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Would you let your player choose their magic items they get?
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<blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 7986288" data-attributes="member: 32740"><p>As the DM I retain full and complete control over items that appear in my campaign. That is a distinct choice in the poll, which does not and cannot eliminate the possibility that I could still give players exactly what they ask for if I so choose (if they do indeed ask to just have specific items appear in the game for their characters to obtain).</p><p></p><p>Since I started playing D&D 40 years ago I've held on quite strongly to the idea that magic items are supposed to be:</p><p>A) useful, occasionally even powerful, and as an in-game reward are always valued by characters FOR their uses</p><p>B) fun so that even if they don't have a NEED to have the item it can do something worthwhile</p><p>C) frequent enough for players to be satisfied without being SO satisfied they don't need/want any more</p><p>D) INfrequent enough that they remain actually special rewards and not just a ubiquitous commodity</p><p>E) despite the above they can be cursed (and present a challenge to be rid of) and don't need to fill ALL the other criteria ALL the time.</p><p></p><p>I don't hold with the idea that players should get all the magic items they want for their characters (or more accurately what they THINK they want). Having is not always as fine a thing as wanting - it's not logical but it's often true. Always WANTING more helps keep players and characters motivated to continue adventuring. Doesn't mean that it is, nor should be their SOLE motivation.</p><p></p><p>I've seen characters come to be so closely identified with particular magic items that without them the character DOESN'T really have much of an identity. That's not a good place for a PC to be in, nor for a <em>player</em>.</p><p></p><p>It just kills the vibes for me as a DM and as a player to simply have magic shops where a PC can go buy what they want or hand over magic wish lists as if the DM should be dressing up like Santa Claus and the players are 6 year olds. I don't mind a player that says, "This class sucks more than it should in the combat department and my character could use some help in that regard with magic items." I'll probably agree with them! But that's NOT the same thing as just getting what you want or handing over a wishlist. Rules Mastery was always a thing in D&D from the beginning, but that means that you don't get to choose a character class that you KNOW is inadequate at doing what you want and then just being given all the magic you want in order to fix it.</p><p></p><p>And I'm not so impressed with the 5E solution of making them LESS often fit any those criteria I mentioned above. Magic item economy in previous editions was messy. So be it. That's why we have DM's to simply cut through the crap and introduce into the campaign what the DM perceives to be wanted and needed. RULES don't "know" what that level of need/desire is required for any given game and then impose just the right controls to standardize it for ALL games. My experience with this in 5E games is limited but at the moment I feel it'd be better to just leave it up to the DM to assess things and decide on what gets introduced and why.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Man in the Funny Hat, post: 7986288, member: 32740"] As the DM I retain full and complete control over items that appear in my campaign. That is a distinct choice in the poll, which does not and cannot eliminate the possibility that I could still give players exactly what they ask for if I so choose (if they do indeed ask to just have specific items appear in the game for their characters to obtain). Since I started playing D&D 40 years ago I've held on quite strongly to the idea that magic items are supposed to be: A) useful, occasionally even powerful, and as an in-game reward are always valued by characters FOR their uses B) fun so that even if they don't have a NEED to have the item it can do something worthwhile C) frequent enough for players to be satisfied without being SO satisfied they don't need/want any more D) INfrequent enough that they remain actually special rewards and not just a ubiquitous commodity E) despite the above they can be cursed (and present a challenge to be rid of) and don't need to fill ALL the other criteria ALL the time. I don't hold with the idea that players should get all the magic items they want for their characters (or more accurately what they THINK they want). Having is not always as fine a thing as wanting - it's not logical but it's often true. Always WANTING more helps keep players and characters motivated to continue adventuring. Doesn't mean that it is, nor should be their SOLE motivation. I've seen characters come to be so closely identified with particular magic items that without them the character DOESN'T really have much of an identity. That's not a good place for a PC to be in, nor for a [I]player[/I]. It just kills the vibes for me as a DM and as a player to simply have magic shops where a PC can go buy what they want or hand over magic wish lists as if the DM should be dressing up like Santa Claus and the players are 6 year olds. I don't mind a player that says, "This class sucks more than it should in the combat department and my character could use some help in that regard with magic items." I'll probably agree with them! But that's NOT the same thing as just getting what you want or handing over a wishlist. Rules Mastery was always a thing in D&D from the beginning, but that means that you don't get to choose a character class that you KNOW is inadequate at doing what you want and then just being given all the magic you want in order to fix it. And I'm not so impressed with the 5E solution of making them LESS often fit any those criteria I mentioned above. Magic item economy in previous editions was messy. So be it. That's why we have DM's to simply cut through the crap and introduce into the campaign what the DM perceives to be wanted and needed. RULES don't "know" what that level of need/desire is required for any given game and then impose just the right controls to standardize it for ALL games. My experience with this in 5E games is limited but at the moment I feel it'd be better to just leave it up to the DM to assess things and decide on what gets introduced and why. [/QUOTE]
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