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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wyrmshadows" data-source="post: 4016081" data-attributes="member: 56166"> Don't see this at all. Recognizable to the players is not recognizable to the characters unless the characters have encountered said creature before. There is no meta-gaming at my table so memorizing a monster manual won't save you. If I catch someone overtly and shamelessly metagaming I will severely dock them EXP. Thankfully I game with people who grasp the difference between character and player knowledge. Everyone can slip up a little of course, but my players are excellent in this regard. If you want to memorize a game book and metagame your way to success, play a videogame. I'm sure there are cheatcodes available too. Maybe, maybe not. I see the rebalancing of magic items as a mechanical innovation that will let the DM run a campaign with the level of magic he and his players desire. Sounds good to me. *introducing Second Wind rules and making APs core; Held hostage LOL. Overwrought much? I think that this helps players and DMs. If I go to 4e I won't have to worry about a TPK because the party is out of resources. It might make for some great action. This isn't going to be Elder Scrolls Oblivion where no matter what's going on outside, the town is going to be a safe zone. That is pure videogame conceit and has no place in an PRing game that presumes an interactive setting with proportionate action and reaction. I don't see the 4e designers going for this. The POLs in the POL assumed setting are nothing more than bastions of civilization in a dark and dangerous world. Many hamlets, towns and villages in the current D&D settings are POLs themselves. POL is a philosophy, a darkening up of things to make things in D&D more like dark ages Europe as opposed to early Renassiance in regards to level of civilzation.In 4e, you piss off the red dragon and run to town with the dragon still following you, the town will burn along with you and your friends. There aren't mythals arount POL towns and cities preventing attack.Not so much.Moral questions are posed in the context of events and situations set up by the DM often as a consequence of PCs actions or inaction. The metaphysical reality of morality isn't gone without alignment. The mechanical elements of alignment are gone. A good and benevolent deity is still a good and benevolent deity. Asmodeus is still evil even if he can no longer do "vile" damage...whatever the hell that is.The DM still contains the key to the cosmology and still controls the reactions of the world around the PCs. The PCs can decide that eating babies is good and that rescuing innocents is evil but that won't stop the rest of the world from differing on these points if the DM has decided that eating babies is evil and aiding the innocent is good.Moral ambiguity can add great depth to a game however once things cross into either good or evil, it is the DM who will show the players how the setting (and its folk and mortals) reacts to their actions. A lack of alignment mechanics does not shift all good and evil into a state of post modern subjectivism.POL is not a campaign setting, it is a design philosophy. Settings that have backstories will still have backstories. Settings that go in a more POL direction will still have backstories as to how things became POL, maybe an empire fell, maybe constant conflicts with humanoids has limited human dominion, etc.Players are on equal footing by reading up on the setting they are playing in and getting a sense of the setting. If the setting is a homebrew, then the DM will tell them what they need to know. You are reading way too much into the POL design philosophy. All the existing settings, whether published or homebrew, have their own realities. Some are POL and some are not. A DM isn't forced to run a POL type campaign if she already has a setting to work with.Getting in the way of player excellence!?!?! I never realized how much my 23+yrs of DMing has been the history of shattering the dreams, hopes and ambitions of my poor players. I guess I should just tell them that I am hanging up my exclusive DMing cap so as to do a little more narrative cooperativism. Seriously though, my work at making certain that everyone has a great character who (hopefully) achieves greatness is what has allowed some of my players to have characters who are 10+yrs old and so full of depth and richness they seem real. I have done nothing as a DM if I have not pushed the character's to excellence by challenging the players to think and consider the consequences of action or inaction.But system excellence? System excellence is something that the designers should worry about. IMO players working toward system excellence sounds like code for munchkin "beat the system" gaming which is another thing I will not tolerate at the gaming table.I just don't see it. Rule 0, the penultimate rule of the game allows me to do supercede anything in the rules to the benefit of my (and my player's) campaign and preferred playstyle. I will always determine the degree and frequency of adversity, placement of encounters, levelling frequency, the use of dice or role-playing in order to overcome challenges, the answers to the big moral questions in the campaign via the type of moral assumptions inherent in the setting I am running, etc.I don't see where you are getting your conclusions.Wyrmshadows</blockquote>

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