Excerpt: You and Your Magic Items

[AZRogue]

Oh horsecrap. It makes the game better for the "majority", which you are claiming to represent despite not having anything but anecdotal evidence to back it up. Instead of the DM's having to say, "No you can't do what the rules say you can do (default everyone can id after a short rest)." The DM can instead say, "Hey, I don't like the arcana check, so for most items, you can do this instead. Some items might require a check or something more."

That paints that dm in a more positive light than the dm that has to keep saying, no.

Why would you be painted in any light over either statement? Most people game with friends and, unless you're dealing with young or new players, understand that the DM's job is to set up houserules and choose options that he or she thinks will contribute to the campaign. Trying to arrange things so that you can say "yes" more often than "no" seems like needless micromanaging to me and a concern more appropriate for the workplace than your living room.

As has been mentioned, as long as you lay out what you're doing at the start of a campaign, the vast majority of players will not complain. Changing things mid-campaign will likely net you some criticism but not if you laid things out at the start. It would take an exceptionally confrontational player to challenge a DM that way at the start of a campaign, IMO.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

:rofl: The living campaigns have more house rules than most custom campaigns.

I consider "You are allowed to take all PrC, feats, and spells from all books except for these 5 books and this 2 page list of ones that aren't allowed. All other rules are exactly from the book with no changes." very few house rules. Living Greyhawk only complicates things due to Adventure Records being impossible to figure out and some complications on WHICH adventures you can actually play.

The D&D Campaigns model(Legacy of the Green Regent, Xen'drik Expeditions, and so on) is even simpler. Its entire house rules is: "Only the Core Books or these X base classes. Each level you can choose one feat or spell from any other book and add it to the list of ones you are allowed."

They're going to have that kind of conversation anyway. Why not make it more positive instead of negative?

Not all games. Our last campaign started with the words "1st level characters, all books allowed, 32 point buy, average plus 1 for hitpoints after first level, max gold for first level, no changes to the rules. If you want to be a race other than that in the PHB ask me. Bring characters to the session of Tuesday and we'll start."

Due to the changes in 4e, and without breaking my NDA, that can be reduced to: "1st level characters, no changes to the rules. If you want to be a race other than that in the PHB ask me." in 4e.

So print out the list of house rules and their explanations. I know we did back when we started houseruling 3rd edition crap. Each dm would print out their campaign introduction, what kind of campaign it was going to be, what kind of characters they expected, their character creation rules, and such.

Someone once printed me out a 2 page document on changes to their game. I read the first half page before I decided this was too much work to play a game. I eventually just made up a character without reading them and managed to accidentally make a character that was legal. It wasn't for a couple of levels that I found out I had shortchanged myself a bunch of hitpoints as she had houseruled max hitpoints for levels 1-3.

The problem is that all the assumptions are too permissive to players. It requires the DM to say no far too much for DM's that want control over magic and the like in their campaign.

Why are they too permissive? I'm not sure why saying "You can customize your character with the gear you want" is too permissive. It's been the default assumption in every RPG computer and video game I've EVER played. It's been a default assumption for ALMOST every edition of D&D(2nd being the lone hold out that I'm aware of). It's not like the rules causes players to become too powerful or the world to explode or anything like that. In fact, it creates a perfectly playable and fun game.

Even if the books said "No, Magic items are NEVER bought and sold", you'd STILL have players coming in from nearly every other game they've played with the assumption that they are.

 

[keterys]

Oh horsecrap. It makes the game better for the "majority", which you are claiming to represent despite not having anything but anecdotal evidence to back it up.

You probably missed my earlier post where I said 'assuming they've done their market research and testing correctly.' referring to wotc designing rules for a majority of groups.

You may have also missed my earlier post where I said that I didn't intend to have magic item stores sell anything above +1 items to my players.

You may even have missed the 'or' in my statement implying that one side of the statement might be false and it might not actually be better for a majority of players.

Based on your own statements, which I have read, I would also suggest that you are advocating rules that help you personally, and a subset of DMs in particular, but are disadvantageous for many players. Given any kind of normal player to DM ratio, you're almost guaranteeing that your rules choice isn't preferable to a majority, but that's just a mathematical probability. I don't have actual evidence to back that up.

Of course, WotC _does_.

 

[Aria Silverhands]

Why would you be painted in any light over either statement? Most people game with friends and, unless you're dealing with young or new players, understand that the DM's job is to set up houserules and choose options that he or she thinks will contribute to the campaign. Trying to arrange things so that you can say "yes" more often than "no" seems like needless micromanaging to me and a concern more appropriate for the workplace than your living room.

Reputation. It's easier for DM's with a good reputation to get players to play in their campaign. Especially when there's competition for players who have limited schedules. Not everyone everywhere is gifted with an abundance of good players who are reliable. I know for several years we had a drought of players in my area, but two or three people who wanted to DM their campaign. I was one of them and couldn't find players because I had a specific campaign/story I wanted to run, but all the limitations I had to place on 3rd edition rules to get a low magic game turned people away. The rules are quite capable of running a low magic setting, but the default presumption was magic rich and that's what most players expected just out of the PHB.

 

[Hambot]

I like the article.

Magic swords probably just have a switch to turn them on. That would be a hell of a lot easier to make than some voice activated or [gasp] mentally telepathic command response mechanism. And that's just based on real life. I can only assume it would be more complcated to make with magic too.

Even Thug the Barbarian can learn how to flick the switch on the side of a sword. There's a reason why grenades are still manual - it works a lot better than some tricky radio signal or voice command, where more things can go wrong.

If I could make magic items I would make them as easy to use as possible, so when you need them they won't screw up.

 

[Lurker37]

Look at that section for identifying...

Default = everyone does it automatically
OR
slighly more restrictive = the DM may require an arcana check
OR
most restrictive = the DM may require a special quest

That's not what it says.

What it says is that most items just require a few minutes of experimentation.

Some items may be harder to identify, and may require an arcana check, or in really complex cases possibly even a quest for the players to fully understand the full potential (or danger) or the item.

There's no house rules involved. All three possibilities coexist in the default setting depending on the complexity of the enchantment(s) on the item. That's why the rules are written that way. You've re-written it as "three separate rules: pick one for your game", which it clearly isn't.

So suggesting that the Arcana check becomes what most items need is a change to the rules, and disadvantages any group who lacks a character trained in that skill since most groups will play by the RAW, especially if WoTC's goal of attracting new players is achieved.

 

[AZRogue]

Reputation. It's easier for DM's with a good reputation to get players to play in their campaign. Especially when there's competition for players who have limited schedules. Not everyone everywhere is gifted with an abundance of good players who are reliable. I know for several years we had a drought of players in my area, but two or three people who wanted to DM their campaign. I was one of them and couldn't find players because I had a specific campaign/story I wanted to run, but all the limitations I had to place on 3rd edition rules to get a low magic game turned people away. The rules are quite capable of running a low magic setting, but the default presumption was magic rich and that's what most players expected just out of the PHB.

Fair enough, though I would submit that your reputation would be gained from running excellent games that challenge the PCs and keep them guessing and excited rather than gained from the houserules you chose to run your campaign under.

edit: Also, if players in your area are that rare, it may be that you need to change the focus of the type of game you want to run. If players are getting together to play in high-magic campaigns it may be because they just don't want to play in a low-magic campaign, and if that's the case than no change in the default assumptions of the rules will cause them to change their preference. The low-magic, grittier campaign is very popular with those who prefer it but traditionally has never been very mainstream. Good luck, though. I hope you find a good group.

 

[Boarstorm]

Reputation. It's easier for DM's with a good reputation to get players to play in their campaign.

Reputation? Seriously?

I begin to think we're not talking about the same game. In my experience, pulling a group together CAN be damned difficult, but once its together, friendships form and players won't waltz off to another DM based solely on the fact that he's more fast and loose with the rules.

And if players don't want to play the type of game you want to run... perhaps a bit of compromise is called for, if you truly want to play.

 

[Heahengel]

I see what people are saying about setting a more loose baseline, or more restrictive one, but as a player I like this baseline. The reason being that I tend to like this rule (and would like to see it used unless there was a specific reason not to) and there are a lot of DMs who will run the baseline and not consider using optional rules (or at least not consider them beyond shifts connected to a specific campaign vision). Its a lot harder to ask and get a DM to run things less restrictively than to do the opposite, and in general DMs control the rules, so if he wants to run the more restrictive game, he can.

And as a DM, I feel perfectly comfortable changing something like this. Then again, I never normally assume that I can buy magic items in a game (although I do assume that I can sell them). I'm generally willing to follow the DMs lead where he wants to go ruleswise, as I find that the game is more enjoyable if he is running what he wants to (and bad DM is probably going to be bad no matter what, so its rare that I wouldn't enjoy a game just because of one rules issue). There are very few things that I will really argue with a DM about, although they do exist.

Also, in regards to the identifying issue, I think they set the baseline there specifically so that most games would use that, rather than a more restrictive method. Restrictive identifying can be tempting, but in practice I've never gained enjoyment from it. And I'm guessing that they decided that in most situations most groups won't either. Thus the baseline.

 

[ryryguy]

Oh horsecrap. It makes the game better for the "majority", which you are claiming to represent despite not having anything but anecdotal evidence to back it up. Instead of the DM's having to say, "No you can't do what the rules say you can do (default everyone can id after a short rest)." The DM can instead say, "Hey, I don't like the arcana check, so for most items, you can do this instead. Some items might require a check or something more."

That paints that dm in a more positive light than the dm that has to keep saying, no.

I would suspect that from the 4e designers' point of view, this kind of stuff is not really a question of "permissive rules" vs. "restrictive rules". I think they probably do put a lot of weight on whether they think a rule will make the game more fun at the table for a "majority". And while I might have no evidence to back up a hunch that free-identifying items is more fun for the majority, the designers likely do. From playtests, interviews and surveys, etc.

Now could putting this into the rules potentially put the "DM who says no" in a worse light? Potentially... though I think you're overstating a bit, especially if you're playing with friends, in a non-competitve way. But even if it does, if the designers do have pretty strong evidence that their rule is more fun for the majority of their audience, it's only rational for them to stick with that rule. Sorry for any unintended consequences for the minority "DMs who say no". (And putting in mushy middle-ground, "you could do it this way or that way, but probably this way" stuff is bad for a variety of reasons already stated.)

It's interesting to note that 4e does seem to be, on balance, less restrictive than previous editions, more inclined to letting the players do their heroic stuff with their cool powers without being bogged down with simulationist/anachronistic chains. And maybe this is partially a matter of philosophy... but consider this: maybe that general tendency, too, is based on actual analysis and evidence that it produces more fun gaming for the majority.