What people want and what makes them happy rarely coincide.

[Chamomile]

Tussock, read the thread, at least a little bit, before you make accusations. No one has argued for never, ever using anything but your signature weapon. All that's been argued is that you shouldn't have to switch out your sword for an axe for no other reason than a randomly determined loot table turning up an axe with more pluses.

[talozin]

However, I should point out that even the Fire Mage is more versatile than the warriors being argued for who "just hit things with an ax". After all, the Fire Mage also hits things with a fucking ax.

This seems like a better argument that warriors should have more versatility than "just hit things with an X", where X can be any type of weapon, than an argument against characters whose schtick is "do things with an N", where N is one and only one specific type of (or indeed, one specific individual) weapon.

To hark back to the example of the Marksman: his signature weapon (and usually only weapon, unless you count martial arts) is his sonic rifle. But he can do a whole bunch of shit with it aside from "shoot someone."

[crasskris]

Uh no. The magic missile is a particular weapon in the wizard's spellbook. Just as a short sword is a particular weapon in the character's belt.

-Username17

For what kind of hypothetical rpg is that an argument?

Assuming we're talking about the baseline of vanilla D&D 3e, the spells of the wizards are his powers, and the powers of the fighter are hitting things with sticks and those shit-ass excuses for feats WotC gave us. The sticks can be categorized in efficiency, true, but aside from that there is mechanically nothing that stops you from obsessively prefering the longsword over battleaxe or warhammer.
Well, implicitly there is: We all know that the success of the fighter hinges on the mc realizing Mr McStickuser needs his artifact stick, and the stick might be random rolled and turn out a halberd. But that is just bad design.

Now, if we turn to a fighter class that can compete with the wizards in the powers department, like, say, the Tome Fighter, we look at a completely different beast.
I might be wrong, but I suppose I could make a Tome Fighter with an obsession for killing with a fork and spoon and only take a minor dent in competetive power - for the first few levels, at least, before feats and enchantments take over the larger part of damage-dealing. And thanks to forge lore, you don't even have to use girlish weapons like a battleaxe just because it is enchanted.
Now replace spoon with longsword and you have your swordmaster.

So no, it's not spot on. It's comparing oranges to jogging shoes.

[crasskris]

However, I should point out that even the Fire Mage is more versatile than the warriors being argued for who "just hit things with an ax". After all, the Fire Mage also hits things with a fucking ax.

The Fire Mage can also use an axe to hit people, and the swordmaster also can use a necklace of fireballs to set stuff on fire. The ability to employ equipment is hardly inherent to the Fire Mage and the Fire Mage alone.

[Username17]

However, I should point out that even the Fire Mage is more versatile than the warriors being argued for who "just hit things with an ax". After all, the Fire Mage also hits things with a fucking ax.

The Fire Mage can also use an axe to hit people, and the swordmaster also can use a necklace of fireballs to set stuff on fire. The ability to employ equipment is hardly inherent to the Fire Mage and the Fire Mage alone.

No. Because a necklace of fireballs is not part of his idiom, and if the swordmaster doesn't get a sword upgrade as his share of the treasure whether or not the party explicitly turned down a mission that was plausibly going to have a sword upgrade in the treasure, then Fuchs will accuse your MC of being a power mad jerk and walk out. So your swordmaster never gets a necklace of fireballs, because his share of the loot is another fucking sword upgrade. Whether or not that makes any fucking in-world sense.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

Frank, STFU. you are so full of hyperbole, and lieing about what we say, you're sounding like an utter asshole.

Of course the sword guy will get more stuff than swords - he'll just get his needed weapon upgrades as swords, no matter what an asshole player bully might want to try, because that is how the game is played. If he can get the upgrades without having to resort to loot it's not even a problem evne for you.

[crasskris]

...then Fuchs will accuse your MC of being a power mad jerk and walk out. So your swordmaster never gets a necklace of fireballs, because his share of the loot is another fucking sword upgrade. Whether or not that makes any fucking in-world sense.

-Username17

Well, arranged findings was one of the methods discussed to ensure schtick validity for a equipment-based class. And I don't remember Fuchs explicitly threatening to throw a hissy fit shouldn't the mc ever disagree to do it.

Well, speaking of hissy fit: someone on this thread argued that the sword fetishist taking the non-sword weapon of the demon lord to the dwaren smiths to turn it into a sword and kill more demons with it would completely destroy the experience for him and soil his memory of the heroic fight against the demon lord. And I think it was you.
Would you care to explain how a common fantasy trope invalidates your common fantasy game for you?

Edith says: That is not supposed to be a personal attack. Your post a while back actually baffled me, and I'd really like to know where the problem might be.

[crasskris]

No. Because a necklace of fireballs is not part of his idiom,

-Username17

And an axe is not part of the Fire Mages idiom, so he won't get one as part of the loot, especially not a level-appropriate one.

[crasskris]

The Fire Mage was created for a specific request to make a character who just used fire magic and was still viable.

And I'm sure the Combat School feat was created for a specific request to make a warrior with a specific fighting style that was still viable.
A fighting style that

only works with a small list of melee weapons that you have to describe the connectedness to the DM in a half-way believable way

, and then gives you enough power-ups for those weapons that you will prefer them and even try to trade other weapons for them.

That being said, I think that a gentleman's agreement between player and mc to drop specific weapons is unelegant to the point of being insulting, too.
An insult made by the designers, mind you, who obviously have a hatred for player agency if random drops is the only method to get level-appropriate, mildly specific equipment.

[Fuchs]

I don't know how often I have to repeat it: I don't care how people get the needed weapon upgrades, through class features, loot, crafting, buying or whatever, as long as they get the weapon they want upgraded.

I really can't see any logical argument against that. Frank keeps focusing on his random loot only fetish, and ignroing the other possibilities. Lago at least is honest enough to admit he simply hates signature weapons.

[Stubbazubba]

This thread is the perfect representation of how most people are physically unable to agree with ideas that conflict with their pre-conceptions.

The pre-conceptions in this case being that what they've been doing in D&D, playing characters who aren't remotely functional without one particular length and curve of blade on their sword, is a sensible thing which exists outside D&D (and D&D inspired art).

'Cause Samurai? They used the Katana, and the Wakisashi, and the Yumi, and the Yari, and the Naginata, throwing and stabbing knives, assorted chains, clubs disguised as fans, steel bladed fans, ... and you know what? They used whatever worked best for them at the time. They're famous for Katanas because it was illegal for anyone else to carry one in later dynasties, and other weapons were often illegal for everyone, not because they always wanted to use one.

Players thinking they're going to specialise in Katana to be more like a Samurai don't need the DM's support in that, they need a fucking education. M'kay. Real Samurai used Cannons as soon as people invented them.

But here, people try and educate others about how even Robin Hood used things other than a bow, including in several of most deeply iconic stories, and a bunch of cocks proclaim that can't be true because it's bad for players if they can't use a bow every second of every day for the entire length of the story because they want to build a Bow-Fighter like Robin Hood was again and the DM should support their bullshit ignorant wankstain of a character concept. Or something. It's a big thread.

Yeah, which you haven't read. The argument is not about how many different weapons a character should use because frankly, characters in fiction, much less real-life samurai, don't fit any class molds, they do it all, so they're not a good comparison point. The argument is about who or what should force the change in armament; the DM, the dice, or the player's own choice. And there is no compelling argument for the DM or the dice to arbitrate which weapons your character uses. For a single adventure, I can totally understand picking up a particular weapon for a particular purpose, but between adventures characters should mostly be able to return to their favorite weapon, be it a family heirloom, a symbol of rank/authority, or simply a "lucky" gun, and begin the next adventure with that. That kind of player decision should not be punished by having it become obsolete, leaving you with the randomly-generated bundle of pluses that need not even be given a physical description because its so transient and inconsequential to both yourself and the DM/die who generated it.

@Fuchs, you know the English archers at Agincourt killed far more men with their axes and mauls than their bows, right?

Like I said, you're physically unable to agree with any idea that runs against your preconceptions. It's an actual thing in the wiring of our brains. The only way around it is to be deliberately open to new ideas, including the idea that things which you think are fun are actually ruining your fun, thus the thread.

No one's arguing that "I don't like it" is a reason, but you're too wrapped up in these bullshit excuses for character conceptions to see that.

But the opposite is not the case, either. Just because these may be "preconceptions," does not automatically mean that they are actually in the way of fun and arbitrating away player control over their own combat aesthetic will improve the game. That is a gutsy claim, and completely unsupported, except in the fuzzy way that Lago introduced the thread, by saying, "Hey, look, there are all these examples where we think one thing but the opposite is true, now I decree that this is one, too." Call me unconvinced. Why is arbitrarily switching out weapons better than not?

Plenty of people are arguing that being able to only use one particular weapon effectively is a crippling disability to place on your character regardless of magic item systems. Playing a Fighter who only uses the short sword is exactly like playing a Wizard who only uses Magic Missile.

I agree, and I think people who are melee specialists should be equally capable with pretty much any weapon except exotic. Because while I defend a player's right to create arguably shallow concepts based on a combat aesthetic, I also don't think we should be bound to them by the mechanics. But I don't agree that forcibly taking the short sword away from him and giving him a longspear is going to address the issue of those shallow concepts. It'll just breed resentment. There are more mature and less potentially problematic ways to "help" people who aren't very good at this stuff. Hard-coding it is just not the way to go.

[tussock]

Tussock, read the thread, at least a little bit, before you make accusations. No one has argued for never, ever using anything but your signature weapon. All that's been argued is that you shouldn't have to switch out your sword for an axe for no other reason than a randomly determined loot table turning up an axe with more pluses.

So your argument is that players should be forced to change weapons based on the general situation, based on the opponents they face, based on where they're standing, and based on what their friends are doing, but (OH GODS SAVE US FROM THE HORRORS) not based on what their previous enemies where carrying, nor which particular tomb they might have raided.

Got it. You really don't like random treasure, and don't have any rational backing for that taste in rules.

The argument is about who or what should force the change in armament; the DM, the dice, or the player's own choice.

OK, so could people please stop using the Robin Hood argument? Because it's completely wrong and also unrelated to the point Chamo and Stubba are trying to make for you all. Or something.

And there is no compelling argument for the DM or the dice to arbitrate which weapons your character uses.

There's lots of them, you just don't care to listen. Verisimilitude, arbitrary rewards being addictive, wish list fulfilment being unsatisfying, pre-adventure story writing being inherently incompatible with our multi-author randomised-outcome fiction hobby (and massively so in the case of at player who knows what he'll find for the next year and half of play already).
Randomisation promotes in-game creativity and adaptive behaviour, which is a good thing. DM arbitration can be used to help out the gimped characters of less-able players.

Your opposing argument seems to be "I DON'T WANNA!", or more politely that the player should have perfect control over anything they end up carrying around so that the $25 character portrait (that they imagined buying) from 1st level never becomes inaccurate.

[PhoneLobster]

So your argument is that players should be forced to change weapons based on the general situation,

Not entirely correct or especially relevant.

but (OH GODS SAVE US FROM THE HORRORS) not based on what their previous enemies where carrying, nor which particular tomb they might have raided.

And THAT is a massive and possibly dishonest misrepresentation or misunderstanding.

Are you perhaps retarded? Because that's OK, but then maybe you shouldn't be pretending you have anything to add to the conversation.

And considering the state of the conversation that means what you are saying is exceptionally stupid.

And there is no compelling argument for the DM or the dice to arbitrate which weapons your character uses.

There's lots of them, you just don't care to listen. Verisimilitude, arbitrary rewards being addictive, wish list fulfilment being unsatisfying, pre-adventure story writing being inherently incompatible with our multi-author randomised-outcome fiction hobby (and massively so in the case of at player who knows what he'll find for the next year and half of play already).
Randomization promotes in-game creativity and adaptive behavior, which is a good thing. DM arbitration can be used to help out the gimped characters of less-able players.

No. That entire statement is built out of raw stupidity built on a foundation of stupidity and the reinforced with solid stupidity buttresses.

Verisimilitude is NOT assisted by rolling random items for your orc hordes to use. In fact as a general rule it is pretty safe to say that oddly enough RANDOMIZATION mechanics generally tend to be a direct threat to verisimilitude. What with them being you know fucking random.

Arbitrary rewards hey? Guess what arbitrary is NOT the same thing as random. And if you like the addictive aspect then arbitrary rewards tailored for addictiveness are a better choice. Especially as mentioned repeatedly because this is not a computer game and table top RPGs should never ever ever encourage grinding for randomized loot drops. Because that is lame in MMOs and it is an outright game killer for table top RPGs.

Wish List fulfilment being unsatisfying is A) Poorly supported. But most importantly B) An incredibly irrelevant strawman. You know, like your knowing every item for the next year scenario. You know, the one that is so bad that even to YOU it must scream out massive intellectual dishonesty and stupidity so hot it burns! That strawman. The specific tailored wish list is a dishonest strawman presented by Frank and Lago repeatedly as a counter to "Cool Swords for the Sword Guys Bro?" angle, which you might note does not resemble a wish list in that it does not in fact involve any form of list, I mean beyond "any cool sword ever". The vague expectation that approximately appropriate and interesting items will be somehow available to your character such that they enable you to fulfill your somewhat vague ambitions of characterization concept. That is not the same thing you drooling moron.

Pre-adventure story writing again is a massive flaming strawman distraction and again fucking irrelevant people may or may not "pre-write" their adventures in their head... ANYWAY. Item randomization DOES NOT HELP WITH THAT. More specifically supplying adequate swords for the sword guy bro does not hurt that. Because sword guy MIGHT be "prewritten" sword guy. Or he might be organically generated sword guy. More alarmingly randomized items have very poor interactions with organically generated characters as has previously been mentioned Frank and Lagos "plan" to the VERY limited degree it exists provides nothing productive for organic character advancement.

Your opposing argument seems to be "I DON'T WANNA!", or more politely that the player should have perfect control over anything they end up carrying around so that the $25 character portrait (that they imagined buying) from 1st level never becomes inaccurate.

Then suddenly you twist it all around and save your post from going down in infamy forever as one of the stupidest posts in a super stupid thread with this piece of intellectual brilliance and honesty.

Or maybe I'm confused from all the smoke from those giant flaming strawmen and this last bit isn't intellectual honesty but that other thingy....

[Chamomile]

So your argument is that players should be forced to change weapons based on the general situation, based on the opponents they face, based on where they're standing, and based on what their friends are doing, but (OH GODS SAVE US FROM THE HORRORS) not based on what their previous enemies where carrying, nor which particular tomb they might have raided.

I will not bother responding further if you are unwilling to actually read the thread and find out what your opponent's arguments actually are. We have already covered this ground and I'm not interested in covering it again. The relevant quote you're looking for is here:

Yeah, and having niche weapons for niche uses is totally fine, so long as the weapon of choice is usable in most cases. If I'm playing someone who generally has a sword-based aesthetic but we're facing one, specific villain who, for whatever reason, can only be killed by the Frost Axe of Being Very Cold, then I don't have any problems with dropping the sword in favor of an axe for one fight. It's being asked to permanently leave behind my character's aesthetic because the dice say wielding the lightning dagger is now the only way to remain competitive that irks me.

In other words, I'm fine with people being forced to change weapons temporarily if it benefits the narrative. Theoretically I'm even fine with being forced to change weapons permanently if it benefits the narrative, but I've yet to see any compelling argument that it ever actually will. Maintaining verisimilitude while also keeping character aesthetic mostly under a player's control is trivially easy. Have magic shops, allow weapons to be reforged, have weapons offer mostly or entirely horizontal advancement instead of vertical, give all characters a built-in method of building their own weapons, etc. etc. The options are limitless. Some of them are better than others, but all of them are better than undermining the narrative because yay dice.

OK, so could people please stop using the Robin Hood argument? Because it's completely wrong and also unrelated to the point Chamo and Stubba are trying to make for you all.

You're telling Stubbazubba that Stubbazubba is trying to make a point for him? That doesn't really seem like something you'd need to go out of your way to point out.

[Stubbazubba]

And there is no compelling argument for the DM or the dice to arbitrate which weapons your character uses.

There's lots of them, you just don't care to listen. Verisimilitude, arbitrary rewards being addictive, wish list fulfilment being unsatisfying, pre-adventure story writing being inherently incompatible with our multi-author randomised-outcome fiction hobby (and massively so in the case of at player who knows what he'll find for the next year and half of play already).
Randomisation promotes in-game creativity and adaptive behaviour, which is a good thing. DM arbitration can be used to help out the gimped characters of less-able players.

You're halfway there. Those are all arguably defensible reasons to have random loot drops, which is kind of a separate issue, as PL pointed out in his very enthusiastic reply, somewhere. But that is not my angle. My angle is that the anti-katana camp insists that the power of random items should not be transferable directly by magically transferring the pluses from one curve of metal to another, nor indirectly through a magic item economy whereby one can trade to get the kind of enchanted item one wants (edit: or any of the alternatives Chamo mentions). What argument is there to defend the removal of those options? I'm deliberately open to ideas, here, because all I can see is the vain hope that players will man up and make really deep, fleshed-out characters who can take an aesthetic change in stride. I think that needlessly punishes a lot of players and won't bring about the intended results anyway, I think that'll just create malcontent players who can't, as Lago has stated, see past the symbolism, and restrict the role-play space of better players, who can make something decent out of a weapon-based character trait.

I prefer the ability to decide my character's weapon in the long run. If I'm a dual-Katana-wielding Paladin and the mini-boss the party just defeated drops a glaive which is better than my dual Katanas by 10%, I'm fine switching into an awesome glaive idiom for the remainder of the dungeon. I agree, I think that's healthy for the character in question and the party in general. But once we're back in town, I don't see why my character can't yearn to wield her clan's ancestral weapons and find an Artificer to perform a ritual which transfers the enchantment on the glaive to at least one of my Katanas. In other words, I'm OK with needing to change my equipment arbitrarily in the short-term, so long as I can still decide if weapon choice is important to my character in the long-term. I don't typically make characters that are attached to weapons, but I could see myself creating someone who prizes his older brother's mastercraft bow, or wield's his clan's mightiest axe after winning it in a pre-campaign tournament or such, and while they may choose to lay down these weapons for something else, I don't see why you can't have it both ways.

Here is, IMO, a passable character motif dependent on weapon choice: Imagine that my character's family were slaughtered before his eyes by men wielding swords when he was just a child, and he has been loathe to touch a sword ever since. Over the course of the campaign, it comes up maybe a handful of times, and then at some climactic moment I decide he must grab a fallen sword to save one of his comrades' lives, and then I can decide whether or not he realizes that swords can be used to save lives as well as destroy, or not and toss it aside saying something like, "How uncivilized," in his best impression of Ewan McGregor, instead of being forced into that decision by arbitration. It's certainly not my deepest character, but for some folks I play with I would consider that pretty good, and the party would probably remember that one time he took up a sword for whatever reason and the change it caused in him (or lack thereof). I'm fine with him sacrificing the potential power increase a better sword would give him, so long as he gets said power increase once they're back in town and can pay to have it transferred over or whatever. That's short-term. But I'm not OK with the RP decision about the role of swords in this character's life being made for me by arbitration. Any justification for permanent aesthetic arbitration has to be significantly more powerful than the loss I incur by yielding that RP choice over to the dice, or the DM.

TL;DR - Randomized loot drops are not the issue. The inability to transfer randomized loot drops' pluses once you're back in town is the issue. Short-term arbitration = OK, long-term arbitration = Not. That will only make poor RPers angry and needlessly restrict good RPers who don't need it anyway. Any justification for permanent aesthetic arbitration needs to overcome those costs significantly in order to actually be "better."

Edit: Oh, and add a bunch of hate-filled vitriol here to get this noticed and replied to. grr!

[MGuy]

I still do not understand why this argument is persisting. I'm becoming more and more baffled by the word twisting that is going on in order to struggle to maintain this stupid discussion.

The people arguing on the random loot side" do not have a solid argument to stand on. Seriously every argument against letting a Sword Master have his god damn sword is caked in ridiculous hyperbole and word twisting. Frank's last post is a perfect example. "Sword Guy doesn't use fire so fire related non-sword items don't drop". What the fuck? No one would accept this logic, and considering Franks regular posting style he would bash someone heatedly for even suggesting it. This kind of reasoning is what Frank threatens to ignore people over because of how little sense it makes ESPECIALLY when its in plain black and white that people are NOT saying that.

Seriously this conversation needs to end. Let people have their god damn swords or if you wanna be an ass don't. I'm not gonna be playing at any table when the game ceases to accept any input I have over something as small as what sharp tool I'll be stabbing people with. Stop with this fucking hyperbole riddled waste of time already.

[Username17]

...then Fuchs will accuse your MC of being a power mad jerk and walk out. So your swordmaster never gets a necklace of fireballs, because his share of the loot is another fucking sword upgrade. Whether or not that makes any fucking in-world sense.

-Username17

Well, arranged findings was one of the methods discussed to ensure schtick validity for a equipment-based class. And I don't remember Fuchs explicitly threatening to throw a hissy fit shouldn't the mc ever disagree to do it.

That's actually not hyperbole on my part. Here is Fuchs' characterization from page 5:

His main point was that if the players decided to say "fuck of, swordsman, we won't do the side quest for you" then it would be bad DMing if the DM then made a wanted sword drop in the main quest. Cause you know player decisions, even if they are "come on, le's fuck over Ralf, we hate him and his character" should be respected to the point of not helping players that are screwed by them.

First off, he accuses players who choose to not go on a quest to get the special flaming sword that one of the players wants of telling the player who wanted that quest to "fuck off". As in: if you don't get your way in demanding a specific item upgrade quest be completed right now, that the other players are conspiring to insult you personally. Secondly, he claims to not even understand why it might be a bad thing for the DM to explicitly give the players a quest reward for a quest they elected not to take.

Fuchs' position is so extreme that there I can't even make fun of it. Let's look at the current page:

I don't know how often I have to repeat it: I don't care how people get the needed weapon upgrades, through class features, loot, crafting, buying or whatever, as long as they get the weapon they want upgraded.

Wrap your mind around that. He advocates item wishlists, and does not care if the characters have a plausible in-character way to acquire said items. If you're fighting swarms of fire bees on the planes of Hades and you want a shiny new set of platemail, I guess the armor just falls out of the swarm like you were playing Diablo II.

Fuchs' position cheapens all player choices, both in game and in character generation. Having a character ability to make or upgrade an item is meaningless, because Fuchs does not care and demands that you get the upgraded item anyway. Undertaking a quest to get an item is meaningless, because Fuchs Does Not Fucking Care and demands that you get the upgraded item anyway. It's like the special fucking olympics, it doesn't matter if you run fast or run slow, you still get a gold medal. Everyone gets a participation trophy, whether they did any work for it or not.

And yeah, that's insulting to all the players. It's insulting to the players who invested character abilities in item creation/augmentation because the other players get the same item upgrades with out of character whining. It's insulting to the players who elected to have their characters quest after mythical items, because other players get the same item upgrades with out of character whining.

People keep butting into this conversation thinking that Fuchs is making some kind of wishy-washy pro-item market point or something. He's not. He really is saying that he doesn't care what you do, where you go, what abilities you have, or what you achieve - everyone gets the same reward regardless and is expected to feel fulfilled because everyone got the maximum reward. It's like what people make fun of radical communism for being, except that it is Fuchs' actual confirmed and repeatedly emphasized position.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

You really do not understand anything. The main point is that PCs stay on the range. Every DnD game assumes that people get the gear they need, no matter which quest they do, or the game breaks.

You also still ignore that I have said multiple times that if you refuse to go on the shadow katana quest that does not mean a shadow katana drops in the next quest - but a different katana might. Just as a knight might find a shield of reflection even after he skipped going on the shield of spikes quest.

But only if there are no other, more fitting ways to get a - get it? a - weapon upgrade such as magic market or crafting.

And yes, if you finish a quest you should get loot you have fun with. Finishing mening winning battles, saving people and defeating challenges. If you beat a challenge you get a reward, eventually.

That's how D&D works. Just because you skip one quest doesn't mean you'll never, ever loot anything similar in the future.

[Fuchs]

Wrap your mind around that. He advocates item wishlists, and does not care if the characters have a plausible in-character way to acquire said items. If you're fighting swarms of fire bees on the planes of Hades and you want a shiny new set of platemail, I guess the armor just falls out of the swarm like you were playing Diablo II.

No, you idiot, but you might find someone's remains who was killed by the swarm, and his armor. Or you get the armor as a reward from his family after returning the remains.

Fuchs' position cheapens all player choices, both in game and in character generation. Having a character ability to make or upgrade an item is meaningless, because Fuchs does not care and demands that you get the upgraded item anyway. Undertaking a quest to get an item is meaningless, because Fuchs Does Not Fucking Care and demands that you get the upgraded item anyway. It's like the special fucking olympics, it doesn't matter if you run fast or run slow, you still get a gold medal. Everyone gets a participation trophy, whether they did any work for it or not.

Again, you are unable to udnerstand that what I don't care about is what method is used as long as a rapier user gets to keep using his rapier as his weapon of choice. Whatever fits the DM best of the different methods can be used there.

How that cheapens player decisions is beyond me, that's in your crazyland fantasy. If you go on a specific quest, you might get a specific sword. Skip that sword, and you might get a random sword later in one of the following quests - sooner if you need it to stay on the range.

If other players invest in character abilities to get upgrades then yes, that's the way people pick for that campaign. If people quest, then that works as well.

My whole point is, which you may finally get, that if a player decides to have his character have a weapon of choice, then that player should be provided the means to keep getting weapon upgrades for that weapon.

And the DM can decide how that is achieved - through class features, non-random loot drops, magic market or whatever.

Now shove your damn hyperbole.

[MGuy]

Fuch's position is that players who primarily use a certain weapon get that weapon upgraded as appropriate so that they may continue having a level appropriate weapon at each tier of play with the weapon they want to use. He does not care how this is done as long as it happens. If people choose to do it in a stupid way, he is probably fine with that, but him not caring about the method does not make him wrong. Someone could use a method that makes it more believable or you could not do it depending on how much the people at your table care about verisimilitude but I believe that he is not particularly saying that it MUST be done in the most nonsensical way possible just that if it happens in a nonsensical fashion he may not care.

The only thing you COULD peg him with is where he says that if the group specifically says to avoid going out of their way to get specific legendary sword X to instead go on the main quest just to have sword X show up in the main quest line. That's about it, and he said that pages ago and its not really something worth arguing about at this point because its the only ground you have left to stand on and even that is dependent on a specific situation where the rest of the players not only are actively and knowingly debilitating one of the other players but you, Frank, specifically will be insulted if the DM decides to help him out anyway and will quit the game in a fit just because the DM decided to acknowledge the fact that sword guy would fall behind and hand him his stupid little inconsequential thing that apparently no one else at the game table really cares about.

Fuch's hasn't said anything about "everyone getting the same reward". Most of this conversation isn't even ABOUT that idea. I've no idea why it even matters since no matter what the weapon drop is it'll be "The maximum reward" and Fuch's is advocating that the "Maximum Reward" have the file number shaved off so that it can be a style of the player's choosing. Seriously at this point you are claiming that you are feverishly arguing about whether or not someone is writing "spear" vs writing "sword" down in the weapon space of their character sheet as if it made a world of motherfucking difference. You can claim its about "your choices not mattering" but I can't believe that's it when its over something as inconsequential as getting a sword over a spear.

[PhoneLobster]

You can claim its about "your choices not mattering" but I can't believe that's it when its over something as inconsequential as getting a sword over a spear.

Actually the thing that still gets me is that Frank and Lago have been arguing that if you go to "Spear Temple" or "Sword Cave" regardless that results in you getting heavily Randomized loot.

Which rather seems to undermine their "choices matter" and "wah wah Fuchs wants to make wrongbadfun choices" angles, since it rather seems to still generate those "Dire Flails Drop and Frank Walks" scenarios and indeed has greater risk of doing so than some sort of non-randomized loot mechanic.

I mean yeah sure Frank and Lago are doing a LOT of strawmaning and misrepresenting of Fuchs and others to pull off their whole "katanas are wrong bad!" bullshit, but even if you were to give them all that in good faith you are still left with a major WTF moment when you try and actually reconcile their positions on that with their demands for a heavily randomized loot mechanic.

I've been waiting for SOMEONE to explain that for pages and pages now.

[Seerow]

I mean yeah sure Frank and Lago are doing a LOT of strawmaning and misrepresenting of Fuchs and others to pull off their whole "katanas are wrong bad!" bullshit, but even if you were to give them all that in good faith you are still left with a major WTF moment when you try and actually reconcile their positions on that with their demands for a heavily randomized loot mechanic.

I've been waiting for SOMEONE to explain that for pages and pages now.

No idea about Lago, he's batshit insane and thinks that +20 artifacts of melt your face dropping at level 1 .1% of the time is totally cool and something that should happen to make the loot lottery really pay off. There's really no way I can agree with where he comes from on this argument.

But Frank seems to want some sort of hybrid where what types of weapons and armor appear are predetermined. You fight Orcs, you're going to get axes. You fight Salamanders, you're going to get spears. Now if the magic treasure table says that you got a magic weapon, it's going to be of the type that group usually uses. So there is no chance of getting a dire flail when raiding the orc chief's house, because he and all his guards use axes. A few of thoes axes may be normal, some may be masterwork, and some may be highly enchanted, but they're all axes.

He explains the NPCs getting to maintain their aesthetic while the PCs have to deal with what they find because NPCs are the kinds of basket weavers he wants to discourage PCs from having. If the Orc Chieftan sends others out to bring him a powerful magic weapon as tribute, and one brings him back a dagger instead of an axe, he stabs the guy who brought him the dagger in the face, and tells the next guy to not come back until he has an axe.

Since they're NPCs and not actively going out on adventures, this is apparently okay, nobody minds if they don't have level appropriate magic weapons, as long as they have some magic loot for the party to steal. And so the NPCs all have their predetermined weapons, while what magic items they have are all completely randomized. This means that any player who actually wants a weapon type of a type not typically carried by the group they're fighting is SOL, unless they can convince the party to go on a sidequest with them.



At least that's what I think Frank's views are. I dunno, this whole argument is so mercurial it's hard to tell what people actually want and what they don't.

[Fuchs]

It is weird how pcs will only get random loot in frank land, but npcs get to loot their signature weapons - unless of course they get their magic loot rthrough means other than random loot, which would prompt the questions why orks can get magic axes at will.

[Gx1080]

Ok, here's how it really should work beyond "hurr random all the time".

You get whatever loot the DM or the module says that the monsters have and use + whatever is buried at temples + whatever you get from long crafting quests. Don't like it? Then STFU.

Which is the only sane way to make goals like "adding verisimilitue to the world" and "making magic items cool" without MMO grinding. Period.

"Abloobloo my katanas" Don't care.

[MfA]

Long crafting quests, for when keeping the narrative going in pen and paper is too easy ... stupid idea.