Snarf Zagyg
Notorious Liquefactionist
My Butt is Terrified by the Existential Dread that the Future King is not the Heir to the Enslaved Queen’s Estranged Son who is Also an Earl, but is a Mate who is a Pounding-Curious T-Rex.
D&D General A Mate put A Deck of Many Things in A Dragons Horde figuring his Pcs wouldn't risk it, 1 did and now his 5 players are all playing future kings
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I've had numerous Decks show up and, while they can and do cause all kinds of changes, I've yet to see one derail a game.
That said, for some reason the most common pull has been "The Keep" - little castles have been sprouting like mushrooms around my setting.
I have a personal policy of putting the Deck in any long running, open ended D&D (or adjacent) campaign I run. It has certainly rocked the game but it has never ended a campaign. The biggest issue I have ever seen is players pulling wishes and saving them for just the right moment to pull out a spell far above their pay grade.I've had numerous Decks show up and, while they can and do cause all kinds of changes, I've yet to see one derail a game.
That said, for some reason the most common pull has been "The Keep" - little castles have been sprouting like mushrooms around my setting.
I don't use the Deck in linear campaigns that intended to have a story arc, though. They can certain derail are predesigned plot. But I don't run too many of those -- more now that I used to because I find it easier to run canned adventures on Fantasy Grounds.
---MAN, now I have to figure out where to slip the Deck into my Iron Gods 5E conversion.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Yeah, we call Decks of Many Things "campaign enders". Either they kill off chunks of the party, mess up the plotlines horribly (with things like Wishes or other ways), Make some of the characters too powerful to adventure with the others, or in other ways just bring the whole campaign to a screeching halt.
My experience is that while the Deck has always been trouble, it wasn't as much trouble in the AD&D days for various reasons: wishes were subject to the GM monkey paw, instant death was potentially always right around the corner, the power curve was much more shallow, wealth didn't automatically mean magic items, and so on.
Ulorian - Agent of Chaos
Legend
Hats off.
'My mate is sniffing at another mate, and now his 5 players are questioning everything. Since he is a Marquis, well no one knows what to do.'
Weiley31
Legend
I think that's the joke and it's ALWAYS intentional.
Clint_L
Hero
The wish spell is not supposed to be anything like that powerful, but if the DM wanted to blow up their campaign, that's their business. Then again, blowing up the campaign is the primary function of the Deck of Many Things, so mission accomplished.
I've only included one ever, and I even purchased a cool, artisan deck as a real prop. The last story arc of the campaign was the party finding it and then gaining access to it. Then they unsealed it (it came wrapped in parchment with a wax seal) and each took a pull. Only two survived.
Then we stated planning the new campaign.
I've only included one ever, and I even purchased a cool, artisan deck as a real prop. The last story arc of the campaign was the party finding it and then gaining access to it. Then they unsealed it (it came wrapped in parchment with a wax seal) and each took a pull. Only two survived.
Then we stated planning the new campaign.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I long ago ruled that if you pull any wishes from a Deck, the card's effect forces you to use it/them then and there.
In a game I still play in, we hit a Deck once. Regrettably, I was playing the sort of Lawful character who wouldn't touch the thing (annoyed me, 'cause as a player I love pulling cards, but it's what the character would do so I had to honour that); but some others pulled cards. One character got 4 wishes, another got 2 - that's six wishes, all at once!
In sum total those six wishes accomplished next to nothing. The only thing of use was one of the wishes was used to solve the dungeon's puzzle (we were trapped inside it and couldn't figure out what we had to do to escape), and that was it. What a waste!
Even predesigned plots need a little chaos now and then.
If it helps, keep in mind it doesn't have to be an actual deck of cards. I've used dice (2d6 with each of the 36 possible outcomes giving a different effect), a book (flip the page and read your fate), and so on as well.
Yeah, the last time I used it, it was in a weird magitech "computer" in the abandoned lab of a long ago disappeared Q like race exploring the multiverse. That campaign was high weirdness.
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