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

[Hussar]

If you reward a character though, you are rewarding the player. The player does something, presumably good, and gets some sort of reward for that act. Whether it's a magic item or title or whatever. Those rewards are generally tailored to the character, to some degree. But, because of that, the rewards are there for the player really. The player is happy because his character is succeeding and that success is reflected in the fact that he gets a reward.

I really don't think you can ever completely separate the two since anything that makes the player happy is automatically going to make the character happy. Any reward which would make the character happy is also going to make the player happy since there is no real separation here.

But, that being said, rewards in the game can be largely divorced from the character's thought processes. Say I, as a player, decide that I want to retire my character, for example. I talk to the DM and ask if there might be some nice pasture I can retire my character to after the current adventure. So, the adventure ends, and the king grants my character a nice estate. Is this a reward for the character or for me?

I think what Balesir is trying to say is that the character cannot have any goals or wants or needs independent of the player, thus all goals are directed at the player, not the character.

 

[Balesir]

I really don't think you can ever completely separate the two since anything that makes the player happy is automatically going to make the character happy. Any reward which would make the character happy is also going to make the player happy since there is no real separation here.

I'm not at all sure that's true. I can think of several characters I have played who came to a "sticky end" or were faced with some sea of troubles that I imagine to have done anything but pleased them - and yet, as a player, I thoroughly approved!

An evil priest I once played got into all sorts of trouble (for a nasty habit of draining lives, for one thing) that I do not imagine him as appreciating at all - and yet, from a player point of view, it provided great adventures and was a excellent source of schadenfreude!

 

[pemerton]

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.

In that case it needn't be a magic item. It could be a compliment from the king.

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 think it was always regarded as important that it makes a mechanical difference - that it changes, however modestly, the way the player is able, via his/her PC, to engage the situations/challenges that the game throws up. It is the only way to do this besides gaining XP and levels. (Hence, in the original game, magic items did not grant XP because they boosted mechanical capabilities along a different axis of development.)

In this way, I think the designers always had in mind [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]'s point that the game is intended to be fun and challenging for the (real) players, not the (imaginary) characters.

What the original designers seem not to have fully thought through is that improvements in mechanical capability are a benefit to the player only under a very narrow subset of approaches to GMing and adventure design - namely, something like modern computer game design, where are whole lot of material is pre-prepared but is only feasible for players with minimum mechanical resources - hence, improving your numbers opens up new opportunities for play in the gameworld the GM has created. (I think [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] is one poster on these boards who has thought a lot about this approach to play.)

But as soon as the approach of gameplay shifts to "tailored" modules or adventure paths or whatever, such that the players have access to whatever content the GM prepares for them, then this particular rationale for magic items as a reward bascially fades away. I think the 4e desginers realised this, and it is obvious - despite the chapter heading "rewards" - that in 4e gaining XP and finding magic items doesn't "strengthen" the character, or open up new vistas of play other than in the sense that, over time, play moves from the heroic to the epic tier. (The designers showed that they understand this when they wrote a mini-campaign that compressed all the story elements into a shorter mechanical arc, namely, Neverwinter.)

I personally very much like this feature of 4e, but many people criticise it as a "treadmill" or as magic items being "complulsory" rather than genuine rewards.

Bounded accuracy is an attempt to make magic items into genuine rewards. The risk that this poses, and that I've already seen plenty of commentary on, is that the effect of the "reward" is in fact to make the game more boring, Monty Haul-style, as the player is unable to be meaningfully challenged by the sorts of situations the GM is able to come up with by deploying the game's resources in the apparenlty intended manner. (For instance, once even Asmodeus needs a natural 20 to hit you, there doesn't seem to be much mechanical challenge left, at least within the standard parameters of D&D.)

 

[pemerton]

anything that makes the player happy is automatically going to make the character happy

I don't agree with this, for similar reasons to [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION].

For instance, I remember a long sequence of play - which unfolded over a couple of years of real time - in which a high-level sorcerer became a drug addict, then nearly died, then was "saved" by an NPC whom he met and with whom he fell in love - she had been sent by a rival to spy on him, but ended up betraying her master and falling for him.

Then this NPC was killed by a demon that had been summoned by another PC but went rogue. And the PC was nearly lost again, but ended up regaining his focus and self-possession by leading a successful campaign against racial and cultural discrimination in his wizard's guild.

This was soap-opera style play, and the player enjoyed it (otherwise we wouldn't have been spending time on it) even though a lot of the time the PC was very miserable. Between missions/adventures the player would describe his PC drunk or drugged in his room and playing mournfully on his panpipes - and the other PC wizard (the party leader) would have to come in and have healing spells cast to restore his companion to mission-ready health. A reward for the player (spotlight time, enjoying inhabiting his PC etc) but not for the character!

 

[Umbran]

OK, but the reward to the player is not the same as that to the character.

That's irrelevant. It doesn't matter that they are the same reward - it is sufficient to note that the player *does* get something out of it.

The actual magic item, it seems to me, is not really the reward - it is just an in-game token that marks the reward. As such, its form is incidental.

No, the form is important. Players frequently form attachments to their PCs - rewarding the PC makes use of the emotional attachment. You can ignore that connection, but you're discarding a strong and useful tool in so doing. In addition, rewarding the player through the character helps makes sure the character action and player actions are aligned. If you reward the player through a method that isn't directly connected to the character, you risk unintended consequences.

You could as well award characters medals or stars in the game and they would perform the same function

No, because that reward is not *meaningful*. Rewards that have no impact are like a stilted pat-on-the-back. Give them something that means something to the function of the character, they'll recognize the value.

 

[Hussar]

Yes, that's true. There's all sorts of things that make the player happy that wouldn't make the character happy.

 

[Mistwell]

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.


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.


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.


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.

If that's not your thing, cool. But, I think it's safe to say you have not tapped into some well of understanding that if we all just understood it like you understand it we would agree with you.

 

[Starfox]

Something similar to what [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] mentioned happens at the end of every long campaign I run. Some players want in-game rewards like power and magic items, others are primarily interested in continuing the story of their fictional alter-ego. The second kind of player wants to limit rewards like xp and magic items, because those rewards act like a doomsday clock - once the PCs have garnered enough rewards to be able to confront the end of their story, that is the end of the campaign. Sure, we will then begin a new campaign, but it always takes time and energy to form an attachment to the new character.

This is in the adventure path kind of campaigns, where there is a concrete story the GM and players have agreed to tell together, a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Such a story can take a lot of "filler" that extends the life of the campaign, but once the endgame comes around, it is all done with. Even if we wanted to continue the character's story beyond the scope of the adventure path, it is generally hard to make up stories suitable for such high-powered characters without going to what we consider absurd lengths.

Seen in this way, xp and other power-up rewards are actually demerits, since they bring the end of the story closer and closer.

Another angle on the whole reward thing is that I've stopped giving any kind of individual awards. All characters in my games have the same level/xp and very similar "budget" for magic items and other leverage features. The concrete inspiration from this comes from the Amber role-playing game, where the author notes that there is no need to give greater rewards to better/more active players - those players already dominate the game table, there is no need to give them leverage to dominate even more than they already do.

 

[Balesir]

If that's not your thing, cool.

Erm, if what is "not my thing"? Thinking of imaginary people as real?? Well, um, no, it isn't. Is it anybody's?

But, I think it's safe to say you have not tapped into some well of understanding that if we all just understood it like you understand it we would agree with you.

I have "tapped into the well of understanding" that imaginary things are not real - is there really anyone (sane) who does not understand and agree with this? Are you saying that you disagree with it?

 

[Mistwell]

Erm, if what is "not my thing"? Thinking of imaginary people as real?? Well, um, no, it isn't. Is it anybody's?


I have "tapped into the well of understanding" that imaginary things are not real - is there really anyone (sane) who does not understand and agree with this? Are you saying that you disagree with it?

I am saying that one goal of the game is immersion, and that you appear to not only prefer to disassociate from immersion, but to deride those who do enjoy it.