Why are Magic Items listed in the PHB?

[JDJblatherings]

To put it another way... Lightsabers. Lightsabers are mysterious, and rare, and only three people in the three movies have them (Luke, Obi-Wan, and Vader). That doesn't stop Luke from making one. Magic items are lightsabers now. They're rare and mysterious, but your PCs have to have them.

Hardly, in episodes 1-3 a heck of a lot of people have lightsabers and they weren't as cool any more.

 

[redcard]

I love how it seems to be every time I see this argument, the main complaint is that players now "know" about magical items. As if, before hand ,they had no idea that the term "magical item" existed, or that they didn't know that the DMG actually had a list of these things. Like most players playing the game would suddenly ruin the game in 3.x if they even cracked the Pandora's Box of the DMG.

Folks, most players have read the DMG. They've seen magical items before. They have wishlists internalized whether you know about it or not. In 3.5 , they'd simply take all the stuff they considered junk magic, sell it, and go on a quest to get what they want. Now, they bypass that route.

But to pretend like putting magic items in the PHB is bad because now the players will know about them? Come on. That's naive.

 

[Mallus]

Hardly, in episodes 1-3 a heck of a lot of people have lightsabers and they weren't as cool any more.

That's because the films were bad (well, 3 was kinda good).

 

[DandD]

Hardly, in episodes 1-3 a heck of a lot of people have lightsabers and they weren't as cool any more.

But those were the ancient golden ages, where everything was better (at least in the memory of the people). And like in every fantasy setting, people in the golden age did have tons of those magic gimmicks.
With the Galactic Empire, it's an age of decay and despair.

 

[JDJblatherings]

But those were the ancient golden ages, where everything was better (at least in the memory of the people). And like in every fantasy setting, people in the golden age did have tons of those magic gimmicks.
With the Galactic Empire, it's an age of decay and despair.

Once the ancient golden ages are over everyone doesn't know how the "magic items" work and you certainly can't get any old smith (or syndicate bounty hunter) to build you one.

People should know less in an age of decay and despair, certainly in a PoL setting where discovery and rediscovery should be part of the core experience.


(useless star wars rant: "ancient times"????...luke and leia are popped out in the last movie, are they 1000 or 20 at the start of episode 1 ).

 

[pr1]

I've never really understood this mindset, other than it was the way Gary Gygax described things. He had a bad habit of using the DM position as a giant power trip.

I don't think you know what you're talking about here.

This is kind of a good point. I seem to remember the original rules implying that if your 12th level PC died, you rolled a level 1 and started over, regardless of the fact that your friends were all level 12. And I also seem to remember no less than Gary Gygax implying that characters who died in convention gaming scenarios like the Tomb of Horrors should have died in their home campaign.

Gygax's home campaign was a lot like Tomb of Horrors -- players did hit-and-run tactics against very difficult challenges and didn't take risks. Hence the prevalence of save versus death in the game. Since the game isn't dependent on going up against tough opponents without trying to think around the problem, a 1st level character doesn't die as often, and still has something to contribute (how well they think and play).

The DM should not be able to tell me what sort of character I can play, nor should he/she be able to tell me what magic items my character has.

Ok... where to begin. I guess, I'll acknowledge that the game getting to this level is not impossible, if all of you proponents will acknowledge the vast departures from the idea of D&D as it relates to any fixed point of reference to its past.

I have DMed for more almost 25 years. I can house rule with the best of them. What I can't house rule is...

"Don't look at the magic items in the PHB."

Also, this idea of "the players giving the DM a wish list of magic items" an the DM choosing from that list.

Are you kidding me?

Maybe they should make a wish list of monsters to fight and I'll choose from that list as well.

Give me a break.

That's where the new design met D&D and D&D lost.

Maybe your house rule 6 months from now will be, "sell your 4e books on eBay; let's play AD&D." Seriously, I know that you're a self-described "old-school" player. But trying to reconcile Keep on the Borderlands or TOEE 1 with this system is like fitting a round mace into a sword-shaped hole.