The Deck of Many Things | Running the Game 

“My prop deck of many things....” As opposed to your legit one stored under the table

"It's perfectly safe." Any time your DM says this, *run*.

the void: no upside Matt Mercer: *laughs in search for grog*

How to scare your party: "You find an empty room." "You find a deck of cards."

"I play an idiot every day." -Matthew Colville, Comedy Gold

"everyone forgets bad stuff and remembers good stuff." Sir, all of neurology, behavioral biology, and clinical psychology would like to have a word.

"I play an idiot every day" that spur of the moment made me sub

Grog: "I'll just throw it into the lava." Suddenly, Laura: "NO TRAVIS!"

A campaign I've always wanted to run was something we'll call "The 22 Pickup." Essentially, the players find the Deck of Many Things, but something goes wrong and the deck scatters to the winds. Unleashed from its normal limitations, each card picks its own victim where it can do the most damage and evil ensues. Even the good cards are now free to go full Monkey's Paw and spread that benefit where it will sow the most chaos. The players are now responsible for reassembling the deck, with each card essentially causing its own mini-adventure. It would require taking a few liberties, to make the gamier mechanics (like lost 10,000 XP) into something with a bit more narrative punch (like altering/losing memories), but I think it could be an interested grand adventure.

My favorite campaign I ever played in we had a permanent Avatar of Death following us around. The card was drawn by an essentially unharmable undead NPC joke companion of the party with no combat skills. This resulted in the party being stalked by a very annoyed and mildly depressed Avatar of Death, and on some occasions it ended up inadvertently helping the party if other enemies attacked it.

Best use of the Vizier card: What is the exact order of the Deck of Many Things?

“Things can get a little bit crazy with the deck” *laughs in inverted alignment, a demon murdering everyone I care for, an avatar of death, trapped in the endless black void, and super rich*

"You find a box with a few cards in it, you believe this once was a full deck"

“If you’ve played every week for 6 months” I played every week for 5 years in 1 campaign. We haven’t played that campaign in over 2 years and we are waiting for the last 2 sessions to be ready with fully painted models and terrain, and more importantly, a day where everyone is off work

"Its perfectly safe"...kinda reminds me of Gandalf's "Its quite cool."

*Players draws the visior*: "what is the purpose of (my) life" *DM*: "..."

I had one rule with my wishes as a DM, "Your wish has to be in the form of a single sentence" They can use as many conjunctions as they want. This provides the player with instant stress and most save their wish until they can write down a good sentence. I also, try to use spells to accomplish what they want (i.e if they wish for a vorpal sword. I teleport it to them from another adventure in the world. It means that adventurer will eventually show up tracking down his lost weapon.

Yes! Definitely more relic videos. You could build a format around them, history of the item, pitfalls, tips and tricks, anecdotes, etc. My vote would be for the wand of wonder. Nikto!

Matt "The Deck of Many Things isn't that bad of an item, it's really fun and everyone should experience it at least once" Also Matt "I've found that you should completely rig it so they get the card you want, or else it's not fun at all"

Concept: The Deck of Mini Things. This is a altered, much more watered down, version of the normal DOMT that lessens the effects, to be used as a less game-breaking substitute, like the EXP giving cards giving much less EXP (depending on how you want to use it it could give different fractions like a half, a fourth, or an eighth) or the “instant death” ones only being temporary, like void ether being escapable or on a time limit. What changes would you make? (I’d just like to know)

I gave one to my Pathfinder players. They were too chicken to use it, but the one holding onto it went on a bit of a bender one night. Now a goblin owns the moon. She drew three wishes, and being that she was a throwaway NPC, I let my players decide what her wishes would be, though I coloured them a bit. The results were amusing.

It would be fun to do a campaign where they have to reassemble the Deck of Many Things. Not necessarily with the same cards that are traditionally in it.

I'm a new DM and I am definitely in the grouping of "I don't wanna give them something cool yet they're just level 2" but you're right, come a month or two from now the campaign may be done, so I'm gonna up my magic item/adventure game a few notches, thanks for that👍

I like to include the Deck toward the mid-end range of my campaigns, almost completely unaltered. As a younger DM, I put it in without removing any other cards, but now that I'm more experienced, I remove the worst ones (Soul lost, Body trapped, and Die no save are the main ones that come to mind), but I like the way it can completely alter the trajectory of my campaign and I have to adapt to that. My players, meanwhile, are familiar with it (and remember my younger days, so never bother to count the cards and notice I'm taking it easy on them), KNOW good and well that they have a higher chance of something bad than something good... but that promise of power always draws them in. One of my favorite sayings as a DM: "I'm not out to get anyone, I'm just a very convincing rope salesman."

In a recent session of a VoIP campaign, our level-4 party came upon a Deck of Many Things, which the DM assured us he had rolled on the random loot table for a random encounter we'd just fought. Two of us immediately knew what was up, and three were new to D&D. I and the other experienced player advised the others not to draw from the deck lightly, so immediately one of the new players drew from the deck. The first draw was Ruin. The player was somewhat sad, but figured that he could only go up from here (at this point, each of us only had one magic item, and we're stranded in the Underdark at the moment, so loss of gear was a bigger deal). His second draw was Talons, which pretty much solidified the loss. Then he drew the Fool losing about 1200 XP. Then Euryale, taking a permanent penalty to saves. Finally, on the fifth draw, he drew Vizier. He declared the exercise "werf" and I sort of scoffed at that, so he drew again, this time getting Jester. Seeing one of the new players jump two levels, the other experienced player couldn't stop himself. He drew, and got Skull. He was nearly bested by his avatar, but another player stepped in, saving him and then soloing his own as a result. The experienced player drew once more, and lucked into the Jester (which I guess gets reshuffled back into the deck each draw). He drew a third time, and got Key, which he used to rearm the first player. Not to be outdone, the first player drew once more. The deck hadn't disappeared, and these two were pretty much hooked now. This draw was Star, which he (being a Barbarian) applied to his STR. Another new player, drawn in by the spectacle, drew twice, getting Jester and Gem. The first player drew once more, and alas, it was Void. Seeing one of the players, this being his second session of D&D, insta-killed by arbitrary luck, and also believing the deck to be mostly out of bad cards (I knew Dungeon was in there, but I'd forgotten about Balance, Donjon, and Idiot somehow), I decided that I might as well toss my hat in the ring, and drew a card. I lucked into Jester, and called it a day. The other experienced player drew in the hopes of getting Fates or maybe Moon, but got Throne instead, and then the deck disappeared. Overall, our party drew on the deck 15 times, removing 10 cards in the process. The result was that 3/5 party members gained two levels, 2/5 party members drastically increased their wealth, and 1/5 party members was super killed. Overall, considering the DM was not fudging the rolls at all, I was impressed that we drew that many times and didn't destroy the entire campaign in the process.

As a fresh DM these videos have been helping me to realize it's all about fun improv, not "winning."

the idea of all cards that give you a castle would be a deck of many kings

"I don't know if what I drew is bad." Me: OH IT'S BAAAAAD

AEROHOBBIES MADE THE THIEF CLASS!? IN SANTA MONICA!? THE ONE I GO TO EVERY WEDNESDAY!? NOBODY TOLD ME THESE THINGS!!!!

Can there be an episode about creating magic loot? I have a hard time making things that are balanced between overpowered and useless.

This intro will forever be my favourite. Pure art!

Just me, I thought of a magic item. "The Deck Of Minor Things" A magical item that will always be identified as a "Deck of many things" But every card inside only has a minor effect rather than the extreme ones in the deck of many things.

Made a custom Deck of Many Things. I removed all the "Insta-kill" cards and put in a bunch of other ones of my own design and found some online. One for example, Mutation, makes you grow strange and bizarre physical features based on a D12 die roll. These range from glowing eyes, to feline claws, to lizard skin, to molten skin, to a frog's tongue. I thought it would be super cool. Another is the Empress, where the nearest royal or lord of the opposite sex falls madly in love with you. This can be great! Unless you break their heart, in which case they become spiteful and jealous and will stop at nothing to kill your future lovers and have you all to themselves. They're gonna find the Deck in the Feywild in an ancient treasure trove. Here's to hoping it goes well.

So he is at 249k subs. Im a little late for the contest

LOL Even after 6 years I still come back to this video just for the opening sequence 🤣

“You shouldn’t want to play games with me, it wouldn’t be fun...” Yeah, I knew it. It would.

The first time my friends and I played 5th edition, de DM had us find this deck at the end of a dungeon. Our paladin drew the eight of swords and had her soul sucked from her body. We then engaged on a whole new path with the objective of rescuing her soul, which included performing some really dark ritual to opening a portal to the abyss, going insane in the abyss, some of us making pacts to bizarre entities, giving up part of our souls, fighting demons, and eventually succeeding in rescuing her. Pretty epic stuff.

Loving your video mate. I just turned 31 and had my 3rd game last week. Wish i stated years ago :(

Matt: "It's perfectly safe. I promise you, I'm not playing with a full deck."

So our DM decided to throw in a contained AOE described as looking like some kind of "wild magic" and of course we all stood around it, counted to three and thrust an arm into the effect... and then he pulled out a deck of cards. I (the druid) was trapped in a gem in another plane, the warlock gained the attention of a powerful being (Tiamat), the sorcerer would gain a level from defeating the next combat single handed (our boss fight) and the paladin... well the paladin was now an oath breaker (alignment switch). This was a huge disruption to our current quest but we fixed it all and it's something we all remember and laugh about from time to time - such a great way to teach your overconfident players that they are in fact, not, golden Gods.

Mars, the Bringer of War. Love the intro.

Have you heard of the Head of Vecna? =P

7:41 NO ONE CAN DEFLECT THE EMERALD SPLASH

I just let my players draw from a deck of many (some) things last session and it was awesome. This video inspired me and I think it was a really awesome memorable moment for my players!

Can you do more magic item reviews? This was great and Im super curious as to what your favorite magic items are.

"Forget the bad things" I was crushed in my own armor by my own god, thrown into the ocean, and nearly drowning. I lost my armor and had previously lost my weapon by breaking it on a Zombie's head. I'll never forget that. ADDITION: We were in the middle of a Zombie apocalypse as well, i didn't get a weapon besides a rusty dagger for the next three or four sessions.

My friend and I (mainly my friend) really loved the idea of the deck of many things. But we didn't particularly enjoy how you could accidentally ruin a campaign with it just because the chaotic neutral bard was bored and drew 5 cards at once. So he made one of my favorite homebrew items. The 5-Sided Coin. It is a large, golden coin with one side being the two thespian masks of comedy, and the other two masks of tragedy. When you get heads (comedy) it is one of the beneficial aspects of the chart we made (it has like 3 roll charts that go into the results). Landing on the comedy side results in a loud laugh that can be heard clearly by anyone within a mile. Landing on the tragedy lets out a "wah, wah, waaahhhh" in a comparable fashion. The coin is sentient but cannot speak or convey thoughts. It's chaotic neutral, and just wants to be used. It will find someone who it knows will use it to be used. If you don't flip it after enough time, it will "force" you to flip it. It'll fall through a hole in your pocket you didn't know was there. It'll fall out of your hand as you're handing it to someone else. You pull something out of your bag of holding and didn't realize the coin was sitting on top of said thing and you pull them both out. While a lot of the things can be incredibly dangerous, none of it is like the Vizier or Void, or Death. You could literally roll and summon 5 young/adult dragons half a mile away. It could start raining battleaxes for the next 10 minutes. You could flip it and everyone within a mile could have their genders swapped. If you all want, I could write out the charts for you all as a reply in this thread

5 years old and just as, if not more, helpful to this day. Thank you Mr. Colville

I imagine the 50,000 xp as being like the character Matrim Cauthon from "Wheel of Time" getting the life experience of generations of generals and warriors. He lost memories but became a tactical genius.

The idiot is fun, unless your playing a Mage then your screwed and now have about half as powerful

My first thought at ruin was : MY CABBAGES!!!

I have a great memory from when my DM gave us the Deck of Many Things. Being the compulsive type I started drawing many cards from the deck. I got the Fool, the Idiot, the Jester, Throne, Talons, Euryale, Vizier, Skull, Gem, Flames, and Key. Another party member got the Ruin card. Finally, the sweetest, newest, and most naive player drew a card and got Donjon…. I decided to risk it all, to try and bring them back. Low and behold, I drew the Fates card. I could have used it to undo any of my lesser (albeit still terrible) evil cards, but instead used it to bring back our Fairy Cleric.. she was terrified for the two minutes she thought her character she made was gone, and vowed never to draw any cards from the deck again. It was easily one of the most memorable moments from the campaign. And I want to be clear, we saw the DM shuffle the cards right in front of us, so there was no way he ordered the cards to let that scenario play out.

I'm planning on the Deck being a plot point in my upcoming game. One NPC is going to anonymously send it to his (NPC) enemy, just to cause chaos. And I'm going to say that the person that was sent the deck pulled Balance, becoming evil. And then that newly evil NPC is going to lie to the PCs that he drew Rogue, leading them to doubt all of their other allies. Too many layers? Probably. But I like the idea of taking campaign destroyers and writing them into the world as if they were a part of it. I also have a halfing child character that died and was reincarnated as a dragonborn adult. Now he's Tom Hanks from Big, but also a dragon.

"Lum the I-just-get-these-headaches" is my new favourite character name.

I'm starting my first DM session soon and had no clue what to do until i started watching your videos! I really appreciate these! I don't feel so incapable now. Thank you for your help and i look forward to the next videos!

love this episode, i'm about to DM an AD&D 1e campaign with my family and their first adventure is going to start out at a festival where there's a fortune teller. i thought she could have a "mock" deck of many things where maybe the results are the same (or played down a bit), except the effect of the drawn card happens at a later date. so maybe one day they have to play a game of chess with death, or a demon will eventually begin to follow them, or eventually they will acquire a castle! in my opinion it helps justify the sometimes insane effect of the cards without immediately fucking the game up

THis is a fantastic series, thank you for sharing your love for the game. I am running a game for my daughter and her friends and this has been a huge help

A madman talking about his condition: "I just have this headaches..." LOL

I’ve just binged this series to date. Thank you very much, Matthew. I’m creating my own campaign (for the first time) and everything you’ve said has been a question or reservation I’ve had. Nailing it!

So just started watching this, and so far I love it, you are by far the best teacher I've watched on tips and tricks and what not. Love the examples you give and all. I know there's so many more but thank you for posting all this

I love how much effort you put into your videos :)

Not even a year later and you have 10x the number of subscribers. Congrats!

Hey wanted to say thank you for putting these videos together. I started DMing for my group of friends a few months back and this is definitely helping me feel more comfortable with doing it after each video ive seen so far

Getting back into D&D after years, but now I'm behind the screen. Your videos have been super helpful! Thanks for the great recommendations.

I love the idea of drawing death. It sounds like a good challenge.

Getting back into D&D after a 10 year hiatus. started in 1978-79 and I love you keep tying in the history of the game.

I've pretty much binged these first 10 videos. Matt these are really well done. I love seeing people passionate about something, and you can tell you are really passionate about it. I've never played D&D but I wanted to. After listening to you, now i REALLY want to play. No one in my "game night" group has played D&D and there are only 3 of us. Trying to figure out those details, and these have been super helpful.

Wow, I know I’m late to the party on these videos but this is some of the best content on the whole of RU-vid imo and it goes beyond just D&D. I’m only just starting out as a player, not even as a DM, and these videos not only are hugely helpful but also provide real insight into how interactions between people irl occur. I’m blown away with how relevant these are to the real world and as someone who is very outgoing and loves to understand what makes people tick; this is just a great video series to watch and listen to your opinions and ideas. Oh and of course this is really going to enhance my playing experience as a newbie. I’ve subscribed without hesitation!

On giving out or being stingy with magic items: Being stingy makes for a very different game experience, and it's one that I've enjoyed at times. In a lot of my early games, playing basic and ad&d, we were lucky if we had weapons that were actually capable of hurting what we were fighting, and so we had to run away a lot and come up with crazy solutions to everything, and I enjoyed it. HOWEVER... I feel magic items are... not just D&D's biggest strength, but an integral part of the game's soul. See there's games that deliver better on being mythical heroes, and games that deliver better on gritty crime drama, on transcendence narratives, on grittiness, or whatever. What D&D does better than any of them is fulfill the treasure hunter fantasy: Kill monsters, raid tombs, get STUFF. It's a very immediately gratifying fantasy, and of course, it's rewarding you for playing the game well, so you feel good about that too. But there's something more to it too. In most tabletop games, you have close to 100% control over the mechanical growth of your character; where stats go, where skills go, etc etc. In D&D (though I can't speak to 4th or 5th edition), you have all these different equipment slots, and a lot of what you do revolves around getting magic items and deciding who gets the magic items and fighting over the magic items, and bequeathing them to other PCs when you die and so on. But you don't pick your options for magic items; they're things you find in the game. And so this growing panoply of cool things that defines your character's sheet as much, if not more than, the stats you deliberately choose, becomes a very organic way for the world to drive your character's development and make her what she is. So when someone asks you why you can do all these different things, or why you have a certain bonus, or why your character looks a certain way, it's not just because you picked that out of a book, there's a story to it that you actually played through. And I've never seen a game that achieves this as well as D&D does.

Thank you for all your tips. I love watching your videos.

Good idea, good series, and surprisingly good delivery. Kudos. Subbed.

I played when I was a teenager. Now I am the DM running my boys through the box set adventure. It’s been a blast getting them into it, and I appreciate your videos helping me help them.

step 1: find the deck step 2: dont draw a card, instead take ALL cards and search for a mage to sort out all the good cards step 3: draw from the good deck yourself step 4: take the bad deck with you step 5: find the ultimate bad guy step 6: get him to draw from the bad deck step 7: ??? step 8: profit :D

Did you just a cappella Mars? And I thought this channel couldn't get better...

As a dm I've been watching you and using you as an amazing resource for a long time! Thanks for how awesome you and other commenters have you been!

Thank you! As a player who is learning how to write adventures and run them, your videos are super informational!

The 4e module printed a deck of many things with magic the gathering card backings so you could shuffle any of your magic cards in. p.s. I appreciate how fast and directly you talk.

I know the first time I pull from the deck in a campaign, I am going to lose my character. However, I will absolutely pull that card as fast as I can.

Best opening to any video

I'm so sad that I only just discovered this channel a few days ago! I'm currently binging the series. Let me go back two years and be part of the original building community!! For real though, I'm about to DM for the first time and this has been the best resource I've found anywhere. Thank you, Matthew!!

I'm happy I went back to watch through the backlog of Videos I haven't seen yet to come across this one, it was rather entertaining! Thanks MATT!

I got the D&D 5e starter set I wanna dm someday and your vids are very helpful 👍

Thank you for releasing all this amazing DND content, i have always been very standoffish about possibly being able to run a dnd session but with all this great advice and help you are presenting i have more hope for running a future session and possibly helping more people in the future be able to get into this amazing Hobby

I wish I'd found your channel sooner, that D20 is amazing. Also your content. Also your voice. I'm surprised one of your coworkers hasn't roped you into voicing a character.

opening with Gustov Holst mars: bringer of war acapella was amazing

You must have hit 50 thousand by now! You are awesome!!! I'm frantic to play after one of your videos... thank you for all your incredible insights!

Love your videos. I'm getting ready to start up dungeons and dragons campaign and it will be my first time as a dm. I'm finding your videos extremely helpful in preparing so please keep up the awesome work

Am I too late for the contest? Oh well, you're videos are awesome all by themselves! You gave me lots of ideas to make the games really personal and interesting :)

I would love more magical item videos, and removing some of the cards is exactly what I did in my game.

Hey Matt, just wanted to let you know I love these videos. You remind me a lot of my first DM, and it's really ispiring me in the campaign I'm building. Also, you've got my dream job!!!

My friend turned me into these videos once I told him I was going to learn how to both be a DM and write my own campaign to play. Aside from the fact that I'm fairly certain you're a Nerdfighter, which is pretty cool on its own, but your videos so far have been so enlightening. I've already taken 6 front and back pages of notes. I'm very optimistic about my game

The like was solely for the intro. (I’m kidding but i love the intro 🤣🤣)

LMAO! I want a full version of that music! :-D

hey, I'm a new player from Belgium. i recently played with 3 different DM's and know i want to try it my self. so i bought de dungeon master guide and monster manual (players handbook and guildmasters guide to ravnica i already owned). when i'm not reading the book i was looking on youtube for tips for a secret door and i came across your channel. you learned me a lot in the few episodes that i seen so far. way to late for the D20 meteor-stone. :p but i want to thank you for your channel (sorry for my englisch.) Melvin

God, I love this guy, he gives a wonderful easy-to-go kind uncle vibe really cool

that thing about remebering good things more. it's actually the opposite

I prefer to use a Carnival Fortune Telling Machine (like Zoltan) instead of a simple Deck of Many Things. It makes it more spooky for players and removes some ambiguity from the rules. I like to RP Zoltan too :p

Hey I’m a new DM who started playing because of quarantine. DND turned into an amazing way for me and my players to connect, and actually become way closer than we ever had been in addition to meeting and playing with new people. I’d never even played before, and neither had any of my player (except one), and your videos have been a lifesaver. You’re my favorite tabletop rpg channel, thank you so much!!!

I love these videos so much. I'm running my first campaign this weekend and these have helped me so much. Wish me luck ^_^

I think that seeing the DM stacking the deck of many things would cause players to *never touch it ever again* rather than go for it.