Magic Item Wishlist: Yea or Nay?

[Dausuul]

So here's my question for the pro-wish-list crowd:

Why do you need the DM to be involved at all?

I mean, if it's that all-fired important to you to have X, Y, and Z magic items, if it's central to your character concept and you don't want the hassle of questing for them, why do you want the hassle of writing up a wishlist that the DM will have to keep track of and who knows when you actually get the items? Why not just decide "Okay, I have this item now?"

I'm envisioning a system where you accumulate some type of resource over time, and then you can expend that resource to produce the item you want. Of course this gives you an advantage over the folks who just use what they find, so you have to pay a little extra for it--a feat, say. And we'll need some kind of in-game justification for where these items are coming from. How about saying your character has learned to craft magic items? Yeah, that should work.

Man, if only we had a system like that in D&D.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Arriving late in the game, but I am on the "Nay" side.

I agree with those who say that the desire for a specific item is something to be played out in-game, through consultations with sages, delving where such an item might have been lost, or creating/having it created for you (at cost).

IMHO, players may wish for whatever they like. But they must actively pursue those wishes if they want them to be fulfilled. I have no objection to learning what players hope to uncover -- that information is useful -- but I have no sympathy when hope is actually an expectation that an item will be found/available simply because the desire for it exists.



RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

That would be one hell of a change for D&D though. The character investment in and of itself represented levels of acheivement thanks to the way weapon proficiency and specialization worked.

Two easy possibilities would have been (1) that the swords could seperate or reform on command, and (2) that the sword would have provided the requisite training while it was being used.

I was using magic items that granted NWP in 1e and 2e; RCFG has magic items that provide both skill ranks and weapon skill ranks, as well as bonuses to particular tasks or manoevres.

So, it would be a hell of a change for 3e, and maybe for 4e (I don't know), but in TSR-D&D, a magic item could literally do anything the DM could come up with. Or the player creating it, if the DM agreed.

No change required in the system, just more imagination among the players.


RC

 

[Scribble]

IMHO, players may wish for whatever they like. But they must actively pursue those wishes if they want them to be fulfilled. I have no objection to learning what players hope to uncover -- that information is useful -- but I have no sympathy when hope is actually an expectation that an item will be found/available simply because the desire for it exists.

Shrug- everyone is entitled to their style of play of course but this to me feels a little too "Let me teach you a life lesson while we play this game to relax and blow off steam..." for my tastes...

A wish list is just a list of stuff players are excited about. As the DM I can use this to look for adventure seeds. Then I can get to work on exactly what the sage might know so if the player asks I have an answer and they can act on it at any point, as opposed to waiting until the player brings something up in game and then working on an adventure.

Sometimes I'll also just add them to a treasure horde if I think they'd logically have a chance to be there.

For me it's all about having fun. If randomly finding something on a wishlist is fun for a player who the heck am I to tell them that's incorrect.

Some players don't give me a wish list. They just like finding whatever happens to be there- I'm cool with that too.

In the end, the best way to do it is the way that makes everyone want to keep playing.

 

[Raven Crowking]

A wish list is just a list of stuff players are excited about. As the DM I can use this to look for adventure seeds. Then I can get to work on exactly what the sage might know so if the player asks I have an answer and they can act on it at any point, as opposed to waiting until the player brings something up in game and then working on an adventure.

You might note that this is the sort of "wish list" I specifically excluded from my general dislike of the same....in the part you quoted and described as "Let me teach you a life lesson", as a matter of fact:

I have no objection to learning what players hope to uncover -- that information is useful​

Just saying.


RC

 

[Scribble]

You might note that this is the sort of "wish list" I specifically excluded from my general dislike of the same....in the part you quoted and described as "Let me teach you a life lesson", as a matter of fact:

I have no objection to learning what players hope to uncover -- that information is useful​

Just saying.


RC

Ah- I misread your post I guess? To me it seemed like you were indicating you only used that info when it came in character in the game.


Either way- if it's on a wishlist it's probably going to end up in the game somehow... Be that because they went on a quest around it, or because it happened to randomly show up in the treasure haul.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Either way- if it's on a wishlist it's probably going to end up in the game somehow...

I dislike the expectation that, because it is on a wishlist, it's probably going to end up in the game. It may, it may not. A player may wish his PC to invent the automobile; that doesn't mean it is going to happen. Or a PC might wish to fly a hot air balloon to the moon....and it may happen.

Wish lists are, IMHO, things the players are interested in. They don't have to have anything to do with magic items or treasure; just "It would be cool if...." ideas.

Some of them I will run with, some of them not, some of them maybe if the players work hard enough to make it so.

(What is hard enough is subjective, based upon what is wished for. It is harder to become "the greatest swordsman in all the land" than it is to rob a keg of ale from the delivery wagon.)



RC

 

[Scribble]

I dislike the expectation that, because it is on a wishlist, it's probably going to end up in the game. It may, it may not. A player may wish his PC to invent the automobile; that doesn't mean it is going to happen. Or a PC might wish to fly a hot air balloon to the moon....and it may happen.

Auto or Moon if the players are having fun trying to get it accomplished I'm not going to douse that fun.

I pretty much agree with the rest of what you said though.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Auto or Moon if the players are having fun trying to get it accomplished I'm not going to douse that fun.

I pretty much agree with the rest of what you said though.

Ah, but consider your impact as GM. If you are having fun, the odds are that you will able to run a more fun game, right? Therefore, you should not shape the game towards the fun of everyone else at the table at your own expense. If you absolutely hate the idea of the auto or the moon, you shouldn't include them. It will douse that fun, whether you mean to or not, because it will douse your fun.

I am a strong advocate of only running games that you want to run, and only playing in games that you wish to play. Life is too short for anything else.

IMHO, YMMV (you immortal, you).


RC

 

[Dausuul]

I am a strong advocate of only running games that you want to run, and only playing in games that you wish to play. Life is too short for anything else.

HELL yes. (I must spread some XP around, etc.) This is something I've come to realize lately. Players often want stuff added to the game world, and sometimes my response is "Hey, that sounds like a great idea!" and sometimes it's "Eh... well, I dunno, it's not really what I had in mind but I guess I can work it in."

What I have come to realize is that when my response is "Not really what I had in mind," I need to just say, "Sorry, not this time out." If I work it in despite not really liking it, I will get slightly more irritated every time I encounter it in game. It doesn't take much of that to kill my enthusiasm for running the game at all.

Maybe that makes me an evil control-freak of a DM by modern standards. But I'm done cramming stuff I don't like into my game worlds. If my players don't like the setting I want to run and the stuff I want to have in it, they're free to hand the DM hat to somebody else.

</slightly off-topic rant>