100 useless items - yay!

[Talon]

I Just wanted to say I absolutely LOVE the dungeoncraft/dungeon columns that were in some of the last dungeon mags, especially Richard Petts "100 useless items" and "100 even less useful items". I use them all the time and my players are alyways fascinated by those strange thingies they find. Our swashbuckler has been adventuring with the "do not open, contains wail of the banshee"-jar for some time now and is so excited about it he sometimes threatens to use it when others get on his nerves.

What is planned for the future? I could imagine a "100 not quite as useless items"-list, just for items one can find in dungeons but that are not quite as odd (some of the items are very hard to use, especially the giants stuff).

Or how about "100 personal pieces of jewelry"? A ring engraved in elven, an orcish diadem...

Or "100 minor illnesses" (which might affect the characters at times)?

Oh, and now comes one every DM needs so much. This is the one I've been looking for all my DM life, cause it would be really useful. Whenever the characters find a bookshelf in any dungeon: "100 book titles".

Maybe this thread could be used to collect even more ideas for this great column.

[Talon]

Sorry for the two threads, I thought it hadn't worked the first time. Could someone please delete the other thread with the same name???

[MaxSlasher26]

Thanks for the idea. I'm typing up a list of 100 book titles now. Hopefully that will turn out cool.

[Krypter]

Yes, those lists are a lot of fun for DMs. I just wish Paizo would collect all those Campaign Workbook articles into one book for easy reference; it's hard trying to track them all down during an adventure on the spur of the moment.

[Talon]

Nice, MaxSlasher, how about sharing? Or sending the list to Paizo, of course.

Krypter wrote:

it's hard trying to track them all down during an adventure on the spur of the moment.

That's why I photocopied them and put them in my DM-binder. I have found that that's a very useful solution.

[Richard Pett]

Cheers Talon, I had great fun writing them:) Hopefully there will be a few more 100's lists on the way soon in Dungeon - and I hope you'll like those to if they make it in:)

Rich

[Moik]

I fully intended to use many of the items presented. Knowing my players:

#02 will see bidding during the treasure split, and may still start a fight for ownership.
#17 will later be animated and appropriately glamered by them.
#23 will made into a crown by them, see bidding, and may start a fight for ownership.
#71 will inspire a nation, or at least a fiefdom.
#83 will be used as a mount.

[Rezdave]

Talon wrote:

I Just wanted to say I absolutely LOVE the dungeoncraft/dungeon columns that were in some of the last dungeon mags, especially Richard Petts "100 useless items" and "100 even less useful items".

I found these pages wasted and valueless ... or maybe just "useless".

What I have used innumerable times is the article Non-violent Magic Items - One hundred ways to keep players guessing from Dragon May '83. Basically it offers 100 "cantrip-level" items like magical versions of frying-pans, ice-cubes, rotary fans, automatic door openers, thermoses, self-lighting lamps and other day-to-day technologies whose crafting would be the bread and butter of non-adventuring, urban mages.

Players love stumbling upon these useful items in treasure troves, from the "anti-hangover pills" to the goblet that turns water into wine. Moreover, because they're not useless they are often retained and add personality to the PCs' gear (plus also make excellent low-level treasures).

Also pretty cool was Treasures rare and wondrous from December '83 which had all manner on non-magical "treasures" and descriptions of jeweled combs, heraldric belt-buckles, earrings, writing quill-boxes and other generally 1-100gp items that would honestly make up the bulk of any real treasure trove more so than piles of coins.

Take a look at any movie or historical account of plunder and you'll see that the "treasure chests" are filled with valuable items, not gems or coins. Day to day stuff with the kind of embellishments that the wealthy can afford and the evil can plunder.

Now if someone a bit younger who didn't read the original articles and isn't at risk for charges of plaigerism would like to take a stab at offering similar lists, that's something I'd like to see published.

I don't need more "useless" lists of what kind of dust or knick-knacks is on the shelves of a wizard's study.

Rez