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

[Raven Crowking]

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

Pedantic. While not called "Rule Zero", the basic concept was pretty clearly written into the 1e DMG.

However, I certainly agree that "Rule 0" belongs in the PHB. Prominently.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I do find lack of mystery in rpgs to be a problem. My main issue is with the players knowing the monsters though. Magic items I see as being much more in the players purview, because the PCs carry them, use them all the time, it seems more appropriate that they should be a known quantity.

I would say there are magical item plot devices that should center around discovery and mystery when appropriate, but that such things should be rare and unique. Weapons of Legacy is good for this if it's not a central plot item. The problem with this discussion is that folks seem unwilling to let any magic item be mundane. Elric had plenty of magic items on him, I'm sure, but only Stormbringer is noteworthy. It's not the idea that magic items can be mysterious, so much as that they all have to be.


For monsters, it's all in the description. I had a pair of xorns destroying a town, the party never saw them and fled from their presence. Mystery is easy to impart when needed. When Vasdenjas the Fiend Under The Whispering Rock popped out in tentacular glory, the party never knew I was using Marilith stats. (they were only like 6th level, so they'd probably have been just as afraid, but still.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Absolutely right. The difference between LotR and D&D is that in D&D everyone and his brother seems to have magic items. In LotR I doubt anyone in the Shire had a magic item (not counting Bilbo or Frodo since they are the protagonists of the tale).
The elves have them in spades but they are an ancient breed and seperate from the rest of the world by choice. Thats their mysticism.

The shire is a low level area. The PC's don't have magic items there either. As they go further along, they encounter more magic and gain more themselves at a fair pace. The scale might be different (and the definition of what a magic item is, sometimes magic items could be just an enhanced item), but that seems like a typical pacing of a D&D adventure.

 

[Pielorinho]

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Daniel

 

[Raven Crowking]

The problem with this discussion is that folks seem unwilling to let any magic item be mundane.

I don't think that anyone is saying that, either.

Saying that magic has the potential to be something other than "predictable technology" -- and that this has always existed within D&D -- isn't the same as saying that every potion has to be a special snowflake.

"Magic items are not wondrous, and cannot be made to be so within the framework of the game" is an all-encompasing, extreme statement. "Magic items can be wondrous, and can be something other than predictable technology" is not.

The first statement says that all things X (magic items) fall into category Y (predictable technology). This is akin to the statement "All birds fly." Saying that it is untrue that all things X fall into category Y does not imply that no things X can fall into category Y. This is akin to the statement "Not all birds fly."

For the first statement to be true ("All birds fly.") it is necessary that the second statement is not true ("Not all birds fly."). However, for the second statement to be true, the first statement can be true (but doesn't have to be true) by changing the "All" to "Some". In otherwords, the second statement says that set X is larger than (but not necessarily exclusive of) category Y.

The acknowledgement that some items X fall outside of category Y carries with it the inherent proposition that knowing that an item is in set X doesn't mean that you know it is in category Y. The degree to which category Y encomases set X partially determines how safe an assumption that X = Y is in any given case, as does the degree of potential consequences of being in error.

Magic in D&D (regardless of edition) can run in a spectrum from "X always equals Y" to "X sometimes equals Y". The DM can forbid spellcasting classes (easier in earlier editions!), and change the casting rules, but I would argue that D&D never includes the proposition "X never equals Y".

RC

 

[Vocenoctum]

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

TO be fair, my post and that one are not refering to the original DM's post. We're replying to your assertion that you can do whatever you want as "D-Fn-M" and telling them they're whiney. You went further than the original post, and we built off of that in rebuttal.

So, no, no one is assuming that the original is automatically a Killer DM, since hopefully he knows his group better than we do. (though, I've been in a campaign where the DM thought ambushing our sleeping 2nd level PC's with a CR6 encounter was "fair", so it's far from a sure thing.

It certainly IS a possibility of course.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I don't think that anyone is saying that, either.

Saying that magic has the potential to be something other than "predictable technology" -- and that this has always existed within D&D -- isn't the same as saying that every potion has to be a special snowflake.

See, that's part of the problem though, because in this thread I've repeatedly asked about other items, and been told that all things are mysterious and special.


Even Gauntlets of Ogre power!

"Magic items are not wondrous, and cannot be made to be so within the framework of the game" is an all-encompasing, extreme statement. "Magic items can be wondrous, and can be something other than predictable technology" is not.

The first part is in quotes, but it doesn't have attribution, so I'm not sure who made that assertion. We used wands of wonder in the game, we had a kender pull a sphere of annihilation from her pouch with a very odd set of rolls. We've had plenty of random.

I don't think that results in Mystery though, or Wonder, in regard to even the vast majority of items. I specifically disclaim that the rules ever made anything more mysterious or wondrous in the editions from my first box of D&D up to the latest books. The random factor was a much different thing than adding an air of story and mystery to an object.

It's easy to focus on Stormbringer and ignore that Elric's ancestral armor. He probably also had a real nice set of enchanted boots and such... not everything is important.

 

[S'mon]

I don't see why it would be hard to run LotR with Classic. Elf, Dwarf and Hobbit racial classes already built around the Tolkien tropes... everybody else is a Fighter or a Thief. Elves cast spontaneously and Elven Lords (Name level) can also use spells from the Cleric list (except Raise Dead). Wood Elves don't cast magic but get some extra bonuses (bow stuff probably); easy to draw that up as a separate class. Regular Clerics don't exist, and regular Magic-Users are extremely rare (the Mouth of Sauron is the only one I can think of offhand); the Istari are a special class (easy to draw up). Everything else pretty much goes by the book.

The Fellowship has several high level Fighter types (Aragorn, Boromir and Gimli) who get access to the Smash attack [Mentzer]... -5 to hit and add your Str score to damage. Lots of one-hit takedowns. Legolas probably has some kind of "Elf Archer" move that does the same thing but lets him add his Dex to damage instead. Voila! Instant Tolkien.

Yeah, this pretty well describes my B/X 'Duskmoon Hills' PBEM more or less precisely. 1981 B/X D&D seems perfect for Tolkien; for one thing it doesn't give sale values for magic items!

 

[Reynard]

I don't think that anyone is saying that, either.

Actually, I'm saying it. Or, at least, saying that it should be a perfectly viable way to play DnD. *Every* magic item can be unique, mysterious and special. *Every* magic item can have a story and be more than its plusses. *Every* magic item can make the game more magical and more fun.

Unless you let players get whatever they want, whenver they want -- via the magic shop handwave -- and then *every* character is going to have the same crap.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Is anyone in this thread arguing that artefacts are mundane? I haven't seen it if they have. But some people have certainly been arguing that +1 swords are special snowflakes.