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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5582294" data-attributes="member: 27160">So, by that argument, the DM should just design the characters for the players, because everything they do is at the DM's discretion? That's not a game I ever want to play (including running it). The game works best when both tasks and power are shared; magic item selection is ultimately best assigned to the players, because thay are the 'customers'.It's not "amazing" - it's just logical and beneficial. How is the ability for a character who has reached level 30 (and is thus virtually a demi-god) to make a Vorpal Sword any sort of "annoyance". Great heavens, if I find myself wanting to control and limit thirtieth level characters I hope someone shoots me.I haven't seen one instance when item rarity would have improved my game one iota.  If you have specific examples, please relate them.  I'm happy to examine ways in which the pre-rarity system has flaws, but saying that these will be fixed (or even ameliorated) by dumping the control (and responsibility) onto the DM is a very different thing.I see a few flaws with the original system, but I don't see any benefits so far revealed of handing item creation almost entirely to the DM, whatsoever.Yes, it is.  But there are only one set of people who are going to decide which items will be desired and used, and that is the players. It seems simply logical, to me, therefore, that the same people should control item creation (within the limits of level and resources).Aside from giving the designers license to be lax and lazy, what benefits does the rarity system bring? What puts the real edge on design in the "real world" is the mechanisms of the market. In D&D, the players are that market. The requirements of the "manufacturer" (in this case represented by game balance) set the price demanded, but the market sets whether the item at that price is a winner or a loser. This mechanism provides discipline to the designers; lack of design discipline may be easy for the designers, but it's by no means "better".What would mark such a "horrible DM"? Not giving the players items that suit their character concepts? Misjudging what items would interact well with the character abilities and provide entertaining tactical possibilities? Because, if it's anything like these, how would the DM be a better judge of such factors than the players?You're right, D&D is not best played as a game of "dress up".  But the players have pressing concerns guiding their item selection - to make their characters better at and closer to the concept that they have for them. The DM has little to add to that but whimsy - and dressing up someone else's character to suit your whimsy sounds much more like "dressing up games" than trying to attain a character concept does, to me.</blockquote>

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