D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Hussar]

In the DMG. Because Gygax was inspired by the literature, and the literature is full of magic swords (the vorpal sword is a sword because it's lifted directly from a poem. Lucerne Hammers don't go snicker-snack). But there was never any requirement to play that way. Gygax wrote the DMG as ideas and guidelines, not as rules that must be obeyed. Look at those early adventures. Oh look, a super-powerful trident (AKA a fishing implement). Look at the ones Gygax wrote himself. Oh look, a disintegrator rifle.

Oh come on.

Let's play a little game. Let's go through those early adventures. For every non-sword magic weapon you can find, I'll find 5 magic swords and we'll see who runs out first.

Why is this even remotely contentious? Swords in D&D have dominated the game since day one. This isn't some bizarre revision of history. It's just exactly what was done.

 

[Hussar]

My point is that it is and always has been up to the DM to decide what loot is handed out. I've had holy hammers, dwarven throwing axes, any number of other things because I can and always have been able to create custom magic items. I don't care what the devs "push" or whether they are just responding to demand.

Bully for you? I'm not talking about your particular table, I'm talking about how the game was presented. Blowing it off as "DM failure" is ignoring the mountain of evidence showing how dominant swords are in the game.

 

[AlViking]

Bully for you? I'm not talking about your particular table, I'm talking about how the game was presented. Blowing it off as "DM failure" is ignoring the mountain of evidence showing how dominant swords are in the game.

It is always and has always been up to the DM what rewards the characters receive. Neither TSR nor WOTC can force them to give out only swords.

Did you ever ask your DM for a +1 halberd?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have been very deliberate to not call you a douche, but say that this is the kind of action that makes one come off as a douche. I am judgign the action, not the person. The DM I mentioned, I do not consider him a douche either, but I think entire gaming group acted like he was one when he pulled the stunt with armor.

Well, maybe we should consider if we even need magic items for every silly little thing. Heroes of legends rarely had magic items galore, usually 1-3 things. Heracles had his mace and lion-skin cloak and speciall arrows he covered in mosnter blood. Thor had Mjolnir and his belt. King Arthur had Excalibur, sword in stone and Excalibur's magic sheat and they all were folded in people's minds into just Excalibur. D&D never could deliver o nthe fantasy with the way magic items are overly common and used to solve all small minutia like tracking arrows. It cheapens the actuall cool magic items.

Then we fundamentally do not agree on what rpgs are and further discussion between is us pointless because root of our disagreement goes far deeper and beyond current topic.

I do not think expecting a character who adventurers for a living to say they check for traps is "behaving like highly-trianed Navy SEAL". Maybe by modern Earth standars, but by standars of Fantasy World? Not at all.

For the record, I'm with @Lanefan on the idea that RPGs are not fundamentally about collaborative storytelling. To me that's more of a byproduct of exploring and interacting with a real-seeming setting through your PCs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Anyone who watched Carpenter's Vampires (motel scene), specially as a kid, looks at the ceiling. I know i started after watching that movie when i was like 11ish.

Tracking stuff is choice. It boils down - does your group have more or less fun if they need to do inventory management. Mine has less fun ( with exception on post apocalyptic survival campaigns). We don't track ammo, rations, living expenses, encumbrance, after mid tier 2 we don't even track gold or mundane loot. It's just extra book keeping that adds nothing to fun at our table. And we stopped tracking those things probably decade ago.

Important to remember that "your group" includes the GM. They have to have fun too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, why should wizard give a rat's buttocks about some guy running out of arrows? What is gold that could be paid for creating Endless Quiver to a wizard? What is he going to do with it, pay rent? Like he cannot just conjure gold as he needs.

Maybe there is one somewhere but it is a singular thing to be found, made for specific person. Nobody is goign to mass produce this stuff because wizards have better things to do.


Real world standards and fantasy world standards are very much not the same at all. And especially D&D standards are very much different. I mean, by xp by level standards, LEVEL FOUR PC is almost an equivalent of not jsut any Navy SEAL but that "Navy SEAL with 300 CONFIRMED kills" copypasta (commoner is worth 10 xp, level 4 is 2700 xp). By standards of real world pretty much 90% of things PCs do in an average D&D game would get labeled public enemies #1.

Exactly how impressive a low level PC is has varied greatly in different versions of D&D (and I mean in the general sense here).

 

[Remathilis]

Humans do not perceive everything around them, they can't. I don't have an issue with assuming that characters are doing their best to pay attention. I was just relaying that people not noticing things is normal.

Yes, that's why there are perception checks, hidden door rolls and find traps. It's also why passive perception is a rule. The issue is that the DM would argue that since the player didn't specify he "looked up" he can't make the prescription check to see the ooze.

 

[zarionofarabel]

For the record, I'm with @Lanefan on the idea that RPGs are not fundamentally about collaborative storytelling. To me that's more of a byproduct of exploring and interacting with a real-seeming setting through your PCs.

I think it's purely group specific. I watch a heck of a lot of 5e D&D YT creators that espouse what I can only describe as a "collaborative storytelling" approach. It's mostly the OSR crowd that sticks to the "real seeming setting interaction" kind of game. A lot of the OSR crowd also has a well known dislike of 5e, unless heavily modified to operate closer to older versions of D&D.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

The player whose PC just spent 4000 g.p. to pick up an Endless Quiver would have a pretty good case for feeling resentful if another player's PC just always had endless ammo anyway because of being too lazy to track it and-or the DM not enforcing ammo limits.

It is standard nowadays to not track non-magical ammunition but still track any magical ammunition. So endless quivers are still VERY powerful if you want unlimited magical ammo

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think it's purely group specific. I watch a heck of a lot of 5e D&D YT creators that espouse what I can only describe as a "collaborative storytelling" approach. It's mostly the OSR crowd that sticks to the "real seeming setting interaction" kind of game. A lot of the OSR crowd also has a well known dislike of 5e, unless heavily modified to operate closer to older versions of D&D.

Oh, plenty of folks play "D&D" differently than I do, and more power to them. Even I play differently if the game is non-traditional (or any variety of supers genre). But D&D-style games are not mechanisms for collaborative storytelling to me, and I doubt they ever will be.