No Random treasure !?!?...

[pemerton]

In that sense I do think that it's saying, "take wishlist, give candy," but there's nothing wrong with that.

If people are going nuts over the wishlist, what's going to happen when they read James Wyatt's discussion of players' taking on director's stance on p 28 of the DMG?

Anyway, I don't really understand the outrage. Magic items in D&D are, like feats, skills, class features etc, a crucial part of character build. AD&D 1st ed emphasised the random component of character build: random stats, random hit points, random spells at 1st level, etc. Every edition of the game has reduced that degree of randomness and increased player control over character build. The 4e DMG is just continuing with that trend.

As for the complaint "How can I rationalise it in game that the PCs keep finding what their players want for them?" well, use whatever technique you use to rationalise that these people are the only ones who never die in combat, that there is always trainging available for whatever new spell or feat the player wants his/her PC to pick up, that these are the only Dwarf and Elf in the world who are friends and not enemies, etc.

Generating story explanations to support metagame-driven decision making is a pretty standard part of running any RPG that has a metagame (of mainstream RPGs, the only two I can think of that are virtually metagame free are RQ and Classic Traveller).

 

[Miyaa]

I had a little more problem with not having to make random rolls for hit point increase when your character leveled than not having a random table. (Although really, the DMG's suggested reward table that lists ten breakdowns kind of acts like a beginning random table generator.)

One of the thing I really liked towards the latter end of 3.5e was the concept of legendary items, where you build a magic item through how the player used it over time, and I thought 4th edition was kind of geared towards that way than really. (Until I realized it didn't really tell me how to make magic items on your own or improve them over time. Maybe that's just something that will come later or the DM will have to figure something out on that.) If you're going towards the end of wish-listing and fitting the character to the piece, I'd try to shoehorn the concept of legendary items into 4th edition.

I'm not saying that random items aren't or shouldn't be included. Really, I find it's better to use both approaches when it comes to material rewards for your game. The more civilized your villian, the more random your loot.

Oh, and the poster who had the joke about the 12-inch fairy pianist? I'm still groaning over that bad pun, thirteen pages in.

 

[Orius]

Wish lists should be in character. The player should not tell the dm, "I want a holy avenger." The charcter should consult a sage or a library and discover where a holy avenger might lie, abandoned in some tomb of horrors, perhaps.

Do both. Let the player tell the DM out of game what he's looking for. The DM plants the clues. Then the player has to take the time to look for the clues.