Excerpt: You and Your Magic Items

[Knightlord]

An interesting thought is that this might make a great Epic Desitiny quest for characters that have the rituals to create magic items. When it is done so much of your power and energy are poured into the item that you begin to fade away, only to live on forever in the mighty work you have wrought.

Me likes! Very fitting.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Why? Did you even read the revision I did to the short blurb from the economics excerpt? It covered every single topic that the original blurb covered, but made it clear that the DM was in charge of how much magic was available, whether it could be bought and sold, and whether it could be disenchanted and used in rituals for new enchantments. The key change, was to enable the DM to be the arbiter of what is allowed, rather than giving the players a sense that this is the way it should be.

its in the DMG... Players will never ever have any contact to these "rules"

and I think from a 3.5 perspective, what they did is the middle way. And I am perfectly sure that the game system wil not instantly break down when you take away magic like 3.5. just subtract the magic item treshold from your monster stats or something if it really becomes obvious that the game gets too unbalanced...

But I generally agree with you: the DM has to lay out the stage for your group, so you have to check what you want to have in your game and what not to make it fun. Restricting things from core is always dangerous, because its a bit expected by your players. What you need is to make sure your players understand why you restrict some things (game balance/story reasons).
But i am seriously worried that you have problems to find players. I am not the greatest DM, I sometimes have problems to bring the world to life, but my players trust me. I can do what I want, restrict what i want and most of my players are ok with it...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No offense taken, and I think we're basically in agreement. I actually just wanted to make sure I wasn't coming off hard-nosed.

cool

It really feels good if someone actually agrees with you on the internet... a day to celebrate

 

[Heahengel]

To Aria:

You complain that they print books that encourage player entitlement and therefore bad players. If they print the books constantly emphasizing that 'the DM decides everything' (even with the implicit idea that the DM should listen to the players) then that can encourage autocratic DMs and create more bad DMs. Bad DMs are at least as bad a problem and as frequent as bad players (wrt proportion of DMs to Players).

Rule 0 needs to exist, but writing into the rules that the DM should decide everything about the way a campaign will be run and then tell that to the players is not a good thing in my opinion.

(Editing this here for clarity: I have no problem with a DM coming up with a campaign and then listing the houserules. And if a player joins and immediately starts complaining about those rules, yeah thats annoying. But I don't think saying in the book that there is a base level and that DMs can deviate from it encourages this. That guy is either not bothering to read your rules, or is just being ridiculous. But even here, there is room for changing things to appeal to players joining the game, or to work with them for character concepts (there being a difference from a player wanting to work with you for a concept and a player wanting you to accept his concept and change your game). Starting a campaign with existing players, they should be included in the idea of the campaign much more.)

If you want to DM your low magic setting, then you will want players who want to play that kind of game and then will work with you to make the campaign feel like that. They will avoid more magical classes (or possibly take them and play them as outcasts, what have you), and will describe wonder at finding a sword that burns as if it was covered in oil.

If you are constantly having to cajole players to play that way, then they probably would prefer to play a different game. And yeah, it may be hard to find people to play that game with you, although I've certainly been willing to join very restrictive games in the past.

 

[Ipissimus]

Maybe it's a regional thing, but I can't find anything remotely funny about the phrase, "you can will this weapon to burst into flame."

Burst. As in 'explosion' or 'burst like a balloon'. It's a double meaning, you can read it like it's intended or you can read it like 'you can will this weapon to explode', probably while you're still holding it.

Yes, it's groan inducing. But I know gamers, they THRIVE on groan-inducing humour. That's my point. The number of 'humour' moments I've had to break up over 'Rope of Entanglement' or worse...

What really surprises and galls me is that WOTC has people who can write good fluff text, proven time and time again. And they're dropping in cringe-worthy lines like this. This sort of thing, and the naming conventions for powers, are just about the only thing that really gets under my skin about the new edition. It's not stopping me from buying it but I know they can do better.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I don't really see the problem. If you ask me, any given gamer can turn just about anything into a joke. If my players find it humorous I'll just roll with it and move on. Or stop giving them Flaming Weapons (which, if you ask me, has much more potential to become a groan inducing phrase). Or, I'll give Flaming Weapons to my monsters! Then they'll stop laughing!*





*probably not though

 

[Krensky]

Why? Did you even read the revision I did to the short blurb from the economics excerpt? It covered every single topic that the original blurb covered, but made it clear that the DM was in charge of how much magic was available, whether it could be bought and sold, and whether it could be disenchanted and used in rituals for new enchantments. The key change, was to enable the DM to be the arbiter of what is allowed, rather than giving the players a sense that this is the way it should be.

Wow.

Seriously, why exactly do you feel the book has to beat the players over the head with "The DM is God."? Are your local players really so childish that: "No, {class} is not appropriate in the campaign I'm running." causes them to whine? Or is that "No, I'm not letting you play that utterly stupid and craptastic class from the craptastic money grab splatbook because it's stupid, you idiot." that gets them a little upset? I honestly can not think of a single time in any game I've run or played in where saying: "No, you can't play that, they don't exist." or "No, you can't play a bank robber, you need to play a police officer like the rest of the party." politely caused a problem. Especially as there usually are ways of figuring out how to satisfy their desires without using the verboten thing they asked about.

You seem incredibly fixated on the phrasings that lead to (the made up phrase) player entitlement. The books don't need to constantly beat into the players skull that the DM is their lord and master. In fact it shouldn't. D&D, and in fact all paper and pencil games is not the venue for B&D¹ role playing. The proper venue for that is acting, not gaming. Even there, it's a collaborative thing between the actors, writers, director and producers.

On the face of your comments you come off as aggressive, authoritarian, unforgiving and condescending to the people you ostensibly want to play with. You hate a whole lot of things that are not worthy of such a strong emotion. I, for instance will not play "Settlers of Catan" if I was paid to, but it's a game doesn't deserve enough emotional investment to generate something even resembling hate.

¹ See bondage and discipline language

 

[Vendark]

Burst. As in 'explosion' or 'burst like a balloon'. It's a double meaning, you can read it like it's intended or you can read it like 'you can will this weapon to explode', probably while you're still holding it.

"Burst into flame" is a common turn of phrase. It means "to catch fire suddenly." A Google search on the phrase turns up 141,000 hits. It's not amusing or cringe-worthy in the slightest.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I shouldn't give in to posting about the DM authority stuff but...

Here are the different ways I can see WotC handling these things:

• Permissive - The rules spell out things that tell the players and DM what they can do. DMs have the right to restrict these things as part of Rule 0 and should inform the players of what has been changed. The downside is that the players and DM might end up fighting over what the rules say and the DM might end up looking like a jerk because he is the one saying "no" despite the rules.
  
• Ambiguous - The rules leave things very loose and open. DMs get to tell the players what they can do. DMs need to figure everything out ahead of time on their own, so they can inform the players how the ambiguous rules will be implemented. The downside is that it is unlikely the DM will be able to present every rule situation and when the players suggest something that has not been clearly stated, the players and DM might end up fighting over what the rules don't say and the DM might end up looking like a jerk because he is the one saying "no" to player suggestions.
  
• Restrictive - the rules spend a considerable amount of time outlining what is not permitted. The DM can apply Rule 0 and loosen things up, looking like the good guy. The downside is that the game may not attract as many players since it looks so restrictive and yet still players and the DM might end up fighting over what the rules say and the DM might end up looking like a jerk because he is the one saying "no" because it "clearly says so in the rules."

In the end it all comes down to the exact same thing. There has to be a standard set of rules to start with. Players and DMs need to collaborate and work out a resolution when the RAW and the players' or the DMs own vision of things don't agree. If a DM is not a good moderator it does not matter what the rules do or do not say, the odds are the DM will come away looking like a jerk because the chief role the DM plays is to be the moderator between the campaign and it rules and the players who are experiencing that campaign using those rules.

 

[Stormtalon]

As for the "problem" of DMs losing track of what various items do, we-ell, I have no sympathy whatsoever as it's incumbent on you as DM to keep track of items anyway...an item numbering system can be a big help here - every time you give out an item (magic or not) in treasury, give it a number. *Insist* your players record the number on their sheets along with the item. Keep your own list of items in numerical order. Then, when someone swings with an unidentified sword you just ask "what number is it?" and can then easily reference your list to remind yourself what it does. This becomes essential when a) items have properties unknown to the characters/players e.g. curses, and-or b) when there are several similar-on-the-surface items e.g. "+2 swords" in a party but they are in fact not the same at all...item #36 that Sharana is using is in fact +1 to hit/+3 damage, item #38 that Astacoe is using is a straight +2, while item #39 in Khurin's hands is +1 base with extra benefits vs. dragons only. But they all radiate about the same level of magic and the party have assumed they're all +2's...it's up to you to keep them straight until such time as the party gets them ID'ed - if ever.

Yeah, right, I'll take that under advisement. That only works if you plan out each and every encounter in advance, along with detailed preset notes on where each item is. Me, I work from a very rough mental outline of what needs to happen in each session based on the last and wing everything from there. Dungeon maps? Draw 'em on the spot as the party progresses based on what sort of place they're in, usually 2 to 3 rooms ahead, more if there's branching corridors. Yes, I run ongoing campaigns with detailed plots, NPCs and villains and do it quite well.

I have a near-photographic memory for the events and characters and plots of my games, but tracking individual items and their properties in secret is far more work than it's worth. This new default suits me just fine, thank you very much.

Oh, thanks also for the condescending attitude, it was really appreciated.