Worlds of Design: The Problem with Magimarts

I dislike magic item stores. Here's why.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

Magic items are a part of every fantasy role-playing game, and wherever player characters meet, someone will want to buy or sell such items. What the players do among themselves is their business, in most cases; but when non-player characters (NPC) are involved the GM must know where magic items come from, how rare they are, and how hard it is to produce them. [Quoting myself from 40+ years ago]

Magimart: Still a Bad Idea​

I don't like the idea of "Magimarts" -- something like a bookstore or small department store, often with a public storefront, where adventurers can come and purchase (or sell) magic items. I said as much over 40 years ago in an article titled “Magimart: Buying and Selling Magic Items” in White Dwarf magazine. My point then still stands: at least for me and in my games, magic-selling stores don’t make sense.

They don’t make sense from a design point of view, as they may unbalance a campaign or cause power-creep. From an adventure point of view such stores partly eliminates the need to quest for specific powerful magic items. From a realistic point of view they would only provide targets for those who are happy to steal.

The Design Point of View​

From a game design point of view, how experience points, gold, and magic fit together makes a big difference. For example, if you get experience points for selling a magic item (even to NPCs), as well as for the gold you get, adventurers will sell magic items more often. If adventurers acquire scads of treasure and have nothing (such as taxes or “training”) to significantly reduce their fortunes, then big-time magic items are going to cost an awful lot of money, but some will be bought. If gold is in short supply (as you’d expect in anything approaching a real world) then anyone with a whole lot of gold might be able to buy big-time magic items.

Long campaigns need a way for magic items to change ownership, other than theft. As an RPG player I like to trade magic items to other characters in return for other magic items. But there are no “magic stores.” Usability is a big part of it: if my magic user has a magic sword that a fighter wants, he might trade me an item that I could use as a magic user. (Some campaigns allocate found magic items only to characters who can use them. We just dice for selecting the things (a sort of draft) and let trading sort it out, much simpler and less likely to lead to argument about who can use/who needs what.)

The Adventure Point of Views​

Will magic stores promote enjoyable adventuring? It depends on the style of play, but for players primarily interested in challenging adventures, they may not want to be able to go into a somehow-invulnerable magic store and buy or trade for what they want.

Magic-selling stores remind me of the question “why do dungeons exist”. A common excuse (not reason) is “some mad (and very powerful) wizard made it.” Yeah, sure. Excuses for magic-selling stores need to be even wilder than that!

I think of magic-item trading and selling amongst characters as a kind of secretive black market. Yes, it may happen, but each transaction is fraught with opportunities for deceit. Perhaps like a black market for stolen diamonds? This is not something you’re likely to do out in the open, nor on a regular mass basis.

The Realistic Point of View​

“Why do you rob banks?” the thief is asked. “’Cause that’s where the money is.”

Realistically, what do you think will happen if someone maintains a location containing magic items on a regular basis? Magimarts are a major flashpoint in the the dichotomy between believability (given initial assumptions of magic and spell-casting) and "Rule of Cool" ("if it's cool, it's OK").

In most campaigns, magic items will be quite rare. Or magic items that do commonplace things (such as a magic self-heating cast iron pan) may be common but the items that are useful in conflict will be rare. After all, if combat-useful magic items are commonplace, why would anyone take the risk of going into a “dungeon” full of dangers to find some? (Would dungeon-delving become purely a non-magical treasure-hunting activity if magic items are commonplace?)

And for the villains, magimarts seem like an easy score. If someone is kind enough to gather a lot of magic items in a convenient, known place, why not steal those rather than go to a lot of time and effort, risk and chance, to explore dungeons and ruins for items? There may be lots of money there as well!

When Magimarts Make Sense​

If your campaign is one where magic is very common, then magic shops may make sense - though only for common stuff, not for rare/powerful items. And magic-selling stores can provide reasons for adventures:

• Find the kidnapped proprietor who is the only one who can access all that magic.
• Be the guards for a magic store.
• Chase down the crooks who stole some or all of the magic from the store.

Maybe a clever proprietor has figured out a way to make the items accessible only to him or her. But some spells let a caster take over the mind of the victim, and can use the victim to access the items. And if someone is so powerful that he or she can protect a magic store against those who want to raid it, won't they likely have better/more interesting things to do with their time? (As an aside, my wife points out that a powerful character might gather a collection of magic items in the same way that a rich person might gather a collection of artworks. But these won’t be available to “the public” in most cases. Still just as some people rob art museums, some might rob magic collections.)

Of course, any kind of magic trading offers lots of opportunities for deception. You might find out that the sword you bought has a curse, or that the potion isn’t what it’s supposed to be. Many GMs ignore this kind of opportunity and let players buy and sell items at standard prices without possibility of being bilked. Fair enough, it’s not part of the core adventure/story purposes of RPGs. And magic stores are a cheap way for a GM to allow trade in magic items.

Your Turn: What part do magic-selling stores play in your games?

 

[Voadam]

If there are magic stores strewn about the land why aren't the local lords (bandit or otherwise) capitalizing on this?
Why aren't there armies of guys with +3 swords running around?
Fantasy game economies have never made sense to me.

The reason there are not armies with +3 swords would be the cost to make them all and the handcrafting of each one.

In 3.5 where there were magical markets it cost 18,000 gp each for a +3 sword. Even if you have slave wizards enchanting them it still costs the evil empire 9,000 gp per sword for magical components and takes a wizard of at least 9th level with the right feat 18 days of work, and 720 xp per sword. If you want to spend 100,000 gp on equipping your army you can get 11 +3 swords for your horde.

It was mostly to have a market to sell stuff, have a few things available for sale to be bought immediately, and a wide array that could be commissioned to be crafted.

The crafting rules were not set up to have mass production of powerful stuff.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If there are magic stores strewn about the land why aren't the local lords (bandit or otherwise) capitalizing on this?
Why aren't there armies of guys with +3 swords running around?
Fantasy game economies have never made sense to me.

Because +x items are too boring even for military logistics?

 

[KYRON45]

Because +x items are too boring even for military logistics?

I'm an old man. Back in my day 7th level was high level and if you saw a +2 anything in a campaign 3 PCs probably gave their lives in getting it.
The greatest magic items we saw in 30 years of playing was a ring that could polymorph you into a white mouse at will, and a sword that forced you to go first in the initiative line up.

The idea of selling magic items just simply would never have occurred to us. If i mentioned crafting to some of the old timers they would laugh me out of the room.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The greatest magic items we saw in 30 years of playing was a ring that could polymorph you into a white mouse at will, and a sword that forced you to go first in the initiative line up.

Items that actually do something instead of making number go up. That's my point.

Even in-universe, if the choice is between 15% efficiency and setting people on fire, I'm not going to pretend to care about efficency.

 

[James Gasik]

If there are magic stores strewn about the land why aren't the local lords (bandit or otherwise) capitalizing on this?
Why aren't there armies of guys with +3 swords running around?
Fantasy game economies have never made sense to me.

They're not supposed to. Consider:

This is a Great Wyrm Red Dragon. At some point, he will face a group of adventurers and die, and then that sea of treasure becomes theirs. If you look at treasure tables, adventuring has always brought in immensely valuable loot. It's not unlikely for a party of 8th-9th level heroes to have amassed about 30,000 gp, along with magical items that command insanely high prices.

How could any economy survive having that much money dropped on it without gold becoming effectively worthless due to inflation? D&D doesn't concern itself with this, it's a fantasy about pretending to be heroes who strike it filthy rich exploring lost cities and forgotten tombs as opposed to working a 9-to-5 job as a baker or a miller.

In a setting where 1 gold is probably enough money for a normal person to survive for a week or more, what noble is going to plop down 100,000 gp on a +3 sword? Think of how many soldiers you could hire and support for that kind of money!

The D&D economy is all screwed up because it supports the player characters needs, as opposed to trying to be logical about how the world works.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I don't get the argument that what's available to consumers controls what's available to a government.

While a government normally has deeper pockets, it's rather like asking why every soldier doesn't have a private jet and a gold plated pistol formerly owned by Elvis.

 

[tetrasodium]

Items that actually do something instead of making number go up. That's my point.

Even in-universe, if the choice is between 15% efficiency and setting people on fire, I'm not going to pretend to care about efficency.

5e removed too many mechanical hooks for that. It didn't stop chasing after simplicity there though, wotc kept going and froze out any space for magic items in general

They're not supposed to. Consider:
View attachment 358499
This is a Great Wyrm Red Dragon. At some point, he will face a group of adventurers and die, and then that sea of treasure becomes theirs. If you look at treasure tables, adventuring has always brought in immensely valuable loot. It's not unlikely for a party of 8th-9th level heroes to have amassed about 30,000 gp, along with magical items that command insanely high prices.

How could any economy survive having that much money dropped on it without gold becoming effectively worthless due to inflation? D&D doesn't concern itself with this, it's a fantasy about pretending to be heroes who strike it filthy rich exploring lost cities and forgotten tombs as opposed to working a 9-to-5 job as a baker or a miller.

In a setting where 1 gold is probably enough money for a normal person to survive for a week or more, what noble is going to plop down 100,000 gp on a +3 sword? Think of how many soldiers you could hire and support for that kind of money!

The D&D economy is all screwed up because it supports the player characters needs, as opposed to trying to be logical about how the world works.

Hard power and soft power that goes beyond coin, extreme percentage hero taxes on high tier items, or a shift to a different currency.
Prior to 5e most editions used a combination of all three with the currency shift being enforced by a container and encumbrance system that was A: actually written & B: not designed to nullify itself. Some editions took that a step further by having 100:1 instead of 10:1 exchange rates when shifting up a currency tier. Unfortunately 5e didn't bother with a variant 5coins/1 pound currency weight to coverfor that instead of the 50/1 with no container rules and pointless encumbrance ink wasting text.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

In a setting where 1 gold is probably enough money for a normal person to survive for a week or more, what noble is going to plop down 100,000 gp on a +3 sword? Think of how many soldiers you could hire and support for that kind of money!

The D&D economy is all screwed up because it supports the player characters needs, as opposed to trying to be logical about how the world works.

The D&D economy is all screwed up, but you can make it less so by dumping the Dung Ages idea of "1 gold is probably enough money for a normal person to survive for a week or more" and shifting the decimal point over by one place.

What I find works better is assuming a median upkeep/income of 1 gp times level squared per day, with most people being first level or possibly first & second level. So living on 1 gp (10 sp, 100 cp) for a week or more is not 'normal' but rather extreme bottom-of-the-gutter poverty.

Based on the 3.5e rules for expected PC wealth, 1 gp per day per level squared median income works out to expected PC wealth of 1 year's income/upkeep at 5th level, 1.3 years' income/upkeep at 10th level, 2.4 years' income/upkeep at 15th level, and 5.2 years' income/upkeep at 20th level. Which is not obviously insane.

 

[James Gasik]

The D&D economy is all screwed up, but you can make it less so by dumping the Dung Ages idea of "1 gold is probably enough money for a normal person to survive for a week or more" and shifting the decimal point over by one place.

What I find works better is assuming a median upkeep/income of 1 gp times level squared, with most people being first level or possibly first & second level. So living on 1 gp (10 sp, 100 cp) for a week or more is not 'normal' but rather extreme bottom-of-the-gutter poverty.

Based on the 3.5e rules for expected PC wealth, 1 gp per day per level squared median income works out to expected PC wealth of 1 year's income/upkeep at 5th level, 1.3 years' income/upkeep at 10th level, 2.4 years' income/upkeep at 15th level, and 5.2 years' income/upkeep at 20th level. Which is not obviously insane.

So instead of "a +1 sword is worth 2,315 gp", it becomes 231 gp and 5 sp? And that 5000 gp emerald is worth 500 gp? A dragon's hoard with thousands of coins is now hundreds of coins (or it's still thousands but those thousands have 1/10 the purchasing power)?

 

[Raiztt]

There's space between magic item costco wholesale and every magic item is a relic of incomprehensible rarity/power/worth.

Someone earlier who claimed to be an economist had it right: what is for sale is going to be subject to all the normal mundane aspects of economics, but consider this:

A +3 Thundering Short Sword is, in terms of 'rarity', more like the gold-plated pistol engraved and owned by Elvis than JUST "a powerful weapon". There could be 10 million lesser healing potions, but only 100 +3 weapons in the world.

This is also why I like 'bounded' (or at least massively compressed) accuracy.