D&D: Five Reasons Why No One Likes the Deck of Many Things
Of all the D&D artifacts that have a reputation for being Campaign Enders, the Deck of Many Things sits right at the top. Here’s why.
There’s an old saw from the days before 5th Edition, that if you wanted to end a campaign, just give the party a Deck of Many Things. Even the players of Critical Role feared its potential to disrupt carefully constructed characters with memorable relationships and more. But why?
Why does that artifact more than any other in the D&D canon, have that destructive reputation? The Hand and Eye of Vecna are bad, but veteran D&D players will recoil from the Deck of Many Things. To the point where it’s a meme.
Several memes.
But why? Well, the answer lies inside the deck itself. Here are five reasons why nobody likes the Deck of Many Things in 5th Edition.
Talons
How would you like to lose every single magic item that you wear or carry? Instantly and irrevocably? While other cards in the list may have flashier and more permanent consequences, this one is arguably one of the worst feeling ones to get.
All that fancy gear. All those magic items that make your character build work, gone, just like that? And you can’t get them back either (unless you happen to draw the one card that lets you undo a single event, but that too feels like a waste). Other cards might ruin a character’s day, but this one will ruin a player’s.
The Void
This is one of the more memeable cards though. The Void and Donjon (which follows) are both giant middle fingers to your favorite character. Draw this card, and your soul is separated from your body and imprisoned in “an object in a place of the GM’s choice.” It will be guarded by powerful beings, and your body is incapacitated.
Even a Wish spell can’t fix you.
Donjon
This card traps you in a state of suspended animation in an extradimensional sphere somewhere. Where are you? No divination magic can tell. Only the most powerful spell in the game, Wish, has a chance of revealing the location of your extradimensional prison. And that may well be the only way of freeing you from that prison too. Even learning where you are runs the risk of the person casting the Wish spell never being able to cast the spell again (a 1/3rd chance), so good luck.
Euryale
This one isn’t quite as bad on the surface. You are cursed and take a -2 penalty on saving throws while cursed. Only the gods or the Fates card can end the curse. And while, yeah, it’s just a -2 penalty, get ready to start noticing every single failed save ever.
And that includes Death Saves. So suddenly you only succeed on a 12+, which, again, really adds up over the course of a campaign.
Idiot
Finally, permanently reduce your Intelligence by 1d4+1. Down to a minimum of 1. And good luck getting that back. If you were a Wizard or character who relied on Intelligence at all, may as well roll up a new one.
And those are just five of the bad cards! Sometimes the good ones can be just as disruptive. But imagine drawing one of those when the rest of the party got rare magic items or 10,000 experience points.
