D&D 5E No Magic Shops!

[5ekyu]

Yes.

That said, those who read the DMG to find information they shouldn't have - e.g. what does this item do that our party just found - are IMO flat-out cheating.

I would call players cheating if they broke an established rule that is in place in the game.

A Gm whose table rules forbade reading the DMG would simply see me say "well, bye, i read it long ago." So, there is that.

To me, players can read DMG, PHB MM whatever... though i would ask for them to tell me if they have read any established adventure packs just so we know.

However they all need to know that i change a great many things.

As for knowing "what that magic item we just found is"... The DMG will not help them there much more than it is likely to hurt them in my games.

The day i start hinging any important element or aspect on my game on players being *ignorant* of published material is the day i set aside GMing.

 

[Maxperson]

.. and my only argument with this statement is that we've got a good number of people making the argument for prices in this thread and if they're on this site they're in the motivated hobbyist category.

So if it's a DM looking for prices then they shouldn't be a DM by this argument. AND
If it's a player looking for prices it's simply to offset whatever a decisive DM is stating.

Therefore the only other option is that the people continually making a point in this thread are being difficult for the sake of being difficult.

Be well
KB

My argument didn't say that DMs looking for prices shouldn't be a DM. My argument said that DMs that were too indecisive to come up with prices on the fly shouldn't be a DM. There are reasons other than indecisiveness that a DM might have. They aren't strong reasons, but they are reasons.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I would absolutely do that if I volunteered to do that, which is what playtesters do.

.......


Ok, let me rephrase: would you volunteer to do that.

 

[Maxperson]

.......


Ok, let me rephrase: would you volunteer to do that.

At this current time in my life? No. I'm working, am married, have a 4 year old, and one game weekly. 10 years ago, sure no problem. Wasn't married, didn't have the kid, and had time to spare.

 

[5ekyu]

And just like all those forums... the poster mistaking all that as argument to not even try... Sigh

One more time: asking for it to be perfect and cover all campaigns equally well is obviously unreasonable and a huge straw man!



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Epic fail on the read or deliberate reconstruction - not sure which but obviously not what was said.

the point is not that it wont work perfectly for every campaign but that it is extremely unlikely to work well for almost any campaign - well being roughly defined as helping more than it harms.

For a new Gm who is not able to look at items and gauge relative "utility" as it applies to their campaign and their party and their specifics on all sorts of things, they are far better served by a robust set of tools to assess those not from a generic perspective but from a campaign specific one. They are better served with info on "creating utility" rather than a generic utility score.

The "utility" of a scroll of water breathing vs a scroll of fireball vs a scroll of clairvoyance or even a scroll of non-detection will not be a set and common thing between even two parties in the same campaign world.

[not that utility pricing" is a thing that has almost any basis in any market resolving around any global high end goods anyway. Cost (good, resources, expertise, risk) to produce, market will bear, supply and demand are all factors that actually determine "market value in most all cases.]

Thats where i come down to for those Gms who **need** a price list for managing the sell and purchase of magic items in their campaigns, they are far better off with tools to help them "create" or "sync" the utility items purchased to the prices paid within their campaigns.

having seen "standard price lists" actually end up impacting character builds and character choices, much the same way that ye olde "magic longswords make up..." did - the magic item economy "utility price list" dream is one i think does more harm than good as far as "official" core game elements go and something best left to and focuesed completely around a "in your campaign" type of approach.

To me, having someone ask for a list ways to flap their arms when leaping out of a plane without a parachute and then giving them such a list as official handout as opposed to giving them a parachute and showing them how to use it --- that would be negligence on the part of the folks in charge of the skydiving, not "supportive of the customer's skydiving preference."


balance is created, not calculated.

 

[CapnZapp]

The same applies to you and any other DM who isn't indecisive. If you are decisive, you can come up with prices very quickly. If you are indecisive, you are in the wrong business by being a DM. DMs need to be able to make decisions.

Ah, the blame it on the DM argument.

Thank you for conclusively showing you don't need to be listened to.

In other news, the idea that creating a pricing structure is so easy is patently absurd. It is hard and it is not something a DM is expected to do on the cuff.

An official supplement by WotC, where they dump this rarity-based nonsense, on the other hand...

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[CapnZapp]

Plus you can just use houserules or 3rd party options to fill in the blanks.

I sincerely hope you aren't talking about utility-based magic item pricing and creation systems any longer, since I have just spent dozens of posts explaining why that is not satisfactory to me.

In general, I find suggestions along the lines of "your play style can make do with unofficial content, while I enjoy official content for mine" to be incredibly dismissive.

But perhaps you did not mean it that way?



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[CapnZapp]

Sure, CapnZapp probably would

This is the second time you are implicating me with the objective play test data crowd. Now I'm not asking you, I am telling you.

Stop it!


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[CapnZapp]

Look no one is trying to deny your playstyle. The issue is simply one of practicality. In a system where magic items are not presumed, how can you determine the value of magic items?

Never mind the impact that 3e style has on game balance.


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But what is it to you?

If you're someone who will never try it, why worry about it?

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[CapnZapp]

Just a few catch-up observations:

- A generic and tweakable base-line price list for magic items is a useful thing to have - in the DMG.
- A DM should then tweak/edit/add to this list to suit her own campaign and-or experience.
- This amended price list should then be for the DM's eyes only and not in any way accessible (in its entirety) to the players!

This last is where the problems arise. For some reason 3e moved the magic item lists out of the DMG and into the PH; which was a colossal mistake as it quickly led to a much greater player-side expectation of getting what they wanted, right now, at the listed price. Echoes of this mistake are still reverberating today; some even in this thread.

Moving magic item pricing from DM-side to player-side also made it much more difficult for a DM to tweak the price list or remove listed items to suit her own campaign (though it remained easy to add new ones in, of course).

And yes, going through a great long list of items and doing the requisite tweaking is tedious. I earnestly hope you each only ever have to do it once.

Lanefan

It'd possible someone else has already pointed it out... But no, you're mistaken and your conclusions doesn't hold water.

1. The 3e magic item lists weren't in the PHB.
2. The 5e magic item lists will never be in the DMG, since that book is already printed.

The obvious solution to keep everybody happy is to publish them in a supplement. That way it will never be core, and it will never be taken for granted by entitled players.

I could almost forgive WotC for not publishing the system,if they hadn't dragged their feet for so very long. This supplement is *still* not published!

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