Do Magic Item "Shops" wreck the spirit of D&D?

Emirikol · Mar 25, 2007

Do Magic Item "Shops" wreck the spirit of D&D?

Does the overcustomization and overtwinking of the game wreck the spirit of the game? Does it just become a Mario-Bro's game where you're just trying to get enough "coins?" Can you hear the blinging sound in your campaigns?

jh

WildWeasel · Mar 25, 2007

The spirit of the game is to ave fun by going on adventures and getting stuff. Magic item shops and the like increase that by allowing one to customize the stuff, thereby making the adventures more fun.

Son_of_Thunder · Mar 25, 2007

My opinion mind you!

Ya, magic shops don't exist in my campaign. It tends, for me mind you, to make the magical less magical. I have customized my campaign to the extent that high level characters do not have the 'recommended wealth' for their level.

I have adjusted the encounters to reflect this. I heavily house rule too. But luckily, d20 lets me do this.

Emirikol · Mar 25, 2007

WildWeasel said:
The spirit of the game is to ave fun by going on adventures and getting stuff. Magic item shops and the like increase that by allowing one to customize the stuff, thereby making the adventures more fun.

I'm sure "shopping" is fun. My wife tells me that all the time and my accountant confirms that my wife finds "shopping" fun

Why bother to "hand out" magic items in Dungeons if PC's can just buy whatever they want?

jh

S'mon · Mar 25, 2007

Emirikol said:
Do Magic Item "Shops" wreck the spirit of D&D?

Not if they're the Bazaar of the Bizarre.

It's not item shops per se, it's the "You can have any item in the book up to X,000 gp" that is harmful to the dynamics of the game, far more harmful than I initially realised.

Napftor · Mar 25, 2007

Emirikol said:
Why bother to "hand out" magic items in Dungeons if PC's can just buy whatever they want?

jh

I doubt magic shops carry every item a PC might desire. The inventories of such venues would depend on the availability and willingness of area spellcasters (who better be high level to contribute regularly to the crafting and selling of items). I would run a magic item shop as more of a trade depot--"Oh, you need a magic missile wand? Well, one of my customers has been looking for that ring of protection you have there. Let's haggle!"

S'mon · Mar 25, 2007

Emirikol said:
Why bother to "hand out" magic items in Dungeons if PC's can just buy whatever they want?

Yep - running 3e I often feel I might as well just hand out X,000 gp, since that's what the items handed out represent anyway. A really powerful item just represents more money to be split among the PCs.

Dog Moon · Mar 25, 2007

IMO, Magic tends to be common enough that some sort of shop for Magic certainly has to exist. Now, it wouldn't be anything like Walmart though where you could browse aisles of Magic Items. I think there would probably be two versions of the shop.

1. A Wizard setting up a little area and when the PCs buy an item, they are paying the Wizard to start making the item and in 1day/1,000gp, the Wizard will have the item ready for them. However, the PCs, as part of the price, will need to pay for any necessary scrolls [or perhaps part of the repeat option, he offers to buy the scrolls himself; depends on how well they know each other].

2. A person has a shop, but all of the items within the store are replicas except perhaps the potions and a number of items worth like 1,000gp or less. The rest of the items are stored in a secret, highly protective place.

I also figure there would be some sort of black market area for magic items. You know, like talking to a cloaked figured in an alley. Maybe you'll get what you asked for, maybe you won't. A lot more items can be found this way, but the risk is also much higher.

That's my personal preference of how I think Magic Item 'Shops' would work in dnd while keeping in with the spirit of dnd. I mean seriously, in the real life, if you know the right people, you can buy pretty much anything. I think dnd should be the same, which also keeps some realism, IMO.

Shroomy · Mar 25, 2007

The last campaign I was part of featured a rather prominent magic shop run by a possibly crazy elf. We spent a lot of time there, buying mainly potions and minor scrolls, though I did also buy a clockwork toy. We enjoyed interacting with the shopkeeper so much, and had gone so far off the track of the published adventure, that our DM wove the magic shop into the events of the campaign (the shopkeeper's apprentice was involved in the smuggling ring we were trying to bust up, though we first suspected the shopkeeper after some incriminating evidence appeared).

No problems with integrating magic shops from my experience.

Storm Raven · Mar 25, 2007

Emirikol said:
Do Magic Item "Shops" wreck the spirit of D&D?

Does the overcustomization and overtwinking of the game wreck the spirit of the game? Does it just become a Mario-Bro's game where you're just trying to get enough "coins?" Can you hear the blinging sound in your campaigns?

No, not having a market for magic items wrecks the spirit of D&D because it hopelessly strains credulity. In the game, magic items are tools, and little more. This is not a new phenomenon - even back in Ye Olde Days of OD&D they were nothing more than very useful tools. The edict that they were not for sale, when you had PCs who sold excess magic items all the time (or at least who wanted to sell such items) simply made the game make little sense in regards to these items.