D&D (2024) 2024 needs to end 2014's passive aggressive efforts to remove magic items & other elements from d&d

[Minigiant]

No?

I am stating there is no problem with this particular issue. And we have a decade of experience seeing this particular thing isn't a problem. New players are not selecting all-non-spellcaster parties and then playing those in all-no-magic-item games and then finding they are trashed by some creature that makes that very vulnerable to trashing for lack of magic. This is not in fact a common problem in D&D.

And if you think there are a bunch of videos out there saying this particular thing is a big problem and then warning players about it, show me.

The issue is that 5e is so not made for low or no magic and has almost no official advice on it that effectively almost every DM attempting a low magic or no magic 5e is effectively new and prone to fall into pitfalls that anyone who does not research how no or low magic 5e works because the issues 5e relies on magic for is auxiliary or supplementary: speed saves movement speech vision, etc.

 

[Mistwell]

The issue is that 5e is so not made for low or no magic and has almost no official advice on it that effectively almost every DM attempting a low magic or no magic 5e is effectively new and prone to fall into pitfalls that anyone who does not research how no or low magic 5e works because the issues 5e relies on magic for is auxiliary or supplementary: speed saves movement speech vision, etc.

Show me evidence this is a common issue.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The issue is that 5e is so not made for low or no magic and has almost no official advice on it that effectively almost every DM attempting a low magic or no magic 5e is effectively new and prone to fall into pitfalls that anyone who does not research how no or low magic 5e works because the issues 5e relies on magic for is auxiliary or supplementary: speed saves movement speech vision, etc.

The D&D game is filled with magic. You can't turn around and not find things with magic. So if some DM decides to try and create and run a "low magic / no magic" game, they have to go out of their way to work out how to accomplish that. And if they can spend all that amount of time trying to figure out how to turn 5E into a "low magic / no magic" game... I do not think it is wrong to suggest that they spend an equal amount of time working out themselves how to do that with screwing everything up. So no, I do not think it is imperative that the game itself spend a whole bunch of page count "giving advice" on how to avoid the pitfalls of a game style that it was not built for... it is up to the DM who is going to "mod" their game to figure out how to do it effectively.

If I want to turn my mini-fridge into a "kegerator", I certain can... but it's silly to think the refrigerator manufacturer needs to include the instructions on how to do it. No, * I * need to take the personal responsibility of learning how to do it or talking with other people who have already and get advice from them... and go into it fully expecting to possibly screw things up if I've never tried it before.

 

[Minigiant]

The D&D game is filled with magic. You can't turn around and not find things with magic. So if some DM decides to try and create and run a "low magic / no magic" game, they have to go out of their way to work out how to accomplish that. And if they can spend all that amount of time trying to figure out how to turn 5E into a "low magic / no magic" game... I do not think it is wrong to suggest that they spend an equal amount of time working out themselves how to do that with screwing everything up. So no, I do not think it is imperative that the game itself spend a whole bunch of page count "giving advice" on how to avoid the pitfalls of a game style that it was not built for... it is up to the DM who is going to "mod" their game to figure out how to do it effectively.

If I want to turn my mini-fridge into a "kegerator", I certain can... but it's silly to think the refrigerator manufacturer needs to include the instructions on how to do it. No, * I * need to take the personal responsibility of learning how to do it or talking with other people who have already and get advice from them... and go into it fully expecting to possibly screw things up if I've never tried it before.

100% true.

But WOTC said you could run 5e without magic items. That was partially a lie as you stated. Especially since their is little advice for handling out magic items for a no/low/normal/high magic setting.

 

[the Jester]

The issue is that 5e is so not made for low or no magic and has almost no official advice on it that effectively almost every DM attempting a low magic or no magic 5e is effectively new and prone to fall into pitfalls that anyone who does not research how no or low magic 5e works because the issues 5e relies on magic for is auxiliary or supplementary: speed saves movement speech vision, etc.

Why do you believe this? Have you experienced it or seen it to be true? Is there evidence to support this? I think 5e could run a low magic game just fine, especially if it's low magic on both sides of the table (i.e., the DM doesn't use tons of magical monsters).

 

[Minigiant]

Why do you believe this? Have you experienced it or seen it to be true? Is there evidence to support this? I think 5e could run a low magic game just fine, especially if it's low magic on both sides of the table (i.e., the DM doesn't use tons of magical monsters).

Ive experienced it twice. Seen it at least.


Most of the nonmagical official monsters are boring as heck. There's no official rewards that means anything once you take out magic items. And if you do throw in a magical monster or a tough noncombat obstacle, you'll quickly realize that the characters were designed to be extremely narrow and rigid without magic.

This forces low or no magic campaigns to need on iffy or unreliably of 3PP product market.

And this is because of 2 things. D&D has a history of being a higher magic game. And there are many definitions of low magic. So WOTC hallway supporting it doesn't work.

 

[Mistwell]

100% true.

But WOTC said you could run 5e without magic items. That was partially a lie as you stated. Especially since their is little advice for handling out magic items for a no/low/normal/high magic setting.

WOTC said magic items are not assumed in their math, not that you can or should even be running it without magic items. I just re-read the Magic Items section of the DMG in case I missed something, and I can find nowhere that they say or imply "run 5e without magic items."

That's it. That's all they said, that it's not assumed in their math. Then they gave random tables for how to give out magic items, and assigned rarity levels to them,

You're reading into that the rest, and then proclaiming your spin as them lying when they never said what you're claiming they said in the first place.

 

[Minigiant]

WOTC said magic items are not assumed in their math.

That's it. That's all they said. Then they gave random tables for how to give out magic items.

You're reading into that the rest, and then proclaiming your spin as them lying when they never said what you're claiming they said in the first place.

What I am saying is that.

WOTC said "magic items are not assumed in their math".

People heard that as you don't need to hand out magic items.

I am saying WOTC wasn't clear and only meant their attack based damage math. The game was designed around handing out magic items. There is no magic items treadmill but magic items are expected.

 

[Mistwell]

What I am saying is that.

WOTC said "magic items are not assumed in their math".

People heard that as you don't need to hand out magic items.

They didn't even say it was not assumed in their math in the books, or any time in the past many years. Show me NEW PLAYERS AND DMS hearing or assuming they don't need to use magic items because of some old commentary comments on some old video from the beginnings of 5e D&D being a problem now.

Show me this is a current problem, which is what you've been saying. I don't think you can, because I don't think this is a problem.

 

[Minigiant]

They didn't even say it was not assumed in their math in the books, or any time in the past many years. Show me NEW PLAYERS AND DMS hearing or assuming they don't need to use magic items because of some old commentary comments on some old video from the beginnings of 5e D&D being a problem now.

Show me this is a current problem, which is what you've been saying. I don't think you can, because I don't think this is a problem.

It's not a major problem. Just an easy one to run into that it's not unheard-of.

But like I said I know of 2 New DMs who heard that 5e runs low magic fine, tried it, and failed.

And WOTC warped the whole game system to accommodate a niche desire.