SESSION™ Apps

Comparison

Oblique Strategies vs Session Cards™.

We make Session Cards™. That is the bias, stated first. Every factual claim about Oblique Strategies on this page comes from the official Eno shop listing, read on August 3, 2026, and it is linked at the bottom.

Oblique Strategies is a deck of deliberately abstract provocations for any creative work; Session Cards™ is 144 session moves for making records. One is built to knock you out of the way you were thinking. The other is built to answer the question a stalled session is actually asking, which is what do I do next.

Which deck, by what you are stuck on

You are stuck in your own habits and want to be knocked sideways
Oblique Strategies. The shop describes it as over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, designed to encourage lateral thinking through unconventional prompts. See the listing.
You are painting, writing, filming or designing rather than making a record
Oblique Strategies. Its own description addresses artists, musicians, writers and creatives, and its abstraction is what lets it travel that far.
The session has stalled and there are people in the room waiting on you
Session Cards™. Each card is a move, not a riddle, so it costs you a few seconds instead of a detour into interpreting it. See the deck.
You want something written from inside modern record sessions
Session Cards™. 144 moves across 11 categories, pulled from sessions with deadlines rather than from creative theory in general.

A provocation and a move are different tools

A provocation works by refusing to be practical. You read it, it does not fit, and the not fitting is the point, because the effort of making it fit moves you off the line you were stuck on.

The Eno shop's own description shows the range: it gives an example as direct as “Use an old idea” and one as abstract as “Consider different fading systems”. Both are invitations to interpret, which is exactly what a deck for all creative work has to be.

A move works the opposite way. It names something to do, in a session, right now, and it assumes you know how to do it.

Neither is better in the abstract. They fail differently, and knowing how each one fails is how you pick one.

How each one fails

A provocation fails when the clock is running. With an artist in the room and two hours left, an ambiguous prompt can become one more thing to figure out, and figuring things out is the state you were trying to get out of.

A move holds when the clock is running. It does not ask to be interpreted, so the room can act on it while the energy is still in the song. That is the whole comparison, and the rest is detail.

Where Session Cards™ wins

  • It was written inside booked sessions. Not creative theory in general, but the moment the record exists, the room is paid for, and everybody has gone quiet.
  • A move, not a riddle. It names something to do and it can be run before anybody has finished reading it, so the room gets an action instead of an interpretation.
  • 144 moves, 11 categories. The arc of a record from the blank page to the final polish, with two categories written for the session that has already gone wrong.
  • It is built to be handled. Matte laminated stock with enough weight to survive a working room, in a rigid display box.
  • A Session™ Key license comes with it. The $39 Mac app that reads key and tempo, included with every deck, and shipping is free worldwide.

What a session move actually is

We are not going to print the deck on a web page, because a deck you can read for free is a deck nobody needs to buy. What we can describe is the shape of one.

A move names a specific decision that a stalled record is usually waiting on, in the language a producer would use out loud, and it is small enough to run before the room loses interest.

It does not ask you to interpret it, it does not ask you to like it, and it does not require the session to stop while you think about it. It gives the room something to do, which is almost always what breaks the stall.

Three of them go out free by email if you want to judge the rest from real ones rather than from our description of them.

The deck, plainly

Can you use both?

Yes, and plenty of people should. They are not competing for the same moment in the day.

Oblique Strategies is for the part of the process where the question is what kind of record this even is. Session Cards™ is for the part where the record exists, the session is booked, and it has stalled.

Frequently asked

What is the difference between Oblique Strategies and Session Cards™?

Oblique Strategies is a deck of abstract provocations for creative work of any kind. Session Cards™ is 144 session moves written for making records, and each card names something to do.

Is Session Cards™ a copy of Oblique Strategies?

No, and the format is where the resemblance stops. Cards in a box is a fifty-year-old idea that neither deck invented. What is on them, and what they ask of you, is the actual product.

Which one is better for writer's block?

If the block is that everything you make sounds like you, Oblique Strategies. If the block is a specific song that stopped moving, ours was built for exactly that.

How much do they cost?

Oblique Strategies is listed at £50.00 on the Eno shop. Session Cards™ is $199 with free worldwide shipping, shipping October 1.

Session Cards™, second pressing

144 session moves across 11 categories, pulled from the rooms behind platinum records. Edition 001 sold out at 500 decks.

$199 with free worldwide shipping. The deck ships October 1.

Pre-order the deck Get three free moves

Related pages

Best songwriting prompt decks Oblique Strategies alternatives How claims on this site get checked All the answers

Sources, read August 3, 2026

  1. enoshop.co.uk, Oblique Strategies: the price, the description, the authors, the 1975 origin, the 2001 fifth edition, and the quoted card examples.
  2. session-cards.com: 144 session moves, 11 categories, Edition 001 sold out at 500 decks, $199, free worldwide shipping, ships October 1.