[MUD-Dev] Unique items vs. item references

[Freeman]

From: Damion Schubert

> I've always liked systems that force players to make interesting
> choices.  If the regeneration on your ring was fast enough, for
> example, it might be perfect for a mage who needs to heal in the
> battle while his tank soaks some damage.  But then, I always
> favored the sick Magic cards like Lich that were considered
> unusable by most of the player base as well. =)

Well, there's interesting choices and there's goofy unusable magic
items.

I totally randomized magic item creation on Ackadia and the players
immediately began finding plate helms of meditation (can't meditate
while wearing any sort of plate), swords of archery, 2-handed
weapons of parrying (which requires you to use a shield), etc.

I wound-up applying all sorts of filters to the magic item creation
function to make it a bit less random, which I guess is the sort of
thing Shren was talking about.  Even then it took weeks of tweaking
for me to get it right, during which the players continued to find
not merely odd, but unusable magic items.

On the other hand, once it was fixed, the players tucked away their
oddball magic items and held onto them forever.  There was even talk
of setting up a museum of worthless magic items.

So I guess from that standpoint, the items were worth _something_.

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