Comments on: The Purpose of Loot

By: Ackleton

Ackleton — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:02:16 +0000

I think, barring magical enchantment, items should be about as important as they were in real-life medieval combat: using a high quality carbon-steel sword will give you a marked advantage against someone using a pig-iron sword, but a pig-iron sword can still kill you just as dead. Making loot the end-all of an MMO creates a never-ending “grind levels~grind gear~kill bosses~get better gear~kill harder bosses~get uber gear” cycle that just resets every expansion, not to mention primarily rewarding time invested rather than actual player skill. As MMOs allow for more use of a player’s skill(FPS controls, etc.), they should become increasingly less item-centric.

By: Begone, Skills! « Stylish Corpse

Begone, Skills! « Stylish Corpse — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:23:10 +0000

[...] been mulling over this for a while, but was sparked by reading this Elder Game article on the purpose of loot where it’s mooted that items-as-verbs is one way to stop the items arms race where no item is [...]

By: Tesh

Tesh — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:05:44 +0000

The loot lottery is important to modern treadmill loot-centric MMO design, but it’s poor design.

By: Bryant

Bryant — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:51:57 +0000

Yeah, that. I think 4e loot also suffers from the wishlist recommendation made in the DMG. My players seem way more enthused about loot because they don’t know what they’re going to get. In the campaign I played in, we used wishlists, plus the DM handed out raw materials so we could have absolute choice. Pretty dull.

Note my long held belief that the gambling/lottery aspect of loot drops is really important in a loot-driven MMORPG.

By: Lightweight and Heavyweight Rulesets « Dancing Elephants

Lightweight and Heavyweight Rulesets « Dancing Elephants — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:42:14 +0000

[...] 5, 2009 · No Comments Eric Heimburg recently wrote a very nice piece on how 4th edition D&D rules simultaneously reduce the value of loot and make it a part of the [...]

By: pharniel

pharniel — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:18:49 +0000

The main reason to tone down the magic items was the ‘christmass tree’ effect.
If you played in any organized play (table top mm campaign) like living grayhawk you found out how bad it really was.
items, classes and feats had to be routeinly tweaked, banned etc. in order to keep up with the twinks.

And god forbid you’re from a non-maximized region, because you travel and your party looks at you and gives you the ‘why did you even bother to show up, you’re dead before you begin’ look.

I never played alliance, but i know how retadins feel:)

and god forbid you have the wrong verbs for the conversation.

By: Psychochild’s Blog » Breaking the rules

Psychochild’s Blog » Breaking the rules — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:03:20 +0000

[...] Eric Heimburg has a little post about loot in games, particularly how it is in the new 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. He complains that loot just isn’t special anymore, and discusses how this is similar to MMOs (which people have accused the D&D developers of copying too much). [...]

By: Brian 'Psychochild' Green

Brian 'Psychochild' Green — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:48:01 +0000

I haven’t played 4th edition yet, but it really just hasn’t captured my imagination. The accusations that they’ve cribbed too much from MMOs (particularly WoW) seem accurate to me. I think the problem is that they reduced a lot of the unpredictability, and part of that is reflected in the loot.

For me, the best part of paper RPGs is when I get to “break the rules” of the conventions of the world. The potions you mention, Eric, are a good example: Those archers making your life tough up on the castle walls? Quaff your potion and climb up there and see how they like some steel at close range. You broke the rule by being able to climb the wall when most people can’t. Wands let you fire off more spells than your character could otherwise. Even in low magic item games like what Scott describes above, that rare +1 sword had qualities; “A wolfwere? You have the +1 sword, you go beat on it!”

The standardized loot in 4th edition takes away the ability to break the rules by incorporating a lot of the special uses into the rules and reducing most bonuses to mere pluses. I think it’s interesting to note that in 4th edition, the magical loot information is right in the PHB, whereas before it was “hidden” in the DMG. The loot has become more predictable and therefore boring. But, there is hope, as clem points out: a sword that lets you break the rules so wonderfully does become a lot more interesting. Eventually, you’ll probably see sourcebooks with lots of interesting magical items listed come out (if not already out).

By: clem

clem — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:53:09 +0000

One problem with cool effects that rise above “+1 to this, +2 to that” is anticipating how it will disrupt combat. For example, my warlord in the Living Forgotten Realms campaign was awarded a +2 Wolfen Longsword that effectively tilts a surprise round in the party’s favor once a day. The daily power is that all allies within 5 squares of him gets to act in the surprise round even if they failed a perception check. It has cool written all over it, but it’s also had DMs pulling their hair out at having their encounter effectively wrecked.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:25:32 +0000

The neat thing about D&D is that it can support lots of different target audiences, to varying degrees. Our group happens to like killing monsters and taking their stuff. They enjoy strategic battles and dicey combats more than they like solving puzzles, interacting with townfolk, or advancing their character’s story. And that’s okay. This edition of D&D definitely supports their playstyle — in some ways it does it much better than the last edition. But loot is not one of those places.

In D&D 3.5, it was common for a mid-level adventurer to have a half-dozen potions on hand at all times, offering everything from a quick heal to the ability to literally climb up walls. If they lived long enough to find a magic ring, it might be a Tolkein-esque invisibility ring, usable whenever they wanted. They got new verbs, and big ones.

In this edition of D&D, potions with new verbs are rare, and objects like that invisibility ring might only work once per day. They get new verbs when they level up instead, and LOTS of ‘em. But the items are just +1 to this, +2 to that, and occasionally “do something cool for six seconds each day, if you choose not to use any other items that day”. The verb-giving of items has been toned way, way down. I think that’s what the players are reacting to.