Arguments in favor of magic item wishlists.

[shadzar]

they have a bunch of javelin abilities

AND here we go.....

Fuchs wanting his magical rapier because he wants to play Elan from OotS instead of wanting to play D&D, and the problems begin.

I can only see from this shit the game of Monopoly as played by children.

Bob: I get the racecar
Fred: You had the racecar last time, this time its my turn and you get the thimble!
Sarah: I want the thimble.
Fred: Bob, you get the shoe.
Bob: Nobody wants to be the shoe. I'm not playing if i have to be that!

Did the children forget they were there to play Monopoly (D&D) and instead whining so much about which playing piece (character) they wanted to play most, and cannot play at all without being that specific game token?

[Wiseman]

i have no idea even where this concept comes form except from small children at the store whining to their parents. "Daddy buy me this, Mommy buy me that."

are people really playing D&D in order to collect magic items? are they trying to prove something to their peers through their characters acquisition of some tinsel and garland?

how many people really are such dumbFuchs that think D&D is a game of scavenger hunt? how many popular stories are about someone seeking out ITEM X as the character goal?

Hobbit: oh i found something in the dirt i will just handle steal it and put it away later.
LotR: Bilbo found a ring that msut be destroyed!

they didnt go searching for it. Other people did, but not Thorin and Company, not Bilbo, not Frodo.

the ONLY story where someone goes searching for something specific is pretty much Indiana Jones. This includes Warehouse 13, The Librarian, etc, but it is all a bunch of archeologists. Remember that degree Gary had.. in archeology? yet he didn't include item wishlists in the game?

If you are playing the game to make your pet character concept, you have the WRONG idea about what D&D is. it is as simple as that. see the thread i made on this VERY subject.

in the "druthers thread" i was talking about how not everyone could get their hands on BECMI, and i am not likely to jsut hand out my only copy of the books to anyone and everyone. their pages are still clean and white without dogears... i would like to keep them that way. and it isnt like there is much the player shet offers or the players need anyway except the basics of how to paly. i remember agian the example of the GAmesday that i was in for 3rd, where someone stared at the charactr sheet and was confused and as i relate this story yet again.. i simply told them to turn it over and asked what was on it. nothing because the back of the pregens were blank. then i asked him what would he do if he was there. he had TONS of ideas. i told him to turn the sheet over and look to see if he had anything to use that worked with those ideaqs, and a D&D player was born. THIS is how you learn to play, but learning what the game is about. you taking an adventure through the eyes of your character, and you need little to NO rules in order to do that. the player doesn't ahve to interact with them in order to play, so long as someone can make those rules work.

"The secret we must not let them know is they don't need to buy books from us in order to play D&D." ~ Gary Gygax

i have played and DMed both in games where you had that little info, as the 3.x games i played. i was able to play without knowing the rules and left memories in everyone who played and inspired them. i KNOW what D&D is about and understand it. it isnt those klunky fiddly bits, nor collecting magic items to play dress-up with your character like a video game where you tint your armor with inks and dyes.

the implication of wishlists drives a different style of play. again the thread i made about "D&D is dead" explains this. while it CAN enhance play IF you care about that, you see the WBL christmas tree effect going on in 3.x and it has been mentioned here quite often. people jsut want to acquire more shit to promote their character to a new level and amount of "shiny". leave it out and dont even suggest it to the players as you give them and inch and they will fuck it up for 100 fathoms!

i wouldnt play in one of your games, and your reading comprehension is as bad as twosucks'. for that is in no way what i said.

i actually hate kids. i wouldn't run it for or play with them, nor play with anyone who had them to be in the way of the game. you clearly love to draw your own conclusions rather than read or fail at reading to come to such asinine assumptions.

Another wall of text. (also how does this guy come out with such walls of text? I mean seriously, a single one of his posts often takes up my entire screen!)
Back on subject.
Except you're completely wrong. D&D is a system, nothing more. There's no right way to play and just because more power is in the hands of the players doesn't mean it's bad. If you want to play item quest, all power to you. It doesn't fucking matter.

EDIT: Ninja'd... by the guy i was replying to no less.

[Lago PARANOIA]

One, people don't get upset that they got a specific sword rather than a specific javelin, but rather that they have a bunch of javelin abilities, and the sword is useless.

I disagree with this. I disagree with this strongly. There have been people on these very boards who have complained bitterly about getting axes or scythes when they wanted swords. Not because of the mechanical bonuses or penalties, but because they have a mental image of their character formed and giving them something different violates the image.

'Cool weapon of appropriate type that keeps up with the math' is far more likely to be on a standard wishlist than specifically Excalibur, or Fragarach, Blackrazor or whatever.

This I also disagree with. Even if Tensaiga (non-cutty sword that revives recently slain people) and the Darth Vader Saber (super-cutty sword that deflects projectiles) are mechanically equal, people are going to prefer one or the other. This goes across the board for D&D equipment. Paladins will want Holy Avengers super hardcore. Some rogues will want Nunchakus of Destruction (to give them an edge against monsters canonically immune to sneak attack) and some will want Blade of Many Venoms (as a double-or-nothing on creatures already weak to sneak attack). So on and so forth.

[Drolyt]

One, people don't get upset that they got a specific sword rather than a specific javelin, but rather that they have a bunch of javelin abilities, and the sword is useless.

I disagree with this. I disagree with this strongly. There have been people on these very boards who have complained bitterly about getting axes or scythes when they wanted swords. Not because of the mechanical bonuses or penalties, but because they have a mental image of their character formed and giving them something different violates the image.

Both of these are valid reasons to want a wishlist system. On the one hand, it is extremely problematic if items are a signficant part of your characters power but you have no guarantee you will get items that work for your character. On the other, it is just as bad (worse in my opinion) if your character concept relies on a specific item or class of items and there is not way to guarantee you get that item.

Here's the thing, wishlist solves these problems. If the only options are having a wishlist or letting those problems stand I think wishlist is infinitely preferable, but there are other options, so lets discuss some of them:

Magic Item Shops: Lots of problems with this approach, but personally I think the worst is the setting implications. Excalibur doesn't feel very special if you can buy one at Walmart.

Item Crafting: One of the best solutions I think, everyone gets to craft their own custom items of legend.

Quests: Going on a quest to find an artifact of legend or the one super-smith who can upgrade your sword is much cooler than finding random objects lying around in a dungeon. This is a good solution generally but it breaks down in a game like D&D where everyone is expected to have a ton of items they replace regularly.

Character Option: There is no reason the character couldn't start out with an ancestral sword or something. The main problem is adjudicating this, what happens if the weapon breaks or is stolen? What if this option is taken after character creation, should the MC set up a quest to obtain the item or does it just pop up out of nowhere?

Reduce item reliance: This is somewhat orthogonal to the other options, but a lot of the problems with items in D&D-style games is the requirement that characters have a whole set of them in order to face level appropriate challenges.

[tussock]

Right. In favour of wishlists.

4e is a game where your fighter needs a specific type of sword of a specific magical flavour at a specific bonus to match all his feat and power choices and still be allowed to hit monsters. That's slightly less bad in 3e and 2nd, in that you only need a specific weapon type out of dozens of choices and will probably hit even if you don't get one (in 3e you can get your basic one enchanted, and in 2nd the game throws a lot of random crap at you so chances are pretty good anyway).

But 4e provides no useful mechanic for making sure characters get the tools the game assumes they need to function. At all. The GM is assumed to know what you're thinking or something. So a wishlist in 4e solves that specific problem.

It's just an objectively worse way than having your magic items be a standard class feature that appear (get forged, unlocked, whatever) when you level up. In that it still doesn't guarantee you what the game says you need, and doesn't make any in-game sense at all (which is a general problem with 4e).


In essence, if you're stuck with arbitrary treasure parcels and specific item dependency from those parcels, it's a functional patch to give players some input there. Even though both of those things are bad for the game and the patch makes them worse.

[PhoneLobster]

There have been people on these very boards who have complained bitterly about getting axes or scythes when they wanted swords. Not because of the mechanical bonuses or penalties, but because they have a mental image of their character formed and giving them something different violates the image....Even if Tensaiga (non-cutty sword that revives recently slain people) and the Darth Vader Saber (super-cutty sword that deflects projectiles) are mechanically equal, people are going to prefer one or the other.

I'm unclear.

You acknowledge that there ARE people who will want items for clear and valid mechanical reasons.

You acknowledge that there ARE people who will want items for thematic or personal preference reasons.

Then you use the existence of the second group as an excuse to complain about the need to accommodate EITHER group?

WTF?

Players of both types exist. Both are good reasons to provide some sort of player agency in item selection. A normal games designer looks at groups of players like that and says "these people are there, I want to make them happy, how can my mechanics accommodate them"

You however say "These various groups of people exist! Holy fuck I'm wetting my pants at this strange and terrifying revelation, I hate them, no one must attempt to please ANY of them in any way!"

Really everything you have said on this basically reads "Players asking for stuff is bad wrong fun!".

[Voss]

There have been people on these very boards who have complained bitterly about getting axes or scythes when they wanted swords. Not because of the mechanical bonuses or penalties, but because they have a mental image of their character formed and giving them something different violates the image....Even if Tensaiga (non-cutty sword that revives recently slain people) and the Darth Vader Saber (super-cutty sword that deflects projectiles) are mechanically equal, people are going to prefer one or the other.

I'm unclear.

I'm with you. Apparently you can't have nice things for mechanical or personal personal preference reasons, so having a preference at all and letting the GM know is... somehow bad. I'm not sure what is missing from this equation, but something sure the hell is.

[Koumei]

Really everything you have said on this basically reads "Players asking for stuff is bad wrong fun!".

Well there we go, Lago and shadzar can play with each other!

[Username17]

Apparently you can't have nice things for mechanical or personal personal preference reasons, so having a preference at all and letting the GM know is... somehow bad. I'm not sure what is missing from this equation, but something sure the hell is.

I don't know why you're even confused.

A character may "need" a specific item. That "need" may be personal preference ("I need a Doom Glaive because I want my character to have a Doom Glaive"), or game mechanical function ("I need a Doom Glaive because this is 4th edition and otherwise my character can't function"). Now, obviously some of these "needs" are stronger than others, and the degree of imperative to cater to these needs varies. Indeed, even fairly strong needs don't necessarily require the other people at the table to fulfill them: you can need to make a saving throw, but the game would still be worse if the actual roll was abrogated.

Now within the context of needing an object, there are a number of ways that the item could become available, which do various amounts of damage to the narrative to implement. If the needed object is purchasable, it means that there has to be some sort of item economy, and those are hard to get working. If the needed object is craftable, the item is not unique. If the needed object is questable, then it requires the other players to agree to go on your personal upgrade quest. These are all things that can be handled, but they are things you have to deal with.

But the wishlist is probably the most damaging of all. You're telling the DM what item you need, and asking them out of character to have it drop during the course of the adventure. That basically requires you to come up with an item economy (so players can "buy" these itesm onto their wishlists), and the items lose their luster at least as much as crafted items because they have already come from catalogs before they are even found. And you have to get the other players to agree to your personal upgrade event. It's basically the worst possible setup. I can see no possible justification for it.

-Username17

[Drolyt]

If the needed object is craftable, the item is not unique.

Not necessarily. It should be possible to have a crafting system where the items that come out are suitably unique and where you can't just create a bunch of copies with sufficient time.

[Fuchs]

Players asking for stuff is a good thing. If the player is happy if he gets a cool sword and unhappy if he gets a mechanically equal axe, then the GM should know this and give him a sword. Taken to extremes - Ultra specific stuff, detailed description - it's of course not so good anymore since it can feel stifling, but generally, communication about game expectations is good.

[PhoneLobster]

..."need"... the wishlist is probably the most damaging of all.

So anyway Frank puts together a post that rambles a bunch of bullshit but basically puts together an argument that goes.

"Not everything players want is a good thing".

Lets take that and run with it in the direction of I dunno, sanity, instead of where Frank keeps going these days.

Having SOME sort of means by which players can exercise some selection or at least influence over the items their characters get is a goal that SOME players will want, SOME players will not care about and SOME players will actively NOT want.

Lets do a quick run through of who is who so we can have some idea just how insane the "Players asking for stuff is bad!" crowd is even in relation to a "Can only satisfy some of the people some of the time!" argument.

Players Who Know What They Need
Some players have a pretty clear idea of what loot they need to function at whatever level and with whatever character build. This can vary by system, but frankly even outside of 4E... D&D characters DO have gear dependencies and requirements to bypass various tiered DRs and bullshit. There are players who ASK for these requirements to be fulfilled. This has been declared bad and this group is DISSATISFIED with the Frank/Lago "No Asking For Things!" strategy.

Players Who Like Swords and Dislike Axes
There is a large group of players who just want certain things more than certain other things because "I like Turtles!". That's actually entirely reasonable and taking away their choice to be a sword dude rather than an axe dude is in many respects exactly the same as taking away their choice to be a warrior rather than a wizard. This group will be DISSATISFIED with the "No Asking For Things!" strategy.

Players who didn't know they wanted a Holy Avenger until you wasted 2 hours of their life spread over 4 weeks wanking on about how rare and awesome they were in game
Every time you tell a player how fucking rare and awesome an item is you are using up game time. And you are using it to invest value in that item. Value that instills a desire by the players to HAVE that item (or to kick your teeth in, depends on how GOOD you are at wanking on about this and how well it eventually pays off). D&D is both a game AND a story. Both story telling conventions AND the demands of rewarding game play pretty much REQUIRE that the more you spend time insisting something is special the greater the certainty needs to be that at some point they get to have it. This group is DISSATISFIED with the "No Asking For Things!" strategy. Indeed, they will get really fucking pissed when you go on and on about it and then snatch it away from them and never deliver.

Players Who Just Want Stuff that is good enough
There are players who just want their shit to be appropriately powerful and useful. They don't care what it is. They CAN be accommodated within a system that lets players ask for and receive stuff somehow, as long as there is still a random/arbitrary loot giving mechanic by default or even just in large part, AND they still interact happily with the non-random asking for stuff too. Meanwhile, all in all they SHOULD be happy under a basic and sane version of "No Asking For Things!" strategy, BUT Lago in the OP went out of his way to label this group as "Wish Listers" who would and should not be accommodated for, since "Asking For Anything That Is Level Appropriate" is still "Asking For Something" and asking for something is... bad...? So also DISSATISFIED

Players who do not give a shit WHAT they get
Some players won't care if they get flaming holy avengers OR wooden spoons of self impalement. Again, they will play fine within an "ask for stuff" option as long as they can just... not opt to ask for stuff. They CAN function in Lago's "No Asking For Things!" set up, since they AREN'T even asking for level appropriate options, but they don't NEED to so while they get a Satisfied they get it in italics because they are actually fine with people asking for stuff.

Players who demand they ONLY get truly random shit
There are, some, minority of insane players who genuinely think that the holy avenger isn't special unless the ONLY they can get it is a 0.001% chance rolling on the"everything else is wooden spoons of self impalement" table. They are happy with Lago's no asking for things set up. But again only get a Satisfied in italics since they actually still can function in a wish listy scenario as long as they get a random table to roll on as an option.

Players who demand players who want to ask for stuff CAN'T
There are players who only think THEIR items are special if they are both truly random AND other players can't ask for ANYTHING by any means and also only get truly random shit. I have things to say about this mix up of Elensar's who think they are the only ones who will always win the lottery and Shadzars who just hate people having fun. But the important thing about this group is they REQUIRE that there be "No Asking For Stuff!" and are definitively the ONLY group that is both Satisfied by Lago's "No Asking For Stuff!" strategy as he lays it out, AND who will NOT be satisified by any other remotely sane alternative that has very successfully been used forever in any sane version of D&D ever, be it silly wish lists, some sort of remotely functional wealth by level attempt, some sort of item crafting or quest aquisition or, just fucking asking for stuff.



... So yeah. That's what the "We can only satisfy SOME gamers! Let's identify the ones we SHOULD be satisfying!" comes out on with the dread "asking for stuff" crowd being... the ones we DO want to satisfy.

There are a lot of them, they have different reasons for wanting what they want, but they want the SAME thing. What they want is however compatible with most other groups wants, even if you want to actually cater for the "well I don't personally want to ask for things" crowd at all.

Because, I'm going to point out that once you've dealt with "Players who like Swords", "Players who know what they need" and "Players who just want stuff that is good enough" you have basically dealt with the VAST majority of your players and odds are good that almost every other group on my list combined is smaller than any ONE of those three groups. With the possible exception of the "Gets pissed if Checkovs Gun keeps firing blank" group, which might just be the biggest dark horse in the entire race.

And the ONLY group that has interests counter to the "lets ask for stuff!" crowd is the "Fuck You Guys For Having Fun!" assholes.

A group of failed wanna be elitists made out of Elensar and Shadzar Frankenstinien monstrosities that Lago and Frank seem VERY keen on satisfying in a variety of ways and threads for no apparent reason, and once again, at the cost of satisfying everybody fucking else.

Some goals are at the expense of, and better than, others. But when you start with "Asking For Things In A Fun Game Is Clearly Bad because... just because..." maybe, JUST MAYBE, you are on the wrong side of that argument.

By about a BILLION MILES.

[shadzar]

I'm with you. Apparently you can't have nice things for mechanical or personal personal preference reasons, so having a preference at all and letting the GM know is... somehow bad. I'm not sure what is missing from this equation, but something sure the hell is.

When you sit down to play D&D, do you come to play D&D, or your own personal Drizzt-clone?

did you come to play the game, or a specific character?

[Username17]

I'm with you. Apparently you can't have nice things for mechanical or personal personal preference reasons, so having a preference at all and letting the GM know is... somehow bad. I'm not sure what is missing from this equation, but something sure the hell is.

When you sit down to play D&D, do you come to play D&D, or your own personal Drizzt-clone?

did you come to play the game, or a specific character?

Save the date Voss. July 2nd, 2013, you just got owned hard by Shadzar.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

When you sit down to play D&D, do you come to play D&D, or your own personal Drizzt-clone?

did you come to play the game, or a specific character?

Save the date Voss. July 2nd, 2013, you just got owned hard by Shadzar.

-Username17

I disagree. His question is just him perpetuating his arbitrary and senseless belief that playing your character is not playing D&D. Even though that makes no sense, and playing your character is exactly how you play D&D.

You might as well ask if you came to play a chess match or if you came to play one side of the board in a chess match.

[Username17]

I disagree. His question is just him perpetuating his arbitrary and senseless belief that playing your character is not playing D&D. Even though that makes no sense, and playing your character is exactly how you play D&D.

You might as well ask if you came to play a chess match or if you came to play one side of the board in a chess match.

I'm sure that if you scratch off enough levels of paint, you'll eventually get to the part where Shadzar is crazy and lurves 2nd edition AD&D. Because he's crazy and lurves 2nd edition AD&D. Nevertheless, if you can't understand why being surprised by treasure you find is fun, then possibly D&D is not the game for you. Because finding unexpected treasure is fun and it's a core experience of D&D.

There is fun to be had in having a magic sword, and there is fun to be had in discovering a magic sword. An item that is bought, crafted, quested for, or wish listed can deliver the fun of having it, but it will never deliver the fun of being discovered, because it was requested by name before it appeared.

And Shadzar did manage to cut to that very important point in just two lines of text. The crazy doesn't come out until he elaborates on things with TL;DR tirades about kids these days.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

Usually when I come to play D&D, I come to play a specific character. Made for that campaign. I do not think I am the only one who normally plays like that.

[Kaelik]

I'm sure that if you scratch off enough levels of paint, you'll eventually get to the part where Shadzar is crazy and lurves 2nd edition AD&D. Because he's crazy and lurves 2nd edition AD&D. Nevertheless, if you can't understand why being surprised by treasure you find is fun, then possibly D&D is not the game for you. Because finding unexpected treasure is fun and it's a core experience of D&D.

There is fun to be had in having a magic sword, and there is fun to be had in discovering a magic sword. An item that is bought, crafted, quested for, or wish listed can deliver the fun of having it, but it will never deliver the fun of being discovered, because it was requested by name before it appeared.

And Shadzar did manage to cut to that very important point in just two lines of text. The crazy doesn't come out until he elaborates on things with TL;DR tirades about kids these days.

-Username17

I don't disagree with you about magic items and wish lists, but I disagree that shadazars two lines of text actually convey that principle. Instead, it sounds a lot more like I have to scratch off zero coats of paint to shadazar crazy 2e love, and you have to put on a coat to hide the crazy. Because the actual question was, do you play your character or do you play D&D, and the answer is, both of course, because it is impossible to play D&D without playing a character.

[PhoneLobster]

Nevertheless, if you can't understand why being surprised by treasure you find is fun, then possibly D&D is not the game for you. Because finding unexpected treasure is fun and it's a core experience of D&D.

And remember kids. As a core belief in their insanity on the "no asking for things ever" Lago and Frank contend that if you ever ask for a magic axe you can never ALSO find a magic sword.

Because. Stuff. And Things. And don't you dare even LET your players ask for bad wrong fun or Frank and Lago will lose their random sword finding hard ons even if they DO still find random swords!

[zugschef]

Can't you also have fun in obtaining something for which you've waited or worked for for a long time? I mean random treasure which isn't just vendor trash is great, but why can't it be great to work towards a specific goal, in this case a specific item?

[Koumei]

Finding random crap is all very well and good, but might I point out that in D&D, the existence of that random crap can actually make you worse off? Because you theoretically may only have a certain amount of shit (apparently in AD&D this was not the case and you could just grind until you got a "good" random drop). So every set of chimes of sickness you find could have instead been the cockring of keeping your armour class level-appropriate, so arguably those chimes are actually subtracting from your AC (or whatever) just by existing. In games where you have that wealth by level expectation, it is in your best interest to throw interesting things away.

Note that this is something AD&D at least got right, because as long as you weren't killing your brain by playing a module, you could just go genocide the satyrs until the random table finally gave you "a weapon against which the monsters we're supposed to be fighting aren't literally immune", without sirens going off to warn people that you're exceeding your wealth allotment.

But in games that are not called D&D, finding random stuff is totally awesome. It's a free new cool thing, you get to figure out what it does, and there has not been any expectation (by the game itself) that you actually had something else instead.

So while you call it an important part of D&D, that's actually the worst game to have random treasure. If anything, D&D should just do the Exalted "Here, put some points in Owning Awesome Gear instead of Has A House", and White Wolf games, the 40k games, Shadowrun and your mum should all have random assortments of stuff for players to be puzzled by.

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".

[Voss]

Apparently you can't have nice things for mechanical or personal personal preference reasons, so having a preference at all and letting the GM know is... somehow bad. I'm not sure what is missing from this equation, but something sure the hell is.

I don't know why you're even confused.

Because 'need' and 'want' aren't the synonyms that you and Lago apparently think they are. It is a wishlist, not a list of terrorist demands.

Nor does the existence of a short list preclude random treasure. It isn't like you get X items forever, and the two concepts are mutually exclusive ideas.

Save the date Voss. July 2nd, 2013, you just got owned hard by Shadzar.

Because, again, playing the game and playing a specific character are mutually exclusive? At what point are you not playing D&D while playing Frank's character? You certainly aren't showing up to play shadzar's character.

There is fun to be had in having a magic sword, and there is fun to be had in discovering a magic sword. An item that is bought, crafted, quested for, or wish listed can deliver the fun of having it, but it will never deliver the fun of being discovered, because it was requested by name before it appeared.

And of course no one will ever discover any magic items in addition to buying, crafting or questing for others. Because...?

[Ancient History]

I think there should be a caveat here: in D&D3.+ and D&D4, your character really does need certain plus-gear to keep up as a level appropriate threat. You can be a Level 20 fighter and if you only have a +1 sword, the baatezu with damage reduction +3/- is not going to be fucking impressed. When looked at from this perspective, classes like Soulknife and the various Incarnum-classes make a lot of sense because magic item bonuses are basically built in to the class.

(Note: Once did a campaign where everybody was a soulknife/Incarnum doubleclass, man that was crazy.)

[PhoneLobster]

I think there should be a caveat here: in D&D3.+ and D&D4, your character really does need certain plus-gear to keep up as a level appropriate threat. You can be a Level 20 fighter and if you only have a +1 sword, the baatezu with damage reduction +3/- is not going to be fucking impressed.

An important Caveat but... not precisely how you think it is.

Because for instance, 2E which certain folks inexplicable wank to still had needed gear requirements. Without a system for guaranteed delivery. In fact... it was notorious for its failings in that regard. There was a REASON 3E went with crafting and magic shops and WBL and bullshit. And there was a REASON that was widely hailed by every sane fucker as a step forward.

Because 2E loot drops were a failed system. And worse as gear became more diverse, complex and interesting it's failings were worse.

These days as a game designer, especially with a D&D style game. You have to decide how to make gear interesting.

I'm inclined to make gear fucking do stuff players care the fuck about as my method of making gear interesting. The more I do this, the more I have to have options for player agency to influence their gear selection, if and indeed WHEN arbitrary and random drops are insufficient or unsatisfactory.

Frank and Lago have the strategy of making their gear "special" by making it uncontrollabl, and random. They then sacrifice on that alter all gear dependent class abilities, weapon specializations, gear/ability synergies, they consider removing all fucking bonuses/abilities from gear outright. Ultimately, basically, in order to accommodate that method of "special" they need to basically make the actual items themselves boring, interchangeable and uninteresting.

Essentially they are (literally) repeating the strategies used by the infamously terrible "low magic" GMs to make that one inadequate +1 Dagger that arrives well behind the curve seem special and exciting, not because it actually does anything interesting or even adequate in itself. But because they just make it a hard random grind to get it. It did NOT work for them, it is rather well KNOWN it did not work for them. It also did not work for a lot of computer games that tried the same, Diablo 3 (compared to the much better Torch Light 2) being a particularly notable example.

So pick which type of specialness in gear you want. Gear which does shit and which you can pick cool options for. Or gear which is generic, unimportant but totally fucking random!

Because THAT is the caveat here. You want gear to be important? You have to have some sort of "players can get stuff they need/want" release valve. You don't have that valve? Then gear cannot be important. And that fucking sucks.

[Ancient History]

Well, an addendum on that: AD&D was a failed system in part because it strongly pushed/supported a random encounter/loot drop system to support a style of off-the-cuff play which was rather mathematically intensive /and/ unintuitive. That same system has gone on to be the backbone of computer-based gaming because computers can handle all the math automatically, but it also gives rise to waiting in spawn area X and killing Y critters because they have a 1.5% drop rate for Living Essence or something.

I think Frank and Lago have a point that there is a certain pleasure in a surprise, and in getting a mysterious item that you don't automatically know all the powers of and finding out what it can do. I also think that mechanically, some games are set up so that a certain amount of magic items is standard for characters at a certain level, or at least necessary if they are to address threats at certain levels.

So what is the solution? Well, just for starters there are always placed items - things that Mr. Cavern decides to include in their campaign, and which are tailored for that campaign and the characters in that campaign. Then there are, as you noted, item creation systems - which AD&D experimented with and D&D3.+ mainlined a bit to excess - and magic shops, which have the advantage of allowing characters to pursue their own interests and try to buy or create the items that they feel are suited to their character. The MC can influence this to a degree, by deciding which items are available (or which resources are available to make certain items).

So where does all that leave wishlists? Well, it depends (the very favorite phrase of any engineer). There is something slightly petulant about a player saying at the start of the game "I want a magic fire sword." There is something slightly less petulant about stating "My character is going to be a magic sworder, and one of my main goals in this game is to get a magic sword. Preferrably one that is on fire." The former is a bit of a whine and a beg, the latter is a statement of intent and a laudable character goal. Mister Cavern can work with either, taking that as a bit of a cue for a placed magic item, a reward for a story quest or sub-quest, to have a Magic Sword Shop in the town, etc.

But, that's the sort of generic wish that suggests the item is an accessory more than a needed item. If your character need the stat bonus from a magic item to continue to compete, that suggests that the campaign has a larger number of magic items in it, and the MC should probably take a cue from Final Fantasy or ChronoTrigger and have means available for the characters to upgrade their equipment as necessary as they go along. That's sort of assumed in D&D, but again that's an assumption based on the idea that you are fighting bigger and bigger monsters who are dropping better and better equipment, and you are trading up all the time - which is not always the case, especially if you're using random drops. So in that scenario, a wishlist is more like advanced character planning, trying to see what equipment you need by certain levels, and again the difficulty is how the characters obtain that equipment - either as an abstraction ("You go up a level. In town, you trade in most of your gold and equipment for newer, shinier equipment. Your new sword's command word is 'Fwoosh'") or as placed items, or for extra granularity you just put the shops/materials available for the character to buy or make their own. (But then you get into item-making as a mini-game, which is less fun on tabletop in general.)