Standard DM behavior?

[ProfessorCirno]

While I don't mind players buying items, I prefer the big awesome legendary items - your holy avengers - to be things that are quested for. The paladin doesn't really get a rush of awesome when he goes to town and buys his holy and cleansing blade of good and righteousness. But again, that's only for the really, really cool weapons and artifact types - and it's not based on item power, but item awesomeness. If the paladin is happy with a +5 holy flaming sword, no quest or dungeon needed. Hell, he could have a standard magic item that's mechanically better.

At the same time, at least when I play a paladin, I still like my high level guys to get something awesome and individual rather then just another +5 sword, regardless of mechanical power.

 

[S'mon]

I tend to put a pretty low cap on the level of available items.

Eg in my 3.5e game, you can quite easily buy items up to 4th level. 5th & 6th, such as +2 swords, are available from a very few sources for PCs in good standing. 7th+ need to be found.

In my 4e game, items of the Heroic Tier (1-10) can often be found or commissioned. Low Paragon tier items may be available very rarely, from the greatest wizards and such, probably at a big mark-up unless you're in good standing. High Paragon and Epic items are generally not available to buy or commission.

So, low level PCs can buy stuff pretty much as normal. High level PCs can buy minor stuff but powerful items must be crafted themselves, found, or quested for.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

It's Magic Fifth Avenue or Rodeo Drive. "By This Diners Club Card I Rule" is a (slightly) different sort of fantasy than what inspired D&D, but the times they are a-changing.

Dang computer ate my post!

Please stop trying to belittle other people's play styles. Your comparison is still flawed. I can still afford to occasionally shop Sak's and Rodeo Drive. A more apt comparison would be buying a personal jet. That's only done by governements, large corporations, and ultra-rich individuals. Just like D&D's kings, large organizations, and ultra-rich adventurers.

And although buying magic items is new-ish, you know someone somewhere wanted to buy them as soon as gp prices were listed. And that started way back in 1E.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

There's a cultural -- perhaps in part generational -- rift here.

No. At least not on my part. I've been playing since '82. I've played the entire spectrum of styles when it comes to magic items, mainly as DM. The only rift I have from then to now is the amount of time I have available to devote to D&D. I spend my freetime between games focusing on how to make the campaign better. To weave in story lines and to add flavor to encounters to make them more interesting and fun. As I started 4E I went with the wishlist idea and some limitations on what could be purchased. I found myself spending too much time trying to work in the player's wishlist. So I decided to hand over narrative control of magic items to them. They have free reign on how their characters come across these wondrous items. I set the value limits, they make the choices. I can see how this can be a shock. I don't think keeping narrative controls of the game in the hands of the DM is badwrongfun, but I don't think empowering the players should be belittled like it has been in this thread. As I've said, I've played the entire spectrum of DM/Player control and have enjoyed the entire run from Basic D&D to 4th Edition.

 

[billd91]

Why has it become so distasteful to find magic treasures as part of the "story" emerging in play? What is the motive for dissociating it?

What fantasy fiction reinforces this concept of heroic shopping?

(The Nifft the Lean tales did not do so for me, any more than did those of Cugel and Rhiallto, or those of Fafhrd and Mouser).

It's not a question of finding magical treasures distasteful rather than people choosing something else to be the focus of the story emerging in play. A friend of mine ran a campaign in which the PCs, all working for an organization, were issued level-appropriate gear for their missions, all stuff looted went back to that organization. It freed the PCs from worrying about losing their stuff to things like sunder or other forms of attrition. Worked pretty well.

As far as fantasy fiction reinforcing that concept, why would you limit the influences on your game to just stuff that has been written before? That seems terribly limiting. All it takes is a little bit of modern economic theorizing to realize that if stuff is available to adventurers on the prowl, someone's making it, and is probably willing to sell it for the right price.

EDIT: But for some literary ideas, check out the Thieves World anthology. Vashanka sets up a magic weapon shop in Sanctuary. Not in a sustainable way, but it gives you the idea of how popular it would be. Plus, there are other examples of regulated commercial wizardry (mostly spells) alluded to or mentioned from time to time.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The major shift here is the treatment of magical items as standard gear. Once something becomes as expected and commonplace as a backpack or suit of normal armor it will be treated as a normal commodity and traded on the open market. The more common the commodity the widely available and cheaper it becomes. If a +1 sword is no longer an item of magic, instead being just a better quality blade then why not buy and sell them on the open market at normal prices?

When a game system assumes that items that were once considered items of treasure are now merely pieces of gear, it changes the definition of magic item. Magic items remain those things that require effort and risk to obtain and should be more powerful than any gear. Even in computer MMO's the best stuff comes from facing the most dangerous opposition. In WOW you can't get the very best gear available on the public auction house. The good stuff has to be earned through play via instances/raids or arena combat.

The dividing line between gear and magical items is determined by the DM and players. As far as wish lists go they are unnecessary. Any item of gear desired can be bought with enough gold and magic item acquisition should never be dictated by the players.

 

[Mallus]

What fantasy fiction reinforces this concept of heroic shopping?

What fantasy fiction is actually a game?

(The Nifft the Lean tales did not do so for me, any more than did those of Cugel and Rhiallto, or those of Fafhrd and Mouser).

Neither did those stories feature protagonists who continually acquired (and kept), throughout the course of their careers, increasingly powerful magical gizmos which figured prominently in their overcoming of obstacles.

In this regard, D&D characters simply do not resemble their fictional antecedents. It seems a bit disingenuous to ask "When did the famous heroes of fantasy fiction go shopping?" and not ask "When did the famous heroes of fantasy ever find, keep, and use as much magical loot as your typical D&D PC?".

When it comes to magic items, D&D characters never closely resembled their fictional antecedents.

 

[Ariosto]

Thanks for the insights!

The musing as to fictional reinforcements was just a matter of curiosity; D&D influences come from all over, but fantasy fiction has been especially notable.

Buying magic items is itself not "new-ish", going back I think to Arneson's prototypical Blackmoor campaign. One of my 1970s-80s campaigns featured a branch of the Multiversal Trading Co.. The (slight) difference is the shift in some quarters to giving purchase more importance, and away from even the traditional adventure-fiction modes of commerce in such things. I get the sense that items are treated less as extraordinary magical relics and more as ordinary technological consumer goods.

What I find most striking is the reduction of enchantments to such a commonplace that players jot them down after looking in a book, as casually as picking up more arrows, lantern oil or hard tack. (More casually, perhaps, than many non-magical goods would be treated in most campaigns I've known. DMs usually wanted at least some "by your leave" rather than assuming instant availability of everything everywhere for the same prices.)

So, my personally informed answer to the titular question is, "No; it has not been 'standard DM behavior'." It might not be that in 4e, either -- as "standard" is in any case an awkward adjective for D&D -- but perhaps it is much more common. I see a step along the way in the relative ease of making magic items in 3e, and in the growth then (and maybe with 2e before) of treating "official" books as definitive catalogs of game elements (especially in the sense of players being expected routinely to browse through and pick from them, even unto magic item and monster listings).

So, gold is substituted for magic items. If even the gold appears "ex nihilo" rather than being picked up in the course of adventures, then that's yet another shift. But why the preference for mundane metal over marvelous magic?

The mentions of "wish lists" and "empowering the players" are suggestive. It looks as if the functional role of magic items has been transformed into "build components" like parts of starships in Starfleet Battles or cars in Car Wars. Gold pieces are simply the units of the "points system" used for that aspect of construction.

That's basically Champions rehashed, a trend I noticed in 3e, so on reflection not really so surprising (if accurate in the first place).

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Thanks for the insights!

So, my personally informed answer to the titular question is, "No; it has not been 'standard DM behavior'."

The mentions of "wish lists" and "empowering the players" are suggestive. It looks as if the functional role of magic items has been transformed into "build components" like parts of starships in Starfleet Battles or cars in Car Wars. Gold pieces are simply the units of the "points system" used for that aspect of construction.

That's basically Champions rehashed, a trend I noticed in 3e, so on reflection not really so surprising (if accurate in the first place).

I think you allude to it yourself: There is no 'standard DM behavior.' We all do things our own way. To that point I think trying to track a trend in the way things are today is fruitless. We each have our own methods and that method may vary from campaign to campaign under the same DM.

Your comparison to Champions is a very good approximation of what I am trying to achieve in my current campaign. The players are able to customize their characters in every way. I have given them the reins in regards to magic items. They are enjoying themselves, while still feeling challenged. I am enjoying the extra time from not driving the discovery and purchase of magic items and the way the extra time allows me to put in extra flavor without neglecting my responsibilities as a husband, father and employee.

 

[billd91]

That's basically Champions rehashed, a trend I noticed in 3e, so on reflection not really so surprising (if accurate in the first place).

You make it sound like it's a bad thing. I'd say it more closely mirrors some literary antecedents of D&D itself. Take Lord of the Rings for example. The Hobbits may fairly serendipitously pick up some old blades of Westernesse in the barrows, but on the other hand, Frodo gets Sting and the mithril shirt upgrade at a particularly opportune time in the story and not by specific quest or random plunder. The same goes for Aragorn with Anduril. Boromir has his horn as part of his concept.

All of these characters have particular conceptualizations realized, in part, as the story advances but always fully under control. A more Champions-eque model of gear introduction can work pretty well at presenting a coherent concept.

Other styles of play, a bit more Conan or Lankhmar, may run a bit differently partly because the main focus characters tend to be on the mercenary side of life, taking what they can get. But that's hardly the only heroic model, particularly contrasted against LotR where characters gain things more by right and heroic destiny than by serendipitous plunder or even deliberate quest.