So what is transparency to you?
Transparency, to me, is three things:
- If something is designed for a function, you tell players what that function is.
- If a subsystem is designed to serve a particular end, you explain this at least to the DM, preferably with examples and contrast.
- If you have intentionally left something open-ended and it is not overwhelmingly obvious why that is the case, you say something about it.
For the first, if the Barbarian is designed to be a "tanky bruiser" (someone who tends to be quite durable, but can also dish it out about as well as they can take it, to appropriate a term from MOBAs), then you present that information to the player, e.g. "The Barbarian is a juggernaut, able to wade through the slings and arrows of battle and pummel their foes in kind." If the Bard is designed to have a baseline of control and support effects, but easily flex into any focus someone might like, you might describe that as, "Bards are beguilers, soothsayers, and tricksters, giving succor to their allies and putting their foes into disarray, but they are also supremely flexible, each building their own repertoire of signature spells. How they come by such esoteric knowledge is often a carefully-guarded secret."
For the second, wealth-by-level options for various campaign styles, and ways to support different campaign focuses or player interests. E.g. 4e's Inherent Bonus rules are great for a gritty, low-magic game, while PF1e's idea of "capital" is a useful way to handle acquiring goods of various kinds that don't need to be narrowly described but which can be bought, sold, or traded. Explaining
how and (equally important)
why one would use or not use various rules and techniques.
For the third, I've already given the example of 13A's epic Linguist feat, but to spell it out in full: The Adventurer tier feat makes you proficient (but not fluent) in most basic spoken languages (e.g. D&D's common, undercommon, goblinoid, etc.), but your vocabulary is very adventurer-centric. The Champion-tier feat (which, by default, requires the Adventurer-tier feat be taken first) makes you fluent in essentially all living languages and proficient with most dead languages, if it's not been actively concealed or thoroughly lost to time. It then says in a sidebar, as noted above, "There shouldn't be any need for an epic Linguist feat. If you really want one, you know what you want it for better than we do." In other words, whatever it is you want it to do,
go for it, because there's no way we could meet that need any better than you can.
And, to be clear, that last bit is NOT indicating that you're somehow "only allowed" to do things your way if it's been specified. It is, instead, a notice (or perhaps warning) that the designers have left that
completely up to you, they aren't even going to
try to fill that gap, because everything they do will necessarily fall short. For things that don't get that disclaimer, the implication is not, and should not ever be understood as, "You are beholden to these rules to the last letter, and God help you if you ever stray." It is, instead, "We worked very hard to test these rules so that they work reliably, across a broad range of both common and uncommon player experiences. Try to use them if you can, because it will save you time and effort. But if you find that they aren't working for you, please, do what it takes to address that. We'll try to help by explaining how and why we did things, so you can make informed, purposeful decisions about how to do it your way."
You just want a price list? What rarity would be appropriate by level?
A price list, preferably with additional advice regarding different kinds of campaigns, or campaigns that have a heavy economic or production focus (that is, games where characters try to get into the magic item "biz" as it were.) Rarity by level is a start, but a spread of options (e.g. no/low/mid/high magic) is a significant improvement. A discussion talking about how, due to D&D's overall combat focus, combat items are
generally more valuable than non-combat ones, but that context should also be taken into account. Ideally, less a pricing "formula" and more a pricing
process for how to develop custom item prices; something like "start with the baseline rarity, then factor in the intended potency of the item (e.g. a +3 Vorpal Flaming Longsword is clearly much stronger than just a +3 longsword), and finally consider the item in the context of the campaign, e.g. a
headband of ancient dragon intellect (setting Int to 23) is probably going to be a lot more valuable in an intrigue-heavy campaign with a Wizard PC than it is in a pure-combat game where the only full casters are a Cleric and a Bard. Again, less "formula" and more "clear, specific processes with examples to help people make their own decisions."
Because yeah...the "rarity" guidelines in the 5e DMG? They ain't that. At all. Unless you already have a very firm grasp of exactly how you want magic items to work, they're barely more than loose suggestions.
Guidelines are in the DMG with more given in XGtE. Hopefully they'll go into more detail in the 2024 edition.
The guidelines in the DMG were crap from the very beginning, and the online discourse of the time demonstrated that rather well. I saw
numerous discussions asking, more or less, "how on earth do I handle magic items?????" Or, worse, the tedious and near-constant stream of "gold is worthless in 5e" threads.
Giving more advice and guidelines
three years later is, I think you would agree, too little, too late. If the edition that must not be named gets held to account for taking only eight months to address various issues present at launch, I'm
absolutely going to hold 5e to task for taking four and a half times as long.
But just tossing around a nebulous phrase "More transparency!" Is pretty meaningless because it seems to mean different things to different people.
At least it's more specific than "fun." Which is
genuinely meaningless as a target. Transparency, at least you know that it's about being clear with your intentions and communicating things to the DM and/or players. "Fun" is so broad as to refer to truly anything at all. Some people, in some contexts, find 52 Pickup "fun."
