These cards were written by industry nobodies Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein(dot)Hagen. I wonder what happened to those guys? Anyway, the basic deal was that you handed them out to the players and they used 'em to monkey with the plot of the game. Here are a few examples you can click to enlarge:
I remember using Whimsy Cards exactly once. Back in '92 or so I was a participant in a large multi-GM Champions game and I somehow convinced everyone to try using them for a session. As I recall it was a complete disaster. All the other GMs in the group took their plotlines way more seriously than I do. Being a site-oriented kind of DM, 'plot' in my games often boils down to the flimsy premise for this evening's dungeon crawl. A sudden alteration in the storyline is no big whup because I barely have a storyline to begin with.
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What a clever idea! I need to track these down.
ReplyDeleteI used them a lot when they first hit the stores.
ReplyDeleteMake your own
ReplyDeletehttp://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/systemdesign/cards/whimsycards.html
There's also a set of very similar cards available for Savage Worlds. They're not free though. ;)
ReplyDeleteI rember when they first hit we used them regularly. Then it got to the point where they were being used way too often. They were fun until they became disruptive.
ReplyDeleteBut they were a lot of fun to have around.
Didn't TORG use a similar mechanic? The Destiny Deck or some such.
ReplyDeleteThese are always good fun.
So this is where the Hackmaster reward cards originated from! As another DM that doesnt take his plot lines too horribly serious (due to a player that is a force of chaos incarnate - which simplified planning down to reacting to players actions) this is right up my alley. And thanks Rob Conley for the link!
ReplyDeleteThe Men in Black rpg had a vaguely similar idea. To encourage role-playing, players could be given a card with a bit of text on it, like a quote. If the player said the quote in play, he got a benefit to a skill.
ReplyDeleteFor example, a card might read,
"Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun." Your character gets +2 to Intimidate skill checks for the rest of the scene.
TORG did indeed use something similar. I find the idea of whimsy cards very intriguing, and wrote about them once myself.
ReplyDeleteI can see how it could become disruptive, if employed too frequently.
ReplyDeleteShoot. Now i've got ANOTHER category of card to add to my resource card project.
@#!%$&!
The Chaos Cards in Pokethulhu are another of several descendants of the Whimsy Cards, and like virtually everything else in Pokethulhu, they're a commentary on my experiences writing for LUG's Star Trek RPG (where I found myself thinking, on the mailing list, that some of these people would have it be that knowledge of Star Trek trivia should insure in-game advantages ... and the Chaos Cards do exactly that, except since the trivia is unknowable, you get to make it up).
ReplyDeleteThey were, secondarily, a kinda-sorta nod to my stint as a Torg line reviewer for White Wolf magazine, but to put it this way: I no longer own a single Torg title, but I still own my original Whimsy Cards ;)
We used two sets of the whimsy cards in a WoD campaign I ran about 10 years ago. We *loved* 'em--the players did some very clever things with them, and forced me to think up creative responses. I should print up some more to try with my current group.
ReplyDelete