What people want and what makes them happy rarely coincide.

[Username17]

A weapon fetishist character is a character who uses one weapon exclusively.

No. Fuck your strawman and the straw horse it rode in on. If you want to pretend Wolverine doesn't mean "claws shoot out of his knuckles and he fucks people up with them" because he's touched a variety of other weaponry throughout his lifetime as a comic book character, you are not being reasonable. At all.

Wait. What the fuck? The actual example was that a player should be able to mandate that they get a katana and not an ax or even some other kind of sword. That was the example.

That's beyond "character has a class feature where they have awesome natural weapons". That's way beyond "character uses a wide variety of weaponry available in a modern setting". That's a character who refuses to use a weapon because it's the wrong flavor of medieval one handed slashing weapons and even because it's the wrong flavor of medieval one handed slashing weapons that happen to be swords.

That is the "archetype" that people are advocating support for. A character who does not find weapons that are even slightly different from the current weapons.

you and Lago have been saying that people should be dropping their primary weapon forever because something with a bigger plus randomly dropped, not that they should have a golf bag of other weapons. You've been saying outright that people should abandon forever the use of their ancestral +1 sword because a +2 dire flail dropped, or else be labelled as weapon fetishists.

Uh... this is D&D. Your primary weapon is going to be dropped forever because you find another weapon with a bigger plus. That is a given. People are going to drop their ancestral +1 Ancestral Flaming sword because a +2 Ice weapon dropped. They are going to do that. That part is not even up for discussion. The thing that Fuchs and company are arguing is that the player should be allowed to mandate that the +2 ice weapon happens to be specifically a Gladius because the +1 Flaming ancestral weapon happened to be a Gladius. Lago and I are arguing against that.

That mandating that the +2 Ice weapon is specifically a gladius comes with several huge problems for the game. Most notably:

• It strains believability for the monsters to only drop Gladius upgrades when you need weapon upgrades. That is one of the things that makes 4e so shitty. You wade through skull demons with burning scythes and orcish warriors with tear drinking axes, but the only time a weapon you can use drops it happens to be exactly the weapon you were already using with bigger numbers? What the fuck?
• When item drops have a 1:1 correspondence with players, as they necessarily do when all your weapon upgrades are exactly upgrades of your current weapon and all of the next player's weapon upgrades are new versions of his weapon, then the items are seen (correctly in my opinion) as being gifts directly from the MC to a particular player. This means that when they aren't perfectly equal in value and/or utility and/or time of arrival (as they necessarily will not be) those differences will be seen as the conscious favoritism of one player over another by the MC.
• By creating the assumption that the player will get an upgraded version of their current weapon, you've transformed a potential reward into a potential punishment. When the player does find their +2 Ice Gladius, rather than being happy that they got a gladius and don't have to change their figure, they are now disappointed because their new gladius is ice instead of fire. You've set the expectations to be equal to the most the DM could possibly give you, which means that you can't ever exceed those expectations and are doomed to fall short of expectations constantly.

The wishlist system is bad. It turns treasure acquisition into a road of broken dreams, as the only question is how much short of your whole list you're going to get and how much extra time it's going to take before you get your stuff. When the only thing the MC can tell you is either "OK", "not yet", or "not quite", you've created a perfect recipe for the MC to be resented.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

I am fine with all systems that allow you to keep using your weapon of choice. In our game we use and used:
- weapon that levels with you
- weapon that gets upgraded by finding pieces of the legendary artifact it is a part of, which join with the weapon when found, enhancing its power
- weapon that gets more powerful by doing great deeds (Slay a red dragon, get some fire power/protection added, etc.)
- weapon enhanced by the gods as a reward for great deeds (ancestral weapon turned into holy avenger)
- weapon upgraded by mage for hire.

And yes, for the record: I don't expect that a weapon user will use his chosen weapon all the time. Just most of the time. He will still use the macguffin weapon that is the only one to pierce godzilla's skin or what.

[Fuchs]

The wishlist system is bad. It turns treasure acquisition into a road of broken dreams, as the only question is how much short of your whole list you're going to get and how much extra time it's going to take before you get your stuff. When the only thing the MC can tell you is either "OK", "not yet", or "not quite", you've created a perfect recipe for the MC to be resented.

-Username17

Don't play with immature assholes. Seriously, I don't know what kind of people you play with, but having wishlists has only improved the gifts I got for christmas and birthdays and I understood that even as a kid. Dreams are not broken when you don't get everything at once, dreams are broken when you realize that your odds of getting what you want are slim to none - at least for the mature player of average intelligence. I'll grant you that immature and stupid kids might be happier with random charts, but then, I don't think those should be the target audience for the game anyway.

When the only thing the GM can do is "roll at random" you'll more likely end up the boy who got a ken doll and not a GI Joe from their stupid aunt than the boy who got something he wanted.

[A Man In Black]

I'm not really sure what you're asking.

Okay. Two different games.

We are playing Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. The new splatbook comes out, and Samurai is a playable class. What would a reasonable demand for me to make as a samurai player with regard to expecting access to and use of katanas?

We are playing some sort of superhero game. I want to make the High Sticker, a guy whose combat schtick is beating people in the face with a hockey stick. What are reasonable demands and expectations for me to make as a player in this game? (Does this change if I make the character into Unnecessary Roughness, a guy who beats people with sports equipment of all sorts in melee?)

[Prak]

Samurai- Personal weapon is an ancestral katana, handed down by elders/forged by character, can always invest power of some sort into upgrading the katana you started out with (the 3e OA samurai ability), possibly explained as channeling spirits into your katana

High Sticker- I have no bloody clue
Unnecessary Roughness- ditto.

[hogarth]

The wishlist system is bad. It turns treasure acquisition into a road of broken dreams, as the only question is how much short of your whole list you're going to get and how much extra time it's going to take before you get your stuff. When the only thing the MC can tell you is either "OK", "not yet", or "not quite", you've created a perfect recipe for the MC to be resented.

Frank, did you tell all of this to the shortbow using dude in your game? About him being "bad" and "fucking terrible" and following a "road of broken dreams"?

If not, why not?

[Username17]

We are playing Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. The new splatbook comes out, and Samurai is a playable class. What would a reasonable demand for me to make as a samurai player with regard to expecting access to and use of katanas?

That one is easy. A fifth edition sourcebook would be made under the assumption that the new character class would be playable in D&D campaigns, meaning that the assumed campaign setting would be something like Greyhawk (3e), Eberron (3.5), or Nentir Vale (4e) or whatever the 5th edition campaign setting is. Thus the assumption is that the number of katanas you will find in your travels is zero.

So you can write the Samurai class in one of two ways. You can either write them so that they start play with a decent low level weapon as a minor low-level boost that intentionally expires as player characters find higher tier equipment, or you can give them an ancestral katana that levels with them. Both of those are fine and are totally workable. Note also that exactly the same possibilities are open for a "Space Ranger" who starts the game with a laser pistol. While it is certainly possible to find a new laser pistol in Greyhawk, he can expect zero new laser pistols. Meaning that the character class can either start with a weapon that is really good for level one but will eventually be replaced when you find a Screaming Crossbow +2, or the character can have the ability to continually upgrade their starting laser pistol as they rise in level. There really isn't an option 3, because it is unreasonable for a player to expect to "find" laser pistols in any D&D setting that could remotely be called standard.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

Greyhawk has a buried spaceship in it. You can find laser pistols there.

[Username17]

The wishlist system is bad. It turns treasure acquisition into a road of broken dreams, as the only question is how much short of your whole list you're going to get and how much extra time it's going to take before you get your stuff. When the only thing the MC can tell you is either "OK", "not yet", or "not quite", you've created a perfect recipe for the MC to be resented.

Frank, did you tell all of this to the shortbow using dude in your game? About him being "bad" and "fucking terrible" and following a "road of broken dreams"?

If not, why not?

The character did not have a wishlist. There was no expectation that he would necessarily get any particular thing and he didn't ask for any specific thing. He was a small sized cossack with ranged combat feats, and thus there were limited weapons he could wield. But he was not aversed to getting and using javelins or throwing axes. Also, he used a lance (although not very often considering how much firepower he could lay down with the bow).

He held the game hostage exactly zero times with his desire to ride around and shoot people. The only thing we had to do was to kludge in a Leadershipesque feat to allow him to get his mount to level with him. But even that isn't wishlist bullshit, since we arranged mount scaling to be actually part of the character's inherent progression rather than asking Shadow Mastiffs and Winter Wolves to mysteriously show up in treasure piles.

It also helps that the character in specific was actually typed to the world in question, since he established before the character was even in play that he was from a tribe that fought like that who were not particularly far away from where the campaign was set. Meaning that the one time he actually ended up needing to bargain for a weapon upgrade it was established as something that was workable before the campaign had even begun. So again, there was no break in verisimilitude at any point. The nomadic tribes he went to trade with were pre-established as existing actual months of real time before they were needed.

-Username17

[Winnah]

Fuck me. This thread is terrible.

Does a game like D&D 3.5 actively support a samurai wielding his ancestral katana? If so, how well does the system support it? Are you a lying shitbag that actually employs houserules to make this happen, yet wants to claim otherwise?

How about 4e?

AD&D?

Any other game system?

Does grinding away with the same weapon over the course of a campaign actually satisfy you? How long was the campaign? How often were you called upon to use this signature weapon?

I'll take a stab at answering my own questions. I once made an evil paladin character in a 3.5 game. Sigurd. Sigurd liked spikes. Spiked armour, spiked shield, spiked gauntlets and a morningstar. Sigurd was not happy unless he was drilling a spike into someones face.

That worked fine for a couple of levels. Occasionally i would get bored and have him kill someone in an entertaining, yet brutal manner, such as grapple-drowning a bugbear, or tying them up and throwing them off a building.

Sigurd got to level 5 without picking up a single spiked magical weapon. Sigurd fights Shadow. Sigurd runs away when his Oil of Magic Weapon times out.

Sigurd fights a flesh golem. The party rogue drags Sigurds unconscious body away, then kills the golem with an adamantine spear he found 2 adventures prior.

Sigurd fights a Mummy. Sigurd decides "This spike routine is going to get me fucking killed...Not just that, but I'm being a stubborn arsehole and making the game less fun for other players" Sigurd kills the mummy with a flaming weapon the party found, but noone was using. That was a turning point in the campaign. I dropped the stupid schtick I was using and started using the tools that were provided by the campaign world instead. Eveyone soon made it to level 8, without further difficulty, and the campaign died shortly after. The end.

Should I have been upset that the DM did not coddle me by giving out magical spiked gear? I don't think so. I was aiming for a Sadistic Anti-Hero, but I was relying on an in-game prop in order to ropeplay that character effectively. Once i stopped my reliance on that signature style, my roleplaying actually improved. Sigurd evolved into a subtle and terrifying sadistic brute rather than the clumsy, one dimensional goon that relied on a signature piece of gear.

[Fuchs]

I played a swashbuckling bard in 2E, using rapiers and main-gauches from level 4 (starting level) to 16. Took years

I played a thief/fighter in 2E, using daggers from level 1 to 12 or so. Took years.

I played a bard in 3E, using a bastard sword for 12 levels. Took years.

That's all in all 15 years worth of roleplaying. And yes, it was fun, all the time. I don't have fun switching aesthetics and weapons at the roll of a die. Some players in those campaigns switched weapons, one going from sword and bow to sword and musket, some stuck with their chosen weapon.

Also, in the Forgotten Realms, you can have just about every weapon, just about all cultures were establiushed to be part of it decades ago (Chult, kara-tur, zakhara, hordelands etc.) So, the argument of "has to be established months ago" is already met and then some here.

People have different tastes. Some, like me, are happy (and prefer it) if they can play the character they want, not something the GM wants them to.

Trying to limit a game to one type of player is a bad idea.

Also, if

[Winnah]

Here I was thinking the signature ability of a bard was music and magic, not their weapon.

Did these characters have signature spells that they used all the time? Or a diverse grab-bag of differing effects? Were any of the characters you mentioned defined by their weapon? Were they defined by their weapon to the same extent as a Samurai or Specialist fighter? Was their answer to every problem "hit it with sword/dagger/rapier?"

There is a big difference between a character that carries around a prop while they do cool stuff and a character that relies on that prop to achieve anything. That is the problem with weapon specialisation in a game like D&D.

[hogarth]

The character did not have a wishlist. There was no expectation that he would necessarily get any particular thing and he didn't ask for any specific thing.

Frank, you just told us he specifically went on a sidequest to get a magic shortbow from some goblins, and that before that he was using a less-good shortbow. How is that not the same as having a magic shortbow on his wishlist? Are you using some bizarre definition of "wishlist" that no one else understands?

He held the game hostage exactly zero times with his desire to ride around and shoot people.

No one here is saying that they think PCs should have the right to "hold the game hostage". That's some weird strawman thing you're making up.

It also helps that the character in specific was actually typed to the world in question, since he established before the character was even in play that he was from a tribe that fought like that who were not particularly far away from where the campaign was set. Meaning that the one time he actually ended up needing to bargain for a weapon upgrade it was established as something that was workable before the campaign had even begun.

I think we can all agree that a GM certainly has the right to say "there aren't any samurais or katanas in my world", as long as he does it at the start of the campaign. No one is arguing otherwise, as far as I know.

[Fuchs]

Here I was thinking the signature ability of a bard was music and magic, not their weapon.

Did these characters have signature spells that they used all the time? Or a diverse grab-bag of differing effects? Were any of the characters you mentioned defined by their weapon? Were they defined by their weapon to the same extent as a Samurai or Specialist fighter? Was their answer to every problem "hit it with sword/dagger/rapier?"

There is a big difference between a character that carries around a prop while they do cool stuff and a character that relies on that prop to achieve anything. That is the problem with weapon specialisation in a game like D&D.

I posted a few times: They were not using their weapon all the time - but when there was a time to use a weapon, they used those weapons. And those weapons were, through various methods such as GM's chosen loot (2E) or spells/enchantments (3E) kept on the range, so to speak.

[Fuchs]

I think we can all agree that a GM certainly has the right to say "there aren't any samurais or katanas in my world", as long as he does it at the start of the campaign. No one is arguing otherwise, as far as I know.

Yeah. If there are no katanas available in the campaign, then there are not. That's not the same as allowing them as starter gear and then never upgrade it.

If you hate katanas, be open about it.

[Falgund]

Frank, you just told us he specifically went on a sidequest to get a magic shortbow from some goblins, and that before that he was using a less-good shortbow. How is that not the same as having a magic shortbow on his wishlist? Are you using some bizarre definition of "wishlist" that no one else understands?

Wishlist: The *player* asks the *DM* for an item. The character then finds the item while doing other things.
Sidequest: The *character* asks *NPCs* for where the item can be found, and goes there to take it.

[hogarth]

Frank, you just told us he specifically went on a sidequest to get a magic shortbow from some goblins, and that before that he was using a less-good shortbow. How is that not the same as having a magic shortbow on his wishlist? Are you using some bizarre definition of "wishlist" that no one else understands?

Wishlist: The *player* asks the *DM* for an item. The character then finds the item while doing other things.
Sidequest: The *character* asks *NPCs* for where the item can be found, and goes there to take it.

Perhaps that's where the confusion comes from. My definition...

Wishlist: A list of (specific) items a person wishes to own.

P.S. You do know that NPCs are often controlled by the GM, right? I'm not sure how a PC is supposed to ask an NPC about wanting a specific item without letting the GM know that the PC wants the specific item as well.

[Username17]

Frank, you just told us he specifically went on a sidequest to get a magic shortbow from some goblins, and that before that he was using a less-good shortbow. How is that not the same as having a magic shortbow on his wishlist? Are you using some bizarre definition of "wishlist" that no one else understands?

Wishlist: The *player* asks the *DM* for an item. The character then finds the item while doing other things.
Sidequest: The *character* asks *NPCs* for where the item can be found, and goes there to take it.

Perhaps that's where the confusion comes from. My definition...

Wishlist: A list of (specific) items a person wishes to own.

P.S. You do know that NPCs are often controlled by the GM, right? I'm not sure how a PC is supposed to ask an NPC about wanting a specific item without letting the GM know that the PC wants the specific item as well.

Considering that the "wishlist" system has been defined multiple times in this very fucking thread, and that the entire edition of 4e D&D runs off the damn thing, I take your obtuseness on this subject to be a basic admission of mouth drooling idiocy. However, if you honestly can't tell the difference between the *player* asking the *DM* for something to show up and the *character* searching *the world* for something, then maybe you'll like 4e more than I do. Because that edition has all the major decisions made in an out-of-character fashion.

-Username17

[hogarth]

Considering that the "wishlist" system has been defined multiple times in this very fucking thread [..]

Citation needed.

[Josh_Kablack]

So uh.

How would you describe the reasonable expectation(s) if your character has "I use a hockey stick as my signature weapon?"

Wikipedia entry on fictional precedent. While you can quibble that his actual weapon is "gym bag full of sports equipment", he is shown with a hockey stick at least as often as any other particular weapon due to how visually striking it can be and the occasional opportunity for sight gags

I think it's also highly relevant to note that the character, "was created as a parody", and yet as the series went on and was rebooted into different media he became more serious and grew some depth. Thus while use of sports gear in combat may have started out as a way to designate him as an devoted yet opportunistic Western melee-er in a pseudo-modern setting and parody the cultural phenomenon of both channelling rage into sports and then allowing sports talent to excuse law-breaking , it did not prevent character growth or result in a character who had to stay shallow. That his signature weapon choice also seems to undermine Lago's point about unexamined symbols reinforcing cultural norms which we'd be better off without is really just icing on the cake.

[Username17]

Considering that the "wishlist" system has been defined multiple times in this very fucking thread [..]

Citation needed.

Wait. You're so retarded that you can't search through this very fucking thread? OK fine.

Look through Page 2. Also, Page 5. Continues on Page 6. Gets good and explicit on Page 7. And yeah, it gets mentioned again on Page 8. And you know what? Go fuck yourself.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

That's a character who refuses to use a weapon because it's the wrong flavor of medieval one handed slashing weapons and even because it's the wrong flavor of medieval one handed slashing weapons that happen to be swords.

"The game should support a character's ability to use X for the character's lifetime" != "I should not have to sully my character's hands with anything but X ever."

But let's do the example thing. I like the Robin Hood one. Robin Hood has used a sword, a quarterstaff, and a bow in pretty major parts of his various representations, but he still solves most of his problems with a bow and everybody who hears Robin Hood thinks bow. That is the actual thing being proposed; that Robin Hood's primary weapon being a bow is supported, not that we encourage him to switch to javelins halfway through because they were a strictly superior loot drop.

We are playing Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. The new splatbook comes out, and Samurai is a playable class. What would a reasonable demand for me to make as a samurai player with regard to expecting access to and use of katanas?

That you start with a katana which may or may not be mechanically different from a bastard sword, but probably isn't, and one of the following holds:
1) There exists no weapon which gives a bonus to the weapon's use. There are no +2 swords. No magic item will ever vertically advance weapon use. This probably won't fly in D&D, the game of +4 flaming keen swords. This is probably what I would do.
2) There exist only distinct tiers of weapons of basically equivalent power (minor medium major) so the turnover rate is low and if your weapon isn't massively exotic you are likely to get your hands on at least one that satisfies you. This is a compromise I would make with people who want swords of swording instead of just folding that shit into "levelling up."
3) You have some ability which lets you power up your weapon in some way. Perhaps there's a feat where you basically gain a weapon that grows with you, so the fighter takes this feat and now he's a samurai and has the same katana the entire game. I don't really like this.
4) You have transferable enchantments. I mostly hate this.
5) You have a ye olde magic item shoppe. I definitely hate this more.

How you solve this situation really depends on what you expect out of the D&D magic item system, and that's a separate discussion. I know what I want out of the D&D magic item system, and that is completely compatible with someone choosing to use a non-magical katana their entire career.

We are playing some sort of superhero game. I want to make the High Sticker, a guy whose combat schtick is beating people in the face with a hockey stick. What are reasonable demands and expectations for me to make as a player in this game? (Does this change if I make the character into Unnecessary Roughness, a guy who beats people with sports equipment of all sorts in melee?)

Super games don't really feature 'looting.' You probably start and end with the same stuff, and any upgrades you get happen completely off camera or as parts of critical plot points. So both characters just start with their thing and keep it and it gets better off camera when no one's looking or you go on a quest to find the hockey stick mcguffin that defeats the villain.

[hogarth]

Look through Page 2.

No definition there.

Also, Page 5.

Or there.

Continues on Page 6.

Okay, there's one guy's definition of how 4E works. I'm not sure that implies that all wishlists work exactly like 4E, but I'll give you that one.

Gets good and explicit on Page 7.

No definition here.

And yeah, it gets mentioned again on Page 8.

Or here either.

So I stand corrected -- one person defined it once. (Not "multiple times" as you claim.)

And you know what? Go fuck yourself.

Ah...classic Frank. Swearing is always a good alternative to actually being right!

[Red_Rob]

3) You have some ability which lets you power up your weapon in some way. Perhaps there's a feat where you basically gain a weapon that grows with you, so the fighter takes this feat and now he's a samurai and has the same katana the entire game. I don't really like this.

So, something like this?

Signature Weapon [Combat]
There is a particular weapon that is special to you in some way. Maybe it's your father's blade, maybe you are a master bowman, or maybe you just fap to katanas, it doesn't really matter.
Special: When you choose this feat, decide on a weapon type (e.g. "1 handed swords" or "bows") that this feat will apply to.
+0: You may designate one weapon at a time as your Signature Weapon, and this weapon must be a masterwork weapon of the type chosen above. You must perform a 24 hour ritual to designate it as your signature Weapon. This ritual costs 100 gp in materials, and once performed grants the following abilities:
• Counts as your Signature weapon.
• Has a minimum enhancement bonus to attack and damage equal to your level divided by three (rounded up).
+1: You are a master with your Signature weapon, and once per day you may reroll the damage dealt by a successful attack with it. You must reroll all the dice (including additional dice from sneak attack/rage dice etc.) and you must accept the result of the reroll.
+6: Your weapon gains a Lesser Special property chosen when this ability is gained.
+11: Your weapon gains a Medium Special property chosen when this ability is gained. This replaces the previous ability.
+16: Your weapon gains a Major Special property chosen when this ability is gained. This replaces the previous ability.

Would including a feat like this ensure that players who felt like their weapon was an important part of their schtick could play nice with the use-whatever-drops crowd?

[Fuchs]

Yes.