Campaign Concept: Fate Versus Fortune

What Are We Making?

It's been a long time since I've done one of these! I'm so glad to be out of school and back into the swing of writing these kinds of concepts. 

This idea is a bit of an odd one for a fantasy-based campaign, but it definitely works, and I also think it has a great aesthetic. While it can be a campaign on its own, some DMs may want to use it as a short quest or even a dungeon. It works either way!

Today, I want to talk about a campaign concept that centers around gambling, luck, and changing fate. This is the type of game that relies heavily on cunning, and perhaps even cheating to tip the scales in your favor. Everything about this leads up to the players confronting one of two creatures as their BBEG: a being of luck or chaos, or a being of death or fate. They'll do so by collecting cards of an unplayed poker hand.

The Setting & Background Info

In my mind, the general setting isn't super important. This kind of game can be played in nearly any setting, as long as your setting has a gambling card game attached to it that has players holding a multiple card hand. It could be something like poker or rummy, it could include a board component like cribbage, or it could be a completely different game that you make up yourself. I'd recommend that a hand of cards consists of anywhere between three to seven cards out of a standard 52-card deck. That makes planning what the cards look like much easier.

Additionally, your setting should have this lore component to it: someone cheated Fate or Death. I use capital letters for those because, in this setting, those ideas a represented by creatures, usually gods in a fantasy setting. The idea is that some mortal challenged one of these two creatures to a game of cards. If the mortal won, they were unable to die or they were outside of the influence of fate. If they lost, they gave up their immortal soul. When it came time to play their hands, the god went first, and it was clear they were going to win. Instead of playing their hand so the game could end, the mortal took their cards and escaped. Because of this, they've gained immense power; nobody has ever managed to cheat Death or Fate before. As the DM, you can choose what kind of power this is, but here are some thoughts to get you started:

- Celestial. In doing this, the mortal has become the literal god of fortune and gambling. It was probably another, more powerful god that granted the mortal this gift, perhaps even an evil one.

- Fiend. What the mortal has done is outside of the natural order of these divine beings. It would make sense that they'd become the exact opposite of a divinity for cheating them out of what they rightfully won.

- Undead. If you bet your immortal soul, and you haven't given it up just yet, can you still die? Or are you forced to hold on to it until your cards are played? In my opinion, the latter makes more sense and makes for a better story. This creature is nearly lich-like, without the restraint of a phylactery. Their cards are the closest thing they have.

Having all the cards in one place would be detrimental. All a group of intrepid adventurers would have to do is kill this mortal-turned-immortal and take the cards to go and play them (wherever they'd have to go to do that.) Instead, scatter them all over the world.

The Plot

This is where the real fun begins. For the sake of ease, I'm going to call our mortal-turned-immortal "Luck" when I refer to them. The general idea I had for the overarching plot is that the players travel from place to place, collecting these cards. The goal is to get them to the table where the game was originally played, and then play the cards on Luck's behalf. Why the players are involved with Luck is really up to the DM. Some potential plot hooks include:

- Players enduring a loss early in the campaign against Luck. For example, Luck is producing a series of bad luck on a town, and the players are unable to stop them. Knowing Luck plans to do this everywhere, they go looking for the cards.

- Players are selected for a secret mission from a cult, faith, or faction that reveres the god of Fate or Death. This group, whatever they may be, want to appease their god by killing Luck and they've hired the adventurers to do it.

- Each of the players (especially if they have tragic backstories) could have also discovered that Luck was involved in that / a tragedy in some way. Luck was altering fate even further in that way because that has become their new purpose.

Along their way, in their journey to find these cards, they encounter Luck or perhaps other creatures that work for them who may be guarding the cards. Maybe other mortals have the cards because they bring good fortune, and they know that they're magical so they keep them. Those types of people would also have a very good reason not to let go of their cards.

Then there comes this point: who's the villain of this story, truly? As easy as it is to say that Luck is, the DM can also decide that Luck has done nothing wrong. In fact, it can be argued that Luck should be rewarded for their cleverness and allowed to live. The DM can also decide that Luck is not inherently evil, based on the kind of creature they'd become. Not all undead or celestials are necessarily evil. If you want Luck to be the evil one here, then making them a fiend or other inherently evil creature would probably be your best bet.

Perhaps the true villain of the story is the other half: Death or Fate. A being of death is a bit harder to do though, because if a party manages to kill Death... then what happens? Can things continue to die? Fate might be an easier opponent for Luck and the party in that case. If you kill Fate, all that means is that people's fates are now in their own hands. That makes for a very empowering story. Maybe as the players collect cards and talk to Luck, they realize that they're not doing anything wrong. They're just giving others the power to choose. Instead of playing the hand, they help Luck cheat Fate a second time.

Either way, it makes for an interesting choice at the end of the game, and it comes down to a line I'll steal from the Pixar film Brave: if you had the chance to change your fate, would you? Is changing fate, the natural law of what should happen in the universe, actually a good thing?