The Cover

[RPGPundit]

Yeah, its not particularly good as a Tarot, either.

[Sydius Mendoza]

Yeah, its not particularly good as a Tarot, either.

In what sense? Because it is a Marseille-style deck? I'm a complete novice with Tarot, so I would be interested to hear more of your thoughts on this. Do you usually prefer Rider-Waite, or Thoth decks?

I've been working on learning Tarot. My Wife is quite good with readings and gave me a set as a gift. The Tarot of Light and Shadow.

[fuseboy]

I dig the US cover.  I could take or leave all the cards floating around, but I love her expression of placidity, even sleepiness, in conjunction with the obviously weird surroundings.

[Panjumanju]

I'd like to point out that it's not the "US Cover" (as much as it is a game from the United States of America) as much as the "English Cover". This was the cover released to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other countries.

//Panjumnaju

[Maese Mateo]

Both version, english and french, look great.

That said, I think the french version is more classical fantasy in style, while the english version is more "weird shit happens on this game", which I think it's more appropiate for Amber (I haven't played the game nor read the novels, so I'm speaking based on what I know from reviews).

I love the cover from Lords of Gosamer and Shadow though. That is a cover that can drag you to buy a game.

I agree, that cover is gorgeous. I even have it as my desktop background at the moment.

[RPGPundit]

In what sense? Because it is a Marseille-style deck? I'm a complete novice with Tarot, so I would be interested to hear more of your thoughts on this. Do you usually prefer Rider-Waite, or Thoth decks?

I've been working on learning Tarot. My Wife is quite good with readings and gave me a set as a gift. The Tarot of Light and Shadow.

Just in the sense that most thematic-tarot decks are not particularly useful, they tend to demolish the actual symbolism of the cards.

Marseille decks are quite good, if you like old-fashioned. If you want something less medieval, then the Thoth deck is the way to go.

(Rider-Waites aren't awful, but they have some flaws; intentional flaws that Waite put in there because was sort of a dick)

RPGPundit

[jibbajibba]

I have the Aquarian Tarot I use for Amber sometimes. Its got a suitably 70's in tone and is basically a refresh of Rider-Waite without Pamela Smith's 2nd rate design skills.

For most Amber games I use my own Tarot deck desgined speficially for Amber and add the PCs as unsuited court cards. Its not a professional tarot deck by any stretch but it looks nice
For one of my early web games I build a tarot reader the players could use online using the deck for their characters was pretty cgood but now lost to the ether

Now I had the advantage of some reasonable photoshop skills and my cousin who added a lot of orignal art of PCs but generally I can take a character description and tract down some decent art from the 100,000 or so images I have stored on my PC

[RPGPundit]

From how I understand the Trumps, they're not really like Tarot at all save in the most superficial sense. In my game, they never have minor arcana (pip cards, ie. "5 of Wands" or that sort of thing) and it seems that one's Trump collection can grow or shrink as time goes by.  Trumps are less a "deck" and more a "collection".

Or rather, less like a Tarot Deck and more like a Magic: The Gathering Deck.

RPGPundit

[Sydius Mendoza]

From how I understand the Trumps, they're not really like Tarot at all save in the most superficial sense. In my game, they never have minor arcana (pip cards, ie. "5 of Wands" or that sort of thing) and it seems that one's Trump collection can grow or shrink as time goes by.  Trumps are less a "deck" and more a "collection".

Or rather, less like a Tarot Deck and more like a Magic: The Gathering Deck.

RPGPundit

I definitely agree. My curiosity was less of a gaming thing and more of an interest in the subject for it's own sake. Although I will say that the things I learn as I go along give me good ideas for ADRPG.

[jibbajibba]

From how I understand the Trumps, they're not really like Tarot at all save in the most superficial sense. In my game, they never have minor arcana (pip cards, ie. "5 of Wands" or that sort of thing) and it seems that one's Trump collection can grow or shrink as time goes by.  Trumps are less a "deck" and more a "collection".

Or rather, less like a Tarot Deck and more like a Magic: The Gathering Deck.

RPGPundit

I designed an entire deck because a couple of times Corwin used a deck to throw a reading its also a great plot tool the player throws a reading I them use that to foreshadow events in the game.

The cards I replaced were the Court cards who are the PCs. In my first efforts I actually tied PCs to suits which is an interesting exercise.
I don't know if Eric did it deliberately but
Cups = Psyche
Swords = Warfare
Staves = Stamina
Coins = Strength

Fits reasonably well with Tarot imagery.

Gerard = Prince of Coins - steady, reliable a little dull
Corwin = Prince of Staves - energetic, driven, never gives up
Benedict = Prince of Swords - masterful, intelligent but prone to anger
Brand = Prince of Cups - dreamer, secretive, calm

I am sure there are dozens of essays on this topic out on the web.

[Sydius Mendoza]

I designed an entire deck because a couple of times Corwin used a deck to throw a reading its also a great plot tool the player throws a reading I them use that to foreshadow events in the game.

The cards I replaced were the Court cards who are the PCs. In my first efforts I actually tied PCs to suits which is an interesting exercise.
I don't know if Eric did it deliberately but
Cups = Psyche
Swords = Warfare
Staves = Stamina
Coins = Strength

Fits reasonably well with Tarot imagery.

Gerard = Prince of Coins - steady, reliable a little dull
Corwin = Prince of Staves - energetic, driven, never gives up
Benedict = Prince of Swords - masterful, intelligent but prone to anger
Brand = Prince of Cups - dreamer, secretive, calm

I am sure there are dozens of essays on this topic out on the web.

The little one-off mentions of Corwin casting the cards is what really got me thinking about using Tarot for inspiration. I like your idea of having the option for a character to cast the cards. I had toyed with the idea of using the cards in game. Never able to come up with a way to do it that didn't feel like obvious dice substitutions, which just seems wrong in diceless. I love your solution! It gives the player choice, and you can either rationalize it as the player subconsious working on shadow in some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy as it were, or chalk it up to the "mystery of the trumps". Great stuff

[jibbajibba]

I just chucked a coupel of images on flickr hopefully I can post them here

[RPGPundit]

I just chucked a coupel of images on flickr hopefully I can post them here

Nice. Did I understand correctly, are these yours?

[jibbajibba]

Nice. Did I understand correctly, are these yours?

Yup.
For the major arcana I have crimped images of the web so some copyright issues probably.
The border and Pip cards I did myself (the basic cup is a free image from somewhere the pentacles and staves I just drew, the basic sword is an actual sword you can buy from some fantasy sword shop that I just photo-treated a bit). the Court Cards, for PCs, are artwork from my cousin I just dropped into frames, some of them a a bit sketchy these are two of the best.

A tarotician like yourself will probably object to the use of precise defintions on the pip cards but I was trying to make it usable by non-practionioners so meh

[jibbajibba]

Few more. as you can see I tried to keep standard Tarot imagery but took a few liberties like using a tree / Ygg for the World for in game reasons