Tarot and ttrpgs

What the cards say....

Mad Jay just confessed to using Tarot in his games sometimes, and I had to respond to that. (Disclaimer - I am in the Black Sword Hack game he’s writing about). What a great way to prep for a session! I’m currently taking a class in using Tarot in writing fiction, but let’s explore using some of these ideas in ttrpgs. You don’t have to be an expert in Tarot to have some fun, and while there are some fantastic games that use it as their primary mechanic (A Fool’s Journey, Village Witch, Querent, etc.), you can also try it out in the following ways:

• Using Major Arcana to make NPCs

• Using the imagery from a card to create a theme for a session

I’ll be referring to the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck for this. Just to clarify, a tarot deck is the traditional major and minor arcana, usually structured around a journey both within and without; while an oracle deck can have any number of cards, and doesn’t usually adhere to the traditional Major and Minor arcana. They are frequently used to clarify or expand upon Tarot readings. They may be a future subject.

Using Major Arcana to make NPCs

First separate out your Major from Minor arcana, then give them a good shuffle. You can go traditional poker style, or go the overhand route (video here for different methods) that some traditional adherents use. I use the jumping method to select my cards, but you can always just deal a top card as well.

The Devil (ha)

This is one of the most controversial cards, but I’m going to go with the explanation provided by the included booklet, as that’s easily accessible to everyone with the deck. The Devil here is the material world, ravaging, violence, force, extraordinary efforts, fatality, that which is predestined but not for this reason evil.

Since I’m making an NPC for my game Evergreen, I’m going to start with a woman, as most of the NPCs in the game are. I don’t want to get too cute with it, so I’ll name her Darcy, which means “dark one”. She’ll have long black hair and dark brown eyes, and her motivation will be violence. She’ll incite the PCs to solve everything using physical force, which normally does not end well for them. I could flesh her out more, but Evergreen is PBtA, which means this general sketch is more than enough to start with. On to our second card.

Death (ha ha)

The cards are not playing today. The booklet’s entry for Death gives us: end, mortality, destruction, corruption.

Our second NPC will be for Velvet Glove. Also PBtA, but this time we’re making a big bad, the main guy behind the recent uptick in criminal activity around the gang’s hideout that’s making life harder for them. His name is Athanasios, which means “one who cheats death”, but he goes by Athan. He wears a black leather jacket with the tarot card for death embroidered on the back. He’s very charming, and would rather see the girls folded into his gang with bribes and opportunities, but will end them rather than let them continue to operate independently. Athan is a very bad man, and at his heart, he cares about no one and nothing. His drive is corruption and destruction, and he’ll rule among the ashes just as long as he rules.

Using the imagery from a card to create a theme for a session

This is closer to what Jay did in his post. Shuffle your Major Arcana, then see which one leaps out for you.

The Magician

The booklet gives us: skill, diplomacy, address, sickness, pain, loss, disaster, self-confidence, and will. Looking at the card, we have a golden sky, riotous flowers, tools on a table, and the Magician himself, dressed in white and red robes, with an infinity symbol above his head.

For Evergreen, one of the decisions the MC has to make is choosing a Moon, like a Threat in Apocalypse World. In this case, I’m choosing the Poppy Moon, which deals with intoxication and overindulgence, to go with the above themes like sickness, pain, loss, disaster. Symbols from the Poppy Moon include: golden snakes, black rams, green and gold butterflies, and poppies (of course).

This version of the Dark Moon Campground has wild poppies growing in the underbrush of the forest with green and gold butterflies dancing above them, and the PCs arrive just as the sky turns gold with the sunset. Penelope, the cook, greets them. She has bright copper hair, an infinity symbol tattoo on her right forearm, and wears a red chef’s jacket over her white T-shirt. She is already set up to cook dinner in the outdoor kitchen, and offers sangria spiked with opium to the PCs as she cooks. Dinner will include lamb biryani, freshly made naan, and fried poppy blossoms. The PCs will be tempted to overindulge, and things will quickly get out of hand if they do. If they choose instead to exert their will and hold back, Poppy will reward them with dessert, a cheesecake with edible gold on top that resembles a sun, and elderflower tea. The next morning will either play out as painful for the PCs if they overindulge, or with more pleasant opportunities to do so coming from Penelope.

So what do you think? Is Tarot something that you might use to prep your games, or is there another method you use?

What I’m Playing:

We wrapped up the Black Sword Hack this week, and my kiddo won some rounds of Catan Junior while I was playing. My One Shot Monthly for February was postponed. My partner and I have been playing a lot of Baldur’s Gate 3 once kiddo is in bed. I need to start a play through of Thousand Year Old Vampire soon, and I’ve gotten some new stuff that I need to sort through.