For "The Mists of Lamordia" I took a leaf or two out of the pages of "Curse of Strahd" and have used a tarokka reading a couple of times, making use of the prop cards I have had for quite some time.
The upshot is that this is a gimmick that is nice in theory, but just doesn't work add much, if anything, to this game.
The thing is, in addition to physical props not really being great for a remote environment, the readings have a fundamental problem that they add a meaningless random element to play - sure, some treasures, the ally, and the location of the enemy are randomly generated, but from the outside looking in they might as well not be. The paths not taken won't be visible anyway, so what's the point?
Where that random element would work much better is for an adventure that is going to be rerun several times, and indeed one that may be played multiple times by some or all of the same players. So it works better in "Curse of Strahd", where it's possible that players may end up playing through it several times with different groups. And it would work much better for something like "Lost Mine of Phandelver", that may well end up being run many times by the same DM.
But they work even better for short one-shot games, where the party gathers for one night, runs the partially-randomised scenario, and then moves on. I've found that having the reading hanging over the campaign for many sessions tends to cast something of a pall on proceedings - better to introduce it and resolve it very soon.
All of which is a shame, because I was so looking forward to finally getting some use out of those cards!
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