The Deck of Many Things is one of the most interesting magic items in Dungeons & Dragons, but it's also one that will never appear in a large percentage of campaigns. As a deck of cards that contains some truly wild effects, the Deck of Many Things has the potential to sew the seeds of chaos in any story. That can be a lot of fun, and the risk of using the cards makes the rewards feel all the better, but it's not the right fit for every campaign or table.

In my own long-running D&D campaign, I've personally never taken the leap of tossing the Deck of Many Things into the party's path. I'm not particularly shy about giving them items with both benefits and drawbacks or upping the amount of random chance, but I've never been eager to use the Deck of Many Things in particular. D&D's 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide makes some tweaks to the item, however, and they might be the perfect way to get me on board without ruining what made it cool to begin with.

The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide Changes The Deck Of Many Things

Troublesome Cards Get Some Tweaks

The Deck of Many Things certainly isn't the only magic item to get some tweaks in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, but it does showcase some of the most interesting changes. As a resource that's intended to smooth over the issues with structure and information that made the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide struggle, the new book attempts to position itself as a more definitive magic item resource. In the case of the Deck of Many Things, that endeavor is ed by making individual tweaks to cards that could previously cause problems in campaigns.

I'm a fan of the changes, as my hesitance to use the Deck of Many Things in the past largely came down to specific gripes. The fact that the Fool and Sun cards could radically alter character XP, for example, wouldn't be something my players would enjoy. The campaign takes a fairly slow and steady approach to leveling, and although we make no efforts to equalize XP across every character, wild swings from drawing a card would fly in the face of the overall method.

Which Cards Have Changed In The Deck Of Many Things

Most Of The Deck Remains The Same

Unsurprisingly, the Fool and the Sun are two of the cards that have received overhauls with the new rules. While drawing the Fool from the deck previously cost a character 10,000 XP (or however much a character could lose without dropping a level), the new version inflicts disadvantage on D20 tests for the next 72 hours. The Sun switches from a 50,000 XP gift and a wondrous item to 10 HP daily at dawn until the character dies and a magic item.

The Comet card could also provide a level boost in the past, although it only triggered if the managed to "single-handedly defeat the next hostile monster or group of monsters" they ran across, adding a complicating layer that made it hard to trigger. The new version provides a clearer path to earning its benefits by defeating a foe, and the resulting reward is advantage on Death Saving Throws for a year. Lastly, the Balance card no longer changes a character's alignment, instead allowing them to rebalance ability scores.

The new effects largely preserve the intensity of the original versions while changing the intent. In a life or death scenario, the new version of the Fool could be even more devastating than the old one, but it doesn't directly undo progress in the same way.

The Deck Of Many Things Can Work For More Campaigns

Flexibility Is Almost Always A Good Thing

Although my hesitance to use the Deck of Many Things in the past had to do with the particulars of my campaign and group, it wasn't exactly an unusual scenario. For campaigns that commit exclusively to milestone leveling and do away with XP, the Fool and the Sun were even more unusable as written in 2014. Balance wasn't quite as rigid — even a group that plays without strict alignment could likely figure out an ethical reversal without much trouble — but it's the kind of top-down change to roleplay that would excite some players and make others miserable.

None of this made the deck strictly unusable in the past, as it's easy enough to toss out cards that don't fit the campaign or modify them to the needs of the table. Having a set of effects that's a bit more accessible to begin with makes the whole affair more appealing, however, and anyone who finds the older effects more fun is free to stick with them. It's still an object that DMs should deploy with care, especially when it comes to the Fool's new effect, but I think it's less likely to cause bafflement or division now.

I don't know when I might drop a Deck of Many Things into my campaign. At the moment, we're finally confronting the backstory of one of the party , so it might not be the time to throw a wrench into the works. If the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide has ensured anything, though, it's that I'm thinking about the Deck of Many Things more seriously now than ever before, and it may very well end up making an appearance in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign where it previously wasn't particularly welcome.