|
The one and only time I ever used the Deck, it was when I was a dumb middle schooler. The player who drew from it got the card that gives you a random magical item, which turned out to be... a folding boat. As far as results go, it could have been much worse but drat if that wasn't just a big ol' wet fart.
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2016 22:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 17:31 |
|
|
I think I have the only Good Story about the DOMT. My experience with the DOMT involved me stating I wanted to draw three cards. I proceeded to gain a level (and draw another card), get a castle, get the card that allows me to escape any scenario of my choosing once, and then drew the "fight Death" card. And then proceeded to get out of fighting Death with the previous card. I just sort of handed him the manifestation of the card and Death, rather confused, opened a wormhole and left. Someone else immediately tries to draw two from the deck considering I just avoided having anything go wrong, draws the knight retainer, and then the "someone you know who is close to you is now plotting to murder you" card (not that he was told the second card's effect). The deck then vanished. Having dodged lightning twice, we proceeded along to find that castle. The next morning, we find the knight retainer mortally wounded and a character we hadn't seen for a long time laying dead next to them: rather than have the character assassinated in the night, the GM opted to quickly simulate a series of rolls. The Knight got a nat 20 on spot to notice the assassin, then proceeded to, despite a 5-level difference, win the fight, albeit barely. Evidently the Assassin went for Death Attack but flubbed the actual assassination roll. Either way, it made for some very fun roleplay and us both saving and kitting out the retainer in custom-made magic gear. To this day I'll never forget Bob the Knight.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2016 23:00
|
|
|
hyphz posted:The only good use I ever saw of a Deck of Many Things was an adventure themed around one. Different doors in the dungeon had cards on them and opening them triggered the card. They did include the "lose your soul" card, but the device that the soul was trapped in was in the dungeon too (and not at the end) so the party could go get it back. The GM of my longtime Planescape game used one to neat effect; we were seeking out a sage of Law and Chaos (mainly so we could learn more about artefacts of Chaos - we ended up stealing a tanaari superweapon, one of the ships of chaos, and rode it from Mount Celestia down the path that asmodeus made when he Fell), and learned that he was on a relatively famous demi-plane: The Casino. How better could you study how Law interacted with Chaos than with games of chance? The Casino itself had a Deck as it's origin - the sage found the deck as an adventurer, lost both his companions and all of his material wealth to unlucky draws, and then drew the Keep and Private Demiplane cards (pathfinder variant, 52 card deck), and decided to devote the place to offering that same ultimate risk/reward to other planar travellers. Hence a casino, where anyone can win or lose everything. Everything. We find the sage, and he's willing to help us - for a price of course. We have to help him with his research, run an errand or observe something for him - we are planewalking adventurers with two spelljammers (we acquired the ship of some space pirates who tried to raid us) - so this is par for the course. OR since we're in a big hurry, there is something we could do instead. A wager, the most high stakes game in the Casino: drawing from the Deck. The way the wager works is aspiring groups decide who will draw from their number, usually 3, and each person decides how many cards they will draw. Since you can only draw once from each deck, you cannot continue drawing once you stop. The winner of the wager is whichever side makes it out better. Four of the group sent there decide to draw; our Paladin, our Inquisitor, the harpy npc, and our Sensate Wilder (type of psion); - The psion loses the ability to speak, and must exchange a magic item for any other of equivalent value. - Our harpy becomes a werebear twice, and gains a Chaotic Avenger. - Our Paladin gains a trio of ant followers, a troupe of haphazard but likeable and famous assistant priests, and spurns a shaitan prince's offer of marriage (as she and the Inquisitor were an item). - The Inquisitor cannot gain levels in their current class while they still live, and gets an auto-reincarnate next time they would die. Naturally he had the Paladin decapitate him after, and went from half-elf to a radiance genasi. The npc's meanwhile lost a soul, but gained 50,000gp, and some other big positive cards. We lost the wager, but as it had furthered the sages research, he helped us anyhow in exchange for a small favour. All in all it worked well, was fully consented to and dangers known (one pc backed out bc gently caress the DoMT), and was really neat and Chaotic.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2016 01:55
|
|
|
Kaza42 posted:Wait, so you're playing the 4th level knight servant. And you're one level behind everyone but the cleric. So your DM had you find a deck of many things at level 5!? Bieeardo posted:...how long has this guy been DMing? I mean, in general. Because this is some really amateur hour poo poo. Sounds like the poo poo I would pull when I was in high school and didn't care about the longevity of the game.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2016 03:06
|
|
|
Ilor posted:Back when I was GMing Shadowrun, I just let the dice fall where they may. Once stupid people lost enough characters, they wised up. SR, especially in 2nd and 3rd Edition was pretty rough on people who tried to go the munchkin route. I remember people going balls-deep on Wired Reflexes and what not, only to discover that when the shooting started, all it meant was that they wasted ammo faster. 2e and 3e were pretty comfortable about it. 4e left some huge munchkining gaps, though, so a properly min-maxxed character got to where things that could hurt it would wipe the party in the process.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2016 05:37
|
|
|
My best DOMT moment was the first one I did, where my party finished beating the final boss (a succubus queen if I recall right) real early because of a really lucky crit, so I decided, without telling them that the game was still going, to offer a game of poker with them. I dealt out five cards each, and once everyone was looking at their cards, I said "[The Sorcerer's name] looks at the deck of cards and curses. He explains that he grabbed the wrong deck, and this was a deck of many things." Each player had five cards go off. We were done with the campaign for the semester, so nobody cared what happened to their characters. One guy lost the ability to speak Common and Draconic, and in exchange got two much more niche languages. One guy got retrained into a Force Missile Mage. One guy's berserker character just got a familiar, and turned into a halfling. These were the major changes. Had a few more minor ones, a few lost points in various stats, the usual DOMT stuff.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2016 22:02
|
|
|
Ambi posted:(pathfinder variant, 52 card deck). This one? I like this one better than the classic one. the larger number of results means there's a bigger selection of options between the "game-winning" and "game-ruining" effects that make the deck so frustrating to use.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2016 00:02
|
|
|
I have to agree, and some of those like The Empty Throne and The Unicorn look like ways to generate plot hooks.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2016 01:38
|
|
|
Smash it Smash hit posted:it sucks but dnd is as fun as you make it. if you arent going to leave i suggest you embrace the knight lackey position. maybe adopting a personality like "Geoffrey" in the fresh prince. kinda the wise rear end butler that HAS to do what he is told but constantly making snide remarks at the expense of his employer Time...to bring the sarcasm
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 05:33
|
|
|
Golden Bee posted:*People are an rear end in a top hat to me & kill my character in absentia* no the better thing to do would get extremely angry at not playing your character for a few sessions and be spiteful rather than rolling with the punches and having fun briefly playing a new character.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 14:04
|
|
|
Smash it Smash hit posted:no the better thing to do would get extremely angry at not playing your character for a few sessions and be spiteful rather than rolling with the punches and having fun briefly playing a new character. This isn't a binary, contrary to nerd popular belief. You can, in fact, stand up for yourself and tell them that you're disappointed in how they've handled things and tell them if they aren't going to apologize and change their behavior that you're out without getting extremely angry!
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 14:09
|
|
|
sc4rs posted:This isn't a binary, contrary to nerd popular belief. You can, in fact, stand up for yourself and tell them that you're disappointed in how they've handled things and tell them if they aren't going to apologize and change their behavior that you're out without getting extremely angry! i realize that, i am not saying you cant say you are annoyed doing it but forcing them to retcon it would only add to the confusion and disruption of the game. Instead I would try to find out how to make the game fun and enjoy it rather than dwell on someone taking temporary actions in elf games in my absence. besides the guy posting it said he approached them about it, so I figured it had come to a conclusion that it was "not cool".
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 14:31
|
|
|
Smash it Smash hit posted:i realize that, i am not saying you cant say you are annoyed doing it but forcing them to retcon it would only add to the confusion and disruption of the game.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 15:12
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:If you're dropping a DOMT into your game it is a guarantee that you do not give one single solitary drat about "disruption of the game". i guess it depends how you look at it. if you are done with the DOMT and decided to use it in order to deal with the repercussions to add a "curve ball" then idk maybe you do. I am not trying to assume peoples intentions  all you can do is share how you feel about it and then try not to get too angry over elf games
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 16:05
|
|
|
Smash it Smash hit posted:i guess it depends how you look at it. if you are done with the DOMT and decided to use it in order to deal with the repercussions to add a "curve ball" then idk maybe you do. I am not trying to assume peoples intentions Smash it Smash hit posted:no the better thing to do would get extremely angry at not playing your character for a few sessions and be spiteful rather than rolling with the punches and having fun briefly playing a new character.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 16:31
|
|
|
Splicer posted:Yeah I mean listen to this guy get super mad at a joke: lol
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 16:36
|
|
|
My favorite use of the Deck was when we found one in a dragon's treasure hoard and the rogue was the only one of the party willing to pull from it. He chose to pull 3 times, for the first draw he got the one that gives you wishes, then used one wish to wish that every card in the deck was the one that gave you a ridiculous amount of XP, then wished to draw every card from the deck. I don't even remember what the DM did to salvage that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 22:27
|
|
|
"The next card you pull is actually the Donjon. Turns out that the forces of campaign-ending chaos don't appreciate cheats." But seriously, I always thought it was obvious that the Deck was at least a minor artifact, given that the thing could give out wishes. Wishing to affect it directly should result in the gods giving you a do-over to choose something that will work... at best. Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Nov 7, 2016 |
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 22:42
|
|
|
There's a bit of lore from our world that evolved from the DoMT. Someone pulled a couple cards at our "end of this campaign blowout" and managed to get the "Small Castle" card, followed by "Imprison". There ended up being an abandoned castle on a plateau that got taken over by the flavor of the week monster and no one knew where it came from.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2016 23:59
|
|
|
GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:My favorite use of the Deck was when we found one in a dragon's treasure hoard and the rogue was the only one of the party willing to pull from it. He chose to pull 3 times, for the first draw he got the one that gives you wishes, then used one wish to wish that every card in the deck was the one that gave you a ridiculous amount of XP, then wished to draw every card from the deck. I don't even remember what the DM did to salvage that. The gods get really angry. All PCs present are immediately struck dead, and as punishment are sentenced to another whole lifetime of painful trials. This arrives when they get reincarnated in new forms in a new place (perhaps a new planet or even universe) for next year's campaign. They retain some extremely hazy memories of their past lives, and occasionally meet NPCs that say stuff like "I could have sworn I recognised you. You look like my brother's friend and... but nah, I'm an idiot, he was an elf". True to the spirit of the rules, the total XP available for PCs to gather in that campaign is, to the last point, exactly what the rogue wished for. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Nov 8, 2016 |
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2016 00:29
|
|
|
GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:My favorite use of the Deck was when we found one in a dragon's treasure hoard and the rogue was the only one of the party willing to pull from it. He chose to pull 3 times, for the first draw he got the one that gives you wishes, then used one wish to wish that every card in the deck was the one that gave you a ridiculous amount of XP, then wished to draw every card from the deck. I don't even remember what the DM did to salvage that. The rogue mystically ascends, becoming a new god in the pantheon. The player rolls a new character.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2016 03:15
|
|
|
They make the wish, and the next card says something about violating the DOTM terms of service, and all future draws are rendered null and void. "We take deck tampering very seriously."
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2016 05:46
|
|
|
GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:My favorite use of the Deck was when we found one in a dragon's treasure hoard and the rogue was the only one of the party willing to pull from it. He chose to pull 3 times, for the first draw he got the one that gives you wishes, then used one wish to wish that every card in the deck was the one that gave you a ridiculous amount of XP, then wished to draw every card from the deck. I don't even remember what the DM did to salvage that. "Okay, every card in the deck is the one that gives xp" "You draw every card from the deck... somehow, it looks thinner?" "You drew one xp-granting card. Enjoy your xp."
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2016 07:05
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:"Okay, every card in the deck is the one that gives xp" I read this and thought it was a good answer. Then, I misread your name as "truncate" and thought it was perfect. It's still a good answer.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2016 15:25
|
|
|
Had an absolutely ridiculous session last night, as the party Psion decided to start using their newly acquired Artifact Rod of Wonder. The first result? "The rod activates itself at the beginning of your turn of every round of combat." And because they were down in Undersharn dealing with a drug-dealing cult and their drug-making myconid friends, we had three combats. Some of the more amusing events generated:
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2016 21:43
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:
Also the archivist has a newfound phobia of blood.
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2016 22:34
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:"Okay, every card in the deck is the one that gives xp" "There are two cards in the deck that grant XP. One is replace-after-draw, the other grants two extra draws. Enjoy sitting there and drawing forever. " That's if I didn't decide to bring the hammer down for "your character doesn't even know what XP is, let alone that there's a a card that grants it." Or a little brass statue of the letters XP. Or just rule it only affects the next card he draws, then the deck vanishes. (The replace-after-draw one also says the character is granted a beneficial misc. magic item. Oh would I have fun with that. I'd dig out the old ACME Adventuring Supply Catalog. ACME: The Last Word In Adventuring Supplies. ("Oops...") )
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2016 22:59
|
|
|
Edit: never mind.
Unknown Quantity fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Nov 16, 2016 |
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 00:02
|
|
|
One time we played with this guy who was really blazed, who wanted to play as an evil wizard. He had a dark secret that only the thief in the party knew. When we looked at his sheet, he had made himself level 4 even though we were all starting off at level 1. His secret goal was just "I wanna take over the world." How loving evil is that?
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 01:00
|
|
|
Played Savage Worlds: Deadlands: Noir. In the adventure, my character had the disadvantage Schmuck, meaning I got bonus rerolls when he acted like an idiot. Going into the final encounter, I had 3 rerolls and for some reason explained that Paul was the most vital Beatle. The GM agreed and gave me another reroll. Anyway, the King in Yellow arrives, forcing us to roll 6 and then a 2+ on a 1d6 exploding roll. I reroll five times and only the last die explodes enough for my guy to stay sane. Thank you Sir Paul!
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 09:55
|
|
|
JUST MAKING CHILI posted:Also the archivist has a newfound phobia of blood. I need more "broken sanity" conditions than just phobias, though. Maybe I'll go through HoH/SRD and make a table of the better ones. Anyone got any good ones to offer up?
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 17:59
|
|
|
Obviously the next thing everyone should do is somehow trick the kraken into eating the drugs.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 18:01
|
|
|
Robindaybird posted:Obviously the next thing everyone should do is somehow trick the kraken into eating the drugs.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 18:23
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:Only for a little while! Obsessive compulsions to repeat random, harmless actions a set number of times (i.e. "if you want to open a door, you have to turn the doorknob five times before you can actually push the door open, have fun with the upcoming chase sequence") Obsession with trauma-related behavior (i.e. "your sanity broke in the sewer so now you are obsessed with keeping your clothes clean") Hearing voices (best if it's always whispers that you can't quite make out) Temporary face-blindness (extra-fun for LARPs!) Memory loss (i.e. "as far as your character is concerned the last twenty minutes did not happen and anyone who tries to tell them what actually happened will be met with cries of "Bullshit!") Inability to recognize one specific danger as dangerous (i.e. "Until you recover, your character is convinced that bears are harmless") E: Yawgmoth posted:That would be awesome except it's a construct. Getting a sea monster wacked out on shrooms sounds loving hilarious though. Hey, maybe these particular shrooms work on constructs, you'll never know until you try!
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 18:25
|
|
|
Maybe it's Acid. Actual acid, eats through the stone construct starts messing with his robo brain.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 18:31
|
|
|
DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Obsessive compulsions to repeat random, harmless actions a set number of times (i.e. "if you want to open a door, you have to turn the doorknob five times before you can actually push the door open, have fun with the upcoming chase sequence")
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 19:02
|
|
|
My favorite psychological maladies for games are ones that distort how the character perceives or interacts with reality. Schizophrenia (by which I do NOT mean Multiple Personality Disorder, but rather dissociative disorders), hallucinations, and paranoia are all great, because the GM can simply tell the player, "This is what your character sees/hears/smells/etc" and let the chips fall where they may. "You're pretty sure this NPC is lying to you," or "You notice this NPC whisper to his seneschal and catch your name as well as the word 'dagger.' As soon as they see you notice them, they part ways immediately." You don't have to make a big thing about it by saying, "your brain broke and you're crazy now." Just change the information that you give the character about his or her surroundings, ideally in a way where none of the other characters can definitively say otherwise. And even better, you can mess with the entire party this way. Yeah, the Archivist thinks he's seeing demons everywhere, and the whole rest of the party thinks he's crazy. But what if the reason the Archivist is seeing demons everywhere is BECAUSE THERE ARE GODDAMN DEMONS EVERYWHERE and his "malady" is actually an "ability?" Comedy gold. I once ran a Shadowrun/In Nomine/Call of Cthulhu crossover campaign that was lots of fun for this. At one point, the PCs had to rescue a contact's relative from an incredibly creepy sanatorium called "Wyndham Downs." And just to give this context, this was a place that sprang from one of the most vivid and troubling nightmares I've ever had - upon waking I immediately fired up my computer and started taking notes. Anyway, one of the "issues" with this place was the fact that the patients/inmates were prone to suicide, and that one of the most common methods was by hanging. In all of these hangings, the victims always tied this same weird, awkward slip-knot with an extra loop hanging off the side of it, a knot which came to be referred to as a "Wyndham Noose." This was super creepy when a PC observed one of the older patients help one of the children tie his shoe-lace, and do so by tying said Wyndham Noose. "There you go, young man. Now run along." Suffice it to say, the PCs (and hell, the players) were deeply disturbed by the poo poo they encountered in this place. For the rest of the campaign, I'd occasionally throw in call-backs to this particular story arc. Seeing things, hearing things, etc. At one point many sessions removed, the players were meeting a contact in a high-class establishment, and one of the PCs decided she would wear her best "little black dress" for the occasion. When one of the other PCs realized that she'd absently tied the laces in back in a Wyndham Noose, everybody lost their poo poo. Nobody who went into Wyndham Downs came out quite the same. That is the kind of stuff that makes madness work in RPGs.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 20:26
|
|
|
The tricky thing with insanities is finding ones that are meaningfully distinguishable from standard PC behaviour. In a Supernatural-ish FATE game our characters were trapped in a creepy haunted hospital. We tried to get out of the window, but it was unopenable/unbreakable. So I set the curtains on fire to see if that would do it (it did not). We went into the next room and the power went out, so I set the curtains on fire so we could see better. Then things started getting eschery so I suggested I keep setting curtains on fire to keep track of what rooms we'd already been in. All the other players thought these were really good ideas. At no point did anyone realise I'd been possessed by a ghost arsonist.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 20:57
|
|
|
Splicer posted:The tricky thing with insanities is finding ones that are meaningfully distinguishable from standard PC behaviour. In a Supernatural-ish FATE game our characters were trapped in a creepy haunted hospital. We tried to get out of the window, but it was unopenable/unbreakable. So I set the curtains on fire to see if that would do it (it did not). We went into the next room and the power went out, so I set the curtains on fire so we could see better. Then things started getting eschery so I suggested I keep setting curtains on fire to keep track of what rooms we'd already been in. All the other players thought these were really good ideas. At no point did anyone realise I'd been possessed by a ghost arsonist. This is amazing because until your reveal I felt the exact same way as the rest of your party.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 21:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 17:31 |
|
|
Splicer posted:The tricky thing with insanities is finding ones that are meaningfully distinguishable from standard PC behaviour. In a Supernatural-ish FATE game our characters were trapped in a creepy haunted hospital. We tried to get out of the window, but it was unopenable/unbreakable. So I set the curtains on fire to see if that would do it (it did not). We went into the next room and the power went out, so I set the curtains on fire so we could see better. Then things started getting eschery so I suggested I keep setting curtains on fire to keep track of what rooms we'd already been in. All the other players thought these were really good ideas. At no point did anyone realise I'd been possessed by a ghost arsonist.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2016 21:56
|
|