D&D 5E The Case for a Magic Item Shop?

KarinsDad said:

Maybe a PC spell caster can cast Darkvision on the halfling. I'm with MO on this one. Don't just give her the googles. Ever. At best, allow her to acquire such an item by her explicitly getting an NPC to craft it for her, or for her to go quest for it. I really could not imagine a player wanting darkvision so bad that she would ask if she could remove the eyes of a darkvision creature and replace her PC's own eyes with them. That is so weird that someone would ask a DM that.

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But if she really wants to have them, and is working towards that, even trying to think outside the box to get it, she should get it at some point. Letting her try well knowing you will never allow her to succeed is deceit. If MO doesn't want her to have darkvision out of principle he should have told the player -look no matter what you try, they didn't give halfling darkvision for a reason, short of you getting someone to cast darkvision on you or going warlock you will never get it, you won't find the goggles of darkvision for sale or for loot ever. It doesn't exist on this campaign, period. And the thing with the eyes, I don't mind you trying it, but I will never let it succeed- Honesty is better than just letting people get illussioned over something. Make it hard, make it important or whatever you fancy, but allow her to get it at some point and let her have some fun with them -the only thing worse than never getting it would have to be receiving the goggles as a final reward the very last day of the campaign when there is no way to enjoy them-.

Hussar said:

[MENTION=6779234]Grainger[/MENTION] - I'm again not necessarily disagreeing with you either. But, since goggles DO exist long before medieval times, it's not a huge stretch to think that other groups might invent goggles. I'd have a bigger issue with, say, glasses (which do actually appear as magic items in more than a few D&D supplements - wasn't there glasses of read magic in 3e?) which are very anachronistic. But, really, you have effectively goggles on the front of a helmet and masks are certainly not anachronistic. If goggles really bug you, why not a sort of mask that lets you see in the dark? Maybe a black one with pointy ears that causes the wearer's voice to drop several registers and sound like he's gargling gravel.

Hee hee, the twelve year old in me remembers creating 1e magic items like Claws of the Wolverine and Ruby Lenses of the Cyclops, so, Mask of the Bat wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

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I think your idea of a mask is a good one, actually. Thinking about this some more, it might just be the word "goggles" that annoys me, actually - don't know why - and I know it's not a modern word, but it is connected to modern night vision equipment - so anything that separates the magic item from the modern equivalent is good for me; I don't really like magic items that closely resemble modern items of tech. But yeah, this is all a matter of taste, and I daresay the vast majority of groups wouldn't bat (pun intended) an eyelid at it.

KaiiLurker said:

But if she really wants to have them, and is working towards that, even trying to think outside the box to get it, she should get it at some point. Letting her try well knowing you will never allow her to succeed is deceit. If MO doesn't want her to have darkvision out of principle he should have told the player -look no matter what you try, they didn't give halfling darkvision for a reason, short of you getting someone to cast darkvision on you or going warlock you will never get it, you won't find the goggles of darkvision for sale or for loot ever. It doesn't exist on this campaign, period. And the thing with the eyes, I don't mind you trying it, but I will never let it succeed- Honesty is better than just letting people get illussioned over something. Make it hard, make it important or whatever you fancy, but allow her to get it at some point and let her have some fun with them -the only thing worse than never getting it would have to be receiving the goggles as a final reward the very last day of the campaign when there is no way to enjoy them-.

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I agree. As I stated in the post you quoted, the player should work towards acquiring the item, the DM should not just hand it out.

KarinsDad said:

I agree. As I stated in the post you quoted, the player should work towards acquiring the item, the DM should not just hand it out.

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But the DM should hand it at some point...(Personally I would just hand it if I thought it could improve the experience in the table, or if derailing the plot wasn't feasible. I'm not against the "magic item shop" thingy, specially for items you can use to have fun with, I would never hand out a plussed item of any kind, but anything that could be fun is fair game. The only reason I haven't implemented magic marts on my games is because we don't have many magic items that aren't math items yet)

KarinsDad said:

I find it implausible that they would not exist. Not necessarily as a shop per se, more like back alley deals. Magic items are worth a lot in a D&D campaign setting. Anything that is worth a lot should have commerce surrounding it. Not doing so seems bizarre.

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For a market to exist, you need more than demand. You also need supply. The smaller the supply, the less of a market there is. In a low-magic world, trade in magic items is apt to resemble the trade in paintings by the Old Masters. If you want a painting by Raphael, you have to find someone who's got a Raphael and is willing to part with it. Oh, and you don't have the Internet, or even a telephone. Good luck. If you've got enough money and persistence, you can probably manage it, but it will take quite a long time--long enough that abstracting it into a simple "put down your money and take your items" is no longer reasonable.

Dausuul said:

For a market to exist, you need more than demand. You also need supply. The smaller the supply, the less of a market there is. In a low-magic world, trade in magic items is apt to resemble the trade in paintings by the Old Masters. If you want a painting by Raphael, you have to find someone who's got a Raphael and is willing to part with it. Oh, and you don't have the Internet, or even a telephone. Good luck. If you've got enough money and persistence, you can probably manage it, but it will take quite a long time--long enough that abstracting it into a simple "put down your money and take your items" is no longer reasonable.

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I am in love with this explanation.

Hussar said:

Like I said before. I believe that if any of your players is sitting at the table and not having a good time, you have failed as a DM. And I certainly never want to play with a DM who feels that a player's enjoyment of the game is less important that maintaining some bizarre notion that setting is more important than people enjoying the game.

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Because putting the setting first automatically means your players are miserable?

God save us all from the badwrongfun we've been having for decades.

There will always be times when one player or another isn't having fun. Whether it's because her pc has been knocked out or killed, or because it is a dramatic ball room scene and that player is all about hacking and slashing, or because she isn't getting enough ballroom drama, or because she had a bad day at work or is feeling under the weather.

I'm going to echo something else that ExploderWizard said: my table is full. In fact, I'm running 2.5 different groups (two have a lot of overlap), and have a waiting list. And I've had a list of people waiting to get into my game for decades. So, whatever it is that I do so 'wrong', clearly there are tons of other gamers who enjoy the same badwrongfun.

As always, play what you like, but you are flat-out, objectively, indisputably, demonstrably incorrect to suggest that those who do it differently than you are doing it wrong.

Elf Witch said:

This player has said that he does not want to find magic items in treasure because that is cheesy he wants a magic item shop so he is tying the DMs hands here.

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This is worth re-emphasizing. The player doesn't seem to be open to any other solution. To me, if a player isn't willing to entertain any of the other possible solutions (probably dozens of which have been suggested in this thread by now), he is being unreasonable.

KaiiLurker said:

But if she really wants to have them, and is working towards that, even trying to think outside the box to get it, she should get it at some point. Letting her try well knowing you will never allow her to succeed is deceit.

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Sorry, but that's just ridiculous.

How is the DM being deceitful when she's clearly said, "Here's how you can do it, but it's not going to be quick or easy or maybe ever"? And what, she should ban the pc from collecting eyes to save him time or something? That's absurd. The pc is run by the player, not the DM, and doesn't have complete information about everything in the world. He needs to find out by exploring and doing, and there's nothing deceptive- or wrong- about letting him choose his own goals, even if they can't be attained.

Would you argue the same way if the pc's desire was for a way to turn into an ancient dragon? The DM must accommodate this desire or say, from the beginning, "No way, never, no how"?

I don't know about you, but in my campaign, if the pcs set a goal that they can't achieve, that's fine. They might surprise me and do the impossible some day via their resourcefulness and amazing creativity. But I feel no need to bend to make it happen if it's not there, not possible or whatever other not you choose.

As an example, in my game, dragon flesh and blood is extremely toxic if consumed. It will kill you, pretty much for sure, and everyone knows it. Back in the 2e days, one of my players made an awl pike-wielding fighter whose quest was to drink the blood of a dragon. The player told me that the character was sure that he could somehow survive and become immortal from it. I told the player that drinking dragon's blood was almost certain death.

When the party killed a dragon, the character in question drank some of its blood and died. Should I have changed major in-game lore to accommodate a player who stubbornly insisted on doing the equivalent of sticking his head in a raging inferno? Nope.

The darkvision thing is similar. "Go ahead and do what you want, I'll be shrugging my shoulders over here." The DM is not obligated to rewire the game to accommodate someone who stubbornly refused to face the reality of his character building choices. You want darkvision? Take a race that has it. I think the DM in this instance, from the sounds of things, was perfectly clear, and the pc is insisting on trying to force the DM's hand through sheer stubbornness. Now, I'm all for the pc pursuing their goals in game, and maybe there's a way to fulfill that goal. But maybe not. And it's the DM, not the player, who ultimately decides what goes in her game.

I despise magic Walmart but I'll hand wave trinkets to a degree and say you are in town for the next couple weeks doing all the buying and selling and all that stuff that happens between adventures. If you want more than potions or scrolls I'll make a decision if something is available or if it requires an adventure and side questing type stuff, or if its just not available at all in towns without significant effort, that would be a whole other adventure. Waiting to see 5e guidelines for magic but hopefully its more old schoole style than 3/4e. Of course if players and DMs love magic items being commonly bought and sold go for it. Whatever suits your game.

KarinsDad said:

Why exactly do you hate it?

I find it implausible that they would not exist. Not necessarily as a shop per se, more like back alley deals. Magic items are worth a lot in a D&D campaign setting. Anything that is worth a lot should have commerce surrounding it. Not doing so seems bizarre.

The reason it would often be back alley deals is due to the value of the items. A shopkeeper, shy of being in a large protected city, might not be able protect himself from thieves and other nefarious NPCs.

I equate this to real world weapons. In the U.S., most adult Americans can buy handguns, rifles, and shotguns (i.e. +1 daggers, swords, bows). They cannot acquire fighter jets or tanks or even AK47s or dynamite. At some point, society says "enough is enough" for weapons.

But, there is a black market in the real world for the more powerful weapons.

The same type of economics should apply to a D&D world. +1 weapons, armors, and common items like bags of holding should be available. Expensive maybe, but available.

The more rare and valuable items should only be purchasable from special unique merchants who deal solely in high end goods, or via a black market.

There is also a lot of roleplaying potential for having an NPC that the players go to for high end items. Such a PC has magic item crafting and trading connections, but might require PCs to go on quests to gain components or whatever. This also allows for a reoccurring NPC that the PCs might start liking and wanting to be protective of (i.e. a reoccurring ally).



Or even crafted by a PC spell caster at higher levels.



Agreed.

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Let me explain the reason I don't like the idea of magic marts is because often they make no sense for the setting or for the city you are in. Now I do think lower item things like scrolls and potions from first or second levels spells should be fairly easy to find in any big city you might even find some in a smaller town if it is near an area that adventures go.

But unless there is an active artificers guild or wizards guild in a city higher magic items will be to rare to just walk in and purchase. For that you need to find someone to make it for you which may take time and may require a quest to find everything you need. Or you can contact a member of the thieves guild to see if they can steal it for you. And I heartily support the idea of using black market contacts for the more forbidden kind of items.

In most of the games I play in there are not a lot of high level NPCs wizards and clerics running around so these kind of items are rare to begin with.

We also don't use a lot of + weapons we tend to use a weapon that levels. That makes a weapon like you father's broadsword mean more. I also like weapons and armor that are magical to have a history or to have been crafted as a reward.

I really don't like the dependency on magic items to solve every issue.