Do you hate wish-lists too?

[Pentius]

I love wish lists, though I don't consider them a mechanic at all. It's just an idea. An idea where the player says, "So, DM, here's what I'd like. Providing this would make me happy. Other things may or may not make me happy." And really, as a DM, I'll take just about anything that opens up a dialogue between me and a player about what they want from the campaign. It's way better than trial and error. Some of my most poignant fail moments in D&D have been when a DM(who sometimes was me and sometimes not) placed an item thinking, "Wow, this item is so cool." only to have the players not give even one damn about it.

 

[was]

not a fan of wishlists

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I don't have a problem with wish lists. I had set up a progression chart at the beginning of the campaign, assigning each character a treasure level per character level. The numbers are based on the DMG parcel system and unknown to the players.

The players were asked to supply me with their wish lists ranging from level 1-10. Now each character receives the corresponding item at the correct level. Essentially all items a character gets are from the wish list, but he doesn't receive all items from the list.

The treasure track ranges from character levels 1-5. Once the characters reached level 6, I asked the players for new lists in the new level range. The treasure tracks are newly assigned.

With this system each character receives wanted items. The players haven't cracked the code of treasure distribution yet, so they can't optimize their wish lists for 5 of the 10 items they put down.

 

[Pickles JG]

I do not use wish lists or found treasure much mostly just for ig higher power items. I give my players rewards for missions that are items (ie you all get a level 16 or lower item) or big piles of cash. Sometimes if a monetary reward is inappropriate they get their current items powered up. Just last weekend Orcus rewarded them by buffing all up an itme for each of them & making it suitably Orcusy. The barbarian's stag helm is now more of an undead goat demon head helm.

I will be happier using inherent bonuses in future - the +1 more treadmill is very apparent.

 

[the Jester]

Yep, I hate wish lists and tend to randomize treasure as much as possible.

Instead of strictly sticking to the parcel system as written, pretty much from day 1 I started using the level of the encounter as the level of the parcel earned and rolling a random parcel from the list for that level. That means that your first 10 parcels might have fewer or more of the expected magic items than you'd expect. Also, I try to randomize which items I give rather than choosing "one for the fighter, one for the warlord and one for the cleric!" or whatever. This means that the party often gets items that aren't optimal for them.

Despite this, and despite the doom saying I hear about not providing exactly what the pcs want, somehow my campaign survived. Shrug.

 

[Nytmare]

Yes, I hate wish lists. If PCs want an item, they can sometimes purchase it or commission it (usually paying a premium over list price), or they can quest for it. Streetwise skill gets used a lot IMCs, for locating items & craftsmen. I'd also allow History to find the last known location of an item.

Is there a reason why this prohibits there being a wish list?

[EDIT]

Prior to 4th Ed, I spent a whole lot of prep time trying to come up with items that I hoped my players would like, and that fit into their character concept, and the story. Wishlists do nothing more for me than lightening the prep-load and making sure that I'm not wasting time building the story around things my players don't care about.

Remember that wishlists aren't a mechanic meant to strong arm DMs into giving their greedy players things that they do not deserve. It's a sliver of player-driven, narrative control that is meant to be a guide that DMs can use to help them do the same exact thing they did before.

 

[S'mon]

Is there a reason why this prohibits there being a wish list?

IMCs you can have an in-game wish-list: "My character wants this" but not a metagame wish-list "I (the player) want you to have the monsters drop this".

Reason: I simply dislike metagame wish-lists. They just don't work for me. Thinking about them makes me slightly nauseous.

 

[S'mon]

I
Prior to 4th Ed, I spent a whole lot of prep time trying to come up with items that I hoped my players would like, and that fit into their character concept, and the story.

Yeah, I don't really do that, so not an issue for me. At very most I'll do something like (real example from game on Saturday) "Hm, my notes say the Sword of Vallos is a +2 Dragonslayer Bastard Sword, I know the player who'll use it wants a Longsword, and my house-rule is that Enchant Item can resize Full>Great>Bastard>Long etc for 25gp. What the Hell, let's just save time & say it's a longsword."

That's absolutely at the outer limit of what I'll metagame, though.

 

[Kzach]

Remember that wishlists aren't a mechanic meant to strong arm DMs into giving their greedy players things that they do not deserve. It's a sliver of player-driven, narrative control that is meant to be a guide that DMs can use to help them do the same exact thing they did before.

Yeah but in a lot of instances it becomes an expectation rather than a 'wish-list'.

What I don't like, aside from the degradation of DM control over the game which I'm very Gygaxian in my viewpoints on, is that you end up having to force illogical situations in order to solely cater to a player's wishes. And then what's worse is that the very players you're catering to start complaining about it and calling you out on plot-holes because of it.

"It's funny how this filthy orc tribe is scrabbling for scraps in the forest when they have a king's ransom worth of treasure scattered through their lair. And why weren't they using it all against us?"

 

[Nytmare]

Yeah but in a lot of instances it becomes an expectation rather than a 'wish-list'.

What I don't like, aside from the degradation of DM control over the game which I'm very Gygaxian in my viewpoints on, is that you end up having to force illogical situations in order to solely cater to a player's wishes. And then what's worse is that the very players you're catering to start complaining about it and calling you out on plot-holes because of it.

"It's funny how this filthy orc tribe is scrabbling for scraps in the forest when they have a king's ransom worth of treasure scattered through their lair. And why weren't they using it all against us?"

I don't want to refer to any of this as being anyone's "fault", but I don't understand how any of this is a problem with there being a wish list and not a problem with there being a disconnect on either the players' or DM's end of things.

Player's have always had to deal with curbed expectations, especially if they're ignorant of, or misunderstand a rule.

The DM has just as much control as they did before wish lists were written into the rulebooks, and should never feel as though they're being forced into an illogical situation. The wish lists say what players and characters would like to have, and should never dictate the wheres, whys, whens, hows, or even the whats of what they get.

I don't understand how, pre wish list, when battles were finished and you were supposed to roll on a bunch of random treasure tables to see what loot the players found, you never ran into a situation that didn't make sense. It drove me crazy when I didn't roll up (or more frequently roll for inspiration to see what I would then hand pick) loot ahead of time and incorporate it into the overall picture.

If there's a king's ransom of treasure in the orc camp, and no good reason why that the orcs weren't using against the players, it's hardly the fault of there being wish lists.