Dragonlance Fifth Age and the Fate Deck: Count the Right Cards
Editorial date: ยท TSR Archive
The 1996 SAGA box lists 100 cards in two groups. Compare its books and conversion sheet with the separate 1998 Fate Deck and optional Companion.
The 1996 Dragonlance: Fifth Age box lists 100 cards, but its publisher description divides them into 82 Fate cards and 18 character cards. Calling the whole bundle a 100-card Fate deck loses a distinction needed for checking a copy. The separate 1998 Fate Deck is another package, with its own basic SAGA rules.
Count card roles as well as the total
The archive identifies the original dramatic adventure game as TSR 1148, by William W. Connors and Sue Weinlein Cook. Its SAGA rules use cards. Fifth Age is this game and story-era name. It is not a reference to the later fifth edition of D&D.
| Package | Recorded cards | Scope of the evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Fifth Age, 1148; 1996 | 100 total: 82 Fate cards and 18 character cards in the publisher description | The card groups are explicitly distinguished. |
| Fate Deck, 9565; 1998 | 100 cards in the format field | The brief says it contains the same Fate-card deck. It does not identify all 100 cards as Fate cards. |
Keep the later package's total separate from the earlier box's detailed breakdown. Shared Fate cards do not establish that every surrounding component or card category is identical. For an incomplete deck, a total alone cannot tell you which group needs replacement.
The larger box includes a separate conversion sheet
The Fifth Age inventory names a 128-page Book of the Fifth Age, a 96-page Dusk or Dawn setting book and the 48-page Heroes of a New Age adventure. It also includes an Ansalon poster and a folded cardstock Reference Sheet/AD&D Conversion Notes. That last title is an especially useful check for a box containing the books but few loose pieces.
The presence of conversion notes is evidence of an intended bridge, not proof that SAGA and AD&D use identical mechanics. Keep the sheet with the character material when preparing a conversion. The Dragonlance Adventures and Tales of the Lance comparison deals with AD&D setting resources. It does not replace this SAGA game's rules.
The 1998 Fate Deck offers a smaller rules entry point
TSR 9565 records a 16-page book and two cardstock accessory sheets beside its cards. The publisher brief explicitly says the Fifth Age game is not required to use the basic SAGA rules supplied here. It advertises a Dragonlance adventure and exclusive rule expansions. The larger box adds expanded rules and background, so the smaller entry point should not be described as the entire 1996 package in miniature.
The Fate Deck also includes instructions for Dragon Wars, a separate tabletop game for two to ten players using Fate cards. That player range belongs to Dragon Wars. It is not stated here as the recommended party size for every SAGA adventure.
For more SAGA options, the 1998 Fifth Age Companion, TSR 9566, advertises alternate rules, hero backgrounds and revised approaches to spellcasting, among other additions. The archive calls these optional. First identify whether you need basic play, fuller Dragonlance background or additional options, then check the appropriate package and its own loose-piece list.
Sources and scope
Product identification and reproduced publisher descriptions: fa/fa-box.htm; fa/fa-fate.htm; fa/fa-comp.htm. Cover images are preserved local archive files, linked to their source records above. No assertion all 100 cards in the later package have the same role or that AD&D statistics work unchanged. Preparation methods in this article are editorial recommendations, not a report of a new playtest.