Deck of Many Things Experiences

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

My players drew from one they'd found in the Undermountain below Waterdeep.

About the only mistake I made while DMing it was to run a typical wraith against a PC who drew the Death Card. The lesson: make it more than just a (dread) wraith if you have to in order to make the card's effect truly challenging.

From now on if I ever DM that card's effect again I'll be sure to make the wraith's CR the same as the card drawing character's level.

Another player in my game is still suffering the -1 to saving throws curse effect of the Euryale card.

I can't wait to try the Eberron Version of the Deck of Many Things on my players. They'll assume it's a DoMT, and be totally wrong. I love caving in their assumptions.

J. Grenemyer

 

[helium3]

The one time that we did the deck, we used actual Tarot cards. It was kind of cool. It totally messed up the game though. There was a lot of intraparty strife after that because all of the characters either got completely shafted or 50,000 XP.

 

[DM_Matt]

Add one vote the the campaign killer pile. Either it killed too many or made them too powerful.

 

[Li Shenron]

The only time we encountered the deck of many things in one adventure, I was the only player who knew what it could do. I pretended that it wasn't a useful item for our party, and quickly dismissed it (it was on sale in an exotic bazaar, so we just didn't buy it).

IMO the DoTM is too dramatic, and should be used only when a campaign has stalled and people need a boost to carry on, either a real boost or a boost in the form of a brand new PC to write up

There should be a lesser DoTM as well. At least, if the benefits/risks were milder, it could indeed be used as a game of chance. But with a chance that is more like a russian roulette, it's not that good IMHO...

 

[Zappo]

Here's for a campaign idea - low-level characters are presented with a DoMT (that the DM has stacked). Lots of horrible things happen. The characters' relatives and friends (or enemies!), aka the real PCs, vow to undo them.

 

[Mark Hope]

Yeah, plenty of game-shattering experiences with these things. Still can't stop using them, though. I make sure to put at least one in every campaign I run. My own character ran across one once in another DM's game and did pretty well out of it (18 Str, 18 Con, 18 Cha, a small keep and the services of a fighter) - I was very pleased indeed.

Other players used to take elaborate steps to avoid the effects of some of the cards, such as dropping all of their equipment and renouncing ownership of all wordly possessions... until the drawing was all done, of course. One player drew the card that separates your soul from your body, turning you into a lumbering automaton. It took some time for the rest of the party to notice, as he was playing a low-Int barbarian at the time and everyone assumed he was just being his usual moronic self.

Another guy (who played a priest of the goddess of chance) drew a wish card and wished for the entire party to worship his goddess (this went down like a lead balloon with the other priests in the party, lol). One of her tenets of faith involved rolling dice for major decisions, so the players started rolling dice to see how many cards they would draw ("You're drawing eight cards? Are you insane???) This spiralled rapidly out of control, with characters vanishing off to the abyss, being cut to pieces by minor deaths, having favoured henchmen turn on them, being cast out by their former deities etc etc until someone drew the card that reverses any one event. The rest of the party bullied and browbeat him until he agreed to reverse the act of finding the treasure hoard that contained the deck in the first place.

Everything was thus returned to normal and the group, much relieved, was preparing to go on its merry way until the player who had converted them all to worshipping the goddess of chance decided that he wanted his character to go back and find the treasure hoard again. Despite cries of "metagaming!" and "your stupid dice-man can't possibly know it's there!", he insisted and tried to force the issue. With people's nerves still jangling from the recent bout of deck-inspired character wrecking, there was only one way things could go. They killed him. He went down in one round, hit my multiple magic missiles, a shuriken in the eye and a sword of sharpness in the back. His body was left to rot where it fell. And there was much rejoicing. To this day, players ceremonially curse and spit whenever the character's name is mentioned.

 

[the Jester]

Damn, my favorite magic item! (Then again, I mostly dm.)

Last time I found one as a pc and drew from it, I got the euryale and lost all my magic items- right after gaining a new one and 50,000 xp.

Then, over the next few sessions, I got a bunch of cursed items...

I love that character. He's still around, and he has some new magic items, and he's gotten rid of the curses now! But he was sooo cursed for a while that I actually made up an "Accursed" prestige class and ran it by the dm.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I've been in a group where everyone in the party asked for 4 cards from the Deck (and some got 5, due to the Joker.)
Typically, it ended with a bonanza for the party. The card that grants 3 Wishes (drawn once, or more than once) allowed the one character to undo the effects of the negative cards, and all the positive effects were retained.
Thus, people ended up with 18s, new magical items were acquired and had to be rolled up on the spot, henchmen showed up, keeps were for the having, Wishes for wealth and stat raises had to be adjudicated, and so on.
When Minor Deaths showed up, the most powerful character would help the card drawer to kill that one, then kill his own Minor Death with ease.

This wasn't my doing. The DM ran the show. The Deck of Many Things simply proved to be a treasure-fest.

Now, here's a thought:

Your very high level party (15th to 20th level) is in the Tomb of Horrors, and they run into a Deck of Many Things.
The Deck looks the same, but a message has been affixed to it, and this message reads:

In honor of your bravery and audacity in daring to challenge me, I bequeath unto you a mighty gift.
I have altered the Deck just for yourselves, O noble adventurers. Should you dare to draw from this custom Deck of mine, you will reap a vast and just reward for your stawart courage.

Acererak

...

Now, one must wonder: would the party draw from THAT Deck?

 

[FoxWander]

In an old 2E game our group actually found FOUR decks!! Remember, it was just another random magic item back then, not an artifact. And we abused them so much the item was banned from the game.

My PC was the only original character from the group who found the first one (from that one I got enimity with Grazzt, a treasure map and magic weapon, and avoid any situation- which I used to avoid the enimity ) but then the second group stumbled on 3 more. We were exploring & clearing out (with plans to rebuild) the lost city from my treasure map when we found one in a mummy's treasure horde. Since my PC (a half-orc mage/thief) had encountered one before, I had the cleric cast Augury before we drew cards from the deck. The DM allowed it since we could really use the good cards to fix all the messed up things that had happened to our party so far. It worked out particularly well for my character because I gained an 18 Charisma (unheard of for a half-orc) and a small keep, the service of a 4th level fighter (A kobold we had let live to act as our guide. It eventually changed alignment to good and became kind of our party mascot. A pre-cursor to Meepo?), and +2 to a prime stat (Dex went from 16 to 18, I already had an 18 Int which is why I was a magic-user. So now I had three 18s when I'd started with 3d6 in order for stats- Diaglo would be proud! (of course it was still AD&D)).

Later our party wizard finally got the Find Familiar spell and the DM ruled that he was high enough level that he would get either a special familiar or a large version of whatever animal he rolled. He got a Giant Owl- a critter that had a miniscule chance of actually having a treasure horde (I have no idea why owls of any size would have treasure, but it was in the MM that way), and if it did have treasure, an even smaller chance to have a magic item. This owl had treasure and a magic item. You guessed it- a deck of many things. The DM rolled his eyes but since he'd rolled it in front of us, he let it stand- but only with the provision that we 1) couldn't use Augury again, and 2) used any really cool good stuff to rebuild the city and temple that our cleric and wizard had just re-dedicated to Mystra. So, no Augury this time. But we did have 3 scrolls of Anti-Magic Shell. We cast the A-M, stepped inside flipped the cards over and pulled all the good cards out, then stepped outside the A-M and drew from our deck of all good cards. The DM ground his teeth but let it go since he like to reward clever ideas (even if they did border on major cheating) and since we personally wouldn't gain any more stuff. So now all the city walls and buildings got repaired/reinforced and the surrounding forests were cleared of major hazards (multiple wish cards), our henchmen (who were now city guards) got some spiffy new magic weapons and our new city got a decent starting treasury.

Finally, the red dragon that lived in the mountains overlooking the city had, of course, yet another deck in it's randomly generated treasure horde. (BTW, we "defeated" the dragon by slamming a helm of opposite alignment on its head, making it Lawful Good! Then we convinced it to redeem itself from its evil ways by defending the city it had previously razed and terrorized. So now the city had a REAL spiffy champion!! )

Anyway the DM would only let the deck stay if we used NO magic to effect our draws, we could only draw once each and whatever happened happened. We were fine with that because we had one final trick up our sleeve. By now we had all read and re-read the description for that deck so much we had it memorized. And I had noticed something- nothing happens to you if you just look at the cards! It's only when you actually draw a card that it's effect happens. So I elected to go first and said, "I turn the deck over and go thru all the cards to DRAW the Jester. I'll elect the '2 more draws' rather than the XP. Then I DRAW the Moon and Star cards (1-4 wishes and 2 pts on major stat)." The DM just shook his head and cursed under his breath. Then he ruled that any cards drawn disappear rather than go back in the deck. So everyone else still got good stuff, but not the really good stuff.

But that's how the Deck got banned from our campaign. And my 3d6-in-order-for-stats Half-orc got an 18 Cha, 18 Dex and 20 Int! (not to mention a Daern's Instant Fortress which can only be found and entered by those I specifically invite, a Book of Infinite Spells that you could flip back and forth through and pages that didn't turn on their own, plus a permanent Unseen Servant for my Instant Fortress which I could mentally command from any distance (to turn the pages of my book as well as having dinner ready and waiting )

Surprisingly enough, as bad as all that sounds, it didn't really "ruin" the campaign either. We were doing a kinda high-powered campaign because both our main DMs were leaving soon. So it actually just set the tone.

 

[Henry]

In all but ONE game, it was a campaign ender. The one game, they each got one draw, and that was it. Some got hosed, some got goodies, but all lived, and they moved on.

I've never used it in 3E, and never intend to.