Mesa Games

One product I’ve been using a lot lately are the Paizo GameMastery Item Cards. They are cards with various types of equipment and possessions on them. Paizo makes a bunch of different packs of them.

It makes handing out and receiving treasure a lot more fun and exciting. The backs of the cards have white space where you can put a description of the item, as well as an Item Code which allows the DM to track magic items without the players knowing what they are until they get them identified. The border of the cards also vary based on the type of equipment it is (weapon, armor, magical, mundane, etc.) which is very handy for sorting them.

In an effort to keep better track of what I’ve given my groups I put together a Game Mastery Item Sheet (PDF). It has columns for the Item Code, Item Description and Location/NPC/Adventure the item came from.

I invested in some card sleeves and deck boxes so that I can store each players items separately.  I also got my own DM card box so that I can put aside any special items that the party has a good chance of finding or that I want to use a specific image for.

For storing the other, sleeveless cards (as well as my D&D Miniature stat cards and CCG cards) I use stackable card cases from The Container Store.

I’m sure you know the famous law, Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

I’d like to propose a Dungeon Master’s Law: “Anything you don’t prepare for will happen. Anything you do prepare for, won’t.”

Yesterday was a long overdue session of my 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons Moonsea campaign.  In the previous session, one of the characters ended up having to fight in an arena battle in the city they were in. He’s a half-ogre in a city that hates non-humans.  At first he refused to fight, but eventually teamed up with a centaur (another “half-man”) and were able to defeat a brutal minotaur.  They spent some time locked up in cells near each other and bonded a bit. The half-ogre was getting out of prison due to a favor from a Thayan enclave in the city and seemed intent on helping the centaur escaping as well.

So I spent the last week or so preparing an adventure based around just that. An underground sewer map, traps, encounters, tied it in with another side-quest and even advanced a monster a few hit dice to make things exciting. I made notes, I wrote down stats, I researched effects of things and really just went all out on the preparation.

When one of the players showed up yesterday he said he needed a certain number of experience points to level that day. “Oh, that won’t be a problem today,” I told him proudly. I knew with all the encounters and adventure that lay ahead, he would most certainly level up.

We started the session by finishing up the favor that was getting them “out of jail for free”, a very cool underwater encounter that turned out to be very fun and challenging.  Then the part headed back to the city to completely the favor.  That’s when I started dropping hints about the centaur being the new champion of the arena… posters were going up around town, town criers were shouting about the match, carriage drivers were suggesting the party’s bard perform before the fight, the captain of the ship they were leaving on said that’s all people were talking about at the taverns the previous night. I was laying it on THICK.

The party, of course, just decided to skip town early.

I pressed on and let them return to their base city, did some roleplaying and attempted to figure out what they wanted to do next.  Eventually I had to end the session a little early because I wasn’t expecting them to return to town so early and needed some time to prepare what would happen next.  I can only wing it for so long and want time to prepare something substantially fun and interesting for them.

Everybody went home after that and I was both tired and unfulfilled after the session.  I was bummed.

Oh well, maybe another party will get to embark on my sewer adventure and the treasures (and XP) that await there!