The Sword of Divinity? Or the Shackles of Gold?
Want to give your party a magic item - an item of incredible, game-breaking power - without it… well, breaking the game?
You could give them a solely useful thing, like a sword blessed by the gods.
Or… you can give them an artefact.
I think if you play D&D enough, you inevitably end up with a Deck of Many Things story.
Some of you will say you’ve played for 73 years and never encountered it because it sucks.
To which I say, you haven’t encountered it yet.
I was the GM for a group who, like so many adventuring parties, were causing a lot of chaos. I knew the Deck would be a good fit for them.
If you don’t know what the Deck is, it’s a powerful magical artefact. Like a deck of playing cards, it’s a tool of randomness. Card games work by every player knowing what’s in the deck, but not knowing what order it’s in.
The Deck of Many Things is like that, only capable of manipulating reality.
When you shuffle and draw from the Deck, you might receive riches, castles and bonus XP.
Or your magical items might turn to dust, a demon lord swears vengeance on you or you become trapped in an abyss for eternity.
It can elevate paupers into kings… and vice versa.
And the Deck loves it.
When I introduced it, the party stumbled across the ruins of a keep. This keep was once a mighty fortress, capable of enduring even the toughest assaults.
It fell when a desperate soldier drew from the Deck. They drew poorly - the keep not only fell, but became cursed as well.
Hundreds of years later, the party came along. They found a few of the cards from the Deck scattered around.
Individually, they had some power. Together, they formed an artefact of chaos.
The party reassembled the Deck and used it to sow chaos into the world. It liked them, giving them favourable draws. The Deck would never cheat exactly - where’s the chaos in that? - but it would allow them to draw two or three cards, and choose their favourite.
This made them even more powerful than they were, so even more disruptive.
Time passes, the party found themselves in an ancient temple, amidst a powerful ritual. The ritual could elevate individuals to gods.
One faction wanted to resurrect their dead, forgotten goddess.
Another wanted to transcend to godhood themselves.
There was the party, caught in the middle. They could have sided with either faction or hijacked the ritual for themselves. Instead, they destroyed the temple and ended the ritual.
The next time they drew from the Deck, expecting favourable treatment, it was furious. It screamed at them, raged at them, belittled their very existence before disappearing to find worthier agents.
If the Deck loves to elevate paupers to kings, how angry was it they turned down the chance to elevate a mortal to a god?
Chaos, in the Pantheon!
It was everything the Deck ever wanted!
But no - the party protected the status quo - an unforgivable transgression.
What’s the point of this story? Weren’t we talking about magic items?
Consider this:
People are generally complex. They have desires, habits and goals, all of which can contradict each other.
They are also relatively weak. Most people can’t change the fate of a kingdom alone.
Artefacts, though, are the opposite. The mightiest artefacts elevate heroes and villains into beings powerful beyond belief.
They are also often simple - having a single fixation on justice, or orc-slaying, or discovery, or chaos.
Worried about giving your players an item that’s too powerful?
Make it self-aware and highly critical.
Let them know when they stray from the artefact’s desires. Because - people being complex - they will.
If an adventuring party can’t always live up to the ideals of chaos, then they can’t always uphold anything.
As the artefact approves of their decisions, let them know.
As they transgress, let them know that too. Let them know the consequences of continued disappointment.
They might find their treasured artefact weakening in their hands with every compromise they make.
Cross too many lines - or one line that’s big enough - and let the artefact leave.
An artefact can be as powerful as it wants. If it forces the party to always choose the path of justice, for example, then it greatly limits them in other ways.
It becomes a set of golden handcuffs - something restrictive that they don’t want to give up.
They might choose to toss it or sell it, since it’s not worth the hassle.
They might try their best to live up to impossible standards and fail.
Or they might enter every situation, mighty beyond belief but with constrained options.
It’ll be a tough choice, either way. Isn’t inflicting such choices on the players half the fun of GMing?
Speaking of options…
If you want to level up you GMing, you have a few choices. You can pick any of the GM Virtues - or any combination - and work on improving them in yourself.
You can never have too much of the Virtues.
There’s always room for you to grow.
If you want to run truly sensational games, then read through the Virtues and focus on improving them.
The good news?
You can read them for free when you sign up to my email list: