The Gaming Den

Avoraciopoctules wrote:So, hypothetically, I'm running a game in an open setting with like 5 dungeons the PCs can pick from, and they pick the Shadow Temple. I'm like "dude's there's a lot of treasure in there. Sure, there are sneaking suits and bane daggers and so on, but there's plenty of rooms that'll basically be [Insert Treasure Here]. So, anything you'd be interested in your PCs finding? Magic figurines that turn into animals, flying carpets, skull-shaped shoulderpads? What do you want?"

Is this bad?

No. What would be bad is if the system required this in order to function, D&D 4e being most notable in this regard.

Okay, cool, I think I can agree with that. Thanks for the clarification.

ishy wrote:

Fuchs wrote:

ishy wrote:Put people in an environment that rewards you for being an asshole and punishes you for not being an asshole and you'll get more assholes. And vice versa.

But the enviroment of a gaming group is not the game setting or the game mechanics, but the group. And the rewards and punishments in that enviroment are not the result of the rules, but of the actions and reactions of the people involved - though they might use the rules as a tool, at times.

No. You're wrong about that.
Would you say you'd approach a D&D game in the exact same way as you would a shadow run or a paranoia game or a <x game>?

I'd approach a Shadowrun gaming group in the exact same way as I'd approach a D&D gaming group.

Omegonthesane wrote:

Fuchs wrote:The important point is that players get what they want. How you dress that up is just cosmetics in my opinion since I think that anything a plain wishlist wouldn't get me but a puppy Point System would, the GM could already veto, ban, or - if that's not in the rules - destroy in game using the normal game mechanics ("It was stolen/lost at sea/etc.").

The GM controls so much of the typical campaign (pick Level of NPCs & Monsters, choose enviroment, decide on plans and motivation of NPCs, etc.) and usually has a screen to hide his rolls, that, in my opinion, his power is not held in check by game mechanics, but only by social dynamics.

This is false. As has already been discussed, it is easier to spot GM abuses if the GM has to violate game rules to commit those abuses, and it is therefore more likely that social dynamics will kick in in retaliation against those abuses. It also implies the sole purpose of such mechanics is to rein in the MC, rather than to make his job simpler by reducing the number of things he has to personally adjudicate.

But a GM dosn't have to violate the rules to be abusive. Unless you reduce him to a mere dice roller on tables and attack scripts, the GM can stay within the rules and still be as abusive as he wants. The examples I mentioned are all covered by the rules, yet allow him to wreck abuse all over the place.

Omegonthesane wrote: Fuchsiverse: The GM's workload is somehow increased by having a list prepared by other people of what items roughly compare to what other items assuming that players who want them take them, and less delays happen in game if items haven't had their balance assessed before publication.
Reality: The GM's workload is reduced if there is a price list based on item power that the players can simply follow, rather than demanding on-the-spot evaluations of those items against other options actually taken and the opposition they are facing.

The DM's workload is lessened by having a reduced selection of items to place, items he can be assured the players will be happy to find. As with gifts for my Family, I'd rather not have to guess too long on what they'd like if they can simply tell me.

There won't ever be a simple balanced item price list to pick from. You'll always have synergies and surprises. Having a player declare that they will find the sword of X in the dungeon will have the GM need to read the item description, and consider the effects on the game. That's best done between games.

In my game, players mail me ideas on stats and effects for stuff found. It gets either approved, or discussed/compromised, or, rarely, vetoed. A puppy point system would not help there at all, since as we all know, point-based systems usually can be optimized easily and I'd still have to check each item for the actual effects in the specific group/campaign.

Fuchs wrote:

Omegonthesane wrote:

Fuchs wrote:The important point is that players get what they want. How you dress that up is just cosmetics in my opinion since I think that anything a plain wishlist wouldn't get me but a puppy Point System would, the GM could already veto, ban, or - if that's not in the rules - destroy in game using the normal game mechanics ("It was stolen/lost at sea/etc.").

The GM controls so much of the typical campaign (pick Level of NPCs & Monsters, choose enviroment, decide on plans and motivation of NPCs, etc.) and usually has a screen to hide his rolls, that, in my opinion, his power is not held in check by game mechanics, but only by social dynamics.

This is false. As has already been discussed, it is easier to spot GM abuses if the GM has to violate game rules to commit those abuses, and it is therefore more likely that social dynamics will kick in in retaliation against those abuses. It also implies the sole purpose of such mechanics is to rein in the MC, rather than to make his job simpler by reducing the number of things he has to personally adjudicate.

But a GM dosn't have to violate the rules to be abusive. Unless you reduce him to a mere dice roller on tables and attack scripts, the GM can stay within the rules and still be as abusive as he wants. The examples I mentioned are all covered by the rules, yet allow him to wreck abuse all over the place.

Item the first - it isn't a matter of directly physically stopping abuses, it's a matter of making them obvious when they happen even if all you know about the game is what you were able to get flipping through a rulebook. If you have a defined set of rules, you can observe and learn when the DM is e.g. playing one rule for one player and another for another, or cranking Team Monster's rolls, or whatever.

Item the second. You have in no way addressed the fact that having tables and procedures makes the MC's live easier, NOT harder. If you're not up to populating an abandoned palace with appropriate minions for some reason, you can use the appropriate encounter table. If you don't feel like examining the game mechanics, finding every abuse available, and then comparing them to the relative intelligence and culture of a mob of enemies, you can follow the script provided.

Fuchs wrote:The DM's workload is lessened by having a reduced selection of items to place, items he can be assured the players will be happy to find. As with gifts for my Family, I'd rather not have to guess too long on what they'd like if they can simply tell me.

Um... what? That's an argument for PP against tables, not Wishlist against PP.

Fuchs wrote:There won't ever be a simple balanced item price list to pick from. You'll always have synergies and surprises.

False. 3.5 didn't manage it - but 3.Tome DID. More to the point, there'll be a hell of a lot less "synergies and surprises" with a pricelist than without one - and that's the bar for success, not some Platonic ideal achieved with a program that won't fit on 200GB which automagically decides the best option for everything without MC or player input.

Under a wishlist system, you have to compare the item to all the others in the game, check for any abilities that are beyond the party's current level, compare it with other items wished for by other players check the phases of the moon, consult the Emperor's tarot, and then maybe pull a decision out of your ass - and if you veto or nerf one person while letting another go unchallenged it will be taken as a slight.
Under a well designed Puppy Point system, you need to compare the item with the player's abilities, others of its level, and make sure they have enough PP. Nothing else. Any abilities that aren't meant to be available at X PP... won't be available at X PP, and won't need to be checked for.

Fuchs wrote:Having a player declare that they will find the sword of X in the dungeon will have the GM need to read the item description, and consider the effects on the game. That's best done between games.

This is not a unique function of wishlists over PP, as already stated.

Fuchs wrote:In my game, players mail me ideas on stats and effects for stuff found. It gets either approved, or discussed/compromised, or, rarely, vetoed. A puppy point system would not help there at all, since as we all know, point-based systems usually can be optimized easily and I'd still have to check each item for the actual effects in the specific group/campaign.

Your group, your players, they are not the general population. A great deal of my gaming in the last four years has been done with pickup groups facilitated by uni societies, who will tend to barely know one another and almost certainly not have so much investment in one another that they will definitely let a perceived insult or iota of favouritism slide, or definitely trust that the GM is well-intentioned let alone competent. Obviously, my longest running group got past that stage after a couple of years, but we might not have if we hadn't learned to trust our most regular GMs to be as consistent with rules as possible.
For a counterexample, I once attended an oWoD vampire larp, and over the course of several sessions many people became agitated with the GM's policy of "I'll consider anything you bring to the table and generally allow it -> oh god, oh god, that's horribly broken, no" as every refused powerup caused resentment in a player who probably never meant to disrupt the game, and every granted powerup was a potential sign of favouritism.

Drolyt wrote:

Avoraciopoctules wrote:So, hypothetically, I'm running a game in an open setting with like 5 dungeons the PCs can pick from, and they pick the Shadow Temple. I'm like "dude's there's a lot of treasure in there. Sure, there are sneaking suits and bane daggers and so on, but there's plenty of rooms that'll basically be [Insert Treasure Here]. So, anything you'd be interested in your PCs finding? Magic figurines that turn into animals, flying carpets, skull-shaped shoulderpads? What do you want?"

Is this bad?

No. What would be bad is if the system required this in order to function, D&D 4e being most notable in this regard.

I would hasten to add that not only is it bad if the system requires this in order to function, but it is bad if the player "requires" this event (whether they are requiring it to play their character, or requiring it to have fun, or requiring it to not veto the game in a huff, or whatever). It's bad in two ways:

• The first is that this event obviously may never come. If you're playing a pregenerated dungeon, there simply may not be any rooms with insertable treasure. Or if there are, there may not be any insertable treasure slots "big enough" to fit a flying carpet or whatever the fuck it is that you want.
• The second is that even if the MC asks the players for ideas, there's no guaranty that they are actually going to comply with your suggestion. They may have a good reason for this (such as you requesting a laser rifle in a fantasy game), they may have a bad reason, or most likely of all: they may have a reason that they think is good and you think is bad.

And not to put too fine a point on it: if the MC is depending on the players to fill in the treasure slots in the Temple of Fiscally Irresponsible Elves, that can easily blow up in their face. Many players actually want to be surprised by the treasure they find and won't have anything to suggest. Many other players don't actually know what items of the next experience level are supposed to be like and can't give reasonable suggestions.

-Username17

Avoraciopoctules wrote:So, hypothetically, I'm running a game in an open setting with like 5 dungeons the PCs can pick from, and they pick the Shadow Temple. I'm like "dude's there's a lot of treasure in there. Sure, there are sneaking suits and bane daggers and so on, but there's plenty of rooms that'll basically be [Insert Treasure Here]. So, anything you'd be interested in your PCs finding? Magic figurines that turn into animals, flying carpets, skull-shaped shoulderpads? What do you want?"

Is this bad?

Assuming you're running D+D yes this is bad in a number of ways but Frank already posted about it so I'm going to say something a bit different.

Leaving the system behind for a moment, it ruins 'immersion' in obvious ways. One it is getting the players to know what is in a place their characters have never been. It is getting them to actively think about the dungeon in game terms because they are specifically choosing the kind of pie in the door, orc, pie set up.

Now this might not matter to you or your group. If it doesn't oh well. It also encourages "character builds". Now I don't mean to say this in a foreboding manner but honestly there is a big difference between building a character that wants to be a swords man and building a swordsman that will find the great flaming flamberge at level 7.

In either case you're inviting a bunch of shenanigans you or the group may or may not like into the game. It would be like letting someone play a kender. Sure it 'could' work out but that's not too likely with most groups.
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Now earlier I asked about why not have PCs just spend in game time finding, crafting, questing for what they need. The overall response is because a lot of players don't want to go sidequesting for other players. In my opinion if the swordsman ends up wanting to do a sidequest for a specific sword and no one wants to go then that should be it. That is the group vetoing that whole idea and the game should go on without the GM having to plant that specific sword because the group already vetoed the idea and since this is co-operative story telling then the veto should stick. Now swords are fairly common so it shouldn't be too big of a deal if the swordsman finds 'some' kind of fancy sword along the way.

The point where it gets to be a problem is if someone is using a dual sided dire flail and THEY want to go on a sidequest to find a BETTER one and the group vetoes the idea and one is found anyway. Now in a game like D+D where this sort of bs is necessary, that is ok, expected even. However, if we had a hypothetical system that did not enforce the use of magic items just to function, there would be no reason for one to be found at random (unless it is established that such an exotic weapon is merely uncommon instead of extremely retarded silly stupid rare) and it "shouldn't" happen. Of course not every group is going to care, so I suppose in the end, YMMV.

MGuy wrote: The point where it gets to be a problem is if someone is using a dual sided dire flail and THEY want to go on a sidequest to find a BETTER one and the group vetoes the idea and one is found anyway. Now in a game like D+D where this sort of bs is necessary, that is ok, expected even. However, if we had a hypothetical system that did not enforce the use of magic items just to function, there would be no reason for one to be found at random (unless it is established that such an exotic weapon is merely uncommon instead of extremely retarded silly stupid rare) and it "shouldn't" happen. Of course not every group is going to care, so I suppose in the end, YMMV.

I want to add that there's a world of difference in how the Dire Flail scenario plays out, depending on whether or not there are good rules for treasure and/or evidence of the pre-existence of said Dire Flail.

Table Flip example:

Suzy: Hey guys, I wanna do this sidequest for this super-neato sparkly Dire Flail I heard some dudes talking about in the bazaar.

Rest of Group: No, fuck that. We're going to the Temple of Fiscally Irresponsible Elves like we already agreed upon.

MC, later in the temple: Look at that, the Elven mummy-accountant was guarding a sparkly Dire Flail! This must be the one the guys in the bazaar were talking about!

Suzy: Yay!

Rest of Group: Seriously? We didn't find a single suit of elven or mithral armor in here but she gets her goddamn Dire Flail? Is there a blowjob economy going on here? Fuck this, we're out.

MC is able to mollify the group example:

MC: Wait a second guys, [shows module] the module included the Dire Flail here already. Or: Look, I rolled the treasure in front of you like I always do and here's the reference table for the Irresponsible Elves. See? Entry 37--Dire Flail with sparkles.

Rest of group: Fair enough. Suzy, you are a lucky girl.

Alternate example:

Suzy: Well, no Dire Flail for me in the temple. But my share of the loot is enough to commission an upgrade from the enchanter we met last week, so it cool if we take a week off of adventuring so I can do that?

Rest of group: Yeah, that's cool. We have other downtime stuff we want/need to do too.

Alternate Example is really tbe best option. Custom enchanging/upgrading of items is important to allow in D&D. That's really the best solution. If you make it so that Enchanters can take old items and take them apart for magical goodness. And, they're always on the look out for monster parts for enchantments. This allows people to get the dual flamberge flaming sword of frost giant cuddling they want. WHile not having it drop in the Barrows of the Elven Lich.

sabs wrote:Custom enchanging/upgrading of items is important to allow in D&D. That's really the best solution. If you make it so that Enchanters can take old items and take them apart for magical goodness. And, they're always on the look out for monster parts for enchantments. This allows people to get the dual flamberge flaming sword of frost giant cuddling they want. WHile not having it drop in the Barrows of the Elven Lich.

The downside to making a treasure system that fungible, of course, is that there isn't such a thing as treasure anymore. What you have are gems with bonuses that combine in certain permutations.

In fact it's pretty indistinguishable from the 3E D&D's wealth by level system except that instead of melting down the magic items you find into a goo and pouring the goo into moulds you break them apart with a hammer and glue them together.

I mean, that's balanced and everything but it sure as fuck doesn't make treasure feel special.

Well, I was more thinking your average Adventurer just sells their magic items back to Enchanters and Brokers, and gets "currency" and then they spend that currency on buying new magic items, or getting their magic items upgraded.

If you already have a +1 full plate. then getting a +1 halfplate isn't special at all. D&D treasure doesn't feel special at all. And if you're a rapier/knife dual wielder and your gm only drops magical hammers. you're like.. HHJJ.

I'm not sure why you think it's like wealth by level. It's more like Magical Bazaar land.

sabs wrote:Well, I was more thinking your average Adventurer just sells their magic items back to Enchanters and Brokers, and gets "currency" and then they spend that currency on buying new magic items, or getting their magic items upgraded.

If you already have a +1 full plate. then getting a +1 halfplate isn't special at all. D&D treasure doesn't feel special at all. And if you're a rapier/knife dual wielder and your gm only drops magical hammers. you're like.. HHJJ.

I'm not sure why you think it's like wealth by level. It's more like Magical Bazaar land.

Because that is WBL. D&D 3e doesn't really work without the Magical Bazaar.

No, WBL is messed up because it's a weird set of guidelines about how much gold equivalent swag the players should have based on their level, that in no way takes into account expendables or crafting costs vs buying costs.

Magical Bazaar is giving players agency to get the magic items they want.
How many and how powerful those magic items are would potentially be limited by WBL.. or just by GM keeping an eye on how much swag he gives out.

D&D doesn't work without the magical bazaar.. and yet many dm's try and get rid of it. But Magical Bazaar =/= WBL.

WBL is like CR. It's a system that might have worked, except it's got some major holes in it.
Magical Bazaar is like having monsters with abilities.

sabs wrote:Well, I was more thinking your average Adventurer just sells their magic items back to Enchanters and Brokers, and gets "currency" and then they spend that currency on buying new magic items, or getting their magic items upgraded.

Okay, so maybe it's not wealth by level (in that 3E D&D's WBL doesn't provide instant refunds and your system needn't be power-segregated by level), but it still has the core of assigning people a bunch of fully refundable tokens that they can mix-and-match to get exactly what they want subject to how many tokens they have.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:

sabs wrote:Well, I was more thinking your average Adventurer just sells their magic items back to Enchanters and Brokers, and gets "currency" and then they spend that currency on buying new magic items, or getting their magic items upgraded.

Okay, so maybe it's not wealth by level (in that 3E D&D's WBL doesn't provide instant refunds and your system needn't be power-segregated by level), but it still has the core of assigning people a bunch of fully refundable tokens that they can mix-and-match to get exactly what they want subject to how many tokens they have.

Okay?
And why is this bad?
You think it's better that the GM picks 100% of what drops, and screw you if you wanted to play a guy who uses Axes, because only warhammers ever drop? Or you think that it should all be random drops from a chart, and people just.. deal with it? Or you think that every character needs to have item creation feats so they get to pick what they want? (Which is not dissimilar to the Magical bazaar, except that people need to spend some number of feats.)

sabs wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote:

sabs wrote:Well, I was more thinking your average Adventurer just sells their magic items back to Enchanters and Brokers, and gets "currency" and then they spend that currency on buying new magic items, or getting their magic items upgraded.

Okay, so maybe it's not wealth by level (in that 3E D&D's WBL doesn't provide instant refunds and your system needn't be power-segregated by level), but it still has the core of assigning people a bunch of fully refundable tokens that they can mix-and-match to get exactly what they want subject to how many tokens they have.

Okay?
And why is this bad?
You think it's better that the GM picks 100% of what drops, and screw you if you wanted to play a guy who uses Axes, because only warhammers ever drop? Or you think that it should all be random drops from a chart, and people just.. deal with it? Or you think that every character needs to have item creation feats so they get to pick what they want? (Which is not dissimilar to the Magical bazaar, except that people need to spend some number of feats.)

It's completely, totally incompatible with the idea that treasure is special. Of course, that isn't to say it must be avoided at all costs or anything.

Treasure is special? Name a single D&D setting here Treasure is special. Why is treasure special? We're expected to find treasure at least once to twice a session. In a typical dungeon scenario, there are probably a good Dozen Treasures. Most Adventuring parties are going to find several treasures an adventure.

Even if you somehow think that the loot of a Black Dragon should be special. Why should it? It's going to be a collection of shiny that the Black Dragon thought was cool. If you are raiding the Lich's Tomb. chances are, unless you're a Wizard with a pension for Necromantic spells, the treasure in there is not going to be special in any way. Treasure is already vendor trash in the game. If you want to make treasure special, then you need to A) totally change how magic items and D&D interact, and B) Come up with a way to differentiate between the Lair of the Goblin King, and the Lair of the Rust Monster you killed on your way to the Lair of the Goblin King.

D&D is not in any way geared towards Special Snowflake Treasure

Well if being able to turn money into anything makes money not special, why is nobody here sending me any of their not-so-special US Dollars?

sabs wrote:But Magical Bazaar =/= WBL.

Insofar as you could have the Magical Bazaar without WBL this is true, but if you are insisting on having WBL then you need either a Magical Bazaar, a wishlist, or something along those lines. Why is this a problem?

sabs wrote:Treasure is special? Name a single D&D setting here Treasure is special.

I can't. That is the fucking point and it boggles the mind that this needs to be explained, but here we go. In basically every fantasy story magic items are special. It is a big fucking deal that Excalibur can only be pulled out by King Arthur. It is a big fucking deal that Frodo finds The One Ring. It is a big fucking deal that Harry Potter has an invisibility coat. It is a big fucking deal that Aladdin finds a magic lamp.

In D&D this isn't a big deal because any given magic item is no more special than a fucking cell phone. Cell phones are awesome mind, as are many D&D magic items, but you can't base fucking stories around them. This is bad, because D&D isn't a fucking video game. It might be fun to collect magic items in Diablo or WoW, though frankly I think that is mostly just Pavlov, but D&D shouldn't be a fucking roguelike. You should be able to tell stories as epic and awesome as you could if you were writing a novel, but D&D's magic item system actively hinders that because it turns magic items into a commodity. The most awesome magic item in the setting is no more special than a fancy car.

Josh_Kablack wrote:Well if being able to turn money into anything makes money not special, why is nobody here sending me any of their not-so-special US Dollars?

There is a difference between special and useful. Of course I'd like more money, but the fact remains that the kinds of things you can buy with money are almost by definition not the kinds of things you can base stories on. I would love a nice surround sound system, but I wouldn't want to write a novel about it.

Drolyt,

1) All those examples are Artifacts. Only one of those settings is High Magic.
2) Aladin's Lamp isn't special in D&D because summoning a Djinn that has to grant you wishes just isn't that freaking hard in high level D&D.
3) You're basically wanting to completely change D&D. For the One Ring to be special, then you can't have every 5th level Wizard running around with the invisibility spell. You're comparing Apples to Concrete, and complaining one of them doesn't taste very good.

Harry Potter is the easiest to do. He has a Cloak of Greater Invisibility that A) works at will, B) Defeats True Sight, C) is an artifact that is part of a 3 piece artifact set that gives you control over death.

Josh_Kablack wrote:Well if being able to turn money into anything makes money not special, why is nobody here sending me any of their not-so-special US Dollars?

No individual dollar bills are in any way special. They are fully fungible. That's kind of the whole point.

-Username17

Has anyone noticed that the need for wishlists goes away almost entirely once the need to maintain a certain level of bonuses goes away?

There are still going to be people that want specific ability items like a Wings of Flying, but that need is a lot less pressing when it can be reasonably substituted for something like Winged Boots or a shield that casts Fly that will probably drop in any random drop system.

K wrote:Has anyone noticed that the need for wishlists goes away almost entirely once the need to maintain a certain level of bonuses goes away?

There are still going to be people that want specific ability items like a Wings of Flying, but that need is a lot less pressing when it can be reasonably substituted for something like Winged Boots or a shield that casts Fly that will probably drop in any random drop system.

That's actually been addressed as the primary reason why wishlists exist - they require that
a) you need a bunch of +X items to stay in play
b) the rules do not give you these items.

sabs wrote:Or you think that it should all be random drops from a chart, and people just.. deal with it?

As far as D&D goes, yes, actually. For quite a few reasons.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:

sabs wrote:Or you think that it should all be random drops from a chart, and people just.. deal with it?

As far as D&D goes, yes, actually. For quite a few reasons.

That was okay in the 80's and really early 90's with AD&D.. but that stopped being okay when 3rd edition came about and you could actually roleplay, instead of running miniatures through a gygaxian meat grinder.

You're a terrible person. And you should feel bad for it.

PS:
You probably think that we should roll 3d6 in order for stats.