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View Full Version : Astrology vs Tarot Card!



Hilackenz
2016-04-10, 12:31 AM
{Scrubbed}

Gildedragon
2016-04-10, 01:29 AM
In what system?
If you want to use them for some system, very 'groso modo' astrology would be a d12 roll and tarot would be... Hmmm a d8-1 for the first digit and a d10 for the second. Ignore 1-00 and 8-09
Or if you just wanna major arcana (the fancy cards) 1d2 and 1d12
1d2 is +0 or +12
Ignore 2-12 and 2-11

Inevitability
2016-04-10, 01:50 AM
I'm not entirely sure you're in the right subforum. Do you mean in real life? Or are you referring to a yet-to-be-mentioned game?

Knaight
2016-04-10, 02:09 AM
No. They're different methods of achieving the same result, namely reasonable amounts of very generic information that can be interpreted as applying to the reader due to the wonders of confirmation bias. In an RPG setting (assuming this is the right subforum) they could actually work, although having them work sometimes and deliberately leaving observation bias in is a tempting option. There's also differences in where they're applicable.

Cluedrew
2016-04-10, 07:28 AM
I don't know much about Tarot Cards but I know some about Astrology.

Astrology actually had a relatively solid basis in the (incorrect) model of the world they had at the time. Although I bet it shares the common trait with Tarot cards that it is vague enough that it can be almost impossible to find an event that an interpretation doesn't apply to. So you can't really disprove it.

dps
2016-04-10, 09:46 AM
I'm not entirely sure you're in the right subforum. Do you mean in real life? Or are you referring to a yet-to-be-mentioned game?

I would hope it means in-game, 'cause IRL it would be rather analogous to asking if a guillotine and a firing squad are the same thing.

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-04-10, 04:38 PM
As dps fittingly put it:


IRL it would be rather analogous to asking if a guillotine and a firing squad are the same thing.
(Yes that quote is right above this post. I just like it, okay?)

They're both divination methods, ways to (supposedly) say something about someone's personality and future and stuff. But astrology uses the positions of the stars and planets for that, both the current configuration and the one as it was when the person was born, while tarot cards use, well, tarot cards for predicting the future. Both are as different from each other as they are from hand reading, tea leaf reading, aura photography and creepy game cabinets.

In RPG's foresight is generally hard to pull off. If you're in a world where magic is undeniably real, powerful and accurate then it stands to reason that telling the future can be done with good accuracy as well. Which means that if you give the players a prediction you pretty much have to make it come true no matter what the players choose, no matter how the dice fall and without making it look like you're railroading.

That being said, systems that do have a premade way of telling the future probably in general have only one mechanic for it, you need to use some fluff to match it to the method of your preference.

the_david
2016-04-10, 04:59 PM
Take out your tarot/tarrokka/harrow cards. Set aside the ones you need for the reading behind your DM screen. Let one of the players shuffle the remaining cards. Put the cards you set aside on top of the deck without the players noticing. Put on the best show you could ever give and watch as your players start to get freaked out as everything the fortuneteller told them comes true.

You can't do that with astrology or palmreading.

goto124
2016-04-10, 06:52 PM
But what if the players say "Tarot cards? Those can be interpreted in infinite ways! Of course the prophecy will come 'true' if the prophecy is vague enough"?

... why did I think Tarot cards could be used as a game mechanic?

Cough Deck of Many Things cough

Eldan
2016-04-12, 04:33 AM
But what if the players say "Tarot cards? Those can be interpreted in infinite ways! Of course the prophecy will come 'true' if the prophecy is vague enough"?

... why did I think Tarot cards could be used as a game mechanic?

Cough Deck of Many Things cough

I know a least two games that use tarot cards instead of dice. There's the German post-apocalyptic game Engel, where to resolve an action, you draw a tarot card from a standard deck, then interpret the result with your DM and one game based on the Amber books, which I think has its own deck.

Fri
2016-04-12, 06:08 AM
I'm pretty sure the op is a spammer that's trying to bait you to a site, guys.

Joe the Rat
2016-04-12, 08:41 AM
Pity, it's an interesting discussion.

Amber is Randomless - You're thinking of Trump cards, which are psychic contact cards (In Castle Amber, giving someone your card is Serious Business)

Less the Major arcana, you essentially have a "standard" deck. Welcome to Castle Falkenstein!

Deck of Illusions + Deck of Many Things essentially gives you a Tarot set (closer to Tarokka, but you can backfit the effects to the standard MA). I do not recommend shuffling the two together. Some decades back there was a Dragon article where someone wrote out a Deck of many Things for a Tarot Deck.

The interesting thing here is the ideas of Fate and Fortune. Astrology is about Fate - a deterministic model where the starting configuration (including the influences of stars and planets) can predict the course of your life - or at least your personality. "Fortune" Telling... tends to assume a deterministic model (This will happen!), so again we deal with Fate. Rather than looking at the starting configuration, the draw takes a sample from the cosmos to get a picture of your life-trajectory - where you've been, where you are now, what happens next.

Fortune we tend to equate to Chance, or Luck. Unless you are again rigidly deterministic, in which case that die roll is not what happened to happen, but was the inevitable result of rolling the die. Luck is not having better odds, or beating the odds, but that your outcome will be positive. Rolling dice, or drawing cards is not randomization, it is getting a measure on what happens.
Damn Romans.

Gamewise, I like a the 3-F approach to causal narrative: The course of events are equal parts Fate (Cause), Fortune (Chance), and Free Will (Choice). The fact that this maps into Game Layout, Randomizer, and Player Action is probably coincidental.

wumpus
2016-04-12, 10:28 AM
I'm pretty sure the op is a spammer that's trying to bait you to a site, guys.

Yes, it looks for all the world like a "spam the forum until you can post links" post. On the other hand, the whole idea of "roll up a character" by drawing Tarot cards (or possibly using astrology) would be a cool thing for jaded players (or mixed old/new players).

It would probably work best if all players had a similar (and rough) idea what the cards/stars meant. Cast your tarot and determine your personality, and probably take a few bonuses and penalties as well.

Biggest plus: put a stake through the heart of the "9 and only 9 possible personalities of D&D" (primarily characterizing *everything* by alignment). You would be expected to play as your tarot/astrology reading indicated. Not try to force every situation into your alignment.

Morcleon
2016-04-12, 10:33 AM
Biggest plus: put a stake through the heart of the "9 and only 9 possible personalities of D&D" (primarily characterizing *everything* by alignment). You would be expected to play as your tarot/astrology reading indicated. Not try to force every situation into your alignment.

Wouldn't that just be forcing every situation into your reading? Even if it's a different box, it just limits you in different ways. Instead, only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon box. :smallbiggrin: Alignments are condensed descriptions of your character's morals and ways of doing things, not a personality in and of itself.

Knaight
2016-04-12, 03:42 PM
I'm pretty sure the op is a spammer that's trying to bait you to a site, guys.

Probably. We've had a string of decent threads started by them though, and outside of the spam threads there's still way too much energy being focused on the same few edition war topics, so we might as well take the opportunity here.

wumpus
2016-04-12, 08:47 PM
Wouldn't that just be forcing every situation into your reading? Even if it's a different box, it just limits you in different ways. Instead, only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon box. :smallbiggrin: Alignments are condensed descriptions of your character's morals and ways of doing things, not a personality in and of itself.

If you deal 5 out of 35 cards you have something like 5^35 (technically 35!/30!) possible combinations. This number is sufficiently higher than 9 to no longer be an issue. There has to be *some* sort of box, if only to define what your character is, and when he is "thinking outside the box". And while alignments *should* be a condensation of ethics and morals, too often it is used to define character actions and personalities. Of course, if use astrology and only the basic "signs" you will get "12 possible characters", and have a situation roughly as bad as "9 possible personalities".

Personally I find the cliched "archtypes" to be just as bad, but the amount of ink used is probably justified for new players. Learn with the cliches, then build your own character. If you get in a habit of playing too many similar characters, try using a tarot deck (I'm sure there are online tarot dealing programs) and generate a completely new character that way*

* Actually, I think tarot works for the DM in creating some vague "foreshadowing" while astrology would work better for creating a personality (but as mentioned above, you will need all sorts of additional planetary states to avoid the issue of "only 12 possible states that define everyone").

I'm pretty sure there was an article or two for using tarot cards in AD&D (1e) in the dragon back in the day. I wonder if I still have it...

Knaight
2016-04-12, 09:04 PM
If you deal 5 out of 35 cards you have something like 5^35 (technically 35!/30!) possible combinations. This number is sufficiently higher than 9 to no longer be an issue. There has to be *some* sort of box, if only to define what your character is, and when he is "thinking outside the box".

There doesn't have to be some sort of codified box. The existence of literary characters made without one is sufficient evidence for this. The readings could work as some sort of PC generation, and could work really well for NPC generation, but fitting a reading to an existing character is just a waste of time.

Also, there's nowhere near 5^35 combinations. It's reasonably close to 35^5, but 5^35 is about 17 orders of magnitude too high.

Gildedragon
2016-04-12, 10:35 PM
For the "astrology" character generation you go with 1 of 12 archetypes (each with a 'light' and a 'dark' side)
then you determine its position: Ascendant, Descendant, Mid heaven, or Sub heaven (one could have ascendant be light-dark balanced but light dominant; mid heaven is light dominant, descendent is balanced but dark dominant, sub heaven is balanced but dark dominant)

and then you add traits by putting planets into a handful of "houses" for traits...

goto124
2016-04-13, 12:44 AM
The readings could work as some sort of PC generation, and could work really well for NPC generation, but fitting a reading to an existing character is just a waste of time.

It's once said that DnD Alignments are prescriptive, not descriptive - that is, if you create a fully-fleshed character and try to fit it into an alignment, you're doing it wrong.