D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Micah Sweet]

I once had a fellow player quip he'd rather his PC died than lose his gear. Death could be reversed with a diamond and spell; getting magic items back was impossible.

(This was a high level campaign that started 2e and ended 3e, pertaining to both editions equally).

That's too bad IMO. Gear is replaceable, in kind if not exactly. Few characters in the fiction would rather die than lose their sweet axe, so the attitude would be a problem for me too. That being said, if the table wants to play that way more power to them.

 

[kermit4karate]

There is no perfect answer. Collaborative rule building may work better for some groups but I think they are the exception. Even if they aren't, I'd rather have the DM make the final call whether I'm player or DM.

From henceforth on this Mississippian thread, in reference to future missives about dastardly, tyrannical DMs, I reserve the right to pull @AlViking's insightful response above from my Bag of Nonsensical Holding and reuse it as my answer. (Thanks, @AlViking.)

The karate frog hath spoken!!!

 

[Remathilis]

That's too bad IMO. Gear is replaceable, in kind if not exactly. Few characters in the fiction would rather die than lose their sweet axe, so the attitude would be a problem for me too. That being said, if the table wants to play that way more power to them.

I actually think it's counterintuitive, but it highlights a problem with D&D: Magic items eat way too much of the power budget of a character. That is true regardless of if they are accounted for in the math (3e or 4e) or just allowed to supercede it (AD&D and 5e). Raise Dead is a just a bunch of gold and a cleric away. Having +X swords and bags of holding full of stuff disappear to rust monsters, bag punctures and Mordenkainen's Disjunction crippled you unless you were swimming in enough gear that you could have reliable backup gear stashed elsewhere.

At low level, gear is replaceable and death has consequences. Past 10th level, just the opposite.

 

[AlViking]

Possibly also depends on circumstances. With my current role playing group where we've been playing on and off together for 20 plus years across various systems and winnowed out the couple of people who didn't suit the overall group (one as a player, the other as both player and DM) we tend to switch who is DM and who are players as we enter new campaigns, and so we all as a group happily discuss what house rules we think we want, with no one person having veto power as such. We all know each other and know we can trust that people arent trying to take advantage or the like, so dont have the sort of issues given in prior examples. If we somehow ended up with our player taking the limelight, we would all discuss as a group and adjust.
Now, it did take some time to get to that point, and in early years yes tended to need to rely on veto as such especially while those other two players were still around, but that had changed over time.
It may be a matter of preference,.but I think circumstances may also help dictate what will and won't work.

If you've been playing with people for over 20 years the dynamic is different. Most people don't have that luxury.

 

[kermit4karate]

I actually think it's counterintuitive, but it highlights a problem with D&D: Magic items eat way too much of the power budget of a character. That is true regardless of if they are accounted for in the math (3e or 4e) or just allowed to supercede it (AD&D and 5e). Raise Dead is a just a bunch of gold and a cleric away. Having +X swords and bags of holding full of stuff disappear to rust monsters, bag punctures and Mordenkainen's Disjunction crippled you unless you were swimming in enough gear that you could have reliable backup gear stashed elsewhere.

At low level, gear is replaceable and death has consequences. Past 10th level, just the opposite.

Just have the table go the video game route. Resurrected players respawn somewhere else...somewhere far, far away from their gear.

 

[AlViking]

Just have the table go the video game route. Resurrected players respawn somewhere else...somewhere far, far away from their gear.

Captured by the bad guys during a cut scene? Of course they take all your gear and instead of using it so you can retrieve it later, it gets destroyed. Even worse is the game sequel trope where you no longer have the equipment you had before or the training and skills. But you are totally the same character somehow, after all people call you by the same name and expect you to do amazing things as a 1st level character.

 

[Mort]

I once had a fellow player quip he'd rather his PC died than lose his gear. Death could be reversed with a diamond and spell; getting magic items back was impossible.

(This was a high level campaign that started 2e and ended 3e, pertaining to both editions equally).

When I threw a pack of Rust Monsters at my group, they players reacted with much more (genuine) fear and trepidation than they had expressed for any number of MUCH more threatening encounters prior to that.

Players REALLY hate having their PCs gear threatened.

 

[Remathilis]

Just have the table go the video game route. Resurrected players respawn somewhere else...somewhere far, far away from their gear.

I was considering the opposite where magical gear is less impactful or that attuning allowed you to reconjure important gear, but you do you.

 

[kermit4karate]

Captured by the bad guys during a cut scene? Of course they take all your gear and instead of using it so you can retrieve it later, it gets destroyed. Even worse is the game sequel trope where you no longer have the equipment you had before or the training and skills. But you are totally the same character somehow, after all people call you by the same name and expect you to do amazing things as a 1st level character.

Soap opera amnesia!!! Finally, after four weeks at St. Elminster's Hospital in Dagger Creek, Jon Patrick awakens from his coma. He looks up into his wife's loving, tearful eyes.

"Jonny-do! Is that you??" she exclaims, tears streaming down her face. "We thought we lost you! But you came back to me! Oh, Jonny-do!"

A long pause hangs over the room. Jon Patrick struggles to swallow and wet his parched throat before forcing out the words, "Hello? Do I know you??"

 

[Micah Sweet]

I actually think it's counterintuitive, but it highlights a problem with D&D: Magic items eat way too much of the power budget of a character. That is true regardless of if they are accounted for in the math (3e or 4e) or just allowed to supercede it (AD&D and 5e). Raise Dead is a just a bunch of gold and a cleric away. Having +X swords and bags of holding full of stuff disappear to rust monsters, bag punctures and Mordenkainen's Disjunction crippled you unless you were swimming in enough gear that you could have reliable backup gear stashed elsewhere.

At low level, gear is replaceable and death has consequences. Past 10th level, just the opposite.

High level D&D never made much sense to me anyway. One way to counteract this feeling is to make resurrection magic (beyond stuff like revive, which I think should be out of combat or with a longer casting time) extremely difficult to accomplish and not without consequences. Most fiction treats it that way in any case.

I still think magic items are cool, but replaceable. Its not all that different from high tech gear in a modern or futuristic game. You suffer a bit, then you find, buy or make new stuff.