Mad Gaming Madness

This blog post refers to this post by Skerples of the Coins & Scrolls blog. Go read it, it's fantastic. Equipment A mining rig consists of a mining pick, a lantern, a rope (50', hemp), a sack (small), and a backpack. An Adventurer can purchase one at any affiliated kiosk near the Blockchain Mine at the price below; the added cost includes fees for AdventureGild ® certification of the durability and quality of the elements of the pack. A High-Quality ® mining rig consists of two pickaxes made of Mythryl ®, a lantern (bullseye), a rope (50', free-range organic hemp), a sack (large), and a backpack with a patch certifying it is a High-Quality ® item, making you the envy of other Adventurers. An Enchanted ® mining rig consists of the same gear as the High-Quality ® pack, but the pickaxes are enchanted with Nystul's magic aurum  ®; the sparkling gold sheen provided by the enchantment displays to all the magical nature of the pickaxes, which guarantees they will be use...

One of  areas which all role-playing games share (as opposed to, say, story games) is some amount of random chance affecting things. Some games have randomly-generated characteristics used to define a character. Even in games where characters aren't randomly-generated at all, dice are used in determining the results when a player attempts to overcome a challenge where the outcome (one way or the other) is not guaranteed. For many years in the early days of the RPG hobby, most games used random numbers for character generation. Since there was a dearth of material for any one game (even the big dog in the early days, TSR, didn't originally produce scenarios -- the first scenario produced for D&D was by a company called Wee Warriors), many hobbyists converted material back and forth. This is simple to do if you're handy with math, and trivial now, when there are websites where the computer will do the work for you . I was reading an article by Graeme Davis from Imagine #...

Today's items come from "Still More [Gods Forbid] Out-rages From the Mages," by John M. Maxstadt from Dragon  #144 (April 1989). In their original form the joke really only works if the items are found together. I think there's the germ of some interesting usability hiding in these jokes, and with a little work I think the following retain humor while being potentially useful in a few edge-cases in games.

 Another one from Mr. Maxstadt. I like the idea of giving some character to monsters, and this is a very flavorful cursed version of the rug of smothering . Rug of Mothering Would-be independent adventures prepare for thrilling heroics, only to end their peace of mind prematurely as the rug be-neath their feet animates and smothers them – emotionally.    A rug of mothering can be made in many different forms, from a finely woven carpet fit for a queen-mother to a coarse mat from a peasant matron's hovel. Creatures with the ability to sense magic detect the rug's false magical aura of transmutation magic.    In some cases, a rug of smothering is disguised as a carpet of flying or another beneficial magic item. However, a character who stands or sits on the rug, or who attempts to utter a word of command, quickly finds that it forms an emotional attachment to them. Once the rug has formed an attachment to a character it will always be found somewhere about their...

Two food-related items today. 

Today's monster comes from the Dragon #156 article, "(Not Necessarily the) Monstrous Compendium." Submitted by Sharon Jenkins, I think it's an interesting low-level celestial you can put into a module and not worry about it single-handedly taking on an encounter. I've had players convince unicorns to do their dirty work, and while it's a valid option for PCs, I don't mind having a noncombat alternative. The unicow is not nearly as potent as its more famous cousin, while still providing a healing respite for the party—but it's not going to tank the Big Bad on their behalf.

Back in the day of the dead-tree print edition of Dragon magazine, there were always two themed issues every year: every October issue was horror-themed and every April issue was humor-themed. They got a lot of pushback on the humor, so over time the joke articles died out, but I think there's a lot of gamable content in those, and most of them are only slightly more ridiculous than a game that already has a floating eyeball monster and fourteen different types of polearm. As far as I can tell, here's a list of the humor articles in Dragon , Dungeon , The Strategic Review , and Polyhedron . As I find others, I'll add them in. Year Mon Periodical # Article Author Pgs Notes 1975 Aut The Strategic Review V1 #3 Monster Reference Table Addition, Hostile & Benign Creatures Wesley D. Ives 3 Monsters: buydras , drolls , green granules , grifferees , hippygriffs , hobnoblins , umpyrs , we...

Another item from John M. Maxstadt's "Still More [Gods Forbid] Out-rages From the Mages,"  from Dragon  #144 (April 1989). This one is obviously just a gag in its original form. But nobody said it had to stay a pure joke item. For example, if you have purchased Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos , and wanted to introduce it to your PCs but were stymied for a way to do it organically, just drop a candle of convocation into your next game. A "gag" scenario, maybe, but I could see a number of ways it could play out, from the totally silly to the more serious, and now that the PCs have heard of Strixhaven, they'll probably be interested in going back... Candle of Convocation Wondrous item, very rare This slender, garishly-colored taper is linked to a learning institution on another plane of existence. The candle's linked learning institution cannot be detected. The DM chooses the school or determines it randomly.      Curse.  The candle's magic is activate...

 Today's entry once again comes from "(Not Necessarily) the Monstrous Compendium?" from Dragon #156 (April 1990). The pigeontoad was submitted by John Hamilton.