Forked Thread: [Maybe this is where the magic went:] To the magic shop

[Keefe the Thief]

Now, as is SOP these days, the innocent question "why are magic items IMHO less interesting now than back then?" turned into "my edition did that better than your edition, which is all about combat!!1!"

Part of these threads is often one of the enemies of fantastic adventuring (or so it seems): The magic shop. Attacks on it are numerous: it allows to turn flavour items ("decanter of endless perfume! At last!") into powerups ("+3 bane shocking axe of haha!"). It furthers the magic item proliferation. It makes magic items less interesting and so on.

And as some of you know i also play the German roleplaying game The Dark Eye - a low-magic setting and game with the underlying message: "your players have ONE magic item of not-negligible power? You´re doing it wrong!" I´ve always loved that D&D was different. And all my campaigns had magic shops. No, you couldn´t buy everything there, or sell everything. But this is where the magic went: Ye olde magic shoppe.

This is the most magical place of all, where a hideously deformed guy with killer golems hovering behind the counter cackles madly as you part with 1/2 a pound of gold for a shimmering little ring. Here, you can buy it all (if the DM wants you to): flavourless +3 swords, old flasks of steaming oil, mithril arrows created by mad dwarves, useless bows with more backstory than most player characters, healing potions hailing from the magic realm of generica magicka productica, and much more.
This is the place where the magic happens in my campaign. As it should be.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is the most magical place of all, where a hideously deformed guy with killer golems hovering behind the counter cackles madly as you part with 1/2 a pound of gold for a shimmering little ring. Here, you can buy it all (if the DM wants you to): flavourless +3 swords, old flasks of steaming oil, mithril arrows created by mad dwarves, useless bows with more backstory than most player characters, healing potions hailing from the magic realm of generica magicka productica, and much more.
This is the place where the magic happens in my campaign. As it should be.

I happen to agree with you 100%... however there is one small flaw in what you wrote.

You wrote it. It wasn't written for you.

And many players (including quite a number of ones on these boards) just can't seem to grasp the idea that the DM actually gets to (and should) write his own stuff. This is why we have incessant complaining about how there's no fluff anymore... how the Monster Manual seems dry... why magic items are nothing but stat increases.

Because the designers have put some of these things upon the players themselves. And many players apparently haaaaaaaaaaaate that.

Why else do we see so many flame wars about those illustrious two acronyms... RAW and RAI? Because for quite a number of players, what is written down trumps everything. It's the end all and be all. And if it's not written down, then something is horribly wrong. Someone screwed up somewhere. The game just isn't as good, because someone else didn't do the work.

So while I myself love the idea of Ye Olde Magic Shoppe, where the magic and mystery of finding esoteric and illustrious items of power can be bought and sold... it entails me actually coming up with it, describing it, and even (heaven forbid) altering what is written down in the rules to make it happen.

Which is why many folks here will never have this happen.

 

[Imaro]

I happen to agree with you 100%... however there is one small flaw in what you wrote.

You wrote it. It wasn't written for you.

And many players (including quite a number of ones on these boards) just can't seem to grasp the idea that the DM actually gets to (and should) write his own stuff. This is why we have incessant complaining about how there's no fluff anymore... how the Monster Manual seems dry... why magic items are nothing but stat increases.

Because the designers have put some of these things upon the players themselves. And many players apparently haaaaaaaaaaaate that.

Why else do we see so many flame wars about those illustrious two acronyms... RAW and RAI? Because for quite a number of players, what is written down trumps everything. It's the end all and be all. And if it's not written down, then something is horribly wrong. Someone screwed up somewhere. The game just isn't as good, because someone else didn't do the work.

So while I myself love the idea of Ye Olde Magic Shoppe, where the magic and mystery of finding esoteric and illustrious items of power can be bought and sold... it entails me actually coming up with it, describing it, and even (heaven forbid) altering what is written down in the rules to make it happen.

Which is why many folks here will never have this happen.

Or...it could be that alot of people aren't keen on the one stop "magic shop" in their campaign worlds and really has nothing to do with them not wanting to write their own stuff or whatever else you posted above.

For me the problem is I've never seen the magic shop used viably in a fantasy story unless it's for humorous purposes or is children's fantasy. Not to say it's never been done, especially in urban fantasy...but in a medieval-esque fantasy setting, I've never seen it done well.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Or...it could be that alot of people aren't keen on the one stop "magic shop" in their campaign worlds and really has nothing to do with them not wanting to write their own stuff or whatever else you posted above.

For me the problem is I've never seen the magic shop used viably in a fantasy story unless it's for humorous purposes or is children's fantasy. Not to say it's never been done, especially in urban fantasy...but in a medieval-esque fantasy setting, I've never seen it done well.

To me, we've always had "magic shops" in one way or another, even while playing 1st and 2nd Edition. We've had DMs TRY to stop the buying and selling of magic items, but it always happens.

It's a practicality issue for us. In our hybrid 1e/2e game, we would come back from dungeons laden with 10 +1 weapons, 5 +2 weapons, 4 +3 weapons, and 2 +4 weapons, and another 15 suits of armor or so and about 15 miscellaneous magic items. We'd distribute the 2 +4 weapons (since we almost all had +4 weapons already). Then we'd find something to do with all the magic items we didn't want. Originally our DM said they couldn't be bought and sold because there were no magic shops and no way to get rid of them.

That caused us to have to go through a fairly long and tedious process of wandering around town(or the entire world), finding contacts, negotiating with them for the magic items we had and selling them. It was boring for almost everyone except the party caller who was in charge of letting the DM know what the group was doing to avoid everyone speaking over each other. It got to the point where we'd spend nearly 2 hours just trying to sell magic items we had extra and half the players had fallen asleep at the table.

Until, we were finally able to convince our DM that, regardless of what it said in the books, we had run into a couple other adventuring parties in our travels, that there were enough of them to warrant having a registration process for Adventuring Companies(our game took place in Cormyr in FR), so if we'd come back from an adventure and would sell nearly 30 items each time, and there were 30 or 40 other adventuring companies out there doing the same thing we were, that there would be a HUGE market for magic items for at least 1 shop. That's when our DM came up with Tim, the traveling merchant who would be in town almost whenever we needed him. He had a nearly unlimited collection of magic items and wealth beyond imagining. He had a magic...train, I believe that would take his entire inventory with him and teleported wherever he wanted to go.

And it simplified the buying and selling process to a couple of minutes of negotiating and writing down what we had bought and sold. It made the game more fun because we could spend more time playing the fun parts of the game and less time asleep waiting for the time when we could get back to playing. Plus, it was cool to actually be able to find magic items we wanted. Just gaining levels didn't feel like we were gaining that much. It happened so rarely, anyways. Instead, we looked forward to when we had saved up enough money to get a +5 weapon or a staff of the magi or whatever.

Our D&D games almost always ended up being rather high magic. We'd see hundreds of magic items in our career. We once ended up with so much copper from a dragon hoard that we were unable to spend it, as our DM claimed it would destabilize the entire economy and make copper worthless. So we melted it down and created a museum to our adventuring party out of copper. We enchanted it with psionic crystals who had the personality of our psionicist and were capable of blasting anyone who tried to break into our museum. Our wizard had a floating tower filled with magical wards. The idea that magic should be rare was a rather alien concept to us.

The current magic item system just seems like a logical extension to the way we've always played. I don't think "the magic" went anywhere, but is instead the same as it has always been.

 

[Rechan]

Here's another possibility:

The magic is gone because you're an old fart.

I mean that in a good way. But, if you've been playing D&D since 1e or 2e, then the same items aren't going to have the mystery and mystique they ddi because you've been playing since 1e or 2e. That's at least 15 years of gaming.

The first bag of holding of your character's career isn't going to hold the same wonder becuase you've had 18 bags of holding in your gaming career.

Nostalgia, baby. It's what took the magic.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Excellent points, all my friends!

Indeed, whether you prefer *High Magic* or *Low Magic* campaigns, I have always maintained that it is the primary responsibility of the DM to maintain control over his campaign, to craft it, to guard it and insure that the campaign's fun, balance, and integrity are preserved.

Part of all that is being willing to do the work of crafting and customizing magic items, and making them *special* and *wondrous*, as needed and desired by the group of players, as appropriate.

My players can tell you--lamenting!--of all the spells, items, prestige classes, and feats, I have *RULE ZERO'D* They could also tell you of the fantastic landscapes they have encountered, the glorious armies they have marshalled and led into epic battles, the fantastic and strange creatures they have encountered, the valiant heroes they have met and befriended, the wondrous and awesome magic items their characters have gained through hard-fought campaigns--and the enduring legacies their characters have left on the world of Thandor, over the long years.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Runestar]

I personally felt that 3e handled the magic shop concept fairly well in the form of thayan enclaves, which allowed you to purchase minor magic items readily, and offered contacts if you wanted to procure/enchant more expensive magic items. But then again, it is a fairly high-magic setting, so perhaps that is why magic k-marts seem to fit seamlessly.

 

[RangerWickett]

I think the next time I run 4e, I'll have it so that magic items only last as long as the creature, place, or item that grants their power. So if a mage makes an item, when he dies, the items he made become mundane. If you trap a volcano in a sword, you're good as long as the volcano lasts.

That'll cut down on the number of items, since they'd have a fairly high turnover rate, and all the good, enduring ones will have fairly evocative backstories inherent in their power source.

 

[Staffan]

I personally felt that 3e handled the magic shop concept fairly well in the form of thayan enclaves, which allowed you to purchase minor magic items readily, and offered contacts if you wanted to procure/enchant more expensive magic items. But then again, it is a fairly high-magic setting, so perhaps that is why magic k-marts seem to fit seamlessly.

That's Forgotten Realms, not generic D&D.

Eberron also has its unique take on it. In the setting, there are a bunch of merchant houses that are each endowed with something called a Dragonmark - a tattoo-like thing that manifests in certain people and gives them minor magical powers (or significant magical powers at higher levels). They have leveraged the power of these marks into dominating certain market niches - you have the halfling House Jorasco with the mark of Healing running hospitals, the human House Deneith with the mark of Sentinel dominating the mercenary/bodyguard market, and so on. One of these houses is Cannith, with the mark of Making. These guys have special sites where they can make items far easier than using the core rules, so you can probably commission whatever you want from them, if you're willing to pay. You might not be able to walk into a Cannith enclave and pick up a Full Plate +4 off the shelf, but if you give them a week they can probably set one up for you.

 

[jdrakeh]

And as some of you know i also play the German roleplaying game The Dark Eye - a low-magic setting and game with the underlying message: "your players have ONE magic item of not-negligible power? You´re doing it wrong!" I´ve always loved that D&D was different.

Consider that if you reverse the situation (i.e. posit a person who has played only or primarily D&D), it becomes DSA (or any game in which magic isn't a few coppers and the next store front away) that it is different. I know that this is certainly the case for me.

I've seen the concept of a magic shop on every corner done so often that there is absolutely no way to breathe life into it for me. I mean, FR has actually had shopping lists of magic items penned for it in official supplements, as have several other settings. I'm pretty hard-pressed to see anything so common as truly awe-inspiring or fantastic.

Few magic shops or extremely hard to obtain magic items, however? I have actually had to search pretty hard for RPG settings in the US that take this approach. HarnWorld is a notable standout in which magic and magic items are relatively rate, as are Shadow World and Dark Sun, but many other fantasy RPG settings of US origin are dripping with magical commerce.