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The Deck of Many Fortunes - Preview
🕑 Added 2021-05-30 16:59:21 +0000 UTCI've been toying with the idea of making a deck of tarot-size cards for the Ironsworn system for a while. The idea came to me when I read a supplement for Dungeons & Dragons (5th edition) called The Tarot of Many Things. I of course knew The Deck of Many Things, but I wanted something more, and this supplement was something more. The fact that it includes all 78 cards from the tarot into the d20 system, giving them a mechanical interpretation, blew my mind and finally convinced me that it was possible to do that with a tabletop role-playing game. To what extent would it be feasible to do something like that for the Ironsworn system? That is about to see.
The premise of the The Deck of Many Fortunes is to present blessings and curses. Mechanically, the intention is to grant these cards the power to break the game in some way, either favorably or unfavorably. I'll work around studying each card of the tarot, all 78 cards, and give them a mechanical interpretation into the Ironsworn system, filling them with fluff and flavor.
The Deck of Many Fortunes will be, diegetically, an artifact, an object of power, a magic item. When a character draws a card, the player will Ask the Oracle to determine if the card was drawn upright or reversed. If it was drawn upright, the character gets the card blessing; if drawn reversed, they gets its cursed. Malisons would only be broken through other fortune cards or by fulfilling a vow of extreme rank to specifically break the curse.
So far, this design of the cards is the one that has convinced me the most. I would not like to get too creative changing the format further because I want the cards to keep the Ironsworn trade dress, and make them feel like they belong to this universe.
I might keep posting more previews of the cards as they come up in the design process. Let me know what you think.
Comments
Samuel Rondón
Noted. I wanted to twist a bit the Ironsworn cards format, making the most important symbol more intrusive. I will see what I can do to make it more appealing. Regarding balance, I want to blatantly twist the mechanics of the system as well, going as meta as I can. That's the premise of this deck. I agree about the vow rank. Formidable might be more suitable. I don't know about the values, though. The Deck of Many Fortunes should still feel like a dangerous thing to play with, both diegetically and mechanically. I agree with the fact that the Deck of Many of Things is way too whacky. That's why I want to make the DoMF just a little bit more on the player's side by giving him an equal chance of getting the blessing and the malison; but still whacky enough that it would break the game favorably or unfavorably.
Solanaar
But this was just what came to my mind when I read this post, so not really thought through
Solanaar
Also I feel like am extreme cow might be too... Well, extreme. You rarely finish an extreme cow. I get that it is meant to be something big that doesn't go away easily. But I'd say extreme ranks are meant to be the vows that a player wants to play towards. Giving them a potentially gameplay and narrative altering curse that will stick essentially for the rest of the playthrough might discourage players using these. In my opinion reward and punishment need to be balanced on a very thin line. That's why I dislike raw wild magic and the deck of many things in that regard. At the end you might have a character you don't want to play with anymore. I think for whacky chaotic or short term campaigns this will work just fine but always think about how punishing you want the curses to be... what I've seen so far is moderate. Of course the 2nd major arcana has a net loss of 1 add. I think this is a maybe, at least for me, since there are not a lot of things that change the main stats. So this could feel like a huge punishment to some but at the same time I feel it could give some narrative depth. Although I feel not only losing 2 and only gaining one and not being able to choose but also to lose heart which is one of if not the most important stat and getting shadow which is imo rarely used could cripple the character too much when thinking about the success rate of the most common moves
Solanaar
I like it but I would make the white space between text box and symbol standardized throughout all cards. Meaning don't use the right wrapping but instead a circle or rectangle.makes it easier readable and more uniform
