In Mario Party 3, each player can hold a maximum of three items.
This was a major gameplay change from the first two Mario Party games, in which players could carry only one item at a time. The expanded inventory gave players more opportunity to plan several turns ahead instead of immediately using or discarding every useful object.
Items can be bought in shops or won through special single-player minigames. Their effects vary: some provide additional dice blocks, the Skeleton Key opens shortcuts, and other items can interfere with an opponent’s inventory. A player uses an item before rolling the Dice Block, so storing several choices can be strategically valuable.
The number is sometimes confused with later games because the three-item limit continued into Mario Party 4. The important historical point is that Mario Party 3 introduced the larger inventory compared with its predecessors, not that it merely repeated an established rule.