We all know that the person running an RPG game like D&D is called the Dungeon Master (DM) or Game Master (GM). But what are the other people at the table called?
The obvious answer is player. After all, the other people in the game each run a player character (PC), so surely they must be t...
I'm not actually a Charles Bronson fan, but a friend urged me to see Death Wish, and I liked it, so I watched a bunch of Bronson films. I'd seen him mostly in bit parts previously, and it turns out that he is a really good actor who has been in a lot of really good movies. Here is a list of all th...
This appears as a finely knitted scarf, six feet long, made from the best wool. It will radiate strong magic.
Wearing this scarf in cold weather provides complete protection from the elements, and even bestows a +4 Saving Throw against magical or extraordinary cold or ice attacks. Additionally,...
This appears as a fine quill pen, in excellent condition. It will radiate faint magic. Poison Pens were originally assassination tools, created during an age when poisoning one's enemies was considered more civilized than bloodshed. Many of them were produced at that time, but most are now lost. Wh...
For spellcasters. This will appear as a metal skull cap, usually too thin to act as a helmet (GM's option), but often worn by wizard types as a form of head protection. It will radiate magic. It will also display that it is cursed, should that be detected for.
When a spell-casting individual...
This will appear to be a beautiful but naturalistic quarter staff of full size. It will radiate magic. This is a +2 weapon, adding to both Hit and Damage to the staff's normal 1d6.
The first time this staff is used in actual combat, long cruel thorns will grow out of it, doing 1d3 +2 HP of dam...
I got a lot of great feedback about my previous article, How to Convert D&D monsters to 5e, so it's obviously time for the same article for Third Edition (or 3.5, realistically).
For the longest time, I never really bothered converting from 3.5 to 5e, because I found them to be relatively...
This appears as a horse saddle, made from the finest of leathers, and encrusted with gemstones. It will radiate magic. When investigated, it will be learned that it saddle allows a horse with rider to move twice as quickly as normal, and go five times as far before needing rest.
When first used...
For wizard types. This is a diabolical item, originally meant to render a long-forgotten (and much despised) traveling wizard helpless.
This appears as a bottle full of the finest black ink. It will radiate magic. Investigation will reveal it to be superbly suited to transcribing spells into sp...
If I had a gold piece for every time a game has been derailed because two players stop to discuss whether they're guilty of accidental "metagaming", I'd be a as wealthy as a brass dragon (not that brass dragons are any richer than any other dragon, necessarily, but they are my favourite dragon)....
The fifth movie is the Friday series suffers a little from its setting: a halfway house for mental patients. Obviously, it needed a remote location for the obligatory murders to take place, but I find that a home for people recovering from serious mental illnesses wasn't the correct choice. Not onl...
This appears as a large sundial, mounted on a carved marble block, sitting in the court yard of a ruined castle. It stands over six feet tall, with it's central blade at least a foot of that height. It will radiate strong magic, if tested. Though all the time markings for the day are in a long-forg...
Not so much a cursed item as it is a largely ineffectual one, this will appear as a case of Healing Potions for Cure Serious Wounds, with a total of six bottles. The bottles are extremely fragile, so the case is made of iron bound wood, and is heavy for its size (50 pounds). Anything less protect...
An apparently classic snake pit. You know the drill: something triggers a trap door, or the floor was illusory all along -- whatever it takes to get a player character down a pit filled with spikes and snakes.
Roll 1d6 for the number of spikes landed on and give out 1d4 damage per spike.
Pl...
D&D is often called the world's oldest RPG because, well, it literally is. With a history of over 40 years, if you're a player of D&D, you have decades of material at your disposal. Thanks to digital technology, the bulk of that history is available in electronic form, so you don't even have to r...