Rating the Deck of Many Things
How many hands have been wrung over this magic item? How many best laid plans of foolhardy DMs have been thwarted by the mighty power, for woe or weal, this deck contains? An insufficient number! Nothing gives me more pleasure, as DM or player, than a monkey wrench tossed straight into the gaping maw of a campaign, and the Deck of Many Things, an iconic item (or really a set of items) is a classic monkey wrench. Inspired by other efforts to tirelessly give star ratings (from 1 to 5) to game stuff from days gone by, such as the “Goin' Through the Fiend Folio” series at Save vs. Worm, I have set myself on a quest to rate each of the Many Things contained in the Deck. My criteria is my own, but my say on this matter is final, binding and beyond appeal.
What the Deck is It?
The Deck of Many Things was introduced in the first supplement to Dungeons & Dragons, incised on stone tablets by G. Gygax and R. Kuntz. In Miscellaneous Magic Table V, reserved for the most powerful artifacts, the Deck appeared as the final entry, 76-100 on a d100 roll. The Deck of Many Things has continued to appear in each subsequent edition of D&D, largely untouched by the ravages of time or game designer discourse. The Deck contains 18 cards (but Deck of Eighteen Things is much worse branding, so they went with “Many”), represented by the aces and face cards of each suit and the two jokers from a traditional deck of playing cards. The player-character can draw up to four cards (or more if any are jokers) and “whatever is revealed by the card selected takes place.” Half the cards are “beneficial” and half the cards are “hurtful” (hurtful is a surprising word choice from Gygax who must have not had his usual thesaurus on him that day). This initial Deck was expanded by M. Lowrey in Dragon Magazine #77 to 20 cards, now with Tarot-esque names like The Fool and The Sun (the original Deck had no such monikers). I will be reviewing the Original Deck of Many Things but using their new and improved names because it is more fun than “Ace of Hearts” (denoted in Greyhawk as “A" of Hearts. I have revised all instances of A, K, Q, and J to refer to Ace, King, Queen and Jack).
Already, we are off to a great start. I love the tactility of games, and bringing board game components into a TTRPG is usually refreshing at the table. A deck of playing cards is maybe a bit less exciting to me than how Big Rock Candy Hexcrawl uses Settlers of Catan tiles to procedurally generate a hexcrawl adventure or how Errant uses poker chips to represent the Deviant (i.e., thief/rogue archetype), but it is still a good use of components. Using an online Deck of Many Things generator (assuming without inquiry that such a thing exists) would lack a certain pizazz. I’m not saying you need a special box for the Deck of Many Things, but a bit of showmanship never hurt anyone.
Decked Out
Here are the definitive ratings, along with a bit of commentary on what I like, dislike and how I’d improve each card (designers of the 6th or subsequent editions, you must stop reading now).
Comet - (Ace of Hearts) Immediately gain 50,000 experience points
★★★★☆
We begin our tour with a deceptively good card. At first glance it is a bit boring (and unbalancing, if you care about such banality), but you have to consider what experience points mean in the fiction of the game to describe how this mechanical effect manifests in the fiction. OD&D states “As characters meet monsters in mortal combat and defeat them, and when they obtain various forms of treasure (money, gems, jewelry, magical item, etc.), they gain experience.” So I interpret this card as basically replacing the character with a more successful (or hypothetical future) version of themselves. They are now the version of themselves who defeated all those monsters and obtained all that treasure they heretofore hadn’t! That is a neat experience to role play.
Sun - (King of Hearts) Gain Misc. Magic item from the Table of your choice
★☆☆☆☆
This one is a bit of a stinker and a let down. You find a really rare and unique magic item only to be rewarded with… a different magic item? You do at least get to choose the table. Did that mean the players got to examine the rulebook and pour over the treasure tables? That doesn’t seem very Gygax. Maybe they just had to pick which roman numeral, blind to what exactly was on the table. That would downgrade this from stinker to a real bummer.
Moon - (Queen of Hearts) Gain 1-3 wishes to be taken when you like
★★★★★
Giving players wishes is always a good idea. It allows for unbridled creativity for the players and unpredictability for the referee. I do like tying the wishes to something tangible though, be it a monkey’s paw or a lamp containing a surly genie. One of my personal variations on the three-wishes-as-treasure idea is the Wish Spirit by Chris McDowall. Drinking the liquor grants a wish, but the wish lasts only as long as “the bracing kick of the liquor.” A bit of constraint on the player’s get out of jail free card does promote creative thinking.
Knight - (Jack of Hearts) Help from a Superhero with +3 armor, shield, and sword for one hour when you call him
★★★☆☆
You send a knight a “U up?” text, and they appear to help you for one hour. This is also good. I would prefer it to be less specific, as it seems this Superhero is intended to “help” you by assisting in violence. Summoning a high-level archetype of your choice for one hour would be better. You may summon a knight, but you may want a sage, a priest, or a wizard. A clever and devious party may also summon their hero just to beat them up and take their shit. Nice armor, shame if something were to happen to it.
Key - (Ace of Diamonds) Immediately gain map to richest treasure on any dungeon level
★★★★☆
This is a good and simple hook, drawing the players deeper into your dungeon. They get the map to level 5 but they are only on level 3? They are going to find a way, come hell or high water, to get down there and get that loot. I am a bit perplexed by “any” dungeon level. Who makes that choice, the DM or the players?
Gem - (King of Diamonds) Gain 5-30 pieces of jewelry immediately
★★☆☆☆
This is mediocre but visually appealing. The character goes from shit-caked ratcatcher to being decked out in fine jewelry in an instant. What goes unsaid but should be apparent to a thinking referee, is that this reward is a big ol’ bullseye on the character. Their torchlight now glints off a score of precious gems as they prowl an underworld full of monsters. This is especially true if there is a rival adventuring party in the dungeon. If I were the character, I’d store these away to make sure I am still in possession of them when I get to the surface.
Vizier - (Queen of Diamonds) Gain Scroll of 7 Spells, no 1st level spells on it
★☆☆☆☆
Maybe this is just showing my ignorance for how hard it is out there for a magic-user. It just doesn’t pique my interest. Maybe instead they pick any spell they want and learn the location of a wizard who can teach it to them? That at least packs a bit of adventure into it. I find the “no 1st level spells on it” bit a tad funny; here is a spell scroll containing no bummers.
Star - (Jack of Diamonds) Add 1 point to any ability score you wish, i.e. strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, etc.
★☆☆☆☆
Was Gary running out of ideas at this point? It’s just a bit ho hum compared to getting a sworn knight or a dungeon map. Though I do appreciate listing out the ability scores but leaving out constitution and charisma. Who would increase those abilities, they aren’t even Prime Requisites!?
Fool - (Ace of Spades) Lose one experience level immediately
★★★☆☆
This is good for largely the same reasons the Comet above is good. However, I am docking it one point because, in my experience, undoing a level is harder to do than gaining a level, in terms of bookkeeping. Losing levels isn’t really scary; it’s paperwork.
Rogue - (King of Spades) Lord with +4 armor, shield, and sword attacks you (all magic items disappear when attacker is defeated)
★★★☆☆
A good concept, but execution is lacking. I would make two tweaks: first, I would grant the Lord a bit of leeway with their attack. Instead, a Lord decides they despise you and pledges to rid the world of you, even if it bankrupts their domain in the process. They may decide to immediately attack, but they now have a bit of strategic flexibility on how to quash the character. Perhaps the Lord’s mirror on their wall told them something unpleasant about the character. My second change is to delete the part about the magic items disappearing. Gygax seemed to adore cheap tricks, but they strike me as incredibly unsporting and pointless.
Skull - (Queen of Spades) Immediate death, no saving throw
★★☆☆☆
Maybe a theme with the “hurtful” results is poor execution. Later editions drastically improved on this one. Instead of just having to roll up a new character, game over, Death appears. You must fight (or make a deal, or beat in a game of checkers, whatever) Death or they will collect what they are owed. If the stakes are life and death, at least milk it for some drama!
Donjon - (Jack of Spades) Monster from 5th level Underworld Monster Table attacks by surprise
★★★☆☆
This one only needs a minor tweak, I would make it such that the monster begins to hunt the character and starts 1d6 rooms away. Now the characters are in a horror film, being stalked by a monster. Isn’t that better than instant combat?
Balance - (Ace of Clubs) Change alignment immediately
★★★★★
Like most modern tabletop gamers, I view alignment as an artifact, and it doesn’t see much (any) use at my table. But this is a good use of it. You become a mirror of yourself, equal in ability but opposite in outlook. I would maybe deduct a star in practicality, considering that this same supplement (Greyhawk) introduced classes like the Paladin and Rogue, which had alignment requirements, but that is a flaw in the class design, not this card. This card isn’t dissimilar to the Comet, but instead of being replaced by a hypothetical version of the character that is more successful, you are replaced by your moral anthesis. This would also be a cool concept for a horror film!
Talons - (King of Clubs) Lose your most prized magic item immediately
★★★★☆
This hurts, which is good. Players tend to get attached to their loot, so losing their “most prized” possession is a real heartstring tugger. If I wanted to bring this up to five stars though, I would detail where the item is lost to. Is it lost somewhere in the dungeon (put it on the random treasure table for the dungeon), or does it appear in the hands of a foe, is it on another plane of existence? I think what I am learning about this exercise is that I really like results that make the players want to do something, go somewhere, defeat someone. Hurtful effects should hurt, but they can also add something to a campaign, not just take it away.
Euryale - (Queen of Clubs) Turn to stone, no saving throw
★☆☆☆☆
And we are back to boring results. This is a bit like the instant death result, so it also feels duplicative. This is the point at which I realize how boring a lot of these “hurtful” effects really are. Potential character death adds important stakes to a game, but it shouldn’t be the only stakes! There should be more curses that don’t end the character’s life and instead make the character wish for death. How about everything the character touches turns to gold? A classic. Or just opening up the Book of Job from the Bible and just picking any curse or catastrophe at random. More than gray corridors full of orcs, “no saving throw” is the quintessential Gygaxism.
Idiot - (Jack of Clubs) Lose 1 point from your Prime Requisite
★☆☆☆☆
If I didn’t like the Star earlier, there wasn’t much hope for its equal-and-opposite card. 1 point is just insignificant in comparison to some of the other results. What if this was instead “switch your highest ability score with your lowest ability score”? Now we’re talking! Will it potentially end up with the character being unplayable due to D&D’s class system? Probably. Is it an interesting result? Absolutely.
Jester - (Joker, x2) Gain 25,000 experience points or select two additional cards
★★★★★
Wildcard, baby. This is basically the Comet, which I already admitted to liking, but now the character has the option to keep pushing their luck?! Drawing two additional cards means it is likely that at least one is going to be a “hurtful” effect. But I really love this card because I have seen it in action, and it led to a memorable tale of rags to riches for one lucky hireling in one of my games. My players hired a handful of goons for a dungeon crawl, mostly as cannon-fodder. By the time they reached the room with the Deck, only one hireling remained. They suspected the Deck was some sort of trap so demanded that the last hireling draw a card first. They drew the 3.5th edition equivalent of this card and immediately leveled up. Next they drew a card that gave a random magic weapon, which turned out to be a +3 greatsword. Then they drew the equivalent of the Comet card, rocketing them up to a level beyond the player-characters themselves. The dynamics of the party immediately changed. The hireling said, “You work for me now.”
Playing My Cards Right
The Prismatic Wasteland is beginning to spread its way across other parts of the TTRPG internet! This is just an update of some recent developments; hopefully some interesting stuff!
Knock Issue #2 came out, and I am in it! More specifically, it republishes (with some clean-ups) one of my older posts, Don’t List Out Gear. You can get Knock #2 here. If this is your first time hearing about Knock, Questing Beast and Chris McDowall each have thorough video reviews of the first issue.
I have joined the excellent collective of bloggers doing reviews of TTRPG adventures at Bones of Contention. My first review in my series (“Pedantic Wasteland”) is a review of A Rasp of Sand! I also did a mini-review of Honey in the Rafters, a Mausritter adventure, as part of Bones of Contention’s Cryptic Signals series. Ben L of Mazirian’s Garden posted a really good blog post talking about the aims of the Bones of Contention project.
I was featured twice in the latest season of Blogs on Tape. Two of my blog posts are now in audio form, Maybe Split the Party (episode 100 of Blogs on Tape) and How to Run a Mystery (episode 104 of Blogs on Tape). Please check out these and the other episodes of Blogs on Tape if you want to receive TTRPG wisdom on-the-go or just want an ASMR OSR experience.
Lastly, I am making real progress on Barkeep on the Borderlands, the adventure I am writing for Zinequest! If you want to receive an email when that project goes live, you can click the button below.
