No Random treasure !?!?...

[Gentlegamer]

Who's preventing you from making your own random treasure generator table?

Some players prefer a robust ruleset that provides all the tools without need for the DM to play game designer.

 

[pr1]

I guess this is what I don't understand. The main complaint here seems to be less about the actual magic items than it is about actively taking some responsibility as a DM and working with the players to ensure that they're having fun by gicing them things that they want or can use.

I see multiple times on this thread the assertion that giving players useful magic items they want (and that make sense for the campaign) is total bullocks. And I don't understand that at all. Somehow giving players a random grab bag of crap makes the game better?

Because if there's no consequence to player choices, those choices don't mean a whole lot. What does it say about my fighter who specializes in a glaive? It's not a common weapon, and that means sometimes he has to make tough decisions, like whether to use a mundane glaive or a +1 longsword. If there's a factory making my weapons and placing them in dungeons especially for me, that's not realistic or a particularly challenging (or fun) choice. Perhaps, if my character were atop some sort of curious, enchanted wagon, with grooves set into the wheels to run atop a fixed... railing -- wrought of iron -- and my decisions and encounters were decided for me, and my turns turned for me, with the only variable being my ability and luck to handle them, and I needed a magical glaive, and the gods had not placed one in my path, I would curse the gods. Otherwise, as that demon bore down to finish me and my comrades, I would curse myself, for turning down the magical sword and sticking with the accursed glaive.

My point is that one should be judicious about how much you tailor encounters or weapons to the party. If you tailor too much, you're not playing a game, really.

 

[Eric Tolle]

Because if there's no consequence to player choices, those choices don't mean a whole lot. What does it say about my fighter who specializes in a glaive? It's not a common weapon, and that means sometimes he has to make tough decisions, like whether to use a mundane glaive or a +1 longsword.
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Otherwise, as that demon bore down to finish me and my comrades, I would curse myself, for turning down the magical sword and sticking with the accursed glaive.

So basically, you're goal is to channel players into using common weapons, instead of ones that might be more interesting to them. The intent apparently, being to make characters equipment as similar as possible, and to discourage non-conformity.

I'm just wondering who this is benefiting here; the player, or you, who gets to mock and punish a player for making the "wrong" weapon choice. After all, there's more than one choice involved here- and the choices that the GM make say as much about inrtent as anythng the player decides upon.

 

[jdrakeh]

That old chestnut of "there must be consequences" doesn't (or shouldn't, IMO) apply to character creation choices. The only way that character creation choices carry consequences is, IME, if the DM doesn't like what a player has chosen and so decides to punish them for it in play (such as in the glaive example given above).

This is horribly passive-aggressive behavior. If a player wants to choose something that you (as the DM) don't like, I'm going to suggest that the correct course of action is to tell them "no", not to deliberately make them miserable during actual play by punishing them for such choices.

 

[Spatula]

I see multiple times on this thread the assertion that giving players useful magic items they want (and that make sense for the campaign) is total bullocks. And I don't understand that at all. Somehow giving players a random grab bag of crap makes the game better?

Getting exactly what you want < getting something cool that's a surprise.

 

[jdrakeh]

Getting exactly what you want < getting something cool that's a surprise.

Randomly generated magic items are not always cool. Especially, for instance, if you happen to randomly generate an item that a player's character can't use.

 

[pr1]

So basically, you're goal is to channel players into using common weapons, instead of ones that might be more interesting to them. The intent apparently, being to make characters equipment as similar as possible, and to discourage non-conformity.

I'm just wondering who this is benefiting here; the player, or you, who gets to mock and punish a player for making the "wrong" weapon choice. After all, there's more than one choice involved here- and the choices that the GM make say as much about inrtent as anythng the player decides upon.

There's nothing wrong with picking an odd weapon. (There's also no inherent value to non-conformity, at all. Non-conformity for non-conformity's sake is immaturity.) But actually roleplaying is taking into account what that means to the character. It means that less of those things lying around in the world means that you're less likely to run into one of high quality that you want. Otherwise, why not pick colors to fight with instead of weapons?

 

[Vanuslux]

So, when a random treasure generator gave you a Pillowcase of Endless Shrimp, that sparked your imagination and inspired a story, but you can't do the same for an item the party could actually use? Help me out here.

Man, somewhere down the line the characters in my campaign are going to find a Pillowcase of Endless Shrimp.

Anyway, as an aside, I've always looked at magic items in the world as falling into three categories:

1. Stuff created for war.
2. Stuff created for practical non-war purposes.
3. Stuff created by bored high powered magic users of questionable sanity simply for something to do before the technology was invented to post YouTube videos of live fairies being cooked in microwaves.

 

[Eric Tolle]

There's nothing wrong with picking an odd weapon. (There's also no inherent value to non-conformity, at all. Non-conformity for non-conformity's sake is immaturity.) But actually roleplaying is taking into account what that means to the character. It means that less of those things lying around in the world means that you're less likely to run into one of high quality that you want. Otherwise, why not pick colors to fight with instead of weapons?

Here's my point: who decides that say, glauives are less common than longswords? They certainly wern't less common hiostorically, nor is there some notation saying "this weapon is rare" in the book, so who? That's right, the guy sitting behind the GM's screen. Don't take your responsibility, and try to fob it off on the player.

I see this sort of reasoning used all to often to justify screwing over a player. If you want to screw over a player, that's one thing; but don't try to deny that it's your decision to do so.

 

[pr1]

Here's my point: who decides that say, glauives are less common than longswords? They certainly wern't less common hiostorically, nor is there some notation saying "this weapon is rare" in the book, so who? That's right, the guy sitting behind the GM's screen. Don't take your responsibility, and try to fob it off on the player.

I see this sort of reasoning used all to often to justify screwing over a player. If you want to screw over a player, that's one thing; but don't try to deny that it's your decision to do so.

That doesn't make any sense. The DM presents the world, the player plays in it.