Arguments in favor of magic item wishlists.

[Lago PARANOIA]

All right, so you've heard TGD go extensively over the wishlists. To summarize the talking points:

A Magic Item Wishlist is when the player gives a list of suggestions to the DM as to what in-game resources they want to find. More specifically:

[*] 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.

[*] When in-game or setting concerns conflict with the acquisition of what's on the wishlist (finding a Holy Avenger specifically is almost impossible in Dark Sun despite all of the other crazy shit available), the wishlist has priority. The game table then has to find a post hoc justification as to why that happened, up to and including not addressing the topic at all.

[*] There is some kind of guideline which tells the GM about how and when to award treasure. So even if a player wants a Muramasa for their character, they are informed by the rules that they shouldn't expect to get one unless they fulfill some other criteria such as being high enough level and not winning too many other bids. That is, a wishlist informs a player what they can reasonably expect such that they're not wasting their or the DM's time/hopes over asking for mere +3 rapiers at level 17 or asking for an Excalibur at level 3.

Now, a lot of people on these boards, including yours truly, have a ton of problems with wishlists -- both in how they've been implemented and the concept in general.

So my question for the pro-wishlist people is: what are the pros of wishlists? What are the advantages of the system and why do you feel that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

[Koumei]

I'm not pro-wishlist, but for the sake of upping my postcount I mean wasting time at work encouraging debate, I'll take a shot:

1. If you're seriously doing the Flash game dungeoncrawl thing, you've already planned every moment of your character's future life out. You're going through $arbitrary levels of dungeon, fighting $appropriate monsters each time, with the boss at the end of each floor, and just as you don't explain how you picked up Frost Mastery when you spent the last level casting thunder spells, nor do you explain how you got the Wand of Ice Storms: it's just there for the build.

Answer: that should not be what the assumed game is, so that should really just be a house rule chucked in for that sort of game. But it kind of is what 4E is. Wishlisting in 4E is more a symptom of the problems of 4E.

2. If the MC wants to give players stuff they can use rather than making them sell shit for 50% or murder the store keeper, then just saying "What kind of shit do you guys want?" is easier than guessing. Especially if they are for instance a Tome Samurai: obviously their focal magic item is their weapon, but you don't drop new weapons for them: that upgrades as they go along. Or if they're a Soulborn/Totemist/Soldier/Your Mum, they're getting stat boosters as they go.

Answer: specifically looking over the charts as a player and making a wishlist for specific things is probably not the way to go. Saying "I would like a better (weapon type), and something that lets me fly for short bursts, and some kind of Fire Resistance" or "Obviously my Deflection and Armour Bonuses will need to slowly rise, keep in mind I can't wear Heavy please" would be better. You know, give guidelines as to what would be useful for the character without stating "For Christmas I want Mythic Angel Scales of the Zodiac".

3. Related to both the above: plenty of the time, they have an awesome item that does what you want... but how the fuck would you ever know that in character? You cannot realistically say you want the $item in character because you've never heard of such a thing. I think I'll include "a candle that summons genies" in this, because at least nine out of every ten candles I've ever lit just summoned light and smoke, not genies. Nor did it improve my Cleric casting. So when they release a rubber duck of Abjuration that's absolutely perfect for you and it's not a legendary thing for which the character would know to search and the DM may not even be aware of its existence, you kind of have to point it out and say "can I have one of these show up at some point?"

Answer: only if your game is incredibly shitty is any given piece of magic gear absolutely essential. If it's not 4E then might I suggest just living without the rubber duck?

[CatharzGodfoot]

A wish list mechanic should be straight-up player agency. You just say 'My character finds a holy avenger this session' as what amounts to a class ability.

But this kills the fun of getting unexpected items. At the very least, randomized/DM-selected items should both exist as well, with the player agency option being a last-ditch way to guarantee an item that is necessary to the character.

[Drolyt]

So my question for the pro-wishlist people is: what are the pros of wishlists? What are the advantages of the system and why do you feel that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

I'm not really pro-wishlist, but I can see at least two arguments for them. The first is that they are a patch for wealth by level systems like D&D where if you don't get the item you want you suck. Personally I think WBL is bullshit, but if you must have it in your system something like what CatharzGodfoot suggested might be a good idea. The second is that sometimes your character concept requires an item. Arthur, Roland, Elric, Sun Wukong, Thor, etc. all have magic items that are important parts of their legend, if not essential to it. In this case I think an appropriate solution is to have such items be a part of the character (class feature, feat, bought with points whatever).

[Foxwarrior]

Well, I very much disagree with Koumei on point 1; action dungeoncrawl games like Diablo would be less than half as interesting without the fancy random item generators.

[Voss]

So, wait. Back up. Shouldn't someone outline the disadvantages first?
Seems a bit disingenuous to frame the argument without talking about your own issues.

Particularly in their more normal form... personally I've never seen magic item wishlists drawn up with Lago's first two points. Magic axe, yes, but not blather weapon of blathering; nor have I ever seen the wishlist take priority over setting restrictions.

Mostly I've seen it as Koumei's #2- a general list of wants that makes the whole thing less of a headache for everyone. Its been an issue since 1e Unearthed Arcana introduced weapon specialization, and anything that wasn't 'weapon of choice' was a functional nerf to any sort of non-spellcaster, let alone player preference.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Particularly in their more normal form... personally I've never seen magic item wishlists drawn up with Lago's first two points. Magic axe, yes, but not blather weapon of blathering; nor have I ever seen the wishlist take priority over setting restrictions.

Believe it or not but they're necessary preconditions to have a wishlist system that works properly.

If you don't have the first condition in place then you're setting people up for disappointment. People can accept that the RNG handed out a +3 Icebrand instead of a +3 Lightning Javelin like they wanted, but if you had your heart set on a +3 Lightning Javelin and the DM decides that he's going to give you a +3 Icebrand instead then all you did was let people down. It's the difference between winning a coupon for a free scoop of vanilla and the clerk giving you a scoop of vanilla ice cream when you asked for chocolate.

If you don't have the second condition in place then the game devolves into a combination filibuster/Mother-May-I session where players routinely try to hijack the plot to get the things that they want. Moreover, a player who getting their way usually means stiffing the other people. If you want an Excalibur and the DM requires that people need to do in-game things (like traveling to Camelot while the group is currently in Rome) to make Excalibur show up in a treasure pile, then someone else saying that they want Muramasa (which will require a trip to Nippon) precludes you from getting Excalibur on time. You can have these sorts of disagreements and quest bids if they're rare, but having it as a normal course of action is just begging for a game-stopping argument.

[ishy]

It depends on how your game works, what the magic items do, and how you acquire them.

As Her Eminence Lady Koumei von Lezzington the Third pointed out wish lists are necessary in shitty games. Like say D&D 3.x.

Now there are multiple ways to acquire gear on the wish list. Playing with The Olde Magicke Shoppe or just happen to find it on the next monster you kill or whatever.

I don't want to do a quest for every +X to stat item (like say cloak of resistance) I need to be able to do adventures though.
I'm fine with doing the once a campaign quest to gain a mcguffin.
But I probably will get annoyed if we have to do a sidequest so everyone can get their Ring of Blinking so they can actually sneak attack at range or monks get their amulet to turn into a tiger or equivalent for other classes.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Lago, you were part of this conversation last time, I don't know why you think it's going to go any better THIS time

[Lago PARANOIA]

Maybe it's because it's been a fucking year and a half and we've had a large turnover of TGD peoples?

[Ancient History]

I could see magic item wishlists sort of built in to certain classes. I mean, that was basically what the Soulknife class was supposed to be. In a setting where you really should have certain accoutrements to go along with a given level, it makes sense to just make them part of general level-ups - wizard hits 6th level and gets a magic staff, that kind of thing. You can even just give somebody a Craft pool of points for buying magic items at each level.

The problem is, you it's one of those "perks" that can be taken away from the PC, and that kinda sucks.

[PhoneLobster]

My biggest problem with wish lists is I've never seen any genuinely clear and crunchy description of just what the hell they really are supposed to be.

From pro OR anti-wish list people.

Generally they just take everything irrelevant and either bad or good about treasure systems, claim it has some relation to nebulous "wish lists" then declare 4E to be awesome or shitty.

And I'm afraid even looking at Lago's "summary" all I'm seeing is wishy washy vague declarations of ickyness over fairly poorly defined poorly reasoned nothingness.

No really lets just go through his three point summary briefly here.

1) oooohh nooo! There is the idea the GM should without being asked offer your characters cool and appropriate gear drops/options sometimes. This is bad because... wait... and this is wish listy rather than regular run of the mill RPG character progression because... er... what?

2) Things that aren't in the game shouldn't be in the game! And when things which aren't in the game ARE it is bad. This is because WISH LIST because... er... And on a side note if something is just rare in a game, and I waste endless play time talking up how awesome and rare it is to the players then NOT delivering on letting them have one is totally fucking cool! Because. Um... I don't know, but somewhere here this rolls around to WISH LIST! (some fucking how).

3) A wish list is SUDDENLY a relatively functional sounding sketch of a wealth by level guideline. This is bad. Because of things. And also now called wish listing instead of a wealth by level guideline. Because of stuff.

So no. Really, WTF? I'm actually interested in this topic because player agency and influence of their own character's favored tools and stuff SOUNDS interesting, mechanics that let them influence things like that should be good in interesting ways.

But LETS BE FUCKING CLEAR HERE. Every damn thing Lago mentioned in his wish list summary in the opening post appears to be at best tangentially relevant rambling hand wringing about random crap.

GM's offering cool advancement options without being asked is definitively NOT wish listing, it's pretty close to the opposite, and should also NOT be controversial in the slightest.

Item's being in or out of the entire fucking setting is also definitively irrelevant to ANY potentially sane wish listing mechanics.

Item rarity and the unfortunate, but indisputable fact that players have no respect for item rarity and have a pretty good argument going their way that the more of their time you waste wanking over the awesome specialness of an item the more they should be allowed to eventually have the damn thing is pretty much irrelevant to wish listing also. Because THAT sure as hell happens without any sort of Santa claus letter mechanic of any kind, and indeed is almost the opposite of that as more an example of Santa constantly sending letters to kids about how awesome it is to own the world's only red nosed reindeer and they can't have one neer neer neeh neeer neeer.

And wealth by level guidelines, again, the opposite of wish lists. That's telling players what stuff they can have, not players telling you what stuff they will have.

If Lago wants to talk about wish lists, pro's or cons it would help if he fucking talked about wish lists..

As it stands he said "wish lists are things where players vaguely ask for stuff" which when he then went in to the supposed specifics... turned out to be him BITCHING ABOUT RANDOM SHIT.

edit: the more I look at Lago's op the more I'm flabbergasted about how balls out stupid it is and the more I regret not making this entire post a much punchier line by line parody of the ridiculous thing.

[Ancient History]

Okay, let's do the six questions.

What is a Wishlist?
A wishlist is a list of (usually magic) items that a player writes up and hands to the gamemaster, indicating reasonable magic items that they would like to see their character get as the character levels up and/or the adventure progresses. It doesn't have to be magic; if you start out as a 1st level fighter named Mike with a suit of chainmail and you want to upgrade to full plate, that might be a reasonable request/goal in a "realistic" campaign where rewards are measured in silver pieces.

Why Wishlists?
Because random item placement can load characters up with crap they cannot use, and gamemasters may not place items that characters actually want. Many players have some idea of progression for their character, even if it's a vague sketch of "wouldn't it be cool to have a flaming sword?", and while gamemasters do not have to help them achieve that image, it can be very frustrating for players if after a random monster drop one PC gets an awesome item that fits their character perfectly and another gets a bunch of magical vendor trash. This is half the reason you have magic item creation rules in the first place.

Who gets a Wishlist?
If you're going to allow wishlists in a game, they should probably be available to all players, depending on exactly how the wishlist is implemented. If the wishlist-mechanism is embedded in a class, then that's done. If the wishlist is an informal request between player and gamemaster, that should be open to every player.

When does the Wishlist come in?
Ideally, a wishlist should be provided fairly soon in the game, and updated periodically. However, that's another level of bookkeeping for Mister Cavern, who really doesn't want to field requests for bling every fucking session; so probably wishlists might be provided at the beginning or end of an adventure, when the character is leveling up.

Where do the Wishlist drops come from?
Most RPGs have the assumption that magic items are at least nominally uncommon/scarce/rare, and that they should be hard to find and hard to make. Not always, but often the unspoken (and sometimes very explicit) guidelines is that more effort goes into making the item than benefit comes out of an item, and that such items (even the more useless ones) are very rarely sold...even as every fifth orc tries to stab you with a +1 sword. So if Mister Cavern is going to fulfill your shopping list, they need to think about how to bring that item into the game - was the character quietly making it at night, using slow enchantments? Did the monster-of-the-week drop it? Did they buy it at the bazaar using hoarded monies that the PC didn't know they had? A wizardly grand-uncle died and left it to them? Randomly looted from a grave they stumbled upon?

Well, there's a lot of options, but the basic idea is that the magic item from a wishlist has to come from somewhere and be worked into the game at some point. Now granted, the MC could just provide the option of acquiring the item and still force the PC to go through certain shenanigans or expend certain resources to get the item - the Sword of Setting Shit on Fire floats above the Pool of Eternal Flame, how the fuck are you going to get it, smart guy? Or maybe the Wand of Lube is available from the vendor, but he wants full market price for it. Alternately, the actual acquisition can be stuck in the background and suddenly the PC just has the item - which is appropriate for level-ups or joining an organization, but not much else.

How do you implement a Wishlist?
This is the big question. At your most basic level, a wishlist is an informal request - not a part of the game system. Magic items are a bonus, not a right (for most classes). It can be incorporated into the game system or character class - gain a level, get appropriate merch - but that suggests a certain wealth-by-level guideline that not everyone may be comfortable with.

Take, for example, the suggestion I made a post or two back about a Craft Point reserve that increments at every level and can be used to buy items. This could be seen as a wealth-by-level guideline. Of course, there are other ways; in a points-based system like GURPS or Shadowrun or WoD you could just make it a matter of putting enough points in the right background or whatever. Other efforts at something similar to this include item familiars, weapons of legacy, etc.

Ultimately, it depends on the setting and the tone of the game. In a setting like Eberron that has a relatively dense amount of magic items, it might be appropriate to expect the character to have level-appropriate number of magical whatsits - and if the GM doesn't just let them spend their gold/XP on building or buying what they want, that in itself might be a problem. In a low-magic game, magic items might be rare drops and wish lists inappropriate.

[PhoneLobster]

. At your most basic level, a wishlist is an informal request - not a part of the game system.

If that is the case then a wish list is nothing more than the players asking for stuff.

That is and should be utterly uncontroversially and ok thing to do. Even a deeply unremarkable thing to do.

It also has nothing the fuck whatsoever to do with what Lago is rambling on about in his "specifics".

And while you can discuss guidelines of "how best to ask for stuff" and "how best to answer requests for stuff" it is in no way as remotely an interesting topic as some sort of game mechanic that actually helps formally enable players to determine or at least influence their own flavor or advancement paths in regards to the flashier tools they use. In the same way that basically any discussion of guidelines for fairy tea party is always less interesting than formal mechanics that effect actual games with actual rules.

Because seriously if all you can bring it back to in the end is "everything but the informal request is basically optional and uncertain fapping" it's almost a non-concept and I can't believe this bothers being a multiple thread topic.

EVERYONE should be in favor of players asking for stuff. And the ONLY reason asking stuff in the form of a written Santa Claus list should be controversial in that regard is that it's a kinda silly and sorta dicky way to make your players ask for things. When, you know, you could I dunno, just encourage them to ask for things.

[Ancient History]

Or you could set it up so they can get the things they want. A large part of it is just random drops being an inherent and accepted part of gaming culture - players aren't used to having any input on the treasure they receive, and Mister Caverns aren't used to getting any.

[Dogbert]

As little as I cared for 4E, I think treasure parcels was the best thing it brought along.

In murderhobo games, treasure is a part of character advancement as intrinsic as levels, and as proof you have to go no further than stripping a lvl 20 character of all equipment and see how useful the character still is.

Since 3E, designers finally acknowledged players' right to have control over all aspects of their characters' advancement, and item creation feats entered the picture. Treasure parcels were just the logical evolution of the idea.

[Prak]

I really have no strong feelings one way or the other about wishlists. That said, they seem like a good tool, actually.

Firstly, because it's a game, and it's supposed to be fun. It can really suck to have a certain image for your character in mind and never get the stuff you need for it. If a wishlist generally increases the fun, then it's a good thing. If it generally decreases the fun, then it's a bad thing.

Secondly, there are a lot of people who just randomly determine treasure. Players will gather all that up, then eventually drag it back to civilization, sell it, and then go to Ye Olde Magic Shoppe and turn the gold they just got into the items they want. In this case, magic item wishlists basically allow you to skip a step, or at least put it off by saying "here is the flaming katana you wanted, lets keep going rather then you guys fucking off to town to sell shit."

If you need some kind of explanation for it, then hell, most fantasy worlds have extremely active gods. Whether Pelor is reaching down to direct his cleric towards the items the cleric wants, or Bane is directing people to items as part of some esoteric plan. Maybe "FATE" is just intervening as part of a prophecy (yes, it's probably a good idea to write that prophecy up).

[shadzar]

i can think of one, and ONLY one reason in favor of an item wishlist.

you are playing with children at the lower end of the age-range D&D is for (or younger) and want them to really get hooked on D&D and impress them with it so want to give them the best first play ever. they want something like He-man's sword, or the Sword of Omens, or something like that and you find the appropriate in-game item that works or make one for them so they can see how well D&D can make fantasy come to life in the form of a game.

for grown-ups it makes no sense at all.

[Previn]

Wishlisting in 4E is more a symptom of the problems of 4E.

This.

4e needs a wish list because it's economy has a strictly finite amount of wealth you are ever allowed to have, and selling or 'disenchanting' is a factual drain on that finite amount, so you can't buy items to get what you want without reducing your power.

In 3.x you can just go out and buy what you want once you can afford it. A wish list is really a shopping list of items you may or may not be able to afford right now. Even though you sell at a loss (and ignoring other issues with the 3.5 economy) the game makes up the difference of lost wealth as you play.

[Prak]

I'm going to regret this...

Shadzar, why do you hate fun? Wait, no- better question, why do you play games if you hate fun?

The point of a game, which Dungeons and Dragons is a roleplaying variant thereof, is to have fun. While it may not impact the enjoyment of some people to grind through a dungeon, collecting junk loot and then taking it to town to sell and work up towards buying stuff they care about, and I personally don't give enough of a shit for it to impact my enjoyment, it could make the game more generally enjoyable to cut out the "go back to town, offload an army's worth of short swords and chainmail, go buy a +1 flaming pigsticker" part and just say "hey, is it possible for us to find a +1 flaming pigsticker in the dungeon?" and have the DM say "Sure, what the hell, why not?" and then drop one in somewhere, or at least make sure it's somewhere on the random item list.

I'm not saying you do it with major artifacts, but even those can be worked in. If you know one of your players want's Kas' Sword, then what the hell is wrong with making an adventure where they get a chance to acquire it at an appropriate level?

"Wow, Kas' Sword is really cool. That'd be great for my character"
*DM files that away thinking "well, fuck, there's an easy way to get the fighter invested in killing Thundar the Big Bad's general."*

[shadzar]

I'm going to regret this...

Shadzar, why do you hate fun? Wait, no- better question, why do you play games if you hate fun?

Thundar was a barbarian and his Sun Sword would ctually be pretty fucking cool!, but the wookie-wanna-be Ookla the Mook, not so much fun in D&D...

That aside, I find it funny you mention something liek this. I feel you are one of the poster in a current WotC forum about "what official rights the players have".

some more backstory if you will as part answer...

one time a friend who had NEVER before DMed but thought he had what it takes decided he knew enough from CRPGs like Parasite Eve and whatever else the N64 had, to take a Baulder Gate video game and turn it into an adventure. Well the time came where an EVENT in the game should have happened, but he found D&D wasnt Final Fantasy and there was no forest the PCs were going to run into to level grind, so he just tossed out 1k XP for stupid shit just to get people to the correct level for the next part of the game.

right then and there i packed up and left. level grind in a video game is not something that belong in a TTRPG. i get why it has always been in video games and what purpose it serve due to their confines, but for a TTRPG, the adventure doesn't stop because the DM doesn't want to make something to fill in the gaps, nor does forcing some level-grind or nonsense like above fit. SoD is instantly ruined as well as interest. i had NO control over my character at that point and the DM was jsut deciding what happened next without input. this isnt a case of makign the game work, just sucking as a DM.

now what does this have to do with item wishlists? the exact same thing. first my goal in playing is i enjoy the game. what is fun to me is not making a christmas tree character with a bunch of shinies, but PLAYING THE GAME. TAKING PART IN THE ADVENTURE. when my ability to take part in the adventure is removed by a DM railroad then the fun ends.

in the aforementioned thread about players rights many things were brought up and we have seen such before about the DM "owing" the players something like Fuchs magical rapier for his stupidly narrow character concept. I don't go into a game doing what people in the WotC thread do. I go to play the game, not my own personal Drizzt-clone or Aragorn-clone or whatever. for 3.5 I played a paladin as a sit-in player for someone's character.. broke his lance and left it behind. a minotaur for a seat filler to have enough people for a game to even happen, and the stores big open in which i played the known Githzerai monk (psy abilities functioned as spell-like abilities or if you will "encounter powers" from 4th and didnt use the psionics rules), and for a few minuts i played a Giff. i dont like 3.x at all, so why would i play THOSE types of characters? it surely wasnt out of want. I played them to fill a seat. i played them the best the could be played with my knowledge of 3.5. but i will say i had NO fun at all with the system.

you "fun" and reason for playing like wanting to paly your pet-race/class that you have been jizzing to play and thus Fuchs wanting his special snowflake magical rapier, and things such as item-wishlsits is NOT the same thing other people want, and actually detracts from their fun.

like i said in the "D&D is dead", the idea has moved form playing the game, to the game being character creation for the purpose of being able to tell your mini-movella about your character. collecting christmas tree ornaments item wishlists is this exact same thing. mostly i blame video games for breeding this into people because you MUST collect and upgrade your Buster Sword, or obtain the Silver Arrow and Master's Sword in order to beat Gannon. D&D didnt' ahve those limitations until they were made that way. "can only be damaged by magical OR SILVER weapons".

the game shouldnt force people to cosplay and act as O' Tannenbaum in your elementary school Christmas pageant collect Pokemon magic items in order to be able to play longer than a single session. it should allow for those people to play that way, but shouldn't force everyone to adopt such stupidity.

[Prak]

So... you're against players making it known that there are certain items they'd like and MC keeping this in mind as he plans because you once played with a kid who basically went through a perfectly normal and expected step of learning how to dm and ran a poor game. Because MC taking into account what players want is somehow railroading.

I find it interesting that you basically just admitted that you think DM Railroading is basically the exact opposite of what it actually is, because in the Druthers thread you just said "I'd love to run a game where the players just have character names and item lists and leave all the actual game mechanics to me." Which is actually a lot more like railroading.

I also said nothing about forcing people to play with wishlists. 4E may have needed it, but 4E is widely regarded as having sucked. I defend the idea as something which can, when handled correctly, increase player enjoyment.

But it's good to know that if you ever play in one of my games I can just make a list of "Random Events to make Shadzar the Butt Monkey" and roll on that when I want, and you'll be perfectly fine with it so long as it still allows you to play the game. Which apparently to you means telling me what you want to do and then letting me roll everything.

Hell, this is actually pretty hilarious because you call wishlists something for children, but that is exactly how a child plays D&D.

...Shad, I think what you really want is to run D&D for children.

[shadzar]

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.

[Prak]

Honestly, Shad, I can only read so much of your screeds. Out of a sense of self preservation. I didn't say you should even be allowed near children, just that clearly that's the type of player you would do best running for.

[Voss]

Particularly in their more normal form... personally I've never seen magic item wishlists drawn up with Lago's first two points. Magic axe, yes, but not blather weapon of blathering; nor have I ever seen the wishlist take priority over setting restrictions.

Believe it or not but they're necessary preconditions to have a wishlist system that works properly.

I disagree. 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. You might as well have tossed a holy water sprinkler at them.

Second. Extreme examples aren't all that useful here, as its making you miss the point. They want a good weapon of whatever type is useful to them. Going 500 miles for Excalibur or 5000 miles for a Muramasa isn't the key- its getting something cool they can use. If it has a fun quest attached to it, they might appreciate it more, but you're obfuscating the real issue with unrelated bullshit.

'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.

And when it comes down to it, that is what I've normally seen on wishlists- the standard array of shit that allows the math to work (rings of protection, amulets of natural armor +x weapons- particularly in older editions where not having +x means monsters get blanket immunity), + 1 or 2 neat items that people think will fit their character.