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.
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
