D&D (2024) Uncommon items - actually common?

[Xeviat]

I'm sorry: Not considering how magic item availability affects the rest of the world creates boring settings where things don't make sense and players run roughshod through everything. Thinking about how magic items change society makes for more developed and unique settings.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm sorry: Not considering how magic item availability affects the rest of the world creates boring settings where things don't make sense and players run roughshod through everything. Thinking about how magic items change society makes for more developed and unique settings.

It sure does. Not sure that's something WotC wants to encourage anymore. How does that help the PCs, after all?

 

[Minigiant]

If a player brings in a new PC who is a wizard or a cleric or whatever, it needn't follow that the (fictional) world is rife with such people. There are all sorts of possible backstories for such a character that don't involve them being just one of many.

And even if, for instance, the wizard was trained by a magical college, it doesn't follow that that magical college sells spells or scrolls to all comers

The premise was that the base assumptions of D&D had enough magic users that the ultra rich could purchase magic goods and/or services.

Even in Gygaxisn play since Gygax ran rosters of players which have have 4-20 people each having 1-5 PCs in the same town. So rulers of big centers would have access to magic in some fashion.

The Duke of Whatever would have either magic items or magical employees.

The whole idea that there's no magic anywhere except for in the dungeon never matched how the rules work.

 

[pemerton]

When I read that line, I always assume the choice is from the DMs list of allowable classes and races. They decide what's available first.

That doesn't change the point.

The GM gives you a list of classes and races. Then you choose a class and race. That's a rule of the game for PC building. But it's not part of the fiction that some-or-other person is (say) an Elven Rogue because the player of a game chose that they should be so.

 

[Minigiant]

I've commented before about how most D&D settings assume some variety of post-post-apocalyptic scenario. That's the standard justification for why adventurers can pull magical relics out of dungeons and ruins that seem to be more powerful than anything being currently crafted and offered on the market. There was a high magic civilization in the past, for some reason it isn't around anymore, but you can dig up its leavings and that's more worthwhile than making anything new.

That might be changing. We're well past the pulp era's "cyclical history and fallen civilizations" fixation. That sort of thing smacks of attitudes a lot of people are actively trying to cast off, and they don't seem to carry a lot of weight with the younger generations. Instead, they've grown up with a plethora of small technological conveniences and the march of progress, both technical and social. So it should be no surprise that they're moving towards stories that reflect that.

Blue collar magicians supplying small magical conveniences fits with that. So do cosmopolitan urban centers with diverse demographic populations. It's a new sort of fantasy for a new era.

Blame Wizard players.

Post-Post-Aoocalyptic Medieval settings don't make sense when playing a wizard has no restrictions on creation, no restrictions on magic play, few restrictions on magic spells, and a requirement of mage slayers and mage antagonists to challenge them.

All when non-castrts still have to deal with restrictions, barriers, and fewer options.

WOTC hired all wizard fanboys. Magic items and/or magic users everywhere is the result

In Universe #345, Fighters of the Coast just added 7 more polearms to the DMG.

 

[pemerton]

most D&D settings assume some variety of post-post-apocalyptic scenario. That's the standard justification for why adventurers can pull magical relics out of dungeons and ruins that seem to be more powerful than anything being currently crafted and offered on the market. There was a high magic civilization in the past, for some reason it isn't around anymore, but you can dig up its leavings and that's more worthwhile than making anything new.

That might be changing. We're well past the pulp era's "cyclical history and fallen civilizations" fixation.

The assumption you describe makes me think not just pulp, but The Dying Earth.

 

[pemerton]

Setting logic means that every aspect of the setting happens in a way that could logically occur in the imaginary world of that setting, based on whatever logic that setting uses.

Verisimilitude means that consistency is maintained between different instances of the same thing, so that they don't change based on any factor that isn'tpart of the setting.

OK. This has zero implications for the rules of a RPG.

Just to pick one example: in most versions of D&D, PCs have a type of "staying power" that many NPCs lack (ie their hit points, saving throws etc).

The reason for this in the fiction, as Gygax told us, is luck and/or supernatural/divine blessing.

So the differences in the fiction - between those who don't die when shot at by a dozen guards with crossbows, and those who do - is explained by a factor that is part of the fiction - namely, luck and/or supernatural/divine blessing.

The fact that this in-fiction difference reflects a game-play conceit (ie that players are able to declare bold moves for their playing pieces) doesn't change the fact that there is an in-fiction explanation.

And the point generalises across all the other rules that you personally do not care for.

 

[pemerton]

The premise was that the base assumptions of D&D had enough magic users that the ultra rich could purchase magic goods and/or services.

I understand the premise. I am disputing the could.

Our real world is chock-full of nuclear warheads. It doesn't follow that the ultra-rich can purchase them. And we live in the most market-oriented, commercial society that has ever existed in the whole of human history.

It is quite possible to imagine explanations, consistent with examples found in the actual history of human societies, for why there is no market for magical goods and services despite the presence of (some) mages and even (say) magic colleges in the setting.

Post-Post-Aoocalyptic Medieval settings don't make sense when playing a wizard has no restrictions on creation, no restrictions on magic play, few restrictions on magic spells, and a requirement of mage slayers and mage antagonists to challenge them.

Nothing in D&D play requires the events that occur to the PCs - their births, origins, adventures, opponents, etc - to be typical of the world in which they live.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That doesn't change the point.

The GM gives you a list of classes and races. Then you choose a class and race. That's a rule of the game for PC building. But it's not part of the fiction that some-or-other person is (say) an Elven Rogue because the player of a game chose that they should be so.

In that case what we have is a gamist compromise, one you occasionally have to make.

 

[Oofta]

I don't understand.

Did you possibly quote the wrong post?

I'm just saying that there are a lot of things out there that talk about magic and economics. From blog posts to 3PP, I'm sure there are a lot of options out there.

I get wanting more official rules, there's a few I'd like. But WotC has decided that as far as books go to focus on core content and modules. Whether that's good or bad likely depends on preference and perspective.