The Gaming Den

zugschef wrote: Since when can't you combine finding and buying? If you've bought everything you've ever needed at Wallmart and never had to look for stuff, you're a pretty sad guy.

Per the quote, it is possible to combine finding and buying. In real life that tends to mean 'shopping'. But in D&D, it doesn't have to mean that.

Finding a retired adventurer who has a ring of invisibility (finding) and offering to complete a quest for him in return from the ring (buying) can be fun. Just as much fun as 'finding' a ring of invisibility in a dead goblin's secret stash. Determing which one is more fun is anyone's guess.

Buying doesn't always have to be easy.

FrankTrollman wrote:Any system where the player directly writes the item into the story through narrative control abilities is by definition not a "wishlist"

I think some people were using the term that way though? Anyways, while I agree with you that wishlists are the worst way to solve the problems it solves, it does solve some problems. Namely, there needs to be a player controlled means of ensuring that the character has enough of the right magic items to compete at their level, and there needs to be a player controlled way for them to get the legendary items that bards will sing about when they tell the PC's story. So what are our alternatives?

The only thing that I'm sure about when it comes to equipment is this: Having PCs sell (or discard) "vendor trash" items is lame. Any system that can avoid that garbage has at least one positive thing going for it.

deaddmwalking wrote:No - he was talking about having to actually go FINDING something. Like going to antique stores, or flea markets. You know, or even having to go to multiple stores trying to find a pair of jeans that don't make you look like a fat ass.

Exactly.

shadzar wrote:THIS IS ALL JUST SHOPPING! D&D isn't a shopping game. HASBRO makes those games for young girls though. i think one of them is called Mall something.

D&D is a game about adventure. you aren't likely to pay Gollum to get the One Ring from him even if you do FIND it.

First off, you're a sexist. And on top of that you don't like it when people like what you don't like.

hogarth wrote:The only thing that I'm sure about when it comes to equipment is this: Having PCs sell (or discard) "vendor trash" items is lame. Any system that can avoid that garbage has at least one positive thing going for it.

To a first approximation, you are right. But in a much more important way you are wrong. Yes, it's lame when you roll up the dragon's hoard and it's just +1 Ringmail and some never-spoiling fried cheese. That shit has to stop. When you open the golden chest in the Lich's vault it should always have something good in it.

But completely getting rid of vendor trash is not the answer. First of all, if you don't have trash items, you can't appreciate good items. Good items are only good relative to what you could use instead. +3 Elven Chainmail of Shadows isn't even worth talking about unless you have +1 Ringmail to replace it with. And even more importantly: look at 4e D&D. In 4th edition D&D, the magic poison bows of the Yuan Ti simply vanish when they die. This means the PCs never pick up vendor trash, but untenable damage was done to verisimilitude in the process.

When a bunch of Githyanki show up with silver swords, there needs to be a pile of Githyanki silver swords sitting in a pile when you're done. And that means that you necessarily will get a pile of "vendor trash" once you are no longer personally interested in getting more silver swords.

-Username17

zugschef wrote:

deaddmwalking wrote:No - he was talking about having to actually go FINDING something. Like going to antique stores, or flea markets. You know, or even having to go to multiple stores trying to find a pair of jeans that don't make you look like a fat ass.

Exactly.

shadzar wrote:THIS IS ALL JUST SHOPPING! D&D isn't a shopping game. HASBRO makes those games for young girls though. i think one of them is called Mall something.

D&D is a game about adventure. you aren't likely to pay Gollum to get the One Ring from him even if you do FIND it.

First off, you're a sexist. And on top of that you don't like it when people like what you don't like.

i am a sexist because HASBRO makes a game, and the ONLY one of its kind i know about, marketed at young girls, with the objective of the game to be shopping?

shadzar wrote:

zugschef wrote:

deaddmwalking wrote:No - he was talking about having to actually go FINDING something. Like going to antique stores, or flea markets. You know, or even having to go to multiple stores trying to find a pair of jeans that don't make you look like a fat ass.

Exactly.

shadzar wrote:THIS IS ALL JUST SHOPPING! D&D isn't a shopping game. HASBRO makes those games for young girls though. i think one of them is called Mall something.

D&D is a game about adventure. you aren't likely to pay Gollum to get the One Ring from him even if you do FIND it.

First off, you're a sexist. And on top of that you don't like it when people like what you don't like.

i am a sexist because HASBRO makes a game, and the ONLY one of its kind i know about, marketed at young girls, with the objective of the game to be shopping?

You look like a sexist when you cite a game for young girls as part of a criticism of the idea of economic trade being part of a game, as if being for young girls is 1) bad, 2) an inherent property of shopping in-character.

And are you really telling me you can't see the difference between looking through the flea markets for the one-eyed hunter who's had his eye on your +Pi Bow of Auto-Aim and is willing to trade you 13g of powdered concentration for it and going through the Bows rack at Walmart?

FrankTrollman wrote:First of all, if you don't have trash items, you can't appreciate good items. Good items are only good relative to what you could use instead.

Bullshit. Alladin's magic lamp, the Palantiri, the rings of power, Stormbringer, Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, Sun Wukong's Ruyi Jingu Bang, the holy grail, the golden fleece. Fucking none of those relied on there being shitty magic items in the setting for them to be awesome. That your point is even kind of true is entirely down to the fact that D&D hands out shitty magic items with tiny meaningless bonuses like candy.

there is ONLY one game based on shopping that is NOT related to property/rent that i know of and it is that one.

You need to go bitch at HASBRO for having a bunch of girls sitting around playing it in the commercial i saw and it being "for girls age X and up".

i didn't make the commercial, i can only remember it. Operation, Hungry Hippos, Guess Who, all have mixed genders playing together.

let me guess if this were another discussion and the well-know easy bake over commercial being cited as being targeted at and marketed to girls would also make me sexist even though i didnt make that commercial ever too right? hell i think EZ Bake ovens are even older than i am! but it is my fault.. SURE!

i see shopping as shopping, and i will NEVER play ina game with Ye Olde Magick Shoppe. Diagon Alley works for Harry Potter, but NOT for D&D.

the ONLY reason i would allow such in a game from EITHER side of the screen would be like a one-shot ultra-power game to see what kind of hell can be destroyed in the allotted play time. cause that kind of world has little to no value or future remaining.

let me simplify the analogy a bit.

But a Lhurgoyf from the venders case where you can see it is as enjoyable as opening that booster and finding it in it? now both could be something you can buy, but you can't guarantee the card will be in that pack unless you have older booster packs like Legends and Antiquities or Beta that you can see through.

SHOPPING has no risk so has no reward. you are guaranteed through shopping list or wishlist to get something. it isnt a reward. you find it on your own, then you feel a lot more enthused about having it and finding it.

when magic items all come from Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue, then they have no value as ANYBODY else can get them. when you find a folding boat in the bandits camp and are adventuring in a marshy area, it has more meaning than just buying it from Aurora's.

finding something to buy somewhere IS meaningless. Excalibur wont be found in the back room of a merchants for sale. if it IS found there, be damn sure the PCs don't have enough to EVER acquire it as the local ruling faction will be wanting it and will get priority over it.

this too goes for items you can craft.

if you can make that +10 whatever i said earlier if only has mechanical value not intrinsic value, cause now you have made one, odds are you can make 10000 more. if you FIND one it has more value than being able to make it, cause for all you know it is the ONLY one of its kind. now you may want to say, but what if you FIND it in a store.. refer to the above about ANYONE being able to buy it or possibly its "price" is off the scale for the PCs to be able to acquire.

Drolyt wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:First of all, if you don't have trash items, you can't appreciate good items. Good items are only good relative to what you could use instead.

Bullshit. Alladin's magic lamp, the Palantiri, the rings of power, Stormbringer, Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, Sun Wukong's Ruyi Jingu Bang, the holy grail, the golden fleece. Fucking none of those relied on there being shitty magic items in the setting for them to be awesome. That your point is even kind of true is entirely down to the fact that D&D hands out shitty magic items with tiny meaningless bonuses like candy.

and yet Diagon Alley had Ollivanders established 328 BC filled floor to ceiling with shitty nondescript wands. Death's Cloak of invisibility was still special amongst the special cause cloaks of invisibility were really rare, but HIS was one of a kind, and in the wizarding world, EVERY wizarding object is just the equivalent of vendor trash.

Stormbringer was special because everyone else had swords, but NOBODY else had Stormbringer.

ANYONE could own a lamp, but only Aladdin found one with a genie in it. just wait for the lamp merchant to bring his cart around and even peasants could buy a lamp from him. but they wont have the one with the genie it in.

Drolyt wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:First of all, if you don't have trash items, you can't appreciate good items. Good items are only good relative to what you could use instead.

Bullshit. Alladin's magic lamp, the Palantiri, the rings of power, Stormbringer, Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, Sun Wukong's Ruyi Jingu Bang, the holy grail, the golden fleece. Fucking none of those relied on there being shitty magic items in the setting for them to be awesome. That your point is even kind of true is entirely down to the fact that D&D hands out shitty magic items with tiny meaningless bonuses like candy.

All of those items were found in places where there were other lesser items. I really don't even know what point you're trying to make bringing up Stormbringer, whose shtick is that it is better than other magic swords. Or Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak, which is specifically called out as being one of the deathly hallows and massively superior to all other invisibility cloaks in the setting.

But even if the Ruyi Jingu Bang did come as the only magical weapon in its setting, which it does not, the fact is still that it is good to the degree that it is better than other weapons. Not necessarily other magic weapons. It's still only good because there is an ocean full of mundane swords, spears, and ji that you could be using instead. If it was literally the only weapon you could be using, you would be unable to distinguish how much of your badassery came from the size changing staff and how much was you being awesome (or your opponents sucking, for that matter).

A special item is only special if you have vendor trash to compare it to. If there isn't vendor trash to compare it to, it's just like the "armor" that you wear in a first person shooter: since you can't take it off or replace it with something else, it has no visible effect.

-Username17

Drolyt wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:First of all, if you don't have trash items, you can't appreciate good items. Good items are only good relative to what you could use instead.

Bullshit. Alladin's magic lamp, the Palantiri, the rings of power, Stormbringer, Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, Sun Wukong's Ruyi Jingu Bang, the holy grail, the golden fleece. Fucking none of those relied on there being shitty magic items in the setting for them to be awesome. That your point is even kind of true is entirely down to the fact that D&D hands out shitty magic items with tiny meaningless bonuses like candy.

I only know a few of those, but you're still dumb.

Magic Lamp is being used relative to: A monkey, a magic carpet, his own feet.

Invisibility Cloak is being used relative to: Wands and meager wizard power, flying brooms, flying balls.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

So because there are no other items in Portal, the Portal Gun is boring and ordinary?

Foxwarrior wrote:So because there are no other items in Portal, the Portal Gun is boring and ordinary?

There is a reason you start the game without it, and then get only half of it.

To give the sense of not having it prior to giving it, thus giving you something to compare to.

FrankTrollman wrote: All of those items were found in places where there were other lesser items.

Lesser magic items, not vendor trash.

I really don't even know what point you're trying to make bringing up Stormbringer, whose shtick is that it is better than other magic swords.

Stormbringer's schtick is that it has a will of its own and Elric actually hates it but can't survive without it. Also it eats souls. But yeah, it is awesomely powerful, but that is communicated by having it do awesome things, not by comparing it to vendor trash. That is only necessary in D&D because magic swords don't actually do anything awesome.

Or Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak, which is specifically called out as being one of the deathly hallows and massively superior to all other invisibility cloaks in the setting.

We don't find out Harry's cloak is special until the last book. When it was first introduced it was simply described as rare and expensive, and that did not diminish it's awesomeness, which has nothing to do with how unique it was but the fact that it made the main characters invisible which contributed directly to their adventures.

But even if the Ruyi Jingu Bang did come as the only magical weapon in its setting, which it does not, the fact is still that it is good to the degree that it is better than other weapons. Not necessarily other magic weapons. It's still only good because there is an ocean full of mundane swords, spears, and ji that you could be using instead. If it was literally the only weapon you could be using, you would be unable to distinguish how much of your badassery came from the size changing staff and how much was you being awesome (or your opponents sucking, for that matter).

No, you know how badass your size changing staff is because of the cool stuff it does (such as changing size). Your basis of comparison isn't shitty stuff in the setting, but your real world experience, or else the normal nonmagical stuff that everyone in the setting has.

A special item is only special if you have vendor trash to compare it to. If there isn't vendor trash to compare it to, it's just like the "armor" that you wear in a first person shooter: since you can't take it off or replace it with something else, it has no visible effect.

No, a special item is special because it does something special. I'm not saying every magic item you find a dragon's hoard has to be Excalibur or Stormbringer, but it damn well better do something more interesting than give piddly bonuses or act as nonstandard currency or it is a fucking waste of time and space.

Here's the simple argument: Wish Lists look a lot better when you compare them to other D&D item acquisition systems:

To wit

• OD&D: you get what the author wrote into the module
• AD&D: Fuck you, it could be a magic item or it could cursed and absolutely nothing anybody can do can tell for sure. Serves you right you greedy bastard.
• Shadzar Edtion: Nobody ever sells or trades magic items ever. If you have a Monty Hall DM you'll get a few, otherwise you need to have the appropriate high level enchantment spells to make your own. Have fun being unable to fight werewolves and fiends when they show up every other adventure.
• 3.x: Here's some tables for based on the advancement and treasure tables. Wealth == Power == Level, so the game breaks hard if you can get ahead of the curve and players feel gypped if they are ever behind the curve. By the way, we included several dozen abilities for PCs to get item discounts and use the abilities the rules give them to generate wealth.
• Essentials: Nobody ever actually played with the rarity rules, and I wasn't reading Char Op at the time, so I have no idea what they did.
• D&D Next, Please: If you don't like them, we'll revise these guidelines next week.

By comparison, wishlists fare no worse than middle of the pack.

Koumei wrote: And this will only change when D&D takes all of the "assumed/required bonuses" and just builds them into your character (which is actually the same as not providing the bonuses and just not putting that assumption into monster design - crazy talk!), so that your wind chimes are not making it easier for monsters to power attack you to death

...actually this might be why I like the Tome Soulborn/Totemist: you totally can spend your gear on fifty wands and a hat of disguise, and go "bag of endless caltrops? Score!" without going "Man, I have to pawn this off for some Charisma Shoes".

When I made a 13th level Soulborn once, it was thanks to the variety of abilities and bonuses already provided, that I was at a loss of what magic items to spend my starting wealth on for the most part (other than Belt of Battle & Pow build bracers).

Another problem of D&D magic items in general, is that they're apparently not all that interesting. 5th edition no clue, but 3rd and 4th been said how the magic items weren't as interesting as the ones in older editions past (an OSSR review on magic items helped prove that). So the "discovery" of a magic item isn't going to be all that thrilling anyways in the current games, even if those RNG bonuses are already accounted for into the characters. So wish-listing for items that otherwise would just be found frustrating to have, and waste of prepatory effort on the DM's part, saves time, for the entertainment value of everyone else. Plus, enjoyment can be from getting to utilize the gameplay effects of the item. However, from what I've seen, it does seem like Players care more about being given magic items (judging their worth from there), than giving them the choice to pick some.

I play in a 4th edition campaign, on 2-3 occasions or so, I have made Wish-lists myself. This has served to be useful for the DM, as it gives him an idea of what swag to award to the players during adventures, rather that waste his & the players time on vendor trash. Although the rest of the players don't even care about magic items (or don't know where to look), and would just rather spend their wealth on fulfilling in-character goals. While that's a cool thing, in 4th edition as we know, it's bad since wealth equates to power, and want all those collection of bonuses to operate properly (this isn't even counting the Big 3 items bonuses, that we have scaling to level and baked back into the PC). That, and in this unrelated case, those in-character goal resource sinks weren't really translating into any in-game interaction of any kind, roleplaying or otherwise.

That, and I also agree with Prak Anima's sentiment

tussock wrote:But 4e provides no useful mechanic for making sure characters get the tools the game assumes they need to function. At all.

4th edition's PHB has a 4th level ritual "Enchant Magic Item", that would allow PC's to get magic items of their level. Given, some stuff they need will be a few levels above them, but for the other stuff, there is an option that would give them a decent sum of the swag they need for the character (or otherwise combo with their current paradigm).

There's something to be said for characters that have a signature item which changing it is an unacceptable change to the character -- I have had some like that (though few in actual D&D, this was half of the fun of Guild Wars). Usually it's a weapon, sometimes it's a suit of armor. So there's really something there when people talk about having an item keep up and be essentially the same thing.

But you know what's not there? Wishlists. That's some real bullshit. The golden talons that my assassin wields is cool, but putting down in writing that "I really want a belt of battle from the Magic Item Compendium!" is goddamn stupid and makes us all feel that much stupider.

There's some tractable idea here about a thing that's really important to the character and is part of the character, but that's a thing in the singular, or maybe double. It doesn't become the five things, and it sure as hell doesn't stretch as long as a wishlist.

So, could someone sum up what their ideal magic loot system is?

Truly ideal? Stuff drops that is mostly random, but actually makes sense for the thing you killed to take it from. Powerful things have powerful gear that is known.

I can't speak for Lago because he randomly picks a side and froths at the mouth over it, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe Frank hates Wishlists as provided by 4E.

The idea of saying "I would like to at some point get some variety of X" and then using the in-game methods to do so, with the MC now aware that "some variety of X" should be somewhere and the players should be able to look into where to find that? I doubt that's toxic to people who aren't crazy.

The bit where it's a list of terrorist demands? That's not even the fault of the players, that's a symptom of how bad 4E is. The game itself is effectively saying "Fuck, I don't know, you figure it out" and declaring it will blow up unless some other people altogether (the players) give their list of demands to the MC (who must then meet the demands).

That said, while I can't really accept the bit where Yuan-ti with bows actually drop something else, isn't that precisely what random item drops do as well? That's basically what Diablo is known for, when the swarm of bees dies, it then calls up an RNG to determine what you get and sometimes those bees were carrying full plate. The least "that is bullshit" approach involves planning everything out ahead, before player input, without random tables, and everything being there for a reason.

Koumei wrote:The least "that is bullshit" approach involves planning everything out ahead, before player input, without random tables, and everything being there for a reason.

Yes, except then that everything planned out meets player input and the players, acting fully in character decide that since none of them are classed as Sheperds they really don't give a shit about the Golden Fleece and they'd rather sail to Egypt to loot the Pharohs' tombs because the fighter is double-specialized in the khopesh.

And it's a rare MC who has actually planned out treasure placements in the kingdom on other side of the sea before the campaign starts. What happens instead is that when the PCs use their agency to go somewhere else, the MC ad-libs some stuff. So when the Argonauts throw Medea overboard and go off to Egypt the MC pulls a "finding the Valley of Kings" adventure session out of their ass and defaults to Egyptian /desert themed monsters from the MM (asps, scorpions, sphinxes, catgirls, mummies, nazis) and hastily scribbled in loot drops. The MC then uses the time between sessions to think up the particulars of what's actually buried in the pyramid and the reasons why that includes or does not include the +N Khopesh the fighter was hoping for.

If handled well, that's really not functionally a whole lot different from mixing random treasure drops (Random Roll says: "The Nazis you fought have a +3 coathanger") with wish lists ("There totally is/isn't Khaotic Khopesh buried as grave goods in the Great Pyramid")

Koumei wrote: ...sometimes those bees were carrying full plate.

If you have some time to prepare, it doesn't have to be that way. It's a simple matter to roll the treasure when you're populating the dungeon and put the randomly-generated swag in places that make sense for it to occur. While there will be the occasional item that makes absolutely no sense (the dwarves had a pixie-sized +3/+2 dire flail!), taking the time to try fitting it somewhere can inspire details and adventure hooks you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. The main problems with doing things that way is that it requires preparation and it's tempting to veto stupid results.

Koumei wrote:I can't speak for Lago because he randomly picks a side and froths at the mouth over it, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe Frank hates Wishlists as provided by 4E.

I'm pretty sure is this thread is just Lago attempting to continue by proxy a thread where Frank basically shat all over a wide variety of player agency over item drops, up to and including "going on a quest because there might be a sword in it" as being the height of evil bad wrong fun that only greedy meany bad players engage in and he totally intended to punish all the assholes who dared do that.

So to update you here Koumei, this is one of those threads that goes like this.

Lago opens a "discussion" thread and states some crazy shit he heard Frank say back in the throws of one of his really bad episodes as if it were widely accepted as true.

People say "WTF? You is on crack!"

Frank turns up and attempts to imply (but never clearly state) he is staking out a tangentially relevant somewhat reasonable position. Like "4E wishlists specifically are bad".

Someone points out that actually Frank said pretty much the same insane shit Lago is saying last time.

Frank, since he suffers from some kind of condition, will then immediately re-adopt his old crazy shit from last time and double down on it hard. Because he never EVER wants to admit he ever said any crazy shit or that anything he said or implied now could ever contradict anything he ever said in the past.

He will possibly attempt some incredibly poor rationalization to try and pretend the crazy shit is in line with his pretense of a rational position from this time around. Either way between that and the doubling down on the crazy shit the shit he says will be over all crazier than ever.

The thread will end and Lago will feel sad that not everyone accepted the clear gospel of Frank's insanity. But Lago will take those crazier things from Frank's bad end of the thread, and he will revere them and remember them... filing them away... for next time... soon...

This sort of feed back loop here is basically how Frank and Lago have gone so utterly insane together. My theory is in 3 more years they undergo an epiphany of madness that breaks time and space hurling them both back years into the past where they will change their names to Shadzar and Ellensar.

Josh_Kablack wrote:If handled well, that's really not functionally a whole lot different from mixing random treasure drops (Random Roll says: "The Nazis you fought have a +3 coathanger") with wish lists ("There totally is/isn't Khaotic Khopesh buried as grave goods in the Great Pyramid")

I don't like to reply twice in the same thread in a row, but, damnit, if that wasn't a particularly good description of the status quo of D&D loot dropping as it has evolved for sensible practical GMs everywhere.

And it is in DIRECT violation of the goals and ideas Lago and Frank present on the topic.

Turns out that years of D&D's evolution and the very successful end state are bad wrong fun. And GMs who adaptively provide interesting loot players have expressed interest in by some means in game are bad people.