"I don't like my Christmas present" -- do you enjoy getting treasure?

[JamesonCourage]

When I am dungeon master I like to present a fantastic world and some interesting stories and possibilities.

Why would fantastic characters be any different?

To me? Genre conventions. Each character with a magic item? High end of fantasy, to me. Some characters with a couple, but most with none? About normal. One or two scattered about the main characters? Low end, to me.

Awesome mundane gear? Much more common, from my perceptions. I'd like to see that expanded before magic gear is considered assumed. I have multiple mundane gear levels in my RPG (poor, regular, masterwork, masterpiece, mastercraft), and it helps model the fantasy genre better, in my opinion. A sword that takes a year to craft from a master craftsmen, but is among the best weapons in the world. Mundane, but unequaled.

Additionally, I don't think it's at all necessary for magic items to be tailored or assumed for interesting stories and possibilities. I rolled up a random magic item that one of my players uses with his PC occasionally. It's a dagger than potentially enrages whoever it attacks. As the PC is a former gladiator, he sometimes sends himself into a rage with it. Other times, he'll use it to enrage people that he doesn't want to escape. He's got a custom weapon, but he'll break away from it to use the dagger a couple different ways, and it's interesting to see it put to use.

It wasn't designed for him. The party also has an inkpen that heals the allies of the one who wields it. That wasn't designed for anyone, it was rolled randomly. The guy who got it on the background chart was very happy with it. He thought it was very interesting (and so did I!).

At any rate, I don't think there's been a convincing argument for "give things to your players based on what they tell you they want" as an all-encompassing way to play for every group. I'm not in any way telling you to play differently. I do, however, think that D&D players want specific items for specific builds because magic items are an assumption of play, and are necessary on some level.

If that assumption was removed, I still hold that many players would be much happier about random magic items that popped up in the campaign. After all, if it's just icing on the cake, you're not being "cheated" or "gimped" by having a magic item that's inferior to your concept, because there's no reason you can't get that magic item as well. When there's only 1 ring per hand, or 8 slots to fill, or X amount of gold per level worth of items as an assumption, you can get disappointed. "I got a magic item, and it's not that great, and I know that means I won't be getting more, since it's taking away from my magic item total."

Get rid of the assumptions, and it's not a problem. Hope doesn't die when you get an "inferior" magic item, and magic items are fun to get. As always, play what you like

 

[Tallifer]

To me? Genre conventions. Each character with a magic item? High end of fantasy, to me. Some characters with a couple, but most with none? About normal. One or two scattered about the main characters? Low end, to me.

Your post explains things well. I myself have played in many low-magic campaigns. I always enjoyed them and never expected or needed items. Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu and Runequest are especially well suited for this.

On the other hand D&D is never consistently low magic. The First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide is full of magical items. Many monsters require magical weapons to defeat. The monsters' power scales such that a hero without magical powers will forever fight orcs and goblins. Then there are the Angel Summoners: the BMX Bandit needs magical items to contribute effectively (although I have learned from these boards that many people enjoy playing such).

I hope in fact that the Fifth Edition will redo the math and the balance, so that no character needs magical items to successfully adventure even at higher levels, and that no character needs magical items to keep up with the rest of the party. Then magical items can be weird and wondrous treasures or awesome artifacts for specifically epic quests to save the world.

 

[Loonook]

I've seen some fantastic random treasure, and players who don't respect the items you do give them... But it is just a matter of the specifics behind each player's psyche. Some just don't have the gumption to change around their characters... Though if you would just allow some retraining I have found players do not mind such things.

I've had weird treasure lead places too many times to count. The Ring on the player who wanted an intelligent item... Then they came back to life with a shade on their backs in the ring . The Paladin who began to wear the Demon's Armor he won off of his rival only to redeem the armor by slowly exorcising the evil within (and sucking up that sweet level drain like a champ). The old-style blunt-weapon cleric finding a sword from his divine champion, and taking it to a temple in the high reaches of Whereever with the players in tow to reforge the weapon into a powerful item.

Pretty much I go with the random, then have the players wonder "Why is THIS here?". So many items can gain a bit of fear from players when you go with some really brutal means of receiving it, or placing it in a weird locale. I had a character find a dagger inside the rib cage of a giant, and just sort of figured it to be a giantslayer dagger... Not so much. They figured this out when they decided to go up against the giants in melee with a barely-proficient dagger... And had some beatings delivered .

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Celebrim]

I have to admit that I'm rather mystified by the whole analogy of magic items to presents. When I was learning the game, treasure was considered to be something you earned - not something you were gifted with. It was considered a faux pas by the DM to either give you more or less than you deserved, but there were no gaurantees and no entitlements. DM's that gifted PC's with unearned presents were probably more frowned upon by players, than DM's who were notoriously stingy and hard. No one wanted to have their campaign labeled 'Monte Haul', and there was a certain pride taken in 'beating' a DM who was, to use the popular term, a bit of a bastard. I should note that this latter term has entered gaming lore as something of a mark of respect and not an insult. I mean, to a certain extent I know this comes off as an old fogey going, "You whipsnappers! Get off my lawn!! Back in my day we gamed all day in the snow, and it was uphill getting in and getting out!", but really what made you think that deserved presents anyway much less that you were getting any deserved or not? It's not a holiday and the DM isn't your mom; it's a game, and the DM has an advanced degree in butt kicking from Bill Cavalier, and when you draw that ichor covered bastard sword +2 from the smoldering carapace of what was the dreaded beast of trall, you feel good.

 

[S'mon]

I have to admit that I'm rather mystified by the whole analogy of magic items to presents.

The 4e parcel system encourages this by basing monsters' treasure off party level, not encounter level, and says a party of 5 PCs should get 4 items each level each of a certain power - which creates a dynamic of expected/entitled award and even disappointment at sub-optimal 'gifts', as noted above.

While 3e did not do that, the 3e DMG expected wealth-per-level chart could create a certain sense of entitlement likewise.

When I run 4e I have guidelines for the items that higher level PCs should start with, but I don't track wealth per level or attempt a 'fair' award. Items for specific PCS typically come from NPCs - any 'gifting' is in-game. I'm using the Inherent Bonuses system which deals with the play-balance issue.

Edit: I have to say I also like running 1e AD&D and not having to deal with this! In my 1e campaign everyone knows that there is no 'entitlement' to treasure; successful bandits likely have a lot of it whereas wandering animals and unintelligent monsters likely have none, whatever their threat level.

 

[Li Shenron]

My perspective and feelings changed over the years.

In the early years of 3ed (when I started gaming regularly) it was exciting to find random treasure and see what come up. I liked the feeling of immersion I got from that, with our characters going to unknown places are getting items not tailored to us, because indeed the world around itself was not tailored to us... it was up to us to make use of what we found.

After a bunch of adventures however, I started to think of equipment like it was part of my PCs and therefore it was both my right and my duty to "design" it just like my character features and abilities, so randomness became a nuisance.

The it just slowly became more and more boring, because once you learn which magic items were really useful, you always wanted the same... stat-boosts, life-saver items, extra spells, stuff that easily fit on seldom used slots... what a drag. Maybe it would have been better if I kept buying more and more supplements to look for interesting new items, but the problem was that what I saw in supplements was rarely truly new and interesting, just rehash of the same bonuses in disguise.

So once again I became more interested in random items through treasure. At least it is more challenging this way (if and only if you cannot just sell them and buy something else, but I really think the rule that you sell at half price is fair to make this practice unconvenient) and challenging = interesting.

Anyone else feel this way? Or have tips to make getting treasure exciting? I'm thinking the best way to do it is to make the treasure plot-related, like the goblin king's crown, so it will be special for that reason.

I would like this and aldo I would definitely want magic items to improve depending on what the owner does with them, e.g. a magic sword that after you've killed your 500th orc becomes the "bane of all orcs", or if you deliver the killing blow to the red dragon with your magic spear then it turns into a flaming burst sword.

I would like it so that instead of players dictating their magic items through shopping, they could direct their magic items improvements by what they do in adventures. It would make them feel more like they are really earning those benefits.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

The Pathfinder Wealth by Level table is actually 10-20% higher than 3.5, so you must be expected to get gold somewhere.

[/LIST]

Yes. But adventure paths give less gold than should be. If you have 6 players no way to have so much gold/level there should be. Not even for 4 players. And in some cases to even for 2 players. Not even if players find all treasures. Since many items are healing potions/scrolls that are meant to be used.

I was seriously wondering why their paths don't follow (ones's I runned/played) their own guidelines.

Additionally since they got away with experience costs some spell use really much gold, look "raise dead" or those spells some dm:s hate (pathfinder has at least 3 different ways, one mundane to make ressing not work not related to actual spell cost). I lolled sadly when I saw the prices, since when gods got that greedy. Making items is naturally all about money too. I liked exp costs, I know it was too complex for many, but I found it good system.

I like my economics make sense. But all in all players are expected to have more gold, since everything costs more gold. But in the end they have less because of that.

But honestly I wasn't comparing itemization of modules to 3.5 really, but prior editions. My friends are playing AD&D running through as many modules as possible. There is so much more loot. This might relate to fact that back then you got exp based on loot, but all in all amount of random was neither.

Stingy modules of today make magic items both too rare/and too sucky for highter levels. If players on top of that get "wrong loot" it only is not dissapointing, it also heightens death-rate in game.

For you guys who never play beyond 7th level this doesn't become all that apperant. But I've played/runned many games to 20+. And I saw clear differance when I make my own adventures with mostly random (based on rule suggestion) itemization. When I run modules too it always foces you to sell/craft your own. It's only way to turn that endless +1 crap into useful money and from that to useful items.

Which might theoritacally combine into that expection money, but it won't because by the rules players are not expected to get full market price when they sell their extras. I always wonder, if module makers want to be cheap with magic why don't they just give more money/gems. Maybe it's not stingy, maybe it's lazy. So much other story and hard names, and items as afterthought, for most part.

Sometimes there is beautiful exeptions to this. I've just gone "aargh, no" so many times, I have bit lost my trust.

 

[sinecure]

I like earning treasure. And it's not like I don't know some of what I'm getting when I see the bone-armored orc chieftain with that blackened bone axe cut through my steel armor without much effort. Or that pixie blowing pixie dust on my friends and making them sleep or turn against me. Or when the satyr begins blowing on his pipes and we all start dancing.

All of this stuff we can choose to go after or not or get it and trade for other stuff later. The "I want exactly what I want always and now" attitude is sort of enfant terrible

 

[Celebrim]

My friends are playing AD&D running through as many modules as possible. There is so much more loot. This might relate to fact that back then you got exp based on loot.

AD&D modules, and particularly 'adventure path' style modules are notoriously packed with loot - far exceeding the guidelines of the Monster Manual or DMG. I'm not entirely sure why this is, since you'd have to ask the designer, but there is pretty good evidence from the numbers that in the case of the adventure path type modules (GDQ, for example) that its a conscious decision to power level the PC's through the module centric campaign to ensure that they'll have enough XP/loot to be able to immediately transition to the next module. I also think that there was an assumption that not all loot would be found and that some significant amount would be destroyed (see the rather harsh 1e rules for item destruction when the PC's fail a save) along the way.

Whenever I adapted published modules to play, I tended to scale the loot down some on the grounds that in a campaign, I would probably fill the space between two modules with wilderness travel, wandering encounters, side treks, and encounters that had to do with the overarching structure and story I was fitting the modules into.

Stingy modules of today make magic items both too rare/and too sucky for highter levels.

In 1e, having less than optimal items at higher levels isn't a big deal, because beyond 9th level, there really is a very short list of monsters that can challenge a PC party anyway. Indeed arguably, being stingy with items means that you can extend the 1e game out longer than you could otherwise (without a lot of creativity). With the best possible items, the PC's are dominating by 10th level. Without them, they might have difficulty out to 15th level or so. First 1e high level characters are so durable, that its a challenge to kill them any way.

I remember playing 1e campaigns where the random loot really did add up. We had bags of holding filled with unused magic items, mostly of the +1 magic weapon variaty. Yet I don't recall ever being disappointed by that. It was logical; we would have considered it wierd if suddenly low level magic items disappeared in the world solely because we were 10th level. Indeed, one thing that annoys me the most about modern cRPGs is that the world levels up around you. I mean, why have leveling at all if you are only adding numbers proportionately to keep the math the same? In that group, most of these items were used to outfit followers and henchmen (which resulted in huge loyalty bonuses), with the end result that several followers and henchmen ended up becoming PC's in their own right - alternate characters that were played when the higher level 'Lord' characters were busy elsewhere. I mean really, what sort of Lord would we be if we couldn't bestow gifts on our followers? And it was nice to know 'the help' could rather competently defend the home base should it get attacked while we were away. Thirty or forty 6th-7th level henchmen with a full array of magic items constituted a small but highly elite army in 1e.

I can't help but think that the disappointment with magic items has less to do with the magic items themselves, than it did with flaws in the balance of 3e gaming at high levels. Without the assumption that high level PC's will easily die without optimal magical defenses, there wouldn't be as much emotional pressure to have those exact optimal items.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Yep Celebrim. That's why I mean treasure was better in AD&D (there were more/it didn't matter that much after some basic weapons to hurt mobs).

With 3rd edition modules however went to opposite, too little and too late (even if you find everything), and system was something where this kinda crack in balance start causing deaths when game goes up the levels. And I mean too little not in sense of magic, but also money.

AD&D I never had this problem, but honestly AD&D with all rules used as books said, would have been horrible. And I liked random treasure.

There is really no random treasure in pathfinder adventure paths. Well some little remarks that here gm could throw up some, if he wants.

Someone said here that maybe true problem with new editions is that you can actually understand rules. They are too clear and that.

I didn't care much if modules back to day had sometimes almost too much items, they were destroyed often enough by fireballs (most commonly) and other usual situations.
Extras were given to henchman to use. And if they didn't get lucky with bags of holidings and the like there was only so much you could carry around. "Let's only take some gold and better" was usual sad note on looting. And there usually was no going back.