The "Maybe" Die

I was musing more on equipment, and especially my most recent thoughts on the topic (found here). In particular, I was thinking about how I would handle things that the party might have available.

Having considered it some more, I'm inclined to be both a bit more generous when determining if the party have an item, but correspondingly less generous for multiple items. The basic principle is the "maybe" die.

As before, characters can carry ten "things", not including their rations and one set of clothing. Multiple identical items count as a single "thing", but they do have to be identical - a potion of healing and a potion of greater healing count as two "things".

In addition, characters start with a "maybe" die rated at d12.

When the time comes to determine if someone in the party has a given item, one player can choose to roll their "maybe" die. On a roll of anything other than a '1', the party have one of the item, but the character's "maybe" die is reduced by one size (d12->d10->d8->d6->d4). Once they reduce the "maybe" die below a d4, they have no further items.

(If they do roll a '1' then they don't have the item, but the "maybe" die remains the same.)

There are a few more caveats: items covered by the "maybe" die must be about the size of the character's fist or smaller. Weapons (including ammunition), armour, and shields cannot be generated using the "maybe" die, nor can any sort of magical item. Items greater in value than about 5gp cannot be generated. Rerolls, either by the same character or another, are not allowed. And the DM can veto any specific item at any time - you can't use the "maybe" die to randomly summon the key that just happens to fit that lock you've found.

When the character reaches any settlement, all temporary items generated by the "maybe" die disappear. (Characters are, of course, free to declare some or all of them as one of their ten "things", of course. But they cannot keep the item only long enough to sell it!) However, each character's "maybe" die resets to d12.

About the bag of holding: Simply put, the bag of holding allows the character to carry any number of "things", but accessing a "thing" from the bag is an action. The character also has a second "maybe" die, also rated at d12 - when rolling they can roll both dice, and only one of them (always the smaller) is reduced by a successful roll.