Magic Item Creation

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Something that this general concept of could maybe fit well for is a competitive cooking game. Where players are all about their special recipes and techniques for preparing dishes and go about gathering rare ingredients to do battle with their culinary masterpieces. If you do something like this then you want to have more involvement than just a plain crafting check however. If you want something to be more tactical then you will want choices. Different methods of how you prepare your foods, specialties. Optional Ingredients become secret family recipes where maybe you can apply ingredients for non-standard effects. Your Fuel resources would be spent on your kitchen equipment, ingredients, and assistants. Crafting Time as offered is dumb and unsalvageable. I would change it to Time Management, which would probably best be divided by short, medium, and long actions, and the higher level you go the more actions you can juggle at a time. It could be a fun tie-in to D&D to have characters whip up a totally second character based upon their standard character, but using totally separate character creation rules and game.

Isn't that just Dungeon Meshi, but an actual RPG?

[erik]

Isn't that just Dungeon Meshi, but an actual RPG?

Ehhh, Dungeon Meshi isn't competitive cooking though. It's a fine setting for the type of game I was proposing, but if you consider the story like an adventure, their cooking is kind of just totally extraneous from an RPG standpoint. There's no need to bother with making it too complicated, it's just fluff describing how they used craft(cooking) on the ingredients at hand with their limited tools available. If you made a competitive cooking setting that was pretty much Dungeon Meshi meets Iron Chef, that would be more on the mark.

But my point has been that your two paths are either to make it fluff and handwave the mechanics (as DnD does), or to make it elaborate and consuming more cognitive space out of the system. If you do the latter, then it better be more important than just feeding the party or as an optional mechanic that characters may not interact with at all. Imagine having to collect ingredients/components and tracking them, just on the off-chance that someone decided to take a craft feat and put ranks in it? What a wasteful grind. No. If it takes up more cognitive space in a game system then it better have a much more significant role in the game.

[MGuy]

I can imagine different ways to approach creating a crafting system. I can imagine quite a complicated system that players can just opt out of for the most part. Technically you can dabble in magic items in DnD without being a spellcaster or even understanding much about it.

I am just not sure what is intended. The word "interesting" is used but that is too vague for me. So I wanted answers to more solid questions like why would I do this, am I punished for not doing it, and what is the intended experience. I think the answers to those questions could give me a better idea of where this could go.

[Koumei]

Wait hang on, I've got it. We have a new housemate so we had a traditional celebration so I've had something like ten standard drinks and have come to a great realisation: crafting is performed by finding ingredients, that are all in Tetris piece style shapes. And you have to fill a grid (cleanly) to enchant an item. So the DM has to come up with the annoying shapes for everything and cut them out and hand them to you, and you have to try assembling them in tangram shapes, with things like a 3-by-6 cube for lesser, 6-by-6 for moderate and so on, so at some point you're trying to fit multiple "increase the bonus" annoying S-shape pieces together, then chucking a good old reliable L-shape block of "enchant with fire", but one of the corners has an empty 1x1 there so you need to use a valuable "Alchemic Stabiliser: 1x1, doesn't do anything but fills space". At high levels, you have an annoying Q-shape piece for "Adds a death effect" but has trouble fitting anywhere and requires an Alchemic Stabiliser.

It adds a whole new minigame! That has nothing to do with the actual game and the skills you use in the base game! And it creates extra work for the GM as well! This will fit the dumb goals perfectly!

[violence in the media]

Wait hang on, I've got it. We have a new housemate so we had a traditional celebration so I've had something like ten standard drinks and have come to a great realisation: crafting is performed by finding ingredients, that are all in Tetris piece style shapes. And you have to fill a grid (cleanly) to enchant an item. So the DM has to come up with the annoying shapes for everything and cut them out and hand them to you, and you have to try assembling them in tangram shapes, with things like a 3-by-6 cube for lesser, 6-by-6 for moderate and so on, so at some point you're trying to fit multiple "increase the bonus" annoying S-shape pieces together, then chucking a good old reliable L-shape block of "enchant with fire", but one of the corners has an empty 1x1 there so you need to use a valuable "Alchemic Stabiliser: 1x1, doesn't do anything but fills space". At high levels, you have an annoying Q-shape piece for "Adds a death effect" but has trouble fitting anywhere and requires an Alchemic Stabiliser.

It adds a whole new minigame! That has nothing to do with the actual game and the skills you use in the base game! And it creates extra work for the GM as well! This will fit the dumb goals perfectly!

If this were part of a video game, I would play the hell out of this. Just sayin'.

[Zaranthan]

Well, it seems like merxa is either impossibly dumb or just trolling.

The fact that they keep ignoring posts where people offer suggestions to continue having a flame war with PL answers this one pretty neatly. The fact that you managed to boil their idea down to basically rolling on treasure tables that have entries reading "Whoopsie! No treasure here!" nails that coffin.

Item Crafting Tetris

I have like three tessellation games on my phone. I'm absolutely in for this.

[pragma]

Wait hang on, I've got it. We have a new housemate so we had a traditional celebration so I've had something like ten standard drinks and have come to a great realisation: crafting is performed by finding ingredients, that are all in Tetris piece style shapes. And you have to fill a grid (cleanly) to enchant an item. So the DM has to come up with the annoying shapes for everything and cut them out and hand them to you, and you have to try assembling them in tangram shapes, with things like a 3-by-6 cube for lesser, 6-by-6 for moderate and so on, so at some point you're trying to fit multiple "increase the bonus" annoying S-shape pieces together, then chucking a good old reliable L-shape block of "enchant with fire", but one of the corners has an empty 1x1 there so you need to use a valuable "Alchemic Stabiliser: 1x1, doesn't do anything but fills space". At high levels, you have an annoying Q-shape piece for "Adds a death effect" but has trouble fitting anywhere and requires an Alchemic Stabiliser.

It adds a whole new minigame! That has nothing to do with the actual game and the skills you use in the base game! And it creates extra work for the GM as well! This will fit the dumb goals perfectly!

The board game Patchwork already has you covered for dumb shaped pieces and a handy board. You just need to write a table translating board accomplishments into magic items. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/163412/patchwork

[erik]

Now I’m imagining a drunken house party with folks trying to make shapes with tangrams (I get that it was probably a coincidental inspiration, not an actual inspiration from observation). I don’t know if being drunk would inhibit or improve my ability to make shapes but it seems like something worth a go to find out. I should do drunk drawings also. Maybe then I’d finally do my art projects that have been shelved for more than 5 years now.

[merxa]

I have similar questions to PL and I really don't feel like slogging through the mountains of text between you and PL. I'm going to probably tread over territory you may have covered and hope that I can get a shorter answer, or a quote that answers it. I'm having a difficult time figuring out what you're trying to definitely do vs seeing general thoughts about the subject. I talked about my thoughts on item creation in general in another thread I started some time ago. I can also touch on some of my thoughts on the very questions I ask if it is important but as I said I'm trying to figure out specifically what you're wanting to do.

So question number 1: What makes this worth doing?

In a game where you are expected to find gear fairly regularly, and if not that get rewarded with enough coin to turn into appropriate gear (assuming that you can do this conversion) why would I want to spend time messing around with this system? What is the risk, cost, reward set up you're going to pursue for this to make it engaging or can players only benefit from participation without risking anything of note? Are the assumptions I made about procurement of wealth and gear off and if so do you have another dynamic in mind?

I've mostly outlined a process on how to handle crafting magic items, and it includes risks, costs, and rewards. In play, I've found the largest and most frustrating element for players when interacting with crafting is the time it takes to craft an item. So central to this process is that once you have everything needed to craft an item, you get a result quickly. I've agreed prior there's no reason to set it do a d6 minute die roll, it can just be set at 10 minutes or a similarly short period of time -- such as an hour, the important detail is this does not consume a day forcing the other party members to slow down to accommodate the crafter. (I'll edit my original post to remove the d6 time roll)

What makes this worth doing? Is this a question for the players using the system? Is this a question for why a game system should engage with crafting? The den has many different positions concerning crafting, so I'm not sure which oppositional ideas I should focus on addressing. I've already said, some players like crafting, at the very least rules should be provided for such players and it shouldn't be especially disruptive for the players who don't care.

From a simulationist perspective, the game world should have crafting rules, and those crafting rules shouldn't self-evidently lead to incredibly bizarre game-altering outcomes (unless that is the goal). These crafting rules should also be able to explain some common magic item tropes, such as cursed items.

Finally, if you're going to have rules, they should be fun and interesting to use. Let me know if that doesn't answer your concerns.

Question 2: if there is a good reason to participate in this system why would I ever not do it?

If something like this provides actual power for the players and there is every reason to participate in it then that creates a situation where every party is going to want a craftsman. Is that what you want? If so then can everyone automatically do it or is someone in the party going to be heavily encouraged to be the designated craftsperson?
If the above assumption is not true and parties can get through the game at no notable loss of effectiveness ignoring this system then what is its purpose?

I did see that you're trying to avoid spreadsheets and the like so my third question is: what is this meant to feel like for the player?

Is crafting an item just like an on demand solution to a specific obstacle? IE the party is going for a swim do you can insta craft your water wings. Is it an alternative shopping system? Meaning it is essentially the same as shopping but you utilize different resources? I assume it's not like a more involved crafting game where recipes and collecting specific materials is important because that would land you firmly in spreadsheet territory.

So I have written at some length already on this question... perhaps everyone skips everything i write if I happen to address nPLP concerns... anyway

If, in a given game, someone is interested in crafting, a fantasy rpg should be able to oblige them, and it should not make them feel foolish or a sucker to use the crafting rules. Crafting magic items should be a boon, but it certainly shouldn't break the game or make other players feel like they must engage in the system or suffer great hardships. Based off some responses here, it can feel like people may not even agree on how plausible that goal is. I suppose it depends on peoples min-maxing philosophy when doing character generation.

Q3, I guess I would like to hear from the community what people think or believe or believe themselves, about how a crafting system should 'feel'. I'll give it shot, but please, community, I'd love to hear people answer Q3 from their perspective.

Crafting magic items should scale with level, it should somewhat follow a traditional hero's journey -- you begin foolish and unwise, attempting things that doesn't always work or have unintended consequences, but there have been many successes and as they accrue and you become more powerful, crafting becomes easier and more useful, still even greater challenges exist but your prior experience with setbacks has better prepared you. And at the top end you can craft artifacts.

I don't want crafting to lead to the tippyverse or similar such outcomes, not that I have anything against the tippyverse, but I don't want the logical application of crafting rules to clearly lead to absurdist outcomes that are far from the default setting assumptions, crafting rules should enforce the setting ideally.

I could keep going on Q3, this is the core experience of the rule set. Again, my initial post is a process, in some ways there's very little 'rules' in it, it would be trivial to remove all dice rolls for example from the current process:

Use skill to know sufficient ingredient and required fuel
take ingredient and fuel and make item with craft.

without dice rolls branching elements are difficult to formalize. One thing very surprising to me is the hostility to 'failing' a roll. Here's the process laid out with the checks I suggested:

Use skill [check] to know sufficient ingredient, required fuel is assumed knowledge.
take ingredient and fuel and make item with craft [check].

Those are the two key rolls my process is demanding. The outline I wrote, it also includes other elements that can be layered in if so desired.

By process, the outcome I want from the skill check is to provide the crafter with a hook to create the item desired.

fuel is mostly a balancing mechanic, we want magic items to come in all shapes and sizes and do all sorts of things from the meager to the mighty.

the craft check is the high stakes result. 3.x magic item crafting, required a check, I'm well aware the check was easy to trivialize and there were no 'fumbles' on the die, I don't know if people are arguing that is was the pinnacle of design or not -- clearly not I would say.

Maybe I am misreading the room, but it seems many people are very much against there being any risk of failure in a crafting check. We haven't even really established what the failure might be or how costly they truly would be. This process doesn't even go into how it handles failure, it just asserts that as an outcome -- how else ought I to categorize outcomes from a die roll? Even as outlined this system could work essentially like 3.x crafting where the crafting check is easy to trivialize and there are no fumbles. I didn't mention how these checks are made.

The point I want to make is, none of those questions really need to be answered immediately, instead we can build a process that will be good at answering and editing answers to such questions.

I guess the question I want to know, are people truly intolerant in failing a crafting check? Why is that? What could be ameliorated to make failure bearable? How would you feel if crafting was made easier if more resources were dedicated to it?

[Kaelik]

I've agreed prior there's no reason to set it do a d6 minute die roll, it can just be set at 10 minutes or a similarly short period of time

Is rolling fun to you?

[GnomeWorks]

Wait hang on, I've got it. We have a new housemate so we had a traditional celebration so I've had something like ten standard drinks and have come to a great realisation: crafting is performed by finding ingredients, that are all in Tetris piece style shapes. And you have to fill a grid (cleanly) to enchant an item. So the DM has to come up with the annoying shapes for everything and cut them out and hand them to you, and you have to try assembling them in tangram shapes, with things like a 3-by-6 cube for lesser, 6-by-6 for moderate and so on, so at some point you're trying to fit multiple "increase the bonus" annoying S-shape pieces together, then chucking a good old reliable L-shape block of "enchant with fire", but one of the corners has an empty 1x1 there so you need to use a valuable "Alchemic Stabiliser: 1x1, doesn't do anything but fills space". At high levels, you have an annoying Q-shape piece for "Adds a death effect" but has trouble fitting anywhere and requires an Alchemic Stabiliser.

It adds a whole new minigame! That has nothing to do with the actual game and the skills you use in the base game! And it creates extra work for the GM as well! This will fit the dumb goals perfectly!

When I was working on my heartbreaker, this was unironically the system I had planned for crafting. Your skills and such in various forms of crafting would further modify the board you used, let you modify shapes of item powers, and so on. That it took the crafter away from the table to actually make cool shit was seen as a bonus: in a way it reinforced at the table the notion that the crafter was busy and couldn't participate in IC discussions and what-not.

I think at this point if I revisited it, that would not be how I would do it. Because while it might be interesting to a certain kind of player, this approach to crafting is ultimately a single-person activity, and that's... kind of stupid in the context of a multiplayer game. If item crafting is a core part of the gameplay loop, everybody needs to have a way to be involved; or, if you want it to be a single-player sort of thing, it needs to be something that can be resolved quickly and preferably with as few dice rolls involved as possible.

[MGuy]

My question about if this is this worth doing is from the player perspective. Not in a "my character idea is to be a weapon smith" sense but a "do players have mechanical incentives to use this system?" sense. There will always be a player who wants to do this or that random thing and no game needs to accommodate every idea. And even if you do want to accommodate the odd ball idea it doesn't necessarily need a meaty subsystem. Alchemists get to get bombs just by saying that they do and most people aren't very concerned about it beyond that.

You want to make a subsystem so I am wondering what you think the mechanical incentives for actually using it are.

My second question doesn't have anything to do with the den's overall opinion on balancing this thing. I am only interested in what you want to do. If you want crafting to be beneficial in any significant way then parties that don't do it are missing out on a significant resource by not participating in it. That is unavoidable as long as 'significant boon' means what it should mean. So the reason it probably feels like people are saying it isn't possible to avoid that is because it isn't. If you reduce the significance of crafting such that it doesn't really matter whether you do it or not (IE it's hardly different from just buying an item) then participating in it might not be a sucker's game but there's no incentive to do it. That's why the answer to the first question is critical for this second one. Once I understand what mechanical incentives I have that would make me care that this exists it'll be easier to talk about how detrimental it is for a party to not do it.

This is also why there is quibbling about the potential cost of even attempting to do it. For this to be an actual engaging mini game there needs to be risk/rewards and that is going to measured against not doing it at all. With the idea you're presenting being barebones and apparently in flux people are getting back on existing frameworks and making general assumptions because in a lot of cases it doesn't work out or fiddling with it is an integral part of the game. As important and detailed as combat is in DnD.

For the third question I'm also not interested in what the den thinks. This is your thing. I'm trying to figure out what you're doing and what you want players to feel/think about when engaging in this. Just hearing what you're trying to avoid is less helpful than knowing, in as clear a description as possible, what you want to happen. Not just players can create stuff but what is the process like? Is it like shopping? Is it like a build an ability workshop? What's it going to be?

[Dogbert]

Not that what I'm going to say matters since we're talking 5E where everything is made up and the rules don't matter but...



Remember that any new rule you add must be better than MTP, and it also must be better than already existing rules. Furthermore, no minigame in the book should be more complicated than the book's primetime minigame (in this case, combat). While I see these rules as worse than DMG's ones for magic item creation, they add a chance to screw the players, so you can validly argue they go better with the game's Gygaxian spirit (just turn crafting times from minutes to months and you're golden).