Daniel (@dungeondive) returns to the GameMaster’s Apprentice oracle decks with a question pinned at the top: do you actually need a deck for every genre? Off the back of a $80–90 DriveThruRPG haul covering post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk, weird horror, and science fiction, he walks each deck side-by-side with the basic and steampunk sets already covered on the channel.
Every card carries the same scaffolding — a 1-to-10 bell-curve difficulty, a yes/no/maybe oracle, a dice wheel (D4 through D100, perfect for travel), Norse-rune divination, elemental tags, three keywords, four sensory descriptors (hear/see/feel/smell), an icon spark cluster, and category fields for belongings, location, NPC names, virtues and vices. The pitch is functional: any solo player or lazy GM can flip a card and get unstuck.
The genre decks differ mainly in the headline icons and the location/event prompts. Post-apocalyptic and cyberpunk get bespoke event cards (“a major problem de-escalates,” “a beta tech presents side effects”) and genre-flavoured locations — Daniel calls cyberpunk’s corporate-name location list (Pyramid MLM LLC, Daiichi Crypto Tours, Hurl Energy Drinks) the standout feature of the entire set. Sci-fi and weird horror, frustratingly, recycle the basic deck’s icons and Norse runes — Daniel argues sci-fi especially deserved its own iconography. His honest verdict: get the basic plus one or two genre decks you’ll actually use, mix-and-match the rest.
Daniel’s recommendation lands on “basic + one genre” rather than the full set. If you use oracle decks in your solo play, do you carry one universal deck, or do you swap by genre — and which combination has earned its keep at the table?