I just had a good session playing Stars Without Number, and of critical assistance was my deck of 'The Gamemasters Aprentice' cards. Helped me come up with a overall plot, caracters, names, and other details on the spot. It also helped take me out of my comfort zone, or focus me in better ways. I have a tendency to come up with overtly complicated names when I have to improvise, but this deck helped make it managable and make it sound pretty decent.

Whats nice is that all the randomizers are all in one place, so you don't need to consult charts. Just draw cards until you get inspiration.

Neat concept.

Sounds useful. Can you tell a little about how they work and how they differ from other random generation tools?

Quote from: Joey2k on January 26, 2022, 03:03:44 PM
Sounds useful. Can you tell a little about how they work and how they differ from other random generation tools?

Well Il give more details later, but the TLDR is speed of aid. When you need something randomly gen-ed right NOW, these cards save precious seconds, and can be done while multi-tasking with something else.

Most other tools need a die and a table, and that takes mental processing power (right page, right dice, find the odds, etc). These cards have all the stuff in one place. To figure out the guys smell, just draw another card. Need his vice? Another card. Elemental affinity? Draw another card.

It's later, more deets requested.

Because it sounds cool and Drive Thru takes friggin' weeks to print anything anyway.

I love the idea. If we ever get to play "live" again I'd love to use these. For online play, it should be easy to create a "everything generator" like this.

Quote from: Thornhammer on January 29, 2022, 10:43:10 PM
It's later, more deets requested.
Because it sounds cool and Drive Thru takes friggin' weeks to print anything anyway.

Oh right. There are different types of cards for different genres (the universal works allright, but there is sci-fi, fantasy and others).

Well each one is a card with a bunch of different stuff on it: a 1-10 on a bell curve (suggested use is for relative challenge to PCs), Likely Odds, Dice from d4-d100, Norse runes, elemental symbols, a verb a noun and a adjective, sensory snippets for all types, random tags, belongings, names, catalysts, locations, virtue/vices.

Sounds like a bunch of 'obvious' crap, but when chained together it really works.

Draw 5 cards for a good idea of an adventure thing. As an example Il do one now:

Catalyst: Innacurate Map
Location: Palace
Verb + noun + Adjective (I arrange them a bit to taste): Restore Fallen Lies.

So from there I have an idea about a map in a palaces library having misleading information about the location of some hidden tomb or whatever, and a local researcher has begun to figure out that the map is innacurate. But the tomb keepers try to silence him, kicking off the adventure somehow.

Who is the Researcher (Drawing more cards):
Belongings: Illegal weapons (like an assasins blade).
Name: Kadeem omerosa
Virtue Temperance, Vice Wrath
Element: Fire
Rune: Ingwaz: Control, Power without justice.

So now Its been mixed up. This isn't just SOME researcher. Hes hoping to use the tomb for nefarious ends. Possibly something in the tomb is dark magic and he wants it to take over the kingdom! Maybe he is a descendant of a deposed past monarch?

So this altogether took me bout 5-7 minutes (I type slow). Something about drawing cards instead of consulting tables just feels very kinesthetic.

I could see that being adaptable in some aspects to any spare CCG cards lying around.    But thanks for sharing! Sounds useful.

Quote from: Opaopajr on January 30, 2022, 08:52:13 PM
I could see that being adaptable in some aspects to any spare CCG cards lying around.

Or some charts and some dice. But these cards are designed around being useful. MTG has some cool scenarious, but their setting specific and come with baggage.

Thanks, man! DT site says 60 cards, double sided - that's a hell of a lot of utility. I ordered the base deck and the Deck of Tales, which is similar but has pictographs in the middle. Sorta like Story Dice I suppose.

Much as I do enjoy rolling dice, you're right - shuffling and dealing some cards has its own satisfaction.

Delivery time from DT is a month, but the price is not unreasonable. Seven bucks for a deck, plus another for a box.

I downloaded the pdfs of the horror and sci-fi deck. Upon review and taking a spin with some solo roleplaying they are a useful GM tool. I will get around to actual purchase when I get sick of thumbing through a pdf.

Quote from: the crypt keeper on February 06, 2022, 11:23:16 AM
I downloaded the pdfs of the horror and sci-fi deck. Upon review and taking a spin with some solo roleplaying they are a useful GM tool. I will get around to actual purchase when I get sick of thumbing through a pdf.

Glad they could be of assistance to somebody. You can also just get them printed and sliced at a print store if you just want some cheap cardboard and glossy cards. Thats what I did until I liked them enough to get glossy cards.

I'm glad someone else (or many someones?) found this useful. I've found the Oracle very useful when solo-rpg ing.