Ooh, and it has a technical name: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canitie...

Off the top of my head, I can push that back to 1835:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viy_(st...

It's been long enough since I read it, and in a probably out-of-date translation, that I have no definite thoughts. A comment pointed out that it's a plausible influence, but that it a) has minimal influence on Oriental Adventures b) gets a writeup in Dragon 54 by Joseph Ravitts.

Theoretically, the PCs could enter room A, grab the lucky high-roll treasure, leave, level up, return, enter room B, grab the second high-value treasure, etc. But this would require the PCs not to push their luck, the GM to be lenient, and no restocking.

True, but too much treasure is less of a problem than too little treasure, thanks to the XP cap. "A character should never be given enough XP in a single adventure to advance more than one level of experience." Since mundane gear is cheap, it only really affects hirelings and side projects.

It seems that both B/X and M&TA are using a capped system for jewellery values, instead of AD&D's upgrading/runaway system. AD&D and M&TA are segregated (one type of treasure/coin per result), B/X is additive (base of silver + chance of gold + chance of magic items).

Resembles, but isn't the same. I think M&T is using its own methodology. Here's Level 5. Many more magic items than in either AD&D or B/X, and some of the entries are doubled up.

@icastlight.bsky.social OK, here's the Level 1 table in the same format. It's not pre-rolled AD&D results (the values are off) and it's heavily coin-weighted.

It is tricky to balance with the "low chance / high value" option in the mix. Sure, X rooms at Y average value is easy enough... but if 5% of rooms are somewhere between 20x and 50x the average value... And if the PCs miss that one room...

Getting lots of use out ofthis post
icastlight.blogspot.com/2025/02/how-... by @icastlight.bsky.social and Lungfungus' tables.

Poor Zort the Hireling running in circles while another apprentice tries to fashion a head-mounted reading stand...

Ah! That makes sense! I was wondering where this mental image was coming from. I thought it was a goofy horror film, but it might have been this game.
Probably even more annoying in D&D though. Imagine the party trying to feed the poor wizard a sandwich...