OSR: The Treasure Overhaul (?)

Some people have asked for a "Monster Overhaul but for treasure and spells." Here's a very early six-page draft attempt at compressing a lot of classic D&D items into an immediately usable format.

1. Magic Weapons
2. Magic Armour
3. Potions
4. Tools
5. Transport
6. Helms

PDF

Design Challenges

Organization

The plan for the Monster Overhaul eventually crystallized into 20 themed chapters of 10 monsters, an introduction, and indexes.

With magic items, the themes are more clear, but also less interesting. The draft PDF has six sections. The plan is to add themed section, such as:

• Holy Items (holy avenger, holy symbols, icons...)
  
• Wizardly Items (hats, orbs, staffs...)
  
• Roguish Tricks (skeleton key, disguise kits...)
  
• Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Fey, Elemental, Dragonic, etc. Items (Boots/cloaks of elvenkind...)
  
• Magitech / Sci-Fi (blasters, laser swords...)
  
• Horror
• Aquatic (harpoons...)
• Mundane treasure (artwork, furniture, gems...)
• Intelligent Items (talking swords, magic mirrors...)
  
• Artifacts
  

I would also like to expand the current sections with "weird" followup tables. The current pages cover basic, standard, in-common-use items, but the real fun (for me) is weird items with highly situational uses. The compressed Magic Weapon page in the draft PDF could be followed by 1d100 (or more) specific magic weapons. They'll probably be less useful than +2 lightning greatsword, but that's part of the fun. 

This is why some sections repeat the Element d8 table; in the final project, they'll be separated by multiple pages from the next Element d8 table.

Duplicated Effort

The Monster Overhaul has a lot of items in it, and they're placed in a useful context. So does Magical Industrial Revolution, articles on this blog, and the rest of the internet. A book of magic items needs to rely on utility, density, and editorial choice to stand out.

Layers of Flavour

The monster entries in The Monster Overhaul follow a consistent pattern. Think of them as the sponge of the sponge cake. The generic locations are the icing or custard. The really weird tools, like Generic Life Cycle chart, are little bits of flavourful fruit. This isn't the best metaphor, but it will do.

With a book of items, there's a very real risk that the entire book is sponge, an endless series of unremarkable tables. Items do not have agency. They don't want anything.

(Well, intelligent swords might want things, but that's an edge case.)

Signposts

The chapter title pages of the Monster Overhaul serve as landmarks. They break up the text into manageable and navigable chunks. With a book of treasure, the chapters feel either too long (all magic items, all spells) or too short (magic weapons, potions, etc.). This might be alleviated as the project continues.

Readers should be directed to important information on a page. The trouble with tables is that they can blend together. A crucial table that should be used frequently looks, at a glance, like a table that's just for specific situations or optional flavour. In a book of tables, how do you maintain at-table utility while still providing high density?

Power Level

With I like to divide non-weapon and non-armour items into two categories:

1. An item a PC will use all the time, in all situations.

E.g. a Belt of Giant Strength. If a PC gets a Belt of Giant Strength, and it improves their Strength, there's no reason to ever take it off. It's pure enhancement.

2. An item a PC will use situationally. Ideally, in situations not envisioned by the designer.

E.g. a Portable Hole. It might allow for some cool and unexpected solutions to a problem, but it can't assist with every problem.

This is why classic items like a Belt of Giant Strength and Gauntlets of Ogre Power don't appear on these treasure tables. They will appear somewhere, but I'd like to place them with items that enhance a PC in equally permanent most-situations zero-downside ways. Some items from the Tools section might make their way to this proposed section eventually.

Description and Variants

Magic items should feel special. They should have an aura of mystery and wonder about them. This can be difficult to evoke in a game about small integer math and dying in a hole for treasure.

I also want to balance utility with density. Yes, I could make a full-page magic armour description with dozens of adjective prompts and historical references, but is that actually helpful?

Useful Articles

• Item Based Problem Solving - Against The Wicked City, Joseph Manola
• Alchemy and Oozes - Arnold Kemp
• 1d100 Minor Magic Items - Goblinpunch, Arnold Kemp
• 100 Oddities for New Characters - Bastionland, Chris McDowall