Fortune Cards and Unpredictable Magic

Fortune Cards are a thing.

Go ahead and say that phrase in a tabletop roleplaying forum.  (Don't do it in a computer gaming forum, because they'll assume you play WoW.)  Jump in your foxhole and brace for impact.

Fortune Cards rile people up because Wizards of the Coast makes them for D&D 4e, and people have long suspected that Wizards was going to add a collectible card game aspect to make more money, because they understand how that structure works.

You say you don't understand the structure because you don't play Magic?  That's okay; go into an elementary school.  Ask a teacher is Pokémon cards are allowed.  The answer will probably be "no," because they're like crack to little kids.

Anyway, so Fortune Cards are a hot-button issue.

I bought some, because I've been playing D&D Encounters and they're legal there.  I'm not into character optimization, but having a random little trick up one's sleeve is always cool.  Plus, I figure I can use them as a DM.

They're fun, but not worth collecting.  Again, a random little widget is cool sometimes, a distraction at other times.

As an example: you have one card in your hand per round.  This card is randomly determined.  At the start of your turn, you can either keep the card in your hand (assuming you didn't use it last turn), or get a new one.  In practice, this means that you typically either get a card that isn't applicable — in which case you either hold onto it for future planning or discard it because you want to see if something really cool is coming up — or you completely switch your strategy, taking some outlandish risk or performing some weird tactic to make use of the new thing you have.  "Well, I wasn't going to charge him, but this card gives me a +2 to hit if I charge, so I'm doing that now."  Stuff like that.

All that rambling brings me to the conclusion of Lost Crown of Neverwinter, the most recent D&D Encounters season.  In it, a war is brewing between Lord Neverember, Lord Protector of Neverwinter, and the Lost Heir, part of a rebel faction that wishes to restore Neverwinter to its previous glory.  Or some such.  In the end, it turned out that the crown was cursed — our first mission was to retrieve it, but the Red Wizards of Thay got it first and cursed it to drive the wearer mad.  So, when the Lost Heir (actually our spellscarred employer in drag) acquired it, she started going nuts and throwing magical power all over the place.  This culminated in her awakening Chekhov's Dragon, whom she froze in stone at an early battle.

For playing in Encounters sessions, one obtains Fortune Cards for playing.  The previous session, I obtained one called Spellplague Surge, which causes all creatures within a radius of you (including yourself) to deal extra fire and psychic damage.  I placed this into my deck and swapped out another card.

We're about to fight the dragon.  My plan is to drop my biggest spells on it.  And then I draw Spellplague Surge.

The image of a wizard, poised to fight, who then starts blazing with arcane energies is just plain neat.  This wasn't a Fortune Card thing, but a story thing — the magic flares forth, and things get crazy.

Even though I understand why it's used from a rules perspective, and even a story perspective, it does leave the typical Vancian magic system of rigid, arcane formulae lacking.  Magic seems more dynamic, like a stream into which one dips one's hand and hopes to grab something before the current drags one away.

At the moment, I'm just musing.  For weird magic along these lines, I might suggest readers look for the old Tome of Magic for AD&D, and its rules for Wild Mages.  Wild Mages cast spells at a variable caster level, and sometimes spells have weird, additional effects which are the result of wild surges.

Magic in World of Darkness and Deadlands are also prone to weird, mysterious backlashes, and are probably similarly worth a look.

Foiled Again...Again!

Well, after narrowly avoiding Filth Fever infection during the last D&D Encounters game, I was bitten by a diseased rat while in the sewers.  Now my poor magus is stumbling around, sweating like Nixon.

Fun with Microbiology

Last night at D&D Encounters, the DM said something to the effect, "Any bloodied character who ends his or her turn in the sewer water risks exposure to Filth Fever," to which I replied, "Yes!"

My response to everyone's confused looks was, "What?  I like microbiology!"

I like that sort of weird detail; in my Cthulhu Dark Ages game, the home town of Sudleigh used wells because the river water was "sick."  Unsurprisingly, the town upriver is dumping their garbage and human waste into the river.

Glut of Gaming

After a prolonged draught, I'm back to drowning in gaming.  Last Friday was Crux of Eternity, last night was D&D Encounters, tonight should be Deadlands, and this weekend is the Dunwich Experiment (a Cthulhu LIVE game set in 1969 Dunwich — as a promotion for The Dunwich Horror, American International Pictures picked five contestants for a "survive the weekend in Dunwich" promotional stunt that went horribly wrong as only a Cthulhu game can; expect pictures and a recap sometime in the next week or two).

This is the good life.

D&D Encounters: Lost Crown of Neverwinter

So we're playing D&D Encounters.

This is really my first foray into D&D with mercenaries, which is funny, because that's the game's default mode: not big damn heroes, but venal scumbags who loot tombs for money.  Granted, some of our party members are good people, but still.

It's good so far.  Our DM is really good at pacing, and she wails on 4e combat, typically squeezing two hours into about one.

Some crown-thieving necromancer took our charge.  We chased him down, but he managed to summon all the undead in the cemetery as he died.  We ran, but the sneaky little thief stole our crown back, so we got paid.

Now, we're still in Neverwinter.  Fought some more undead and some spellplagued, and we fought a white dragon.  The Lost Heir of Neverwinter showed up and deputized us.

Last session, we got into a barfight because there's a rivalry between supporters of the Lost Heir and supporters of Lord Neverember.  For the second time in this adventure, my squishy little mage has been completely overwhelmed by attackers, somehow pinned into a corner such that he can't get away.  It's his curse, apparently.

Twilight Falls is probably my friend, actually.  I should use in situations like that so I can sneak away.

Anyway, fun stuff.  Maybe I'll actually not get in the meat grinder next time and be able to perform my magely duties.

D&D Encounters as Weekly Gaming Fix

J. C. Lira once described the Castle Ravenloft board game as diet D&D.  Of course, when everybody has a busy schedule, a diet dungeon crawl might be just enough to act as your weekly dose of roleplaying.  D&D Encounters fills that void.

D&D Encounters is an ongoing Wednesday night D&D game, run in game stores across America.  Each session encompasses a little bit of story and a single combat encounter (fourth edition combat encounters typically take about an hour), forming a mini-campaign of thirteen sessions.  Though it's a glorified D&D commercial — the plot of the campaign usually ties in with a recent Wizards of the Coast release — it's actually pretty fun.  The typical two-hour runtime also works well with a busy schedule, and the fact that it attracts a rotating cast of players from week to week doesn't really detract at all (though this is usually handwaved, our DM typically tried to work in the roster changes).  The tales are hardly epic fantasy, but sometimes you just need a taste.  The last one even had a bit of an old-school bonus as The Dark Legacy of Evard refers to the powerful shadow magician Evard, the product of author Jack Vance who heavily influenced D&D's early development (as noted in this article).

I'm also intrigued by the D&D Encounter structure itself.  It's a great way to bring new players into the game, and would probably just be a good campaign structure generally, particularly in a public place such as a game shop.  Also, for Game Masters who are used to crafting tales that are epic in scope, the limitations of a handful of two-hour sessions is an excellent exercise in restraint. 

If you're looking to fulfill that weekly gaming fix, you could do worse than checking out D&D Encounters.  Even if it doesn't sound interesting, perhaps you would consider the Encounters format as an exercise for your next game?