Daniel (@dungeondive) opens Gnome Pack #1, a Jason Glover promo bundle from Grey Gnome Games that drops new cards into seven of his existing games and one tantalising standalone Oracle deck.
The big ticket is Iron Helm: twenty new cards introducing race/class character creation (eight ancestries — half folk, merfolk, half-orc, dwarf, gnome, human, crawling, wood elf — paired with eight classes via card-flip combinatorics, à la Tin Helm), plus tracking cards for every stat, plastic stat tokens, and a Star Sign deck of twelve double-sided astrological bonuses. Tin Helm gets new dungeon locations (Lost Tomb, Endless Pit, Crawlway), two new race/class cards (swine folk/Seer, construct/Brute), and two new trappings. DustRunner gets five new cards including a difficulty-up tracker and new modifications/encounters. Gate/Gates gets seven all-new cards including three wave-bosses and a new location. Desolate receives a danger deck. A Stone Fire dodo bird card slips into that game’s wilderness deck.
The Oracle deck — six double-sided cards — is the surprise: d6 roll, plot action, yes/no oracle, creature/item/place, plot character, descriptor, plus encounter icons and dungeon-piece prompts. Effectively a complete solo-RPG generator in a handful of cards. Daniel calls it a clever Trojan horse: bundling promos for games you don’t own makes you want them.
Which is the better promo design — fresh content for games you already love, or a Trojan horse that tempts you toward games you don’t yet own?