Okay, it's come up a few times lately, especially because of #EditionWars, so here we go: the #TRPGCrafting Thread.

My premise is that people like crafting because it's a way to put a personal stamp on your treasure.

But.

1/x

It feels real bad to go on a quest to get each piece of the Crafted Rod of Power, rather than going on a quest to get the Completed Rod of Power.

You need to be gathering the components as a sideline to what you're already doing in the course of play.

2/x

D&D has usually had one of two models, sometimes a bit blended.

Version One: spend money, maybe roll dice, advance the in-game calendar, now you have a new item.

Real effect: you turned time and dice rolls into a coupon for the purchase of the item.

3/x

Version Two: Player tells DM what they want to make. DM tells player "you need Item A, Item B, + possibly Item C," which the DM came up with on the spot. These might or might not be already in the path of where the story was going, depending on how sandboxy the game is.

4/x

Once you have Items A, B, and maybe C (depending on how many hurdles the DM wanted to put in your way), you might STILL have to insert money and calendar advancement.

5/x

What really happened, though, is that you did a bunch of adventuring to advance the clock on the item. It all still misses what feels good about crafting in video games, which is the feeling that I'm chasing, and that I propose we *should* be chasing, with TRPG crafting.

6/x

Especially in an MMO, crafting is something you can do *mostly on your own.* It doesn't involve a lot of boss fights that take coordination with other players. Honestly, players generally hate it when crafting systems make them rely on even one other real player.

7/x

It's lonely fun that has a huge number of tiny dopamine hits along the way.

The cycle of play is that you gather up a bunch of stuff, either as passive acquisition during play or as a self-assigned goal. Those two modes coexist, and that's *incredibly important.*

8/x

The passive-acquisition thing is WILDLY addictive. It's getting back to your "downtime" state after a bunch of gameplay, and surfing through your crafting interface to discover that you have OPTIONS.

You can make the Copper Sword and Copper Boots OR the Copper Breastplate!

9/x

You have a choice you can weigh, and for the moment let's take it as read that those things are upgrades for you, or move you toward an upgrade in an immediately visible way.

Critically, it doesn't feel even a tiny bit like a vending machine.

10/x

The other side of crafting is the self-assigned goal. It's like seeing something in your quest log, but no NPC asked you to do this. You see the item name in your crafting interface, then you *use your absorbed game knowledge* to figure out how to get that thing.

11/x

Lemme say that again, because I think it's huge.

This is where crafting pays the player back for learning the lore and paying attention.

This is also a big part of what makes it hard for TRPGs, though!

12/x

It's going to be hard to make crafting feel good in a TRPG space because NO game involves changing gear as frequently as an MMO (or BotW, ahem).

Numenera's cyphers might come close, though crafting systems hung exclusively on consumable items are... a whole other convo.

13/x

Video games don't have to deliver dry exposition to teach you where the necessary items are. At worst, you go wander around the game world until you find it, or you look it up on a wiki.

Neither of these work in TRPGs, because the DM is the graphics engine.

14/x

The thing is, you can't go do stuff on your own in a TRPG without taking up the whole table's time. I've tried to solve this before, but I went too complicated with it. The player didn't hate it, but needed a lot of guidance to resolve stuff.

15/x

https://www.brandesstoddard.com/2013/01/alchemy-system-for-dd-next/

Oh, I should have mentioned it before, but the Monster Hunter style of crafting - all components are bits of monsters - is fine for some settings but leaves me VERY cold as the default for all crafting.

I don't want to collect ten bear asses to make the thing!

16/x

I want an approach to terrain (overland and dungeon alike) that lets PCs glean resources as they explore. All credit to @caudelac for this idea.

For each (time or distance unit) of travel, you roll on that terrain's treasure table. Sometimes this needs an ability check.

17/x

Once you do *that,* you can establish some regions as "safe" so players can spend downtime actions gleaning more stuff from it. Maybe that's only a few miles from the village; maybe that expands by character tier.

"Gatherer" also becomes a task during exploration play.

18/x

A challenge: you CAN'T just handwave "no merchant carries this stuff" in a D&D world. For all its gamism, we won't take it for granted that all of your [common component] comes from play and isn't available for money.

Which circles back to a vending machine w/more steps.

19/x