No Random treasure !?!?...

[Wormwood]

THAT'S the kind of magic store I have problems with.

Me too.

Thus my increasing love of wish lists.

 

[jensun]

Hey, I miss my random treasure tables, too.

But frankly, I re-rolled results so many times I might as well have just picked 'em.

This.

I have wasted many many hours when younger rolling up "random" treasure until I got something which made some sort of sense both for the adventure and which my players might be interested in.

 

[Henry]

THAT'S the kind of magic store I have problems with.

Glad that 4e doesn't encourage that kind of thing, then. I've had DMs that used the "Magic Item Store" bit before for expediency, and I've even glossed over acquiring magic items myself in some campaigns I've run, though I've tried to make magic item commissions more of an element over the past few years. Call me old fashioned, but I like the old days of PCs keeping what they kill as opposed to scraping up all loot to trade in for purchases. One way in the old days we used to ensure they kept what they found was to make it appealing to them - and if all that takes is making it a +1 glaive instead of a +1 spear, then so much the better.

 

[rkwoodard]

as a dm...as a player

"When I close my eyes and imagine what Mangar the Cruel looks like in a few levels, I see him striding across a corpse-strewn field, crimson energy playing across the blade of his hellforged greataxe. Is there some way of gaining power from the blood of those he kills? Like a bloodstone ring or something? Also, I love the idea of black armor with razor-sharp edges that cut anyone who comes too near to him in battle. Anyway, that's the kind of stuff that would help define my character."​

A wish list is what you make of it.

Personally, I'm thrilled that 4e accomodates my DMing style---namely, let the players craft their characters and the game world as much as possible.

As a DM (which I mostly am) I would love a player to be able to articulate his character vision like this. It shows me how he sees the character, and it helps me with specific ideas for treasure.

As a player, I would love to be able to provide such a description to my DM and have him either 1) respect and support that vision or 2) explicitly let me know that my vision is not compatable with his world vision (he does not have to give me any reason (althought that would be nice).

By the way consider that description yoinked.

RK

 

[Tao]

Nothing to be sorry about. There's obviously no way you'd be invited to any of my friends' games in the first place.

Seriously, this is silly. Clearly we simply prefer different styles of play.

I prefer a campaign where treasure is integrated into the plot and story of the characters and makes sense within the larger scope of the adventure. One where every treasure is meaningful and feels important. I prefer not to place some esoteric useless item in the hands of a villain who has no use for it to begin with, just to have my players turn around and sell it to the first willing person they find. For me, the "wishlist" concept is closer to that vision (and is actually close to something I have done in the past- requesting one story goal and one material reward that they would want so that I can better tailor the campaign to their likes/dislikes).

Delta, I can't speak for your priorities. I can only speak for my own experiences with random treasure tables, both as a DM and as a player. The only times I have seen random treasure tables used were times when the DM (myself included) was too busy/lazy/focused on something else to come up with something that meant anything. In my experience, even when there were random tables, most DMs tried to select things that were setting/campaign/character appropriate... even if they pretended to roll dice and just fudged the results when it was something they didn't like or kept rerolling until it was something they did.

To be clear, I am not calling anyone specifically a lazy DM. I am simply saying that to rely COMPLETELY on random rolls is no better than to rely COMPLETELY on a wishlist. Neither is exciting. Neither is fun. Neither makes sense in the larger fabric of the campaign. But at least the latter doesn't require a Mage-Mart to be useful (and to be fair, the 4e DMG doesn't even recommend basing treasure COMPLETELY on a wishlist, rather it suggest using it to help give you ideas). Maybe for a dragon's horde or a king's treasure vault random treasure makes sense. Anywhere else, it seems about as random and forced as it truly is.

I guess it comes down to priorities, but I, myself, don't see how random treasure tables give the DM any more control over the setting... especially when the new default rule is "the DM should do whatever he wants, but it is recommended he give things that the players will be able to use, rather than sell" followed by a suggestion on how to figure out the types of items that your players will use.

If anything, that's MORE control than I have really ever been intrinsically granted by any DMG to date on that particular issue.

 

[Spatula]

Nope. But you see, on my wishlist I'm putting Terror Longsword, not +1 Terror Longsword, +2 Terror Longsword, +3 Terror Longsword, etc.

My wishlist is the list of items I'd like to end up with, not every item I ever expect my character to hold. With Terror Longsword on my wishlist, I'd be quite happy to make do with other types of longswords until level 24. Or, if I get an earlier Terror Longsword, maybe having a different kind of longsword for 5 or 10 levels in the middle of my adventuring career.

Well, that's a good way to run it, but it's not what the DMG suggests. "At the start of each level, have each player write down a list of three to five items... that are no more than four levels above their own level." The wishlist idea is that the players compile a list of 15-25 items that they want each level, 4 of which the DM gives to them (assuming a party of five). Which is actually more surprise-worthy than my original impression of the concept.

 

[Spatula]

THAT'S the kind of magic store I have problems with.

That's a taste issue, not a system or edition issue. I've seen magic wal-marts in ever iteration of AD&D, starting back in 1e. And I've seen games that didn't have them. *shrug* Magic-marts have nothing to do with random treasure generation, nor the sale of magic items.

but rolling dice for random effects is FUN.

QFT!

4e seems to forget that, I'm surprised you even roll to hit anymore, because it's "not fun" to miss.

That'll be 5e.

 

[Spatula]

It would be easy enough to assign a random table for
1-2 Armor
3-6 Weapon
7-11 Headgear
12-14 Footgear
15-18 Hands
19 Miscellaneous
20 Necklaces

Or some such, roll 1d4 for number of levels above the party level for what the item's level would be, and you'd have a very workable random system - just as workable as picking your own out of the tables.

Although you'd probably want to weight the probabilities towards armor, weapon/implements, and necklaces/cloaks, since those are critical items that the party absolutely needs.

 

[wally]

I think the problem is that whenever someone hears a rule or just a suggestion on the rules, they try to find to most extreme version either way and see if it works for them.

If I had a party that was specifically fighting against northern barbarians (pretty generic) and these barbarians are mostly using axes of varying sizes, then maybe I could believe a one off moment where someone finds a different weapon. I don't think I could see a plethora of exotic swords or polearms in a land that doesn't make them, but does that make me a bad DM if I am not allowing the character who runs with the scythe to find a new better one every few levels, just for him, since nobody else in the land uses them?

It is easy to always come up with an example that works for your view, but look at it from a different direction.

I loved the weird magic items. Some of them I took from ideas of others off this web site, did it make the game boring for my players to find a frying pan that heats up when food is placed within? No, but it isn't something that they would ever have asked for or maybe even bought. It did add flavor and a little fun to the game though.

Yes, it wasn't a randomly rolled magic item.

I had a player, while playing 3.0, specifically ask for a dancing shield for his greatsword wielding fighter. I told him that he would have to come up with something in game for it. That made it more difficult as I have never had a dancing shield previously in game. He couldn't figure out a good way to do it, and it didn't happen. You guys could argue that I was just being the bastard DM for not letting the player get what he wanted (as it seems to me that 4e is geared that way), or you could say that I was more inclined to expect a character to not min-max so much and try to find an alternate way to stay alive without coming up with yet another magic item that would protect him. Which way is really correct?

-wally

 

[redcard]

You guys could argue that I was just being the bastard DM for not letting the player get what he wanted (as it seems to me that 4e is geared that way), or you could say that I was more inclined to expect a character to not min-max so much and try to find an alternate way to stay alive without coming up with yet another magic item that would protect him. Which way is really correct?

-wally

Let me ask you a question.

If he came up with a way to research it, and found a wizard who knew of such a thing, and went on a long quest to a dank dungeon to find the components and the base shield.. would you have let him have his shield?

Because I don't think 4e is saying "Take wishlist, give candy." I think it's saying "Take wishlist, get ideas."