In my opinion, at the beginning of the game it's hugely unbalancing, in the middle levels it's still pretty bad, and at the end it ruins what had been a (hopefully) good run. I wouldn't even like it as the basis of a campaign. I get attached to my characters. The longer I play them, the less I want to see them wrecked or anyone else in the group wrecked. I can see it in a one shot, I guess, if you had no investment what-so-ever in your character, but that's not how I play the game. The Deck Of Many Things is a flat waste of time and I don't think it should be used, not ever.
Diluting the deck can help too, but you have to beware of Murphy's Law. Even if only 1 card in 52 is the "your character dies and there is no chance of any sort of resurrection short of wish" card, an unlucky player can still draw it, and the fact that there were 51 other, non-lethal cards in the deck, will not matter. You should always expect the worst or best possible card to come up, and do not put something into the game that you would not want to come up. Because if it does, your campaign is still hosed.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I think Lyxen makes a good point about present-day players having different expectations of "agency" compared to players in 1e/2e days. Many players today expect to have a lot more control over their characters (up to and including deciding from level 1 which DMG magic items belong "in their build" and then expecting the DM to one way or another, at the appropriate level range, provide said items, as part of their "agency" in "controlling" their character) than we did back during AD&D days.
We have seen discussions like this break out on this very forum. A player not long ago came here complaining that his DM "had no right" to disallow the cleric and paladin in his party to recover spell slots when she viewed them as having gone against the precepts of their gods. The reason was simply, "it says I can do this on my character sheet, this is MY character, and the DM has no right to monkey around with what it says on my sheet." In AD&D times, I don't think many people would have made that argument -- it was readily accepted that clerics and paladins would only get back their spells on the condition that they were continually and actively pleasing their deity, regardless of what it "says on their character sheet."
If your players feel this way, and expect iron-clad control over their own characters (it's "their piece" of the game world), then the DoMT will not go over well. The DoMT can randomly and permanently take away control over a character sheet, or even permanently take away the character sheet itself. These cards would be viewed, by many modern RPG players, as "taking away their agency" -- their players' right to control their characters, as it were. Now, some of us old-schoolers would say, "Well, the decision to draw the card, or not, was where your agency factored in. If you didn't want to have a chance of drawing the insta-die card, you could have left the deck alone." But as Lyxen says, that is the old-school way of thinking, and modern gamers often do not feel that way.
This is why many of us say that the DoMT can "break" campaigns. Not only will it completely side-track the party from whatever story may have been going on at the time, but it will also do things to the PCs that modern players will not like it to do. The odds are extremely good that a RAW-based DoMT will lead to frustrated players and a decision within a session or two of starting to make draws from it, that you should just abandon the campaign and start over (or else retcon the whole thing).
Buzzard has the only solution -- homebrew a DoMT with only non-game-breaking cards in it. Either take the most atrocious ones out (which is more than half the deck) or just custom-make your own deck that has minor or temporary effects rather than massive, permanent ones.
The one problem I have with the Homebrew deck of "mostly good stuff", is that it becomes a Monty Haul situation for the players. Take as many cards as you like, the more the better. We have had this convo before. If these kind of boons are added at the end of a campaign, fine, no problem. But these boons (assuming they are permanent), with low or mid level chars in a long term campaign can wreak havoc on the balance of a group, and now the DM has to constantly adjust the difficulty levels, with potentially unbalanced chars.
Didn't say it should be mostly good stuff. The DoMT has lots of cards both good and bad that are campaign-breaking. You'd need to take them ALL out and replace them with minor effects.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Thank you all for the advice! I definitely think that I will make my own deck of things which will be based around portents of the future - things drawn will come to pass, at some point in the future. Not certain as to how best to make it work just yet... But the DoMT is out, that's for certain!
Didn't say it should be mostly good stuff. The DoMT has lots of cards both good and bad that are campaign-breaking. You'd need to take them ALL out and replace them with minor effects.
An awful lot of work for a DM. I suppose if all effects are temporary, and all the really ridiculously powerful ones are removed, and the DM REALLY wants to introduce said temp effects into game, sure. But then it is no longer the Deck of Many Things that we know and hate.
Right... the reason the RAW deck is not a draw-fest is that there are more awful than great cards. It's equivalent to saying, "Roll 1d4... On a 1 something great happens to your character, on a 2 nothing happens, on a 3 or 4 your character dies." How many players are going to take that chance?
The effects must scale with each other - no perma good effects without perma bad ones -- and they must be at least equal. It should be at least 50-50 that you will be sorry you drew, or else, as Lyxen says, it becomes a draw-fest.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Just be careful about the balance. Overall, although there are some good effects in there, there are mostly very abd effects and the balance is for me quite negative.
If you homebrew the cards, don't make the mistake of making bad cards effects temporary and keep the permanent positive effects, otherwise it will just turn into a draw-fest...
I intend to make the effects more related to the world around them than to the person who draws it. I will also be adding some significantly bad effects, but none so game-changing as the DoMT. More things to make them think "wow, better not draw another one" than "why would the DM put this in here? This sucks!". One of them for certain will involve the entire deck coming alive as origami birds and attacking the party as a swarm, which will mean that at least half the deck will be destroyed if they have to fight it off!
It would have been useful to know ahead of time that you intended to use a *modified* Deck Of Many Things. Most of my answers were predicated on the Original, unmodified, Deck Of Many Things. I talked a little about a modified deck and I sill think what I said is true, but I change my answer from "Never" to "Almost Never" in light of the new information.
Even if you have largely pulled the DoMT's fangs, random suckage still sucks, and random benefits still benefit some characters more than others, requiring you to take steps to balance things.
It would have been useful to know ahead of time that you intended to use a *modified* Deck Of Many Things. Most of my answers were predicated on the Original, unmodified, Deck Of Many Things. I talked a little about a modified deck and I sill think what I said is true, but I change my answer from "Never" to "Almost Never" in light of the new information.
Even if you have largely pulled the DoMT's fangs, random suckage still sucks, and random benefits still benefit some characters more than others, requiring you to take steps to balance things.
I had originally intended to run a standard DoMT, so your answers were still valid! They (along with all the others) persuaded me to not use the DoMT if I wanted to keep my campaign running smoothly!
Just be careful about the balance. Overall, although there are some good effects in there, there are mostly very abd effects and the balance is for me quite negative.
If you homebrew the cards, don't make the mistake of making bad cards effects temporary and keep the permanent positive effects, otherwise it will just turn into a draw-fest...
I intend to make the effects more related to the world around them than to the person who draws it. I will also be adding some significantly bad effects, but none so game-changing as the DoMT. More things to make them think "wow, better not draw another one" than "why would the DM put this in here? This sucks!". One of them for certain will involve the entire deck coming alive as origami birds and attacking the party as a swarm, which will mean that at least half the deck will be destroyed if they have to fight it off!
One idea is to make smaller changes. There was the 1e module castle amber that, iirc, had a feast in it. Before each course, players stated if they were going to eat it or not. Then it would be something like make a saving throw. If you succeed, you get like a 3hp increase, permanently, and if you failed, a 3 hp decrease, also permanently. Each course had different possible results, but none were big. Nothing that would break the game in either direction, just enough that you say, pretty cool, or oh, darn.
I like the idea of a deck that affects the world rather than the characters... hm. I might have to steal that...
That's part of what I was getting at when joking about the Deck as a literal "game changer." The Deck should be used at a point when the characters actually have an impact/influence on the world, so whatever effects are generated by the Deck would in turn have a world impact (power vacuums reversal of fortunes blowback on allies and enemies etc). Yes the prohibition against the Deck is there because it can wreck or derail the game and work put by the table into the world. Ironically, the only time the Deck should be used is when the the characters and world are developed so that the Deck's impact will be, well, impactful. There's got to be something for it to break.
A lot of my GMing, and to some extend my DMing, is informed by a lot of formal schooling in experimental arts, particularly fiction. Art and fiction resolved by random chance is a thing, John Cage and some of the more radical efforts by William S. Burroughs are probably the most readily identifiable ones, maybe some of Samuel Delaneys really out there stuff. Collaborative efforts to resolve the random chance is often a key part or exercise found in workshops in those circles. The Deck sorta become a in game magical item but out of game meta device. Games get jaded and conventional, the Deck is an opportunity to break it up. It's like the game's midlife crisis where everyone including the DM can engage in high stakes risk taking and then the game gets to figure out the consequences. And despite that midlife crisis reference, I'd still say the use of the Deck can be healthy for the game. Sometimes a crisis helps rework relationships, getting past that jaded discontent that sometimes happens as 'the book' is followed.
Yes, not for everyone, but it's an option. That defense of the utility of the Deck of Many aside, again to Thoruck, I don't think your game has reached the point where the Deck would make your game more interesting or add value to the players experience. If you want to play with random chance, I'd negotiate some use of the Tarokka deck. You could even put it on the players to follow or resists their fates (arguable RL benefit of fortune telling games is perspective, but that's a big digression) or if you're game is more open take note of their readings and use them to create a game that resonates with what they drew.
I'll leave the caveat that this is coming from someone whose main DM work is based off word cloud generated by an interest inventory of my players. I guess I just like playing with mechanisms to negotiate creativity, probably why I like gaming.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It's also good not to have the fortune telling content "worked out." Just keep the reading in your back pocket and when something befalls the character that resonates with the reading, "Didn't the fortune teller say something about this?" works. "I told you so" is the Fortune Tellers' long game.
Twilight 2000 had a good NPC personality/motivation generation system based on a standard playing card deck, it's google-able.
I'm going to give it to my players after they finish the final boss of STK and then are tasked with taking town the other rebellious giant lords and possibly an ancient red dragon and a kraken.
Basically the module would be finished and they're just exploring the content that was optional branching paths scaled up for their level.
One of my greatest campaign ends ever involved a deck of many things, the players where level 14, had just completed the major thread they had been following from level 1 and dealt with the majority of personal stories the when it became clear they wanted to play through to level 20 I decided a deck of many things would become part of the bbeg spoils.
What followed was a fantastic campaign end, the characters where made very aware of the power of the deck in game, they decided to protect it rather then hand it over, after some small quests with me figuring out where to go they drew the first card. I had written down ideas for every card and where it might lead. The party started with flames. But it made for a brilliant finale to the campaign and meant I really had to just go with the flow shaping the story around the deck, having people try to get it off them, others try to destroy it, a king who wanted his court jester to draw from it.
I will say your characters need to be high level, your players need to be experienced enough to roleplay it well, it is not a deck you draw every session and you need to be able to think on your feet and really accept that your campaign ideas are going to either go out the window, or you meld them into the effects of the deck.
I have played in 2 campaigns where the deck was introduced too early, or where the DM was not able to manage the effects of it, both of these where prior to my campaign and really shaped how I ran my own. I would say level 3-4 is far too low, the party can in no way deal with the really negative effects unless you really simplify what they have to do. But, you could give them a fake deck. Make them think it is a deck if many things, have myth and rumour surround this great deck, and then have very minor things, or nothing happen.
Having the party have a fake deck, they are convinced is the deck of many things, and then having them have to keep it safe from people who also think it is can be a great low level story.
late to the thread by a almost a year, but all these people are hating on what is a really fun thing.
the trick with the deck is to not give it to your party. that’s the rookie mistake. have it owned by someone crazy powerful and/or the party loves and would never harm and offer draws as rewards/punishment at points to spice things up. you may start as early as level 4-5 if you want.
Who holds the deck is irrelevant. The problem is with drawing the cards. The problem is someone drawing donjon and losing their character. The person who drew it is imprisoned, not the person who holds it. Or a character getting a permanent nerf. Or one party member jumping up 2-5 levels above everyone else. Or having access to potentially multiple castings of wish at low levels.
For the right group, maybe it can be fun. Just everyone has to be ready for a quite likely a huge campaign derailment.
late to the thread by a almost a year, but all these people are hating on what is a really fun thing.
the trick with the deck is to not give it to your party. that’s the rookie mistake. have it owned by someone crazy powerful and/or the party loves and would never harm and offer draws as rewards/punishment at points to spice things up. you may start as early as level 4-5 if you want.
It doesn't matter whether the deck is given to the PCs or is held by an NPC who either encourages or compels the PCs to draw (really, at a simple functional level that non-rookie way you're showing is still giving the players the deck). The Deck of Many Things can be fun for DMs and Players willing to give up their entire table agency to a few card draws. Many tables would find the opportunity, as Xalthu describes it "campaign derailment." You need players who are willing to lose a lot of work put into the character, including possibly having to roll up a new character, not because of a fight or traditional mechanical challenge, but a card draw.
It's basically game mechanics Russian roulette. Yes, the game is played with chance mechanics via dice, but those mechanics still offer a level of consistency that rewards strategy and calculated risk ... and the deck is an outlier in its random game disrupting chaos. There's novelty to it, sure, but to claim the "rookies' or "haters" are getting it wrong seems not so much a better understanding of the deck but not really grasping the problems posed to games with a lot of work and ownership put into them.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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Yup. I said "never". I hold to that.
In my opinion, at the beginning of the game it's hugely unbalancing, in the middle levels it's still pretty bad, and at the end it ruins what had been a (hopefully) good run. I wouldn't even like it as the basis of a campaign. I get attached to my characters. The longer I play them, the less I want to see them wrecked or anyone else in the group wrecked. I can see it in a one shot, I guess, if you had no investment what-so-ever in your character, but that's not how I play the game. The Deck Of Many Things is a flat waste of time and I don't think it should be used, not ever.
<Insert clever signature here>
Diluting the deck can help too, but you have to beware of Murphy's Law. Even if only 1 card in 52 is the "your character dies and there is no chance of any sort of resurrection short of wish" card, an unlucky player can still draw it, and the fact that there were 51 other, non-lethal cards in the deck, will not matter. You should always expect the worst or best possible card to come up, and do not put something into the game that you would not want to come up. Because if it does, your campaign is still hosed.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The one problem I have with the Homebrew deck of "mostly good stuff", is that it becomes a Monty Haul situation for the players. Take as many cards as you like, the more the better. We have had this convo before. If these kind of boons are added at the end of a campaign, fine, no problem. But these boons (assuming they are permanent), with low or mid level chars in a long term campaign can wreak havoc on the balance of a group, and now the DM has to constantly adjust the difficulty levels, with potentially unbalanced chars.
Didn't say it should be mostly good stuff. The DoMT has lots of cards both good and bad that are campaign-breaking. You'd need to take them ALL out and replace them with minor effects.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Thank you all for the advice! I definitely think that I will make my own deck of things which will be based around portents of the future - things drawn will come to pass, at some point in the future. Not certain as to how best to make it work just yet... But the DoMT is out, that's for certain!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
An awful lot of work for a DM. I suppose if all effects are temporary, and all the really ridiculously powerful ones are removed, and the DM REALLY wants to introduce said temp effects into game, sure. But then it is no longer the Deck of Many Things that we know and hate.
Right... the reason the RAW deck is not a draw-fest is that there are more awful than great cards. It's equivalent to saying, "Roll 1d4... On a 1 something great happens to your character, on a 2 nothing happens, on a 3 or 4 your character dies." How many players are going to take that chance?
The effects must scale with each other - no perma good effects without perma bad ones -- and they must be at least equal. It should be at least 50-50 that you will be sorry you drew, or else, as Lyxen says, it becomes a draw-fest.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I intend to make the effects more related to the world around them than to the person who draws it. I will also be adding some significantly bad effects, but none so game-changing as the DoMT. More things to make them think "wow, better not draw another one" than "why would the DM put this in here? This sucks!". One of them for certain will involve the entire deck coming alive as origami birds and attacking the party as a swarm, which will mean that at least half the deck will be destroyed if they have to fight it off!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
It would have been useful to know ahead of time that you intended to use a *modified* Deck Of Many Things. Most of my answers were predicated on the Original, unmodified, Deck Of Many Things. I talked a little about a modified deck and I sill think what I said is true, but I change my answer from "Never" to "Almost Never" in light of the new information.
Even if you have largely pulled the DoMT's fangs, random suckage still sucks, and random benefits still benefit some characters more than others, requiring you to take steps to balance things.
<Insert clever signature here>
I like the idea of a deck that affects the world rather than the characters... hm. I might have to steal that...
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I will probably make a thread on it then, and see how many interesting ideas surface for it!
I had originally intended to run a standard DoMT, so your answers were still valid! They (along with all the others) persuaded me to not use the DoMT if I wanted to keep my campaign running smoothly!
Feel free to collaborate on it with me, I will be making a thread for it momentarily!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
One idea is to make smaller changes. There was the 1e module castle amber that, iirc, had a feast in it. Before each course, players stated if they were going to eat it or not. Then it would be something like make a saving throw. If you succeed, you get like a 3hp increase, permanently, and if you failed, a 3 hp decrease, also permanently. Each course had different possible results, but none were big. Nothing that would break the game in either direction, just enough that you say, pretty cool, or oh, darn.
1st level, 20th level, or never.
Period.
A Deck of Many Things is utterly game-breaking. It should either be in a fun one-shot, or be the premise of the entire campaign.
Otherwise, AVOID IT!!!
That's part of what I was getting at when joking about the Deck as a literal "game changer." The Deck should be used at a point when the characters actually have an impact/influence on the world, so whatever effects are generated by the Deck would in turn have a world impact (power vacuums reversal of fortunes blowback on allies and enemies etc). Yes the prohibition against the Deck is there because it can wreck or derail the game and work put by the table into the world. Ironically, the only time the Deck should be used is when the the characters and world are developed so that the Deck's impact will be, well, impactful. There's got to be something for it to break.
A lot of my GMing, and to some extend my DMing, is informed by a lot of formal schooling in experimental arts, particularly fiction. Art and fiction resolved by random chance is a thing, John Cage and some of the more radical efforts by William S. Burroughs are probably the most readily identifiable ones, maybe some of Samuel Delaneys really out there stuff. Collaborative efforts to resolve the random chance is often a key part or exercise found in workshops in those circles. The Deck sorta become a in game magical item but out of game meta device. Games get jaded and conventional, the Deck is an opportunity to break it up. It's like the game's midlife crisis where everyone including the DM can engage in high stakes risk taking and then the game gets to figure out the consequences. And despite that midlife crisis reference, I'd still say the use of the Deck can be healthy for the game. Sometimes a crisis helps rework relationships, getting past that jaded discontent that sometimes happens as 'the book' is followed.
Yes, not for everyone, but it's an option. That defense of the utility of the Deck of Many aside, again to Thoruck, I don't think your game has reached the point where the Deck would make your game more interesting or add value to the players experience. If you want to play with random chance, I'd negotiate some use of the Tarokka deck. You could even put it on the players to follow or resists their fates (arguable RL benefit of fortune telling games is perspective, but that's a big digression) or if you're game is more open take note of their readings and use them to create a game that resonates with what they drew.
I'll leave the caveat that this is coming from someone whose main DM work is based off word cloud generated by an interest inventory of my players. I guess I just like playing with mechanisms to negotiate creativity, probably why I like gaming.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It's also good not to have the fortune telling content "worked out." Just keep the reading in your back pocket and when something befalls the character that resonates with the reading, "Didn't the fortune teller say something about this?" works. "I told you so" is the Fortune Tellers' long game.
Twilight 2000 had a good NPC personality/motivation generation system based on a standard playing card deck, it's google-able.
http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2011/03/cool-things-from-old-games-twilight.html
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I'm going to give it to my players after they finish the final boss of STK and then are tasked with taking town the other rebellious giant lords and possibly an ancient red dragon and a kraken.
Basically the module would be finished and they're just exploring the content that was optional branching paths scaled up for their level.
One of my greatest campaign ends ever involved a deck of many things, the players where level 14, had just completed the major thread they had been following from level 1 and dealt with the majority of personal stories the when it became clear they wanted to play through to level 20 I decided a deck of many things would become part of the bbeg spoils.
What followed was a fantastic campaign end, the characters where made very aware of the power of the deck in game, they decided to protect it rather then hand it over, after some small quests with me figuring out where to go they drew the first card. I had written down ideas for every card and where it might lead. The party started with flames. But it made for a brilliant finale to the campaign and meant I really had to just go with the flow shaping the story around the deck, having people try to get it off them, others try to destroy it, a king who wanted his court jester to draw from it.
I will say your characters need to be high level, your players need to be experienced enough to roleplay it well, it is not a deck you draw every session and you need to be able to think on your feet and really accept that your campaign ideas are going to either go out the window, or you meld them into the effects of the deck.
I have played in 2 campaigns where the deck was introduced too early, or where the DM was not able to manage the effects of it, both of these where prior to my campaign and really shaped how I ran my own. I would say level 3-4 is far too low, the party can in no way deal with the really negative effects unless you really simplify what they have to do. But, you could give them a fake deck. Make them think it is a deck if many things, have myth and rumour surround this great deck, and then have very minor things, or nothing happen.
Having the party have a fake deck, they are convinced is the deck of many things, and then having them have to keep it safe from people who also think it is can be a great low level story.
late to the thread by a almost a year, but all these people are hating on what is a really fun thing.
the trick with the deck is to not give it to your party. that’s the rookie mistake. have it owned by someone crazy powerful and/or the party loves and would never harm and offer draws as rewards/punishment at points to spice things up. you may start as early as level 4-5 if you want.
Who holds the deck is irrelevant. The problem is with drawing the cards. The problem is someone drawing donjon and losing their character. The person who drew it is imprisoned, not the person who holds it. Or a character getting a permanent nerf. Or one party member jumping up 2-5 levels above everyone else. Or having access to potentially multiple castings of wish at low levels.
For the right group, maybe it can be fun. Just everyone has to be ready for a quite likely a huge campaign derailment.
It doesn't matter whether the deck is given to the PCs or is held by an NPC who either encourages or compels the PCs to draw (really, at a simple functional level that non-rookie way you're showing is still giving the players the deck). The Deck of Many Things can be fun for DMs and Players willing to give up their entire table agency to a few card draws. Many tables would find the opportunity, as Xalthu describes it "campaign derailment." You need players who are willing to lose a lot of work put into the character, including possibly having to roll up a new character, not because of a fight or traditional mechanical challenge, but a card draw.
It's basically game mechanics Russian roulette. Yes, the game is played with chance mechanics via dice, but those mechanics still offer a level of consistency that rewards strategy and calculated risk ... and the deck is an outlier in its random game disrupting chaos. There's novelty to it, sure, but to claim the "rookies' or "haters" are getting it wrong seems not so much a better understanding of the deck but not really grasping the problems posed to games with a lot of work and ownership put into them.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.