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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Paraxis" data-source="post: 6510931" data-attributes="member: 13009">You don't need the absence of information to lower the boot on "lame player appeals to authority", you just need to empower the DM to make the game his own, which they do and always have.  Not having the information only hurts the DM by not giving him a better guideline to judge relative power of items.For example I mentioned the Encyclopedia Magica for 2nd editon earlier to show that items have had purchase prices listed since 1994, here is the excerpt from the cost section of that book.Gold Piece Value: Throughout the ENCYCLOPEDIA MAGICA volumes, items are given a value, listed in gp.  This does not mean that every item can be purchased by simply surrendering the specified coinage.  Instead, gp value is used to rate the relative values of different items to each other. In individual campaigns, the Dungeon Master may wish to increase the "bartering value" of items two-fold, ten-fold or even 100-fold to keep magical items the rare and wonderful things that they are, and it's a great way to keep the campaign from overbalancing.To me the part that is missing as a DM is "Instead, gp value is used to rate the relative values of different items to each other."  - the current 5e system is very much lacking in that regard, and since the concern of player agency and expectations is completely removed with a simple paragraph like this mentioning a range of increase from listed to 100 times the cost I don't see how not having individual item prices is a good thing.In 3e most of the time I ran things by the book because I like to play that way, but a few times I ran low magic or high magic campaigns and limited items in my game. Same thing in 4e, ran a Dark Sun campaign where you couldn't purchase magic items at all, but the system still gave guidelines and relative value to better gauge what level the items should be handed out.</blockquote>

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