Equipment, improved

“You say you’re heading out to the caves up in the mountains?

Well, I’ve got just what you need: climbing spikes, rope, hooks, shovels, pick axes, crowbars, compasses, chalk, perfume and…

…what do you mean you won’t need perfume in the caves? Haven’t you heard of the stinkgoblins?”

I like to approach OSR dungeons like puzzle boxes or tool use challenges: push and prod the problems the right way, and you’ll get a prize. If you actually end up rolling dice you’ve lost, as the events aren’t in your control anymore. So, a good list of tools goes a long way in making the game fun for me.

When I started GMing DCC last autumn this was the first augmentation I added to the game. It’s based on an old, hand written list of items I had in one of my notebooks, meant for an upgrade of my own system I used to develop (and still might, maybe).

This equipment list has many more options compared to ones I’ve seen in rulebooks, and includes entries for provisions, animals, and a bunch of specialist equipment. A similar upgrade for weapons and armour can be found here .

In addition to handling most of the shopping needs you can imagine, I use this list to randomize small item loot in my games. Characters find some corpses? Roll a check (search or Luck, depending on situation) and if successful, roll a d100 on the equipment list. Finding the right tool at the right time is worth much more than gold pieces. And finding the wrong tool usually leads to hilarity.

I intend to use this as a reference in much of the content I’ll post later, so anyone intent on following my posts should pick it up and try it out. The list has been tested in DCC and Swords & Wizardry so far, and seems to work just fine in both.

It should be noted that the economy suggested here is very lenient on food prices. I don’t want to make my players count their coppers just to eat, we do enough of that in our real lives already; high adventure is what we want from a night of gaming!

Cheers,

AMP

Extended equipment tables for fantasy roleplay

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Header image courtesy of Sami Kuopusjärvi