What SHOULD be the purpose of magic items in an RPG?

[Ralif Redhammer]

Always read the item descriptions in Dark Souls.

I think magic items as a means of delivering lore is great. Some players won’t pay attention to a random NPC talking about a war 200 years in the past. But a magic item that’s a relic of that time, lost on the battlefield – well, that gives them both historical details about the world, and a reason to go someplace new and investigate.

You touch upon an interesting side to this discussion, which is the way magic items can help with the world building. Magic items can be more than just a loot reward or a helpful tool, they can have a name and even a backstory. And sometimes this can help with a little bit of lore exposition. A good example is the game Dark Souls, which uses item descriptions to do most of the story telling.

 

[Pauper]

Within the D&D universe (and the universes deliberately designed to be similar to it, such as Pathfinder's Golarion and Hackmaster's default universe, etcetera), magic exists as a tool -- it is defined, has specific effects, and requires explicit factors to be in place (class, level, components, etc.) before it can be used.

In that sense, the 'why' of magic items in D&D is that they are tools that can be used by classes that don't otherwise get to use magic (healing potions are probably the ur-example here), or they are tools that can be used by classes that do get magic to either do magic they don't normally get to do or do so magic they do get to do more efficiently.

I have a good deal of respect for [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] and his desire to make magic 'numenous', but as he points out, execution is much harder than conception, and D&D as a system has basically given up on making magic items 'special' save in a few specific instances where 'special' equates more with 'powerful' than with 'exotic'.

The way most players approach magic items has adopted this pragmatism: if you ask a player what the purpose of a magic weapon is, his answer will likely be that it's to bypass the defenses of monsters resistant to non-magical weapons. This is a big reason why players complain when a DM is seen as 'stingy' with magic weapons -- players don't like to feel 'ineffective', even if the resistance to non-magic weapons is an intentional game design decision.

Fifth edition has tried to reduce the importance of magic items, and has even taken steps to reduce the 'characters are magic item carrying platforms' concept of Third and Fourth edition D&D, but some players insist on collecting loads of magic items because that's how they've learned the game is played. You could build a world where magic items are entirely unnecessary, and players would still be upset because they feel they're not getting something that previous editions of the game have taught them is important.

Best of luck.

--
Pauper

 

[MichaelSomething]

If WOTC really wanted to make magic items mysterious, what they should have done is to never write magic items themselves and tell DM/players to go third party if they want magic items. Though I think that would upset players more then anything else.

Going third party is a good idea for an individual who wishes to make their magic items more surprising.

 

[Celebrim]

If WOTC really wanted to make magic items mysterious, what they should have done is to never write magic items themselves...

Gygax as usual had grappled with this already.

Gygax wanted to have mysterious magical items as well, but like me he must have recognized at some point that you couldn't do that with a trove of items divided around 12 players.

But if you look in the 1e AD&D DMG, he did pretty much what you suggested - he demanded that in the case of artifacts the individual DM hide the information from the players. He refused to publish the actual abilities of a particular artifact so that when the players found one, it would truly be mysterious.

 

[Chad Hooper]

My players just found a wand that is both a plot point and a pun.

Unbeknownst to them, the abbey the cleric wants to reclaim that was over-run and abandoned during a major war a thousand years ago has an unwilling guardian. A Valkyrie was sent to help defend the abbey against the invaders during the war. In a twist of sadistic humor, one of the invading wizards Geased her to "defend the inner sanctum against all comers regardless of intention or faith". Being of the same quasi-Nordic faith that once held the abbey, the cleric would at the very least be emotionally conflicted and or tormented before and after if the PCs were forced to kill said Valkyrie, not to mention it might anger his gods.

The wand they just found only has the power to Dispel Magic, but does so a few levels higher than the PCs currently are. IF they can successfully dispel the Geas they will A: perform a great service to the church and the gods of this faith, and B: gain a powerful, potentially life-long ally.

As for the pun, well the command word for the Dispel Magic wand is "Emarkleen". Thus, it is a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser

 

[Garthanos]

Wait, I thought he did care about balance? Its just the methods he'd use to balance things appear very weird to us...

You cannot read the DMG without knowing he cared but his idea of balance included sucking now so you can dominate later.. and made lots of assumptions about pacing which are far from universal but mangle balance if not followed

 

[Garthanos]

Gygax thought magic items would often provide non casters extra power and zing their class didn't have

 

[pemerton]

So, what purpose should magic items serve in an RPG?

Well, it's different in different systems and different campaigns.

A lot of posts in this thread describe various sorts of power-ups. That's their main function in classic D&D, once recovered; and as [MENTION=72717]Ex[/MENTION]ploder Wizard said, as yet undiscovered items are a motivation for playing the game (ie adventuring).

In 4e, magic items aren't really a motivation for playing the game because (at least by default) treasure parcels, which include magic items, are obtained automatically in the course of play. Some of these items are simply core elements of PC build (the enhancement bonuses that make the maths of levelling work), and others are modest power-ups. My main 4e campaign has the Rod of Seven Parts as one significant campaign focus, and this item does double duty - it provides the invoker/wizard with the mechanically required enhancement bonuses, and it serves as both a manifestation of and an anchor for one major dramatic arc in the campaign.

My Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy game doesn't really have magic items at all in the D&D sense; but one player did narrate the upgrading of his PC's durability power as turning the skin of a defeated drake into armour.

I think there's no single answer, even if we confine ourselves just to D&D and its cousins. Once we get beyond that family of games, the lack of a single answer just becomes more apparent.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

We had discssions on magic items before, saying magic items should be this way or that. But I find it hard to discuss the HOW until I know the WHY.

So, what purpose should magic items serve in an RPG? Player build parts, rewards for good play, sources of wonder, world history things, or you tell me!

Our games level up more slowly, so from a game standpoint magic item provide different abilities and opportunities. I still use a lot of true consumable items (wands don’t regain charges, etc) so the selection of abilities changes over time too.

I find this actually works better than gaining abilities as you level up because you aren’t restricted to the same abilities for the life of the character (which is often several years in my campaigns).

Within the world, the majority of magic items, and certainly more powerful ones, tend to be from earlier times. There are still magic items being made, but their number is small compared to the number of items that have been created in the 35,000 years, or whatever, in the Realms.

Permanent items have a story, even if I haven’t figured it out yet. Somebody made it for a purpose, since the process is long, expensive, and potentially dangerous. So the process isn’t approached lightly.

When considering things like this, I think it’s important to ask why there aren’t more of them? If new ones are relatively rare, why? It’s almost always going to come down to a risk/reward scenario to me. And I work that into me rules.