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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kennew142" data-source="post: 3923977" data-attributes="member: 18490">Perhaps the biggest positive in my mind is the reduction in reliance on magic items. When I first started running D&D 3e, I was very happy. This was the edition that brought me back to D&D (from Runequest, GURPS, HERO and Call of Cthulhu). I had switched around the publication of AD&D 2e. I ran a few games and played in a few more, but my interests were elsewhere. D&D 3e looked like the answer to most of the issues I'd had with earlier editions. At low levels (3-10) it was.The first problems began for me at 3rd level, when magic items began to show up in the game. I had developed several items with campaign significance and history, items that were intended to be part of the storyline. My players (pretty good role-players by the way), players who had never acted this way in any game before, had read in the DMG about what items a character should have at a given level and immediately wanted to sell the things they had found so they could buy +1 resistance items and +1 amulets of natural armor (my personal least favorite thing in the game). I resisted. They complained. Eventually, I gave in.I realized then and there that a game system predicated on every character having certain items at a certain level required the existence of the Mega-Lo-Magic-Mart in every campaign. This mechanical approach to the game was incompatible with every homebrew I had ever run (in any system) since 1979.The situation got so bad for me that I simply stopped runing the campaign that I had designed. My players did seem to catch on as quickly as I did, although they eventually came around. I still GMed for them, but I ran in published campaign worlds with treasure given out by the rules. The problem with this solution was that I prefer campaigns in which the major adversaries are powerful NPCs - not monsters. Because NPCs are equipped with the same sort of magic items every character is required to have in order to be playable, the magic mart intensified. Most treasure consisted of weaker versions of what the party already had, not to mention the dozens of wands each spell caster accumulated.If D&D 4e had no positive elements aside from reducing the reliance on magic items, it would still IMO be worth trying out. Before the announcement, I was prepared to leave D&D altogether for another system again (possible AD&D 1e or the new RQ). I am happy to be able to continue with D&D in 4e.</blockquote>

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