James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I find myself torn by two different urges when I DM. I want magic items to appear organically, and I rarely offer anything in the adventure that is 100% geared to a specific character. There are exceptions, but generally, I work on the assumption of what a player might want rather than come out and ask them.
And there are a lot of items they find that I'm not expecting them to want, but if they find a use for it, that's fine- magic items are a reality in my campaign, and not everything is for everyone- a good example of this was when they found a magic whistle that, when blown, deals necrotic damage to everyone within 50 ft. who can hear it's cursed tones. Every time it is used, it deals less damage, until it needs to "recharge". I fully expected them to see this and go "uh, no", and it was surprising to see one player pick it up, as it requires no attunement, and they're convinced the moment it will come in handy will arrive.
But this does leave my game cluttered with items that the players pass on, which either lurk on their treasure list or are even forgotten about- which has had disastrous consequences when I try to seed items that will be very useful in an upcoming battle. If there's a tough fight with a red dragon planned, you can bet potions and items of fire resistance will appear long before- but usually when the moment arrives, the players will have sold off or forgotten they even have said items.
This leads to the other urge- to just let players have the items they want. It would be much saner for me to do this, but often, the things they want aren't the kinds of neat things I think they need- it's usually more of what they were already doing. Oh you're a Fighter who does massive damage? What do you want? A big sword with more plusses or bonus damage dice.
Your character wears plate armor, wields a shield, and has the Protection Fighting Style? What do you want? More AC?
And I balk. I balk because I know where this leads- one-dimensional characters who have overpowering strengths, but glaring weaknesses. Weaknesses I could exploit, but rarely feel justified doing so on a routine basis.
Case in point, in a Pathfinder 1e game, I had a player with immense AC, who managed to get said AC while still remaining a threat. Level-appropriate enemies could not touch them. The rest of the party might struggle, but they were fine.
Now, I could have enemies use magic missile more frequently, target weak saves, use enemies that hurt you when you hit them, or the dreaded grappling monster- there are many ways to approach this.
But most fights shouldn't involve these specialized tactics, and the way their character instantly became useless when they appeared was actually detrimental to the party as as whole, since now they could no longer rely on that character's contributions. And every time a monster came up that targeted said weak points, they (rightly!) complained that they were being singled out, which felt scummy to me, even though I knew it had to be done!
So when someone gripes about needing more damage or AC, I'm loathe to let them have it, even as they turn up their noses at the items I think are really cool.
So yes, while I do believe that player agency with regards to magical items would be good for the game, I also know that there are pitfalls associated with it, because the players aren't always concerned with the balance of the game- they want to make the game easier for their characters. Which is understandable and logical from a player's perspective, but can become a headache for a DM who, like me, overthinks and agonizes over the health of their game, lol.
