A card for any game!

A little warning. I go a bit off the cuff here and do a little cussing

So the Shadowfell boxed set will be coming out in May and WotC posted a pic of the despair deck coming in the box and people started making comments on how D&D was turning into Magic with every release.

I get real tired of people saying this and you want to know what? They probably have not played Fourth Edition at all, especially when I read comments like

"4th edition is not a role-playing game... It's a board game with delusions of role-playing. Like the original D&D sprouted from the loins of miniatures gaming, it's almost as if it went full circle but somehow went too far. They should have just put it into a video game since it basically is one without the computer. Hack, slash, hack, slash, here's the plotline progression, hack, slash.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and tastes like a duck, there's a 99.8% chance it's a duck. 4th ed, is not a real role-playing oriented game first and foermost; you really have to work it hard, where the older editions if you had a table map for combat it was bonus. Been playing for almost 30 years now, and it's merely my opinion, so YMMV."

Sacrilege!! A card for D&D

I call Shenanigans! I too have been playing for 30 years and I have NOT changed the way I run my games outside of adapting it to the rules system. You are the player fucking Role-play! Do the rules make it so that you can not? In my last post I talked about starting my new campaign at the local store, wanna know what we did for the first hour? Role-played and not a damn die was rolled. How the fuck do you explain that? This person will not be able to because they are stuck in that notion that D&D is a board game.


Oh my god! It is a board game... I need paper, pencil, dice, maybe a map and some tokens and my imagination! Seriously I know a few people who have even run the game without map and mini/tokens and the game ran fine. Add cards though and people panic. First it is not the edition they like and second it adds something they hate, an element they view as coming from Magic the Gathering. So they go and make a stink about it. You are entitled to that opinion I just am sick of hearing about it. Seriously live with it all your bitching is not going to make it go away. Freedom of speech or no it will not go away until they make 5th edition for you to hate even more.

I made this comment about the whole card thing.

So the cards are a visual element to the rules. As a DM if I did not have them I would have to remember somehow that one of my players is suffering its effects, I could write that down and so could the player. In that time though to write it down I could just as easily throw that card at them and be done with it.

Saying that it is getting to be like Magic is crazy talk when you do not need these cards to play the game, in magic cards are required, DnD it is YOUR choice.

I will stand by that comment, if is your game run it how you like. If a DM ever told me I could not cut my power cards out (See: Creating a Character Deck) and use them as cards because this is D&D and not a card game I would politely object keep playing. I do not think any DM of 4e would ever tell me that but you never know with some people, it could happen.

Again it is your game and you do not need to use the despair deck in your game. you could write down all the effects and just tell the players what happens to them and maybe put it on an index card for them but wait a tick!!! If you have the card why not just give it to them so you do not need to keep track of yet one more thing? It is there just for that reason a visual aid and speeds up play while adding another element that can enhance the game, it is not required though.

Getting off my high horse now, sorry for the profanity laced through this post.