D&D 5E Magic Item Creation: Which book should contain rules for magic item creation?

[ForeverSlayer]

Balesir,

From the way you phrase your point, I would suggest maybe you shouldn't be playing RPGs.

Mod Note: That's enough of the judgement passing. ForeverSlayer here won't be back in this conversation for some time. Please continue without him. ~Umbran

 

[Sadrik]

I think extensive rules for how to craft objects should be in the PHB. Adding that last spark of magic though that should be the providence of the DM and in the DMG.

One important exception, I think Scrolls and Potions should be in the PHB. Alchemy should be potion-making not something else running along side potion-making.

Potions and Scrolls should be available on the PHB equipment list. Scrolls are necessary component for wizards and potions are just as ubiquitous to a fantasy game as wizards and clerics.

One other thing, wands depending on how they are devised could also go into the PHB. If they are simply implements- yes, if they are sacks of charges and a spell- no.

 

[Balesir]

Wow your conception of role playing is completely different from mine, and frankly bizarre to me. The character gains the reward, and the player is happy that the character gained the reward because it's an achievement of a character goal. It's not for praise for their real life friends - that's a strange and somewhat narcissistic way to look at it from my viewpoint.

The real life friends are real; the characters in the game are not. Would you plan and write a novel with the aim of pleasing the characters in it? Would you propose making a film (movie) for the benefit of its lead characters? Or a play or a TV programme? It makes no sense - the characters in the story are not real. You make movies and plays and books and TV programmes for the audience, not the characters -= even just the main ones. Likewise, you should plan and design roleplaying scenarios and systems for the players playing the game; they are real people, the characters are not.

How you might view things while in the act of playing the game is a very different matter. If I'm playing a character in an RPG, that character (and their wants and needs) are naturally at the forefront of my mind; I envision them, however briefly, as fully fleshed-out characters and imagine them as "real" in the context of the game. But if I let this romantic engagement with the character and game world carry over into my pre-game planning and design I am making an important error.

I mean you realize the +1 sword is listed as a reward right? It's described that way in the rulebook. What did you imagine they meant by that?

I imagine that either they did not think clearly about what they were saying, or that they meant it as some sort of reward for the player. If it was the latter, then I still think they have presented a rather shallow and ultimately lustreless "reward".

Balesir,

From the way you phrase your point, I would suggest maybe you shouldn't be playing RPGs.

As I just said in reply to Mistwell, I don't think this way when I play RPGs, I just don't regard the point of view of a player to be a good vantage from which to plan or design RPGs.

I have been playing RPGs since around 1977. If I hadn't found it to be an agreeable hobby, I would hardly have continued with it this long. The time since 1977 has also afforded me considerable opportunity to analyse how RPGs work; this contemplation has led me to believe that, as with so much else in life, the surface appearances of RPG play generally give an impression that is often wrong and not infrequently misleading.

 

[keterys]

I didn't see an option for "There are no rules for magic item creation, cause people don't do that."

 

[Mistwell]

The real life friends are real; the characters in the game are not. Would you plan and write a novel with the aim of pleasing the characters in it? Would you propose making a film (movie) for the benefit of its lead characters? Or a play or a TV programme? It makes no sense - the characters in the story are not real. You make movies and plays and books and TV programmes for the audience, not the characters -= even just the main ones. Likewise, you should plan and design roleplaying scenarios and systems for the players playing the game; they are real people, the characters are not.

How you might view things while in the act of playing the game is a very different matter. If I'm playing a character in an RPG, that character (and their wants and needs) are naturally at the forefront of my mind; I envision them, however briefly, as fully fleshed-out characters and imagine them as "real" in the context of the game. But if I let this romantic engagement with the character and game world carry over into my pre-game planning and design I am making an important error.


I imagine that either they did not think clearly about what they were saying, or that they meant it as some sort of reward for the player. If it was the latter, then I still think they have presented a rather shallow and ultimately lustreless "reward".


As I just said in reply to Mistwell, I don't think this way when I play RPGs, I just don't regard the point of view of a player to be a good vantage from which to plan or design RPGs.

I have been playing RPGs since around 1977. If I hadn't found it to be an agreeable hobby, I would hardly have continued with it this long. The time since 1977 has also afforded me considerable opportunity to analyse how RPGs work; this contemplation has led me to believe that, as with so much else in life, the surface appearances of RPG play generally give an impression that is often wrong and not infrequently misleading.

Let's just agree to disagree on this one. I don't understand your perspective, and I don't think I will come to that understanding from any more discussion of it. You're coming at the game from what is, to me, an alien viewpoint. You're viewing it like an audience for a movie, TV, or a play, and not as a game. To me, it's a game with no audience. The fun of that game is not in my fellow players praising me for my performance. My fellow players are not an audience to me, they are fellow players, in a game.

 

[Starfox]

I voted "DMG", but I could also see such rules missing entirely or be in a subsequent non-core book on magic.

 

[Lanefan]

I didn't see an option for "There are no rules for magic item creation, cause people don't do that."

Or, cause adventuring characters don't do that.

Magic item creation rules/guidelines/procedures can quite easily be left completely in the background; the closest the PCs come to interacting with this system is when (or if) they commission the Artificers' Guild to construct a magic item which can be picked up in a year or so. Oh, and full payment in advance, please.

That said, and ignoring undecideds, at 68-7 this is a pretty decisive poll. DMG for the win.

Lanefan

 

[Balesir]

You're coming at the game from what is, to me, an alien viewpoint. You're viewing it like an audience for a movie, TV, or a play, and not as a game. To me, it's a game with no audience. The fun of that game is not in my fellow players praising me for my performance. My fellow players are not an audience to me, they are fellow players, in a game.

The players of an RPG are the audience as well as the players of the game and of the characters, but that's actually beside the point. What I'm looking at is that the players are real (and thus should be designed for and with regard towards), but the characters aren't. Just as, in a play or a movie or a TV show, the audience and the actors are real but the characters aren't. In either case, even though they differ in details, designing/planning/writing for the characters' benefit is inane because they don't exist. You write/plan/design for the benefit of the players (or the actors or the audience or whoever is real).

 

[Mistwell]

The players of an RPG are the audience as well as the players of the game and of the characters, but that's actually beside the point. What I'm looking at is that the players are real (and thus should be designed for and with regard towards), but the characters aren't. Just as, in a play or a movie or a TV show, the audience and the actors are real but the characters aren't. In either case, even though they differ in details, designing/planning/writing for the characters' benefit is inane because they don't exist. You write/plan/design for the benefit of the players (or the actors or the audience or whoever is real).

Again, you're coming at this from a perspective that is alien to me. And you admit it's not even one you yourself used to have, and the books all say rewards, and people in this thread seem to think of them as rewards. So if it's all inane and being done for pretend things that shouldn't matter - why do you think everyone else looks at it different from you, including your younger self. Are we all just having the wrong kind of fun and not enlightened enough to appreciate the subtlties that you now appreciate?

 

[Balesir]

Again, you're coming at this from a perspective that is alien to me.

Well, if you could explain why and how this perspective is "alien" I might be able to explain/understand further, but I don't really see how it's alien to you. I'll explain why this is further, below.

And you admit it's not even one you yourself used to have, and the books all say rewards, and people in this thread seem to think of them as rewards.

It's a view I didn't used to have simply because I hadn't really thought about it before. As soon as it was pointed out to me, I could see that it's obviously true - RPG characters aren't real. It is surely kind of a no-brainer, once it's pointed out? The ramifications take a wee bit longer to think through - but not that long.

So if it's all inane and being done for pretend things that shouldn't matter - why do you think everyone else looks at it different from you, including your younger self.

Because they aren't really thinking it through but are seeing the deeper reasons why they use/like specific things as being related to the imaginary character instead of to the players. It doesn't make their reasons any less real - it just means that, since they view them as being related to an imaginary entity instead of to their real (in the sense of "not imaginary") target, they don't get a clear picture of what the real (i.e. non-imaginary) value and relevance of their preference is.

Now, it's possible that someone might take a good look at the real (again, as in "not imaginary") target of their preference is and decide that their preference still stands; that they value the "reward" element of magic items because of the effect that it has on the player and the value that the player ascribes to those items. That would be the obvious counter-argument to my earlier opinion that, seen in its true (i.e. non-imaginary) light I don't think the preference has much substance. That is the "opinion" part of what I have been saying and, as an opinion, anyone is free to disagree with it if they feel like it (and hopefully explain further what value they find in it from that perspective). To argue, as some seem to, that rewards in the game should be aimed at the (imaginary) character, however, is just bizarre.

Are we all just having the wrong kind of fun and not enlightened enough to appreciate the subtlties that you now appreciate?

No. But you appear to be insisting that RPG systems should be designed to entertain/please/satisfy the characters in the game, who are not actually real. This seems strange in the extreme, and I suspect that it's not actually what you mean to argue (or, at least, it wouldn't be if you paused to think about it).

What I'm suggesting is that you should take your "playing the game and (thus) mentally inhabiting the game world" head off, for a few moments, and think through what is happening when you game purely in terms of the actual, physical people (players) who are playing the game. I promise that you will be able to return to immersing yourself in the game world again afterwards, when next you play or when next you wish to do so (or, at least, I promise that I am quite able to do so, even after taking time out to think about the game from a purely "real" perspective).

What I'm trying to explain is that the game world and all in it have no existence independent of the real people who play the game. They are all parts of an imaginary construction that we create in order to entertain and engage the players of the game. As such, the elements of the imaginary construct should be given purpose in the game design with their effects on the (real) people who are playing the game in mind, not their effects upon the (imaginary) people in the game world.

I'm saying that any design element in an RPG should be assessed for its impact upon the (real-people) players, not for its effect on the characters in the game, since its effect upon the characters in the game world is, by definition, nil (because they don't exist except as an imaginary construct to engage and entertain the players).

Consider for a moment an argument like this:

"Characters are imaginary constructs in the game that are designed to engage and entertain the players. Player-characters do so as proxies or avatars through which the players engage the rest of the game world. As such, these characters are more entertaining and engaging if they are given in-game-world 'toys' to play with."

That sounds like a decent opening for arguing that magic items as "rewards" could have value to the (real) players of the game. It begs a few questions (why do these "toys" need to be magic items? do they really need to give the character more "power" in the game world? and so on), but at least it doesn't try to "prove" that increased capability of the player character is a "reward" because the character would be expected to feel good about getting it.