Gamer Tarot

[Tadanori Oyama]

I was wandering the used book store tonight and caught the sight of some of the tarot books. They had variant tarot decks, including one with characters from some manga series.

Got me thinking about what the gamer parrallels, literally and based on word/imagery, would be to traditional tarot. I had some ideas, but I wanted to see what everybody else throws out.

For those who don't know Tarot is a card game which is more popularly known for its uses as a fortune telling device. The game is divided into Major and Minor Arcana.

The Minor Arcana is most the same desk of cards that most Americans (and other recent "western" cultures would be familiar with). There are four suits with cards from one (ace) to ten listed by numbers and with the equivalent of face cards (prince, queen, king, you get the idea). The suits are typically sword, staves, coins, and cups but wands, circles, bowls, and other similar things are pretty common. Each suit is linked with a Greek element (earth, wind, water, and fire).

There are also an additional 23 (or 22 or 24 or 30 depending on who you ask and which stories you read) Major Arcana, which are number from 0 to whatever is the top card (normally 22 or 23). Each major arcana depicts an individual (0 to 12) or concept/thing (13 to whatever). Examples would include The Magician, The Emperor, The Moon, The Judgement, The Fool, The Star, and Death.

So, what would you swap in for the Gamer Tarot?

Also feel free to make suggestions for individual games (D&D Tarot) or game systems (World of Darkness Tarot) or weird shit (Furniture Tarot).

If you need a full list of suits and Major Arcana than Wiki can provide:
Major: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_arcana
Minor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Arcana

[Tadanori Oyama]

Alright, I suppose I need to kick start this.

So, for different suits I was thinking:
*Dice
*Players
*Books
*and Pencils

For some of the major arcana we could:

Swap The GM for The Emperor which leads right into The GM's Girlfriend for The Empress.

Replace Death with Total Party Kill.

Replace The Fool with Roleplayer, or just Player.

Replace The Judgement with GM Fiat.

Replace Strength with Caffeine.

And replace the Hierophant with Rules Lawyer.

[Richard]

Actually, Tower should be Total Party Kill, in my opinion.


Death maybe as Random Encounter


Devil as a Munchkin.


The Lovers as Snugglebunny players.

[Boyos]

I like tables instead of players for the 2nd suit.

go with GM fury as the death card.

[Richard]

go with GM fury as the death card.

You think? I'm just thinking about what the Tarots actually symbolizes and trying to...you know, put a proper character/situation to it. Since Death is suppose to represent change, Random Encounter is all I could come up with.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I wasn't worrying as much about the symbolic representation of the cards as much as the imagry linked with them. A symbolic gamer deck would be quite strange.

That was why I linked TPK with Death rather than The Tower, which typically means destruction or misfortune. For the literal spread, I think Mountain Dew or some neutral name for a soda drink which gamers enjoy would be a good replacement for The Tower, seeing as it would be the tallest object on the table. The game Dread might make for a good replacement as well.

I like Tables as one of the suits. Dice, Tables, Books, and Pencils seems like a good base. And it would allow the Major Arcana to focus on player types and gaming events to complete the "picture" of a gaming group.


For Random Encounter I suggest #10, the Wheel of Fate (or Fortune, whichever).

Losing some of the theme linked to the name, I'd remove The Lovers and replace it with The Party, the characters of the players represented in other cards.

[Richard]

I wasn't worrying as much about the symbolic representation of the cards as much as the imagry linked with them. A symbolic gamer deck would be quite strange.

That was why I linked TPK with Death rather than The Tower, which typically means destruction or misfortune. For the literal spread, I think Mountain Dew or some neutral name for a soda drink which gamers enjoy would be a good replacement for The Tower, seeing as it would be the tallest object on the table. The game Dread might make for a good replacement as well.

I like Tables as one of the suits. Dice, Tables, Books, and Pencils seems like a good base. And it would allow the Major Arcana to focus on player types and gaming events to complete the "picture" of a gaming group.


For Random Encounter I suggest #10, the Wheel of Fate (or Fortune, whichever).

Losing some of the theme linked to the name, I'd remove The Lovers and replace it with The Party, the characters of the players represented in other cards.

Ah, right. Well, in that case, Mountain Dew would be appropriate. Not sure about 'Dread', as it's not as well known as Mountain Dew, for sure.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Quite so; I mention it only because the game basically focuses around a tower collapsing.

Alright, so what else does that leave...

We've got Sun, Star, World, Magician, Priestess, Hermit, Chariot, Justice, Temperence, and a bunch of others...

For Justice I think Natural 20 works. It's specific to a game type but broad enough that I think everybody gets the idea.

The Chariot would seem to be the gamer's normal method of transportation but I'm not sure what that would be. Certainly there are nerd cliches. Maybe something general and vague like "Parent's Borrowed Car".

Magician could be the gamer who cheats on die rolls, which I don't have a great name for at the moment.

The Hermit can be the introvert gamer, I think we've all met one or two of them.

The Sun could be the extroverted gamer, center of attention and all that.

[Boyos]

go with GM fury as the death card.

You think? I'm just thinking about what the Tarots actually symbolizes and trying to...you know, put a proper character/situation to it. Since Death is suppose to represent change, Random Encounter is all I could come up with.

GM fury is change IE, the rogue passes the trap by pure luck. GM, "oh kay now that you misshaped threw that a you now face a poler bear ready to kill you." players, "But were in a fucking volcano!"

[Tadanori Oyama]

There's too many character dying ones to make any one of them Death, so I suggest Fail to replace Death as the middle card.

We need new names for the minor arcana face cards too.

Normally it runs Page, Prince, Queen, King. Maybe types of gamer?

[Boyos]

noob, pro, L337, LARPer.