Decuma: the R&D for your RPG

2023 Gold ENnie Award for Best Aid/Accessory - Non-Digital

Decuma is “the R&D for your RPG”: a tarot-inspired card game that helps the GM and their players collaboratively create all the important details for their campaign, including key locations, character connections, and setting conflicts. Plus, Decuma can be paired with any tabletop RPG setting or system, including D&D, Savage Worlds, Powered by the Apocalypse, Pathfinder, and more—so you never have to worry about compatibility. Decuma uses a unique set of question cards that give the whole experience a feeling of mystical interconnectedness—as if Destiny herself is guiding the campaign!

Decuma saves the GM a ton of prep time and can be easily customized to focus on (or exclude) specific aspects of campaign creation. You can use it to add depth to a pre-written adventure or to create a home-brewed world from scratch! Best of all: this big world-building tool fits into a little card box! There are no books to lug around!

WHAT DOES DECUMA DO?
Character Connections: The Sun Cards – Suits of Wands & Cups Players come to the table with basic character concepts, but by using Decuma they create backstory and connections with one another that enrich the story. It gives the players and the GM lots of story elements to work with so no more strangers meeting in a tavern!
Location Building: The Star Cards – Suits of Coins & Swords Decuma facilitates collaborative world building for any setting! Whether you need a fantasy village, a generation ship in space or a neighborhood in an urban city, this game can make it! By the end of your session you will have a map to reference during your campaign, NPCs the party can interact with, and cultural elements, such as slang terms or philosophical beliefs. Best of all, the players know the location as well as the GM so lots of explanation time is saved later!
Group Dynamics: The Moon Cards – The Major Arcana Your PCs shouldn’t just have history with each other! They have been interacting with the rest of the world too! Who are the party’s allies? What do they believe in? What big event made them famous or infamous? Building another layer on the location and character connections, they players also gets to build a collective history that will impact how they interact with the game world as a party!
Decuma can be easily customized to fit your needs just by including or excluding cards! Running a pre-written D&D adventure in Waterdeep? You already have a location! Leave out the star cards and just build character connections and world dynamics! Playing a PBTA game like Masks or Demigods that has built in character connection mechanics? Just play with the star and moon cards to build your location and your world dynamics!

SEE DECUMA IN ACTION!
Watch creator Kimi run Decuma to create a Sci-Fi world on the Happy Jacks RPG Network
Listen to Decuma used for Vampire 5th Edition (Decuma starts around 0:30:00) on The 12-sided Stories Podcast
Watch Decuma used for Shadowrun 5th Edition on the Happy Jacks RPG Network
Watch Decuma adapted to be used without character connections for Masks: PBTA (Masks already has a great character connection system built in!)
Watch Decuma used to create a Supernatural Depression-Era Carnival , Livestreamed from the Strategicon Convention
Listen to Decuma build both a gritty Wild West town and a TSA-style Space Port on The Critshow Podcast
Listen to Kimi run Decuma for the Redacted Files Podcast
Listen to Decuma build a monster-filled Wild West town on the She’s a Super Geek Podcast
Watch Decuma used to build a steampunk fantasy world and a corporate-owned Mars colony on Saving Throw Show!
Listen to Kimi talk through Decuma and give some examples of its abilities on the Fear the Boot podcast!
 

CREDITS
Created & Written by KIMI HUGHES

Tarot Art by SAMANTHA TERRY

Booklet Design & Layout by RAINFALL

Proofreader STEPHANIE MITCHELL

Kickstarter Team AABRIA IYENGAR, MAC BEAUVAIS

Special Thanks To HAPPY JACKS RPG COMMUNITY, FOUNDRY 58, STU VENABLE, JASON MILLS, TYLER KING, CHRISTOPHER GREY