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Message: <blockquote data-quote="der_kluge" data-source="post: 1694381" data-attributes="member: 945">Interesting thread.My theory is that we are no longer 16 years old.When I was in high school, and DM'd my first real campaign, the game ended with multiple players having artifacts, and them fighting "towns" of people.  Very crazy.We're older now.  We don't do that sort of stuff (well, most of us, I guess).  Henceforth, we begin looking for a simpler game where we can cultivate better role-playing, and a more gritty feel.An observation - I am currently DM'ing a 14th level game.  The party is really powerful, and has a broad array of magic items at their disposal.  They routinely handle ELs above their level, and a difficult combat encounter can easily last all evening.  I started this campaign at 9th level, and our intention was to play to level 20, because none of us had ever done that.  In my observations of my group over the last 3 years (started my game in 2003, and we started gaming together in 2000), most of them are more tactical and strategy-oriented.  Only a few of them are really, what I would consider, heavily role-playing oriented.  Most of them were happy rolling lots of dice, rather than parlaying with NPCs.  So, I structured my game to appeal to tactics and crunchy goodness.  It worked.We were missing several players last weekend, and we did a one-shot adlibed game with characters of 3rd level.  We "hard-core" rolled them with 3d6 in order, and the highest score in the group was a 15, of which one character had two of them.  It was a great game.  We used our wits, and the level of role-playing was very high.  And because the role of the DM rotated throughout the game, everyone paid close attention, and we never knew what to expect.  I think more people in my generation (30-something) are looking to capture this feeling.  It's not something that is easily found in a high level game, where the wizard spends most of his time figuring out where to strategically place his next wall of force.As for low-level crunch, I'm all for magic items.  I love 'em.  I've found that things like bags of holding, portable holes, and "utility" items like these are way more unbalancing than a +3 sword ever was.  A party with magic weapons will do more damage, and hit more often - sure, but they won't destroy your dungeon by walking through walls you didn't intend.  Like the above example with sovereign glue - another great "oh crap" item that will often bite the DM in the rear.Low level crunchLow level items that can add a lot of flavor are skill enhancing items, or things with story flavor.  Like, items that grant +'s to skills.  Could even be an item that grants a +2/+2 to a set of skills.  That's like granting a free feat, if you think about, but at face value, sounds like a weak magic item.  Potions and scrolls are great, because they only have one charge.  Armor and weapons can be magical, and not have pluses.  Like, an armor can grant a slight increase in movement, or grant a skill or ability increase (even if it's just a +1).  Most low level characters will trade out a higher AC for a suit of armor that was +1 charisma, +5 to bluff.  That's pretty weak armor in my book, but if it was the only significant magic item in the group, I'd bet they'd find a way to make good use of it.</blockquote>

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