Standard DM behavior?

[rjdafoe]

Sounds pretty good - until the DM told us that every single item was mundane. No magic items, no + anythings, no magic mods at all.

I don't know gang....

What wrong with not finding magic items? One of the problems with 3e was that your opponents had to have magic items to keep up. After a few encounters, the party had 10 - 15 magic items - probably all very similiar - such as short swords or leather armor or something with the leaders maybe having something different. The same can happen in 4th edition with the leader, but don't assume that all the underlings have magic, as it is not needed to make a threat to the party any monger.

The default assumption is magic is rare. Although groups change this all the time.

It sounds like you and your DMs are not on the same page of what to expect from the campaign.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Whatever has become of the option of undertaking an adventure to acquire the Widget of Watsahoozit?

I journeyed in Zamora, in Vendhya, in Stygia, and among the haunted jungles of Khitai. I read the iron-bound books of Skelos, and talked with unseen creatures in deep wells, and faceless shapes in black reeking jungles. I obtained a glimpse of your sarcophagus in the demon-haunted crypts below the black giant-walled temple of Set in the hinterlands of Stygia, and I learned of the arts that would bring back life to your shriveled corpse. From moldering manuscripts I learned of the Heart of Ahriman. Then for a year I sought its hiding-place, and at last I found it.

I brought that particular subject up, and they didn't seem overjoyed with it...

 

[billd91]

One of the problems with 3e was that your opponents had to have magic items to keep up. After a few encounters, the party had 10 - 15 magic items - probably all very similiar - such as short swords or leather armor or something with the leaders maybe having something different.

You might have seen this fairly often in adventure modules, but there's no way it was a necessity of the system. Opponents did not have to keep up with the adventurers with magic items at all any more than they did in 1e or 2e. And even if you felt the need to do so because you had a particularly effective optimizing group, potions and scrolls were a fantastic way to go... just like in previous editions.

 

[Ariosto]

If that is the case should the game not be called Dungeons and Treasure?

Rationally, perhaps. However, someone (Elise Gygax?) had an ear for alliteration -- and chose a name that is quite evocative as well!

No, the parallel with a basketball game is even more direct.

No, acquiring treasure was formerly not a mere means but the end: how one literally scored points in the game.

4e is playable up into Paragon tier without any magic items at all!

That's nice to know. My impression is that the "essential" ones could quite simply get changed to inherent powers if one preferred to keep items even scarcer for flavor.

So you actually think being allowed to spend all that treasure PCs find means the group isn't playing D&D at all?

That's not my point, which is that shopping is not the point of D&D. I think we agree on that, disagreeing simply on the degree to which magic items should be mere commodities.

Forcing the other PCs to go on an expedition for your item is about your satisfaction.

Forcing players to do anything is a dead letter in campaigns I referee, but I do understand that (and why) it is much more common these days for joining an adventure to be "compulsory" by custom. Your remarks nonetheless demonstrate a relationship to adventures and treasures as utterly bizarre to me as I guess mine must seem to you.

Going off on perilous quests to secure wondrous treasures is what the game is (or was) "about" in the same way as invading Western Europe is what D-Day is about. If you would rather stay home and raise pigs, then there's no need to pack your dice and hie to the game table.

So, that's about everyone's satisfaction: we've all come to play D&D. And just as all members of a team contribute to victory, all share the spoils. Especially when the same PCs are teamed in one adventure after another, treasure helps the team go on to secure more treasure.

The game has never led me to expect that each session should yield a magic item for each character as if someone were handing out candy to children!

Since we're going to stir up trouble to get treasure in any case, why not stir it up where treasure that especially interests us beckons?

I am not against commerce in magic items. In the old game, baubles enchanted with continual light are likely to be pretty common. Scrolls and potions are not dime a dozen if only high-level characters can make them, and they tend to get used up, but usually are produced in such quantities as to be readily obtained at least in certain regions. Arms and armor (especially swords) make up the next tier of frequency, in which it might not take very long to find something of the sort on the market (if only a +1 or +2, not quite the Intelligent Holy Flaming EHP-Slaying Two-Handed Sword of Sharpness +5 with which a PC would not part for any price).

The more exotic stuff just seems to me more gratifying as souvenirs of exploits more impressive than finding a parking space at Wally Mart.

It's a "flavor" issue. YMMV of course, and what's normative may vary not only from campaign to campaign but more broadly over time.

The only Grognard Approved (tm) methods of spending your hard-earned GP are...

I know for sure there's no rule against buying magic items in Original D&D or 1st ed. Advanced. In fact, that aspect of the economy makes more sense to me than what I've seen in 4e.

However, it becomes in some eyes a bit too silly and deflating when fairy mail and blades of thunderbolt iron, caps of invisibility and seven-league boots, flying carpets and bottled jinns -- all the enchanted treasures from adventures Beyond the Fields We Know, secured at risk (and sometimes cost) of life and limb -- are reduced to mere commodities anyone with ready cash (or adequate credit) can order from the comfort of his armchair and have delivered within so many business days.

Every magic gewgaw is thus reduced to the equivalent of the Stupid T Shirt in "... And All I Got Was ...".

There's a middle ground between Nothing and Everything, between Never and Always, between automatically and instantly getting whatever one picks and depending purely on chance to drop into one's lap just what one wants.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

However, it becomes in some eyes a bit too silly and deflating when fairy mail and blades of thunderbolt iron, caps of invisibility and seven-league boots, flying carpets and bottled jinns -- all the enchanted treasures from adventures Beyond the Fields We Know, secured at risk (and sometimes cost) of life and limb -- are reduced to mere commodities anyone with ready cash (or adequate credit) can order from the comfort of his armchair and have delivered within so many business days.

The only people with adequate cash to order such items in my games are those who rule nations and those who adventure (either PC or NPC). The average person would have to work a lifetime to purchase anything other than a consumable magic item. That is why I have no problem with it. It is not Magic Walmart because Joe the Farmer and his family can't afford to shop there.

 

[rjdafoe]

You might have seen this fairly often in adventure modules, but there's no way it was a necessity of the system. Opponents did not have to keep up with the adventurers with magic items at all any more than they did in 1e or 2e. And even if you felt the need to do so because you had a particularly effective optimizing group, potions and scrolls were a fantastic way to go... just like in previous editions.

Of course there are exceptions. But, in my experience, magic became an expected thing in 3rd edition. If you are going against human or humanoid opponents, you are going to get alot of monor + weapons, potions, scrolls, etc.

As I said, groups change this all the time. From what the OP has stated, that is an issue for him - no magic to speak of after all those bad guys are dispatched.

 

[Nifft]

That's not my point, which is that shopping is not the point of D&D. I think we agree on that, disagreeing simply on the degree to which magic items should be mere commodities.

Shopping doesn't need to take up any time at the table -- it can get done between sessions, with communication between just the player in question and the DM.

You demand that everyone's time be spent on each other's personal treasure quest. I call that a waste of time. I'd rather be saving the world.

Going off on perilous quests to secure wondrous treasures is what the game is (or was) "about" in the same way as invading Western Europe is what D-Day is about. If you would rather stay home and raise pigs, then there's no need to pack your dice and hie to the game table.

Being a big damn hero is what our games are often about.

You sneer at pig-farming (though corn-farming makes for better straw men), but it's exactly as interesting as your treasure-grubbing side-quest, when what we'd rather be doing is harrying the dark forces of the Lich King, before finally smiting his ruin upon the grave menhir of his tainted necropolis.

- - -

Basically, you like treasure hunting, and that's fine. But don't sneer at people who also want treasure, but don't want to focus on treasure as the only thing their PCs care about. We're not all Haley.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Ariosto]

It is not Magic Walmart because Joe the Farmer and his family can't afford to shop there.

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.

 

[Ariosto]

But don't sneer at people who also want treasure, but don't want to focus on treasure as the only thing their PCs care about.

Why do you find it necessary to divide all into radically extreme positions?

It's quite a trick to paint one who considers adventure primary and predicate as caring "only" about treasure -- whereas the one whose priority is I Want My Bling, THIS Bling, and I Want it NOW is somehow less focused on the shiny.

 

[Nifft]

Why do you find it necessary to divide all into radically extreme positions?

Um. You just equated any non-quest magic item acquisition with pig farming. It's a bit late to complain about false dichotomies.

It's quite a trick to paint one who considers adventure primary and predicate as caring "only" about treasure -- whereas the one whose priority is I Want My Bling, THIS Bling, and I Want it NOW is somehow less focused on the shiny.

In my games, magic items are the tools we use to get stuff done. Of course I want the right tool for the job -- but my tools are not my motivation. They're not why we quest, yet they are important for accomplishing our actual goals.

Cheers, -- N