d1000 - Pockets

Board Enterprises has just released d1000 Pockets, as in What has it got in its ...

Yep - You read that right - d1000. Actually there are over 1,100 items in the book. Why? Well, it is a random loot generator for when your players are picking pockets (or otherwise looting folks). d100 gets boring really fast! Even d1000 can get a little weird when items that feel like they should be really special show up a couple of times. That’s why this chart has over one hundred alternates and other side items that don’t show up normally in the random sequencing. If you roll something that doesn’t seem to fit, just use the alternate for that item.

So what is it exactly? A random loot chart. But there is more. First off, it has a very good random coinage chart for determining how many coins a person has in their pocket. None of the 1100+ items are spare change. Second, it has a reasonably good way to determine what a “pocket” is - or more commonly, what kind of coin purse is this character carrying.

But wait, there’s more. Every item in the book is priced at base, wholesale and collector values. Base is what the materials are worth. Easy enough on a small silver medallion - it’s worth the weight of the silver, if you were to melt it down. Sometimes these are a little better, as in a hammer being worth what a handle costs and what the steel is worth (instead of just steel and generic firewood) or a shirt being worth what the fabric could be sold for.

More commonly, the “craft” or wholesale price is what the item is worth due to the craftsmanship that went into it. That’s normally what you’d get when fencing or selling the item. Then again, if it’s a ring with an engraving, it might only be worth the weight of the gold. The collector value doesn’t enter into Pockets too much, because that’s what the item would be worth to a collector. This covers antiques, but also things like poker chips (no real value, but still some value at the right vendor!).

So why do you want to buy d1000 Pockets? Well, because you want your game to have cool loot, but you don’t want to spend your time figuring it out. Pockets is a loot chart. And the items are often intriguing enough to have the players say, “No, I’ll keep that. We don’t need to sell it.” The second reason is that it gives you the wholesale value for 1100+ items that follow the Grain Into Gold economy. Now it isn’t a perfect fit as a price guide, because there are a lot of items that are not worth a copper coin to a vendor (a couple of cookies or a few spare leather straps for instance). For anything worth a copper or better - it’s a pretty good price guide.

It’s 37 pages of content, and you know Board Enterprises. We did not waste space on artwork. That’s 28 pages on the d1000 chart, a page on the spare coinage chart, another page on the types of coin purses, and the rest on descriptions of how things work etc. (narrative). Hate to let the surprise out of the bag, but it’s $3.99.

Those of you who read this column regularly know how long we’ve been working on this. We can promise you: d1000 Pockets makes sense! The prices, both base and craft follow an established formula that started in Grain Into Gold and was massively expanded for this book. That does not mean you need to own Grain Into Gold to use this book (but why wouldn’t you want to own GIG?), but it does mean that we’ve got this thing down! From here on out, we should be able to turn around loot and treasure lists vastly quicker than it took on Pockets, while still maintaining that game balance that is vital to long running campaigns. Yes - The long term goal is a book I have been referring to as “The Great Big Book of Loot”. I won’t even say coming soon, just coming.

See it on RPG Now or on Warehouse 23.