D&D Accessories: Decks For Many Things
From Dungeon Building cards to The Deck of Many Things, there are infinite ways to use decks of cards as DM or player tools in D&D.
Decks of cards can be a useful tool in D&D, both within the course of the game and story and as a player or Dungeon Master’s tool. And as a relatively small object, they make for an ideal prop to bring to the table for a more immersive and player-focused experience. These decks are my personal favorites to bring to your next campaign.
The Deck Of Many Things
The Deck of Many Things is an item that you or your players can find throughout the course of a D&D campaign which has the potential to change the entire course of your game. Some of the cards are incredibly helpful and make wonderful things happen, while others are catastrophic and story halting. To mimic the feeling of pulling a random card for a random outcome a player can roll a die, pull from a regular deck of cards that the DM has written on, or even pull slips of paper out of a hat; but if you know you’ll be incorporating The Deck of Many Things into your next game, why not just bring The Deck Of Many Things? This deck is gorgeously illustrated and comes with an explanation key for each card, making it one of the most beautiful and functional tools that will ever have your players nervous at the table.
Quest Decks
Are you the kind of DM who doesn’t come up with random side missions on the fly well? Me Neither. How about the kind of DM who likes to keep it a little random and mysterious? Quest Decks allow you to pull 45 random quest prompts per deck. And with ten decks to choose from, you’ll likely run out of players and suitable schedule time before you run out of unique adventures.
Critical Fail Deck
Something that I both love and hate about the FFG Star Wars system is the crit table. It’s easy to just scroll through the table and see, based on just how badly we botched the roll, how terrible the consequence for a critical failure will be. D&D Comes with suggestions, but for the most part the outcomes are left up to the DM’s creativity level that day meaning that some DMs and some days will just have more fun (or awful) crit outcomes than others. The Critical Fails deck has an entire deck of suggestions with four suggestions per card depending on the kind of battle you’re engaged in at the moment. It’s easy, it’s random, and it will always be fun regardless of any human factors.
Curse of Strahd’s Tarokka Deck
If you’re familiar with The Curse of Strahd, you’ve probably encountered a Tarokka Deck. Used by Madam Eva in the game and a helpful tool for Dungeon Masters, the deck can help randomize locations, giving the Curse of Strahd a replayability factor. Or, of course, it can just be a pretty deck of brand specific tarot cards for your nerdy collecting pleasure.
Dungeon Deck
We’re not all great at drawing dungeons out in sharpie marker before ever session, nor do we all have huge grid maps set up. For those times, pull out the Dungeon Deck and a marker and create the dungeon of your dreams in miniature. The small size makes your dungeon pocket size and always ready for an exploration or an encounter, and with options for standard or diagonal tiles totaling out at 40 cards, you’ll be building dungeons for a while. Or, one very large dungeon.
Do you have any D&D decks of cards either for in-game immersion or to use as DM tools? Which is your favorite? Will any of my picks make it to your wish list? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
