Quote from: Toadmaster;1086676That was my initial reaction too, but seeing some of the suggestions from others I'm warming up to the idea of the cards for quick random encounters, or generating short notice games. I realized this last could be a great boon for those times where you are missing players at short notice. A couple of the PCs (those whose players showed up) encounter something while gathering firewood or hunting dinner. For some reason drawing some event / encounter / treasure cards strikes me as more appealing than rolling on random charts.

Where cards work better than random charts: As a card is used, you can permanently remove it from the deck so that it doesn't come up again. Also, new cards may be shuffled into an existing deck to expand on the number of choices available.

The included journals are for the GMs who want to track everything. Also, some of the cards have micro-tables printed on them, making the journals handy for tracking which results on an individual card have already been used.

Quote from: philreed;1086859Where cards work better than random charts: As a card is used, you can permanently remove it from the deck so that it doesn't come up again. Also, new cards may be shuffled into an existing deck to expand on the number of choices available.

The included journals are for the GMs who want to track everything. Also, some of the cards have micro-tables printed on them, making the journals handy for tracking which results on an individual card have already been used.

I also like that with the cards, unlike a table, presumably you have all of your stats right there on the card, so no need to look it up or copy info from the book. You really can generate something on the fly with very little prep time.

GM Prep time has long been a complaint with toolbox games like GURPS and HERO, so I think this is an interesting concept.

Quote from: philreed;1085943To be fair, we also offer Melee and Wizard as two boxed games (and Death Test in a box).

I'd like to thank you for doing 'The Fantasy Trip' kickstarter.  It's perhaps the biggest box full of goodies of any kickstarter I've signed up for.  And also for doing 'Dungeon Fantasy RPG'.
I had parts of these games back in 1980, and what's great is my rather older and jaded group is actually interested in playing it.  :-)
I think the player combat cards in this kickstarter would be very useful.

Quote from: DocJones;1087025I'd like to thank you for doing 'The Fantasy Trip' kickstarter.  It's perhaps the biggest box full of goodies of any kickstarter I've signed up for.  And also for doing 'Dungeon Fantasy RPG'.

Thank you! We put a lot of work into the game; backer support made it a much larger final package than it would have been without Kickstarter.

Folks following the Decks of Destiny kickstarter might be interested to see a related but hard-to-find bit of news (posted on the related Kickstarter for TFT's Adventures book):

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/warehouse23/the-fantasy-trip-adventures/posts/2504553

The neoprene battle mat pictured here will be the fourth such object in the game's product line. They are really cool play aids: surprisingly big, nicely made, very attractively illustrated by the inimitable Dyson Logos, and presenting a fun mix of terrain features room connections, etc. I find these hit a sweet spot between the simple Melee/Wizard duel in an empty arena and a full blown dungeon crawl - i.e., you can quickly set up and play through a quirky, interesting skirmish in a tactically juicy space. I'm pleasantly surprised that they are making so many of these things, but it is going to be pretty great to have all that diversity in pre-made play spaces.

With 20 days to go, the project has already unlocked over 20 stretch goals and keeps getting bigger and bigger. The next stretch goal adds more blank character cards to the set (as requested by backers).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/warehouse23/the-fantasy-trip-decks-of-destiny

So much for the gaming SJWs trying to screw with SJGames profits. If anything the reverse is happening and I'm so glad it did. Not many rpg kickstarters are that succesful with stretch goals.

The project closes on Monday and is close to unlocking three dozen stretch goals. There's a lot of stuff jammed into the campaign, including two new playmats by Dyson Logos, new dice, and a lot of cards for the players and GM.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/warehouse23/the-fantasy-trip-decks-of-destiny

If you are interested in this game I suggest jumping in now; this thing has swollen to a fully tricked out kit of things for use at the table. And I'll bet, like most specialty boxed sets, it will be hard to get at any price a year from now.

How do you use the playmats?
Here is the first one:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3449[/ATTACH]

I take it that not all dungeons have that same exact shape, right?

Quote from: Aglondir;1090189How do you use the playmats?
Here is the first one:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3449[/ATTACH]

I take it that not all dungeons have that same exact shape, right?

You use it for a dungeon that does have that shape. It can be modified with the megahexes as well.

Quote from: Aglondir;1090189How do you use the playmats?
Here is the first one:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3449[/ATTACH]

I take it that not all dungeons have that same exact shape, right?

I think the playmats are best suited to play sessions organized around a single encounter or a a 'one off'. TFT can be used as a traditional table top, campaign-focused roleplaying game, but a lot of its materials are created with the idea that you will play it in stand-alone scenarios that might be resolved in anywhere from a 10-20 minutes (a 'melee' or 'wizard' duel) to 1-2 hours (exploration of a randomly generated labyrinth or randomly stocked playmat; fight between 2 or more big teams). That is, the game has 'beer and pretzel' style play sessions as a core idea. I feel like this is where the playmats come into their own.

For example, the playmat illustrated in your post might be used for a 'hunger-games' like scenario where each of 6 combatants starts in their own small 'cell', some useful item is put in the pit (or pedestal depending on how you define it) in the center, and everyone fights to the last one standing. Add a case of beer and some records and that's a pretty fun evening.

The cards I'm not as excited about, the other things, yes. And now the metal die was added? I'm up to $178.

Quote from: bat;1090235The cards I'm not as excited about, the other things, yes. And now the metal die was added? I'm up to $178.

I ignored the cards in the LE boxed set for the first couple months, but have started to use them regularly. It's hard to predict exactly which of the new ones I'll use heavily, but I expect the MH tiles and monster cards will be in heavy rotation.

The labyrinth design hex tiles will get used regularly when I'm in 'GM' mode, writing things up before play. TFT is generally a pretty easy game to run, but creating MH-style maps is an unfamiliar and somewhat counter intuitive task. It pays off to commit to just doing it, odd as it might seem. But it isn't easy at first. A big selection of MH tiles and labyrinth 'assembly' tiles is super helpful. It saves you staring at a blank piece of paper, trying to visualize what your map should look like.

I expect I'll make use of the Rumors cards fairly regularly.

I'm of two minds about the 'adversaries'. Having pre-gen wizards is a life saver, as they are the only character type that is tricky to prepare on the fly. And the cards for adding talents to a hero base card is brilliant - I'll use those a lot in 'campaign' play mode. But the Orc set, while useful in itself, just reminds you that you need ~2 dozen cards per humanoid race for each of a dozen races (or perhaps a more human centered distribution with similar overall size). That's a lot of cards you don't have. I also feel like the distribution of cards should be more varied in point total, so it feels like they contain more overall diversity. Of course, that's what your blank cards are for, but the whole idea behind a commercial card deck is convenience.

I jumped in on the Director's Cut of the Enemy Within campaign, so I cannot say that self restraint is my strong point with rpgs.