Andy Collins: "Most Magic Items in D&D Are Awful"

[Felon]

I don't really see how, in practical terms, this is so different to adventuring to get vast piles of gold that you can spend to get a cool magic item. It's still killing monsters and taking their stuff, only the "stuff" is now fungible.

Embarking on an expedition to a lost ruin in search of legendary artifacts feels like a quest. Attacking a dungeon--and any dungeon will do, as long as its got money--to finance your next trip to the bling shop feels like a bank robbery. It ain't always practical, and YMMV, but to some DM's that fungibility of resources creates a level of convenience that they find undesirable.

 

[Agamemnon]

Well, because that would force them to concede the fact that for the most part, despite all the good intentions, 3.5 is an inferior game to 3.0. The first thing I think should happen on the way to 4e is kick back most of the 3.5 changes and make another try at it.

What they should do is chuck everything from 3.5, 3.0 and previous editions. Their process of building each edition atop the previous ones has resulted in 3.5 being the Michael Jackson of RPGs, desperately improving itself to ward off obsolescence but attaining only a kind of perverse lichlike state as a mockery of healthier games.

D&D needs to be rewritten from the ground up, making sure to slaughter all of the sacred cows of old. The system, the abilities, the lot of it. This isn't the 1900s anymore, the game should reflect it instead of trying to sell us on the same old nonsense in a new wrapper.

 

[Felon]

What they should do is chuck everything from 3.5, 3.0 and previous editions. Their process of building each edition atop the previous ones has resulted in 3.5 being the Michael Jackson of RPGs, desperately improving itself to ward off obsolescence but attaining only a kind of perverse lichlike state as a mockery of healthier games.

D&D needs to be rewritten from the ground up, making sure to slaughter all of the sacred cows of old. The system, the abilities, the lot of it. This isn't the 1900s anymore, the game should reflect it instead of trying to sell us on the same old nonsense in a new wrapper.

I know I made an allusion to Michael Jackson earlier in the thread, so I want to establish for the record that I am not affiliated with this poster.

 

[Agamemnon]

You really think someone would mistake me for your sockpuppet when I've been a member here several months longer than you (slightly over five years in total)?

 

[hong]

Embarking on an expedition to a lost ruin in search of legendary artifacts feels like a quest. Attacking a dungeon--and any dungeon will do, as long as its got money--to finance your next trip to the bling shop feels like a bank robbery. It ain't always practical, and YMMV, but to some DM's that fungibility of resources creates a level of convenience that they find undesirable.

Nobody I know attacks a dungeon just to "get some money". There's always a reason for doing the quest, whether it's to save a village, kill the guy who killed your father, save the world, or whatever. Every published module that I've seen includes a hook to give the characters some in-game reason to jump in, apart from loot. An in-character motivation is not the same as an OOC motivation.

Now some players certainly take naked greed to the next level, where you have to ask just how sincere their characters really are about whatever quest it is they've agreed to undertake. But this was just as true with previous editions of the game, and they were just as annoying even if they didn't get what they want. Heck, they could be even MORE annoying because of that.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

You really think someone would mistake me for your sockpuppet when I've been a member here several months longer than you (slightly over five years in total)?

Actually, I think it was just a matter of distancing himself from your position.

 

[charlesatan]

Nobody I know attacks a dungeon just to "get some money". There's always a reason for doing the quest, whether it's to save a village, kill the guy who killed your father, save the world, or whatever. Every published module that I've seen includes a hook to give the characters some in-game reason to jump in, apart from loot. An in-character motivation is not the same as an OOC motivation.

Not all the time. You could be mercenaries or you could be "hired explorers" sent to excavate/scout a dungeon. Altruism is fine. But not all adventures necessarily start out altruistic.

 

[hong]

Not all the time. You could be mercenaries or you could be "hired explorers" sent to excavate/scout a dungeon. Altruism is fine. But not all adventures necessarily start out altruistic.

Well, sure. But Felon was starting from the assumption of a stereotypical "save the world" party and contrasting that with the mercenary desires of the players.

 

[charlesatan]

What they should do is chuck everything from 3.5, 3.0 and previous editions. Their process of building each edition atop the previous ones has resulted in 3.5 being the Michael Jackson of RPGs, desperately improving itself to ward off obsolescence but attaining only a kind of perverse lichlike state as a mockery of healthier games.

D&D needs to be rewritten from the ground up, making sure to slaughter all of the sacred cows of old. The system, the abilities, the lot of it. This isn't the 1900s anymore, the game should reflect it instead of trying to sell us on the same old nonsense in a new wrapper.

I agree, especially the part about sacred cows. The problem is that if you do it too much, you might want to stop calling it D&D...

 

[BryonD]

D&D is definitely balanced to include, not just "correct value of gear," but "correct gear."

I'll snip out the rest....
I do not disagree with anything you said.

However, as the systems stands right now the proces are such that use of anything outside the "big 6" is very much on the sideline.

You do not have to "balance" Murlynd's Spoon against a magic sword to determine that a lower priced Murlynd's Spoon would make it see play more often and wouldn't cause the character to become more powerful than a character built with just the big 6 under current pricing.

Or, to put it another way, you don't need to correctly determine that a +1 Sword is worth X Murlynd's Spoons. But you may be able to determine that at a sufficiently lower price the Spoon sees play and more variety and more fun results. I think that conclusion can co-exisit with the truth of everything you said.