RPGaDay2024 Day 8 - An Accessory You Appreciate

I think I've seen a question like this before, but that's okay because I'm sure my answer has changed since then. To me, an accessory has the be something outside the core game (so not dice, pencils, etc.) and to be appreciated, it has to bring something to the table that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

Miniatures, and tabletop mapping tools are both less useful in my games, since 2020 when gaming largely went online, and even before that they weren't that useful, because my game groups are spread out to the point that we were using Roll20 even when 2/3 of us were local.

I really like the collapsible die trays, but those are most useful for metal dice, or other dice that would be particularly loud or damaging to roll...and I don't have either.

Similarly, I've always wanted one of the "new" portrait-orientation customizable GM screens--as they are great tools, especially for one-shot games that you aren't as familiar with. But with the rise of laptops and open rolling in games, I really don't need a GM screen to keep either the adventure or my rolls secret.

However, there is one accessory that I always find useful, and that is randomizing decks. I'm a fan of any decks that create a setting, event, personal or location traits or even "what's behind the story" elements, and I find that they fits my style of GMing really well.

An Unusual Situation

I have not used "random encounter" tables of any games for years--it never really worked for my game to have 2-6 werewolves appear on the road because some dice said so, and while the tables certainly got better and more focused over time, I had moved on.

However, I really enjoy setting up situations for the characters to deal with in whatever manner they choose. And for that, there are situation randomizing cards that really do the trick. In fact, when I created a one-off for my Toastmasters seasonal game, I used a randomizer deck to get me started on three unique  but relevant situations for the party to deal with.

For that, I used the Elements of Inspiration deck, by Nord Games which I had kickstarted, but which is now available for normal purchase. By selecting just the Forest Deck, and throwing out some cards, I came up with a unique graveyard, chapel and forest encounter that had elements I wouldn't have included on my own, but which worked really well.

There's also The Story Engine, which has more varied outcomes due to combinatorics. I purchased the full set of that at GenCon a year ago, and also find it to be useful when I'm trying to come up with something new.

Unique Factors

One of the elements that I like most about randomizer decks is that they put in details I would not have thought of. I'm very creative, but like many creative people, my products often have a similar vibe between each other. I first noticed that a Randomizer deck was useful in Invisible Sun. The characters would be in a story, and I would turn over one of the Sooth Cards, which changed the situation in the game, as well as giving me clues as to what factors might be influencing the situation.

Examples of this include the party looking for a mystical bridge, and due to the turn of a card, it turned out that the bridge had been magically bound so that it could not be used, moved or even found. The card not only informed me of the binding, but the prior card had given a hint as to who might be responsible. I'd have had it be a normal "seek and find" mission, but instead, there were new forces at play that neither the characters nor I had seen coming--and the outcome was more memorable for the change.

The characters were also looking for a friendly but reclusive bridge troll who had some unique and troublesome abilities. They were getting near to where he was, and I turned a new card, and suddenly, the troll had been killed very recently--and the story took on a whole new direction, as did my world building associated with one of the races in the Invisible Sun world.

In neither of these cases was I bound by the cards...but what the cards offered as opportunities fit very well with the narrative, and I went with them. That said, tools like this work especially well when you are running a sandbox game, where the outcomes aren't predefined, and the world responds to character actions and decisions. 

Somethings Things Happen

In my long-campaign D&D games, I do not use randomization tables. But in Numenera, I do make use of both the Creature Deck and the Cypher Deck. In a world where the trinkets the party finds could be hundreds of millions of years old, and have literally any function you can imagine, the idea of a randomizer deck works well.

You're a new party. You are walking along the known path--but in an area that fewer than a hundred people a year walk on. And suddenly you <flips card> find a sentient rock whose motivation for interacting with the party is a need to find others of its kind. Are there others? Does the party help? Do they run? Do they fight the rock, hoping to get some great loot? It's entirely up to them. And the rock may be a small boulder that's just asking for help...or the rock may be one of the sensing devices of a difficulty 9 nearby mountain--Numenera can be weird that way.

The same is true of Cyphers, which are one-use items that the party just finds along the way. They are encouraged to use them become more will be coming. My favorite "didn't see that coming" factor was when I tossed two cypher cards to one of the players, without really looking at them, during a one-shot. On the "final' day of travel, the party member opened a teleportation hatch on the ground beside their camp--and carried the other half with him. (That was one of the two cyphers.) When they fought the "boss" mob, a difficulty 7 robot, he dropped the other half of the transport cypher, then activated the second cypher I'd given him--which was effectively a level 10 bomb. He grabbed one of the other players, and dove through as the bomb went off, killing the boss mob, other players, and the artifact that they'd been sent to destroy. I looked at him, and gave him a slow clap and said "I did not see that coming."

One of the companies that creates randomizer decks has a tagline that "eventually you run out of story." and while that's a great selling point, it's not why I like them. Rather, I like them because they create a framework for taking stories in new directions, which I then provide to the players in my own style--making me a better and more creative GM and storyteller.