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Deck of many things is an Artefact an object of untold power, one of two exeptions to Anti-Magic Field, other being the Will of Gods. Moon and Void are horrible, but any other card can be dealt with. Balance is bad, but only because interpretation of how Alignment works. For me alignment is a personality, your goals should not change, a truly loyal person remains loyal. A Lawful Good Paladin who seeks justice will continue to seek justice, but they may be more ruthless then they used to. A Lawful Evil knight can be someone who will serve their master as long as their intentions are pure, like slaughtering people to stop the spread of disease or killing all life to end all suffering, but if they commit murder simply because they enjoy peoples suffering, then the knight would backstab their master.
What's the dated and offensive term? Since it was censored, my brain needs to know what it is. I can't find anything and I can't think of one that fits that starts with M. Ah, found it. Old term used for people with down syndrome. A bit of a barbaric term.
"I draw 2 cards. First card is Talons, and all your possessions become dust and disappear, including the deck. An hour later the donjon card is drawn and the character disappears without warning." The idea of the deck continuing to draw after it disappears is hilarious to me.
It's magic. You announce how many are drawn, and that is a magical obligation that forces you to "draw" that many cards (take that many effects). Other cards can cancel it or add to it. It's more odd to me that you can't stop drawing.
the deck of many things is awful and shouldn't be included in modern games, in a meaningless dungeon crawl with expendable characters the deck is irrelevant
In the old version of the game, finding treasure gave you xp. That's why some of those cards give you xp when they gave you treasure and the 5e version doesn't.
Yep spot on. I still remember my first draw as a noob back in middle school, gained INT for my MU 1st draw, and my 2 hireling ftr guards turned on me on the 2nd pull. That was a shocker and kept me from getting TOO deep into the Deck! Good times
In my very first campaign as a dungeon master, I was playing around with a lot of mechanics so that I'd be prepared if I ever had to deal with it again. I gave my players the Deck of Many Things at level 4. One of my players instantly drew the card that gives you a Fighter who believes it is his destiny to serve you. TL;DR version, he discovered he wasn't real and was created by magic and ended up becoming the BBEG of the campaign. It was AWESOME!
I've been playing since 1977, so I've seen the DoMT in every edition. Never had it break a campaign. But, have had incredible adventures because of it. My advice for DMs is to know the cards, and prepare for their consequences, before introducing it into the world. Also, make sure it is always in the possession of a NPC who appears once or rarely. That way, the party doesn't just decide to draw cards on a whim. 🤠👍
I have been playing since 1981 and have also seen it in every edition. It’s risk/reward structure do not fit well into a 5e play style and much like Global Thermal Nuclear War, the only way to win is not to play. I find this especially true with less experienced DMs.
Yes, knowing the cards is super important or it can really throw off any balancing or directing you’ve done. Balancing. Who even does that? You’d need to know the characters and player styles super well to even start trying to balance combat.
The best advice I can give is to never ever allow this to be rolled randomly. If you want this in your campaign, make it the focal point of the campaign.
This does encapsulate a lot of why players fear it. I think DMs fear it more due to their belief that the players might get upset if they don't get lucky or have drastic random consequences for their fun.
I think people get too attached to characters. So when something legitimately threatens the character that isn't the BBEG people sometimes get pissy. Its an adventurer sometimes you die. i do think if your DM is killing the party often, thats an issue.
@Rogue Barbarian is it really a win streak though. I want to know my character can make a bad choice, roll unlucky, stand and fight and may not live to see the morrow. Or even sacrifice himself for an innocent he just met without the table trying to stop it.
What I always tell people is to make their own decks that suit the campaign they are running. Customizability in all senses for the perfect wacky, random, helpful, hurtful, all around fun magic item.
I've been working on something like this, because I went down a rabbit hole and made a custom Tarot for my world with relevant symbolism, and using that as a DoMT seemed like a reasonable followup project...
13:54 Killing the devil after it comes to you is easier than finding it, yes. However, devils don't permanently die unless killed in the Nine Hells, so you will have to look for it if you want to get rid of it permanently.
I think the idea is, if you kill the devil, that ends the magic. It may return to life in the Nine Hells, but the magical enmity is broken. At least that's how I interpret it.
I think it'd be fun to play a character who was a fighter created by the Knight card, and their master died so they're searching for a new purpose, and they have no memory before the moment that player drew the card.
It's exactly what I'm playing right now. We were at a climax of the campaign (we were all level 15), the DoMT was a big part of that, my character drew the knight card and made him draw more cards. The knight leveled up to level 9 because of the Sun (he also has a strength of 24 now because he drew 2 Star cards), and now I'm playing such character on a quest to retrieve the soul of another PC who drew the Void while my main character is recovering from some long term injuries. Fun times. PS: we immediatly knew where the soul of our friend went thanks to another PC that drew the Vizier card. It's been pretty wild.
Dude I'm doing that right now except my character has self worth/abandonment issues due to the fact that the original cardholder was such a high level they didn't want them. They straight up told my character to sit on a park bench for a bit and then left. It's been pretty fun and interesting to RP as this kind of character.
My favorite use of the FATES card was when I played as a teenager. We were using ADnD rules (and I'm not sure if this was the actual rules or if I had read it wrong at the time). One of my players used the FATES card to undo a deathblow on an enemy that another PC had landed.... Just so their character could be the one to land the deathblow and get the exp for the kill! 🤣
I gave my PCs the deck in our last campaign, they drew 9!!! cards in a single session, and completely bamboozled the campaign in the best ways, but it didn't end the campaign. I would have no reservation now, with the experience I have, throwing the deck at a party of any level, but I would *not* recommend it to a newer DM or someone who doesn't feel comfortable with extreme improv.
The thing to remember with the deck is a DCC canard: *anything* is *possible* if the players want it enough. Donjon’d and unhappy with that? Welp... recovering that character is now your next set of adventures.
My party drew 10 in a flurry of trying to fix after the Half-Orc Barbarian became a Kobold (I edited some of the cards). I definitely would use the deck again, but player knowledge of it is such a double-edged sword.
@@russellee5216 That's why I think it's good to always customize the cards in the deck. The players might correctly guess the item, but if the cards are always different, the surprise and chaos of the item remains.
I used a homebrew twist that the card takes effect when you look at it. This allows me to spread single cards out as loot that a “tarot” themed warlock faction can be found with and the players can kind of build their own deck card by card.
How does that work, exactly? The first person to find the card activates it? Wouldn't that make individual cards super powerful since you can repeatedly use them since it's the only option and if the card is bad and you stumble upon it does it automatically screw you? The Deck of Many Things working is based on it being a deck, so I'm interested to know if you have accounted for this.
@@backonlazer791 it's something I made up for our campaign so it can work however you like haha. I wanted to have the cards be kind of like a consumable item, no matter how you found it once you reveal it you activate it (unless it's already activated, then it's just a card, but detect magic would tell you if it was active or not) The way I have it working in my game is that the triumvirate of hags has the deck of many things. When they need a particularly important task accomplished by one of their hunters they allow the hunter to take a card as payment. This of course may be good or bad (the hags care not which) and activates once the owner "turns it over" or looks at what card it is. This can be done as soon as the card is drawn, or in the case of a bounty hunter NPC kept a mystery until an opportune moment (this guy was planning on saving the card he got until he was on deaths door to use as a hail mary, or possibly never looking at it...) Once the card is looked at and the power activates though, it becomes nothing more than a mundane card. One of the PCs stole the card from this dude and looked at it, promptly revealing the RUIN card haha. So it goes
@@bryansmith844 Hmm, interesting take. So if they're consumable will they reappear in the world after being used? Can there there be multiple copies of the same card?
@@backonlazer791 I don’t think I would have multiples floating around because I still like the idea that this is a super rare/powerful/weird item and after the magic effect is consumed, maybe it has to be shuffled back into the deck to become active again
The deck can be an amazing storytelling tool! In my last campaign, I played a Goliath Artificer named Kallus, who was inspired by Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon. A runt of the litter who yearns to become a master of shapeshifting due to his own body insecurity. Party found a modified Deck of Many Things, and me being clueless and impulsive I drew one immediately. I rolled a nat 1, and drew the dreaded Void card. DM described me falling into a coma, and as my party dragged me back to a tavern and tried to make a plan to find a cleric to figure out how to heal me. DM described me slowly shrinking, growing strange hair, and sprouting ears and a tail. Apparently DM set the Void card to essentially randomly change your race, and I ended up as a Tabaxi. It was very ironic that my goal to master shapeshifting aligned so well with the card outcome!
Because of how saves in 1e worked, the Medusa was effectively "Take a penalty to all constitution based saves." As petrification was the save used to oppose spells such as polymorph as well.
im not 100% sure, but i think "petrification" saves in older editions was towards everything that could affect your movement, slow, frighten, actual petrification, etc
@@BobWorldBuilder In older editions the saves were not tied to Ability Scores, but rather a class-dependent set of 6 saves with somewhat confusingly specific names.
My favorite deck of many things moment was our fighter getting The Fates and completely erasing the BBEG destroying his platoon in his nation's army way back in his pre adventuring backstory. So he rolled up a new character and when we visited that nation to stop the BBEG, we got to see the NPC version of his first character as if his platoon was never defeated and he continued being a soldier in that nation's army. Was really neat and clever on the player/DM's part.
I remember reading that one guy's group had a homebrew version with extra cards, which include: Scales: Your body, over the course of 1d10 + 1 days, will slowly and painfully transform into a dragon, determined by the dm to be either metallic or chromatic, you will experience intruding thoughts that come with the dragon in question, i.e being more prone to deceptive tactics if turning into a green dragon. The Magician: Gain the alliance of a 4th level wizard, who believes you are the key to solving a mystery that they have been trying to solve. The Dagger: A PC or ally will suddenly gain a great hatred of you, and will seek your demise. If a PC is affected, they are not to reveal as such until the right time, where such a revelation will hurt their target the most. The Mimic: The next object you interact with, i.e doors or chests, will become a mimic, it will revert to its original state once it is slain. This card will act like another card, DMs choice, until it's effect takes place, then it will reveal itself as the Mimic card. The Outsider: You gain the attention of a god, either good or bad, determined by the dm, who seeks to interact with you to fulfill their own goals.
The one time I encountered one in a campaign, we didn't realize you decide from the get go, how many you draw, and then it disappears. We actually had it not disappear at all. But it was fun, because it gave the party a chance to see everyone else get cool stuff (we had incredible luck), which pressured everyone into taking a gamble. My character drew the knight card or whatever it's called, and said knight was now in my service. My paladin, not seeing anything bad happen from the deck and not knowing it's a possibility handed the knight the deck and invited him to draw a card. The knight drew the card that traps your soul in pandemonium. So from the party's perspective, he just poofed out of nowhere, and then immediately died.
Great review of the Deck of Many Things. I am an old school AD&D DM, and have continued to DM a 1/2nd edition of AD&D. It is at heart, 1st edition while grabbing interesting elements of 2nd and Unearthed Arcana. To put things in perspective for old style D&D. 1. We played in groups, and we played for long stretches of time. We played many different sessions across many different characters. Because AD&D was fixed and abilities were tied to race and class, you wanted to experience more and thus you had to have multiple characters. 2. The Deck was highly feared and loved by everyone. Yes, in our games, you could lose the character, but this was not as a big deal when you only have a few months of experience with the character. It was almost never used by anyone who highly valued their character. No one touched the deck at level 9 plus. But, your henchmen might… 3. In my games, it is a level 4-7 item. Enough to make big strides for your character, but not enough time to get serious attached to it. 4. Everyone knew the effects of the deck, so there were zero surprises. People knew exactly what they were doing. 5. I imagine it is different for each group, but in our case, the DM would also allow you to roll up a new character and place it a couple levels behind the rest of the party. You might even get your stuff back depending on the party, but, most of the time the party would take all your valuables. \ 6. Since the modules were normally designed for 4-6 players, if you had a small group (2-3 people), we always had the characters play 2 players. 7. There were rules for henchmen, they do not count as a full character and certainly had no vote in party activities. They were passive and largely just around to fight. 8. In a 15th level party of 6 players, you might have 1-4 henchmen for EACH player. We had battles in the abys that lasted for 2 months… ok, that room is done. Next…. Really interesting to see how new games are played. Very different from my style and the sessions I still occasionally play. Thank you!
Great stuff as always, Bob. It’s wonderful to see your channel flourishing. I think the deck probably suits the more ‘gonzo’ style of play in which it originated, with everyone happy for the campaign to be led by wacky twists of fate. In more story-led campaigns it could be a step too far for some. But I say embrace the Chaos! Always look forward to your videos. Nice one! 🤓
Yep, they can be fun and engaging, but only in certain types of campaigns with certain groups. It requires buy-in from everyone at the table. I imagine a lot of people's reservations have to do with how they have no agency in deciding whether or not another player does something that could completely derail/alter a campaign.
I think sumoning extra deaths is actually a good idea. The reason is that it makes it harder and easier, or easier with the right strategy and harder for exp, so you get more. In other words, you can all sumon your deaths far away, then run towards the dude and all destroy his death, then there are four of you and one three deths, or five and four, and you can do stuff like charge the middle, then fall back, while manuevering your ranged or others to the side so that if it falls back, it can be hit, then three are two, and you can have it so that the engagers are having one block the other, not to mention that you can kite them around and have a ranger shoot. Even come right at the ranger, and duck or dodge. So um That's not all. It's more simple too. Having an aoe fire on three of them after you deal with the one focused on the aoe guy, you can have him hit the three maximum times. Now, you all could get more xp if the monsters action ecconomy you. That is, four spawning four minis is 16 on one dude, and then you have three guys. So, it should help.
Great tips! The deck sounds scary because it brings so much chaos. BUT, remember DMs: it's up to you when you give this out. And you can review the cards beforehand to brainstorm ideas how to work the card results into your campaign. When I've used it, I only let players draw cards at the ends of sessions, to give me time to think!
Listening in, but are games now very fixed? In my games, old school based, the DM balanced out the effects to allow the game to be playable. Someone dead, roll a up a new character, give him a few extra levels, off to the races again.
I introduced an item called the Deck of Fate into my homebrew 5e campaign. It was introduced as a plot device, most of the cards would introduce a new quest, or give the players a story point to follow, so it basically generated interest, hoping they'd use it when they were bored. The PCs learned little about it, just putting it away and never using it. I think that they were scared simply because it was a "deck", even though it had no relation to the Deck of Many Things.
That sounds fun! Definitely worth trying to bring back into your game--just assuring your players that it's not nearly as risky for them as *that other deck*
The card I was most afraid of as a player was the ruin card. Not because of the lost wealth, but because of the lost investment in the world of the campaign. That card is basically a big middle finger to players who actually took the time to engage and contribute to the world the DM created. I spent a long time building a little shop from the ground up in our campaign, had a little family home, made investments with a bank, we had a player whose life's dream was to own and captain a ship, which he got, we had another player who opened a restaurant, another who was bequeathed some priceless family heirlooms when he resolved trauma from his backstory, I could go on. You're right that the physical game play mechanics of your character losing their wealth is not that bad, but this card almost specifically aims to hurt the *player*. That's why it's my least favorite card in the deck.
Bob is focusing on in game dynamics too much. Many of these cards affect the DM, the group balance, or throw off the track of the campaign and derail anything the players are enjoying.
I think your campaign relied heavily on certain growth strategies to keep you engaged. I think it would be appropriate to just strip all your current cash or something like that - a motivator to go treasure hunting rather than something to destroy your investment in the game. Rules As Written presumes you were playing the game as written. Building a personal investment portfolio isn’t what you expect people to play!
The Gem card is more powerful in 5e than it might seem on the surface to you. Yes, it's fifty gems worth 1,000 gp each, but if the player can choose... diamonds, for example, are worth their weight in, well, diamonds, for their use in resurrection spells and the like, and there are other gems that are needed as material components. And if you have spellcasters with you, those gems can be significantly more useful than mere coin. Also, I just got the idea for a campaign - the party must go out and find the physical manifestations of all 22 cards, to gather the complete Deck of Many Things and keep the stray cards from causing chaos and confusion in the world...
A truly wonderous magic item that I ran into for the first time back in middle school. I'll never forget my character's first encounter with a mysterious gypsy fortune teller!
We used the deck. It was crazy, how lucky the orc who drew them. Got mostly good cards. He got the level 4 knight. This Knight named Bradford killed many of strong monsters. He became a legend after stopping the BBEG.
I just ran a one shot for my siblings. They were asked to retrieve a 'deck of cards'. Rather than returning the Deck, they drew. My brother pulled four cards: Knight, Rogue, Moon (2 wishes), and then Balance. Then my sister pulls Balance and then Donjon (negating her third card). My brother kept his now chaotic evil character to maybe use again one day. We all had fun. Honestly, pulling from the Deck in the first session to set up the campaign might be fun.
When I was a kid, my family and another family played AD&D campaign. About 2 years into the campaign, we ran across a Deck of Many Things (us kids loved it since our DM had actual cards to draw). Everyone in the party (9 characters, with 3 parents playing 2 characters each to better balance out the party with people who knew what they were doing) drew a card, and all of us managed to draw good cards. I can't remember everyone's card anymore (more than 15 years ago), but it was really helpful for the campaign. I got the extra character fighter henchman (not too odd or overpowered given our parents already each had 2 characters). But the main card I remember was the Sun. Background, our only cleric managed to only roll 3 hp when we started the game (called her "Papercut" for years because that's all it would take to off our entire party's only healer). We'd gotten to maybe 3rd level on average for the party (she'd been promoted to "Splinter" or some other nonsense) and this saved our asses for the remaining years we played this campaign. She jumped up so many levels, which skyrocketed her hit points and abilities, allowing us to progress without the DM having to scale down encounters as often. It was a lot of fun and we were very lucky.
If you plan ahead, there are no pitfalls for using a Deck. Predetermine locations for Thrones, Donjons, and Void cards, always have NPCs that befriend each character in case they draw a Rogue or Knight, and project far off goals that seem impossible to tempt players into using their Vizier or Fates. I prefer to play the Deck in a way that seems like it was a waste of a card because it happened anyway. "Gem, well that's good because all we managed to pick up in this dungeon was this little pouch off that dead adventurer. I never did check to see what was in it . . ."
I used a watered down version of the cards for players under level 11 in 5e, but our games use xp levelling, sidekicks and character death so very little chnages had to be made
Love this history of the deck!! Great insights as always bob! You are so awesome at interacting with your community! If you have time will you share with us... What is your favourite card to draw? What is your favourite card to see another player draw?
Glad you enjoyed this video. It was fun to compare the past and present versions of this item, and I have a similar video coming up for one of the core classes! I'm the worst at picking favorites, but the first that comes to mind for either case would have to be Moon. Those wishes could be chaotic, but that's what I think the deck is for :)
@@BobWorldBuilder Love to see Moon in effect as well! My Favourite is when someone only wants to draw one card but picks the idiot! So Harsh and tense! And it's happened to me before It's so funny. Looking forward to the class breakdown history lesson too! Your content is always improving and I love watching the channel grow!
Anything breaking a campaign is really down to the flexibility of the people playing. New situations popping up can definitely make things difficult for the DM but with endless options for creative solutions all the cards do is make new situations for the party to experience. Losing all your property can throw a situation on its head, can make a party that was rich and powerful have to work to build things up again. Fighting death can be incredibly character defining for someone who survives that.
Losing all magic items was ruinous in older editions. There was a 3.5 Living Greyhawk mod that caused characters to be enslaved and lose ALMOST everything. So many characters ended up ruined that they had to change the poverty rules to allow characters a chance in hell of recovering from the losses... and you'd still end up behind your level curve due to the loss. A LOT of the cards disrupt the current adventure/flow, or kill a character/remove RP opportunities or add complexity, so it's more brutal than it seems from this "BUT MUH FIFTH EDITION AND MILESTONES AND TOO MUCH MONEYS!" video makes it out to be.
@@hariman7727 I'm guessing you had a difficult experience with this in the past, which is why it seems to personal. I'm sorry you had to go through that. However, a good DM will give characters ways to work themselves back up. A good party will support them in that and a good player will use this as a formative arc for their character. Yes, no doubt they'll be frustrated at first - that's understandable. Adverse situations develop a character a lot more than the easy ones though - the deck gives some options for that. If you aren't willing to take those risks then perhaps don't draw from the deck. The impression of the video is wildly inaccurate, Bob compares 5e because it's the most common version. It's also a very childish way to put a grievance across, are you sure you're old enough to have played 3.5e?
@@davidjennings2179 you know you whipsaw between kindly compassionate and utterly rude backhanded insults, you do realize that? In the living grayhawk campaign, which was dungeons & dragons 3.5, there was a mod called "Barbarous Coast", if I remember correctly, which had a final battle where the party was teleported into a citywide invasion to attempt to stop at least part of the invasion. If you lost that battle, you were enslaved and you lost everything, and you were given 200 gold to start the rest of your adventuring career over. Because of the specific ruling at the time of that mod's release, and because living grayhawk had to follow those specific rpga rules because it was official campaign mods that were played nationally, for the first couple months at minimum players could not claim having utter poverty because they had a couple hundred gold and were not allowed to drop that gold to meet the poverty requirements. So many characters became unplayable because a fighter at the levels for that mod would lose all of their equipment, and wizards would lose their spellbook, among other things. It is about the fourth worst written mod in the entirety of living greyhawk that I played, and the only reason I have the ability to say fourth worst written is because I played in the sheldomar valley/Keoland, which were notorious because one of the mod writers in the area literally could not read the rule book to make a decent encounter. So there was no room for the DMs to adapt to that or allow leeway so the character could be recoverable. As for the deck of many things, I don't like it because I find the chaos of it off-putting. I don't want to lose a character because of a magic item that is designed to tempt players on a meta scale, that also affects the player Dynamics and DM so directly. Yeah, other people can have fun with it, but I hope I never see it again. Also you don't realize how much of a jerk you're being, because I'm 40, and the only reason I'm being nasty here is RUclips is where I tend to let my brakes off a little. So please think about insulting a person and comments questioning someone's age, because they only make you appear... Well, read your comment into a mirror and ask how you'd feel if someone slaps you in the face with an insult, then tell me what word you'd use. Tl:dr: yes, I've had a set of bad experiences with deck of many things and other random bullshit that really hurt characters of mine. Also, read your comment into a mirror to yourself and consider how you sound, because your most recent comment was pretty rude.
@@hariman7727 Compassion doesn't mean we don't call people out when they're out of order. Yes you've clearly had a difficult experience and I'm sorry you had to go through that. However, it doesn't give you a free pass not to be called out when you lash out at others. You accept that you're being nasty on RUclips, perhaps take your own advice and consider how your comment would affect Bob - he puts effort into these videos, they're his livelihood.
You said the card that makes you lose your Magic Items won't ruin your game because players should drop whatever they're holding before drawing. But itsn't that metagaming? Already knowing what the cards might do before drawing?
Give your players a set of cards "with many things on it", and instead of giving them the deck of many things, give them the deck of illusion. Best delivered on the first of April. :D
The item is interesting, it just shows its age from all the changes D&D has gone through as a hobby over the years. The character burn rate is a major thing. Players would most likely have to roll up new PCs all the time. And if that's the case, there's no sense in putting *too* much effort into a backstory for each one of them beyond the basics. Conversely, it's common now for players to write extensive and detailed backstories for their character. If you're told that your lawful good fighter is suddenly going to have to switch to behave in a chaotic evil manner, that probably wouldn't matter too much if you just rolled her up and slapped on a generic backstory. If you devoted a lot of energy to why the character is the kind of person they are, being told "just be evil now" on account of a random result from a magic item feels a lot different.
We were a group of 3 players, all level 2, alongside the DM. We came to getting a reward from a minor deity for services rendered. The DM gave us a choice that we needed to make as a party; either everyone draws a card each from the deck or we each gain an uncommon Magic item of our choice. I'm not too fond of gambling, so voted for the item, the other two voted for the deck - so deck it was. The first player drew Ruin, so lost some minor amount of gold and their possessions - they were quite irritated, but accepted it begrudgingly. I drew the Sun, instantly getting me up to level 9 as a Wizard and the DM gave me a Ring of Spell Storing - yup, I was both horrified and bemused, since you know, I'm already the Wizard in this party, let alone 7 levels higher with a very powerful item. The last player drew the Fates and instantly declared what one event was erased from existence - the deck appearing. DM was nice and decided that since that would mean there would have been only one option we get our magic items instead. Not sure how I feel about the deck, but one thing was for sure; Vindication was MINE!
I have only seen the Deck of Many things used once before, that being when I ran XPtoLevel3’s One-Shot called The Doorngeon (a door themed dungeon) for some friends. The card that grants wishes was actually used pretty well. They used it to bring back characters that had died to some of the other cards. Surprisingly, the card that was the most awful was the Sun. Having one player become a lot more powerful and higher level is only fun for the person that draws the card. It ruins the game for everyone else because the one player that’s higher level basically does all the work in combat while everyone else just sits back and watches. In my case, the player that drew the card ended up being three times the level of everyone else.
Had a player draw 2 cards from the deck a few years ago. First card was Comet, second was Death. He took it as the lesson of "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger". Shouldn't expect anything else from a Monk/Fighter multi class.
I hadn’t considered this - the minor death isn’t necessarily a major obstacle if you just gained levels and were given a Staff of the Magi or something to overcome it.
I once built a character who wanted to find the Deck to draw the Moon and use a wish solve a mystery of his lineage. The DM was nice enough to run with it, so we had the Deck as a McGuffin for our campaign.
In the previous campaign I ran, I had given the party a deck. A while later I had an encounter (unrelated to the deck) where I had a character (who unannounced to the party was actually a goddess in disguise) do an interaction with the party and one member of the party did something completely unexpected, they asked this goddess (in disguise as an old man) if they wanted to draw a card from the deck. This was crazy but I decided to go with it, as luck would have it, the card that the goddess drew was the fate card. This immediately got my brain spinning and I let the use of the card stew for a while before using it. Then at a predetermined time, I had fate rewrite itself as the goddess used the card to rewrite a point in history decades before, resulting in a few things to change in the party, most notably one of the characters changed classes and partially changed species as I turned one of the characters into a Divine Soul Sorcerer (a demigod). It led to a pretty wild time for the party and completely took everyone (except that player which I did check with in advance) completely off guard.
Backstory idea: you are the fighter made by the deck. After drawing your card, your old master drew another card and disappeared. Your bond is to find them
Story time here: I've been DM'ing for over two years now a campaign that initially started off as a mixture of Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak that eventually turns into a condensed version of Tyranny of Dragons. In between my players wanted to run for the position of mayor of Phandalin and dive into one of the dungeons of the Undermountain of Waterdeep when I gave them a Deck of many things. The main plan was to try to stop the arising thread of Dragon Cultists to rise Tiamat from Avernus... however one of my players decided to draw four cards from the Deck... of course the first one was... The Void. At that point, the only point in the multiverse that would make story-wise was to send the soul to Avernus (also added bonus that the player once tried to steal an amulet that used to belong to Asmodeus, so this also made sense for the character to some degree). At that point the campaign shifted from a Tyranny of Dragons campaign to Baldur's Gate - Descend into Avernus. It took probably around 8-9 months of playsessions for my players to get Elturel back to the original place and the players soul back into the original character... However, they brought Tiamat with them... and now we're back to the original intended campaign but immensely higher stakes than before...
somwhere I heard a person say a very good idea for the deck. It works like true Tarot cards, like maybe in the lore it is the original deck of tarot cards in that world, or only one that truely works.... anyways, the idea is the cards still do what they say but not immediately but soon so they are telling the future.... but instead of telling the future like normal tarot cards, these ones create that future. So for the friendly npc becoming hostile toward you, The next town you visit, the shopkeeper you have befriended takes offense to something you say. or do and stops selling to you and becomes even hostile to you, you might still keep it secret or maybe the secret part is why. The gaining a weapon card, you have first watch at night at camp. While wandering your camp find the weapon laying on the ground.... that kinda thing.
i've literally seen this deck end a campaign, it was the 50k exp one, it rocketed one character into a whole different power sphere then everyone else. having henchmen and stuff though can be done right, the key i feel is just to make sure every player gets one. They also let you split the action cause the main party can do stuff and send off their b team to deal with other things in world at the same time. One campaign we started a fief and shipping port, our sidekicks ended up running our second ship.
You bring up a good point that just applying the affect to the whole party might help for some cards--as long as everyone agreed to use the deck I guess
We had a lot of fun with a DoMT in the first campaign I ever played in 5e. The whole scenario, from the theft acquisition followed by 2 character deaths and a lot of perks for other characters to the inevitable loss of the deck, was fantastic fun, even for those who lost characters.
I don't think people are complaining that this shouldn't be put in everyone's campaign, I think they are usually targeted towards people who actually craft their own campaign/world. If you spend days or months crafting a home-brewed world where factions, bloodlines, and events color and pepper your world; then having a magical item that can randomly cause something to shift CAN ruin a story or consistent pacing/writing. I don't think this item is bad, it's fun watching players deal with the random chaos of gambling. Watching my crafted storyline of 3 years with players participation fall apart due to a card flipping an NPC to evil when they had literally no reason to be, that's a lot less rewarding. As I saw someone write down below if you're going to play "russian roulette", make sure you and everyone your playing with is ok with taking that chance, don't just pick it because you think it would be fun, or you'll find yourself holding people hostage.
In my experience, the 'fear' from the Deck of Many Things was the whole risk-reward aspect of the deck itself and the consequences that came from trying your luck. Nothing more, nothing less. In no instance that I can think of has a group resisted drawing from the Deck when offered the chance (one or two characters may not try their luck, but someone drew at least one card. Always.)
To be fair, the deck of many things was always a prompt to come up with your own decks of many things. The idea that they're all the same makes no sense because they always feel like a deal with the devil or some sort of game that chaotic or evil gods play with mortal heroes and if that were true they would each make their own and every one would be different. Just make up your own deck and give it rules so it plays like a card game, give it special rewards you can't get anywhere else and have them advertised on the deck as a lure. Mess with your players by giving them more fun side effects than brutal character destruction effects, maybe some specific role play insanities or even mechanics from a different game.
Back in the day, chaotic and malicious magic from the dm was still super common. Player vs dm was very common. You were often playing him, not the adventure. There was often a “winner” of dNd at those tabletops. I’m not totally against that, but you gotta be open to losing like you’re playing a game if sorry.
If you had a DM that was going against you then that was just a bad DM. Same thing can happen today in 5e. Edition does not makes a difference. The difference was the players were not superheroes at lower levels. They were not even superheroes at higher levels. The game was never about creating superheroes, it was about surviving. You had to learn to run when were wandering through the forest and stumbled on the ancient green dragon at level 3. The other important thing you learned was avoiding the fights all together if you could. Because it was more about exploring the world and finding the weird things in it than fighting. It was about finding the loot, because that was so valuable, that was how you leveled up. Not killing monsters. That is my big issue with milestone xp. There is no insistence to adventure. Everyone just plods along with the story. Every few sessions the GM hands out levels and even if your character missed a session you get a level. Because everyone has to be equal.
@@burgsrus I agree completely on the shift in mentality. I myself am running a 3.5e campaign in a custom setting with a metric buttload of homebrew. The characters defeated a werewolf lord, 4 wargs, and a random owlbear drawn by the noise, at level 3 (6 player party) so yeah, the challenging encounters they were supposed to ‘run from’ turned into ‘one level-up per session’
The Deck is the only real world cursed magical item in existence. It's a real world cursed item as It plays on the greed of the player (not the character) drawing the cards. Even with the knowledge that it can cause ruin, it still pulls a real life persons innate greed and desires. It is effecting a real person in the real world, not necessarily a character in the game. So it is more real then any other part of dnd.
One of my players jokingly asked me for a Deck of Many Things and until now, neither of uf really considered it. You definitely changed my mind on this one. Remember that no matter how "clever" you word your wish, according to the Players Handbook, the DM always has the option to say that the spell simply fails. So as DM you actually have very good control over wether a wish could be derailing your campaign.
I fear the balance card the most. Even though alignment isn't really used that much in 5e, I still use it as a guide for role playing, and this card will completely destroy my characters.
My thoughts exactly. I was under the impression that alignment was used primarily for roleplay in 5e, like an easy box to generalize your character motivations. Changing alignment changes the whole character! They'd be better of having died so you could at least make a new character that fits the way you want to play.
I recently played a one shot with my group using the DoMT where for every 25 minutes we would all each draw our given choice of cards whether it be one card or two. The one shot was with our made characters delving into a dungeon where we had to go and face the Lich King, of which our party consisted of; Warforged Paladin of Vengeance named Gabriel(Me), a Changling Rogue Thief named Nix, an old granny Haregon Druid named Nadaline, an Eladrin Elf Ancestor Guardian Barbarian named Azazel, and a Half-Drow Elf Nature Cleric named Mitz'ry. In our one shot the deck offered some quite unique results that definitely flipped the session over its head, from Nix getting the Balance card and suddenly siding with the Lich King in exchange for their own Changeling society and city to call home and live their lives without being accused of being fraudulent or deceitful, to Azazel getting cursed by both the Euryale and Flames card, which thankfully I had gotten the Moon card several times throughout the session to help remove those negative effects at least not without sacrificing something of value in my possession like my +3 Greatsword. And my god, you cannot imagine how many times we all had drawn the Skull and had to single-handedly beat the Avatar of Death over and over again. There were other such fun events, like Nadaline quite literally performing a mass genocide of over 100 Goblins in one turn with Call Lightning, a questionnaire about the Lich King based on information we've gotten from our other campaigns, and even a bit of gambling with our homebrewed Gourd Lord monster dressed up as Santa Claus. When we reached the Lich King at long last, I alone took the fight to the Lich King where as Nadaline and Nix fought each other. Now with Gabriel, I made this character into a full on TANK; A Warforged Paladin, Defensive Fighting Style, +3 Plate armor and shield, with Defensive Fighting Initiative Feat and Defensive Duelist Feat, and would most often cast Haste on myself, granting me I believe 35 AC I believe(we were all 15th level characters and I gotten the Sun which gave me a level up to 16th level). Yet despite all this, it still wasn't enough. Especially with the Lich King knowing Meteor Swarm, a Rogue that had the habit of taking stealth and dealing a sneak attack of 8d6, and two Dracoliches clawing at me. Yet against the odds, I still fought on to my last breath. With my last ditch effort though, I used my last Wish to send my remaining team members who were on my side somewhere far and safe away from where we were. Leaving Gabriel to make his last stand until he was finally overwhelmed as his core was then taken to be used for a possible encounter in our main campaign. This session mind you started at 11AM, and ended at 8PM. It was an absolute blast and everyone had an amazing time with it.
I think there is a case to be made about the pathfinder 2e deck (technically legacy). I think it does a better job at translating the intent of some of the cards, most notably the fates, than the dnd 5e version while adding a campaign safety line in form of every character may only draw once. Interestingly, while keeping the XP aspects, pathfinder uses relative XP so 1.000 XP is equally valuable at any level. It also takes out some of the individual aspects, the skulls lesser death does not need to be faced alone for example, and there is nothing about control of the knight (just a loyalty pledge)
I dont fear it because the one time it was brought in a campaign our dragonborn barbarian kept pulling out the good cards. We got a loyal companion, a bunch of treasure and wishes
having played several campaigns where the infamous deck of many things showed up, it always comes down to how the DM and the players want to interact. my experiences happened in 3rd ed. and the ones i remember most are when one party member found the deck and decided to draw all the cards, but he did so by having each person in the party draw 3 cards each while he drew none. the other is a campaign where once the deck was found the DM made some changes, the deck was 20 cards, the cards were useable once per day, maximum of 2 cards pulled per day per player, and most of the effects scaled for the party levels
Back when I used to play D&D 2e I gave one of my players this chaotic item of my own creation in which I made. It was a coin of Good & Evil. When flipped depending on which side it landed on would give and outcome, either good or bad. I had to roll a d100 for the result on each chart (I think each chart had 100 possibilities, too). Well, anyway, I got this idea from a coin I got in an EverQuest expansion box and physically handed it to the player, tell him anytime he flips it in real life his character flips it in the game if able to do so. One night he was feeling rather frisky and flipped it 16 times in a row without waiting for any of the results 🤣 I wonder if I still have the paperwork buried somewhere....?
I've used the deck twice in different games. Both were a lot of fun and I will use them again. As long as you understand whats in the deck you can prep for it and mix it into your world just fine.
"Okay, you draw the Comet. Defeat the next hostile monster or group of monsters alone to gain a level." "All right. I grab a caterpillar off a nearby plant, Cast _Friends_ on it, and immediately drop Concentration."
Great video. One of my absolute dream campaigns is to have the players find a deck in the first dungeon they enter, but drawing any cards also twists and messes with reality causing all sorts of other problems, thus setting up a campaign to fix the changes. I would probably run it with OSE or Knave instead of 5e though, and WOULD tweak some of the cards a little.
I had it (sorta) as a hidden treasure belonging to the BBEG. It was a d20. They knew it was radiating magic and no idea what it did. The wizard rolled the first one and got zapped into another universe. Then the die teleported to another dungeon.
Fun video to watch since I have an NPC in a campaign that has the Deck who has sowed chaos with it. Pretty much started the whole campaign due to their antics. They are still active in the world and have interacted with the party.
I like the video for the most part. I know it's likely a play style thing but my groups aren't usually grossly wealthy by lvl 5. That's comes a it later. I also do not understand the issue with Knight. The way I see it, this is a follower/henchman with character levels that the DM runs and follows the PCs lead.
Yeah the wealth thing can vary a lot based on setting. For the knight card "You control this character." definitely refers to the player who pulled the card. It is essentially a henchman/sidekick, but if the party is only level 1-5, this knight is just a very powerful addition to the PC who gained it. Past those levels, it becomes less significant
@@BobWorldBuilder Fair points. I hadn't considered the lower level impact, based on my one time use it was higher level so I was skewed in my thinking. Also fair, I'd grant control in combat because you are right. I'd talk it over with the player to see what they wanted, but I'd be inclined to run them as an NPC outside of combat that follows the PC to the ends of earth. Or planes.
A short tangent on XP, since you mentioned it: the PHB is actually amusingly vague about how much xp it takes to level up, only saying, "A character who reaches a specified experience point total [gains a level]" and then the experience points table is just kinda there with no more explanation given. Traditionally D&D works on the basis of a PC tracking the total amount of xp that they have ever received and gaining levels once they hit certain thresholds. However, thanks to the rather nebulous wording given in the PHB I have seen some people interpret the xp table as meaning that the total for each level is for each level only, so they have to gain 300xp to get to level 2 and then another 900xp on top of that to reach level 3 (a cumulative total of 1200xp) and so on. If you tally xp in the latter fashion, it averages out to totals much more reminiscent of AD&D and so might be worth considering if you're concerned about your PCs levelling up too quickly (or you could just split xp between the PCs, or both, like they also used to do in AD&D, just in case you want your PCs to never level up ever!)
Great video, I have been avoiding giving my players the deck of many things, because of all of the negative things I’ve heard about it. Now I think it might just show up next session. I’m not worried about them defeating the BBEG with it. I already have another to rise up in its place,bwahahah.
To use the deck of many things you have to declare the number of cards you intent to draw. Then you have the wording, "Any cards drawn in excess of this number have no effect." Is that forever, meaning the deck is a one use per person item?
I think the Fates card works best with a time limit. Prevent what's about to happen? Sure! Undo what just happened? Absolutely! Alter an event that took place weeks ago? Prevent something years in the future? No can do; fate only remains pliable for a moment.
I remember that in one campaign I found a deck of many things. Since there is no effect if you don't announce the number of cards you are drawing, we just used it as a deck of regular playing cards. One time I accidentally said that I am drawing one card from the deck so I had to take a card that would have the magical effect. I got Moon, and I immediately use the Wish it gave me to remove the deck's magic.
"one character losing a few points ruin your campaign?" well, your, the dm, campaign may be not ruined, but any int using characters players character would be ruined, so i would say, it is ruined a character, which is more or less a tpk level disaster for most or my parties and i would consider it just as a tpk as a dm also.
The Savage Worlds Pathfinder Companion has a really cool conversion of the Deck of Many Things that's more straightforward than the 5e model. Some of the solutions and changes are ones you recommended. It's simple and fun.
I'm gearing up to run a game of Pathfinder for Savage Worlds. The Companion includes the Deck of Many Things, but... I kinda decided I didn't like some of these 'make a new character, lol' cards, so... I made my own (okay, I stole some ideas to do it). And since Savage Worlds uses a deck of playing cards for LOTS of stuff and I don't want to slow the game down to find 24-ish specific cards, my Deck has effects for all 54 cards (yeah, we use the Jokers, too). Couple other things: there are limits on how the Deck can be used--like NPCs can't draw, unless they're "significant", only PCs can. "In the fiction" it's not clear where these limits come from, but the point is for the PLAYERS to be clear on how it works. Basically, if a group of PCs are going to open the Deck and draw, they ALL have to chose from zero to four cards to draw. ALL draws are then resolved, and then the Deck vanishes. (There's also a rhyme on the case they find it in that explains this.) Also if the Deck thinks you're trying to 'game the system', it vanishes. I'm really pleased with it. There's some fun new cards like "Hood" which lets you obscure your identity, "Crossroads" where you just swap out your ancestral template, and "Bridge" where you can just walk across water if you feel like it. And nothing that makes a character unplayable. Your character might have a bad day, or even year, but you'll get over it. Probably.
I think the Deck of Many Things have suffered a kind of parrot effect of veteran players talking about their experiences and newer players taking their word for it, passing it along with exaggerated effects. More people should use the deck, it won't end their PC at all. 😈
I agree that it was/is more risky in old school games, and those stories were passed down, probably with embellishment too. Then today people are so afraid to use it that they don't know how it won't necessarily cause the major harm they've been "warned" about. I do think it can end a PC though!
16:57 The only characters it would affect greatly are usually lords and/or kings-and you don’t lose lord/kinship, the way it would happen is that your lands/fiefdom is seized.
I am running a Multiverse campaign focused on the Rod of Seven Parts. I have pondered the DOMT. Gond is a reoccuring NPC, he definitely has a copy. Maybe a devil has a copy too. You have swayed towards bringing into my campaign.
You have excellent ears lol, I recorded this audio on an updated version of the same program I always use, and it seems to have some new automatic settings I didn't know about. Basically it had a super intense background noise cancelation that overcorrected in a couple spots. Overall I thought it still sounded okay, but it might also be that this was recorded in a different room than usual
It's less that it inherently breaks games, and more that it can very easily derail games. How much of a problem *that* is in turn depends heavily on the group.
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Deck of many things is an Artefact an object of untold power, one of two exeptions to Anti-Magic Field, other being the Will of Gods.
Moon and Void are horrible, but any other card can be dealt with.
Balance is bad, but only because interpretation of how Alignment works. For me alignment is a personality, your goals should not change, a truly loyal person remains loyal. A Lawful Good Paladin who seeks justice will continue to seek justice, but they may be more ruthless then they used to.
A Lawful Evil knight can be someone who will serve their master as long as their intentions are pure, like slaughtering people to stop the spread of disease or killing all life to end all suffering, but if they commit murder simply because they enjoy peoples suffering, then the knight would backstab their master.
Find a Dungeon #19 and look at The House of Cards for a cool dungeon using the cards of the DoMT.
What's the dated and offensive term? Since it was censored, my brain needs to know what it is. I can't find anything and I can't think of one that fits that starts with M.
Ah, found it. Old term used for people with down syndrome. A bit of a barbaric term.
"I draw 2 cards. First card is Talons, and all your possessions become dust and disappear, including the deck. An hour later the donjon card is drawn and the character disappears without warning." The idea of the deck continuing to draw after it disappears is hilarious to me.
Oh man that's too good! xD
Wait, the deck can dissapear like that?
It's magic. You announce how many are drawn, and that is a magical obligation that forces you to "draw" that many cards (take that many effects). Other cards can cancel it or add to it. It's more odd to me that you can't stop drawing.
the deck of many things is awful and shouldn't be included in modern games, in a meaningless dungeon crawl with expendable characters the deck is irrelevant
@@XerrolAvengerII *-999 social credit* sorry but ur opinion is irrevelant
In the old version of the game, finding treasure gave you xp. That's why some of those cards give you xp when they gave you treasure and the 5e version doesn't.
Yeah I guess I forgot to clarify that. Thanks!
Yep spot on. I still remember my first draw as a noob back in middle school, gained INT for my MU 1st draw, and my 2 hireling ftr guards turned on me on the 2nd pull. That was a shocker and kept me from getting TOO deep into the Deck! Good times
@@crunchbar7995 Nah, milestones is better than tracking xp.
@Crunch Bar that’s a bit harsh
@Crunch Bar "He's out of line... But he's right!"
In my very first campaign as a dungeon master, I was playing around with a lot of mechanics so that I'd be prepared if I ever had to deal with it again. I gave my players the Deck of Many Things at level 4. One of my players instantly drew the card that gives you a Fighter who believes it is his destiny to serve you. TL;DR version, he discovered he wasn't real and was created by magic and ended up becoming the BBEG of the campaign. It was AWESOME!
Wow what happened for him to turn on the party and how did he gain power and a whole faction to do his evil bidding?
So wasn't he right about his destiny then? Why would that cause him to turn evil?
@@pinkliongaming8769 He wasn't evil. He was angry. You act like villains can't be layered.
I love that! haha
Wow, that's a crazy villain arc!
I've been playing since 1977, so I've seen the DoMT in every edition. Never had it break a campaign. But, have had incredible adventures because of it. My advice for DMs is to know the cards, and prepare for their consequences, before introducing it into the world. Also, make sure it is always in the possession of a NPC who appears once or rarely. That way, the party doesn't just decide to draw cards on a whim. 🤠👍
Very smart advice!
I have been playing since 1981 and have also seen it in every edition. It’s risk/reward structure do not fit well into a 5e play style and much like Global Thermal Nuclear War, the only way to win is not to play.
I find this especially true with less experienced DMs.
Yes, knowing the cards is super important or it can really throw off any balancing or directing you’ve done.
Balancing. Who even does that? You’d need to know the characters and player styles super well to even start trying to balance combat.
The best advice I can give is to never ever allow this to be rolled randomly. If you want this in your campaign, make it the focal point of the campaign.
Yeah I used it in my campaign. I planned for it and it ended up working great. Also I limited the characters to a single card each.
This does encapsulate a lot of why players fear it. I think DMs fear it more due to their belief that the players might get upset if they don't get lucky or have drastic random consequences for their fun.
Yep it's kind of a minefield haha
I think people get too attached to characters. So when something legitimately threatens the character that isn't the BBEG people sometimes get pissy. Its an adventurer sometimes you die. i do think if your DM is killing the party often, thats an issue.
@@MasterGhostf I'm on a two-year win streak of having my characters survive all their campaigns and one-shots. I want to keep it that way.
@Rogue Barbarian is it really a win streak though. I want to know my character can make a bad choice, roll unlucky, stand and fight and may not live to see the morrow. Or even sacrifice himself for an innocent he just met without the table trying to stop it.
@@MasterGhostf I mean, yeah. I get attached and see my characters and their party members as my babies. I love them.
What I always tell people is to make their own decks that suit the campaign they are running. Customizability in all senses for the perfect wacky, random, helpful, hurtful, all around fun magic item.
Great take! :)
I've been working on something like this, because I went down a rabbit hole and made a custom Tarot for my world with relevant symbolism, and using that as a DoMT seemed like a reasonable followup project...
So many complaints about D&D items and mechanics can be solved by being more creative
13:54 Killing the devil after it comes to you is easier than finding it, yes. However, devils don't permanently die unless killed in the Nine Hells, so you will have to look for it if you want to get rid of it permanently.
Good point!
Dimensional Anchor.
I think the idea is, if you kill the devil, that ends the magic. It may return to life in the Nine Hells, but the magical enmity is broken. At least that's how I interpret it.
@@michaelcohen8259 I think that's a fair interpretation. I suppose it's up to the DM.
I think it'd be fun to play a character who was a fighter created by the Knight card, and their master died so they're searching for a new purpose, and they have no memory before the moment that player drew the card.
It's exactly what I'm playing right now. We were at a climax of the campaign (we were all level 15), the DoMT was a big part of that, my character drew the knight card and made him draw more cards. The knight leveled up to level 9 because of the Sun (he also has a strength of 24 now because he drew 2 Star cards), and now I'm playing such character on a quest to retrieve the soul of another PC who drew the Void while my main character is recovering from some long term injuries. Fun times.
PS: we immediatly knew where the soul of our friend went thanks to another PC that drew the Vizier card. It's been pretty wild.
Dude I'm doing that right now except my character has self worth/abandonment issues due to the fact that the original cardholder was such a high level they didn't want them. They straight up told my character to sit on a park bench for a bit and then left. It's been pretty fun and interesting to RP as this kind of character.
My favorite use of the FATES card was when I played as a teenager. We were using ADnD rules (and I'm not sure if this was the actual rules or if I had read it wrong at the time). One of my players used the FATES card to undo a deathblow on an enemy that another PC had landed.... Just so their character could be the one to land the deathblow and get the exp for the kill! 🤣
Haha that might be the simplest use of the Deck of Many Things that I've ever heard!
That’s awesome, well earned Xp!
The idea to change the XP based cards into skill based cards is a really nice idea.
Yup
Thanks!
I gave my PCs the deck in our last campaign, they drew 9!!! cards in a single session, and completely bamboozled the campaign in the best ways, but it didn't end the campaign.
I would have no reservation now, with the experience I have, throwing the deck at a party of any level, but I would *not* recommend it to a newer DM or someone who doesn't feel comfortable with extreme improv.
Haha oh man, yeah if a campaign can survive half the deck basically spilling out, it can survive anything.
The thing to remember with the deck is a DCC canard: *anything* is *possible* if the players want it enough. Donjon’d and unhappy with that? Welp... recovering that character is now your next set of adventures.
My party drew 10 in a flurry of trying to fix after the Half-Orc Barbarian became a Kobold (I edited some of the cards). I definitely would use the deck again, but player knowledge of it is such a double-edged sword.
@@russellee5216 That's why I think it's good to always customize the cards in the deck. The players might correctly guess the item, but if the cards are always different, the surprise and chaos of the item remains.
They drew the factorial of the factorial of the factorial of 9? Just say the number, I dont wanna do maths
I used a homebrew twist that the card takes effect when you look at it. This allows me to spread single cards out as loot that a “tarot” themed warlock faction can be found with and the players can kind of build their own deck card by card.
That's a fun twist. Leaning into the tarot theme is a great idea
How does that work, exactly? The first person to find the card activates it? Wouldn't that make individual cards super powerful since you can repeatedly use them since it's the only option and if the card is bad and you stumble upon it does it automatically screw you? The Deck of Many Things working is based on it being a deck, so I'm interested to know if you have accounted for this.
@@backonlazer791 it's something I made up for our campaign so it can work however you like haha. I wanted to have the cards be kind of like a consumable item, no matter how you found it once you reveal it you activate it (unless it's already activated, then it's just a card, but detect magic would tell you if it was active or not)
The way I have it working in my game is that the triumvirate of hags has the deck of many things. When they need a particularly important task accomplished by one of their hunters they allow the hunter to take a card as payment. This of course may be good or bad (the hags care not which) and activates once the owner "turns it over" or looks at what card it is. This can be done as soon as the card is drawn, or in the case of a bounty hunter NPC kept a mystery until an opportune moment (this guy was planning on saving the card he got until he was on deaths door to use as a hail mary, or possibly never looking at it...)
Once the card is looked at and the power activates though, it becomes nothing more than a mundane card.
One of the PCs stole the card from this dude and looked at it, promptly revealing the RUIN card haha. So it goes
@@bryansmith844 Hmm, interesting take. So if they're consumable will they reappear in the world after being used? Can there there be multiple copies of the same card?
@@backonlazer791 I don’t think I would have multiples floating around because I still like the idea that this is a super rare/powerful/weird item and after the magic effect is consumed, maybe it has to be shuffled back into the deck to become active again
The deck can be an amazing storytelling tool! In my last campaign, I played a Goliath Artificer named Kallus, who was inspired by Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon. A runt of the litter who yearns to become a master of shapeshifting due to his own body insecurity. Party found a modified Deck of Many Things, and me being clueless and impulsive I drew one immediately. I rolled a nat 1, and drew the dreaded Void card. DM described me falling into a coma, and as my party dragged me back to a tavern and tried to make a plan to find a cleric to figure out how to heal me. DM described me slowly shrinking, growing strange hair, and sprouting ears and a tail. Apparently DM set the Void card to essentially randomly change your race, and I ended up as a Tabaxi. It was very ironic that my goal to master shapeshifting aligned so well with the card outcome!
Because of how saves in 1e worked, the Medusa was effectively "Take a penalty to all constitution based saves." As petrification was the save used to oppose spells such as polymorph as well.
Ahhh that certainly changes things!
Thanks for all you do Bob
You’re a real asset to the D&D community.
Much love.
Thank you very much! :)
im not 100% sure, but i think "petrification" saves in older editions was towards everything that could affect your movement, slow, frighten, actual petrification, etc
Ahh, I'm not sure either. I took it at face value
@@BobWorldBuilder In older editions the saves were not tied to Ability Scores, but rather a class-dependent set of 6 saves with somewhat confusingly specific names.
My favorite deck of many things moment was our fighter getting The Fates and completely erasing the BBEG destroying his platoon in his nation's army way back in his pre adventuring backstory. So he rolled up a new character and when we visited that nation to stop the BBEG, we got to see the NPC version of his first character as if his platoon was never defeated and he continued being a soldier in that nation's army. Was really neat and clever on the player/DM's part.
I remember reading that one guy's group had a homebrew version with extra cards, which include:
Scales: Your body, over the course of 1d10 + 1 days, will slowly and painfully transform into a dragon, determined by the dm to be either metallic or chromatic, you will experience intruding thoughts that come with the dragon in question, i.e being more prone to deceptive tactics if turning into a green dragon.
The Magician: Gain the alliance of a 4th level wizard, who believes you are the key to solving a mystery that they have been trying to solve.
The Dagger: A PC or ally will suddenly gain a great hatred of you, and will seek your demise. If a PC is affected, they are not to reveal as such until the right time, where such a revelation will hurt their target the most.
The Mimic: The next object you interact with, i.e doors or chests, will become a mimic, it will revert to its original state once it is slain. This card will act like another card, DMs choice, until it's effect takes place, then it will reveal itself as the Mimic card.
The Outsider: You gain the attention of a god, either good or bad, determined by the dm, who seeks to interact with you to fulfill their own goals.
The one time I encountered one in a campaign, we didn't realize you decide from the get go, how many you draw, and then it disappears. We actually had it not disappear at all.
But it was fun, because it gave the party a chance to see everyone else get cool stuff (we had incredible luck), which pressured everyone into taking a gamble. My character drew the knight card or whatever it's called, and said knight was now in my service. My paladin, not seeing anything bad happen from the deck and not knowing it's a possibility handed the knight the deck and invited him to draw a card.
The knight drew the card that traps your soul in pandemonium. So from the party's perspective, he just poofed out of nowhere, and then immediately died.
That part about the knight is awesome! xD
Great review of the Deck of Many Things. I am an old school AD&D DM, and have continued to DM a 1/2nd edition of AD&D. It is at heart, 1st edition while grabbing interesting elements of 2nd and Unearthed Arcana. To put things in perspective for old style D&D.
1. We played in groups, and we played for long stretches of time. We played many different sessions across many different characters. Because AD&D was fixed and abilities were tied to race and class, you wanted to experience more and thus you had to have multiple characters.
2. The Deck was highly feared and loved by everyone. Yes, in our games, you could lose the character, but this was not as a big deal when you only have a few months of experience with the character. It was almost never used by anyone who highly valued their character. No one touched the deck at level 9 plus. But, your henchmen might…
3. In my games, it is a level 4-7 item. Enough to make big strides for your character, but not enough time to get serious attached to it.
4. Everyone knew the effects of the deck, so there were zero surprises. People knew exactly what they were doing.
5. I imagine it is different for each group, but in our case, the DM would also allow you to roll up a new character and place it a couple levels behind the rest of the party. You might even get your stuff back depending on the party, but, most of the time the party would take all your valuables. \
6. Since the modules were normally designed for 4-6 players, if you had a small group (2-3 people), we always had the characters play 2 players.
7. There were rules for henchmen, they do not count as a full character and certainly had no vote in party activities. They were passive and largely just around to fight.
8. In a 15th level party of 6 players, you might have 1-4 henchmen for EACH player. We had battles in the abys that lasted for 2 months… ok, that room is done. Next….
Really interesting to see how new games are played. Very different from my style and the sessions I still occasionally play. Thank you!
"Bruh" really sums it xD
I think The Throne has improved with 5e, because it effectively gives the group free sessions
Great stuff as always, Bob. It’s wonderful to see your channel flourishing.
I think the deck probably suits the more ‘gonzo’ style of play in which it originated, with everyone happy for the campaign to be led by wacky twists of fate.
In more story-led campaigns it could be a step too far for some. But I say embrace the Chaos!
Always look forward to your videos. Nice one! 🤓
Thanks very much! Yeah I think it's all a matter of taste--like just about everything in D&D haha
... but, the GM sets the scene & the players write the story; no?
campaign ending? perhaps not.
but the benefits are mid
and the downsides can easily end any enjoyment a player may have in their character
Yep, they can be fun and engaging, but only in certain types of campaigns with certain groups. It requires buy-in from everyone at the table. I imagine a lot of people's reservations have to do with how they have no agency in deciding whether or not another player does something that could completely derail/alter a campaign.
Exactly
I think sumoning extra deaths is actually a good idea.
The reason is that it makes it harder and easier, or easier with the right strategy and harder for exp, so you get more.
In other words, you can all sumon your deaths far away, then run towards the dude and all destroy his death, then there are four of you and one three deths, or five and four, and you can do stuff like charge the middle, then fall back, while manuevering your ranged or others to the side so that if it falls back, it can be hit, then three are two, and you can have it so that the engagers are having one block the other, not to mention that you can kite them around and have a ranger shoot. Even come right at the ranger, and duck or dodge.
So um
That's not all.
It's more simple too.
Having an aoe fire on three of them after you deal with the one focused on the aoe guy, you can have him hit the three maximum times.
Now, you all could get more xp if the monsters action ecconomy you. That is, four spawning four minis is 16 on one dude, and then you have three guys. So, it should help.
Action economy is the name of the game haha
Great tips! The deck sounds scary because it brings so much chaos. BUT, remember DMs: it's up to you when you give this out. And you can review the cards beforehand to brainstorm ideas how to work the card results into your campaign. When I've used it, I only let players draw cards at the ends of sessions, to give me time to think!
Listening in, but are games now very fixed? In my games, old school based, the DM balanced out the effects to allow the game to be playable. Someone dead, roll a up a new character, give him a few extra levels, off to the races again.
I introduced an item called the Deck of Fate into my homebrew 5e campaign. It was introduced as a plot device, most of the cards would introduce a new quest, or give the players a story point to follow, so it basically generated interest, hoping they'd use it when they were bored.
The PCs learned little about it, just putting it away and never using it. I think that they were scared simply because it was a "deck", even though it had no relation to the Deck of Many Things.
Awww - that sounds awesome! Sorry your players didn’t take it up! What were some of the cards?
That's when you have it start flipping cards off the top of itself on its own.
That sounds fun! Definitely worth trying to bring back into your game--just assuring your players that it's not nearly as risky for them as *that other deck*
@@Stray7 Jumanji style
The card I was most afraid of as a player was the ruin card. Not because of the lost wealth, but because of the lost investment in the world of the campaign. That card is basically a big middle finger to players who actually took the time to engage and contribute to the world the DM created. I spent a long time building a little shop from the ground up in our campaign, had a little family home, made investments with a bank, we had a player whose life's dream was to own and captain a ship, which he got, we had another player who opened a restaurant, another who was bequeathed some priceless family heirlooms when he resolved trauma from his backstory, I could go on. You're right that the physical game play mechanics of your character losing their wealth is not that bad, but this card almost specifically aims to hurt the *player*. That's why it's my least favorite card in the deck.
Bob is focusing on in game dynamics too much. Many of these cards affect the DM, the group balance, or throw off the track of the campaign and derail anything the players are enjoying.
I think your campaign relied heavily on certain growth strategies to keep you engaged. I think it would be appropriate to just strip all your current cash or something like that - a motivator to go treasure hunting rather than something to destroy your investment in the game.
Rules As Written presumes you were playing the game as written. Building a personal investment portfolio isn’t what you expect people to play!
The Gem card is more powerful in 5e than it might seem on the surface to you.
Yes, it's fifty gems worth 1,000 gp each, but if the player can choose... diamonds, for example, are worth their weight in, well, diamonds, for their use in resurrection spells and the like, and there are other gems that are needed as material components. And if you have spellcasters with you, those gems can be significantly more useful than mere coin.
Also, I just got the idea for a campaign - the party must go out and find the physical manifestations of all 22 cards, to gather the complete Deck of Many Things and keep the stray cards from causing chaos and confusion in the world...
Great point about the diamonds!
A truly wonderous magic item that I ran into for the first time back in middle school. I'll never forget my character's first encounter with a mysterious gypsy fortune teller!
We used the deck. It was crazy, how lucky the orc who drew them. Got mostly good cards. He got the level 4 knight. This Knight named Bradford killed many of strong monsters. He became a legend after stopping the BBEG.
Awesome!
@@BobWorldBuilder Yeah it was awesome. He should have died like 10 times but luck prevailed
I just ran a one shot for my siblings. They were asked to retrieve a 'deck of cards'. Rather than returning the Deck, they drew. My brother pulled four cards: Knight, Rogue, Moon (2 wishes), and then Balance. Then my sister pulls Balance and then Donjon (negating her third card). My brother kept his now chaotic evil character to maybe use again one day. We all had fun.
Honestly, pulling from the Deck in the first session to set up the campaign might be fun.
Glad it went well!
When I was a kid, my family and another family played AD&D campaign. About 2 years into the campaign, we ran across a Deck of Many Things (us kids loved it since our DM had actual cards to draw). Everyone in the party (9 characters, with 3 parents playing 2 characters each to better balance out the party with people who knew what they were doing) drew a card, and all of us managed to draw good cards. I can't remember everyone's card anymore (more than 15 years ago), but it was really helpful for the campaign. I got the extra character fighter henchman (not too odd or overpowered given our parents already each had 2 characters). But the main card I remember was the Sun. Background, our only cleric managed to only roll 3 hp when we started the game (called her "Papercut" for years because that's all it would take to off our entire party's only healer). We'd gotten to maybe 3rd level on average for the party (she'd been promoted to "Splinter" or some other nonsense) and this saved our asses for the remaining years we played this campaign. She jumped up so many levels, which skyrocketed her hit points and abilities, allowing us to progress without the DM having to scale down encounters as often. It was a lot of fun and we were very lucky.
That's awesome! Thanks for sharing! :)
If you plan ahead, there are no pitfalls for using a Deck. Predetermine locations for Thrones, Donjons, and Void cards, always have NPCs that befriend each character in case they draw a Rogue or Knight, and project far off goals that seem impossible to tempt players into using their Vizier or Fates. I prefer to play the Deck in a way that seems like it was a waste of a card because it happened anyway. "Gem, well that's good because all we managed to pick up in this dungeon was this little pouch off that dead adventurer. I never did check to see what was in it . . ."
Yeah preparation is key, and that's a fun idea for how to implement the results of the cards!
I used a watered down version of the cards for players under level 11 in 5e, but our games use xp levelling, sidekicks and character death so very little chnages had to be made
Nice, yeah it sounds like your group's style fits well with the original design of the deck
Love this history of the deck!! Great insights as always bob!
You are so awesome at interacting with your community! If you have time will you share with us...
What is your favourite card to draw?
What is your favourite card to see another player draw?
Glad you enjoyed this video. It was fun to compare the past and present versions of this item, and I have a similar video coming up for one of the core classes! I'm the worst at picking favorites, but the first that comes to mind for either case would have to be Moon. Those wishes could be chaotic, but that's what I think the deck is for :)
@@BobWorldBuilder Love to see Moon in effect as well! My Favourite is when someone only wants to draw one card but picks the idiot! So Harsh and tense! And it's happened to me before It's so funny.
Looking forward to the class breakdown history lesson too!
Your content is always improving and I love watching the channel grow!
Anything breaking a campaign is really down to the flexibility of the people playing. New situations popping up can definitely make things difficult for the DM but with endless options for creative solutions all the cards do is make new situations for the party to experience. Losing all your property can throw a situation on its head, can make a party that was rich and powerful have to work to build things up again. Fighting death can be incredibly character defining for someone who survives that.
Bingo!
Losing all magic items was ruinous in older editions. There was a 3.5 Living Greyhawk mod that caused characters to be enslaved and lose ALMOST everything. So many characters ended up ruined that they had to change the poverty rules to allow characters a chance in hell of recovering from the losses... and you'd still end up behind your level curve due to the loss.
A LOT of the cards disrupt the current adventure/flow, or kill a character/remove RP opportunities or add complexity, so it's more brutal than it seems from this "BUT MUH FIFTH EDITION AND MILESTONES AND TOO MUCH MONEYS!" video makes it out to be.
@@hariman7727 I'm guessing you had a difficult experience with this in the past, which is why it seems to personal. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
However, a good DM will give characters ways to work themselves back up. A good party will support them in that and a good player will use this as a formative arc for their character. Yes, no doubt they'll be frustrated at first - that's understandable. Adverse situations develop a character a lot more than the easy ones though - the deck gives some options for that. If you aren't willing to take those risks then perhaps don't draw from the deck.
The impression of the video is wildly inaccurate, Bob compares 5e because it's the most common version. It's also a very childish way to put a grievance across, are you sure you're old enough to have played 3.5e?
@@davidjennings2179 you know you whipsaw between kindly compassionate and utterly rude backhanded insults, you do realize that?
In the living grayhawk campaign, which was dungeons & dragons 3.5, there was a mod called "Barbarous Coast", if I remember correctly, which had a final battle where the party was teleported into a citywide invasion to attempt to stop at least part of the invasion.
If you lost that battle, you were enslaved and you lost everything, and you were given 200 gold to start the rest of your adventuring career over.
Because of the specific ruling at the time of that mod's release, and because living grayhawk had to follow those specific rpga rules because it was official campaign mods that were played nationally, for the first couple months at minimum players could not claim having utter poverty because they had a couple hundred gold and were not allowed to drop that gold to meet the poverty requirements.
So many characters became unplayable because a fighter at the levels for that mod would lose all of their equipment, and wizards would lose their spellbook, among other things.
It is about the fourth worst written mod in the entirety of living greyhawk that I played, and the only reason I have the ability to say fourth worst written is because I played in the sheldomar valley/Keoland, which were notorious because one of the mod writers in the area literally could not read the rule book to make a decent encounter.
So there was no room for the DMs to adapt to that or allow leeway so the character could be recoverable.
As for the deck of many things, I don't like it because I find the chaos of it off-putting.
I don't want to lose a character because of a magic item that is designed to tempt players on a meta scale, that also affects the player Dynamics and DM so directly.
Yeah, other people can have fun with it, but I hope I never see it again.
Also you don't realize how much of a jerk you're being, because I'm 40, and the only reason I'm being nasty here is RUclips is where I tend to let my brakes off a little.
So please think about insulting a person and comments questioning someone's age, because they only make you appear...
Well, read your comment into a mirror and ask how you'd feel if someone slaps you in the face with an insult, then tell me what word you'd use.
Tl:dr: yes, I've had a set of bad experiences with deck of many things and other random bullshit that really hurt characters of mine.
Also, read your comment into a mirror to yourself and consider how you sound, because your most recent comment was pretty rude.
@@hariman7727 Compassion doesn't mean we don't call people out when they're out of order. Yes you've clearly had a difficult experience and I'm sorry you had to go through that. However, it doesn't give you a free pass not to be called out when you lash out at others. You accept that you're being nasty on RUclips, perhaps take your own advice and consider how your comment would affect Bob - he puts effort into these videos, they're his livelihood.
You said the card that makes you lose your Magic Items won't ruin your game because players should drop whatever they're holding before drawing. But itsn't that metagaming? Already knowing what the cards might do before drawing?
"Merchan-dice".
I see what you did there, Bob.
Give your players a set of cards "with many things on it", and instead of giving them the deck of many things, give them the deck of illusion. Best delivered on the first of April. :D
Haha very nice
Having never played D&D, but listened to CR season 1, I loved it simply because Travis was willing to try it out at random times.
The item is interesting, it just shows its age from all the changes D&D has gone through as a hobby over the years.
The character burn rate is a major thing. Players would most likely have to roll up new PCs all the time. And if that's the case, there's no sense in putting *too* much effort into a backstory for each one of them beyond the basics.
Conversely, it's common now for players to write extensive and detailed backstories for their character.
If you're told that your lawful good fighter is suddenly going to have to switch to behave in a chaotic evil manner, that probably wouldn't matter too much if you just rolled her up and slapped on a generic backstory. If you devoted a lot of energy to why the character is the kind of person they are, being told "just be evil now" on account of a random result from a magic item feels a lot different.
I thought this was a strange Homebrew thing someone made. Turns out this Item was here the whole time.
I've been playing since AD&D and used the deck in most of my campaigns. I love it and so have most of my players
Glad to hear it!
We were a group of 3 players, all level 2, alongside the DM. We came to getting a reward from a minor deity for services rendered. The DM gave us a choice that we needed to make as a party; either everyone draws a card each from the deck or we each gain an uncommon Magic item of our choice. I'm not too fond of gambling, so voted for the item, the other two voted for the deck - so deck it was.
The first player drew Ruin, so lost some minor amount of gold and their possessions - they were quite irritated, but accepted it begrudgingly. I drew the Sun, instantly getting me up to level 9 as a Wizard and the DM gave me a Ring of Spell Storing - yup, I was both horrified and bemused, since you know, I'm already the Wizard in this party, let alone 7 levels higher with a very powerful item. The last player drew the Fates and instantly declared what one event was erased from existence - the deck appearing.
DM was nice and decided that since that would mean there would have been only one option we get our magic items instead. Not sure how I feel about the deck, but one thing was for sure; Vindication was MINE!
I have only seen the Deck of Many things used once before, that being when I ran XPtoLevel3’s One-Shot called The Doorngeon (a door themed dungeon) for some friends. The card that grants wishes was actually used pretty well. They used it to bring back characters that had died to some of the other cards. Surprisingly, the card that was the most awful was the Sun. Having one player become a lot more powerful and higher level is only fun for the person that draws the card. It ruins the game for everyone else because the one player that’s higher level basically does all the work in combat while everyone else just sits back and watches. In my case, the player that drew the card ended up being three times the level of everyone else.
Yeah that's wild! If I used XP instead of milestone, I'd probably just divide the XP from Sun among the whole party or something
Had a player draw 2 cards from the deck a few years ago. First card was Comet, second was Death. He took it as the lesson of "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger". Shouldn't expect anything else from a Monk/Fighter multi class.
My Shadow-monk half-orc would embrace the Death card. Hell yeah.
That's actually a perfect combo haha
I hadn’t considered this - the minor death isn’t necessarily a major obstacle if you just gained levels and were given a Staff of the Magi or something to overcome it.
I once built a character who wanted to find the Deck to draw the Moon and use a wish solve a mystery of his lineage. The DM was nice enough to run with it, so we had the Deck as a McGuffin for our campaign.
I like this. Gives a sense of nobility and purpose, like the first and third Indiana Jones movie. Yes you are happy go lucky but you are a good guy.
In the previous campaign I ran, I had given the party a deck. A while later I had an encounter (unrelated to the deck) where I had a character (who unannounced to the party was actually a goddess in disguise) do an interaction with the party and one member of the party did something completely unexpected, they asked this goddess (in disguise as an old man) if they wanted to draw a card from the deck. This was crazy but I decided to go with it, as luck would have it, the card that the goddess drew was the fate card. This immediately got my brain spinning and I let the use of the card stew for a while before using it. Then at a predetermined time, I had fate rewrite itself as the goddess used the card to rewrite a point in history decades before, resulting in a few things to change in the party, most notably one of the characters changed classes and partially changed species as I turned one of the characters into a Divine Soul Sorcerer (a demigod). It led to a pretty wild time for the party and completely took everyone (except that player which I did check with in advance) completely off guard.
You’re right. These are almost all useable! I felt the Death fight should have a reward and… a scythe that never misses or something like that.
That would be a great reward!
Agreed, but I would then scale the death to be equal to players.
Backstory idea: you are the fighter made by the deck. After drawing your card, your old master drew another card and disappeared. Your bond is to find them
That’s amazing! I’m a permaDM, but this is a cool NPC idea as well.
Story time here: I've been DM'ing for over two years now a campaign that initially started off as a mixture of Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak that eventually turns into a condensed version of Tyranny of Dragons. In between my players wanted to run for the position of mayor of Phandalin and dive into one of the dungeons of the Undermountain of Waterdeep when I gave them a Deck of many things. The main plan was to try to stop the arising thread of Dragon Cultists to rise Tiamat from Avernus... however one of my players decided to draw four cards from the Deck... of course the first one was... The Void. At that point, the only point in the multiverse that would make story-wise was to send the soul to Avernus (also added bonus that the player once tried to steal an amulet that used to belong to Asmodeus, so this also made sense for the character to some degree). At that point the campaign shifted from a Tyranny of Dragons campaign to Baldur's Gate - Descend into Avernus. It took probably around 8-9 months of playsessions for my players to get Elturel back to the original place and the players soul back into the original character... However, they brought Tiamat with them... and now we're back to the original intended campaign but immensely higher stakes than before...
somwhere I heard a person say a very good idea for the deck. It works like true Tarot cards, like maybe in the lore it is the original deck of tarot cards in that world, or only one that truely works.... anyways, the idea is the cards still do what they say but not immediately but soon so they are telling the future.... but instead of telling the future like normal tarot cards, these ones create that future. So for the friendly npc becoming hostile toward you, The next town you visit, the shopkeeper you have befriended takes offense to something you say. or do and stops selling to you and becomes even hostile to you, you might still keep it secret or maybe the secret part is why. The gaining a weapon card, you have first watch at night at camp. While wandering your camp find the weapon laying on the ground.... that kinda thing.
i've literally seen this deck end a campaign, it was the 50k exp one, it rocketed one character into a whole different power sphere then everyone else.
having henchmen and stuff though can be done right, the key i feel is just to make sure every player gets one. They also let you split the action cause the main party can do stuff and send off their b team to deal with other things in world at the same time. One campaign we started a fief and shipping port, our sidekicks ended up running our second ship.
You bring up a good point that just applying the affect to the whole party might help for some cards--as long as everyone agreed to use the deck I guess
In NADDPOD campaign of Bahumia, the Knight card was drawn, and we were treated to the beloved Balnor! Some amazing adventures indeed. 😆🧡
Everytime I have run into the deck, its needed to be retconned that we didn't find it
Sorry for your loss
We had a lot of fun with a DoMT in the first campaign I ever played in 5e. The whole scenario, from the theft acquisition followed by 2 character deaths and a lot of perks for other characters to the inevitable loss of the deck, was fantastic fun, even for those who lost characters.
I don't think people are complaining that this shouldn't be put in everyone's campaign, I think they are usually targeted towards people who actually craft their own campaign/world. If you spend days or months crafting a home-brewed world where factions, bloodlines, and events color and pepper your world; then having a magical item that can randomly cause something to shift CAN ruin a story or consistent pacing/writing.
I don't think this item is bad, it's fun watching players deal with the random chaos of gambling. Watching my crafted storyline of 3 years with players participation fall apart due to a card flipping an NPC to evil when they had literally no reason to be, that's a lot less rewarding. As I saw someone write down below if you're going to play "russian roulette", make sure you and everyone your playing with is ok with taking that chance, don't just pick it because you think it would be fun, or you'll find yourself holding people hostage.
In my experience, the 'fear' from the Deck of Many Things was the whole risk-reward aspect of the deck itself and the consequences that came from trying your luck. Nothing more, nothing less. In no instance that I can think of has a group resisted drawing from the Deck when offered the chance (one or two characters may not try their luck, but someone drew at least one card. Always.)
To be fair, the deck of many things was always a prompt to come up with your own decks of many things. The idea that they're all the same makes no sense because they always feel like a deal with the devil or some sort of game that chaotic or evil gods play with mortal heroes and if that were true they would each make their own and every one would be different. Just make up your own deck and give it rules so it plays like a card game, give it special rewards you can't get anywhere else and have them advertised on the deck as a lure. Mess with your players by giving them more fun side effects than brutal character destruction effects, maybe some specific role play insanities or even mechanics from a different game.
Back in the day, chaotic and malicious magic from the dm was still super common. Player vs dm was very common. You were often playing him, not the adventure. There was often a “winner” of dNd at those tabletops.
I’m not totally against that, but you gotta be open to losing like you’re playing a game if sorry.
Yep the more I read of Gygax's work, the more it seems like he would have been a pretty harsh DM lol
If you had a DM that was going against you then that was just a bad DM. Same thing can happen today in 5e. Edition does not makes a difference.
The difference was the players were not superheroes at lower levels. They were not even superheroes at higher levels. The game was never about creating superheroes, it was about surviving. You had to learn to run when were wandering through the forest and stumbled on the ancient green dragon at level 3.
The other important thing you learned was avoiding the fights all together if you could. Because it was more about exploring the world and finding the weird things in it than fighting. It was about finding the loot, because that was so valuable, that was how you leveled up. Not killing monsters.
That is my big issue with milestone xp. There is no insistence to adventure. Everyone just plods along with the story. Every few sessions the GM hands out levels and even if your character missed a session you get a level. Because everyone has to be equal.
@@burgsrus I agree completely on the shift in mentality. I myself am running a 3.5e campaign in a custom setting with a metric buttload of homebrew. The characters defeated a werewolf lord, 4 wargs, and a random owlbear drawn by the noise, at level 3 (6 player party) so yeah, the challenging encounters they were supposed to ‘run from’ turned into ‘one level-up per session’
I love the deck of many things, my sorcerer drew the three wishes about a year ago and I’ve been riding that luck ever since
The Deck is the only real world cursed magical item in existence. It's a real world cursed item as It plays on the greed of the player (not the character) drawing the cards. Even with the knowledge that it can cause ruin, it still pulls a real life persons innate greed and desires. It is effecting a real person in the real world, not necessarily a character in the game. So it is more real then any other part of dnd.
One of my players jokingly asked me for a Deck of Many Things and until now, neither of uf really considered it. You definitely changed my mind on this one.
Remember that no matter how "clever" you word your wish, according to the Players Handbook, the DM always has the option to say that the spell simply fails. So as DM you actually have very good control over wether a wish could be derailing your campaign.
I fear the balance card the most. Even though alignment isn't really used that much in 5e, I still use it as a guide for role playing, and this card will completely destroy my characters.
My thoughts exactly. I was under the impression that alignment was used primarily for roleplay in 5e, like an easy box to generalize your character motivations. Changing alignment changes the whole character! They'd be better of having died so you could at least make a new character that fits the way you want to play.
@@boksman Yeah, exactly.
I recently played a one shot with my group using the DoMT where for every 25 minutes we would all each draw our given choice of cards whether it be one card or two. The one shot was with our made characters delving into a dungeon where we had to go and face the Lich King, of which our party consisted of; Warforged Paladin of Vengeance named Gabriel(Me), a Changling Rogue Thief named Nix, an old granny Haregon Druid named Nadaline, an Eladrin Elf Ancestor Guardian Barbarian named Azazel, and a Half-Drow Elf Nature Cleric named Mitz'ry.
In our one shot the deck offered some quite unique results that definitely flipped the session over its head, from Nix getting the Balance card and suddenly siding with the Lich King in exchange for their own Changeling society and city to call home and live their lives without being accused of being fraudulent or deceitful, to Azazel getting cursed by both the Euryale and Flames card, which thankfully I had gotten the Moon card several times throughout the session to help remove those negative effects at least not without sacrificing something of value in my possession like my +3 Greatsword. And my god, you cannot imagine how many times we all had drawn the Skull and had to single-handedly beat the Avatar of Death over and over again.
There were other such fun events, like Nadaline quite literally performing a mass genocide of over 100 Goblins in one turn with Call Lightning, a questionnaire about the Lich King based on information we've gotten from our other campaigns, and even a bit of gambling with our homebrewed Gourd Lord monster dressed up as Santa Claus. When we reached the Lich King at long last, I alone took the fight to the Lich King where as Nadaline and Nix fought each other. Now with Gabriel, I made this character into a full on TANK; A Warforged Paladin, Defensive Fighting Style, +3 Plate armor and shield, with Defensive Fighting Initiative Feat and Defensive Duelist Feat, and would most often cast Haste on myself, granting me I believe 35 AC I believe(we were all 15th level characters and I gotten the Sun which gave me a level up to 16th level).
Yet despite all this, it still wasn't enough. Especially with the Lich King knowing Meteor Swarm, a Rogue that had the habit of taking stealth and dealing a sneak attack of 8d6, and two Dracoliches clawing at me. Yet against the odds, I still fought on to my last breath. With my last ditch effort though, I used my last Wish to send my remaining team members who were on my side somewhere far and safe away from where we were. Leaving Gabriel to make his last stand until he was finally overwhelmed as his core was then taken to be used for a possible encounter in our main campaign.
This session mind you started at 11AM, and ended at 8PM. It was an absolute blast and everyone had an amazing time with it.
My DM loves giving us separate exp and splitting our levels it make us compete against each other for the power boost and is hilarious
With the right group, it sounds like fun! :)
I think there is a case to be made about the pathfinder 2e deck (technically legacy). I think it does a better job at translating the intent of some of the cards, most notably the fates, than the dnd 5e version while adding a campaign safety line in form of every character may only draw once. Interestingly, while keeping the XP aspects, pathfinder uses relative XP so 1.000 XP is equally valuable at any level. It also takes out some of the individual aspects, the skulls lesser death does not need to be faced alone for example, and there is nothing about control of the knight (just a loyalty pledge)
I dont fear it because the one time it was brought in a campaign our dragonborn barbarian kept pulling out the good cards. We got a loyal companion, a bunch of treasure and wishes
Those are VERY lucky pulls!
@@BobWorldBuilder extremely!
having played several campaigns where the infamous deck of many things showed up, it always comes down to how the DM and the players want to interact. my experiences happened in 3rd ed. and the ones i remember most are when one party member found the deck and decided to draw all the cards, but he did so by having each person in the party draw 3 cards each while he drew none. the other is a campaign where once the deck was found the DM made some changes, the deck was 20 cards, the cards were useable once per day, maximum of 2 cards pulled per day per player, and most of the effects scaled for the party levels
Back when I used to play D&D 2e I gave one of my players this chaotic item of my own creation in which I made. It was a coin of Good & Evil. When flipped depending on which side it landed on would give and outcome, either good or bad. I had to roll a d100 for the result on each chart (I think each chart had 100 possibilities, too).
Well, anyway, I got this idea from a coin I got in an EverQuest expansion box and physically handed it to the player, tell him anytime he flips it in real life his character flips it in the game if able to do so. One night he was feeling rather frisky and flipped it 16 times in a row without waiting for any of the results 🤣
I wonder if I still have the paperwork buried somewhere....?
I've used the deck twice in different games. Both were a lot of fun and I will use them again. As long as you understand whats in the deck you can prep for it and mix it into your world just fine.
Bingo!
@@BobWorldBuilder really enjoy your content. Thank you for all the hard work that goes into it.
"Okay, you draw the Comet. Defeat the next hostile monster or group of monsters alone to gain a level."
"All right. I grab a caterpillar off a nearby plant, Cast _Friends_ on it, and immediately drop Concentration."
Hahah well said
Deck of Many Things if used flexibly turns into the Deck of Many Quests.
Lol, DoMT is great, I had my players play gin rummy with the DoMT. All the cards are great and DM’s should feel free to ADD more cards.
Now that's a bold move! haha
Great video. One of my absolute dream campaigns is to have the players find a deck in the first dungeon they enter, but drawing any cards also twists and messes with reality causing all sorts of other problems, thus setting up a campaign to fix the changes.
I would probably run it with OSE or Knave instead of 5e though, and WOULD tweak some of the cards a little.
I had it (sorta) as a hidden treasure belonging to the BBEG. It was a d20. They knew it was radiating magic and no idea what it did. The wizard rolled the first one and got zapped into another universe. Then the die teleported to another dungeon.
Sounds about right lol
Fun video to watch since I have an NPC in a campaign that has the Deck who has sowed chaos with it. Pretty much started the whole campaign due to their antics. They are still active in the world and have interacted with the party.
Glad to hear it!
Flames card would actually be a fun way to multi class to or start as a warlock.
I love that idea!
Or hey, make it even more spicy. You pull the one that summons an avatar of death but instead it summons an avatar of undeath.
Do you mean that the devil would give you powers? Why would it do so if its intention is to kill you?
I do love the "Isn't any keep yours if you clear out the inhabitants?" that did illict an outloud chuckle.
I like the video for the most part. I know it's likely a play style thing but my groups aren't usually grossly wealthy by lvl 5. That's comes a it later.
I also do not understand the issue with Knight. The way I see it, this is a follower/henchman with character levels that the DM runs and follows the PCs lead.
Yeah the wealth thing can vary a lot based on setting. For the knight card "You control this character." definitely refers to the player who pulled the card. It is essentially a henchman/sidekick, but if the party is only level 1-5, this knight is just a very powerful addition to the PC who gained it. Past those levels, it becomes less significant
@@BobWorldBuilder Fair points. I hadn't considered the lower level impact, based on my one time use it was higher level so I was skewed in my thinking.
Also fair, I'd grant control in combat because you are right. I'd talk it over with the player to see what they wanted, but I'd be inclined to run them as an NPC outside of combat that follows the PC to the ends of earth. Or planes.
A short tangent on XP, since you mentioned it: the PHB is actually amusingly vague about how much xp it takes to level up, only saying, "A character who reaches a specified experience point total [gains a level]" and then the experience points table is just kinda there with no more explanation given. Traditionally D&D works on the basis of a PC tracking the total amount of xp that they have ever received and gaining levels once they hit certain thresholds. However, thanks to the rather nebulous wording given in the PHB I have seen some people interpret the xp table as meaning that the total for each level is for each level only, so they have to gain 300xp to get to level 2 and then another 900xp on top of that to reach level 3 (a cumulative total of 1200xp) and so on.
If you tally xp in the latter fashion, it averages out to totals much more reminiscent of AD&D and so might be worth considering if you're concerned about your PCs levelling up too quickly (or you could just split xp between the PCs, or both, like they also used to do in AD&D, just in case you want your PCs to never level up ever!)
Great video, I have been avoiding giving my players the deck of many things, because of all of the negative things I’ve heard about it. Now I think it might just show up next session. I’m not worried about them defeating the BBEG with it. I already have another to rise up in its place,bwahahah.
And my players already have NPCS they run in combat, so if someone dies they have characters they can pick up and keep moving with.
I do highly recommend choosing a few cards and preparing potential results for them! But give it a shot! :)
@@BobWorldBuilder will do!
To use the deck of many things you have to declare the number of cards you intent to draw. Then you have the wording, "Any cards drawn in excess of this number have no effect." Is that forever, meaning the deck is a one use per person item?
I think the Fates card works best with a time limit.
Prevent what's about to happen? Sure! Undo what just happened? Absolutely! Alter an event that took place weeks ago? Prevent something years in the future? No can do; fate only remains pliable for a moment.
Great point!
I remember that in one campaign I found a deck of many things. Since there is no effect if you don't announce the number of cards you are drawing, we just used it as a deck of regular playing cards. One time I accidentally said that I am drawing one card from the deck so I had to take a card that would have the magical effect. I got Moon, and I immediately use the Wish it gave me to remove the deck's magic.
"one character losing a few points ruin your campaign?"
well, your, the dm, campaign may be not ruined, but any int using characters players character would be ruined, so i would say, it is ruined a character, which is more or less a tpk level disaster for most or my parties and i would consider it just as a tpk as a dm also.
The Savage Worlds Pathfinder Companion has a really cool conversion of the Deck of Many Things that's more straightforward than the 5e model. Some of the solutions and changes are ones you recommended. It's simple and fun.
Good to know!
Start off a level one module with players let them choose from the deck of many things might be interesting
Yeah the cards are certainly more devastating (or amazing) at level one!
man...
I have been playing D&D since 1978 or so
I remember all the starting and what not
I am a generational player? Damn... I feel old now
As a GM, the deck of many have never ruined my champain. It only ruins a champain if the GM allows it to but RAW i have never had a problem
As a few others have said, I think preparation is key, and keeping the deck in possession of an NPC helps a lot
I'm gearing up to run a game of Pathfinder for Savage Worlds. The Companion includes the Deck of Many Things, but... I kinda decided I didn't like some of these 'make a new character, lol' cards, so...
I made my own (okay, I stole some ideas to do it). And since Savage Worlds uses a deck of playing cards for LOTS of stuff and I don't want to slow the game down to find 24-ish specific cards, my Deck has effects for all 54 cards (yeah, we use the Jokers, too). Couple other things: there are limits on how the Deck can be used--like NPCs can't draw, unless they're "significant", only PCs can. "In the fiction" it's not clear where these limits come from, but the point is for the PLAYERS to be clear on how it works. Basically, if a group of PCs are going to open the Deck and draw, they ALL have to chose from zero to four cards to draw. ALL draws are then resolved, and then the Deck vanishes. (There's also a rhyme on the case they find it in that explains this.) Also if the Deck thinks you're trying to 'game the system', it vanishes.
I'm really pleased with it. There's some fun new cards like "Hood" which lets you obscure your identity, "Crossroads" where you just swap out your ancestral template, and "Bridge" where you can just walk across water if you feel like it. And nothing that makes a character unplayable. Your character might have a bad day, or even year, but you'll get over it. Probably.
I think the Deck of Many Things have suffered a kind of parrot effect of veteran players talking about their experiences and newer players taking their word for it, passing it along with exaggerated effects.
More people should use the deck, it won't end their PC at all. 😈
I agree that it was/is more risky in old school games, and those stories were passed down, probably with embellishment too. Then today people are so afraid to use it that they don't know how it won't necessarily cause the major harm they've been "warned" about. I do think it can end a PC though!
3:00 those are some stellar set of dice.
Thank you! :)
I've been a part of three games that included the Deck of Many Things. None of them were ruined in any way.
Glad to hear it! :)
16:57 The only characters it would affect greatly are usually lords and/or kings-and you don’t lose lord/kinship, the way it would happen is that your lands/fiefdom is seized.
If certain cards would ruin just remove them a tell your players "it seems some cards are missing" for favour text
Maybe have a plot hook to find out what happened to last ower who drew them cards
That totally works too!
I am running a Multiverse campaign focused on the Rod of Seven Parts. I have pondered the DOMT. Gond is a reoccuring NPC, he definitely has a copy. Maybe a devil has a copy too. You have swayed towards bringing into my campaign.
Did something happen to the audio? It kinda sounds like a recording through a phone from a year or 5 ago
You have excellent ears lol, I recorded this audio on an updated version of the same program I always use, and it seems to have some new automatic settings I didn't know about. Basically it had a super intense background noise cancelation that overcorrected in a couple spots. Overall I thought it still sounded okay, but it might also be that this was recorded in a different room than usual
It's less that it inherently breaks games, and more that it can very easily derail games. How much of a problem *that* is in turn depends heavily on the group.