Using Trinkets - Part 1

I love trinkets in Dungeons and Dragons! Whenever I run a campaign, I always have players roll on the trinket table during character creation. I also periodically sneak in trinkets as part of the payment characters receive for completing a job or as part of the loot the characters find.

“But then what?” you say. "They're an empty purse. Count them, go broke. Eat them, go hungry. Seek them, go mad!"

Part of the power of the trinkets concept comes from their descriptions, which tend to be brief, open-ended statements leaving more questions than answers. And where there are questions there is story. So I use trinkets to flesh out the character’s backstory, spawn expected side quests, inspire one-shot adventures, provide the foundation for story arcs, and even shape the course of entire campaigns. That’s right, trinkets can do all that. Don’t believe me? Keep reading.

Character Backstory

When a character starts a campaign with a trinket, it is de facto part of that character’s backstory. In this context, the first question to address is how the trinket was acquired. The answer can reveal additional details about the character’s past and establish the importance the item holds. Maybe it was part of an inheritance from a distant relative or a gift from an appreciative mentor. Perhaps it was a cherished childhood toy or is all that is left after a disaster upended that childhood. It might even be something the character stole, whether for fun or as part of an initiation. The possibilities are limitless but whatever the player and DM decide must be appropriate to the character’s backstory. For example, in a campaign I once ran, a player with a half-elf rogue rolled a 67 on the trinkets table during character creation. That’s the “gold monocle frame without the lens” trinket. She quickly decided that this item was the only keepsake from her character’s human mother who had died when the character was very young. This explanation was simple, clean, and straight to the point. We also spent a minute or so describing the item’s appearance just for some added realism.

Both player and DM can have the most fun when there’s a little mystery surrounding the trinket’s origin. This is especially true if the explanation of its acquisition leaves more questions to be answered. Continuing with the previous example, the player wanted the monocle to be an odd thing for the mother to have possessed let alone give to a child. The player also wanted to have had a handful of attempts made at stealing it from her over the years. Why would anyone try to steal what wasn’t much more than a piece of junk? We didn’t decide at character creation; we left that a mystery to be uncovered during the campaign.

Some trinkets are themselves a mystery, such as number 19, “A pipe that blows bubbles” or number 91, “A needle that never bends.” While I always want to know how a trinket was acquired during character creation, I never devise an explanation for or work out the origin of such unusual properties. I leave that to be unraveled as the game unfolds. This allows everyone to discover the most interesting answer that makes the most sense in the campaign. For example, another player in another campaign scored a 27 on the trinkets table, “A shard of obsidian that always feels warm to the touch.” We quickly worked out that this was an item the character found during her years in the navy. We did not discuss why it was always warm to the touch. That was found out later in the campaign.

Side Quests

I use side quest here to mean any activity or task a character undertakes that is not necessarily a part of the larger story. This might include a character’s personal goal (I want to acquire a mug from every inn we visit), a downtime activity (I want to build a clockwork device but need to acquire its parts first), or an ongoing task that can be accomplished alongside a story arc (a shop owner wants me to post these flyers in every town I visit).

If you think of a trinket as a puzzle that must be solved, a side quest gives the player a chance to find one small piece of that puzzle with minimal disruption to other players and little impact on the campaign as a whole. The side quest might be triggered directly by the player, such as when they are actively looking for information. It might also be triggered by an unrelated event. An NPC might make a casual comment while the character is talking with them about something else or the character might find a clue tucked away in the crypt the party is exploring that sends the character hunting for more clues in its dangerous tunnels.

Given the limited scope of side quests, the information that each one reveals must be equally limited. Each must also provide a clue regarding how the character can find out more. At the end of a side quest, for example, a character might learn that their crystal doorknob is of dwarvish origin and that any expert in dwarvish antiques can tell him more. Side quests might also provide information that is simply wrong or misleading. I’m not saying that DMs should lie to players outside of the game, but it is possible that whatever a character discovers in game isn’t entirely correct. Just be careful doing this. There’s nothing that will kill a player’s enthusiasm more than being lied to in real life. Don't be a jerk.

There’s one last thing to know about side quests. Only use them early in a player’s investigation. When the player knows next to nothing about their trinket, the limited information that should be revealed in a side quest will feel like a big win. If the player already knows quite a bit about their trinket, the side quest will feel like a waste of time.

Let’s return to the monocle that belonged to that half-elf rogue for a moment. During a downtime session, our protagonist stumbled home from a wild night at the pub to discover her room had been ransacked while she was out partying. The only thing missing, however, was the small wooden box in which she kept the monocle and other personal items. Luckily, that night she had been carrying the monocle with her so it had not been stolen. The player decided that her character would keep an eye out for the other stolen items on the black market, and if she found any of them she would use her underworld contacts to trace them back to the thief. From there, she would interrogate the person to find out who hired them, why they wanted the monocle, and if they knew anything more about it. These activities unfolded over the next couple of sessions.

End Part 1

That's it for part 1 of this post. Keep an eye out for part 2 in the next week or so. Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out my DMs Guild offerings listed below. I'm currently working on a new supplement, a king's trove of trinkets and common magical items all inspired by gnome life, myth, history, adventures, and other shenanigans. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter to keep up to date.

Note: This image is not my work. It is from the Basic rules set.

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Also, check out my DMsGuild offerings:

• Epic Gnomish Inventing
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• The WhatNot Shop’s Absurd Accoutrements
  A collection of unusual magical items.
• The WhatNot Shop's Bracing Beverages
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• The WhatNot Shop's Common Curiosities and Trivial Trinkets
  A collection of common magic items and trinkets.
• The WhatNot Shop's Dastardly Doodads and Orc Oddities
  A collection of orc-themed common magic items and trinkets.