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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheAuldGrump" data-source="post: 2042050" data-attributes="member: 6957">I admit it - I am one of those DMs that like forms. They help impose order on what would otherwise be a chaotic mess of handwritten notes - not that I don’t create the mess of scribblings now, but I go and organize them later with the forms. (The number of fast food restaurant placemats with scrawled notes that I have had over the years could be reassembled into a redwood.) So this is very much a playtest review - as a notebook of filled out forms will attest.One of my most used first edition AD&D supplements was the Dungeon Master’s Design Kit, I printed up enough sheets that I still have a pile of them over an inch tall. I still use the sheets that are not specific to the older AD&D system. (Chases and Plots & Mysteries being the most used.) When the World Builder’s Guidebook  for second edition AD&D came out I swept down on it like a ravenous raptor. I still use the mapping sheets, and not only for D&D. I have purchased the PDFs of both of them. And then Mystic Eye Games came out with the Campaign Planner. Needless to say I quickly added it to my collection. These sheets are intended to aid a GM in setting up his campaign, and many of the sheets are convenient for sharing with the players, serving as a useful FAQ in regards to the campaign and the world that it takes place in. PDF is the best format for products of this nature, allowing the user to print up as many of the sheets that he uses as he feels he needs, skipping the others, and printing up fresh copies as needed. The forms version of these sheets is particularly useful in this regard - my hand writing is cramped and difficult to read unless I take my time and print every letter. Even I have difficulty reading my hen scratches if more than a month goes by, before then the notes serve more as an aid to memory than as a permanent record. The first sheet in this product is an overview, for listing such information as to what the setting is, what changes the GM is making to the setting, and what published adventures the GM is intending to use. Not a sheet to share with the players, though having the changes to the setting would have been a useful handout.House Rules, the second sheet, on the other hand is convenient for both GM and PCs, I would recommend using the forms and printing up enough copies to share with the players. Spaces are provided for magic, combat, and any miscellaneous house rules that the GM might have.Books used in the Campaign is another sheet to share, listing what game books are being used in the campaign. This becomes convenient when you need multiple copies of a given book at the table, players know which books to bring with them, or to purchase. (I suspect that this is my local game store’s favorite sheet...)Next up are sheets for races and classes, and what changes are made to them for the campaign. A tick box is provided to indicate whether the race or class is modified, or straight from the PHB. More useful for homebrew campaigns than for published settings where the changes to a race or class will presumably be in a written sourcebook. A separate sheet is provided to list what prestige classes are available in the campaign.A list for spells that are not available in the campaign, and what equipment is unique to the setting is another handout for the players as well as a place for the GM to record his changes.Two sheets follow for creating a calendar and listing holidays and a history of significant events. Another sheet to share with the PCs. Having holidays for the setting can breath life into the game, giving the setting a touch of realism.A sheet for recording deities and their domains, symbols, etc. might have been more useful placed with the character class sheet, since it deals primarily with the game effects of the religion rather than any mythology. Of course placement really doesn’t matter much in a PDF product of this nature, but thematically it would have made sense to have them together.The next several sheets are for recording and mapping the area, the kingdoms therein, its towns, cities, shops, taverns, and for listing NPCs and organizations. I have found that the sheets for cities and towns get a lot more use than the ones for kingdoms, but then a single kingdom may hold any number of towns, which in turn hold taverns, shops, etc. I have found that giving a blank copy of the taverns and shops sheets to the players helps answer questions regarding where to go, who might be there, etc. letting the players record the DM’s mental meanderings so they do not get forgotten. (Admit it, you’ve made up the names of shops and taverns, only to forget them later too.) Neither the major nor the minor NPCs get enough details on the NPC sheet, limiting its usefulness in my regard. Some of these sheets should be shared with the players, others not. The mapping grids provided are square, hex grids are provided in Campaign Planner 2.Rumors and unresolved issues occupy the next pages, and are some of the more used sheets in my experience, the rumors to send the PCs hither and yon, while the unresolved issues sheet has convenient tick boxes to mark off once the players finally get around to finishing them. Players never seem to cover all the issues while in game, and these make it easy to record what they haven’t handled yet.Adventure ideas - just a sheet for jotting down ideas for later use. Probably one of the less used sheets for me, this is what the gods made fast food restaurant placemats for. Useful enough I suppose, but never to hand when I have an idea that I wish to write down.Sheets for recording wandering monster tables and quick outlines for dungeons can make creating a last minute adventure less of a chore, while I prefer taking my time, and generally manage to stay a month or so ahead of my players they sometimes go off on a tangent that I was not quite prepared for, or was intending to cover a few months down the line. A shared sheet is provided for listing traps and tricks to pull out when needed, so you can plan out at least part of the extempore dungeons ahead of time. Or just to use when you have a nifty idea, but don’t need it just now. I have used these to create quick pickup games on a few occasions, for games when I have more time I use Dungeon Crafter and a word processor. (When my computer has gone down and I was unable to use Word Perfect 10 I have felt crippled... the need to use it rising with the inability to do so, these sheets took some of the edge off, without being a full cure.)Artifacts and major treasures get sheets, as does a master list for monsters in the campaign. If you have any artifacts or seriously important magic items this is the place to put them, so you know just where they are, and if you intend your PCs to get their grubby little mitts on them. I would like to have had a place for recording who currently possesses the items, nor is their enough space provided to list a history for the artifacts, while the major treasures are a single line with a tick box to record whether the treasure has been found. I have found these sheets of limited use.The final page is, in my opinion, the only completely wasted sheet in the book - a page for recording notes, this role is filled just as well by a sheet of lined notebook paper, the only advantage is sharing a uniform appearance with the rest of the sheets. Over all this is a very useful product for me, helping to chart a path through the morass of scribbled notes that might otherwise overwhelm me. While some of the sheets see more use than others, I use enough of the sheets often enough to more than make it a worthy purchase. Used in combination with the recently released Campaign Planner 2 the variety of sheets also allows me to make sure I have covered all the basics of a campaign or adventure, without leaving out any important details. On a scale of 1 to 5 I would rate this a 4  in regards to usefulness, becoming a solid 4.5 when used in conjunction with Campaign Planner 2, which fills in many of the gaps.</blockquote>

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