Creator Ginny Di and publisher Media Lab Books are releasing a third-party product for Dungeons & Dragons called The Game Master's Deck of Boons and Banes, and as my friend group's resident Dungeon Master I could not be more excited. Unlike The Deck of Many Things' instantaneous chaos, the Deck of Boons and Banes introduces narrative-driven blessings and curses that can have long-standing consequences and lead to compelling roleplaying moments. My absolute favorite aspect of the deck is how some of the cards can subvert the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons that haven't changed in years, even adding the potential for danger to traditionally safe activities (like sleeping!).
The Deck of Boons and Banes is both a deck of cards illustrated by artist Tim Foley and an accompanying booklet that details the stories and mechanical benefits/detriments that are tied to each card. There are 20 boons and 20 banes, for a 40-card deck that covers a wide variety of powerful abilities and imposing challenges. One card sees your character bonded with a helpful but mischievous faerie sprite, for example, while another brings your character's murderous shadow to life. "The elevator pitch is I want to make your games feel more epic," Di told me. "I want to make those highs feel higher and those lows feel lower."
She continued: "One of the reasons that we go through [the highs and lows] is the drama and the magnitude, not just of our experiences, but also of our effects on the world. And that's one of the things that has always drawn me to fantasy. When you hit high levels of play in games like D&D, you want that drama too. I personally think you want that drama the whole time, but particularly at those high levels. [But] I find that sometimes when you hit those high tiers, rewards and punishments both can become much more difficult for a Game Master to execute on that scale. There's only so many cool magic items that you can get before it starts to become less exciting to get a cool magic item."
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