jasin said:
But neither are you drawing on Vance or Leiber, where magic is for sale for the right people with the right amounts of money.
Not that it's wrong to prefer Beowulf to Leiber, obviously, but neither is the opposite preference, and a preference for plentiful magic and/or magic for sale isn't necessarily a sign of lack of imagination or a perference for computer games over literature.
No, it most certainly not. I'm sorry that you took what I wrote to mean that, though I can sorta see why you might especially if you were just browsing over the thread.
And neither is a preference for literature over computer games (at least as applied to a game where people pretend to be elves) a sign of a superior intellect.
I'm fairly certain that you could not say that I even implied that. Now, you are off on a straw man, because I clearly enjoy computer games quite well thank you very much. The most I suggested is that different artistics formats lend themselves more appropriately to different styles and means of experession. And that's something I'm willing to defend.
As for what I'm willing to defend, regarding the buying and selling of magic items, it is pretty straight forward. If your world is one in which you are comfortable with magic items being treated as commodities, to be freely bought, sold, and traded, then you are being really disengenious to complain about the fact that they are treated as commodities. After all, the treating of magic items as commodities is what you set up in the first place, and you shouldn't then be surprised that the mystery, oddity, diversity, quirkiness, and sometimes down right inconveinance of magic items outright disappears in such a setting because its the logical consequence of your setting choice.
And as for Vance or Leiber, I'm more well read than just the ancient classics and you are making not only an imperfect point to site them as examples of settings where magic is freely traded, you are making a highly misleading point because the magic of Vance and Leiber is generally only mysterious, odd, diverse, quirky and often down right inconveinent. Simply functional magic items as they commonly exist in D&D don't really exist as such in either setting. It's more half-way between Cthullu and D&D. The easiest way to achieve that sort of thing would be to apply random quirks on a random result table to all magic items, something like the artifacts table in 1st edition (which is highly Vancian), with the ammount of quirks increasing with the power of the object.
Of course not. By "nothing exciting is happening" I didn't mean "combat is not happening", I meant "nothing exciting is happening". And I don't think playing out in detail the search for the dealer willing to buy a +1 sword for the fifth time in the campaign sounds very exciting.
In my experience, +1 swords end up being horded and then dolled out to favorite retainers as rewards for thier loyalty and initiative. In other words, the PC's start acting alot like the NPC's back when they were low level. It's also good roleplaying, and it tends to create a more effective cadre to surround the player. Eventually, favored retainers can rise to the level of PC's in thier own right, replacing dead or semi-retired PC's.
However, generally by the time that players are selling a magic item for the fifth time (and I can't recall this happening very often), they've established a report with one or more buyers in the city who they can feel that they trust and who (because of repeated good diplomacy checks now has a favorable reaction to them), and selling something is a matter of, "I'll take the sword down to Virigard's and see what he'll offer." or even, "Jeeves. Have this sword taken to Virigards and exchange it for whatever credit he offers."
But again, I've never had a problem with selling magic items. It's the assumption that if you want to buy one it will be available that I have a problem with. Again, this is the assumption of 1st edition, and its the one I've always used, and in my experience with such an assumption in place, magic items don't get sold anyway because they are to a certain extent irreplacible.
