Do Magic Item "Shops" wreck the spirit of D&D?

[Korgoth]

"Dear DM, the only one who's been able to damage mosters in months is my wizard, and if he couldn't teleport, we'd've had TPKs three weeks in a row. As it is, Fred's on his third fighter, Jane quit the game because her thief never found any treasure, and Steve's cleric can't even think about preparing spells other than healing spells because we're taking way too much damage. So if you're not going to give us by-the-book treasure, could you stop throwing by-the-book encounters at us? Thanks."

So you assume that because the DM is not giving out the "by-the-book" wealth that he is therefore and inept Killer DM?

Every post like this is just another nail in the 3E coffin as far as I'm concerned. The game evidently tries to ensure that your campaign is run by a multi-million dollar corporation, instead of by a human being. Why not just replace the DM with a cardboard standee of some faceless suit from Hasbro?

Maybe, as a human being, the DM possesses more prudence than some lifeless game manual, and furthermore since he is responsible for how the game turns out, maybe he should be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to wealth "guidelines" and other decisions that affect the course of the game?

This "consumer model" is evidently more infectious than I thought. Obviously Hasbro has been using a business Poke-model: if you want the kewl power-ups for your character you have to buy an endless stream of hardcovers which have all the latest killer combos. You can even (PHB2) rewrite your character to retroactively incorporate new combo items that you may have missed - thereby ensuring that you buy all the books! Your character is deprived unless he has all the latest, greatest Magical Sharper Image Toys and super extra special foil rare limited edition Feats. Your character is really your Consumer Avatar... so it would be evil of the DM to deprive you of the latest expensive gizmos! And speaking of consumerism: you want to make sure, since we at Hasbro have everything so scientifically balanced for your easy consumption, that your DM is using only a Corporate-Approved Campaign Model. After all, you don't want your access to power-ups limited and we don't want our Brand Identity associated with inferior and unscientific forms of creativity. If your DM tries to get creative, show him in the book that he's wrong!

Well, it sure is a good thing that 3E did away with that terrible bogeyman of "adversarial" player-DM relations. I can't believe what a tyrant I was in the old, pre-corporate days. I wonder why I never got many complaints?

 

[Raven Crowking]

3E adventures by Dungeon and WotC include new magic items with non-standard effects. It's clearly possible within 3E. That quashes #3, because the items are outside of the creation rules in 3E.

Um...did you read #3? #3 was about the Item Creation Rules, not about what those rules could be used to create.

 

[Hussar]

That fact drops my jaw for two reasons: (1) Your circumstances vastly differ from mine, and I'd wager a lot of other gamers. There just aren't that many gaming groups running around, and you've lucked out with a area of huge gamer concentration. (2) The players I have are friends first, and gamers second. They're one of the reasons I have my old cliche, "best day fishing is worse than a bad day gaming." Because we still cut up and have a ball doing something else even if the game doesn't turn out. Their playstyles don't mesh perfectly with mine, but we work it out because we're friends first, and want to game together.

Not only wouldn't I boot them for different expectations, I don't think I could, and find a new group at the drop of a hat, and I suspect most people can't, either. It would seem to play to work with the players more than to pick and choose until you had enough to game with.

The advantages to playing online. I live in an area where there are zero gamers. So, I tried OpenRPG. It's been a very good thing for me. OTOH, I haven't played with friends, or rather people I associate with outside of the game, in years. I have the people I game with and I have the people I don't game with. I consider both to be friends, but, they are generally not the same people.

Agreed. However, it is equally true that the opacity of the rules, by definition, influence the degree of mystery of the game.

I disagree. While I may not know the mechanics of how to build an airplane, or even the exact physics that keeps it in the air, that doesn't make airplanes particularly mystical after the tenth time I've seen one. Sure, it might have been the first time, and maybe the second, but, after a fairly short period of time, the mystery wears off. Same goes for magic items.

No, I don't have "far larger problems". I have players who are good at tactics (they put themselves in a tight place to control how many attackers could hit them at once), teamwork (the clerics stayed behind the front liners, healing as was necessary -- and totally blowing through their spells/day doing so), and creative problem solving (the rogue put himself at great risk to hit the ettin and then avoid getting squashed by it to further control the battlefield). So no, I am not a poor DM as you so blantantly implied. I have good players who should be rewarded for their efforts. It is just that the rewards inherent in 3E are entirely too high, both in XP and in expected treasure.

But, you didn't reward the players for their efforts. You deliberately shortchanged them. The expected treasure is far less than it was in 1e. A 7th level PC should have about 19 k worth of goodies. That's just about half what you expected from a 1e character. Granted, the xp award is higher, but, that's because they didn't get 14k xp for the gold you gave them.

Or, it could be that they weren't satified with the 14K worth of treasure they did get from the trove, because when it is divided up between the PCs and compared to the "wealth by level" chart, they found it lacking.

Well, for that single encounter, they should have gotten about 4500 gp, so I'm assuming you had more encounters.

Hang on a tick. The difference between 4th and 5th in terms of wealth is about 3600 gp. That would put your wealth by level at exactly dead on, and perhaps a tad high. Point to the RAW and tell your players to shut it.

Unless he had to pay 1500 gp per week per level to train, as is suggested.

You realize you only pay that once right? When you level up?

I think we have very different definitions of sword and sorcery.

No, I don't think so. S&S fiction is very magic item light and is usually far darker than standard heroic fantasy. Since my 1e days were characterized by going through modules and walking out with three page long lists of magic items yoinked from the dungeon, I would say that, for me, 1e was about the polar opposite to sword and sworcery fiction. Add to that the fact that most of the people I played with never played humans and, yup, 1e was miles away from S&S fiction for me.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Everytime I log onto ENWorld. You wouldn't believe the kind of bozos I encounter there

I find most of the people on EN World to be interesting, thoughtful, and often insightful. The number of people that I wouldn't game with on this Forum (that I know of) I can count on one hand.

Very, very few bozos (or Bizarros) IME.

Then again, there aren't many people that argue that something was up to DM Fiat in one thread, argue the same thing is utterly predictable in another thread, and fail to see where their so-called logic leads one to believe that they are arguing simply to be contrary (or are, themselves, irrational).

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I disagree. While I may not know the mechanics of how to build an airplane, or even the exact physics that keeps it in the air, that doesn't make airplanes particularly mystical after the tenth time I've seen one. Sure, it might have been the first time, and maybe the second, but, after a fairly short period of time, the mystery wears off. Same goes for magic items.

Where X is a set that contains items that perform only function Y, familiarity with X and Y will naturally remove any sense of mystery that accompanies X and Y (at least as they relate to each other).

Where X is an infinite set of items that performs infinite functions Y, no amount of familiarity with examples of set X and Y will produce familiarity with X and Y as a group.

Where the range of possibilities in sets X and Y is somewhere between a monoset and an infinite set, the amount of familiarity with examples of items and effects in sets X and Y will reduce the amount of mystery inherent in sets X and Y in direct proportion to the amount that sets X and Y resemble a monoset, and in opposite proportion to the degree to which sets X and Y resemble an infinite set.

 

[DragonLancer]

Every post like this is just another nail in the 3E coffin as far as I'm concerned. The game evidently tries to ensure that your campaign is run by a multi-million dollar corporation, instead of by a human being. Why not just replace the DM with a cardboard standee of some faceless suit from Hasbro?

I agree with this statement. It's the problem with 3.X and gaming forums across the net these days. For some reason that I cannot fathom, players are being elevated to be the arbitrators of what goes on in the game. That is such BS.

The DM is the final arbitrator of what happens in game or the game world. Just because one guy decides to be a paladin doesn't mean that the character will find or be rewarded with a holy avanger. Same goes for the wizard and a staff of power, for example.

The DM is the one who has final say. The players are there to have a fun game in a social setting, and to play the story that the DM has created. Thats how gaming groups have been for last last 30 years so why is that that 3.X (and WotC) has tried to turn it around and make the DM the little guy?

I bite my tongue on this every time I see it on ENWorld just for the sake of not starting an argument or being jumped on. This thread has shown that too many players have come to expect that they can have what they want.

So what if your party is below the expected wealth level, so long as the game is fun and enjoyable. Try it sometime.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But, you didn't reward the players for their efforts. You deliberately shortchanged them. The expected treasure is far less than it was in 1e. A 7th level PC should have about 19 k worth of goodies. That's just about half what you expected from a 1e character. Granted, the xp award is higher, but, that's because they didn't get 14k xp for the gold you gave them.

Those statements imply that the players are entitled to a certain amount of treasure, and that anything less than the "expected amount" means "you deliberately shortchanged them". The implication is that the players are right to be mad if they're "shortchanged". That sort of statement drips with player entitlement.

It is this sort of thinking, IMHO, that is detrimental to the game as a whole. YMMV, and probably does.

As for what you would expect from a 7th level 1e characters, I suppose we could total up the gp value of items from 7th level example PCs in various modules to determine what was "normal" (within the context of TSR, at least).

 

[Storm Raven]

If I'm not mistaken, Rule Zero is no longer defined in the 3.5 DMG. That's what I was referring to.

Pedantic. Rule Zero was never in the DMG. It is in the PHB.

 

[drothgery]

So you assume that because the DM is not giving out the "by-the-book" wealth that he is therefore and inept Killer DM?

I assume that if he's not giving by-the-book wealth and the players aren't fine with it, then there's probably a reason. And it's probably not 'the players are munchkin powergamers', it's probably 'the DM likes low magic item games but hasn't adjusted the rest of the world accordingly', since it's mind-bogglingly easy to get balance out of whack when running low magic item D&D at anything beyond extreme low levels, and most players are not munchkin powergamers.

 

[Reynard]

Well, for that single encounter, they should have gotten about 4500 gp, so I'm assuming you had more encounters.

Right. I used the trove to cover a few encounters that didn't provide treasure, for the express purpose of trying the get the PCs closer to where they should be for their level. When I designed the adventure and put the loot in, though, I hadn't quite realized how much XP they were actually going to get for the encounters (since I think CR/EL is horribly innaccurate anyway, I design encounters with the players' and PCs' capabilities in mind, not what the CR or EL is).

Hang on a tick. The difference between 4th and 5th in terms of wealth is about 3600 gp. That would put your wealth by level at exactly dead on, and perhaps a tad high. Point to the RAW and tell your players to shut it.

Part of the problem is that the players threw away their reward by ditching the McGuffin, which will have put them back a step once they get back to "civilization".

You realize you only pay that once right? When you level up?

Right, but you pay it every time you level. So when the first level fighter goes up to level 2 (let's assume *all* of his XP came from treasure, for sake of argument) he has to pay 1500 of his 2000 gp to level. When he hits 3rd (assuming he didn't spend anything else in the interim) he has to pay 3000 gp of his 2500 gp -- oops, time to borrow some money from the cleric!

No, I don't think so. S&S fiction is very magic item light and is usually far darker than standard heroic fantasy. Since my 1e days were characterized by going through modules and walking out with three page long lists of magic items yoinked from the dungeon, I would say that, for me, 1e was about the polar opposite to sword and sworcery fiction. Add to that the fact that most of the people I played with never played humans and, yup, 1e was miles away from S&S fiction for me.

I do not have much (any, really) experience with 1E modules. When I played it back in the day, my brother was the DM and he made his own adventures. I do the same now. Going by both the probabilities and advice in the 1E DMG, there is far, far less magic in a 1E world than the 3E one -- and high level characters are not super-heroes, and magic is much less certain, and old stanbys never go out of style or have to get "levelled' up to be used later on. That, to me, is much more S&S and 3E is.

3E is a different kind of fantasy (so was 2E, btw -- 2E was a Tolkien pastiche as much as 1E was a Conan pastiche -- presence of elves and dwarves in both editions notwithstanding). 3E is a cool game that has a very distinct, high fantasy, high action feel to it. What I am saying is that taking it back to a S&S game requires so much work, it isn't D&D 3.x anymore. Why else would mongoose's Conan RPG be oft hailed as the right way to do S&S with the d20 rules?