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

[Raven Crowking]

I don't think the toys were actually magical. They were dwarven made, so probably better quality stuff than the hobbits in the Shire ever saw (and possibly better technology), but they aren't described as magical by anyone other than the children themselves, and I'm taking their opinions with a grain of salt.

Actually, they are described as magical in the narration.

(And this wasn't all of the toys; the narration says that "some" were magical.)

RC

 

[Storm Raven]

That may be the fault of the people involved as much as the system, you know. If a group of people wanted to make the game work, I am sure they could use M:tG cards to play a tabletop RPG.

Then it would have had to have been a failure of several dozen people on three different continents over the course of more than two decades. I'm reasonably convinced after seeing over a dozen different DMs with many dozens of different players, over the course of many years fail to hammer D&D into anything remotely LotR-like, that there is something to do with the system that makes it not work very well for the setting.

I suppose there might be a miracle DM out there who could make it work, but I haven't seen him. I have seen campaigns run using systems other than D&D work very well to capture the feel of LotR, oftentimes by the same DM and players who could not make it work using D&D (and they were very proficienct with the D&D system).

 

[Storm Raven]

When I purchase a car, I know what it is. It might be a lemon; it might be a good vehicle. The operating principles by which it works are known, and in the event that it thows a rod I can simply go to a mechanic, pay, and have it repaired. Should I so choose, I can easily learn exactly how the car works, and, with somewhat more effort, build one from scratch. In fact, my older brother regularly machines his own parts. The odds of my throwing a rod, or having another mechanical failure, while driving is considerably less than 1%. If I crash the car, that is the result of user error. These things combine to make the automobile predictable technology.

99% of the items in 1e AD&D (and other pre-3e editions of D&D), work exactly like this. Your arguments concerning the opacity of identify are (in my opinion) vastly overblown. Characters almost always had no trouble at all figuring out the powers of their items - I would point, at this stage, to the characters provided for use in various modules - all of them had the exact powers of their magic items listed on their characters sheets. Something that you seem to contend wouldn't happen! They would have something like "magical cloak, some sort of protection" or something like that, because the methods for identifying magic were so "vague". But the reality is that they weren't.

The remaining 1% of items have some variability. But it is such a closely bounded "variability" that it isn't really random at all, any more than driving a motorcycle on a dirt path gives a "variable" experience. You get one of six, or one of ten or some similar number of possible results. This isn't unpredictable, in point of fact, since it is based on a table with dice, it is as predictable as quantum mechanics.

In order for a technology to be predictable, it must fall within a certain range wherein X can be reliable equated with Y.

And in 1e, magic items were (and remain, for those who still play that edition of the game) exactly like this.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Then it would have had to have been a failure of several dozen people on three different continents over the course of more than two decades.

Of course that's possible. I decided that it was possible to have great fun with 1e due to gaming with many dozens of people over the couse of more than two decades, but many people assure me that they had problems that just never seemed to have come up in the games I was involved in.

And I don't think that the people reporting those problems are lying; I think that different people relate to a given ruleset in different ways. My conclusion is that the type of people that I am likely to play games with (quite possibly by sheer luck) are not the type of people liable to those problems.

The dataset is simply too small to make a sustainable sweeping generalization.

I'm reasonably convinced after seeing over a dozen different DMs with many dozens of different players, over the course of many years fail to hammer D&D into anything remotely LotR-like, that there is something to do with the system that makes it not work very well for the setting.

Of course, you'd have to define what you meant by "remotely LotR-like" before I could tell you whether or not my experiences were similar to your own. I think that there are some aspects of Tolkein's work that are easier to reproduce in D&D than others. What does a game need to be "remotely LotR-like" IYHO?

In any event, though, seeing twenty DMs fail doesn't mean that the DM who succeeds is a "miracle DM" -- I've seen 20 crappy DMs, and that doesn't make a good game a miracle, either.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Characters almost always had no trouble at all figuring out the powers of their items - I would point, at this stage, to the characters provided for use in various modules - all of them had the exact powers of their magic items listed on their characters sheets. Something that you seem to contend wouldn't happen!

No...I contend that this is something that wouldn't necessarily happen. For example, in my campaigns during my 1e days, there were many items that were never fully identified.

The remaining 1% of items have some variability. But it is such a closely bounded "variability" that it isn't really random at all, any more than driving a motorcycle on a dirt path gives a "variable" experience. You get one of six, or one of ten or some similar number of possible results. This isn't unpredictable, in point of fact, since it is based on a table with dice, it is as predictable as quantum mechanics.

Again, only assuming that the DM does not include additional variation of his own -- a process that is encouraged rather than discouraged by the RAW. Not to mention that several of those variables themselves have variable interpretations (and therefore variable effects in play).

I am not saying that your experience is wrong, simply that it doesn't represent the only model by which the game can be played.

 

[Korgoth]

You outlined a collection of changes. You didn't actually do the legwork necessary to make them work. And the list was woefully incomplete.

I see how this is going to go. You're going to make a bunch of bare assertions wrapped in hyperbole. I think this will be my last response to one of your posts.

The list I outlined was not "woefully incomplete" as you woefully assert. In fact, it's woefully complete and woefully functional and we'd have a woefully good time with it.

And legwork? Designing a wood elf class and an Istari class? I can do that in my sleep. Remember, this is not the version where I need an 8 paragraph stat block.

Given the list of changes you described, I doubt it would take only two hours to implement. Plus, as the list of changes you proposed wasn't anywhere near adequate to the task of making D&D LotR-like, I don't think it has much bearing either.

Well, that's my estimation on the implementation time. Why is it not "anywhere near adequate"? I think it's perfectly adequate. It sounds like you're only saying that it is not anywhere near adequate because you don't like being shown up on even a relatively minor point. You were wrong, let it go.

Or, handwaving everything just causes people to do what they did in the days of "Classic" D&D - wonder what the heck their characters are able to do, and how to get more of what the other guys can do.

So now we've gone to the old saw that nobody knew how to play D&D back then... we all just fumbled around and it somehow happened to be the world's most successful roleplaying game.

I'm sorry but that's just not how it was. If your Fighter is a woodsman, you can do woodsy things like track, survive in the woods, make shelter, etc. If your Fighter is a sailor than he can handle a ship, gauge the weather, etc. Just because it is freeform does NOT make it confusing.

If it is too confusing for someone to state a character background, just let anybody make a stat roll for anything. They are heroes after all.

On the other hand, Elrond's spells could just as easily been high levels of skill

Or I could rattle off any number of pointless speculations, too. I gave you a viable means of representing the sort of things that happen in LotR.

And you still haven't addressed the issue of magic items.

What issue? Give them out as appropriate. Numenorean, Dwarven and Elven blades will usually be +1. Something like Narsil/Anduril is more powerful.

I played plenty of pre-3e D&D - and in every one of them at least one DM tried to make a middle-earth style campaign (in 1e days, it seemed that every other campaign was an attempt to do this). None of them worked. D&D just didn't mesh well with the feel of LotR. If it was as simple as you assert, at least one of the dozen or so DMs that I have seen try it would have succeeded.

Well here we have the real explanation. "I have an anecdotal data set and therefore I will assume that everybody is as inept a DM as some guy(s) I played with back then." You really played with a dozen or so guys who all tried this and they all failed? OK. But nothing follows from that necessarily. Maybe they were a dozen guys who didn't know what they were doing. Or maybe your definition of failure is somehow colored by other experiences that have no bearing on this discussion. I don't know, I wasn't there.

You should really try to be a little bit more fair with people, particularly when they set out to honestly provide you with information. This could have actually been a productive discussion, if you didn't just throw everything back in my face with rude hyperbole and no substantive criticism.

 

[Crysmalon]

back to the original question. IMO, maybe I think shops and merchants should be spread thin and more powerful (subjective) items might not be sold at all and only found as relics.

 

[molonel]

Ha, no, definitely not! I GM'd 3e regularly for 6 years, from when it came out in 2000 to December 2006. I consistently found that house-ruling 3e led to the cascade effect. I still house ruled, but the head aches got worse and worse until I was driven to seek an alternative system.

I houserule all the time with intelligent, rules-knowledgeable players playing anywhere from 1st through 35th level. If you actually DM-ed the game for six years, I am entirely baffled that you never acquired the rules confidence to make house rules. 3rd Edition is not some ticking time bomb that goes off whenever you make some modification.

To be completely honest, if you found it THAT difficult to make house rules, I can see why you left the system. But the fault did not lie with the system itself.

Edit: I think Monte Cook's statement that 3e was designed to "Take the DM out of the equation" supports my view, too. 3e is intended to be a robust, comprehensive, interlinked ruleset. It is not designed for house-ruling.

Monte Cook regularly posts house rules on his website, like modifications to the DR system, that I have used in my games:

http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?otherd20_damage_reduction

So he's a bad person to quote when arguing that you can't change anything in 3rd Edition.

 

[Storm Raven]

Of course that's possible. I decided that it was possible to have great fun with 1e due to gaming with many dozens of people over the couse of more than two decades, but many people assure me that they had problems that just never seemed to have come up in the games I was involved in.

Sure it is possible. I just don't think it is a likely conclusion, especially since many of the individuals I observed were quite good at the job of DMing and coming up with good and interesting campaigns, so long as it wasn't an attempt to do LotR.

Of course, you'd have to define what you meant by "remotely LotR-like" before I could tell you whether or not my experiences were similar to your own. I think that there are some aspects of Tolkein's work that are easier to reproduce in D&D than others. What does a game need to be "remotely LotR-like" IYHO?

It has to capture the feel of Tolkien's books. That's hard to define, but there was generally enough consensus on what that would be when the attempts were made that just about everyone was on the same page as far as what the goal was. The biggest hurdle was usually morphing the D&D magic system to something that would reflect the magic seen in LotR (and other works concerning middle-earth). Another issue was the rigid class system, and how it just didn't seem to mesh well with the various personalities seen in the books. Oddly enough, another game system that I have found (in my experience) that doesn't do LotR real well is MERP, and I think that the shared characteristics of the systems may be what gets in the way of attempts in that vein.

In any event, though, seeing twenty DMs fail doesn't mean that the DM who succeeds is a "miracle DM" -- I've seen 20 crappy DMs, and that doesn't make a good game a miracle, either.

I've seen my share of lousy DMs too - but many of the DMs I am talking about were, other than trying to use D&D for LotR, excellent in that role.

 

[Pielorinho]

I see how this is going to go. You're going to make a bunch of bare assertions wrapped in hyperbole.
...
I could rattle off any number of pointless speculations, too.
...
Well here we have the real explanation. "I have an anecdotal data set and therefore I will assume that everybody is as inept a DM as some guy(s) I played with back then." You really played with a dozen or so guys who all tried this and they all failed? OK. But nothing follows from that necessarily. Maybe they were a dozen guys who didn't know what they were doing. Or maybe your definition of failure is somehow colored by other experiences that have no bearing on this discussion. I don't know, I wasn't there.
...
This could have actually been a productive discussion, if you didn't just throw everything back in my face with rude hyperbole and no substantive criticism.

Moderator's Notes

Okay, remember how I said that everyone needed to be on their best behavior, and take great pains to be civil, respectful, and courteous? Remember how I said that last time I gave out such warnings, people ignored them, and then got upset when they got temporary bans from the site? I was really hoping that wouldn't happen again, but it has.

The quoted bits from this post are not civil, courteous, or respectful. Korgoth, check your email. Everyone else, please pay attention to this warning and take it seriously.

Daniel