There’s a lot of stuff you can get for Dungeon World. Unfortunately, with these niche products there aren’t many reviews so it’s difficult to decide if they are worth your time (and money).
That’s why I’m taking a look at the supplements 10+ Treasures Vol 1 and 10+ Treasures Vol 2 by Awful Good Games.
The authors started this project after giving feedback on magic item creation in the Dungeon World community. People started asking for a compilation and he realized that advice on creating magic items is also welcome.
Look & Feel
Both PDFs weigh in at around 30 pages, give or take. There are no illustrations. That’s ok for such small products.
The first volume has two parts: magic items and tips on how to make them. It includes 31 new magic items., available at DrivethruRPG as PDF for USD $1.99 or PDF + softcover bundle for USD $4.99.
The second volume is divided into more subcategories: weapons, armor, rings, potions, miscallenous and the section on how to make magic items. (This section is identical in both PDFs.) It includes 30 new magic items. I would have liked to see digital bookmarks. The authors already made the effort to divide the items into categories so there’s only a minimal step left for bookmarking the pdf. Vol 2 is available as PDF only at DrivethruRPG, cost: USD $2.49. Please note that a bundle with both items as PDFs can also be obtained via DTRPG.
The books are layouted in one column with easy to read fonts and good use of bold and italic text. Very functional, nothing fancy but it works nicely.
While Vol 1 has a plain white background, Vol 2 comes with a grey parched-paper look. While this is nice for reading it’s a bit of a hassle if you want to print it out.
Content
10+ Treasures Vol 1
The wide range of items is sorted alphabetically. The authors use fantasy tropes and thus it should be easy to incorporate the items into your own adventures. You may have seen some of them before in other games, i.e. the Blasting Rod. Nonewithstanding, there are also new additions.
Some of them have new tags, for example the freezing tag (excerpt):
Freezing Tag The item is unnaturally, likely uncomfortably cold, to the point where frost or even ice might form on it. [...]
All in all, I really like what I see: a good mix of the well-known, some original items, some items with a a nice twist of humor (Barkskin Potion, whoof!).
They have a good power level: Although the pieces are magical and some of them are quite powerful they are not earth-shattering (except perhaps the Earthshaker Boots, heh?).
What I really dig is that some items have Designer Notes or suggested Tweaks so you can adjust them to your needs.
Mechanically, these items look very solid. The custom moves and other system-related implementations make sense and are crafted with a profound understanding of Dungeon World’s game engine.
The advice on making magical items is useful. The authors give a set of questions to guide you through item creation. They also aid you with defining the high concept of an item and how to create Moves. Furthermore, there is a walkthrough, always useful if you give instructions.
For me, the whole process makes sense and gives me a good framework I can work with.
10+ Treasures Vol 2
This volume gives you six new tags, summarized in the first part of the book on one page: agonizing, infernal, living, maddening, spirit and telepathic.
The book is divided into subcategories so you can find things easily.
As this is a continuation of the first volume the praise I it applies to Vol 2 as well. Mechanics are very good, the power level might be a bit higher but won’t break your game. It’s a pity that there are no Tweaks here but Designer Notes still have a place.
The theme is overall a bit more darker, some creations can be considered cursed items and will fit well into a gritty campaign. There is a lot of Lovecraft here, take the Madstone for example: it’s tied to the cults of the stars and other elder things. The Skin from Space, a mysterious blob of a slime-like substance, is another one.
While the items in Vol 2 are more original it might be more difficult to use them for your own games as they might not fit the tone. Nonetheless, there is still enough “generic fantasy” stuff so you will get your money’s worth.
The instructions of how to create magic items is identical to Vol 1. It’s nice to see that it is included here, too. If you don’t want to buy Vol 1 you still get this chapter.
TL;DR
The 10+ Treasures series give you lots of interesting magic items: some traditional fantasy and some new and unusual. The advice on creating magic items is pretty sweet and adds a lot to the value of the products.
The price tag is totally ok and with the bundle you can get both PDFs for USD $3.98. People often complain because the DW corebook only costs USD $10 (in PDF) so supplements look a bit pricey at first glance. In my opinion, the price of DW is pretty low (due to the success of the crowdfunding campaign?), so you can’t really use it as a baseline. Recommended.
If you want more material for your DW games check out my list of Dungeon World resources.
Links:
10+ Treasures Vol 1 (aff)
10+ Treasures Vol 2 (aff)
PDF bundle (aff)
David Guyll’s blog