Dungeons & Dragons Fortune Cards, sold in booster packs of 8 cards, give players fun new ways to survive the challenges of the D&D Encounters in-store play program, as well as their home campaigns. These cards give characters fun, temporary benefits that feel different from the benefits gained from powers and feats, without adding undue complexity to the D&D game.
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Now, I don't have a dog in this fight, to use an old Southern saying. The current (4th) edition of D&D isn't my preferred edition of the game (for various reasons that aren't relevant here), and as a result I've never actually sat down and played it. Lots of people do enjoy it, and that's great, but it's not my thing. However, if I were playing (or running) a 4th edition D&D game, this would annoy me quite a bit. You are essentially paying for extra in-game bonuses, above and beyond what your character is already capable of. There person who doesn't want to buy these booster packs is put at a comparative disadvantage, and the more packs you buy, the better you can arrange your personal deck.
If the deck being sold was a single, non-collectible (i.e. no booster packs) collection of cards that everyone drew from, I wouldn't have a problem with it. That's how TORG handled their Drama Deck back in the day, and it worked quite well. It's the collectible aspect to it, that drives the player to buy more and more cards to get the 'perfect' deck, that irks me.
Of course, this is Wizards Of The Coast we're talking about here, whose original claim to fame was Magic: the Gathering. It doesn't surprise me that they're doing this... it just surprises me that it took this long for them to do so.
If the DM doesn't want this, they have to be firm and say 'no'. Of course, WOTC has tried to discourage such DM initiative in the past, by declaring all of their books to be 'core' books, and emphasizing the idea that anything they publish the players can use, whether or not it fits with the DM's campaign.
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