Magic Item Wishlist: Yea or Nay?

[JoeGKushner]

Over on the 4e board, someone mentioned how much they hated the magic item wishlist.

Now maybe it's just me, but I've been using magic item wish list for characters since 1st edition. Talk to the players, see what they want out of the system, find ways to incorporate it into the game. I'm not so smart that everything I think of should go into an adventure and hope that it's useful to the players.

Other people's opinions?

 

[Scribble]

I use them, but in a half uhh muled sort of way...

I don't require them from players, but if they want to give them to me, I'll use them... But it's no guarantee they WILL find those items though.

 

[athos]

I don't ask for wish lists per se, but I do try to find out what PC's have for goals and what they want to accumulate, find, create or buy. If what they want is reasonable, I will generally make it available through one means or another.

Rarely though will I have it just pop up in a dungeon. The magical items I have on an adventure are those that the monster or NPC has accumulated and found useful, it has nothing to do with the pc's wants. If the monster is wielding it, it is because it is good for the monster.

But, if they find a large two handed magical sword that the dead fire giant used against them, they might be able to trade that to a wizard who has an ogre for a body guard in exchange for a magical item they are looking for. This way, the magic items they find are there for a logical purpose, but they can still be traded, sold, etc. to acquire what the players want.

 

[Diamond Cross]

It all depends on the character. There are always certain things I look for for my characters as part of their standard equipment.

For example, whenever I run a thief character, my highest priority is getting him a ring of Invisibility.

For all characters I want a Ring Of regeneration, and sometimes a ring of Vampiric Regeneration.

For mages, Ring Of Spell Storing or Ring Of Wizardry.

For fighters, of course I want magical armor and weapons.

So I guess, you could call them wish lists.

 

[Umbran]

I haven't ever used formal wish lists.

In my experience, players generally say, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if..." about magic they might get, or development for their characters. And I always try to listen to that. They may not get exactly what they were wishing for, but they are likely to get something thematically appropriate and useful.

 

[Cor_Malek]

I'm not much into power play, and magic shops and wish lists are much unheard of in games I've been part of, on any side of the screen. With one player though, he invested so much time and thought into his character build, that I knew that providing him what he wanted would give him more gratification than the unknown. There was a heavy toll attached to it though, and he roleplayed his ass off to get what he wanted. It was no Pun-pun or a cart-worth of nightsticks thing, it was as much part of the player as the backstory, more so maybe.

So if it's justified, I'm happy to oblige a wish. I try to avoid it as much as possible though, as I prefer even some wastefulness to hyper optimization. I feel that it narrows the sweet-spot a lot.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Last time I ran D&D, in 3e, the PCs sold most of the magic items they found, so I'm thinking this time I'll try the wish list. In fact I was going to go one further and do something like, "The ogre king is wearing/carrying a magic item you desire, up to level 5". I'd roll a 1d4 to determine the player who gets to pick the item. That would ensure the players find items they want, no selling, without the hassle of a wish list.

I'm also considering some powerful items with scope outside of combat - plot/world controlling items - but I haven't had any good ideas for any. I was looking thru the 1e DMG in hopes of inspiration. Man, is it full of pish! Spade of Colossal Excavation ain't going to excite my players.

 

[TarionzCousin]

It has been several months since I turned in a Wish List for my 4E character--so long that when we got the loot last session, I said "Hey, those boots look really cool. Does anybody else want them? No? I'll take them."

Then I realized that the boots were on my Wish List.

 

[Dausuul]

Nay.

I am extremely unfond of wish lists, from either side of the DM screen. It's one thing to get general feedback from players--"Not having a magic weapon is starting to make things really tough for Fighter McFighterson." That's cool, and useful.

It's quite another to present the DM with a checklist of gear. As a player, it takes away all the excitement of finding an awesome item when I told the DM to put it there. As a DM, I find it a headache to keep track of, and I slightly resent being told what to put in my adventures.

In general, my feeling is that if your PC really wants one specific item, you should do something to find it in-game. Announce that you're making inquiries about such an item, talking to sages and rumormongers, digging through musty tomes, whatever. Unless the item is one that I just flat-out don't allow (in which case I'll tell you up front), I'll give you some clues and opportunities to follow up, and if you do follow up you'll eventually find whatever it is you're after. Then you'll have the satisfaction of having earned your awesome item and I'll have some more adventure hooks.

Or, if you don't want to go through all that, get some money and ritual components together, buy the party wizard a copy of Enchant Item, and have her make it for you.

 

[Otterscrubber]

At first I was against the idea, I thought it takes a lot of the whimsy out of the system if you have even a reasonable chance of "finding" a magic item you were hoping for. But with the glut of magic items now available, far in excess of what was in prevoius editions, you practically have to if you want to get anything that is a good fit for your PC.

Then I was DM, and I found myself hoping for a wish list form my players. It became next to impossible to provide meaningful items for the PCs unless I was totaly versed on all the classes and builds and what they really wanted. Sure you can throw a decent set of armor, but even that is tough as there are a lot of armors out there tailored for certain builds. I came to find the wishlist very helpful.