Mythic and the Art of Tarot

I'm a huge fan of the Mythic RPG system - particularly the core GME engine (Game Master Emulator). It's main strength is the ability to truly surprise the player with the direction of the story through the use of random events and complex questions.

In the GME both random events and complex questions are generated with the use of word lists. However, on the rather excellent Mythic Yahoo Group many solo players are experimenting with other randomisers: Some just tables and some using "random page" facilities on Wikipedia and Brewer's dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Recently someone used the Bright Ideas Deck (which is essentially a Tarot deck).

Back in my misspent youth I was fascinated by Tarot and its apparent ability to speak to the situation/question that had been posed. It's only recently through reading things like Tricks of the Mind and Paranormality that I've come to understand that the human brain's evolved tendency to seek pattern even where there is none explains Tarot cards making "sense" of a situation/question as a by product of that mechanism. Also, thinking of my own experience of Mythic, I hardly ever invoke the "I dunno" rule, which means that I'm able to apply a pair of random words to an event or question and interpret them as an answer almost without fail.

It follows therefore, that as long as the randomised object is sufficiently information "rich" I should be able to use just about _any_ deck of cards (cards because I like them; I guess drawing random toys from my son's toy chest should work too, but it's far less portable). My choice of the deck of cards would then essentially lend a particular personality to whatever I'm randomising for.

My first thought is a solo game of Microscope with 3 players being run by the GME and a particular deck of cards. As it happens, I have virtually endless decks of cards in my games collection and elsewhere. Here are some I've considered:
- The randomiser deck from Dominion
- Space and Starwars Top Trumps
- The cards from Apples to Apples (You'd need to draw several at once)
- A standard Tarot deck
- 50 Things to Spot at an Airport (Osborne spotter's cards)
- A set of Ogham cards (or even celtic rune stones)
- A MTG white weeny deck from 1998
- Sherlock Holmes the card game Deck
- A Netrunner deck (either hacker or corporation)

Ones that might not work quite so well, because of the limited scope:
- Chance and Community Chest from Monopoly (Too prosaic and no images)
- The adventure cards from "Galaxy Trucker"
- SJGames Illuminati cards (although the Fnorder iPhone app might be interesting!)

The theory seems sound - let the experimentation begin!