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Buying magic items vs. finding magic items
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6154924" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>Or, you know, I was joking. Hence the smilie.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Fair enough, but you can say that such commerce is so small as to be virtually (or actually) non-existent. As I said, one person who once sold a magic item, unto itself, does not an industry make.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The idea that magic items are necessarily more valuable than mundane items of the same type is easy enough to disprove via cursed items; there are different kinds of curses, no doubt, but one that's cursed to kill whomever pays for it won't carry much market value. Hence another reason why magic items wouldn't be easily bought and sold: they're feared. </p><p></p><p>But again, this is getting away from my larger point: that any such isolated transactions don't rise to the level of commercial activity to the point where it becomes a game-play issue in the course of the campaign. You can plausibly have a campaign where the PCs can't simply buy or sell magic items, except under circumstances that are so rare as to be almost unique.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Otis is never going to know that the robe was magical in the first place. He's also going to have a hard time selling it when people think that it's a <em>robe of powerlessness</em>. Assuming he can sell it at all, it won't be for very much because everyone in his village is dirt poor, and the rich people are so far away that he'd have to essentially abandon his farm just to go there and try to sell it to them, having no idea how much he'd get for it if they were even willing to buy it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I disagree, since it's fairly easy to come up with plausible rationalizations why that isn't so.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>How about you, in your very next paragraph ("...maybe it is more a cottage industry."). <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /></p><p></p><p>Leaving aside the irony in that you've incorrectly defined what a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man" target="_blank">straw man</a> fallacy is (hint: it's misrepresenting your opponent's position, not arguing against something that isn't being debated), you're engaging in the very straw man tactics that you're decrying here, as you keep trying to incorrectly redefine what I'm talking about. </p><p></p><p>I've been saying all along that the "magic item economy" can be easily rationalized out of existence by a canny GM, without necessarily destroying the underlying logic of the campaign. Your responses have varied wildly from real-world economic theory to strict interpretations of the game rules to throwing around accusations of fallacies, all to say that no campaign could possibly not have a magic item economy. The latest attempt being trying to define what the "economy" constitutes (e.g. "it's not brick and mortar!" when I haven't said that it is, save for examples. Or "all we need are buyers and sellers" when I've said I'm talking about industry).</p><p></p><p>None of these are particularly convincing arguments, since they're avoiding the issue rather than engaging with it. Admittedly, you did have one good post where you kept asking leading questions about why something in a campaign must be so, but when I pointed out that you were supporting my point of view, you hand-waved that away by saying that "it constraints the campaign in other ways," without defining what those other ways were (or why that's a bad thing).</p><p></p><p>Overall, if I'm not arguing against what you are, it's because your position keeps shifting.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Or (<strong><em><u>REPEAT-</u></em></strong>, er, *gasp!*) maybe it varies to the point of not being available for perfectly explicable reasons! It's entirely plausible that there are no buyers and sellers, for reasons outlined above or (*gasp!*) any other reason the GM wants! You're listing lots of reasons why the situation in the game world is such that it supports the end you're trying to achieve (e.g. the buying and selling of magic items), so why can't reasons be invented so that a different situation can be achieved (e.g. no buying and selling of magic items)?</p><p></p><p>So far, you haven't answered this question beyond "I don't think it's logical" - which is not only meaningless in a fantasy game where everything is subjective, but comes across as "because I don't like it."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 6154924, member: 8461"] Or, you know, I was joking. Hence the smilie. Fair enough, but you can say that such commerce is so small as to be virtually (or actually) non-existent. As I said, one person who once sold a magic item, unto itself, does not an industry make. The idea that magic items are necessarily more valuable than mundane items of the same type is easy enough to disprove via cursed items; there are different kinds of curses, no doubt, but one that's cursed to kill whomever pays for it won't carry much market value. Hence another reason why magic items wouldn't be easily bought and sold: they're feared. But again, this is getting away from my larger point: that any such isolated transactions don't rise to the level of commercial activity to the point where it becomes a game-play issue in the course of the campaign. You can plausibly have a campaign where the PCs can't simply buy or sell magic items, except under circumstances that are so rare as to be almost unique. Otis is never going to know that the robe was magical in the first place. He's also going to have a hard time selling it when people think that it's a [i]robe of powerlessness[/i]. Assuming he can sell it at all, it won't be for very much because everyone in his village is dirt poor, and the rich people are so far away that he'd have to essentially abandon his farm just to go there and try to sell it to them, having no idea how much he'd get for it if they were even willing to buy it. I disagree, since it's fairly easy to come up with plausible rationalizations why that isn't so. How about you, in your very next paragraph ("...maybe it is more a cottage industry."). :lol: Leaving aside the irony in that you've incorrectly defined what a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man]straw man[/url] fallacy is (hint: it's misrepresenting your opponent's position, not arguing against something that isn't being debated), you're engaging in the very straw man tactics that you're decrying here, as you keep trying to incorrectly redefine what I'm talking about. I've been saying all along that the "magic item economy" can be easily rationalized out of existence by a canny GM, without necessarily destroying the underlying logic of the campaign. Your responses have varied wildly from real-world economic theory to strict interpretations of the game rules to throwing around accusations of fallacies, all to say that no campaign could possibly not have a magic item economy. The latest attempt being trying to define what the "economy" constitutes (e.g. "it's not brick and mortar!" when I haven't said that it is, save for examples. Or "all we need are buyers and sellers" when I've said I'm talking about industry). None of these are particularly convincing arguments, since they're avoiding the issue rather than engaging with it. Admittedly, you did have one good post where you kept asking leading questions about why something in a campaign must be so, but when I pointed out that you were supporting my point of view, you hand-waved that away by saying that "it constraints the campaign in other ways," without defining what those other ways were (or why that's a bad thing). Overall, if I'm not arguing against what you are, it's because your position keeps shifting. Or ([b][i][u]REPEAT-[/u][/i][/b], er, *gasp!*) maybe it varies to the point of not being available for perfectly explicable reasons! It's entirely plausible that there are no buyers and sellers, for reasons outlined above or (*gasp!*) any other reason the GM wants! You're listing lots of reasons why the situation in the game world is such that it supports the end you're trying to achieve (e.g. the buying and selling of magic items), so why can't reasons be invented so that a different situation can be achieved (e.g. no buying and selling of magic items)? So far, you haven't answered this question beyond "I don't think it's logical" - which is not only meaningless in a fantasy game where everything is subjective, but comes across as "because I don't like it." [/QUOTE]
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