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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AaronOfBarbaria" data-source="post: 6826548" data-attributes="member: 6701872">First, If we are talking 5th edition and playing by the book, the characters should have been fully aware what was and wasn't magical due to the handling of an item being enough to sense there is something extraordinary about the item even if it is otherwise indistinguishable from a normal item of its type. Changing that to make it harder to tell what is or isn't magical feels, to me, like a bad move - it opens to door to frustrated players, and doesn't add anything worth said frustration to the experience.Also, it sounds like you've changed the rules that any character can spend a short rest identifying the properties of any magic item. That again feels, to me, like a bad move - again because it adds opportunity for player frustration (usually in the way of "write that down for later" and then forgetting it), but not something actually worth that frustration.Then, you arrive at the other choices you made. Each an opportunity to open the door to player frustration and seem like you are "against" the players, or to appear as though you are "with" the players by helping them be aware of what their characters' actions are actually doing.The ring shouldn't be stuck on the gauntlet. Magical rings resize to fit their wearer, so all someone would have to do is put the gauntlet on and take the ring off of it. You made it seem like that wasn't possible, and I think that's a bad move.The player clearer wasn't aware that the blacksmith was asking "...so, I get the gauntlets and that ring too if I buy this armor for that price?" So you seem to have deliberately pulled a "gotcha" on the player - that is, in my opinion, always a bad move. You could have at least provided some opportunity for the character to realize someone was pulling one over on him, even though the player wasn't aware.Then, you appeared to your players to be suggesting that you were going to pull another "gotcha" with the open door. As I said before, I always think "gotcha" is a bad move.To summarize: Yes, I feel you were in the wrong handling things the way you did. You were aware the player wasn't paying full attention because you saw the player "glued to the phone", and you chose to punish that behavior with in-game consequences when you could have chosen to make up for the player's lack of attention with in-game activities (rolling insight, at the very least, though I'd personally have gone with a reminder of circumstances).Of course, saying that you were in the wrong doing what you did is not me saying that the phone-using player wasn't also in the wrong by not paying sufficient attention. However, that's a thing solved by talking with the player to figure out how to proceed (i.e. without the phone at the table, or perhaps with the phone but without you expecting so much from a player that is not as interested in the whole game as you wish he was - like how I no longer expect my chronically late friend to arrive on time, but also no longer put my self in a position to have to wait for him to arrive).</blockquote>

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