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Leveling Up Your Items
41 Plays1 year ago
In the tenth episode of Tabletop Tune Up, Mark and Ben explore the fascinating world of special items in RPGs—those unique and memorable pieces of gear that can enhance storytelling and gameplay, or potentially disrupt it. From iconic artifacts like Excalibur and Mjolnir to magical relics and futuristic tech, we delve into how these items can define characters, embody themes, and drive plotlines. Discover how to use special items to tell compelling stories, highlight character growth, and create memorable moments. We’ll also discuss the delicate balance required when integrating such items into your game—ensuring they enhance rather than overshadow your campaign. Learn about the risks of game balance, how to avoid stepping on players' toes, and when and how to introduce or retire items effectively. Whether you’re looking to craft your own game-changing items or fine-tune existing ones, this episode provides insights on creating items with depth and purpose while maintaining the integrity of your game. Tune in for tips on balancing gameplay, designing items with rich backstories, and handling potential pitfalls to keep your game running smoothly and your players engaged.
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Transcript
The Dancing Sword and Personal Updates
00:00:00
Speaker
I just hope you guys are ready to face the dancing sword. Bring it on. Yeah. It's a dancing sword. Well, it's like, it's a sword that can fight without you holding it. What, you just send your sword into battle for you and then you stay home? It's kind of stupid. No, no, you have to be at least three inches away from it when it's fighting. That way you can fight two people at once. It's kind of cool.
00:00:51
Speaker
All right, welcome back dear listeners. We are so glad you're back. We have another episode for you today where we're going to talk about how to elevate your items. Before we do that, Mark, how are you doing? Are you raising the level of your game lately?
00:01:09
Speaker
Well, I've been on a bit of a hiatus, honestly, so I haven't been elevating my game, but that's kind of the plan in any case. I've been recharging my batteries. I spent... Actually, I got a big stroke of inspiration this last weekend, and I spent a good chunk of one of my days working away at stuff, and it was amazing how much a few weeks off can really recharge those batteries. That's awesome.
00:01:38
Speaker
When you take that time away, what do you find recharges your batteries, especially? I mean, I can just play some video games. You know, maybe I just wait for inspiration.
Gaming Deals and Their Impact
00:01:50
Speaker
Speaking of video games, Ben, you've been playing some video games a lot lately, huh? I confess that it's true. I've been enjoying Ghost Recon a lot. This is the Wildlands edition of that game. It's come out a few years ago, but I didn't catch it the first time through.
00:02:06
Speaker
Darn, if the $5 price in the Steam Summer Sale wasn't a compelling proposition. Oh man, that Steam Summer Sale is killing me. Like I got a backlog of games. It sounds like a Western Blues song of my Steam backlog. Are we going to get a Suno song about your Steam backlog? Oh man, it would be a sad song. That's for sure.
The Magic of Special Items in Games
00:02:28
Speaker
All right. Well, hey, let's get to our topic today, friends.
00:02:31
Speaker
We're going to talk about how to elevate your items. Special items are an amazing way to spice up your game, and they've also got some risks associated with them, and we'll get into that today. Let's think for a moment about what these kinds of things can be. What are some examples of magical items? Mark, I know you've got some examples off the top of your head.
00:02:52
Speaker
I'm going to go with these pretty quick, Ben. There's a lot of them. We're going to run by. We got the old classic Excalibur. Doesn't get kind of like the original magic item, you know? Sting from Lord of the Rings. Elric has Stormbreaker. Um, lightsabers, Star Wars. Can't tell me the same magic. Yeah. Um, Vera from Firefly.
00:03:17
Speaker
Interesting choice. Good. Yes. It's a special item. They're not just magic items. These are special items, guys. You have to be magic. They don't have to be crazy unique or one of a kind. And right after I say they don't have to be magic, the next one in my list is the Elder Wand from Harry Potter. Yeah, that is a magic item. Yeah, it kind of is. But the Neutralizer from Men in Black. All right, that makes everybody forget when they get flashed. Yeah, it's kind of right up there. What do you got there, Ben?
00:03:45
Speaker
Uh, you know, I know when I was growing up, I thought the hoverboard from back to the future looked amazing. Batman's utility belt and Iron Man's armor are both really great items. Although for me, they also are a cover for lazy writing in the wrong hands. Oh, look, I just happen to have the right thing for this occasion. You know, I also like the, uh, we're going to talk about the Hattori Hanzo sword and Kill Bill. Well, yes, we will.
00:04:12
Speaker
There's a couple more examples you've got, some ancient weapons, I believe. I mean, if you look back, Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, that's kind of an OG item if you go back to mythology. And currently in the Marvel universe, Conan's Atlantean sword is kind of an iconic weapon. I don't know if that item is magical per se, but it certainly is iconic and it is an exceptional weapon.
00:04:41
Speaker
Well, and that's one of the things I think we think is interesting about items is that they don't have to be specially empowered. They don't have to be one of a kind things that have abilities or confer abilities that none else have, but they do need to be worth keeping in mind. They're not just commodities that you trade in and out. They're not just here to take on tomorrow disposable things. And why would that be? Why would this be then?
Significance of Iconic Pop Culture Items
00:05:10
Speaker
Well, so items, here's what's great about great items is that they help us tell the stories we're telling. And there's a few ways that they do that, but they're usually memorable. Items are memorable because of the role they play in that story. So first of all, items are really, can be a lot of fun in helping us define the character, right? Now Mark, you brought up this example with the Hattori Hanzo Sword from Kill Bill. Tell me what you're thinking about that and why that's a special item for you.
00:05:37
Speaker
If you think about the movie and her character growth, it really was kind of in the certain act of the show that she gets this weapon. And this weapon kind of shows that she has had character growth. She's had some achievements and that she's in a sense kind of worthy of this weapon. She has a purpose and they would give this to her in the beginning of the movie.
00:06:06
Speaker
You know, they need to give this tour kind of later in the show. They got to reveal it at least later in the show, how she gets this weapon. Cause it's important. And Hanzo is not going to make that weapon for her, but then she says, I'm going to use this to kill Bill.
00:06:22
Speaker
And Hanzo at that point, he knows this is something he needs to do because he and Bill have issues, but this is the person who's ready to do it. And she just needs some of that Japanese steel, as she says. Yeah, they got beef. They got big beef. And she's going to squash it. I think that's great. I mean, so picking this out, she's got to be worthy of that weapon. And speaking of worthy, I mean, Thor's entire shtick is
00:06:48
Speaker
he's got to be worthy to wield the owner to lift this great hammer. You've got to be worthy. It's literally written on the weapon in the Marvel comics. It is. Yeah. And there's the entire storylines where he kind of has to prove himself worthy for that weapon. Um, once again, yeah, that whole first movie and the MCU and yeah, to your point, this happens, uh, frequently enough in the comics. Interestingly in the comics, other people sometimes are worthy to lift the hammer and do,
00:07:15
Speaker
That's a fair point. I think Captain America at the end of that movie, he's, uh, he apparently is worthy and it's not just worthiness sometimes. You know, we go back to like King Arthur and him having to be a rightful heir. He's the only one who can draw that sword from the stone. There could be special situations upon that character to which this weapon would be attached to.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, so it's not always necessarily about their internal journey. Sometimes it could be about their uniqueness or in some cases it has associations because it's a certain distinctive kind of weapon. So we mentioned lightsabers earlier. If you see a lightsaber come out in the Star Wars universe, in general, you're pretty sure this is a force user. And depending on when it is, it's probably a Jedi. And being a Jedi means that you are there presumably to defend peace and justice in the galaxy.
00:08:13
Speaker
And notice each, how each one of those lightsabers are distinctive even unto themselves. You have some that have, you know, the double blade coming out. The help might be different and each have like different colors. And now Ben, you've been to Disney world. I have. And you've made a lightsaber, right? I have. Okay. What color is your lightsaber? My lightsaber is blue. You didn't go purple. I didn't go purple. I didn't go red.
00:08:41
Speaker
I went for that kind of awesome. There was something about it that I thought, you know, my favorite character in the Star Wars universe, the guy who I feel like even though he failed, he got it right more often than he got it wrong, was Obi-Wan Kenobi. And I felt like this was a good, it's actually, it's actually uses a lot of the parts and pieces to look like that kind of lightsaber too.
00:09:01
Speaker
And technically only one man is allowed to have the purple lightsaber, apparently, and that's Samuel L. Jackson. Only he is cool enough to wield a purple lightsaber, which, as we know, purple is a mix of red and blue. Yeah, he was worthy. Awesome. Some items, too, maybe they're not about some growth element or character trait. Maybe they're just things that are so intrinsically connected to that character that
00:09:29
Speaker
They just define that character. Whenever you see that character, you expect to see that item. And so again, let's go back to our Marvel Universe example. Here's three examples. And we saw some interesting details around this. There's Mjolnir for Thor. We brought that up. Iron Man's armor, right? And then finally Captain America's shield. And Mark, when you and I were doing some show prep for this, we noticed some interesting things about this. Isn't it interesting how in the third movie, all three of these characters
00:09:59
Speaker
lose whatever that thing is yeah that that is a fair point they did kind of lose them as if marvel's trying to tell you that maybe it's that you know the character the internal that's the person who defines that character that's right iron man says i am iron man after he blows up all his armor in iron man 3
00:10:18
Speaker
And Thor's father, you know, says to his son, who's lamenting the loss of the hammer, are you the God of hammers? And that's when Thor powers up and becomes the hero he needs to be at the
Thematic and Story-Driven Items
00:10:29
Speaker
end of that one. But hey, Ben, what did they immediately have to do in the next movie? Oh, they had to go get those things back. Yeah. So Thor goes to build another hammer. Iron Man keeps making some new armor and Captain America. Well, he finally gets his shield back too.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah, and we're all better for it. That's right. Well, because those are very expressive of those characters in a lot of great ways. So that's the first thing, right? Items help define your character. Sometimes they'll help you show growth. Sometimes they'll just be associated with a character in some strong way. But then also, items can also be about the story and the plot. So let's talk about the story for a moment. How do items help us express themes in a story, Mark?
00:11:12
Speaker
Well, when we brought this kind of question up, the first thing I thought of was, it's not irony that Conan's Atlantean blade clashes with his father's stolen blade, who's wielded by Thulsa Doom in the great Conan movie. It's his father's sword that shatters.
00:11:30
Speaker
And if you remember his father in the beginning of the movie talking to him about the riddle of steel, what is the riddle of steel? They never answered it then. But at some point in the film, Folsadum says the riddle of steel. He says, what is steel compared to the hand that wields it? All right. And so when those two go head to head and one of them breaks, that is an item expressing a theme in the entire arc of that movie.
00:12:01
Speaker
Interesting. I'm going to have to think about that one for a while. I think that's a really, that's a deep cut. So for those of you that haven't seen it. Speaking of deep cuts, what does he do with that broken blade of his farm? Well, it turns out that he still uses that sword. He uses it to behead Tulsa doing at the end of the movie. Spoilers. It's 1982, but spoilers. That's a deep cut. The Whittle of Steel was answered.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, hey, look, go back and watch Conan the Barbarian from 1982. It's great. It's one of our favorite go-to movies for the sword and sorcery genre. Early on, Schwarzenegger, nothing like it. Ben, like, what to you? Can you think of a storyline that might have been enhanced by a weapon that expressed a theme in it? Yeah, you know, there is, when you look at the original Return of the Jedi,
00:12:50
Speaker
I think there's a lot of our younger listeners who might not remember that at the original time that was about to be released, they had a very late breaking change to the title of that. And it stopped being revenge of the Jedi and became Return of the Jedi, presumably because people, maybe George Lucas, thought that might be too dark. And there's a lot of moments in that movie that tease, is Luke gonna succumb to the dark side? His training's not complete.
00:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, he kind of starts the movie like an all black and it was kind of an aura of like, oh, this is a new Luke Skywalker, right? Yeah, he's very much more self assured. He's not wrecked and ruined after the battle with Darth Vader at the end of Empire Strikes Back. He's very confident. He's got a new lightsaber. We see that early on in the first act of the movie. So now flash forward to the end of the movie. It's Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, the Emperor in the throne room, and the Emperor is baiting him. The Emperor is
00:13:46
Speaker
trying to get him to give into his hatred. And it looks for all the world like he's going to do it. He grabs his lightsaber from the Emperor's hand. He slashes out and his blade is blocked by his father's blade. And so there's a great lightsaber battle that ensues. And Luke Skywalker's exercising constant aggression, beating his father down. And finally he wins and Darth Vader is beaten
00:14:14
Speaker
And so he looks at his father, his father's defeated, it's helpless. The Emperor's looking at him saying, now come take your father's place at my side. He casts away his lightsaber because he realizes that aggression, violence, this is not how he's going to win. And that in fact, by mastering that temptation to give in to his hate and cast that final stroke on his father and kill him, he has become the Jedi. And that's what he says. He says, you failed your Highness. I am a Jedi like my father before me.
00:14:42
Speaker
That was a powerful moment. And I don't think anybody watching that originally had any sense of like, it was going to go down like that. Well, I certainly didn't expect the light in coming out of the emperor's fingers. That was unprecedented. And I want to apologize right now for spoiler warnings, but like, if you hadn't seen those movies. I mean, it is 40 years ago.
00:15:06
Speaker
I think our nerd audience is probably into it. So we've talked about how items can help define characters. We've talked about how items can express themes and then items can also be the focal
MacGuffins and Plot-Driving Objects
00:15:17
Speaker
points of stories. And there's a word that they use for this called the McGuffin. The McGuffin is the thing that you chase in a story. It's the thing that you're, that is the center point of the story is plot and action. And you could probably take whole screenwriting seminars on this. We'll certainly have a lot more to say about McGuffins in the future.
00:15:33
Speaker
But we're going to give you three examples of MacGuffins. And we want to just talk about two things that they do that are important. And then we'll leave that topic for today. Three examples of great MacGuffins. Number one is the Ark of the Covenant from Rage of the Lost Ark. Number two would be the Ring of Power from Lord of the Rings. And then number three could be the Mind Stone from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So two things to think about MacGuffins. And you can think about how this plays out with these three examples. First of all, MacGuffins underpin the stakes of the story.
00:16:03
Speaker
Mark, if the Nazis get the Ark of the Covenant, what happens? Doom. Doom falls upon the world. That's right. They carry it before the armies that will be victorious, presumably. The Ring of Power. If Sauron gets the Ring of Power back, what happens? Doom. More doom. Doom upon all of us. Doom. That's right. And finally, if Thanos gets the Mind Stone, as indeed he effectively does, of course, he's going to snap and
00:16:29
Speaker
put half the universe out. So MacGuffin's really tell you about how bad things are going to get if this goes wrong. And it doesn't have to be cosmic, right? And there's other stories. The MacGuffin is originally named for things in like Raymond Chandler books, things like the Maltese Falcon or the stolen treasure of something. And it's just one of these things that look, unless that's found, somebody's going to die or go to prison because they were thought to be the person who last saw it or something like that.
00:16:56
Speaker
make sure your McGuffin sets the stakes of the story in the right way. Now, secondly, Mark, McGuffins drive the action. And so using those three examples, what are, how does, how did those McGuffins that we talked about drive the action of their respective stories? Well, we're talking about
00:17:14
Speaker
In Lord of the Rings, casting the ring away was the entire plot of the books. Recovering the arc, of course, was the focal point of Indiana Jones. All these things are pointing the characters on a path to find these items, recover them, and who knows the next step? Could we destroy them? Could we just secret them away?
00:17:39
Speaker
And then, of course, in the Marvel movies, Thanos, the Mind Stone, was actually in one of the characters. And by removing it, he destroyed Vision. Well, and we talked about how that's a great character defining moment. I mean, Vision's like, this is okay. This is what has to happen. You need to do this. And it's, in some sense, sort of the apex of his character. It's really the last time we see him in the way that we'd always seen him.
00:18:07
Speaker
versions of them that come up in WandaVision, but it's definitely not the same character we knew. And not only defining for him, but also for Wanda, who had to take that stone out of him. So, MacGuffins are really driving the action of the story, whether it's pulling you further and further toward a land that you're trying to avoid, like Mordor, or whether you're searching for this thing, whatever it is, the MacGuffin is something that pulls you further into the stakes of the story.
Balancing Fun and Fairness with Magic Items
00:18:36
Speaker
Lastly, let's just talk about how fun magic items are. I mean, that's reason enough, right? So we've talked about how they can help tell a character story. We can talk about them being MacGuffins, but let's also just talk about them being fun. Ben, what are some examples of maybe some awesome fun items that you would love to get your hands on? I think there's a whole category here, uh, what I would call travel items. And I'm going to just name three things here, right? Number one would be Harry Potter's broomstick.
00:19:06
Speaker
Number two would be Aladdin's flying carpet. And number three would be the Rocketeer's jet pack. Oh, God. I want that jet pack so bad. Yeah. Yeah. So all three of those are just wonderful ways that you can just get around and have your own personal flying ability.
00:19:22
Speaker
Those are really fun and like even like a temporary item that maybe it's just one use item could be a lot of fun. If you're playing a Western game and you get a chance to jump on a Gatling gun and just go to town on stuff, you can't tell me that's not fun. That's great. I think temporary items are a great way of not blowing up the balance of your campaign, but also giving players a moment or two occasionally that they can do something really unprecedented and awesome.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah, maybe they pick up the weapon of the boss, bad guy, and use it against him. And they're feeling the power surge through the weapon and how exciting that could be. You're giving them just a brief taste of it, but those are scenes that are gonna stick in their minds for years to come.
00:20:04
Speaker
Absolutely. Okay. So these can be amazingly fun things because they give you new profound powers, things that even in a fantastic or super heroic world, you might not normally be able to do. So when we're giving these things out though,
00:20:19
Speaker
We've got to be careful. I know one example is when we first started playing fifth edition D&D, we started giving out magic items related to people's armor class about the same frequency we'd been doing in earlier versions. Yeah. We quickly realized that was a mistake because it wasn't scaling the same way past editions had. So it turns out that you've got to be pretty cautious sometimes when you're getting into that. So Mark, talk about the things we need to be cautious about.
00:20:45
Speaker
Well, first and foremost, we need to be thoughtful about game balance among the party, but also thinking about how this affects the encounter difficulty and the threats that you as a GM are going to want to pose to that group. How does that item affect those encounters? How does it affect the balance between your players? Let's talk a little bit about some of that balance. Give me an example of player balance, Ben.
00:21:13
Speaker
Well, so what if it turns out that because you've handed out the wrong item that somebody all of a sudden can do a lot more damage than anybody else in the party? Or you'll remember the example a moment ago where we were giving out armor like it was an earlier edition and it turned out that was making players much too tough to hit. All of a sudden what starts to happen is that you've actually got to level up the opposition and the challenges.
00:21:38
Speaker
And if only one person has that capability or that power or those extra hit points or whatever it is, all the rest of the players are going to start getting swamped.
00:21:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It definitely, that is definitely can be a problem. So you got to be really thoughtful about how, uh, what kind of items were given out. Also like, does the item step on the toes of another player, you know, um, a few interesting examples of that. Yeah. You know, um, I've seen situations where GMs have given out things like belts of strength or something of that nature, maybe a headband of intellect. Yeah.
00:22:12
Speaker
And what sometimes happens, it ends up on the player, another player in the group. And next thing you know, he's stronger than the character who's defined themselves as being the strong man of a group. Now that character has to redefine themselves. I'm no longer the strongest person in this party. So that tank that's got all the hit points and all the strength they're keyed up and they're ready to be in the front line is now feeling like, gosh, somebody just gave the rogue
00:22:36
Speaker
a belt of ogre strength and a cloak of displacement. Now they're doing my job for me. I've been doing chin ups and pull ups for, I've been doing push ups and pull ups for the last 20 years. And this person just put on a belt. That's so not fair. Think about that. That can really affect a person's morale. Yeah. You can end up basically taking away the things that players like about their characters and you don't want to do that.
00:23:02
Speaker
Relatedly, some items also make infer abilities that break the progression of that character. And Mark, this is one where I have a confession to make. This was something I did in a game we played. I gave a character a dragon mask, and this dragon mask, because I wasn't being very careful about seeing what was going on further down the line with this character's level progression, I gave this dragon mask an ability that he ended up getting later anyway. And I can't remember if it was even a better version of that ability,
00:23:33
Speaker
Because we were co-GMing, this ended up becoming a problem for you because I just kind of let him have that and he had fun with it. And then when it came time for you to GM, you had to have the hard conversation. So tell me about what that was like. Well.
00:23:49
Speaker
I realized that the character, like you said, the character got that ability at a later level, basically through his class. So I had to kind of add that conversation with that player and I had to do some horse training. There's no doubt about it. And I'll tell you what, Sean, if you're out there, you drive a hard bargain.
00:24:08
Speaker
But, you know, these are things you just have to talk over with your player and just, you know, you got to realize that you made a mistake and you just got to try your best to fix it. And you may not get an equitable trade. It might just be that you have to give a little bit more than just to make the situation right. So it may turn out that there are a lot of items you can give that enhance or interact with a character's abilities at different levels in different ways.
00:24:34
Speaker
and you don't want to preempt a character's natural progression through the game with the abilities that an item gives them. Let's now talk about how items can also start changing the encounters you're going to run. So we've talked about game balance. We've talked about whether or not this creates challenges for the players amongst each other, but also for you as a GM, items can be a way of shortcutting certain kinds of challenges. We've got some examples of different kinds of shortcuts. Mark, what are the shortcuts we should be thinking about?
00:25:04
Speaker
Well, travel shortcuts is a big one. Maybe you gave out those boots of flight or those jet packs a little too early. Maybe they had access to those Star Trek transporters and they just kind of got around your carefully designed map a little too easily. So think about those travel shortcuts. Do you want to give that item out too early?
00:25:32
Speaker
There's also knowledge shortcuts. So the crystal ball or those somehow mystical Star Trek sensors again that can pick out like, you know, three milligrams of magnesium on a planet that shouldn't be there.
00:25:45
Speaker
from all over that planet. I don't know how they do that. It seems to me a little bit broken, but the fact is there's a lot of items that can give characters a shortcut through all the mystery that you might have had teed up for them that might answer questions that you were hoping they would take longer to resolve. And so just be aware if you're going to do that that you need to have ways of either thwarting those items in certain cases, although I don't think that would be my first choice because you don't want to make players feel like their items are
00:26:15
Speaker
undermined in some way. And there's a third category we talked about, Mark. I guess this might be a little bit under the level of travel shortcuts, but environmental shortcuts, underwater, outer space. These are all environments that are meant to be like a danger or a threat. And if you just have something that can undermine that entire aspect of maybe your carefully crafted campaign, and they get that too early,
00:26:41
Speaker
Again, that could cause some problems with their storyline and the encounters that you want to have. Yeah. So the way I think about these environmental shortcuts is these are spaces that if your characters are in there without some kind of a special item, they're going to die. Being at the molten heart of the earth.
00:26:57
Speaker
being underwater, being in outer space, these are all hazardous spaces. And so items in that case that you'll need to protect yourself, those could be the subject of adventures of all on their own, a spaceship, a vac suit, all of the things that go with that. Think about when you want those kinds of things to be available to players.
00:27:15
Speaker
and what kinds of ways you want them to earn that stuff. Which is true, I think, of all of these kinds of items.
Crafting Memorable Items and Stories
00:27:21
Speaker
And so, Mark, think about this too. Like, at what point in the party's progression should they have that capability? I think that's a relevant part of the story.
00:27:28
Speaker
I mean, that really is just up to the GM to make that call. At what point does he want to introduce those themes? And at what point does he want those themes to be obstacles, to be overcome by means of items? So just keep in mind when you're designing your longer game where you might want to have them be able to maybe step out into that environment or take that shortcut or have that knowledge shortcut where you kind of feel okay that the story has been unfolded.
00:27:59
Speaker
And don't forget Mark's example a moment ago where he had to do some horse trading to take that item back. It is always more difficult to take items away from players once they've earned them, once they have them, once they own them. And so that's another reason why you want to be very careful at what point you introduce those items to the party. Let's also make a point here, Ben, that memorable items are not commodities. To help you understand what we mean by that, Mark, I want you to imagine that a long time ago,
00:28:26
Speaker
Your father gave you this special sword. He had crafted it from star metal falling from the sky. My dad? He did. And he, a blacksmith, forged this into an incredible blade. Its edge has seen no notch. It is bright as the day it was forged. False.
00:28:48
Speaker
So you're getting the story. It's got this amazing value associated with this wonderful story connected to it. It is a plus one item. What happens when you find that plus two sword that you just dug out of some dungeon in a couple of levels? Sorry, Pop. Yeah. Dad's out of luck. We don't want that. We want items that are amazing. They're memorable and that they preserve that value through your game as often as they can.
00:29:17
Speaker
Remember, anything that people look at just in terms of stats, and that's all they're thinking about, that item is a commodity. There's no reason to keep a plus one sword when a plus two sword is there.
00:29:28
Speaker
And there's no emotional attachment to the item. All that narrative about my father smithing this weapon for me and handing it down and it just being a plus one sword, that just does not fulfill my requirement for a magic item. Just doesn't do it. The plus one doesn't match up to that backstory. Okay, so I think this means that we need to make sure our listeners don't leave this discussion without hearing a little bit about how to tune up their items.
00:29:58
Speaker
So how do we keep things memorable? How do we make them not be just commodities? Mark, items have a story. Tell us about that.
00:30:07
Speaker
Well, they do. They got a beginning, how it's made and what for. They have a middle. The character receives this item and its uses in the story. And that item has an end. Is it recreated? Is it destroyed? Or is it stolen? So what is your item's story? Yeah, it's a great question. So think about your item's story. Think about where it comes from, how it's used and how it's finished.
00:30:36
Speaker
And is this the right moment in the story to give the character an item? Are they ready for that item right now? Do they need it right now? One of the things I remember, for example, in the Lord of the Rings movies, the change that Peter Jackson made. And we all noticed it in Fellowship of the Ring was Enduro was not reforged. And so a lot of us that were Tolkien readers thought, hey, what's going on here? He should have that amazing sword before he leaves Rivendell and goes on the quest.
00:31:05
Speaker
And in the movies, we don't see it until he's about to traverse the paths of the dead. And his identity as a king is critical to his survival in that deathless place. So that's a moment when Aragorn needs to have his new sword. And Ben, how might you bequeath this item in a memorable way?
00:31:25
Speaker
Yeah, is this something that they happen to find along the road? That's the story with Sting. Is this something that's granted to them by some mentor, like Luke Skywalker gets his lightsaber from Obi-Wan Kenobi? Or you may remember the example in Thor. You were talking about how the first thing Thor does in the next time we see him after Ragnarok is he goes out to forge a new hammer, Stormbringer, which will become this great weapon that he does. Yeah, quite possibly the best magic item crafting scene I've ever seen on film. It gave me goosebumps.
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's not just forging a weapon. That's forging the weapon in a star. Yeah. And it just has such a personal attachment with that Groot's arm. Yeah. You know, that's just powerful. Really good stuff. So one of the things that does happen though, right? Is the characters grow and items, of course, do they grow too? How do they grow, Mark?
00:32:16
Speaker
Well, they can be remade, they could be empowered. You got to think that these players are really attached to those items and they don't necessarily, they're not so long to give them up. How do we encourage that weapon to live anew?
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, one of the games that we played, you and I, your character, I think, had a spear of some kind. It was like a plus one spear. And you really liked that weapon. And so we actually had a whole storyline where you went to a dwarven city and they actually reforged it for you and they gave it extra features and things like that. Reforged it to something that wasn't plus one.
00:32:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's right, reforged into something more powerful. And so what's cool, right? You have the ability as a GM to change the stats on these things. You can change how they're used. You can change anything about them. The important point is you want to tell a great story around that. Don't just go to the dwarven city and be like, well, they take your weapon and they do some stuff to it. And then here it is. And it's got these new mechanics.
00:33:17
Speaker
But like we said at the top here of this section, your weapon also has a story and stories have an end. So Ben, when and how do you give up this item? How does this weapon end? Yeah, I think there can be a lot of ways you can do that. One thing you can do, this is the gentle out I think for an item, is you could bequeath an item to an NPC, to a sidekick or to somebody who's apprenticing for you and say,
00:33:46
Speaker
You know, this was the sword I started with. And I think you're about old enough to take it on now, young man. Go ahead and carry this well. It can also be broken in a powerful story moment. Yeah. And that Titanic clash with the arch nemesis, not the final one, but the one where you meet him for the first time and you're feeling pretty confident and you go to roll the dice. And if I'm an awful GM, an evil GM and Mark, you know that I am,
00:34:15
Speaker
When that enemy rolls a 20, I am very likely to break that weapon if I can. Yeah, and if you're in a storytelling game and players recognize that moment as it is, I hope when they give a little bit of latitude and they're able to seize that moment and see it for a storytelling moment. I definitely think that like a lot of the other things we've talked about, when it comes to things that could be a hard pill for the players to swallow or that you want to make sure they're on board with,
00:34:43
Speaker
Definitely have the conversation ahead of time. Don't spring it on your player that, oh hey, now you're a cool sword that's the center point of your character's power. It's just broken. That would be evil in a different way. All right, Ben. In conclusion, well, not quite in conclusion. We got one more section to talk about here. Ben, I broke my game. I introduced an item, and it's broken. I broke my whole game. What do I do? I'm glad you
Addressing Game Imbalance Issues
00:35:10
Speaker
asked, Mark. It's not irretrievable.
00:35:12
Speaker
But the first thing to do is talk to your players. And just like when we talked about breaking the rules a little bit or house ruling things, fudging dice a little bit, this is one of these things where if you're learning how to be a GM and all of a sudden you realize you've stepped wrong, you've given your players items that are inappropriate for the kind of adventures that you're in right now, you can always talk to the players and say, listen, guys, this is not going to work out. I don't have a way to challenge you at the level that you guys are right now without
00:35:41
Speaker
really breaking this game. And so at that point, be ready to do some of that horse trading that we talked about earlier. The other thing that's possible is you can just retire the item. Find a way to either fix the item, maybe it's downgraded. If it's a paladin's sword, perhaps they do something
00:36:00
Speaker
unjust or something like that and you could then just have the sword essentially downgrade itself. Maybe you could break the item or you can do other things that essentially change its characteristics to be suitable for the level of character progression that you've got.
00:36:15
Speaker
But if you have been thoughtful about your items, if you've given it some real consideration as you're designing these items, hopefully this thing won't happen. Hopefully you won't have to come to that point. I'm hoping you learn from the many, many mistakes that Ben and I have made when it comes to introducing items into our game. And I'm really hoping that this tune up is useful and helpful for you in your games. Exactly.
00:36:43
Speaker
We are really keen to have your thoughts and feedback. If you have anything to share, if you have comments on this, or if you'd like to send us an idea for something you'd like to tune up.
00:36:55
Speaker
Go ahead and reach out to us at tabletoptuneup at gmail.com. Anything you do as a game master is something that we'd love to hear about. If you've got requests for anything from world building to table management and anything else that GM does that you would like our thoughts or insight about, ways that we can help you tune that up, we'd love to hear from you. We ran a little long today, so we're going to actually not have a tune-up tonight.
00:37:20
Speaker
But we would love to hear from you and we would love to tune up your ideas in our next episode and the episodes to come. Until then, keep those dice rolling.
00:38:16
Speaker
TUDA!