What did Living Greyhawk have against Bag of Tricks?

[Nanashi]

Going through Living Greyhawk material and I see Bag of Tricks was not only banned, but even banned from AR rewards that granted one's pick of any normally off limit item. I'd think it's the per week use limit (which would make it per adventure), or the ability to slow play by summoning a bunch of fodder, but neither of those is unique to Bag of Tricks. Organized play makes some pretty weird, but the way this item is singled out makes me sure there's some kind of story behind it. Anyone know?

[Maelphaxerazz]

I haven't the foggiest idea, but I'll respond so you know your question isn't echoing silently in the void, unheard and unwanted.

Which Living Greyhawk material is the ban listed in?

[Nanashi]

I recall seeing it excluded in a list of which items were legal, but there's also this

The Writer's Guidebook

Authors  should  avoid  giving  out  the  following  items  to any APL lower than 10:•Bag of Tricks (all types)•Bead of Karma•Boots of Speed•Gloves of Storing•Heward’s Handy Haversack•Rhino Hide Armor•Ring of Animal Friendship

This was written with 3.0 in mind, if not for it, and Boots of Speed (3.0 haste), Handy Haversack (free action), Ring of Animal Friendship (12 HD of animal companion) Rhino's Hide (double damage) were all stupidly good in 3.0 while Gloves of Storing was very undercosted (not as undercosted as the 3.5 price thought though). Bead of Karma isn't clear, but it's a very solid item usable for nova. Bag of Tricks however, is seemingly near identical to the 3.5 version

Forget which AR it was in that explicitly prohibited it from an any item.

[Power]

I think the salient point is that a Bag of Tricks (Gray) is a pretty cheap item at 900gp, and the most basic stunt they are popular for is using them to find and disable traps by making them test surfaces and walk into them for you. This can trivialize a lot of cunning traps quite effortlessly. You can also draw an entire bag's worth of creatures to mess up encounters by using them as obstacles and setting up flanking and maybe have them roll Aid Another to help out your party. It also gives access to blindsense, scent, and a burrow speed which can come in handy. You do need to draw the right animal but if you draw up to 10 animals your odds are pretty decent. Other than that you can use it to abuse abilities that require you to kill something for rewards (bag of chickens style, but without having to feed, water, and transport living chickens). The list of Handle Animal tricks has also gotten expanded with splats, which in turn has ramifications for what you can do with a bag of tricks. Here's an expanded list.

I also think it's telling that PF avoided including its version of Bag of Tricks until Aquatic Adventures, raised the cost significantly, removed the badger, and limited you to only drawing 2 animals per day. IIRC a good number of PF's odd nerfs had to do with strange experiences in Living Greyhawk.