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

[Storm Raven]

If I am being petty at this point, I must have been petty throughout the entire thread, because I haven't changed what I was saying. And, I will point out, when I suggested that these were exceptions, SR countered that they were not exceptions. You both cannot be right.

Your argument though, doesn't track. Just because there might be a random outcome within a certain range to certain things does not mean that something is not a predictable technology. For example, when you drive a car, it might throw a rod and punch a hole in the engine block. It might not. This doesn't make cars an unpredictable technology. The same analysis holds true for potion miscability. When you mix potions, you get a range of possible results. This only happens when you mix potions, and only has certain defined possible outcomes. This is not unpredictable, any more than dumping water on your toaster having a range of possible outcomes indicates that toasters are not a predictable technology.

You seem to think that "any amount of randomness at all" means that something is "not predictable". This is simply an untenable position.

 

[Reynard]

Being able to buy a magic item doesn't preclude finding it elsewhere.

That's not what some folks are saying. What they are saying is "Who cares -- might as well just have gems and gps in the hoard" because the players are going to equip their characters how they want, selling off any items they don't want.

I think in my next campaign I will ban the buying and selling of items other than potions and scrools, unles the players actually bother the play out seeking an item and convincing its owner to sell it.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

The real problem lies right here in this quote: 5 session between a +1 sword and a +2 sword? That's just too fast, IMO. It should take 5 sessions to level.

Poor phrasing; my fault.

Let me try this again. How long will they be using that weapon? Maybe they have the feats for an axe. The first +1 weapon is a sword. How long before they come across a +1 axe? Maybe the +1 dagger that the wizards wants was the last one to be found, how long before they come across a +2 dagger? How long before they come across a weapon that is +1 and something else?

As I said before I'm not one to be impressed by past history that is completely removed from the game. I don't want a side story that will be nothing but an extra sheet of paper in my character folder. I likely won't care if the biggest baddie the weapon killed was a kobald or an elder dragon. That's not the story I'm paticipating in with the others and the DM. That's not the story I help create. That's not the story I get to tell others and look like a geek for. Now, when my character is the one that gets the final blow on the dragon... that's a story to tell.

To try and tie this in with the original post all those pages ago...

I, as a player, don't find magic items special because they are "magic". What makes an item special to me isn't that they are +1, +2 or a Vorpal Holy Avenger. I don't care what they did in the past. The back story to weapon could be that it was used by the last king of a forgotten empire to slay a demon prince or it could have been placed on the shelves of Magic Mart ten minutes ago. Beyond the time it takes to read the back story and say "cool" it won't make much difference to me.

That may seem cold and I can already some people shaking their heads at me or lifting their jaws off the floor in astonishment. It's not that I don't appreciate the work that would go into a four page backstory on the +1 sword. The story may be really cool and I may ask for that story to be the next campaign. Doesn't help make that weapon "special" to me though. This may seem egotistical but I want to tell MY story of the item, not the DM's story.

When I look at a magic item I want there to be history and context that I can relate to. If I have the Holy Avenger I want to have earned it. If I have spiffy armor I want to say who I had to kill to get it. If my DM wants me to think that those Gloves of DEX +2 are the [bleep] then have me get them after a greuling battle in a Thieve's Maze against a recurring villain and let me pry them off of his cold dead corpse. Then those gloves will be "cool" to me.

If I don't have that context, that connection to the item then the "magical" item will just be numbers on a page. Gloves of DEX +2 are boring. Gloves of DEX +2 that used to belong to Black Jack the Master Thief who dies 3647 years ago are boring after a minute or two. Gloves of DEX +2 that my PC retrieved after he killed Karl who betrayed my PC to the city guards five years ago... now those are cool. If they hadn't belonged to Karl then I wouldn't have cared if I picked them up from Magic Mart.

And if that is all the gloves are then no, having Magic Marts don't kill the spirit of the game. They don't add anything but they don't take anything away either.

 

[Storm Raven]

I think in my next campaign I will ban the buying and selling of items other than potions and scrools, unles the players actually bother the play out seeking an item and convincing its owner to sell it.

Now, to me, that seems like a lot of the sort of thing that rules like Take 10 and Take 20 were intended to eliminate. I mean, you, as the DM, already know if they are going to be able to find Archmage Smartypants and get him to sell/make/trade his Foozle. To me, unless the process of hunting down Archmage Smartypants and getting the Foozle is otherwise important in some way, then it is just "dead space" in the campaign, so to speak, like walking from the Castle of Iron to the Village of Vulnerable Peasants. Sure, it feels "right" for players to spend half a session looking for the thing, but from my perspective, that's just time that would better spent hunting dragons, foiling evil necromancers, and all the other things that adventurers undertake as their profession.

So I hand wave it. "You search for half a day . . ." [make a couple of Gather Information and Diplomacy checks] ". . . and locate Archmage Smartypants, he has a Foozle . . . " [negotiate for the Foozle, making a couple reaction checks and then some back and forth] ". . . . he'll sell it to you for 15,000 gold coins, or your 6,000 coins and your Whatsit in trade".

 

[Slife]

It eliminates the thrill of finding magic items in a treasure hoard. This thrill didn't derive from the items' being unknowable or mysterious or unpredictable, but simply from the fact that any given item, such as a serpentine owl, was so rare as to often be unique within a given campaign. This thrill was present in 1E, 2E, and even the computer RPGs I've played. (Think of finding a Ring of Polymorph Control down in the dungeons of Nethack. Or the Wand of Wishing, one of the incredibly rare opportunities to pick any item you wanted, but which only had a few charges -- now there was a find! You did well to think long and hard about what to wish for when you used it.) In 3E, this thrill is gone, and I miss it terribly.

But wait! Nethack HAS magic item shops. And clearly that didn't kill the wonder for you.

QED.

 

[molonel]

I think in my next campaign I will ban the buying and selling of items other than potions and scrools, unles the players actually bother the play out seeking an item and convincing its owner to sell it.

That's one of those often-made campaign promises that rarely gets kept, in my opinion.

It makes more sense to make items more rare, and lessen the need for them - Iron Heroes does this, Conan OGL, and many other rules sets - than to say, "Well, you just can't sell them at all!" because the latter makes no sense whatsoever. If it's useful, then there will be people or beings who want it and are willing to pay for it.

To try and tie this in with the original post all those pages ago ... I, as a player, don't find magic items special because they are "magic". What makes an item special to me isn't that they are +1, +2 or a Vorpal Holy Avenger. I don't care what they did in the past. The back story to weapon could be that it was used by the last king of a forgotten empire to slay a demon prince or it could have been placed on the shelves of Magic Mart ten minutes ago. Beyond the time it takes to read the back story and say "cool" it won't make much difference to me. That may seem cold and I can already some people shaking their heads at me or lifting their jaws off the floor in astonishment. It's not that I don't appreciate the work that would go into a four page backstory on the +1 sword. The story may be really cool and I may ask for that story to be the next campaign. Doesn't help make that weapon "special" to me though. This may seem egotistical but I want to tell MY story of the item, not the DM's story. When I look at a magic item I want there to be history and context that I can relate to. If I have the Holy Avenger I want to have earned it. If I have spiffy armor I want to say who I had to kill to get it. If my DM wants me to think that those Gloves of DEX +2 are the [bleep] then have me get them after a greuling battle in a Thieve's Maze against a recurring villain and let me pry them off of his cold dead corpse. Then those gloves will be "cool" to me. If I don't have that context, that connection to the item then the "magical" item will just be numbers on a page. Gloves of DEX +2 are boring. Gloves of DEX +2 that used to belong to Black Jack the Master Thief who dies 3647 years ago are boring after a minute or two. Gloves of DEX +2 that my PC retrieved after he killed Karl who betrayed my PC to the city guards five years ago... now those are cool. If they hadn't belonged to Karl then I wouldn't have cared if I picked them up from Magic Mart. And if that is all the gloves are then no, having Magic Marts don't kill the spirit of the game. They don't add anything but they don't take anything away either.

I wouldn't have thought to put it that way, but that was VERY well said.

 

[Reynard]

Now, to me, that seems like a lot of the sort of thing that rules like Take 10 and Take 20 were intended to eliminate. I mean, you, as the DM, already know if they are going to be able to find Archmage Smartypants and get him to sell/make/trade his Foozle. To me, unless the process of hunting down Archmage Smartypants and getting the Foozle is otherwise important in some way, then it is just "dead space" in the campaign, so to speak, like walking from the Castle of Iron to the Village of Vulnerable Peasants. Sure, it feels "right" for players to spend half a session looking for the thing, but from my perspective, that's just time that would better spent hunting dragons, foiling evil necromancers, and all the other things that adventurers undertake as their profession.

I think part of the disconnect here might be (and I could be wrong) that I think all that little stuff is important and fun and memorable, because I don't try to "tell a story" when I DM. I try to create a situation and a setting in which players can forge their own stories. Hunting down Archmage Smartypants and convincing him to sell is foozle has as much potential for story -- the kind you tell with your friends when not gaming, or bore your wife with -- as going into a dragon's lair. I like "sandbox" gaming, and running "sandbox" games. It has taken me a while to get there, mind -- I have had more than 1 "epic quest" fizzle, or be rejected by the players. So now, I try to go "Here's the world. Go play." Of course, I toss out threads and plots and such, but if the players ignore or reject them, so be it. There is always another adventure around the corner.

I think this kind of campaigning is the kind that leads to cool stories and years-long adventuring. If the campaign is about killing Mister Big Bad Evil Guy, you're pretty much done when the players win. If the campaign is about 5 guys who travel around (and happen to take on Big Bad Evil Guy) the story continues even after BBEG is moldering undewr the rubble that was once his fortress. As such, "I want to find a Dancing Shield" from a player is as much an adventure hook as "My parents were murdered by the Red Wizards."

 

[jensun]

Once again, the question with respect to these items is whether the item is magical, or it represents the power of the wielder. Would Gandalf's staff have been anything other than a stick in anyone else's hands? It is unclear, but the thrust of the text, at least to my eyes, seems to indicate no.

Saruman accuses Gandalf of trying to seize the rods of the 5 Wizards. Thats pretty indicative that they are more than just symbolic.

 

[Numion]

I'll point out at this .. um, point, that 3E can in someways keep that sense of wonder that comes from not knowing all the monsters, spells, effects, etc, for longer. Many people in this thread have said that when starting the game everything was wondrous, because you didn't know the spells, you didn't know the effects magic items had, etc..

Now, 3E has so much more material published for it, by WotC and all the countless 3rd party publishers. Heck, there probably was at some point more publishers for d20 than there were products for 1E! By utilizing these zillion monster books, feat books, class books, spell books, magic system books, there's always something new to throw at the players.

When the players don't know what books the DM is going to use, that's unpredictable. At least I get that ol' magical feeling when reading a good* magic supplement for D&D.


* That's another point, that almost nullifies my post above. Most stuff for d20 is crap, and that's predictable.

 

[Vocenoctum]

That's not what some folks are saying. What they are saying is "Who cares -- might as well just have gems and gps in the hoard" because the players are going to equip their characters how they want, selling off any items they don't want.

I think in my next campaign I will ban the buying and selling of items other than potions and scrools, unles the players actually bother the play out seeking an item and convincing its owner to sell it.

A 100K gem is worth 100K, a Censor of Water Elementals is 100K if you buy it, 50K if you sell it.

There is a bonus to finding an item over buying it. This is mitigated if you Craft the item, but then you're paying in XP also.


It's a matter of playstyles, as usual. If you want magic items to require work and time, then more power to you. If you want to ban Wizards from your campaign, so be it.

I've been in campaigns where we played out long tedious road trips where nothing happened. I'd rather handwave that. I'm sure I could roleplay out tracking down a mage and waiting while he crafted my armor, but again, I'd rather handwave that. The problem isn't the concept that the players are walking into a store and buying an item vs having the item Wished into existence by a Djin merchant or commisioning it, IMO.

The problem for me is waiting and waiting while I try to get something through a form of commerce that makes sense, rather than waiting for happenstance to provide my character with it.


I mean, really, is it more logical that a PC stumbles on the Full Plate +3 in a pile of Otyugh loot, vs making inquiries in Waterdeep to see if some Lord has an old set from when he upgraded to +4 armor?