D&D 5E Dissapointed with Attunement

GX.Sigma · Oct 21, 2012

Kamikaze Midget said:
Like I said above, I think that a lot of people WILL use magic items, at least occasionally.

But in 5e, they will have to actively choose to do so.

So you want every single adventure module to be written with no magic items, with an appendix saying how to put them in if you want to? Because that's what really determines how optional they are.

I'm A Banana · Oct 21, 2012

GX.Sigma said:
So you want every single adventure module to be written with no magic items, with an appendix saying how to put them in if you want to? Because that's what really determines how optional they are.

I don't think that's what really determines how optional they are, personally (what, there's no homebrewers?) And I don't see why they need an insistent appendix or a general rule.

Hows about: Some adventure modules are written with items, some without, depending on what the module writer felt best represented the needs of the adventure. Those without items, if you'd like items, you may have to add them yourself. Those with items, if you'd like to take them out, you may have to take them out. You're free to buy whichever ones best suit your needs as a DM.

IMO, kludging adventures into your own style is part and parcel of being a DM. Adventures can't be written universally, so they probably should be written for what is best for them, and let DMs adjust them or refuse to purchase them as need be.

GreyICE · Oct 22, 2012

Kamikaze Midget said:
I don't think that's what really determines how optional they are, personally (what, there's no homebrewers?) And I don't see why they need an insistent appendix or a general rule.

Hows about: Some adventure modules are written with items, some without, depending on what the module writer felt best represented the needs of the adventure. Those without items, if you'd like items, you may have to add them yourself. Those with items, if you'd like to take them out, you may have to take them out. You're free to buy whichever ones best suit your needs as a DM.

IMO, kludging adventures into your own style is part and parcel of being a DM. Adventures can't be written universally, so they probably should be written for what is best for them, and let DMs adjust them or refuse to purchase them as need be.

And again the default assumption is the DM has time to kludge modules, the DM should have to browse internet forums and game reviews to see if the module contains elements they don't like, the DM should have to worry about if this product they purchased from WotC just works for them.

How about products purchased from WotC just work in the first place? I know this idea is rather new to some players, but for those of us who played 4E and liked it, it's become an experience we're not going to give up.

P.S. I thought this quote was hilarious.

Kamikaze Midget said:
You say this like there hasn't been hundreds of people in every edition of D&D who run games where magic items are nigh to completely non-existent.

Yes, out of the millions of games of D&D that have been run, there have been hundreds of people who ran a game with no magic items. That'd be what, a whole... 0.01% of D&D games? Maybe we be generous and call it 0.1%? Way to prove my point for me~

Tony Vargas · Oct 22, 2012

Given the choice between a balanced game that I'm free to break in whatever way suits me, and a broken game that I'm free to try to fix in whatever way I can, I'll take the former.

Is the latter really in any way /more/ 'empowering' to the DM?

I'm A Banana · Oct 22, 2012

GreyICE said:
And again the default assumption is the DM has time to kludge modules,

That's always been the case. Every DM runs a different table, so you ALWAYS have to adapt your modules.

GreyICE said:
DM should have to browse internet forums and game reviews to see if the module contains elements they don't like, the DM should have to worry about if this product they purchased from WotC just works for them.

I don't think it's too much to presume that the back cover and/or introduction of a given adventure specify any modules they include. You don't need to do extra research, you just need to read the thing. And, of course, if it's not easy to determine if the thing is going to work for your specific game, you probably shouldn't purchase it.

GreyICE said:
How about products purchased from WotC just work in the first place? I know this idea is rather new to some players, but for those of us who played 4E and liked it, it's become an experience we're not going to give up.

You have two options.

You can assume that every table plays every game in exactly the same way and then produce things that meet all tables, and that work perfectly because all tables run the same way.

OR

You can assume that tables are diverse, that DMs can make judgments for their own tables, and produce an ecosystem in which a diversity of products can flourish with DMs who know what they want and who can act on it.

Only one of those two assumptions matches how people play the game in reality.

But I see we've already moved the goalposts from "Attunement is an essential balancing mechanism!" to "Magic items must be balanced so that it's easy to write modules!", so I'm claiming victory on the former.

Tony Vargas said:
Given the choice between a balanced game that I'm free to break in whatever way suits me, and a broken game that I'm free to try to fix in whatever way I can, I'll take the former.

Is the latter really in any way /more/ 'empowering' to the DM?

Magic items being optional means that you have a balanced game (without magic items) that you can break in a way that suits you (by adding magic items). The game empowers you to make that choice by educating you about the effects of breaking the game (by telling you that adding a bunch of magic items is going to up your party's power).

Sounds like we're in agreement: Magic items are an option that DMs can include to whatever degree they want to unbalance their game (making a second "balancing" mechanism superfluous)

Gorgoroth · Oct 22, 2012

..

Magic items should be in treasure parcels of official modules. If a module is all about finding some "sword of awesome +3 with attunement", it should be assumed by the DM that yes, that sword is in there somewhere, and might be difficult to get or the players may find it cursed or have to decide to give it to some legendary hero to kill the BBEG with it.

Who wants D&D without magic items? not me. I'd rather less than more, but not too little either. And it's certainly not like, bah, a +2 short sword, let's sell it or harvest the residuum. The benefit of having modules pre-built for you is they don't have to follow the random treasure horde dice and can place certain items specifically throughout the levels with suggestions from the DM to adjust the type of weapon if they want, or the type of item even, to match what players are using. But for non-weapon and non-armor magic items, having them be useful to finish off the adventure adds to the story, and not just player power.

SkidAce · Oct 22, 2012

Grydan said:
Any particular reason why?

I understand that they're not a concept that works in every campaign, but then they weren't put forward as something you must use. Instead, they were put forward as one way of ensuring that the items you added to your campaign were ones that would be used rather than sold off or reduced into their component parts at the party's earliest convenience.

Knowing what sort of magic items are of interest to your players and their characters is, in my opinion and experience, a useful tool. One use is as a ready-made list of adventure hooks. If you know that the paladin really wants a Holy Avenger, then slipping into the tavern gossip rumours of one in the hoard of a mighty dragon in the nearest mountain immediately gives both the player and the character reason to want to go there. On the other hand, she might be a little more unconventional and really want a Lightning Longspear. Knowing that reduces the chances of putting in ineffective hooks.

Note that even in the suggestion they didn't put forward the idea that you were in any way obligated to provide any of the items that people wanted; I do feel however, that purposefully avoiding including items you know your players find interesting would be an odd choice.

Nothing makes magic items feel less magical to me than repeatedly finding ones that of are of no use or interest to the party. It turns them from desirable treasure into meaningless commodity.

It also defies my genre expectations. Most magic items that characters gain turn out, in most of my fantasy reading experience, to be either exactly what the characters need, or something that fulfills a specific desire that they have. When Bilbo needs to hide is exactly when he finds a ring that turns him invisible, not the source of light in darkness that Frodo is later given shortly before he's to travel through a dark tunnel. Now, it may turn out later that there's some downside to these items, something that D&D magic items often lack, but that's a whole other ball of wax. Rarely do authors bother to include magic items that are of no particular use in the story they appear in, or that no characters in the party have a way to use. Given that unless I've got the party locked onto a specific course I cannot tell exactly what items they will need at some point far in the future I cannot always use the author's trick of providing the appropriate key to the puzzle, then I can instead use the reverse trick of figuring out what sort of tools that the party wants to have and then providing puzzles to which those tools are keys.

I like magic items to have meaning. Wishlists are one way of ensuring that they at least have meaning to one player in my campaign. It's not the only tool in my toolbox, of course. If I know, and the players do not, that there are a bevy of trolls around the next corner, a flaming longsword that nobody in particular requested suddenly becomes a great deal more important. But if nobody in the party has a proficiency in longswords, maybe I'd be better off making it a different weapon.

This is good stuff...somebody XP this person for me...

GreyICE · Oct 22, 2012

Kamikaze Midget said:
You have two options.

You can assume that every table plays every game in exactly the same way and then produce things that meet all tables, and that work perfectly because all tables run the same way.

OR

You can assume that tables are diverse, that DMs can make judgments for their own tables, and produce an ecosystem in which a diversity of products can flourish with DMs who know what they want and who can act on it.

Some pertinent information for you.

As for your "declared victory," heh. The issue of modules working is that the DM should not experience ridiculous conditions from purchasing modules or doing what seems like reasonable things in their game.

Would you like to know how you can fix the above quote so that it makes sense? Because right now it's a nonstarter. It's another way to "declare victory" rather than actually engaging.

I'm A Banana · Oct 22, 2012

GreyICE said:
Some pertinent information for you.

It's neither a logical fallacy nor a strawman. If every DM wants this:

GreyICE said:
How about products purchased from WotC just work in the first place? I know this idea is rather new to some players, but for those of us who played 4E and liked it, it's become an experience we're not going to give up.

Then every DM needs to play the game in the same way so that every product "just works" for them.

It's called standardization. It's why all McDonald's hamburgers taste the same.

If WotC releases an adventure with a specific setting (like "Nentir Vale") and I'm not using that setting, it doesn't "just work" for me. The game must be standardized in order for that to happen.

The alternative is to have to adapt things for the local environment.

Fortunately, DMs can learn how to adapt things pretty easily. That's part of empowerment.

GreyICE said:
The issue of modules working is that the DM should not experience ridiculous conditions from purchasing modules or doing what seems like reasonable things in their game.

"Pay attention to the magic items you give out" seems like a pretty reasonable thing to me. But this still isn't about attunement as a necessary balancing mechanism.

GreyICE said:
Would you like to know how you can fix the above quote so that it makes sense? Because right now it's a nonstarter. It's another way to "declare victory" rather than actually engaging.

I'm just pointing out that your counter-argument is changing from "Attunement is good as a default because it's a necessary balancing mechanism for magic items" to something like "Adventure modules should require no adaptation."

From where I'm sitting, it doesn't look like the RAW supports your first argument, and your second argument seems to rely on a level of standardization that just isn't realistic for D&D.

And your posts are beginning to consist of little aside from assumptions and veiled insults about my intentions or mindset, which is dangerous territory. If you don't believe I'm being honest and forthright in my behavior, you should probably stop engaging. If I believed that about you, I know I would -- there's no use trying to talk to someone with an agenda.

GreyICE · Oct 22, 2012

Actually Kamakazi, when you take a complex situation with many solutions and try and slot it down to "You can have either Option A or Option B there are NO OTHER CHOICES" that would be the classic example of the Logical Fallacy "Black and White," aka False Dichotomy. It'd be like saying "Well either you can make a Fighter or a Wizard there are NO OTHER CHOICES! Pick!"

When you take my position and alter it, it'd be a classic strawman. My position is not:

You can assume that every table plays every game in exactly the same way and then produce things that meet all tables, and that work perfectly because all tables run the same way.

That's a lie. A pure, 100% lie.

My position is the following. Copy and Paste it:

Again, deleted for the same nonsense. Next time I catch you doing such childish posts you get a thread ban. - Lwaxy

Please take this as my default position, and erase the strawman.

D&D 5E Dissapointed with Attunement

GX.Sigma

Adventurer

I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich

GreyICE

Banned

Tony Vargas

Legend

I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich

Gorgoroth

Banned

SkidAce

Legend

GreyICE

Banned

I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich

GreyICE

Banned

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