If you know anything about the Deck of Many Things, you may be cringing at the mere mention of including it in your game. It can be extremely challenging, regardless of your skill level, to learn how to handle it.
I mean, this is the Deck that can toss a player into a void in an unknown location without warning, leaving the party scrambling to locate their lost member for days on end.
The idea of handling the Deck of Many Things without editing can sound downright impossible, especially for lower-ranking parties.
But I'm here to tell you: it's possible!
Today, I want to briefly go through some of my thoughts, as the Book of Many Things has just released, pushing forward the history of this iconic magic item.
Listen, It’s Not As Bad As You Think
Okay, hear me out.
The Deck of Many Things has such interesting options that it allows a massive degree of creative freedom in the game. Your players will get to flex their creative muscles, create entire new arcs for your campaign, or create a new arc for an individual player character.
In my game alone I’ve had:
A player character learn about the consequences of their actions by burning bridges with their party for 3 sessions (the card that changes your alignment)
A player create a castle that they will, down the line, have to enter and fight monsters to gain as their new home. It’s basically a dungeon that turns into their base.
One player character undo one of the worst events of another player character and rewrite the moment. As a side affect, the player will now be looked to more favorably by the country where this event happened, whereas before, the country’s opinion of the player was totally up in the air.
A major antagonist from that arc suddenly develop plans to go after them in order to retrieve the Deck of Many Things they took from him.
A player get dumber, only for a powerful magical being to return their intelligence to their original level later on.
A player character turn into a soda can (we’ll get there, hold your questions until the end).
The Deck of Many Things caused all of these WILD changes. No other item can have this much impact without planning for it. The only planning I did was ask myself, “Why does this guy have the deck?” and make additional adjustment to make it easier to place in a level 6 party game.
Timing is Everything
Speaking of placing the Deck of Many Things in a party game, that’s what I’ll be talking about today.
First and foremost, The Deck of Many Things is an item that can MESS UP a player. The Deck in the first few editions was inherently designed to put a player character into such an unfun situation that it wasn’t worth it to play the character, and that’s assuming you could play them at all.
If you were to put the Deck of Many Things into your game as is, I would only recommend doing so if your party is at the highest tier of play. In short, if you aren’t prepared to give the party a different legendary weapon, then you aren’t prepared to put the 5e Deck into your game at all. Your party needs to be able to handle the WORST cards the Deck can throw at them. Your party has to be strong enough to handle the void or donjon card.
If you’re unfamiliar, the void card is as follows:
This black card spells disaster. Your soul is drawn from your body and contained in an object in a place of the DM's choice. One or more powerful beings guard the place. While your soul is trapped in this way, your body is incapacitated. A wish spell can't restore your soul, but the spell reveals the location of the object that holds it. You draw no more cards.
This fate is worse than death. You’re unable to do ANYTHING to save yourself, and your party doesn’t even know where you went. Wish, a ninth level spell, can’t even save you. The DM doesn’t need to choose the material plane; your soul could be LITERALLY anywhere in the multiverse. Unless your DM puts you nearby where you drew the card…you’re almost fully screwed.
A party in the highest tier of the game would potentially be able to save your soul, but it might be a challenge. It’s possible, but tough to save. And what does that player do during that time? Pretty much nothing, really. It gets boring fast.
Be mindful of the Deck’s power. Handling the Deck of Many Things without editing can be more difficult than anticipated, even for high-ranking adventurers. Maybe the party needs to use the card that undoes one event to undo the player pulling the void card!
Handling the Deck of Many Things in LOWER Tiers—Without Editing!
So what about at lower tiers?
There’s a few things you can do without editing the deck. One thing you should avoid is removing bad cards. This decreases the danger of the Deck, as it’s more likely to pull the good cards. Theoretically, you could remove an overpowered good card to balance it out, but it requires a delicate balance and thorough knowledge of the Deck.
Matt Colville’s video on MCDM is a great resource that goes into a lot more detail on rigging the Deck. It was the source of inspiration for me to put the deck into MY campaign, to give you an idea as to how awesome his advice is.
His advice is pretty simple overall: you want to give your players access to the Deck, but you don’t want them to have even a CHANCE at grabbing the void card.
As a DM, just choose the card for them. Either flip through the deck (if you can) and find the first card that you know isn’t a terrible fate. The same goes for a card that is too powerful to give to your party. Rig the deck so they don’t get the too OP or too dangerous cards without editing the deck.
This method allows you to cherry pick the card you want to give to the party.
Do you want to give them that cool ability to undo one event? Do it!
Looking for a gift for your party? The key card is an easy way to give your player characters a rare or lesser rarity magic item!
Want to cause MASSIVE paranoia for the next few sessions? Give them the Roque card and watch them desperately try to figure out which character is now intent on killing them!
Cherry picking the cards can work both ways, and it’s up the DM to decide the party’s fate.
Letting Players Choose Their Own Fate—Sort of!
Alternatively, you can have the party have some control over the cards themselves. Slip in some sort of rule or method that gives the party a higher chance of getting a good card.
For my campaign, I made it so if a player drew a card in intervals of 3s, they had a higher chance of drawing a good card. On the first pull, you want the 3rd card from the top of the Deck. For the second pull, you want the 6th card from top, and continue for the third pull and beyond. This gives your players a bit of fun chaos if they pull from the top, but also allows you to give your party some safe control over the Deck as well.
You can also rig the Deck so that it gives bad cards that the party has to overcome.
Perhaps you want the death card to be played, and now the whole party has to fight avatars of death?
Maybe you want to grant the wish of your player that truly wants to fight everything by having them 1v1 a terrifying beast?
The possibilities are endless!
Next Time on DMI…
These are some ways to place the Deck of Many Things into your world so that it adds some chaos and interesting twists and turns into your game without editing the deck. Next time, I will be talking about how to edit the Deck to work with your party. Stay tuned!
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