Where Has All the Magic Gone?

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.

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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.

but again, it is hard to deny that TSR didn't (always - my edit) follow its own suggestions...

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I have to agree. Having an ideal is not the same thing as executing that ideal in the best way possible.

AllisterH said:

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...

Take Bullgrit/Quasqueton's look at the "classic" adventures of our youth...

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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

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.

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.

How about an item that has different powers at night than it does during the day?

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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.

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.

Hussar said:

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.

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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

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.

Primal said:

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.

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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.

Hussar said:

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.

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For me it was the decanter of endless water.

and the Never ending Peanut. Because dude... Peanut. Never ending.