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Message: <blockquote data-quote="preacher" data-source="post: 4804687" data-attributes="member: 36981">I find the "how does your character even know item X exists?" questions particularly troubling and perplexing. This implies that everything a character knows or learns about comes from actual play. As in everything, it depends on the campaign, but surely it's not a great stretch of the imagination to imagine he could have learned of it from friends, relatives, books, other adventurers, etc. Is the sum of everything my character knows bounded by things he has seen in the course of an adventure? Or in other words, if the DM didn't show it to him, does that mean he doesn't know about it? (And while I can see argument for using Knowledge skill checks, that offers unfair advantages to certain classes and builds.)Of course, this is more problematic since MIC, which increased the amount of available items, and I've seen players flick through it like a shopping catalogue... but does that really harm the game? They seem to be having fun.What troubles me about this is the way some DMs seem to be waiting to catch players out with this, and pounce on them for metagaming. That creates an adversarial relationship between DM and player, rather than a cooperative one, and that isn't something that would suit my play style. I've also found some of the comments made about "players buy what they like" games a little condescending, but perhaps they weren't intended that way.The idea of the "magic item shop" has been bypassed elegantly and eloquently by previous posters. I find a lot of value in the "gp as xp" theory, and the supporting arguments were very helpful. There isn't a magic item shop with row upon row of shelves, the character just happens to come across the item the player chose. Simple, elegant. Sometimes you want to roleplay out the commerce, or make an item part of an adventure, but our group has found it becomes old very quickly if you have to do it every time. If D&D items scaled to character level more readily, it would be less of an issue, but most PCs upgrade or replace their items frequently. We don't get enough time to play as it is, so spending too much of our gaming time on a session about shopping doesn't really appeal.However I also fully understand and appreciate the "magic is rare" argument. If you have to put in effort to find it, you value it more. I've certainly sat there at the gaming table, jotting down the loot, and inwardly groaned because none of those potentially interesting items was the perfect upgrade or replacement for something my character had. I sometimes feel like I'm playing EverQuest again, not D&D, making sure every slot has a decent item and upgrading as soon as I can afford it. So yes, if I have to sweat a little to get just the right item, I may value it more. My only trouble with this is that by the time I get it, I may no longer want or need it. At which point we're back to the "lead with the cool stuff" approach a previous poster mentioned. A good DM can find a decent balance though.These two things aren't mutually exclusive. Some groups may roleplay out every purchase, and some may handwave it all. But some of us do a bit of both, and I guess I'm just a bit rankled that although the handwavers don't look down on me for roleplaying, the roleplayers do seem to look down on me for handwaving. Perhaps that's just down to poorly worded comments, or my misunderstanding of them.Anyway, now I'm just reiterating points already made by others, so I'll stop here, except to add that this is an interesting thread and I've gained from reading it. Every group will strike the balance between effort and reward differently, but there have been some really good suggestions on how to handle this, from a number of different perspectives. I've been making notes.</blockquote>

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