Trying Out The Ultimate RPG Tarot Deck

And thoughts on how to encourage roleplay

Hello, friends! I had the chance this week to use and review The Ultimate RPG Tarot Deck by Jef Aldrich and Jon Taylor of the System Mastery podcast, and was honestly surprised by its versatility. My full review is at the link above, but I wanted to say here how much I appreciated the deck’s unique voice as a divination tool, as well as its excellent uses as a roleplaying supplement. I tested part of that latter out with Equinox, of course, basing the story I built on the plot hooks that came with the deck’s guide book instead of my own Tarot Tables. I really enjoyed the Scene the deck helped me build, starting in media res, then having three staggered levels of conflict before a victory celebration, followed swiftly by a shocking plot twist and cliffhanger. See if you can figure out more details from the picture of the cards I pulled below, before checking out my full review (with story details) at The Frumious Consortium.

Plot hooks are something I’m currently working to explain in Camp Elementa. Until now, I’ve resisted writing “How To Roleplay” segments for my books. Part of this is, I admit, due to a bit of snobbery birthed from my own reaction to reading similar sections in other people’s books. “I don’t need to be told how to roleplay,” I find myself thinking. “I just want to know your rules and setting!”

But the more I playtest Camp Elementa, the more I realize that I can’t do that here. Sure, I can expect people who pick up Equinox to have some familiarity with RPGs or Tarot or both. After all, both RPGs and Tarot involve storytelling, imagination and flexibility, and anyone who has an intuitive grasp of either doesn’t need much more explanation than that. Honey Hex is based on the Carta system, with plot hooks opening up with each revealed card. Camp Elementa, however, relies so much more on the players’ imaginations, with fewer explicit game book prompts. It’s probably the most traditional RPG I’ve written so far, which would be fine if I’d written it as a GM-based system. But since it’s meant to be playable either solo or cooperatively, with or without a GM, this means that it needs to be really clear about how players must work (together) to create good stories.

Plus, I always meant for Camp Elementa to be a really easy game for people new to role-playing to pick up and enjoy. Over the course of playtesting, I’ve found myself answering common sense questions from friends who are a lot newer to RPGs than I am, answers that I know I need to incorporate into the book. This has led me to think quite a bit about childhood games of the imagination, what made playing them great and what sometimes made them bad. I’m trying to distill all this into a coherent section in the upcoming book, while still keeping the final page count reasonable. Wish me luck!

Reading-wise, I enjoyed two really great historical mysteries this week. The first was based off of Regency romances, and features a pair of fraternal twin sisters, spinsters in their forties who are determined to right wrongs. Alison Goodman’s The Benevolent Society Of Ill-Mannered Ladies starts out pretty fluffy but gets really good really fast. It’s almost like a grown-up Enola Holmes series, only set in the further past and with fewer famous relatives.

I also really enjoyed Pornsak Pichetshote & Alexandre Tefengki’s The Good Asian, Vol 1: 1936. It’s a noir thriller set in a meticulously researched 1930s California and Hawai’i, starring Edison Hark, a deeply conflicted Chinese American police detective who comes to the mainland to find a missing woman for the rich white family who took him in after his mother’s death. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of Edison — and I don’t think I was supposed to be, tbh — I adored Lucy Fan and hope she features in the next book in this extremely smart, extremely well-executed series.

Alright, I’ve got a lot of writing still to do! My eyes are getting stronger with each day, tho the poor air quality in my area due to the Canadian wildfires is not helping my asthmatic lungs any. Oh, well, more excuses to stay indoors and work, I suppose. See you in seven!

Currently Playing (Music): Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Symphony #1 in D Major; RAYE’s My 21st Century Blues; Carly Rae Jepsen’s Kiss.

Currently Playing (Games): The Light In The Mist puzzletale, Ephemera by Messana, Equinox.

Currently Reading/Writing (Games): Camp Elementa by me!

Currently Reading or Just Read (Books): Witch Upon A Star by Angela M Sanders; The Benevolent Society Of Ill-Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman; The Good Asian, Vol 1: 1936 by Pornsak Pichetshote & Alexandre Tefengki; Murder Off The Books by Tamara Berry; The Diva Delivers On A Promise by Krista Davis.