The Gaming Den

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

Sounds constructive. First, all found magic items should be useful and interesting. You shouldn't have to carry a bag of vendor trash to town to exchange it for the magic items you really want. To facilitate this, the game has to built such that characters don't rely on receiving bonuses and abilities from a large number of piddly items in order to function. Characters stripped of their equipment should be weaker (1 or 2 CR at most), but still basically functional, and items should scale well to level instead of needing replacement or upgrade. If all this is done then random treasure tables are fine, but I think if magic items are to be special they shouldn't be handed out like candy.

Second, while it is fine (and fun) for the majority of items to be found, there needs to be some way for players to obtain the magic items they really want. Wishlists are one possibility, but I think that is a last resort for when better options fail. I don't like magic item marts myself, if it fits your gameworld there might be some items for sale but the really important ones, the ones that are important to your character concept and which bards will song of when they tell your character's tale, those shouldn't be bought at a store, and those are precisely the items that we worry about players having access to. Quests are a good solution, maybe there should be metagame currency allowing players to pick quests for that kind of thing. A good item crafting system is another option, but the problem there is most games don't let you craft anything unique, and there are usually no restrictions on creating tons of items. I think for the really important items like artifact swords there would need to be a crafting currency, any given craftsmen can create only so many Excaliburs. Finally I think there should be character options where your character just has the item he wants, like an ancestral weapon/armor feat.

I guess if I wanted to sum my opinion up in one sentence it would be this: magic items in TTRPGs should work like in myth, legend, and literature, not like in Diablo.

PhoneLobster wrote: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.

I have to admit, this mad me lol.

Drolyt wrote:First, all found magic items should be useful and interesting. You shouldn't have to carry a bag of vendor trash to town to exchange it for the magic items you really want. To facilitate this, the game has to built such that characters don't rely on receiving bonuses and abilities from a large number of piddly items in order to function. Characters stripped of their equipment should be weaker (1 or 2 CR at most), but still basically functional, and items should scale well to level instead of needing replacement or upgrade. If all this is done then random treasure tables are fine, but I think if magic items are to be special they shouldn't be handed out like candy.

Second, while it is fine (and fun) for the majority of items to be found, there needs to be some way for players to obtain the magic items they really want.

You're positing a fairly narrow needle to thread, because you have design goals that conflict in rather fundamental ways.

• If magic items are rare, it strains believability that you can get specifically the ones you want.
• Magic items being powerful and scaling obvious conflicts with the desire for the characters to not lose a lot of power when they are taken away.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:You're positing a fairly narrow needle to thread, because you have design goals that conflict in rather fundamental ways.

• If magic items are rare, it strains believability that you can get specifically the ones you want.

It is expected for protagonists to have rare magical artifacts, and it seems to me there is no problem with the player (not the character) deciding what those will be.

[*] Magic items being powerful and scaling obvious conflicts with the desire for the characters to not lose a lot of power when they are taken away.[/list]

-Username17

This one is more true and I'm not sure how to solve it. That might just be a trade off that has to be made.

@Ideal loot.

Potions and wands that are more than a pointer to the spell list. Nothing formulaic at all, really, just random fantasy bullshit with only the vaguest of themes.

So you roll a 71 and get the Wand of Biscuits. Which is a thing which the designer decided makes the target's non-biscuit food all go rotten, including in their guts giving them instant nausea and delayed intestinal disease (with a save or whatever). So you give it to the Orc Shaman and he zaps it at your front line during the fight. Which is a spiced-up fight and a tool for the party for a while.

The Orcs also have several barrels of salty biscuits, one of which holds very rotten herring in an oil that stops them smelling. As well as their vendor trash, cheap-ass swords and spears and armour and rough cloth and large pigs and orange dye and grey cheese (actually fungus) and a few silver coins and a bit of cheap jewellery, like all Orcs tend to have.

And most of that can be hidden in the monster manual and player equipment lists. Can you guess the expensive bit? Other than the books full of this crap you can sell people?

Drolyt wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:You're positing a fairly narrow needle to thread, because you have design goals that conflict in rather fundamental ways.

• If magic items are rare, it strains believability that you can get specifically the ones you want.

It is expected for protagonists to have rare magical artifacts, and it seems to me there is no problem with the player (not the character) deciding what those will be.

Obviously, it is a problem. Let's take an extreme example: in FATAL, there is a powerful magic item that is a jar which when opened magically compels nearby males into fucking the jar, whereupon it starts growing screaming fetuses inside, and when opened a second time releases a devastating eruption of baby parts. This item is in extremely bad taste, and will not and should not be allowed in most games. Nevertheless, there is a non-zero chance that the sheer ridiculous and offensive audacity of this item will catch the fancy of one of the players at your table and they will want to have that as one of their character's major artifacts. The rest of the table will overrule them, and life goes on.

The thing is that while that's an extreme example, that is how it works for all major artifacts. The player does not select them, the group does. If the other players don't want to quest for the Giant Slayer Axe that you think is so cool (possibly because unlike you they are sick and tired of fighting giants), they simply won't do it. They'll go quest for the Mask of Eternal Night or something instead.

An individual player has a fair amount of input into what the party will quest for, because most of the players don't much care what kind of super special armor your character has and will go along with whatever. But you can't take that agreement for granted because it's not automatic. You are generally in a good negotiating position, but you still will not be able to get the rest of the players to go along with your quest for the explosive fuck jar, and may not be able to get them to sign up with any other particular artifact quest that strikes your fancy. The other players also have preferences, and they outnumber you.

[*] Magic items being powerful and scaling obviously conflicts with the desire for the characters to not lose a lot of power when they are taken away.[/list]

This one is more true and I'm not sure how to solve it. That might just be a trade off that has to be made.

Well, it's clearly a sliding scale. And you have expressed preference for both ends and the middle of that sliding scale.

-Username17

I think it's largely irrelevant but I can't resist the temptation to talk about how I'm handling loot drops and item dependance lately since that's being done.

Item dependency is IN. Hard core style. You need items, you need a bunch of them. They are fairly elaborate. Everything does stuff. Found a funky new hat. It does SOMETHING. It might even be vital to something your character does. In general the idea is since items DO in fact do mechanically interesting, distinct and measurable things... dependency and synergy with character builds cannot be avoided. The alternative? Items that are boring, interchangeable and don't have a measurable impact is considered unacceptable. If you write it on your inventory. It DOES something you care about, period.

Gear is dynamic. Swords break. Enemies will break them to deny you a resource, take them simply because they get a free attack with your sword if they take it etc... and YOU will break your sword for boosted damage, to block damage, or just throw it at your enemies. Your gear is EXPECTED to change status in combat, possibly A LOT in combat. Armour will be damaged, weapons disarmed, and amulets exploded, on such a routine basis that it should in fact happen to some item, and more than one item, in most individual TURNS of combat.

Use of gear as a dynamic combat resource means that looting often is an in combat action. Generally performed to get stop gap temporary replacements mid to late combat if a rare break (or special ability) enables it. Such options are frequently inferior and often poor matches for character abilities since they are often taken from enemy mooks (who generally lack the ability to break their own gear resources for personal profit so as to encourage this sort of looting). Even opposing powerful characters may not have matching gear you would want permanently and MIGHT not even have gear useful to a PC on a temporary basis (though they may). Players however can have some influence over this based on the gear they give their OWN mooks, stock their OWN bases with, and also to some extent the enemies they choose to fight (and the skill sets they stock the world with during character creation).

I currently have NO random drops. All drops are effectively arbitrary. However. It isn't all that hard to determine what drops from opponents... because they have the stuff they use for their skills, which due to actual interactions and dependencies will tend to be fairly intuitive. The heavy weapon dudes have items off the heavy weapons list, etc...

Aside from that item availability is limited by geography, trade and organizations. Various groups are in certain places. They have certain skill sets. There are item sets which go with each skill set. Groups with a skill set have (and potentially enable access to) items from that skill set. These items can readily be bought at markets in the same region, and are likely to turn up in foreign markets at higher prices based on distance.

Item availability by what groups are in your region is actually however an important aspect of player influence, as at character creation players are encouraged to actually DEFINE some of those groups, and by extension the skills and items they make available in the setting. Further there is a general assumption that even outside of the initial player selected short list of groups there are other more distant groups, as well as various extinct groups that leave ruins and stuff, making most skill sets (and matching items) available in SOME way in setting if the players choose to chase after them.

Wealth wise players are expected to have basically whatever they want by a relatively early point in the game limited more by inventory slots than by availability of cash. A small amount of hunting around for particular rare groups might be required, but once you pick up the matching skill set the items are basically safely secured options for you. Scrounging for limited gear is a short term low level phenomena that can (briefly) be artificially regulated by limited access to the basic low level wealth resource.

Crafting is quick and cheap, and a character with the right skill set can just make items from the matching item set as long as they have the basic resources, a small handful of time and access to a fairly ubiquitous generic item making building.

Repairing damaged items is cheap as dirt outside of combat and replacing lost items is easy. So much so that some time mid game you can stick down rooms in your base that just supply you with "as many as you like" of "a bunch of items" (well it's slightly better defined but thats the basic idea).

"Wish list" wise a lot of player agency is already built into the game. But regardless players are actively encourage to ask for items, straight up and by means of asking if it is at the local markets, or if not where they might find one. And it certainly is considered a GOOD thing if items that MIGHT be good options for PCs happen to drop from opponents. Both if players have asked for those items AND if they haven't.

All up the result is pretty damn good. Items are exciting and things happen involving them all the time. A hammer of armor cracking has attention drawn to it constantly as it DOES stuff. The armors it cracks MATTER. This is at the "cost" that item acquisition has to be easy and easily influenced, and the "cost" that since it does actual stuff its an important part of various synergistic character builds. And at that kinda cost. It was fucking cheap.

PhoneLobster wrote:"Wish list" wise a lot of player agency is already built into the game. But regardless players are actively encourage to ask for items, straight up and by means of asking if it is at the local markets

I know responding to PhoneLobster about, well, anything at all is kind of a sucker's game, but this just broke my brain. PL just spent several pages ranting about what a horrible person I was, but it seems like he hasn't even been reading this or any other thread on this subject. Mostly he has been writing long tirades about what a horrible person I am because he is blinded by hate and is generally a shitty and argumentative person.

The entire premise of this thread is that a "wish list" is distinct from "purchasing things" or "crafting things" or in any other way using in-character abilities to acquire or attempt to acquire specific items. And that it is also distinct from using player (rather than character) abilities to affect the narrative and place items you want your character to acquire.

Naturally of course, PhoneLobster isn't able to speak two sentences about how he uses wishlists in his own game without talking about direct player agency (not a wishlist) and using in-character markets (also not a wishlist). I should really put this asshole on ignore, his signal to wharrgarbl ratio has fallen terribly low of late.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:The entire premise of this thread is that a "wish list" is distinct from "purchasing things" or "crafting things" or in any other way using in-character abilities to acquire or attempt to acquire specific items. And that it is also distinct from using player (rather than character) abilities to affect the narrative and place items you want your character to acquire.

Actually shadzar and PhoneLobster made me think the thread is really about "only random drops are fun and everything else is badwrongfun." But with your stance I think, I can somewhat agree.

zugschef wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:The entire premise of this thread is that a "wish list" is distinct from "purchasing things" or "crafting things" or in any other way using in-character abilities to acquire or attempt to acquire specific items. And that it is also distinct from using player (rather than character) abilities to affect the narrative and place items you want your character to acquire.

Actually shadzar and PhoneLobster made me think the thread is really about "only random drops are fun and everything else is badwrongfun." But with your stance I think, I can somewhat agree.

shadzar is insane and PhoneLobster is more interested in bashing Frank than making any point whatsoever, so this confusion is understandable.

Fuck that noise. Too much accounting.

My ideal item drop scenario would be to divide items into:

type: Basic shape and function. Probably effects the use of said item, as in the case of magical garments or jewellery, which must be worn, or weapons or tools which must be held.

power: The potency of the effect the item can generate. Minor, moderate or major, probably corresponding to character level. Minor items are below your level, moderate function in your level range and major items surpass your characters normal abilities.

lore or theme: The known capabilities of the item, or general category of effects it generates; legendary dragonslaying weapons, portable Tesla generator, cloak of shadows. Minor items probably do not have impressive lore, but may gain it through play.

Items do not have set functions, though they might have limitations due to theme. A 'Glowing Sword' might be used in combat for a bonus to attack, or used by a priest to blast nearby undead with radiant damage. The 'Glowing Sword' can't be used by a rogue to aid in stealth or grant invisibility (because it glows), but the rogue might still be able to wave it in an opponents face to blind them or something similar. Most of the time, a glowing sword is just a sword, that happens to glow in the dark.

As the character grows in power, the effects that even minor trinkets can generate become more powerful. Perhaps the character has unlocked the items true potential, or maybe they are just using it in new and creative ways.

When it comes to adjudicating effects, excessive use may cause the item to fail for a period of time. Serious abuse may cause the item to lose power or be destroyed; You can smite an unbeatable opponent like Lancelot with the sword from the stone, but you lose the sword. The Genie will grant you a wish, then he disappears. Shit like that.

It may seem complicated, but it would save a lot of space in the DMG. You would need less items drops overall and the player would have to spend less lime accessorising various "plus number" trinkets and more time thinking about how they can exploit the Sacred Codpiece they just pilfered from the tomb of the Pharaoh.

FrankTrollman wrote: 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.

This is just flat-out not true in general. Superhero RPGs, for instance, don't usually have random equipment drops and they do just fine. Even in fantasy RPGs I don't think it's true; I've played in lots of D&D games where we got to pick whatever we want in terms of loot and they were just as fun.

Your argument seems to equate to "playing the lottery is awesome", which is not true for everyone by any means.

FrankTrollman wrote:The entire premise of this thread is that a "wish list" is distinct from "purchasing things" or "crafting things" or in any other way using in-character abilities to acquire or attempt to acquire specific items.

Actually the premise of this thread was Lago was unable to make that distinction in the OP. Once he started calling out piles of irrelevant tripe and damning it as "wishlisting" he set the premise to be "everything crazy about loot and item mechanics Lago brought up". Perhaps if you had read my initial post on the thread or had one ounce of intellectual integrity in you then you might have noted that.

hogarth wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote: 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.

This is just flat-out not true in general. Superhero RPGs, for instance, don't usually have random equipment drops and they do just fine. Even in fantasy RPGs I don't think it's true; I've played in lots of D&D games where we got to pick whatever we want in terms of loot and they were just as fun.

Your argument seems to equate to "playing the lottery is awesome", which is not true for everyone by any means.

I really have what you think the quote you were quoting said, because you don't seem to be responding to it. Here, let me quote it again for you:

FrankTrollman wrote: 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.

Do you see any reference to "random" items? Even any reference to acquired item upgrades? No. Because I didn't fucking say that.

In a superhero game, there are "trash" items everywhere. So many that you don't even bother picking them up, because as Doctor Galacticon, your Star Staff is better than anything you are capable of finding. Nevertheless, you can, and sometimes do, pick up cars and throw them at people or grab a thug's pistol and beat them with it. There are totally items all over the fucking place, and you discard them constantly because carrying them around gets you literally nothing. Your Star Staff is better than anything you could ever find or buy, and picking up all the flak jackets and machine pistols that the thugs came in with will not in any way allow you to get something better than the Star Staff or to upgrade the Star Staff you already have.

Superhero games not only posit ubiquitous vendor trash, they posit that vendor trash is literally every item you ever find, so you don't even need to scan the items on the ground after every fight. The fact that you're going to discard all the drops because they are all trash drops is assumed.

-Username17

Drolyt wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:If magic items are rare, it strains believability that you can get specifically the ones you want.

It is expected for protagonists to have rare magical artifacts

It might not hurt to point out that when you look at pre-gen characters in older edition adventures, one can't help but notice the amazingly shit gear (e.g. Mordenkainen and friends only having 3 to 6 items plus possibly scrolls and potions). So part of this may be a generational thing, in that easy access to gear doesn't seem "murderhobo" enough to people that played in the last millennium. You'll take your +2 Piece of Broken Rebar and you'll like it (because that's the best that you're going to get).

FrankTrollman wrote:I really have what you think the quote you were quoting said, because you don't seem to be responding to it. Here, let me quote it again for you:

FrankTrollman wrote: 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.

Do you see any reference to "random" items? Even any reference to acquired item upgrades? No. Because I didn't fucking say that.

In a superhero game, there are "trash" items everywhere. So many that you don't even bother picking them up, because as Doctor Galacticon, your Star Staff is better than anything you are capable of finding.

I think I see your confusion:

hogarth wrote: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.

You said this is "wrong". But it looks like we in fact agree: if something is trash, the PCs shouldn't be picking it up in the first place. Selling items or getting into a cycle of continually ditching +N swords for +(N+1) swords is stupid.

PhoneLobster wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:The entire premise of this thread is that a "wish list" is distinct from "purchasing things" or "crafting things" or in any other way using in-character abilities to acquire or attempt to acquire specific items.

Actually the premise of this thread was Lago was unable to make that distinction in the OP. Once he started calling out piles of irrelevant tripe and damning it as "wishlisting" he set the premise to be "everything crazy about loot and item mechanics Lago brought up". Perhaps if you had read my initial post on the thread or had one ounce of intellectual integrity in you then you might have noted that.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Wishlists are supposed to be implemented by the GM rather than initiated by in-game actions. There's the explicit assumption that even if you weren't actively questing specifically for an Executioner's Axe of Lords, if it wouldn't be overpowered for you to own then acquiring one should happen in the course of normal adventuring without you specifically declaring that you're looking for said.

Buying or crafting shit is trivially, obviously "initiated by in-game actions". So much for your cries for intellectual integrity.

Items and treasure drop systems have several conflicting goals:

1. They should allow the player who wants to "big hammer guy" or "shield guy" or "bow guy" or "full plate guy" to pull their weight while playing a character who uses such a weapon most (but not all) of the time.
2. They should provide the MC a way to motivate the PCs. Depending on character abilities and game world economics this may or may not be at odds with the first one. If the system allows PCs to get large bonuses for triple-specializing in magic hammers, then that PC is not going to be motivated by any non-hammer weapon drops unless they can be traded for better hammers. Alternately if the system lets a PC take "has Mijolnir" as a class ability, then that PC is not going to be motivated by any weapon drops ever.
3. They should encourage the players to discover creative item use and consider items they hadn't originally. This is great when it works and players realize that Fig of Ponderous Wonder is way cooler and opens more tactical possibilities than increasing their +N to +N+1. However, depending on how the system handles the scaling math it can run right into #1. Playing 2e or 3.0, a fighter type runs into a bunch of opposition which has "your N must be at least this tall to fight". Playing 4e, the math "just works" so fucking hard around the lengthy fights and assumption that only HP damage matters that you will really notice being -1 behind on any of your +Ns and any non-optimized build is going to feel crippled at -3 or more behind the RNG assumptions. So in these cases you need to be able to use the weapon with the highest +N you've found in any drops yet and any of the weapon-specific abilities (Specialization, etc) become chargen traps.
4. They should keep the accounting small and simple enough to handle in tabletop P&P.This is one of the big two reasons you can't use Torchlight-like random drops with campus bookstore trade-in values the way 4e tried to. When you have to sell a dozen +N swords to buy a +N mace or 5 dozen to buy any sort of +N+1 weapon, tabletop players are going to Greyhawk everything and remind you that this game does not have a finite inventory grid.

In the prior go-rounds, Frank and Lago argued extensively that goal#1 was stupid and should be dropped. While that does make it a lot easier to reconcile the other goals into a coherent system, it really doesn't fit with large chunks of the source material for D&D: Legolas does occasionally have to fight without his bow and arrow for various reasons, but he never switches out to a sling nor a returning javelin nor an arquebus. Fafhrd and the Mouser explicitly lose their swords then name their new swords the exact same things -- but they never switch to using polearms.

hogarth wrote:

hogarth wrote: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.

You said this is "wrong". But it looks like we in fact agree: if something is trash, the PCs shouldn't be picking it up in the first place. Selling items or getting into a cycle of continually ditching +N swords for +(N+1) swords is stupid.

I contend that not picking up an item is a form of discarding said item, so I cannot agree that we agree.

Josh wrote:Items and treasure drop systems have several conflicting goals

It's worse than that. An item system is supposed to:

• Make items feel powerful and have high impact
  but
• Allow players to function without items.
• Allow getting an item to feel special and unexpected
  but
• Give the players the items that they want.
• Make finding a powerful item be a rare and valuable event that gives concrete advantage
  but
• make sure that players are balanced no matter what items show up.

Obviously, all of those are simply sliding scales, where the endpoints are wholly incompatible - but equally claimed as positive achievements by a majority of the fan base.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:[*] Make finding a powerful item be a rare and valuable event that gives concrete advantage
but
[*] make sure that players are balanced no matter what items show up.

When one player gets an artifact, the other players level up. Also, somehow make having an artifact always be roughly equal to being one level higher.

Problem Solved.

Foxwarrior wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:[*] Make finding a powerful item be a rare and valuable event that gives concrete advantage
but
[*] make sure that players are balanced no matter what items show up.

When one player gets an artifact, the other players level up. Also, somehow make having an artifact always be roughly equal to being one level higher.

Problem Solved.

If getting an artifact was equivalent to gaining a level, but wasn't the level you expected and planned to acquire, it would be a disadvantage plain and simple. That would be neither balanced nor a thing that provided concrete advantage.

-Username17

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

AD&D and swap out things rolled for or add to them plot specific items. remove any items that dont exist in the world being played from those rolled and replace them with things that do fit.

zugschef wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:The entire premise of this thread is that a "wish list" is distinct from "purchasing things" or "crafting things" or in any other way using in-character abilities to acquire or attempt to acquire specific items. And that it is also distinct from using player (rather than character) abilities to affect the narrative and place items you want your character to acquire.

Actually shadzar and PhoneLobster made me think the thread is really about "only random drops are fun and everything else is badwrongfun." But with your stance I think, I can somewhat agree.

i used random only in response after the post of yours on page 3, not before then. YOU were the one talking about random. this is only the second post in this thread i have even mentioned the word "random". so learn to read better. EVERYONE else was talking random this or random that. NOT me.

FrankTrollman wrote:I contend that not picking up an item is a form of discarding said item, so I cannot agree that we agree.

I consider not agreeing to be a form of agreeing, so we are back in agreement. Stamp stamp, no erasies.

There are certain items that don't make characters any more powerful, but are still highly valued. Bag of Holding springs to mind. Outside of numerical bonuses, there are ways an item can be valuable without directly throwing someone off the RNG.

For example, a sword that always lets you act first in combat would be very valuable - but in a cyclical round structure it doesn't let you act any more often. The concept of a 'magic sword' that can hit ghosts can be valuable even if it confers no other bonus.

I think divorcing level-appropriate damage from classes and trying to shoehorn them into items creates problems (needing items to 'keep up'). Having items that increase the breadth of a character's abilities without directly increasing the numbers has a place.