I issued a challenge to OSR readers to explain why unavoidably deadly cursed items were a good idea. But to be fair, not all cursed items from the Greyhawk expansion are equally bad.

Loadstone: A stone which appears to be a Luckstone until the owner is being pursued by hostile enemies/monsters. In the case of such pursuit the Loadstone slows his movement by 50%.

This doesn’t kill a player, it just adds a complication. I can see this leading to player death, but also I can see it leading to a hilarious panic along the way. By the way, these are way more common than Luckstones, their non-cursed counterpart.

Boots of Dancing: These boots appear to be any of the others listed before them, and they will continue to so function until their wearer is in a situation where an enemy is in pursuit with intent to kill or some similar situation. When this happens the boots cause the feet of the wearer to dance a jig, soft shoe, tap, and an occasional Shuffle off to Buffalo. Naturally, he is then unable to flee or otherwise escape.

Exactly the same gimmick as the Loadstone. I’m sure the “shuffle off to Buffalo” gag got a few chuckles in the 70s.

Horn of Bubbles: This device exactly resembles a Horn of Valhalla, but when it is sounded it will bring forth a cloud of bubbles which surround its holder, completely obscuring his vision for 4-12 turns.

The Horn of Bubbles is one of the few items that doesn’t either kill you outright or necessitate a Remove Curse. It just waits until you are in a situation dire enough for you to need the help of berserker warriors, and instead of aid, you get covered with comical soap. A++! Would sound horn again!

Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity: Although this item appears to be a Girdle of Giant Strength, as soon as it is worn it changes the sex of its wearer. It can be removed only with a Wish

Ah, the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity, introducing hundreds of 70s teens to the ultimate horror: playing a female character!

OK, not all these cursed items are great. But at least they don’t arbitrarily kill you!

As a late-edition player, I’m finding a lot to like in OD&D, but there’s also a lot that mystifies me. The cursed items from the Greyhawk Supplement are solidly in the latter category. Finding some of these items is the narrative equivalent to the DM saying “You have a heart attack and die.”

Consider these items:

Horn of Collapsing: An instrument which seems to be a Horn of Blasting, but when it is winded it will cause the ceiling immediately above the user to collapse upon him, causing from 6-60 points of damage. If blown in the open it causes a rain of rocks to fall from the sky upon its user, and from 5-30 of such missiles will shower down, doing from 1-3 points damage each.

This one is not only a literal “rocks fall you die” item, it has annoying mechanics. If you’re inside, you take 6d10 damage. Hilarious. If you’re outside, though, the DM is supposed to roll 5d6, add that up, and then roll THAT NUMBER of d6 (an average of 18 dice), dividing each die total by two? Does that curve really vary meaningfully from, say, 6d10, which does about the same average damage?

Necklace of Strangulation: A device which is identical to a Necklace of Missiles, but when placed about the neck will strangle and kill its wearer in 2-5 turns, it requires a Limited Wish or Wish to remove it.

Oh, look, it’s not just an insta-death item because it can be reversed with Wish and Limited Wish! Well, guess what: so can any death. (In the description of the Wish spell: “Wishes that unfortunate adventures had never happened should be granted.”) Might as well just come out and say the necklace “immediately kills the wearer, no save.”

Poisonous Cloak: A cloak indistinguishable from others which are magical. When it is put on it immediately kills its wearer by poison. No saving throw is possible.

There you go. Honesty!

Scarab of Death: A scarab which appears to be any of the other types, but when it is held in the hand for a full turn, or when it is placed in a pack, a bag, or some other place near a person’s body it turns to a horrible burrowing monster which digs directly to the person’s heart and kills him.

DM: You find a magical scarab.
Player: I’m not using any magic items until I’m back in town, standing next to a cleric with Water Breathing, Neutralize Poison, Cure Disease, Remove Curse, Wish, and Limited Wish! Making sure not to touch it directly, I’ll wrap the scarab in several layers of cloth and throw it in my backpack.
DM: It turns into a horrible burrowing monster which digs directly to your heart and kills you. No save.
Player: …

There are many more cursed items; the schtick is that every type of magic item (scarab, horn, etc) has a cursed item, so you never know for sure if a magic item is going to kill you. In fact, sometimes the deadly version of the item is much more common than the helpful one. According to the random treasure tables, more than half of all bowls are Bowls of Watery Death. 75% of all carpets are of Smothering. Half of necklaces are Necklaces of Strangulation.

What recourse do the players have here? In Grayhawk, the Identify spell hadn’t been invented yet. I guess spellcasters could cast the 5th level spells Commune and Contact Higher Plane every time they found a magic item, but I’d think the gods would get sick of that. (Anyway, Contact Higher Plane has a good chance to drive the caster insane.) And Raise Dead is a 5th level spell anyway, so might as well just wait and cast that instead.

Why not skip cursed items, and just say this: “Whenever someone gets a new magic item, flip a coin. If it’s tails, they die! There’s nothing they can do to lower this risk!”

I get that death is common in OD&D. I get that sometimes the player dies through no fault of his or her own. But I don’t see how it’s fun for the DM to place an item, knowing that there’s a 100% chance it will kill a character. I just can’t get it out of my spoiled, 4e, everything-is-padded head that PC death should involve, at minimum, one of a) an attack roll, b) a saving throw, c) a bad decision, or d) a missed clue.

Here’s my challenge: Can anyone contribute an anecdote about a time they used one of these insta-death items, and it was fun?

Next week: OD&D cursed items that are not that bad!

Continuing my readthrough of TSR books in publication order, I’m up to the magic items of the Greyhawk supplement:

sword of cold: In addition to the bonus shown vs. creatures of fiery origin, the weapon scores triple damage whenever a 20 is rolled. It is able to dispell a Wall of Fire and gives its user the same protection as a Ring of Fire Resistance.

This is an example of what I’d be glad to see in a 4e or 5e magic item. It’s a reasonably powerful weapon, but not overpowered compared to other magical weapons; it has a lot of thematically-related abilities; and it reminds the owner of its presence (its acting as the ring of fire resistance, for instance, makes you glad you have it in several non-hewing situations). It also has a very satisfying crit power.

shield of missile attraction: This item will appear to be a perfectly genuine +1 to +5 shield until missiles from true enemies are shot at its user in anger. It will attract such missiles and reduce the person’s armor class by 5% (-1).

Depending on how you read it, this might just be another “bummer” cursed item, or a quite interesting one.

It might be a shield that seems to be a magic shield, but when used turns out to be a -1 shield against all attacks, and it also “attracts missiles” in some undefined way. Or, it could be read as an ordinary magic shield against melee attacks, +1 to +5, but -1 against all missile attacks. This makes the shield a situationally valuable, but very dangerous, item that might cause some angst to the player! “Do I keep this shield? It might get me killed! But it might save my life!” Seems like a nice model for cursed items, but D&D didn’t go in that direction.

vorpal sword: The Vorpal Blade differs from a Sword of Sharpness in several ways:
1) its bonus hit probability is +2;
2) it needs only 10% over the required score to hit, or an 18 through 20 in any event to sever, and it will always sever the neck; and
3) it will perform in the hands of any Lawful fighter, although it requires a Paladin in order to act in its anti-magic capacity.

Wow, this weapon is crazy. It kind of makes a mockery of the D&D combat system.

It’s +2, and if you get 10% more on the attack roll you need, you sever the target’s head. Note that that +2 and 10% cancel each other out on the attack die. That’s roughly equivalent to (but better than) a sword with no pluses to hit, that does A MILLION DAMAGE on a hit. Combats are going to be a lot shorter with this weapon. I don’t know how the DM could continue to challenge a party with this sword, except send them a constant stream of gelatinous cubes and other headless creatures.

Arrows of Slaying: Special magical arrows which are specifically enchanted to slay Monsters with a single hit. The referee may distinguish them by basic types if he wishes, or they may each slay any monster. Basic types would be: Giant Class, Undead Class, Flying Monsters, Other Monsters, Enchanted Monsters (Invisible Stalkers, Elementals, Golems, Aerial Servants, and so on).

I want an “Arrow of Slaying Other Monsters”. It’s an arrow that’s defined only in relationship with other arrows! It’s a meta arrow!

There’s a startling passage in the Greyhawk supplement, under Meteor Swarm:

Meteor Swarm: A blast of four Fire Balls (Jim!). thrown in whatever pattern the caster desires, each of 10-60 points of damage–or eight Fire Balls (Jim!) of one-half normal diameter and 5-30 points damage may likewise be thrown. Range: 24″ .

When I first read this, I found this mystifying. It’s clearly an inside joke: I speculated that it might somehow be a Star Trek reference? When I googled it, I found this post on dragonsfoot by Jim Ward:

There is kind of an amusing story behind that. Yes it does refer to me. Back in the good old days when the AD&D game was being playtested I wasn’t high enough level to actually have a Meteor Swarm but I could get them on scrolls. At the time I needed something more substantial than fire to do the job against my enemy. It wasn’t clear what the spell did and I maintained (as long as it wasn’t written down any where) that the spell generated a huge mass of flying rocks. Rob Kuntz as the referee disagreed with me, but had to give me my due because it wasn’t written down yet. When those rules came out, suddenly my interpertation was ‘legally’ wrong, sigh and the once useful Meteor Swarm became less usefull. That’s life in the rough and tumble world of AD&D and D&D. 😉

Jim Ward

That shows you what a mom’n’pop organization D&D was then. The TSR of five years later – or most OSR publishers today – wouldn’t put in such an obviously exclusive in-joke into one of their books. It really does feel like, even by the time of the second D&D supplement, these guys were still making rulebooks for their own little gaming club. As someone who started D&D during the era of more impersonal rulebooks, details like this are both alienating and charming.

It must have been the same for lots of readers in 1976. When the Greyhawk supplement was published, this “Jim” line must have mystified lots of fans.