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That said, AFAICT, there are exactly one listing each for "+1 sword" and "Apparatus of Kwalish" in the books, so I'm not sure what to make of your "experience" listed above.
I would agree that +1 swords are far more common than any other unusual item, but that doesn't mean that the full sum of unusual items is not greater than that of +1 swords.
I had the same experience with my combo 1e/2e game. The reason for it was simple, the average dungeon crawl for us went like this:
Room 1: 4 +1 Longswords
Room 2: 2 +1 suits of Leather, 2 +1 Daggers
Room 3: 2 +1 Rings of Protection and a Wand of Fireball
Room 4: Strange Pink Rhomboid Stone
Room 5: A Mug that seems to give us infinite grog
Room 6: +2 Chainmail, Elven Boots
Then at the end, we'd roll to see who got first pick of the treasure. The magic weapons, armors, and rings would go first unless the character in question already had a magic weapon and armor that was equal or better than the ones we found(We had one group who would toss away +4 longswords because we ALL had +5 already at level 12). Only after they were all chosen would the "novelty" items get chosen. That is, the ones that didn't give us a direct and clear advantage in battle or sneaking past a battle.
We all had read the books, we knew what an Apparatus of Kwalish was. If we came across one it was likely half the group would be unwilling to touch it due to the large chance that we got ourselves killed by pulling random levers. Of course, there was always the one joker in our group who would do it anyways and end up getting himself killed...and think it was hilarious.
But we were old school players. We didn't find any mystery in magic items...just usefulness or danger. Either you didn't know what an item did, which meant you would likely blow yourself up along with your entire party by pointing a wand of fireballs at the ground in front of you and saying the command word OR you knew exactly what it was in which case you used it only when it was clearly useful with no danger to your party. So no one used any item that wasn't yet identified or random.
__________________ Majoru Oakheart
Secret Attorney of the Guidelines for the <Sorry, you didn't make the DC 20 Perception check, and you don't have another minor action to try again. Next time try finding an Elf to stand nearby you.>
I had the same experience with my combo 1e/2e game. The reason for it was simple, the average dungeon crawl for us went like this:
I am sorry that your play experience did not live up to the potential of the game you were playing.
Perhaps if spells like identify had given as vague of answers as they were intended to, and you hadn't read all the books (thus depriving yourself from the joy of discovery in-game), or had you a better DM (with both better item distribution and recognition of your having read the books so as to create new items), your play experience might have been better.
I know mine was (and is).
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
I am sorry that your play experience did not live up to the potential of the game you were playing.
I don't think you get it. Your paradigm about what is or isn't a "good play experience" is not an absolute. I'm not holding out my play experience as a sad sob story and asking for sympathy; I'm actively telling you that having mysterious and wondrous magical items doesn't make or break the game for me. In fact, I don't even think it's all that interesting an aspect of the game. In fact, as a guy who prefers a more Hyborean type experience, all those magic items that you're saying are so... well, magical are actually detrimental to what I want from the game most times.
I actually quite like what Eberron's done, where they said, "OK, really, according to the rules, there's no reason why magic shouldn't be more mundane and ubiquitous, at least of a low level, convenient variety that more approximates what technology has done in the real world." Too me, that's much more exciting and interesting than trying to come up with yet another way to emulate some mythological or Tolkienian experience with the game.
I don't think you get it. Your paradigm about what is or isn't a "good play experience" is not an absolute.
Oh, I'm sorry. I obviously missed the place where "You can't have magic and wonder in an rpg" turned into "You don't need magic and wonder in an rpg".
If you are arguing the second, then I can hardly dispute what you want.
I am doing nothing more than saying that the first is hogwash.
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
So... you're saying that the first argument that I never made is hogwash? Sweet.
Just as you are in the post I was responding to (re: absolute play paradigms).
Funny how that works, isn't it?
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
Just as you are in the post I was responding to (re: absolute play paradigms).
Funny how that works, isn't it?
Actually, no, it's not. You're not doing the same thing I am, you're just being annoyingly pedantic.
You said that my experience was sad. You said Majoru's experience was qualitatively worse than yours. Presumably you're now going to point to your little winky smilie to say that no, you weren't holding your preference out as an absolute truism now or something equally inane, though. Or some other pedantic dodge of what you actually said.
Whereas, on the other hand, you just completely made up an argument that I never made and attributed it to me. How you now compare our two posts and insinuate that I'm also attacking a strawman because... why; because I didn't restate your last severla posts in the exact words that you originally typed them? has me boggling at your posts for the second time this evening.
Actually, no, it's not. You're not doing the same thing I am, you're just being annoyingly pedantic.
You said that my experience was sad. You said Majoru's experience was qualitatively worse than yours.
Really?
Again, I obviously missed the place where "You can't have magic and wonder in an rpg" turned into "You don't need magic and wonder in an rpg".
So far as I am aware, the topic of this thread, and certainly the topic of conversation which I was persuing, assumes that some sense of mystery and wonder in magic is desireable.
Indeed, the original post claims
I was looking through my AD&D books tonight and noticed how versatile and multi-functional so many of the magic items were.
They were powerful, and they were odd, and fascinating, and most important of all a lot of them could do all kinds of things.
By comparison so many of the magic items of more recent editions are bland, plain, uninspired, and uninspiring.
It is true that I did make the (apparently mistaken) assumption that you were arguing that the AD&D magic items were not as described, rather than arguing that the items the OP describes as "bland, plain, uninspired, and uninspiring" were preferable. If that is the argument you are making, well, to each his own.
I gained this assumption from the ideas that
(1) You were responding in context of the post you quoted, and
(2) That "when you said
Which version of older D&D are you looking at? Y'know what I remember most from my BD&D and AD&D days? +1 swords.
It wasn't until lateish 3.5, with Weapons of Legacy that I remember D&D ever really trying to bring "magic" to their magic items.
that you were actually making the claim that I responded to. I.e., that earlier edition magical items were not magical.
Moreover, (3)
Plus, you assume a priori that there's an objective, quantifiable positive to having magic items done the way you want them, which I'd disagree with. I think the paradigm in Eberron, with it's almost assembly line minor magic items, is an intriguing change; a cool new idea that hits like a gust of fresh air.
suggests that the first part of your post is a seperate thought from the idea that "magical" magic items are desirable.
Frankly, you are arguing that D&D didn't have magical magic items, and that when 3.5 came along, and did away with magical magic items it was a breath of fresh air.
I suppose I attempted to resolve the paradox of your post in the way that (to me) seemed to be the least paradoxical.
I do believe that we read posts through a sort of filter that says, "If I wrote that, this is what I would mean....." which doesn't always convey the intent of the original writer. If I have done so in your case, I certainly apologize.
I'd also be interested in learning exactly what you meant by the above. Because, clearly, I'm not understanding what you are trying to say.
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Presumably you're now going to point to your little winky smilie to say that no, you weren't holding your preference out as an absolute truism now or something equally inane, though. Or some other pedantic dodge of what you actually said.
No; I certainly stand by what I said.
Your experience with older D&D magical items, to the degree in which your description thereof is honest, is an artifact of your personal experience, and not an artifact of the game system. Again, the Encyclopedia Magica shows how many weird and wonderful items existed officially, let alone those made up by countless DMs throughout the years.
And it is sad that your experience, apparently, is so at odds with what the game could offer. Especially given your apparent dissatisfaction with what your experience actually was. Exactly as it would be sad if I judged 4e on the basis of a single class and a couple of monsters, then walked away complaining about the game.
I never my desired play experience was universal. You just completely made up an argument that I never made and attributed it to me.
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
I am sorry that your play experience did not live up to the potential of the game you were playing.
Perhaps if spells like identify had given as vague of answers as they were intended to, and you hadn't read all the books (thus depriving yourself from the joy of discovery in-game), or had you a better DM (with both better item distribution and recognition of your having read the books so as to create new items), your play experience might have been better.
I know mine was (and is).
RC
That's kinda not fair Raven....Especially if as a young DM, you assumed that the adventures in 1e were supposed to display the typical adventure...
There's WAY more basic +X items and simple stuff like scrolls of single spells than "unique magic items". I have the encyclopedia magica as well and I know what you mean that magic items could be mysterious (items under Artwork were always my favourite) but again, it is hard to deny that TSR didn't follow its own suggestions...
Plus, you assume a priori that there's an objective, quantifiable positive to having magic items done the way you want them, which I'd disagree with.
What I personally was saying was that anything can be improved upon. And everything that can be improved upon probably should be improved upon.
Sometimes you improve a thing by looking forwards, sometimes you improve a thing by looking backwards, and sometimes by both, or by neither. And that I'm not afraid to look backwards in order to find an improvement to a current state of affairs.
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but again, it is hard to deny that TSR didn't (always - my edit) follow its own suggestions...
I have to agree. Having an ideal is not the same thing as executing that ideal in the best way possible.
As I have said many, many times in the past, I believe that there is quite a bit of skewing in the viewpoints expressed therein.
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
Your ideas are interesting, Jack, you've taken the Wand of Wonder to its ultimate end point. I particularly like the idea that an item's powers could vary depending on the time of day, month or season of the year. How about an item that has different powers at night than it does during the day?
However in D&D magic items are principally a reward for the player, they're like a different form of level up. So I don't think all, or even the majority, of magic items should be like this. Mostly they should do something beneficial and non-mysterious.
As Mallus says, in D&D some items have always been very mysterious, such as artefacts (in 1e there were spaces in the DMG for the DM to write in his own powers for each artefact, which seems to assume players would be reading the DMG incidentally), some have been somewhat mysterious such as the Wand of Wonder or an item with a lot of functions such as a Ring of Shooting Stars, and some are very straightforward, the +X items.
The 'All magic items are artefacts' approach can only work, imo, if the PCs don't have a lot of magic items. In a typical game of D&D they are expected to have a great many, so it simply isn't practical for the DM to make them all complex and interesting. And that's fine. I think it's perfectly good DMing to have most items non-mysterious, non-storied and useful, with the occasional Stormbringer, Deck of Many Things or Hand of Vecna to add magic to the game. Not everything can, or should, be weird.
__________________ The female tiefling's horns are not 'handlebars'.
Well, don't get me wrong Doug. I'm not saying all magical items should be like artefacts, or artefact level. I'm just saying most all magical items and other magical effects could be far more interesting than just a +1 item.
Let me give you an example.
I gave some of my players a crystal lens which when looked through changes their vision. That's all it does. Just changes how they see things. But for one person, because of his class and nature, he can see magical dwoemers around objects (if they have one). For another it lets him read foreign scripts. For another it apparently does nothing (in truth he just hasn't noticed what it does for him yet). For my daughter it allows her to see things as they truly are. For another guy it lets him see things in the ultraviolet spectrum. For the last character it lets her see in darkness as if in bright moonlight (like nightvision).
The object has no great power in and of itself, but it has a different power for most every person according to their character and nature and capabilities and race. It focuses the way they see the world and creates a new kind of vision for that individual.
You don't necessarily have to make everything superman level powerful, or do thirty amazing things. Sometimes just one thing done differently, or suited to the personality of the character or player makes a thing real interesting, and that's what I mean about the difference between magic and technology. You make a high powered telescope and it lets you see things far way. Make a high powered magical telescope and it may let you see things far way, or even over the horizon, or through time. That's the kind of magic I'm talking about. Not limited to single functions like technology, but adaptable to user and circumstance.
As a matter of fact I think the very "best magic" arises from an interplay between item or spell or situation and individual user.
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How about an item that has different powers at night than it does during the day?
That's a real interesting and useful idea that I think I'm gonna steal mate.
Thanks for that one because it's a keeper. Especially with certain items and in certain circumstances.
Well, I gotta go. Taking my kids swimming and then attending a graduation ceremony this evening.
Later.
Re: The Encyclopedia Magica (2e). Something RavenCrowking has neglected to mention. While he did say that the EM does list the source of the magic items, he neglected to say what those sources were. The VAST majority of the "interesting" magical items come from Dragon magazines. The next largest source is modules. The final source is the various source books for D&D.
The problem is, while yes, there are literally hundreds of pages of interesting items, most of them were in obscure places that very few gamers ever saw. Unless you happened to have Dragon 58, you would never have heard of Item X or Y.
Far and away more players used modules. And, guess what you find in modules? Hoards, and hoards of +1 swords. And they didn't all shed light actually. And, they certainly weren't listed as intelligent for the most part.
The idea that magic at some mythical time in the history of D&D was somehow more full of sensawunda is just that - a myth.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
To be honest, and to get back to the more interesting conversation of how to make magic items interesting, I remember a house rule we used, that I believe came from Dragon magazine, although, thinking about it, it might have come from that Encyclopedia Magica (although, on further thought, I think that was a reprint)... ok, ending digression....
Take your magic item and roll twice. It's a really simple plan that does make for very different items. Roll once for what the item is, and a second time for the effect. Maybe you get Leather Armor of Speed, or Apparatus of Cure Light wounds. Something like that. Then massage the two concepts together and Bob's your uncle.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
Re: The Encyclopedia Magica (2e). Something RavenCrowking has neglected to mention. While he did say that the EM does list the source of the magic items, he neglected to say what those sources were. The VAST majority of the "interesting" magical items come from Dragon magazines. The next largest source is modules. The final source is the various source books for D&D.
It is certainly true that Dragon Magazine (and Dungeon) together have a far greater page count than, say, the DMG, and are therefore proportionally represented. What I find interesting is the leap from this to the idea that one needed to therefore have a complete set of Dragons to have interesting items available, or that, if the second largest source of interesting items is modules, somehow "guess what you find in modules? Hoards, and hoards of +1 swords."
It should also be noted, obviously, that the purpose of the EM was to make all of these items availble whether or not you had Dragon 58.....I.e., the existence of the EM itself is a counter to the argument that these items were not all available to the DM, at least in 2e.
This sort of reasoning used as a denial of others experiences leads to conclusions that are no more reliable than myth.
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
I personally think the most interesting and mysterious magic items I came across (in every previous edition) were FR-related -- especially those designed by Ed Greenwood.
I personally think the most interesting and mysterious magic items I came across (in every previous edition) were FR-related -- especially those designed by Ed Greenwood.
Honestly, there's always been a special place in my heart for the Rope of Climbing, ever since playing Keep on the Borderlands. Just loved the heck out of that thing. Of course, my munchkin tweeny self at the time abused the hell out of it and used it as a death dealing, self moving garrote, but, that came later.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
Honestly, there's always been a special place in my heart for the Rope of Climbing, ever since playing Keep on the Borderlands. Just loved the heck out of that thing. Of course, my munchkin tweeny self at the time abused the hell out of it and used it as a death dealing, self moving garrote, but, that came later.
For me it was the decanter of endless water.
and the Never ending Peanut. Because dude... Peanut. Never ending.
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