D&D 5E Would you let your player choose their magic items they get?

[Snarf Zagyg]

No.

Magic items do not exist as a manifestation of a players' wishes, or as an item on a shopping list.

However, in some cases, players can attempt to research the location of a special item and then adventure for it.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

So there shouldn't be an opportunity cost associated with things? The players shouldn't be forced to choose between ease of accomplishing a goal or a more complete... completion of that goal?

The downtime rules create the opportuny cost. If you’re building/researching, you’re not taking any other action that the system allows.

 

[jmartkdr2]

The downtime rules create the opportuny cost. If you’re building/researching, you’re not taking any other action that the system allows.

Which doesn't apply to Umbran's example, because in a game with no downtime that was never an opportunity on the first place.

 

[Badvoc]

But if I let them pick, how on earth would I screw them over by doling out cursed items...

 

[iserith]

It depends on the campaign I'm running. I don't keep things the exact same way for every campaign. Sometimes you can buy items off a list easily (as in my Eberron campaign), sometimes what you find is completely random and you can't buy anything. Other times you can quest for what you want.

 

[Jester David]

Having run a lot of 3e/PF and a fair amount of 4e I had a lot of experience with crafting and players picking their own magic items. With every magic item being chosen by exhaustively searching the rules and either purchased at a magic store, made to order, or crafted by a PC. Especially in 4e/PF, every minute of downtime was spent crafting artisanal magic items specifically for each character.
Which was boring AF and made magic just item-based-feats.

I purposely shifted away from that with 5e and gave out magic items randomly. I let the item define the character, with players getting and falling in love with some random item that they never knew they wanted. Like the swashbuckler who randomly got slippers of spiderclimb and suddenly happily realized they were Nightcrawler or the rogue who got a ring of telekenesis.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

As the DM I retain full and complete control over items that appear in my campaign. That is a distinct choice in the poll, which does not and cannot eliminate the possibility that I could still give players exactly what they ask for if I so choose (if they do indeed ask to just have specific items appear in the game for their characters to obtain).

Since I started playing D&D 40 years ago I've held on quite strongly to the idea that magic items are supposed to be:
A) useful, occasionally even powerful, and as an in-game reward are always valued by characters FOR their uses
B) fun so that even if they don't have a NEED to have the item it can do something worthwhile
C) frequent enough for players to be satisfied without being SO satisfied they don't need/want any more
D) INfrequent enough that they remain actually special rewards and not just a ubiquitous commodity
E) despite the above they can be cursed (and present a challenge to be rid of) and don't need to fill ALL the other criteria ALL the time.

I don't hold with the idea that players should get all the magic items they want for their characters (or more accurately what they THINK they want). Having is not always as fine a thing as wanting - it's not logical but it's often true. Always WANTING more helps keep players and characters motivated to continue adventuring. Doesn't mean that it is, nor should be their SOLE motivation.

I've seen characters come to be so closely identified with particular magic items that without them the character DOESN'T really have much of an identity. That's not a good place for a PC to be in, nor for a player.

It just kills the vibes for me as a DM and as a player to simply have magic shops where a PC can go buy what they want or hand over magic wish lists as if the DM should be dressing up like Santa Claus and the players are 6 year olds. I don't mind a player that says, "This class sucks more than it should in the combat department and my character could use some help in that regard with magic items." I'll probably agree with them! But that's NOT the same thing as just getting what you want or handing over a wishlist. Rules Mastery was always a thing in D&D from the beginning, but that means that you don't get to choose a character class that you KNOW is inadequate at doing what you want and then just being given all the magic you want in order to fix it.

And I'm not so impressed with the 5E solution of making them LESS often fit any those criteria I mentioned above. Magic item economy in previous editions was messy. So be it. That's why we have DM's to simply cut through the crap and introduce into the campaign what the DM perceives to be wanted and needed. RULES don't "know" what that level of need/desire is required for any given game and then impose just the right controls to standardize it for ALL games. My experience with this in 5E games is limited but at the moment I feel it'd be better to just leave it up to the DM to assess things and decide on what gets introduced and why.

 

[Fenris447]

Not really, no. But I did do one thing at the end of LMOP for my party. I detailed 10ish half-finished magic items that were around the mine. Based on how well they did in retaking the mine (keeping the facilities intact, how many NPC's they saved or kept alive, how well they got along with the NPCs), I modified the number of those items they were able to request be finished for them. So they got to choose from a pool of rewards that I curated. Those items were then finished for them while they took downtime before setting off on their next quest.

It gave them choices, rewarded them commensurate to their efforts, and kept things balanced due to my curating of the list. They all use those items still.

 

[GlassJaw]

Short answer, no.

Part of the fun for me as DM is giving players items they don't expect and seeing what they do with them. It also gives the players opportunities to try something new for their character. Having to make choices is fun.

That said, I do tailor items for players occasionally. While it's fun to get something unexpected, it's also fun to get something cool for your character that you want. I usually do this when I'm running pregen content and the items are similar. For example, if the written treasure is granting a second +1 longsword, I might change it to a greatsword instead.

I also have no problem with a quest giver offering a choice of rewards for the players to choose from. That's rare though.

 

[Badvoc]

Not really, no. But I did do one thing at the end of LMOP for my party. I detailed 10ish half-finished magic items that were around the mine. Based on how well they did in retaking the mine (keeping the facilities intact, how many NPC's they saved or kept alive, how well they got along with the NPCs), I modified the number of those items they were able to request be finished for them. So they got to choose from a pool of rewards that I curated. Those items were then finished for them while they took downtime before setting off on their next quest.

It gave them choices, rewarded them commensurate to their efforts, and kept things balanced due to my curating of the list. They all use those items still.

Oh I like this. I'm runnning LMoP right now and think I'll add a similar reward to boost the lacklustre climax.