If not magic items, then what?

[Wyrmshadows]

plot advancement, social position, favours owed, maidens rescued, kingdoms won, righteous triumph - all those frilly little things that we used to concentrate on

QFT

I know plenty of games where PCs did what they did for the above reasons while magic items were the icing on the cake. Thats how it was for my group in 1e and 2e. 3e and 3.5e made magic items an absolute necessity in order to survive. I don't blame players for thinking that magic items are a necessary reward because WoTC created the need. However, I am very, very happy to see that the need for them will be diminished.



Wyrmshadows

 

[Brother MacLaren]

3e and 3.5e made magic items an absolute necessity in order to survive. I don't blame players for thinking that magic items are a necessary reward because WoTC created the need.

3E and 3.5 did create the idea that a) PCs have a right to expect a certain GP value in magic items at each level, and b) more importantly, they have the right to determine what those items are, because of the expectation of magic shops and the ease of crafting. 3E and 3.5 also saw a lot more high-level play in my experience than 2E did, because you leveled so fast.

But the need for magic items was always there to some degree. In earlier editions, save-or-die effects were more prevalent (consider poison), and so save-boosting items were highly valued. So... why is there more of a need for these items now? Is it that players as a whole are less willing to have bad things happen to their PCs (death, possession, petrification, etc.)?

 

[ruleslawyer]

I scrupulously avoided handing out anything more than one or two "signature" magic items per PC in my 1e/2e days (which made editing 1e modules a pain in the neck due to the vast quantities of magical wealth present in those scenarios; ditto for treasure types as written). I was lucky enough to transit to 3e first with converted 2e PCs, when most of the adventure wasn't really about CR-appropriate encounters, and then pretty late in the day, by which time enough low-magic d20 variant systems had emerged for me to cobble together compensating mechanics.

I prefer to encourage my players to send their PCs on adventures for rewards other than simply new weapons that allow them to take on bigger challenges. Vast wealth (as in wealth that buys luxury, not a better arsenal), political and social power, triumph in the name of a good cause, or the rewards of heroism itself (saving the land from a great evil, giving the common folk freedom and the means to a good livelihood, being admired for one's virtue, or just the emotional satisfaction of a deed well done) are IMO more than adequate substitution for shiny stuff pried from your enemies' cold dead hands.

 

[Lanefan]

But the need for magic items was always there to some degree. In earlier editions, save-or-die effects were more prevalent (consider poison), and so save-boosting items were highly valued. So... why is there more of a need for these items now? Is it that players as a whole are less willing to have bad things happen to their PCs (death, possession, petrification, etc.)?

I would say yes, bad things happening has been broadly defined as Not Fun and as a result they are slowly being reduced in effect and-or taken out of the game entirely; mostly because the game is being designed by players rather than DMs (at least, that's how it looks). Best example is level draining mechanics over the editions...4e looks to be doing away with it entirely.

All I can say is this: if you're not willing to have Bad Things happen to your characters now and then, you've no place at my table.

Lanefan

 

[Counterspin]

The movement is not against bad things happening Lanefan, it's against things which disengage the player and result in his having nothing to do. The new DMG isn't going to have a section which counsels you to remove adversity from the lives of your players as the GM.
As both a GM and a player, I don't like players sitting around with nothing to do. Their time is valuable, and the more they are engaged the easier it is to keep people from getting distracted.
This aspect of 4e design is anti-boring, not anti-bad things.

 

[broghammerj]

The movement is not against bad things happening Lanefan, it's against things which disengage the player and result in his having nothing to do.

As both a GM and a player, I don't like players sitting around with nothing to do. Their time is valuable, and the more they are engaged the easier it is to keep people from getting distracted.
This aspect of 4e design is anti-boring, not anti-bad things.

I hope this line of thinking is true, but I do agree with Lanefan's premise that all things negative in DnD are getting dialed down.

Your point on players having nothing to do reminds me of one my worst DMing mistakes. Our 11th level fighter failed a save against a rakhasia hold person spell and was out of combat for 18 rounds. Was completely bad for several hours of play and took him out of combat against the BBEG. I would have run things differently in retrospect.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I do agree with Counterspin that the designers are targeting boring stuff rather than deadliness. Also, I cannot agree with Lanefan that "the game is being designed by players rather than DMs"; not merely because I have a hard time understanding how a "your character's screwed, no save" mechanic like 1e/2e level drain is "good" from the DM's perspective, but more to the point because it is in the DM's interest, possibly even more than the players', to have everyone involved in gameplay to the greatest extent possible.

Building tension, cooperation, and deep involvement in something as immersive as a role-playing game is a delicate process. The more you kick people out of that process as it's cohering, the harder it is to get them back in and keep them involved. The moment your players head for the fridge, the XBox, or their laptops, you're in trouble as DM.

A player whose PC is dropping negative hit points or at the bottom of the condition track is actually likely to still be involved in the game, in a manner of speaking; he's making stabilization checks and probably screaming bloody hell at his fellow players to heal him before he's dead. A paralyzed, dead, or otherwise removed-from-combat-entirely PC's player? Not so much. I'd rather a game in which everyone's able to do something every round.

Note that this cuts a number of ways; for example, back in our 1e days, the two wizard PCs (the most powerful members of the party, natch) would habitually just sit out combat. The players would wander off to the kitchen, grab a coke, check on sports scores on the TV, and generally be out of the game for sometimes as much as half the session total. IMO, it wasn't an ideal situation. Anything the designers can do to mitigate the problem of players sitting out gameplay is, IMO, a good idea.

 

[Cadfan]

If that is the policy for the core magic items, WotC needs to really hold the line on the supplements that follow. If there are no core items that boost saving throws, but saving throws remain important, you can bet that players will WANT an item that boosts saving throws.

I'm betting there will be save boosting items.

We have +X weapons, which as far as we know are set in contrast to +X armor.

We have +X wizard implements too. Which suggests that its possible to set them in contrast to +X whatevers using whatever math and whatever game design assumptions made the armor.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Your point on players having nothing to do reminds me of one my worst DMing mistakes. Our 11th level fighter failed a save against a rakhasia hold person spell and was out of combat for 18 rounds. Was completely bad for several hours of play and took him out of combat against the BBEG. I would have run things differently in retrospect.

But wasn't that a smart move on the part of a genius-level magic-using enemy? Should you have to dumb down the bad guys so the players can not be inconvenienced?

If magic is going to remain capable of incapacitating opponents -- whether through paralysis, petrification, domination, possession, stunning, forced teleportation, or instant death -- then it will make sense for enemies to use these on PCs just as it will make sense for the PCs to use these effects on opponents. If magic is not capable of any real status effects in 4E, then all I can see left are curses and damage. I'm interested to see how 4E approaches this.

 

[Voss]

Its more a mechanical problem. An insignificant, non-level-appropriate resource (a 2nd level spell at 11th level) defeats a character utterly- it essentially cost the Rakshasa nothing. Particularly in 1st or 2nd edition, you hung a 'You lose' sign on the player and he went and watched TV or something.