In the Curse of Strahd world, going to Blinksy’s Toy Shoppe in Vallaki is always a highlight for my players, but I’d struggle once we got there. Coming up with interesting toys off the top of my head, plus prices? Not good. Especially when there’s five or six players all trying to find cool things at once.
Thus, my need for d100 tables. Make the player roll so it feels more personal, then read it off, and more often than not the player would purchase the item and keep it for the rest of the campaign.
Every campaign usually needs it’s own version of the list, with the player’s unique interests put in. Some are 100% serious lists, where only items that would be completely canon to the universe are included. For sillier groups, I’ll take their special interests from outside the game and put a “spooky twist” on them to give them a laugh.
No matter what I do, Strahd Puppet is always on there.
