Let's remember importantly that Frank is advocating super rare super specshul randomized snowlfake item mechanics and look at his rather second rate list...
FrankTrollman wrote:[*] Wishlists damage the realness of the setting
Actually...
totally randomizing your items is, oddly, a significantly greater threat to "realness". Because ANY form of arbitrary item selection at least lets your CONSIDER the realness factor, while random is... well yeah, RANDOM.
[*] Wishlists damage the joy of storytelling
No one gives a fuck about the story of the time you got your paycheck on time.
This is
entirely agnostic towards allowed item related archetypes and random vs selective loot drops. It is
solely about loot drop FREQUENCY. Unfortunately "level appropriate" loot drops are kinda vital to game balance so EVERYONE needs to just eat a dick on this one. I mean unless you can eliminate level appropriate loot in general, but the "super powerful ultra rare speschul snowflake" strategy only WORSENS the game play impacts of item power levels and actually REQUIRES frequent "pay checks" as much if not more than ANY system.
Mind you. While regular paychecks may not be story worthy they ARE a proven successful and
addictive element of RPG game play. And while some aspects of the item treadmill might be worth removing all in all it is actually a pretty radical proposition as the regular pay check as it currently stands fairly clearly brings MORE player engagement than it damages.
[*] Wishlists destroy the value of item creation/upgrading abilities
If not having that ability would allow you to get the same item through wishlists as having that ability would, then the ability is worthless.
Some abilities SHOULD be worthless. It's the only way to balance them without destroying game balance. Crafting is HIGH on that list. And kicking the basic concept of the level appropriate character in the nuts
repeatedly in order to make space for
literal basket weaving characters is
a stupid idea. But there isn't ANYTHING stupid Frank won't say as a smoke screen for his stupid speschul snowflake item scheme.
[*] Wishlists damage the relationship between the player and the MC
...It's not that it merely has the potential to cause bad blood, it's that it is almost guaranteed to do so because it literally requires the MC to give uneven gifts in a blatantly unfair fashion to the different players at the table.
He runs almost word for word with the "if you try to give players what they ask for if you then instead screw them through incompetence, which you will, they will be annoyed!" line that swordslinger tried? The one we thought was a pile of laughs? Yep. He actually tries it on. With a straight face no less.
But here is a thing. Try that entire point entry with Randomized Items in place of wish lists. Yeah. That's right, it's a basically item selection method agnostic criticism. If players get screwed by the items made available to them they get pissed off.
regardless of loot selection mechanics. Arbitrary choice based loot selection mechanics give a tool to combat and control this. Randomized ones DO NOT.
[*] Wishlists damage the relationship between the player and their treasure
When you find a dollar, that makes you feel good. When someone holds your dollar over your head and makes you jump for it a few times before they let you have it, that's humiliating and infuriating. .
And again... a criticism that is actually entirely agnostic towards randomization or selection of items. What hoops you have to jump through to cause a loot drop are irrelevant to that issue. AND the claim that "wish lists" lead to damaging expectations is bat shit insane because both wish lists AND randomized loot drops have expectations of level appropriate loot drops AND those are
not bad expectations since level appropriate loot drops
are vital for game play balance.
Against all of that, the only argument for wishlists is that players will take the game hostage by not taking character abilities that allow them to get specific stuff and then throwing a temper tantrum if their character doesn't miraculously find specific stuff anyway. That's seriously it.
Why does that claim seem more like a rather
unserious straw man then? I mean REALLY now?
But the important thing here is that Frank is STILL talking about Wish Lists. And that is NOT a valid way to demonstrate the actual topic of this thread or the proposition of instituting "speshcul rare snowflake randomized item drops" like he and Lago are promoting.
Oddly enough when you propose a mechanic or whatever the
burden of evidence is on you to show that it is good. So strawmen, or worse strawmen of a SINGLE SPECIFIC COUNTER OPTION are
not actually enough. You have to actually show that your proposition is BETTER, or at least FUNCTIONAL. But instead we get wish list distraction smoke bombs everywhere. Because
Frank and Lago cannot justify the speshcul snowflake item randomizer.
And if they DID talk about it they MIGHT have to explain how all it's massive disadvantages, like you know
destroying the very concept of level appropriate characters are somehow "good for us".
But instead Frank is going to claim that talking about Wishlist strawmen is a totally valid way to prove the speshul snowflake mechanic as long as anyone ever attempts to reply to his strawmanning of their position.
So maybe we should just stop doing that and talk about how crap the speshcul snowflake random item generator methodology is instead.
