

This is such a good idea. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would not support it.

::head explodes::

While in a public game like the Encounters this might happen, what kind of DM just wouldn't turn to Bob and say no? I realize that DM's are supposed to say yes, but, come on. How many DM's will just meekly submit to this level of abuse of the rules?

The easy solution to this is, don't play with jerks.

So with that definition in play and not your own my question remains.

 

[Hussar]

You're dodging my question. How do you define a jerk? Someone who spends $50 on cards on eBay? Someone who spends $50 on boosters at their FLGS? Someone who spends $100 in either place? Someone who purchases discount boxes from a wholesaler? At what point does a player's card collection become illegitimate because they are a 'jerk?'

I'm guessing you do not play Magic. No one calls a Magic player a jerk just because he's invested money in specific cards to make a deck work. If you don't think that we will be seeing characters optimized with a coordinated Fortune Card deck within a year -- heck, within _months_ -- you are sorely mistaken.



So you have to buy new boosters every time you play? Wizards must love you.

Apples and oranges though. I don't play with people who want to "win" at RPG's. That would likely nudge them into the jerk category even without the cards. Someone who deliberately goes out to build the ultimate deck for an RPG has kinda missed the point of these cards as far as I'm concerned.

As far as buying boosters, my memory was only nudging me in the right direction:

For some Wizards Play Network programs aimed at experienced players, Fortune Card purchase will be a requirement to participate, but our broadly-appealing programs like D&D Encounters will feature their use without such a requirement. Once you start using them, you’ll see that they actually help to focus player actions and provide interesting tactical opportunities that you may not have considered previously.

Note, this is primarily aimed, at least from the writeup here at game day events and in store stuff. I would also point out that these things are only being sold in gaming stores. A bit of a tool around the WPN site shows that there is a new program coming out in September that seems specifically geared for the cards.

Meh, as I said, if you play with players who would take the time and money to beat D&D, you have larger issues than these cards.

 

[Argyle King]

I could see something like Mind Over Metal being spammed to ill effect.

I'm not against the concept of cards in general. I'm just not thrilled with how the idea is being used in D&D. From a business perspective, I can somewhat understand it; from a player's perspective, I am leaning slightly toward a negative feeling.

I can't help but to be curious about whether or not there are plans for cards of a similar natured designed to be used by the DM. ...I just had a bad mental flash of the 'Rocks Fall; Everyone Dies' card from Munchkin being played during a session of D&D.


It's tough; as I said, I wouldn't mind some sort of card adding to the action of the game. It might be fun to have sort of drama deck which adds unexpected elements to an encounter. However, that's not what is being done (at least I don't think so) with the Fortune Cards.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

But this is a failure on the DM's part then. When the DM raises the level of the mosnters in such a way that they then have to grant more to the PCs, then they grant more power to the monster,s then more to the PCs, then more to the monsters, wash-rinse-repeat.

This is what is occurring.

This is not what's occurring with the Encounters Program. The DM (WotC) has decided they want a high-powered, high-difficulty campaign with more tactical options available to players. The ramp up of difficulty was intentional, not a mistake. The ramp up of player power was intentional, not a mistake. I can understand how one's personal tastes can lead them to dislike the ramped up difficulty and power levels, but that does not make the actions of the DM a mistake. They are telling you the parameters of their campaign. The only mistake would be you joining the campaign if it does not suit your tastes.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I'm guessing you do not play Magic. No one calls a Magic player a jerk just because he's invested money in specific cards to make a deck work.

Sorry, you are wrong here. Many casual "kitchen table" groups do consider this type of player to be a jerk and will stop playing with someone who constantly pulls out the "best deck." Mainly tournament players strive for the "best deck."

Edit: In fact, there are specific formats like Pauper (common cards only) and many multi-player formats that certainly have nothing resembling a best deck.

It happened to me personally when my friends and I were playing Illuminati: New World Order. I was able to buy many more packs thatn they were and built a pretty consistent deck. They got sick of not having a fair chance of winning and decided not to play anymore. My cards became unused and worthless as I had no one willing to play.

Since the majority of D&D games played at home are of the "kitchen table" variety, I would expect much the same results from the 20 rare deck guy. I'd also expect a wide variation of uses for the cards other than the "official" use.

 

[shadzar]

This is not what's occurring with the Encounters Program. The DM (WotC) has decided they want a high-powered, high-difficulty campaign with more tactical options available to players.

What does this have to do with the power increase cycle.

1. switching off power level is where all the power creep and content bloat comes form for trying to match the new power levels.

2. what tactical option didn't players have before

3. this isnt any kind of tactical option, just another list of bonus to pick from and pile onto the character. It has nothing to do with tactics. Tactics is drawing the enemy into a small space to bottleneck them, surrounding them, pinning them into a corner, etc.

Fortune cards offer nothing in the way of tactics, only a new list of bonuses. Tactics come from player decision and not some CCG added to an RPG.

 

[Nagol]

Sorry, you are wrong here. Many casual "kitchen table" groups do consider this type of player to be a jerk and will stop playing with someone who constantly pulls out the "best deck." Mainly tournament players strive for the "best deck."

Edit: In fact, there are specific formats like Pauper (common cards only) and many multi-player formats that certainly have nothing resembling a best deck.

It happened to me personally when my friends and I were playing Illuminati: New World Order. I was able to buy many more packs thatn they were and built a pretty consistent deck. They got sick of not having a fair chance of winning and decided not to play anymore. My cards became unused and worthless as I had no one willing to play.

Since the majority of D&D games played at home are of the "kitchen table" variety, I would expect much the same results from the 20 rare deck guy. I'd also expect a wide variation of uses for the cards other than the "official" use.

The difference here is D&D isn't primarily a player competitive game. If player A brings in a ripped deck of cards, he may shine, but the group benefits. The kitchen table' danger is the DM reacts by increasing the encounter difficulty to account for the extra benefit and thus makes those without the benefit less useful/more at risk.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
Fortune cards offer nothing in the way of tactics, only a new list of bonuses. Tactics come from player decision and not some CCG added to an RPG.

Now this I would largely agree with, although it's a bit of a separate issue. The cards could add additional tactical elements to an encounter. Paizo's Fate Deck is a good example of this. These, from what I've seen so far, are just floating bonuses. There is some strategy involved - do I play the card now? Do I hold it? Do I discard for something else? - but very little in the way of tactics, particularly since the cards have no narrative element.

Sure, some of them could pretty easily be narrated tactically - the one that lets you jump in front of someone to take their hit for example is pretty straightforward - but, at the end of the day, I don't think these add a whole lot of tactical complexity to an encounter.

That doesn't make them bad, just not particularly tactically relavent.

The difference here is D&D isn't primarily a player competitive game. If player A brings in a ripped deck of cards, he may shine, but the group benefits. The kitchen table' danger is the DM reacts by increasing the encounter difficulty to account for the extra benefit and thus makes those without the benefit less useful/more at risk.

But that's the point. Someone who brings the ripped deck to the table is likely going to have four other players looking at him like he's got two heads. He's spending a bunch of money to "win" D&D. It's no different I suppose than the guy who goes out to buy fifteen different splat books to create mechanical monstrosities to "win" D&D.

If the group is groovy with it, fine, no problem. But, I think at least some groups will find this sort of player somewhat distasteful and you'll see the DM quickly ejecting Fortune Cards.

 

[shadzar]

But that's the point. Someone who brings the ripped deck to the table is likely going to have four other players looking at him like he's got two heads. He's spending a bunch of money to "win" D&D. It's no different I suppose than the guy who goes out to buy fifteen different splat books to create mechanical monstrosities to "win" D&D.

If the group is groovy with it, fine, no problem. But, I think at least some groups will find this sort of player somewhat distasteful and you'll see the DM quickly ejecting Fortune Cards.

Don't disagree with a thing in the entire post, but ant to add to this part.....

It adds the competitive element to the game if one person is trying to soup-up their character without the others being able to with the cards.

They COULD build the deck around helping the group, but all too easily the deck will function to make one in the party look like superhero, while the others are sidekicks.

The only time anyone wins is if everyone wins. Everyone in the game had to have fun. As a DM, if a single player doesn't have fun due to any action of ANY player, then the entire group loses, and those loses will show in XP penalties either from the group awards for working together as a group, or the "fun" XP awards, which could be taken away entirely depending on the level of "not fun" shown by one of the players.

So if these were forced into, as I just wouldn't allow them to begin with, in a game of mine, they are likely to cause people to not have fun and completely rreduce the amounts of XP over time if a player was using them in a fashion that amde the game not fun for others, and that is a VERY real possibility with them.

I wonder what website will host "net decks" of Fortune Cards?