[ajardoor]

So I recently been lurking on the Something Awful forums and come across tales of the use of drama cards in a Dark Heresy game.

For those not in the know; http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Drama_Cards (WARNING: MAYBE NSFW!!)

Drama Cards are a series of cards to introduce drama into your 4e D&D campaign while simultaneously giving your players a small measure of say in what goes on. They are awarded at the DM's discretion, mostly for being a good player, and then played by the player at any time. While made specifically for a 4e campaign, some of the dramatic situations presented in the cards generalize fairly well.

Drama cards are a set of printable cards that you, as a DM, can introduce into your game as a reward for your players; give them out as a reward for your players providing you with a character history, story log, or if they go above and beyond with their in-game actions, do something amazing/funny in-game, or just outright bribe you.

This set of cards contains 180 different cards; some with mechanical effects, many with, appropriately enough, dramatic effects that may change the course of actions of an NPC, a monster, the environment or the story as a whole. The cards are sorted into different "values" - copper, silver, gold and platinum; generally reflecting how rarely you should award these cards. For example, in my campaign, I intend on printing them out in a ratio of 8:4:2:1, so that the copper cards show up a great deal more often. Whatever the case, I recommend you only use these cards if you're confident as a DM.

The cards are also sorted by type of action - Adventure, Assist, Attack, Combat, Defense, Movement, Recovery, Subplot and Meta; these categories are pretty self-explanatory, and their purposes for drama cards are deliberately vague; it's just another means to allow you to sort through cards you may or may not want your players to have access to, or perhaps only use in certain situations.

Using a card itself, in-game, takes no action, although there are cards that can only be used under special circumstances. There is no limit to how many cards a player may have, or how many a player may use at any given time; however, once again, this is just how I'm using them; you can limit a player to a set "hand" of cards, forcing them to discard a card if they want a new one, you may limit how many can be used at once, or when they can be used. Find the way they best suit your campaign, and use them as you see fit.

Continued next post....