Updating some cards from the deck of many things

[ironkid]

Hello everyone, I tend to field the deck of many things frequently on my games, and I'd like to update the effects of some cards. I'd like your opinion on the following:

XP gain/loss: currently I'm much more comfortable with the milestone method - the whole party leveling up at the same time. While an alternative would be to simply give or take levels from a character, I'm trying to find out an alternative reward/punishment for cards with those effects.

The Balance: I'm not fond of evil characters in my games :xykon:. Im thinking about making this strictly for the law/chaos axis, but it feels lame (and samey unless the character was lawful neutral or chaotic neutral).

So Im interested in knowing what would you do if you were interested in reworking these effects; the new book has some new cards but frankly they feel... safe. Not deck of many thingsy at all. :tongue:

[Sigreid]

Hello everyone, I tend to field the deck of many things frequently on my games, and I'd like to update the effects of some cards. I'd like your opinion on the following:

XP gain/loss: currently I'm much more comfortable with the milestone method - the whole party leveling up at the same time. While an alternative would be to simply give or take levels from a character, I'm trying to find out an alternative reward/punishment for cards with those effects.

The Balance: I'm not fond of evil characters in my games :xykon:. Im thinking about making this strictly for the law/chaos axis, but it feels lame (and samey unless the character was lawful neutral or chaotic neutral).

So Im interested in knowing what would you do if you were interested in reworking these effects; the new book has some new cards but frankly they feel... safe. Not deck of many thingsy at all. :tongue:

I discussed with my group and we agreed on 2 main things. 1. The party decides as a group how many cards will be drawn and they all get the consequence of each card. 2. All of the instant death/soul loss cards do something different. For example the one that imprisons the target's souls moves the party to a labyrinth that they have to escape to get back out of their coma.

[Darth Credence]

Hello everyone, I tend to field the deck of many things frequently on my games, and I'd like to update the effects of some cards. I'd like your opinion on the following:

XP gain/loss: currently I'm much more comfortable with the milestone method - the whole party leveling up at the same time. While an alternative would be to simply give or take levels from a character, I'm trying to find out an alternative reward/punishment for cards with those effects.

The Balance: I'm not fond of evil characters in my games :xykon:. Im thinking about making this strictly for the law/chaos axis, but it feels lame (and samey unless the character was lawful neutral or chaotic neutral).

So Im interested in knowing what would you do if you were interested in reworking these effects; the new book has some new cards but frankly they feel... safe. Not deck of many thingsy at all. :tongue:

For XP gain/loss in a milestone game, I would switch to an equivalent amount of gold. If it's more gold than they have on a loss, they incur a debt to some otherworldly being who will make sure they get paid.

For balance, I have two thoughts. One is that they get an advantage and disadvantage that are roughly equal. A rare magic item appears, but all of your gold disappears, something like that. Or, they are under the effect of a permanent geas to always balance a major action with an opposite action - help a poor family get enough to eat, and you need to steal from another poor family in balance or take the effect of the geas. Give them some way to break the geas.

[RedMage125]

A few years ago, I made a thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?472631-Lesser-Decks-of-Many-Things) where I suggested decks with less power for lower level characters.

I even posited the idea that a campaign could be built around collecting the missing cards to get the full deck.

Some of these might help with what you're looking for.