If a player's priority is cosmetic appearance, that is 100% as valid as another player's prioritization of statistics. If a player's priority is their companion's gear (or even appearance), that is 100% as valid as another player's prioritization of statistics. I'm having trouble understanding where your disconnect on that is.

Each player has equal entitlement to gear if they participated in defeating the boss that dropped it. The term "entitlement" isn't automatically a bad thing, so make sure you're using it in the proper context here. Not everything has to be mine. If something drops that I a) won't upgrade myself with, b) won't upgrade a companion with, and/or c) don't like the look of, I'm going to roll Greed on it, as it's going to either provide me with a few credits at a vendor, or more credits on the GTN. But the reality of companions who fill differing roles that approximate roles filled by players' characters means any single given piece has much greater use potential for each player than such gear would have in previous games that didn't feature equippable, upgradeable companions. I'm not there to benefit the community as it relates to gear distribution. I'm there to benefit them by helping in groups so we can down bosses so we each have a chance at the gear that drops. I don't know of many players whose express purpose in entering group content is to gear up other players, though we're often happy when other players get upgrades, 'cause it's nice to see good things happen to other people. There's no jealousy issues on my part: I'm legitimately happy to see a party member get an upgrade, even if it's because they won on a loot roll I was likewise rolling on. When the loot window comes up, each player is taking their own set of needs and priorities into consideration when they choose a loot priority roll (or pass entirely). That's an undeniable reality. The difference comes in with individual motivations, and none of those are more or less valid than others in that same group.

The difference is I don't see your approach as a "common sense" approach, because it asks an individual to concede that what they want for their character should be secondary to what someone else wants for their character. That makes no sense at all. I choose to benefit myself through every available avenue, yes, because I believe the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I'm not going to deviate from that line and choose not to improve myself gear-wise just because someone else also wants something. I'm much more inclined to roll Need and let them do likewise. The person who gets it is the person who rolls higher. Personal motivations, which are always open to debate from others, thus don't enter into the equation. The other person and I both have an equal chance at the item. Only one of us will get it. That's just how it works, because there isn't enough to go around.

I think you're angling towards a martyr argument here, which doesn't hold much water. I'm not out to screw other players, and I want to "play nice" with them. But that doesn't mean I'm going to pass up on something I want just because someone else wants it, or even "wants it more". If they want it more than I do, that's only objectively verifiable in them choosing Need when I choose Greed. If we both choose Need, we both want it to the same degree as far as the game is concerned. This is why it needs to remain simple: if you want it, you choose the highest priority roll to acquire it, so your chances are equal to the greatest chances of getting it (i.e., equal to others who also choose the highest priority roll). If you only "sort of" want it, or your own moral compass indicates that you shouldn't roll Need if you're going to just sell it, then choose Greed. The idea is you choose what you want to choose, not what someone else's priority system tries to get you to choose.

People still use their companions at 50 on their daily quests. Once companions are geared sufficient to a player's desires, then the player won't roll on stuff for their companions anymore, and likely won't start again until the level cap raises at some point.

Except that if a player chooses to roll on something, you can't stop them, and their rationale for rolling (which they aren't obligated to give you to begin with) is 100% as valid as yours or any other player's in that group. If Imperial Agent orange drops, and it has a mod in it that a Sith Warrior wants as an upgrade, that upgrade need is as valid as the Imperial Agent's. The game doesn't recognize (nor does it need to) degrees of need, it merely recognizes a player's declaration of need. There's no need to complicate it further.

You're making an ad populum argument unsupported by the actual reality. While it's accurate that many people believe you shouldn't roll Need for alts (which is irrelevant on a companion, who isn't an alt, but an active part of your main character's leveling and questing outside the statistical minority of time they're in group content), the assumed weight of "common knowledge" isn't present save in your own perspective.

Your companions don't get a loot roll at all, so they aren't surpassing another player, who was present, in rolling priority. You, however, were there, and your claim is equal to another player's who was present. That you choose to take what you won and place it on a companion is an after-the-fact issue. You were present, you rolled, you won, what you do with it at that point is your choice. This belief that we somehow have to justify our motivations for a given loot roll to other players is a fabrication I believe arose because someone got upset that they lost a loot roll. They attempt to skew future rolls in their favor by demanding someone's choice of Need meet their own criteria of acceptability. This just isn't the case.

The problem lies in your assumption that rolling on an item to upgrade yourself (you or a companion) is unnecessarily detrimental to other players. Any time one person gets a piece of loot someone else wanted, the one who loses has experienced detriment. As a result, we have acceptable and unacceptable degrees of detriment. It's acceptable to need on something that upgrades you or otherwise meets one of your goals (specious as it might be, even if you just want to sell it; your goals are as valid as any other player's), so if you win, the detriment experienced by another player is on an acceptable level. They accept that by suborning their personal desires to the impartial distribution of the NBG system. If they're unwilling to accept that system, the alternative is to assemble their own group and set looting on Master Looter, so they have 100% control over how loot is actually distributed.

Whether you chose what to do with something before rolling, or rolled then chose, is irrelevant, and splitting hairs so finely I even question whether "semantics" is sufficient to describe it. Either way, you're placing a roll on an item with a priority that matches your desire for the item, and no other player's perspective has the right to determine the fitness of your priority choice.

Their contribution is irrelevant to the distribution of loot. The player contributed, and what they do with their winnings is no one else's business. And while you've a right to your objection, that objection doesn't obligate another player to change their behavior to submit to your objection. And yes, someone pressing Need mandates others to do the same if they desire an equal chance at something. If they choose Greed, they're acknowledging they're all right with someone else possibly having a higher priority roll on an item, and thus they have no point of contention if someone else wins the item. If they wanted it badly enough to be upset that someone else got it, they had the opportunity to improve their chances at it by choosing the highest-priority roll on the loot.

As a counterpoint, however, the instant other players choose Need, they're forcing the others in their group to conform to their concept of what's right. Since each player is individually doing this, it doesn't serve as a meaningful abnormality in the comparative spectrum, particularly to point out the wrongness of a given viewpoint. I'm very careful when I "spout things out" about "everyone" doing something a certain way, and endeavor to use phrases like "in my observation". I'm sure there are plenty of quotable occasions where I've failed to do so, but I'm fairly confident that in context I wasn't setting up an indefensible absolute in each of those instances. But the term "majority" has been thrown around a lot in this discussion, and as a point of leverage for a person's viewpoint, and their whole viewpoint often falls apart when it's pointed out that they don't have a provable majority to begin with. It becomes germane to the discussion at that point to ask them, as a rhetorical question (since we know they can't actually show a legitimate majority outside of these forums (and often not even then) that represent a statistical minority of the player base), where their figures are coming from.

According to whom should a disassembly not take precedence over a greed roll? If you're going to make absolute statements, at least back them up with facts, because in this case, what you're stating is an opinion.

This is an entirely unconnected aside, but as I do happen to have a medical degree that allows me to properly diagnose sociopathy (an outdated term, btw; the current clinical term according to the APA is Antisocial Personality Disorder), I can say that observational skills alone don't constitute a reliable diagnosis, particularly since this is such a highly misunderstood and debated condition to begin with. Trust me, you're going to want to be sure your diagnosis is accurate when you're mucking around with peoples' mental state and declarations of fitness (or the lack thereof).

Let's assume we're talking about PUGs here, as loot distribution is rarely an issue in guild or friend runs. Yes, I'm deciding that I'm using the group game to further my personal game. However, I'm not deciding it on behalf of other players, solely on behalf of myself. Just as every other player in that group is.[ Each player is cooperating to have a chance at loot that drops that they personally want. It will have future group utility and future personal utility, and both are equal. You're going to have to show me your statistics when you start using terms like "the majority". People are running that content, in my observation, to gear themselves up, and as this thread makes amply evident, they're doing so for a variety of reasons. You're right, I'm in it for nobody but myself, and I cooperate with others so I have a chance to get gear I couldn't get on my own. My obligation to the group extends as far as assisting them all in reaching that same goal: to have a chance at gear they want which they can't acquire on their own. But the instant the loot drops, every single player is rolling for themselves, not for the group.

This is an irrelevant point, however. It doesn't matter if the companion aids you. It aids its main character, and it has upgrade needs that the player is choosing to facilitate through Flashpoint or Operation drops. You shouldn't be in a position where you can tell another player their desire to upgrade their companion with gear of their choice has less priority than you or another player. And you aren't in that position, even though it appears you'd like to be. As a result, a player has the ability to roll Need on something to upgrade a companion, and there's nothing wrong with them exercising that right, as their desire to upgrade their companion is equal to their desire to upgrade themselves, and likewise equal to your desire to upgrade yourself.

That isn't an unreasonable request, but I question the degree to which it's applied. As every player is in there to acquire gear to meet their personal goals, should one take other players into consideration before hitting Need to the extent that they don't give themselves the best chance possible to get something they want? In short, another player's want doesn't diminish mine, so it shouldn't diminish my chance to get something I want. I'm fine with another player having an equal chance at something I want, I'm not fine with their want superseding mine to the point that I'm expected to lessen my chance at getting something I want.

I appreciate your respectful demeanor, Grecanis, but I don't think I agree with your premise. Courtesy becomes an issue if people are going into a group content with the intention of gearing other players up. At that point, they'd be acting counterproductive to their goal of gearing others up if they rolled on gear for themselves. If they're going in to gear themselves up, and cooperating so they have an opportunity to do so, which is what I believe players' motivation actually is, then they're acting counterproductive to their own goals if they pass on something they want just so someone else can have it. If I see something that won't upgrade me or my companions, or an orange item whose look I don't like or want for myself or my companions, then I'm not going to roll Need on it; I'll roll Greed with the intention of vendoring it or, if it's BOE, putting it up on the GTN. But if it's an upgrade, either statistically or aesthetically, for myself or my companions, I'm going to roll Need on it with no hit to my conscience, as I was present to assist in defeating the boss that dropped the item.

By pressing the Need button you're saying you're staking the highest-priority claim possible; you aren't saying your need/want is greater than others', as they can likewise choose this same priority. If they don't, realizing you hit Need, they're saying they don't mind if you get the item, and have no reason to complain in the first place if you win it. The greed button is there not because of the illegitimacy of differing players' views on what is or isn't a need, but to state "I'm fine not getting this, and likely won't use it if I do." While it isn't set in stone, most often greed is hit by someone who plans to either sell an item on the GTN or vendor it for a few spare credits, as they're more likely to hit Need if they're going to upgrade themselves or a companion.

Actually, Malabricus, "ninjaing" is defined in MMOs as "taking something to which you are not entitled." Its most common application is waiting til everyone else rolls Greed, then rolling Need, winning the item and leaving the group. In this case, an item whose stats aren't optimal for your class might still be very useful for a companion. If it's an orange item, it might be useful for either aesthetic purposes or because of one or more mods in it. As a result, it's much more difficult to apply the term "loot ninja" as it's been classically used.

Players who are choosing Need based on their own criteria aren't saying their definition is "superior", they're saying it's equal to a differing one. They're saying their want of higher stats for their companion or a mod for themselves or a look for themselves is equal in priority to someone else's want of higher stats or a class-specific item. Arguments based on whether a need is really a need are pointless; each player determines their needs for themselves. That's why they have the right to stake a claim to something they want for reasons of their own, and it's equally as valid as someone else's claim for different reasons.

Another player says: Need = My character needs it for the stats, or my character needs it for the looks, or my companion needs it for the stats, or my companion needs it for the looks Greed = I'm more likely to sell it than anything else What makes your criteria more objectively "right" than someone else's?

Only if you're in a PUG with people who accept a run on Master Looter. I'm fine accepting that loot setting if it's people I know and trust. With three/seven/fifteen other strangers, however, under no circumstances will I accept Master Looter. I'll just leave and find a different group, because I don't trust strangers to have my best interests at heart in distribution of loot. More than that, it's a control issue for me: I pay $15 a month for my account, I put in the time to level my character and gear up my companions, and I'm not going to surrender 100% of the control over getting loot to someone else. My character, my priorities for loot. It doesn't guarantee me loot in a run, but at least it guarantees that I can roll on loot using my own priority system, and not someone else's. For all the talk of "for the good of others" and "moral high ground" that has gone on in this, the last, and previous threads on this topic, every person sets up a personal loot distribution method that ultimately improves their own chances of getting the loot they want. I fail to understand how there's a difference between someone rolling Need on an item based on their own priorities (whether that's aesthetics, stats or a companion) and myself doing that same thing. If their choice to roll Need is based on optimal stats for their class with no consideration for their companions or aesthetics, that's fine, but their choice doesn't obligate me to use the same priority criteria. They want it to, because they're thoroughly convinced their method is the "only right way", and I can't disabuse them of that notion, all I can do is watch them rage because they want to stop me from rolling Need on my own priorities and they can't. Because we have differing priorities amongst players, we require a system that ignores all player-designed priorities and instead opts for the simplest, least-partial loot distribution system entirely, in the interest of moving things along and letting players complete the content they're in. As with most general systems, there are individual circumstances which might act as legitimate exceptions, but the instant you start making exceptions to a rule, you're weakening the authority base of the rule. Need Before Greed has never been an optimal system, at least as implemented in World of Warcraft, because it inherently tells a given player that their priorities may not be an actual priority. It ignores in that game that a player's desire to do something nice for a friend of a different class is adequate reason to choose a high-priority roll on an item in favor of stopping the flood of complaints into Blizzard's customer service department when a less-mature player loses it because they lost a loot roll and thinks that it was a result of some personal assault against them, which they need the objective third party (Blizzard), and only real authority in that game, to rectify for them. This game is more sensible in its application of Need Before Greed, as it doesn't limit the ability to roll on something by class or party role. You can typically infer what a player's priorities are by what they're rolling Need on. If they're rolling Need: 1) On an armor type for their class, with stat weights for their class, they're probably upgrading themselves. 2) On an armor type for a different class, with stat weights for that other class, on a BOE item, they're either rolling to equip a companion, help a guildmate/friend, or sell on the GTN 3) On an armor type for a different class, with stat weights for that other class, on a BOP item, they're either rolling to equip a companion or sell to a vendor. At the end of it all, it literally boils down to a sense of entitlement, which isn't inherently wrong, but situationally might be. Let's define "entitlement" using the definition from Merriam-Webster's website: I think option #3 is most applicable in this scenario. So we now have an objective foundation from which to argue, a universally agreed-upon definition of the term "entitlement". If I go into a Flashpoint and contribute my effort as part of a group endeavor to defeat a boss, then I'm entitled, to a degree equal to my other 3 party members, to the loot that drops. It's a reward for completing the objective of defeating the boss. Since we have four members (in this scenario) with 100% equal entitlement to what the boss drops, some method of arbitration is necessary to disburse the reward, since there isn't enough reward of a given type to meet the goals of each participant. As a result, we have an automated random number generator that works in conjunction with a distribution method: the highest randomly-generated number, ascribed to a given player, causes the distribution method to place the contested item in that person's inventory. If this was the only consideration, the system would be 100% fair and impartial. No one owns the item until it's actually been given to them: it's like being at an auction: the item is held in "escrow", its ownership not yet determined, until a prearranged criterion is met (in this case the highest roll), at which point ownership is determined, and physical possession of the contested item is then transferred from escrow to the actual owner. But we got a fly in the ointment here, ladies and gentlemen. Differing priorities of rolls have been put in the system. Instead of a flat priority where ownership is simply determined by highest roll, we now have a system where someone could roll 98, another person could roll 5, and the person who rolled 5 could be given the item, because they rolled 5 on a higher priority scale than the person who rolled 98. As a result, people start attempting to direct the circumstances under which someone should be able to choose the higher priority rolling scheme. The reality is they don't want someone getting something they want, but as they don't want to appear selfish, they misdirect perception of their motivations, appealing to moral arguments in the hopes that someone who believes differently than they do will somehow accept the morals as a higher authority, and subsequently defer to an argument based on those moral premises. And that's where the final hitch in the smooth road occurs: different people follow different moral compasses. Upset with this, a given party concludes that their moral persuasion is more objectively "right" than someone else's, thus demanding that the person of the less-right moral persuasion should capitulate to their own moral persuasion. If they had the ability to force this scenario they would, but lacking authority to do so, they desperately try to simply sway someone to their side, with varying degrees of success or failure. One group believes it's fine to roll Need on an item because it provides an upgrade for them. The upgrade isn't always for their class: sometimes it's for a companion, sometimes it's an aesthetic upgrade with mods that don't matter to them one way or the other, sometimes it's a single mod out of two or three, with no care for the other mods, and sometimes it's the mods themselves with no consideration for the aesthetics of the item the mods are in. Here's the thing: The reasons don't matter. All that matters is that the player was there in the group, that they helped defeat the boss, and that they want something the boss dropped. Their sense of entitlement, as defined above, is justified. An unjustified sense of entitlement is one that states one player has more right to something than another player. An unjustified sense of entitlement is one that states a player's contribution doesn't determine their right to something, but the subjective observation of another player does, as though that other player were somehow a higher authority than the first player. Such is not the case, no matter how much some may want it to be. I may think what I want is more important than what another player wants, but objectively, what we each want is of equal priority. As a result, we should both (or collectively, with more than two) choose the method that gives us each, as individuals, the best chance at receiving what we want. We wouldn't have to choose varying methods if there was a single priority scheme in place, but there isn't: we have tiered priorities that cause upset when one player claims a priority higher than another player thinks they should have. The resolution at its simplest, easiest-to-implement level, would be to move to a Roll/Pass system. Under such a system, there are no tiers of priority. If you don't want something, you don't roll and have no reason to care who gets it. If you want something, you roll, and your chances of winning that roll are approximately equal to every other claimant's. With the removal of varying priorities in rolling, the playing field is leveled. Someone might still be upset that they lost a roll, but they can't claim favoritism, as their chance was completely equal to that of the one who actually won the item. We can implement more complicated methods from there, the best of the more complicated (to me, at least) being a companion loot box on each boss' loot table, that each player can roll for if they want, and the adjustment of all other loot to have a class requirement preventing someone not of that class from rolling Need on it. But the simplest approach is usually the best: a system that has fewer moving parts has fewer opportunities for having its internal mechanisms compromised. The simplest machine is a lever. You can only keep the lever from working if you remove its fulcrum. If you move from a lever to a pulley system, you can stop the pulley from working by snapping the cable, keeping the fulcrum wheel from turning, or weakening the fastening point on the item being moved. The more complex a system gets, the more opportunities for rendering it ineffectual arise. Roll/Pass removes all arguments, flattens the bell curve on player opportunity for loot acquisition, and would, hands-down, be the best. No favoritism, no priority tiers, flat equal chance at success across all dimensions.

Still using the same tactics there, eh face? You combine ad hominem attacks with unverifiable aspersions on others' perspectives in the hope that you can invalidate their opposition to you before they even state it. In effect you're saying "I'm objectively right, there's no reason to even attempt to argue with me." That you then point out that there's "no point in arguing, nobody is going to change their mind" is telling, as you're apparently guilty of that very perspective. That you also attempt to minimalize your opposition, reducing them to a non-factual minority not remotely supported by this thread, the thread it was continued from, and other threads on this very topic, is telling. In short, you don't know how to argue a point, and hope that you can just come off so strongly that more meek opposition won't bother standing up to you. In short, you're being a bully. You're attempting to argue from a moralist standpoint when you indicate someone is completely disrespectful if they don't hold to your position. It isn't about respect on that level. Loot distribution is 100% agnostic in terms of morals, distribution methods facilitated by the game, and interaction with other players. You need to understand what it all boils down to: no single player has the right to force another player to refuse something they want if the system will let them have a crack at it. If my Sith Marauder was my only consideration, it would largely be pointless for me to roll on gear with Willpower on it, since the vendor price is much less than what I could make from turning in even a single quest. But my Sith Marauder has a companion, Jaesa Willsaam, who does require Willpower, and as a result, equipment with Willpower on it becomes a legitimate need for me. That's where this breakdown is occurring. In the current MMO king of the hill, companions/pets aren't equippable (and aren't even present for all classes; two classes in that game always have pets, and two other classes can potentially have permanent pets depending on which talent tree they specialize in), and thus a player has no reason to think beyond their own character. On BOE gear, they may be thinking of alts, guild members, buddies, or the auction house. In The Old Republic, every single player has up to 6 companions who require gear upgrades to remain viable if they should be summoned at a moment's notice. Many people don't bother gearing up the droid that comes with their ship, while others have noticed that the droid makes a pretty damned good healer (if one with an annoying personality) if geared. So removing the droid from the larger equation, when you're closing in on 40th level or so, you've usually got 5 companions who all could use upgrades. You might only commonly use one or two of them. I'll use the Sith Marauder, my main class, as an example: I typically only use Malavai Quinn (the healer) and Jaesa Willsaam (who's solid melee DPS when well-geared, and because I want to keep rep very high with her for when BioWare patches in same-sex romances). So for the most part, I'm only interested in gear that will make Quinn heal better and Jaesa do more damage. But every once in awhile, I alter my approach on particularly challenging bosses, such as the one in the Dark Heart at the close of Voss' planetary storyline. He's ridiculously interrupt-needy in order to beat, so I needed someone to keep his focus off me since a Sith Marauder only has one functional interrupt, on a cooldown that was just the wrong side of that boss' major damaging abilities. So I pulled in Broonmark to act as a nice melee tank to keep focus off me while I unloaded on the boss, interrupting when I was able. Broonmark would have gotten chewed up something fierce if I hadn't kept him very well-equipped, even if he's my most recent companion acquisition and came with fairly impressive output to begin with. As a result, the effort I've put into gearing up even companions I only rarely use paid off. I was able to finish Voss and move on to Corellia. If I hadn't kept a companion I rarely use (Broonmark) well-geared, I might not have been able, as a Marauder, to actually beat that boss, which would have forced me to break immersion by leaving that planet's story alone for a few more levels as I moved on another planet's story, then taking a break to head back and finish it off. Not my personal style. I like my stories to be linear so they're consistent. In short, I wanted to finish it when it was meant to be finished, not go off to Corellia and deal with things there, then remember, "Oh yeah, there's still someone on Voss I need to take out." You try to gather ad populum support for your position, face_hindu, and you have some people who agree with you, which is fine. The problem is, you're decrying people contending their perspective is valid when you're doing the exact same thing. So if contending for one's own perspective is bad, then you're bad for doing the same. But if it isn't bad, then your opposition isn't doing something bad for doing the same. Anything else is hypocrisy, which is where you're currently at. It's all very simple: four/eight/sixteen people go into group content, they down a boss, they all have a right to roll on any drops, and their reasons aren't open for discussion, nor do they require others' approval. Some will pass because they don't want an item, others will roll Greed because they don't want it badly, still others will roll Need because they want it badly. Maybe they need 200 credits from a vendor to reach some milestone. Maybe they want to gear up a companion. Maybe it's a BOE item they intend to give to a guildmate or send to an alt. Whatever it is, they chose Need, and they have every right to do so, since they contributed to defeating the boss that dropped the item. You don't get to stand there and tell them they're bad for staking a claim to a reward they want, no matter how much you wish to the contrary.

The argument is based in a simple reality: players don't get to determine how other players equip themselves. The system supports a given player's ability to equip themselves (or make moves to equip themselves) via whatever priority they personally ascribe to: if for looks, they'll roll Need on an item whose aesthetics meets their desire, if on stats, on items that meet their stat requirements, if on companions, on items that will best upgrade a companion they use, and if on credits, then on an item that will yield the most credits via either the GTN or a vendor, depending on available sale options. I don't see a scenario where a group can vote on a given member's loot priority save an informal agreement (and the assumption of acquiescence to it) established beforehand. In short, while it makes for fun discussion, it isn't particularly germane to this discussion. This discussion centers primarily around someone who rolled Need on an item ostensibly not for their character with the intent of taking a mod from said item to upgrade themselves. Over time it's come to move back to the general companion need roll argument, and attempts to moralize away personally undesirable choices by those who realize a moralist argument is their only hope of conceivably convincing someone to their side of things. One can't force anyone to accept a differing point of view in this game. If you have a player who accepts a given loot distribution scheme in an informal arrangement, and then acts contrary to that arrangement at a later point, they're likely to be removed from the group. They understood the risks in lying to their compatriots, they should be willing to accept whatever consequences arise from their deception. Likewise, however, they aren't forcing other players to accept something not already provided for as a default in the game if they choose Need on an item that others think they shouldn't have: they're making use of the system as it's obviously intended to work, it merely remains that others don't like its application in a given scenario. But those players were (or should have been) perfectly aware that when it all boiled down, the only enforceable loot distribution rules in the game are Need rolls taking priority over Greed rolls. A player can't be faulted for making use of the same opportunities everyone else has, even if others voluntarily chose not to make use of those opportunities due to personal moral convictions. That's the consequence of choosing a lower priority roll for an item you actually want. If you want it, you should roll Need. Other players aren't in a position to determine the validity of your want. If you roll Greed, you're saying you may want it, but not as badly as someone who rolls Need, and you thus have no reason to be upset if someone beats you because they actually rolled in a method that would supersede your own in priority. With differing goals on an individual level as relates to gearing up, you require a system that sits in authority and judgment over those individual goals, and Need Before Greed does that. It isn't as simple as Roll/Pass, but it serves its purpose quite well nonetheless: it prevents individual players from forcing another player to not take something they want.