(my emmisary table from Geek Chic)
I jumped back behind the DM screen last night and had a great time. I mentioned before that our obsession with Warmachine lead us to try the Iron Kingdoms RPG, specifically the Witchfire trilogy. I’ve been converting it over to 4e which has mostly involved the re-skinning of monsters and powers. Cross bows become pistols, Golems become Jacks. Its been pretty easy so far.
Last night I decided to try the D&D fortune cards. They came out while we were heavy into Warmachine and so we never got a chance to try them. I picked up a couple booster packs for all my players and let them open them at the table. They used the cards from their two packs to make a deck that they would use for the night.
The rules are pretty simple. You can play one card per round. It requires no action to play. The rules on each card state when you can play it and what effect it has. A card takes effect just once unless it states otherwise, and you discard the card when its effect ends.You can have only one Fortune Card in your hand at a time. At the start of each of your turns, you can do one of the following: Discard the card in your hand and draw a new one. Draw a new card if you don’t have one in your hand. Keep the card that’s in your hand if you haven’t played it.
The cards offer all kinds of effects like “stroke of luck” which you can play to re-roll an attack. There are are cards that let you take damage for an ally, or help them succeed on a skill check. Some of the cards offer a risk vs. reward scenario, like you can roll a die and maybe take half damage from an attack or double damage. I asked my players what they thought of the cards and Kiko’s response was “there is no reason not to like them, all they do is help us.”
I thought that was interesting. As the DM they don’t do jack shit for me. In fact all they do is help my players overcome my devious tricks and traps. I like things that add new mechanics to the table though and having the cards defiantly made for some interesting turns. Personally I wonder if there isn’t an opportunity for WOTC to make a set of cards for DM’s. If I had a deck sitting in front of me that I could draw from with similar rules, I’d be very interested. Of course my deck would be designed to screw them over.
-Gabe out
