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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="sckeener" data-source="post: 2940211" data-attributes="member: 8801">First off, I'd recommend <a href="http://www.greenronin.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=1001&Product_Code=grr1018e" target="_blank">Skull & Bones</a> from Green Ronin.  Nice and very much like PotC.A lot of what you mention is just good for campaigns in general and should be the goal for all (Interesting Enemies/Places, a living world, recuring villains.)You have to watch interesting magic items.  The reason the +5 hat of resistance is boring is because it is balanced.  Interesting magic items sometimes become unbalanced.  I prefer intelligent magic items since then I can treat them like NPCs.Time challenges - view them like traps.  Consequences, but not world ending....otherwise the living world bit won't matter.Descriptions - good stuff, but be afraid of going to graphic.  I once had half a party so timid that I had to type the descriptions up so they could decided for themselves if they wanted to read the descriptionsMoral Greyness - without moral greyness you might as well be playing a 4 player xbox game.  You need it...especially for the recurring villians.Including the unexplained - a basic of descriptions.  I can remember several adventures I've created that started after the party found the treasure.  I hate giving out coins and I love creating unique mudane items for treasure.  I give the players a list and see what strikes their fancy....the most recent adventure involved a mask with a wolf face which started a werewolf side quest.Get a subscription to Dungeon Magazine.  I find I lift tons of unexplained descriptions from Dungeon.  One party still talks about the Black and Crimson bridge fight.  The party had to travel to the Black and Crimson bridge.  They had no idea what it was until they got there and saw a bridge made out of black and red ants(dead)!  I had some NPCs waiting to ambush them, but it was the description of the setting that stuck...not the battle.  They could easily picture the scene.I used an idea from Dungeon to create the bridge scene.....there are plenty of ordinary battles in a game and Dungeon helped me create some interesting scenes....Here's another suggestion.  Personalize magic.  I use spell thematics but without any of the bonuses....basically I have every player create a spell theme.  That theme is then applied to all their magic.....Look at Ars Magica for inspiration.  Nothing like having the players get familiar with the spell theme of the recuring villian....such exactness....one of my villians is very precise.  There are no rough edges to his spells....if he casts a damaging spell my players can tell from the cookie cutter type of damage...such as melf's acid arrow would burn nice little squares....In my high level game I had a powerful half-fiend (devil) that had the sterotypical sulfur theme to her spells to tip the players off to her nature....She conjured up a wall of salt that had flecks of blood and the smell of suffer to it....beautiful....admittedly behind the wall was not so pretty...slagged enemies.</blockquote>

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