Deck of Many Things Experiences

[IronWolf]

Last night our group came across a Deck of Many Things. To make it even more fun, our DM Crothian, had an actual deck of cards that had the symbols from a Deck of Many Things on them to draw from!

By the end of the evening everyone in the group who was present drew from the Deck. Some good things happened and some bad things happened along the way, nothing catastrophic though.

So what are your tales of finding a Deck of Many Things? Did you draw from it? How many cards?

 

[Wycen]

We never seriously played with one. That is to say, the negative consequences were never enforced. I did have one character who drew 1 card, to draw emnity of Grazzt, and that was the single incident that ever was input into the game, since he started sending minions after my character.

But we had plenty of Monty Haul pulls like getting a castle and 4th level henchman, magic items, all sorts of stuff. Always we'd get to continue to pull cards until bad things were evened out or went away, or were simply ignored.

 

[Lalalei2001]

Every single time I drew a card, i got the Vortex card.

 

[sydbar]

In one game we found the deck, and our dm had a deck of playing cards and we drew got a few bad, but mostly good ones, till it was down to 1 red(good card), and 13 black(bad cards), so we made our dm a deal if we draw the red card, all the black cards would be nullified, and using my zodar deck we figured out the best card to choose, and it was the red card which the dm couldn't believe, so we got lots of good stuff, but no bad stuff since we won the deal.

 

[Caliban]

Almost every time I've seen it used in 2e it pretty much ended the campaign within a few sessions. Either to many PC's were screwed over (players didn't want to play anymore), or they gain to much power (DM doesn't want to deal with them anymore).


I did have one character who gained multiple wishes, a keep, and underling, an 18 charisma, the enmity of Geryon (ruler of 3rd plane of Hell), had a companion recieve the Void card, then found that the basement of the keep had a gateway to the 3rd plane of hell where Geryon was holding the soul of the companion who had received the Void card. The DM really wasn't up to running demon princes, so the recovery quest was a joke, and the campaign ended soon after with that character retiring to the keep.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

When we have a Deck of Many Things in the game, we typically use playing cards. I typically shuffle and cut and shuffle and cut until I feel good about the potential draw. I haven't had a character *completely* screwed when drawing, so it might work.

One character's intelligent weapon drew about 15 Wishes in one session.

Brad

 

[demiurge1138]

I dramatically altered a game using the Deck.

Before they drew from it, half of the party was Lawful and Neutral Evil. Afterwards, the same half was Chaotic or Neutral Good. Three people ended up imprisioned... which made it rather fortunate when another got four wishes. And then someone got voided, leading to a rather crazy sidequest to recover their souls from Ravanaya the eight-headed spider demon.

Good times.

Also, a character got voided the day he was introduced another time I used the Deck. Good thing, too - that was a really annoying character.

Demiurge out.

 

[Crothian]

I've used the Deck in abnout 12 campaigns. I've never seen it kill a campaign I've just see it change it. It can add in interesting new plots and dangerious; it can require the the party to seek new quests or enjoy new toys. It is a tough item to deal with and the change it has the potential to bring is not thomething I'd use with players that I thought couldn't handle it or with a DM that was not prepared for what the card brought.

 

[Kuld]

Oh, yeah. This brings back so many memories!!

We used to pull from an actual deck as well.


Edit: The funny thing is that I was thinking about this not too long ago!

 

[Sledge]

In 2e we had a dwarf draw the Keep one twice. Went from a single digit charisma, to 18 with perks.