Bad Jokes, Dad Jokes & Clichés: Encyclopedia Magica - Volume 1, Part 2 (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons)

TSR's twenty-year treasury of magic items includes quite a few silly items. Let's enjoy them in this second look at the first volume from the AD&D series. If you'd like me to continue this series, please leave a comment. Otherwise, this is it.
"Chrysogon's Coterie - 288 NPCs for your Campaign" now on Amazon printed-at-cost:
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I am a writer / game developer for Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, an open source retro-clone RPG that emulates, and is largely compatible with, the 1981 Basic and Expert sets of Dungeons & Dragons. I love Basic, but am also a fan of 1st Edition AD&D, White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game, Top Secret, Gamma World, Call of Cthulhu, and many other legacy and retro systems.

[@dragonbrat]

I love this series. It's fun to hear all the ridiculous items that previous editions had available.

[@toddlyons]

That's great to hear! Response to Part 1 was a lot less than I was expecting, so I hesitated to make a part 2... but I figured I should finish the first book. If enough people enjoy this, I might do the other 3. There's probably a ton of strange and silly stuff left to discover.

[@freddaniel5099]

For me the spell components added a bit of believability to game magic. It served as a link to the real world. A focus akin to the cleric holy symbol. I actually wondered why some spells lacked material components and made up my own. Cheers!

[@toddlyons]

Quite right. So long as there's a place to get the supplies, it can add depth to the game. I confess that as 7 to 10 year olds, we... lacked depth. :-) We were totally into the fighting and looting.

[@TheBasicBrit1989]

I'm starting to gather up some of the older stuff now, like this and B/X modules. I know your a BFRPG guy like me but do you pull a lot of info from the ADnD books Todd?

[@toddlyons]

Hi Kenny. I very much enjoy my old 1E and 2E books, but they're mostly just to inspire my own creative juices. I've rarely brought an item or a rule forward more-or-less verbatim. Concepts, yes. My BFRPG module "Beneath the SIlver Spire" has the same premise as AD&D module 'S2: White Plume Mountain,' but it's executed very differently. Likewise, "Chrysogon's Coterie" was my "fixed" vision of The Rogues Gallery (similar to, but also an improvement on 'The Shady Dragon Inn' -- which I'd never heard of before I published my own NPC book).

[@TheBasicBrit1989]

@@toddlyons yea with that context it makes sense now. You can see it across the whole BFRPG catalogue that people have taken something moulded it into something semi new for that system