D&D Announces Tarot-Inspired Addition to the Deck of Many Things
In a press conference last week, Greg Tito, senior communications manager for, said Wizard of the Coastdiscussed what was to come Dungeons product The deck of many things alongside lead designer Jason Tondro and game designer Makenzie De Armas.
De Armas helped debut the deck Gen Conleading Dungeons Play with a nine-card spread of The deck of many things to create a spontaneous adventure. Not necessarily tarot per se, The deck of many things is more like an oracle deck – it consists of 66 cards expanded from the original 22 cards Deck with lots of things. The mechanical effects of the 44 new cards were designed by De Armas. The full set release includes the deck itself, The Book of Many Thingsand an 80-page manual for the expanded deck. At the moment there doesn’t seem to be an option to buy anything individually and that The complete package costs $110.
Tondro described the publication as “attitude agnostic” and named it deck “an innovation project.” The deck itself has no colors; It’s much more like an oracle deck, but broadly contains four types of cards: Characters, Treasures, Monsters, and Landmarks. Each map is explained in more detail in the guide, offering suggestions and inspiration for interpretation. The deck will encourage DMs to “utilize a wide variety of effects that fit all sorts of gameplay variations,” De Armas said. She designed the 44 new cards “to fill niches that the original deck of many things did not fill,” creating more options and possibilities within the prescribed interpretation of the cards to allow for broader applicability to different character builds.
“We wanted to make it user-friendly,” Tondro said, “and just as messy as you want it to be.” The original Deck with lots of things In the original version, the magical item had a reputation for causing chaos. Both designers emphasized that players could build their own deck and have outlined example deck builds such as: Deck of Horror, for campaigns with a more supernatural bent or in a darker setting like Ravenloft. Additionally, decks can focus on artistic elements, mechanics, and even playstyle.
An example of threading artistic elements can be seen below. The golden ring and its green gem appear on all cards, and connections can be made in the four-card example Talons (a classic from the original). Deck with lots of things), Tower, Undead and Ring.
The deck of many things also receives a new heavenly origin. “When we first embarked on this project, we wanted to pay tribute to more than just the decks, many, many iterations and origins throughout ’s history D&D, but we also wanted to create a new origin story specifically for Fifth Edition,” explained De Armas. The book tells the story of how Istus – the goddess of fate – used twelve zodiac signs to create the first Deck with lots of things. Asteria and Uriel are two of the main characters of this book, and their history and stat blocks are described in the final chapter of the book Book of Many Things.
The Book of Many Things is a “toy box book,” similar to Tasha’s cauldron of everything, These include character items, magic items, adventure locations, puzzles, riddles and traps, as well as the final fictional chapter, which tells the backstory of the book’s narrator, Asteria, and her sister Uriel. “Each chapter is designed to give you the tools you need to make using the deck easier,” explains Tondro.
The book also included detailed explanations of Oracle spreads that can be used to create campaigns using the cards – an experience that De Armas presented at Gen Con. The adventure distribution is clearly defined and uses some classic Tarot conventions – thwarting a past with an exciting incident, adding obstacles and challenges – and finally outlining a complete nine-card story arc. Todro explained that he tested this in the game, where three designers shuffled the same nine cards and could effectively create three different scenarios: “That’s when I knew we had something, and that’s how we knew it worked.”
The deck also comes with an 80-page hardcover manual introducing each card. “It gives a person a location, a treasure, a monster and a situation for each card. And then there are the same five when the card is drawn upside down – or upside down – so that each card has ten different interpretive meanings,” Tondro said.
The product looks great, but since it has a high price and there is no obvious way to easily purchase the deck individually, it doesn’t seem to be aimed at new players in any way. This is an artifact product, not for hardcore gamers, but for hardcore gamers D&D fans.
But if you’re a player who wants a gaming-inspired tarot deck or even a game that uses tarot, there are dozens of options, such as the very affordable Ultimate RPG Tarot Deck, and the collector-focused Ennie-nominated film Eldritch Overload Tarot. As far as games go, there is the classic spindle wheel (teaCabbage Studios), which uses a unique oracle deck and also offers space for people to bring their favorite tarot decks to the table. anamnese (Sam Leigh), an award-winning solo journaling game, also uses tarot cards. You could also pick it up Aurora (World Champ Game Co.), which encourages you to create your own oracle deck to match the story.
“Wizards of the Coast” taps into a trend that indie games have followed for almost a decade, offering high production values, high prices and a variety of tables that give you more and more options, making a game so customizable that It is nearly a system-independent addition. But not completely.
The deck of many things The bundle will be available digitally on October 31st and in game stores on November 14th.
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