Today I’m taking a digression into the land of roleplaying games (RPGs). You don’t necessarily have to be a fan; I think that the moral, which is that too much arbitrariness can be a Bad Thing, transcends game genre.

For a long time the D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide has given the rules for a powerful artifact, the Deck of Many Things. The way it works is this: if you want to draw from the deck, you have to commit to a certain number of draws; you draw that many cards, receive that many effects (depending on the cards you draw), and then the deck vanishes, to be found by some other hapless fool.

The cards are about half good and half bad. One problem is that the bad effects, in general, outweigh the good ones. Consider this sample (translated from D&D terms into rough modern equivalents) and tell me whether you would roll on this table:

1. You win $250,000.
2. You gain the services of a bodyguard, who will serve you (for free) for your life.
3. A demon appears and starts attacking you. If anyone tries to help you, another demon appears and attacks them.
4. One of your best friends develops hatred toward you, keeping it secret until the time is right for the most devastating betrayal.

The benefits just don’t stack up to the risks. The benefits are nice, but the bad cards are devastating; any one could easily spell your death. One relatively harmless one “just” takes away all of your property and possessions, which is especially harmful for a D&D character, who tend to live and die by their stuff.

But there’s more. In most RPGs, the Game Master (GM) tries to have an idea of where the story is going. S/he takes into account the players’ interests and the characters’ abilities, and creates appropriate challenges. But with the Deck of Many Things, the GM has no idea what’s going to happen. The party might suddenly have an unexpected, powerful magic weapon, or might suddenly find itself lacking a key party member and suddenly more interested in rescuing that person than on whatever else might have been planned for that session.

Thus, there are plenty of funny and humorously tragic stories that involve the Deck. GMs are seduced by the sheer variety of nifty effects; players and characters are seduced by the opportunity for a quick gain. However, nobody starts an interesting story “Two sessions after we found the Deck…” because if someone starts drawing, it’s going to take over the game.

Next time I’ll tie this back into board games.