Buying magic items vs. finding magic items

[Alzrius]

You clearly misunderstand what is meant by a variable. Here, it meant "any magic item the DM includes in his campaign." We don't know which one, but we know that there is one. It is, therefore, a variable.

Or, you know, I was joking. Hence the smilie.

You don't need a distinct "magic item market" for there to be active commerce in magic items.

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.

Even if someone can't get the DMG value for a given magic item, that item will nonetheless have a value within the market by virtue of its intrinsic properties. Nearly anything magical in D&D is extremely well made and hard to destroy- with obvious exceptions like potions, which are destroyed by use or scrolls, etc.). By virtue of those properties alone, even if one cannot discern its actual powers, a magic item will command a greater price than mundane items of the same kind.

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.

So, Otis the Farmer who found a magic robe while plowing his field- it was once the site of a great battle- may well sell it for farming supplies, tools, or food, never knowing anything else about it beyond the fact that it is clearly magic in some way. (Despite seeming flimsy, it resists damage better than his work clothes.) He won't get full price for it, but he will get what to him would be a goodly sum.

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 robe of powerlessness. 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.

The resale market in magic items will function like any other, and the durability of magic items will make them sellable even without proper identification.

I disagree, since it's fairly easy to come up with plausible rationalizations why that isn't so.

You keep using that word "industry". Can you find anywhere someone other than you has used it to describe the market? Because, again, I'm thinking this is another aspect of straw-man, arguing against a thing that nobody else is arguing for.

How about you, in your very next paragraph ("...maybe it is more a cottage industry.").

Leaving aside the irony in that you've incorrectly defined what a straw man 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.

For what Danny and I are talking about, I think all we (and the DMG guidelines) need are buyers and sellers. Organize them as you wish. Maybe there's an industry. Maybe it is more a cottage industry. Maybe it is just folks who have items that they'd be willing to sell if you asked them. Or, (*gasp!*) maybe it varies. You know, where the purchase price is near the local GP cap, you're looking for the guy who has an heirloom. When the cap is much higher than the price, you might well see folks trying to make a living producing and selling them. That would make far more sense to me than flat "no market or industry".

Or (REPEAT-, 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."

 

[ExploderWizard]

Certainly, most adventuring gear should be available most of the time. Telling your players they can't buy hemp rope before delving into a dungeon is justifiable if there's a hemp shortage and the local ruler is hoarding it all for his crack team of moutain rangers, but it IS kind of unfun. An unnecessary speedbump. But that doesn't mean you can't have some form of reasonable scarcity in your campaign world.

As I pointed out before, just because something- ANYTHING, be it mundane or magical- has a price, does not mean it is available where the PCs are.* After all, would you, as a DM, allow a party flush with cash to buy a seafaring warship in a mountain village? Or a spyglass in a stone-age settlement?

In one campaign, I asked a weapon smith in the small town in which the party was operating to make a particular exotic weapon in which my PC was planning to become proficient. He was never able to master its construction.

If you can't get mundane gear everywhere, sll the time, why should magic items be any different?

With regard to adventuring gear I agree. Actual magic items are not adventuring gear, they are treasure. How much more valuable would a cloak of elvenkind be if there were perhaps only a handful of them in the world and no one knew how to create one? It wouldn't be some low level trinket that you used until you could buy or make something better.

All kind of things change in this kind of world. Monsters that can only be permenantly harmed by a magical weapon are much scarier when finding a magical weapon is nowhere near a certainty. If you actually had such a weapon would you sell it?

Finding a buyer for such an item would be easy. Finding someone willing to part with one, not so much( not impossible merely highly improbable).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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.

As others have said, nobody else is saying "industry", only saying that a market for such items will exist. Its a law of economics.

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.

Even a dangerous (cursed) item can have value:

http://www.carsforsale.com/used_cars_for_sale/1972_Ford_Pinto_194250666_1

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.

The point I am making is that your assertion of there being no market for magic items is inherently implausible.

Otis is never going to know that the robe was magical in the first place.

He actually has a decent chance of finding out- the rules of creating & destroying magic items dictate that it will be extremely well made and more durable than mundane objects of like construction- and even if he doesn't, he can still sell it as a masterwork item. (Which price may well be all the local market can bear, anyway.)

He's also going to have a hard time selling it when people think that it's a robe of powerlessness.

Unless its formally identified as one, most people wouldn't jump to that conclusion. They will think of any other magic robes they know of first, unless they are pessimists. Even if they are aware that it is a possibility, most will discount that possibility. That's just human psychology of risk/reward, the kind of thing that drives lotteries and such.

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.

See above.

Even if he can't sell it with full knowledge of what it is, it is still sale able as something that is extremely well made. Even if he can't get full market value without investing in traveling to a bigger market, its quality and durability still make it valuable enough for him to consider its sale.

I disagree, since it's fairly easy to come up with plausible rationalizations why that isn't so.

Present one, because you haven't yet.

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.

<Edit>

None of these are particularly convincing arguments, since they're avoiding the issue rather than engaging with it.

A dragon flies & breathes fire because it is a magical beast. That's OK because it's part of the nature of a fantasy setting that certain rules of physics get bent or broken. Its a genre convention. It is part of the internal logic of the setting.

What analogous magic prevents people from doing what is natural to them; the selling and buying of goods? Where in fantasy is there a genre convention that the rules of economics do not apply?

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."

Because none of the vague assertions and reasons presented so far would prevent a market from forming.

We are not saying we "don't think it is logical", we are saying that the absence of such a market violates fundamental laws of economics. If violation of the RW rules of physics like dragonflight and polymorph spells demand an answer of at least "it's magic"- essentially creating a new addition to that world's laws of physics- so too does a violation of laws of economics demand at least a sensible, consistent justification that maintains an internal campaign logic.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

With regard to adventuring gear I agree. Actual magic items are not adventuring gear, they are treasure. How much more valuable would a cloak of elvenkind be if there were perhaps only a handful of them in the world and no one knew how to create one? It wouldn't be some low level trinket that you used until you could buy or make something better.

It would be much more valuable. If the knowledge was completely lost, that would boost the value even more.

But that all just drives the price up. It doesn't make the market disappear.

All kind of things change in this kind of world. Monsters that can only be permenantly harmed by a magical weapon are much scarier when finding a magical weapon is nowhere near a certainty. If you actually had such a weapon would you sell it?

I live in a world in which criminals in my city are known to have rocket propelled grenades and other military grade munitions. Despite being legally & financially able to purchase arms, bulletproof glass, etc., I generally don't. Were trouble of that nature to come my way, I would try to run away and/or depend on the authorities to take care of it. I am not a soldier. My owning a weapon might lead me into a false sense of security.

The average joe in a fantasy realm may not be legally permitted the carrying of arms. In the RW, some governments made violating such laws an extremely serious crime.

He may also be aware of his limitations as a combatant. If they are severe enough, he'll know that him using even a magic weapon is, essentially, suicide.

In such cases, he may well choose to sell a magical weapon for whatever he can- the more, the better- for gain now rather than risk penalty of law, or hold it against some foreseeable but remotely possible threat that the magic weapon may be effective against...but that he is utterly untrained in the use thereof.

Finding a buyer for such an item would be easy. Finding someone willing to part with one, not so much( not impossible merely highly improbable).

Again, that probability all depends on the psychology of the item's owner and the game world's internal logic (the distribution & rarity of magic items, their power, etc.).

 

[SkidAce]

You do not need any adventurers for an magic item economy to exist. There are enough other people who want them.
As long as there are people who can make magic items reliably there will be an industry for it, be it either that kings and champions make a pilgrimage to the wizards tower to petition him for a magical item or having entire guilds of casters mass produce magical weapons for the army and mercenaries.

I talked about mass infrastructure in a previous post, and certainly implied an industry. And Derren replied to me in the same vein.

So yes, we have been using that term.

And I think its a telling point that is causing the dissonance.

I had economics in my college course also, I understand everything y'all are saying. and the principles of what you speak are 100% true. (I had flashbacks when someone clarified the supply/demand graph and the intersection. Blech.)

Using the economic terms, I can't refute anything that those of you have been saying about magic items. I can however, say that my campaign is framed such that the players have the most access to magic loot and items.

And that being the case, there will be no "industry" which was my original point at the beginning of the thread, magic items don't have to readily available DUE to demand. There can be reasons they are not.
[MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] your point on logic holes is well taken, but in actuality there is no problem. The situation with the Duke buying the players loot is exactly what should happen (in my campaign), he comes to the rare individuals who have the things he wants/needs and either buys or bullies his way to ownership.

So the premise on which my world is built is intact. Adventurers (mainly players) are the few and far between that have the loot. Because my premise is true, the Duke has really no other option. (which makes for great play when he wants something they wouldn't want to give up.



Great conversation folks...thanks for your patience.

 

[Alzrius]

As others have said, nobody else is saying "industry", only saying that a market for such items will exist. Its a law of economics.

No "others" have said that, just one person, who then in fact called it an "industry." Likewise, I've already said that having one instance of one person being willing to sell a magic item, and another person who wants to buy it, may constitute a "market." But that's not what's under discussion, and continually pointing that out is tangential at best.

Even a dangerous (cursed) item can have value:

http://www.carsforsale.com/used_cars_for_sale/1972_Ford_Pinto_194250666_1

"Potentially could" doesn't mean that it actually will.

The point I am making is that your assertion of there being no market for magic items is inherently implausible.

I understand, and I disagree. In a fantasy campaign world that's entirely defined by the GM, things are exactly as plausible as the GM says they are, and coming up with rationalizations to support that are easily accomplished.

He actually has a decent chance of finding out- the rules of creating & destroying magic items dictate that it will be extremely well made and more durable than mundane objects of like construction- and even if he doesn't, he can still sell it as a masterwork item. (Which price may well be all the local market can bear, anyway.)

That's not necessarily true. While magical items do have a saving throw bonus equal to [2 + (caster level/2)], and can make saving throws when unattended, only magic armor, weapons, and shields have increased hardness and hit points.

Likewise, only magic armor, weapons, and shields (and, interestingly, staves) require that a masterwork non-magical item be used to enchant. The magic item creation rules do say that some wondrous items have additional costs from using a masterwork component, but no wondrous items (or cursed items) explicitly state that they're of masterwork construction.

Ergo, Otis won't recognize that the cloak is a masterwork item, since it actually isn't one. Likewise, when he attempts to cut it (e.g. hit point damage), it will fall apart as easily as anything else.

Unless its formally identified as one, most people wouldn't jump to that conclusion. They will think of any other magic robes they know of first, unless they are pessimists. Even if they are aware that it is a possibility, most will discount that possibility. That's just human psychology of risk/reward, the kind of thing that drives lotteries and such.

That's a presumption about what guesses they'll come to and why; at the very least, it's based on the local history for that area of the game world. Remember that scene in Disney's Prince of Persia movie, where the king is assassinated by putting on a "poison" robe (which certainly seemed magical for how fast and how ambiguously it killed him)? If that's all the peasants have heard about - or is even the most prominent story - they're not going to rush to buy a newly-found magic robe (presuming they even think that it's magic to begin with).

See above.

Even if he can't sell it with full knowledge of what it is, it is still sale able as something that is extremely well made. Even if he can't get full market value without investing in traveling to a bigger market, its quality and durability still make it valuable enough for him to consider its sale.

See above for why that's not the case. Likewise, having the potential to sell it doesn't rise to the level of economic activity that I'm referring to. The debate here isn't that no one would ever, in any conceivable circumstance, want to buy/sell something - it's that it'd be so rare and face such practical difficulties as to depress economic activity for those items that there'd be no rational expectation of their availability for sale or purchase in most circumstances. In other words, no magic item industry.

Present one, because you haven't yet.

I have, actually. Through the thread again and again. As such, the burden of proof is on you to show why any of those circumstances aren't plausible, and thus far you've failed to do so even once.

A dragon flies & breathes fire because it is a magical beast. That's OK because it's part of the nature of a fantasy setting that certain rules of physics get bent or broken. Its a genre convention. It is part of the internal logic of the setting.

What analogous magic prevents people from doing what is natural to them; the selling and buying of goods? Where in fantasy is there a genre convention that the rules of economics do not apply?

The "internal logic" is set by the GM, so if he creates a set of internally logical reason why economic activity for the creation/sale/purchase of magic items is depressed to the point of non-existence, then that's his prerogative. Likewise, coming up with a set of reasons is easy to do, as I've posted many examples of which throughout the thread (see Otis the farmer, above).

You keep conflating "the rules of economic theory" with "practical reasons for a lack of economic activity in a certain sector." That's not the case, and I've never said that it was - people can want to buy or sell something all they want, but if there are practical reasons why that's not feasible, then that's pretty much the end of that.

Because none of the vague assertions and reasons presented so far would prevent a market from forming.

It's more correct to say that all of the highly specific and plausible assertions I've made so far would, in fact, prevent a "market" from forming, where "market" is understood to mean "self-sustaining industry" rather than "people wishing they could create/buy/sell a certain type of good."

We are not saying we "don't think it is logical", we are saying that the absence of such a market violates fundamental laws of economics. If violation of the RW rules of physics like dragonflight and polymorph spells demand an answer of at least "it's magic"- essentially creating a new addition to that world's laws of physics- so too does a violation of laws of economics demand at least a sensible, consistent justification that maintains an internal campaign logic.

And that justification is easily done with a little imagination. You may not agree with it, but plausibility regarding a fantasy setting is inherently subjective; that said, I don't think that any of the reasons I've presented are in any way particularly far-fetched.

 

[Derren]

I talked about mass infrastructure in a previous post, and certainly implied an industry. And Derren replied to me in the same vein.

A industry can take many forms, be it the lone hermit on top of the sacred mountain or a giant, citywide manufactory. In the end its the same. There will be a supplier and there will be demand for it. And there will also be reseller.
And when the demand is big enough (hint, weapons are always in demand), the supply will also increase at one point.

 

[Janx]

I talked about mass infrastructure in a previous post, and certainly implied an industry. And Derren replied to me in the same vein.

So yes, we have been using that term.

And I think its a telling point that is causing the dissonance.

I had economics in my college course also, I understand everything y'all are saying. and the principles of what you speak are 100% true. (I had flashbacks when someone clarified the supply/demand graph and the intersection. Blech.)

Using the economic terms, I can't refute anything that those of you have been saying about magic items. I can however, say that my campaign is framed such that the players have the most access to magic loot and items.

And that being the case, there will be no "industry" which was my original point at the beginning of the thread, magic items don't have to readily available DUE to demand. There can be reasons they are not.

On the line of discussion about "industry", I don't think Umbran, Danny or myself are advocating that a robust modern-like industry of making and selling magic items in a Walmart would exist in a stereotypical D&D campaign (or even at all). The examples each of us gave were specifically small scale and NOT "industrial"

I think we're all acknowledging that under the lessons learned from Economics class, there is at least one NPC/PC in virtually every D&D world who wants a magic item, and at least on NPC/PC who will try to Supply that Demand.

If magic items do not exist, there may still be somebody who makes items they CLAIM are magical in order to meet the demand of ordinary folk. If you don't believe magic exists in the real world, then why do shops selling magic stuff exist in the real world? There is Demand, and a Supplier has arisen with an alternative product to fulfill the Demand opportunity.

Using Umbran's early rocket example, in the event of it being too expensive to build the product (rockets that cost too much to pay for), then Demand exists, but the Supply of actual rockets is Zero. There is still a "market" for rockets to space. Somebody will be motivated to find a way to create that Supply more cheaply. And thus, one day, it will be possible to by a rocket at an affordable price, even though it isn't possible now. The economic principals still apply, even if the quantity is zero or the price is infinity.

The lesson I got from Economics is the numbers don't matter. Merely that Supply and Demand form an X on the graph and that human behavior as a group/market can be predicted when you map things to either Supply or Demand, then alter one of those variables, ceteris paribus.




As to Alzrius statement that the GM can plausibly negate this in his campaign, I would say, "maybe". A GM can of course say anything is so, and it is so. But there is a line of plausibiliy set by each player that if the GM crosses, he loses that player. A player can accept that the world has dragons, but if the GM insists that the player cannot sell his Longsword +1 for anything but exactly 1/2 of the book value, the player may decide that belies common sense and be done with it.

That may be a small thing to quit a game over for, but the thinking a GM has behind that ruling may be cause to avoid a future pile of conflict.

We can't expect the GM to be an expert on everything. So an Econ major as a player may need to chill out on some on the GM's misconceptions, just as the MD player needs to ignore the GM's silly "wounds" rules. However, it would help the GM save face if they were more careful about restrictive rulings on topics in general, and on topics they don't actually understand.

I may never have an obvious way to buy a magic item in a campaign world, but I will never say it is impossible to buy a magic item in that world.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"Potentially could" doesn't mean that it actually will.

Pretty much it does. I'll spell it out: near everything existing in the world has a market associated with it, even poisons, trash and nuclear waste. I can go to Mexico City and buy mosquito eggs to eat. Herring sperm- at least at one point in time- was the primary source of ingredients used to make the drug AZT. Given time, if something exists, there will be some kind of commerce associated with it. The Pinto was just an example.

I understand, and I disagree. In a fantasy campaign world that's entirely defined by the GM, things are exactly as plausible as the GM says they are, and coming up with rationalizations to support that are easily accomplished.

And

I have, actually. Through the thread again and again. As such, the burden of proof is on you to show why any of those circumstances aren't plausible, and thus far you've failed to do so even once.

And

And that justification is easily done with a little imagination. You may not agree with it, but plausibility regarding a fantasy setting is inherently subjective; that said, I don't think that any of the reasons I've presented are in any way particularly far-fetched.

No, that doesn't jibe with the definition of "plausible." If the only person who believes what is being said (the GM), then the audience does not find it plausible.

You're asking us to believe that a fundamental rule of economics is being globally violated throughout your campaign world. It is incumbent upon you to make it believable. You have not.

Illegality is insufficient. Rarity- even uniqueness- is insufficient.

Even before the advent of computers, steam engines and the rise of gunpowder, fortunes were being made finding, transporting & selling incredibly rare things all over Africa and the Eurasian landmass. There was even trade in magic items and religious artifacts.

Some of that trade was pure fraud (as in, the seller was knowingly making false claims about the nature and origins ofwhat he was selling), but nonetheless, there was a thriving trade in everything from love potions to relics of the saints to pieces of the One True Cross. And actually, that fraud, in a very real sense, helped build the market. It satisfied the demand that wasn't being met by the "real" stuff.

(And that's all without having people capable of scanning the world and teleporting themselves and others to go get them.)

That's not necessarily true. While magical items do have a saving throw bonus equal to [2 + (caster level/2)], and can make saving throws when unattended, only magic armor, weapons, and shields have increased hardness and hit points.

Likewise, only magic armor, weapons, and shields (and, interestingly, staves) require that a masterwork non-magical item be used to enchant. The magic item creation rules do say that some wondrous items have additional costs from using a masterwork component, but no wondrous items (or cursed items) explicitly state that they're of masterwork construction.

Ergo, Otis won't recognize that the cloak is a masterwork item, since it actually isn't one. Likewise, when he attempts to cut it (e.g. hit point damage), it will fall apart as easily as anything else.

Fair point conceded.

That's a presumption about what guesses they'll come to and why; at the very least, it's based on the local history for that area of the game world. Remember that scene in Disney's Prince of Persia movie, where the king is assassinated by putting on a "poison" robe (which certainly seemed magical for how fast and how ambiguously it killed him)? If that's all the peasants have heard about - or is even the most prominent story - they're not going to rush to buy a newly-found magic robe (presuming they even think that it's magic to begin with).

If there is only one legend of a magic robe being told in an area, and its about a cursed robe, yeah. If there are any positive legends, eventually, you'll find a buyer.

(FWIW, I haven't seen that movie. )

See above for why that's not the case. Likewise, having the potential to sell it doesn't rise to the level of economic activity that I'm referring to. The debate here isn't that no one would ever, in any conceivable circumstance, want to buy/sell something - it's that it'd be so rare and face such practical difficulties as to depress economic activity for those items that there'd be no rational expectation of their availability for sale or purchase in most circumstances. In other words, no magic item industry.

See above. There was a thriving real world trade in magic items that didn't even exist. Much easier for one to arise when there are magic items that actually work.

The "internal logic" is set by the GM, so if he creates a set of internally logical reason why economic activity for the creation/sale/purchase of magic items is depressed to the point of non-existence, then that's his prerogative. Likewise, coming up with a set of reasons is easy to do, as I've posted many examples of which throughout the thread (see Otis the farmer, above).

You keep conflating "the rules of economic theory" with "practical reasons for a lack of economic activity in a certain sector." That's not the case, and I've never said that it was - people can want to buy or sell something all they want, but if there are practical reasons why that's not feasible, then that's pretty much the end of that.

What practical reasons have you presented?

It's more correct to say that all of the highly specific and plausible assertions I've made so far would, in fact, prevent a "market" from forming, where "market" is understood to mean "self-sustaining industry" rather than "people wishing they could create/buy/sell a certain type of good."

Again, your assertions that something is plausible does not make it so.

 

[Alzrius]

On the line of discussion about "industry", I don't think Umbran, Danny or myself are advocating that a robust modern-like industry of making and selling magic items in a Walmart would exist in a stereotypical D&D campaign (or even at all). The examples each of us gave were specifically small scale and NOT "industrial"

Well, the argument about outfitting the army with +1 longswords wasn't that small-scale, but leaving that aside, this gets into questions of how large a scale constitutes an "industry." I'm arguing against most of the examples posted, mostly because they seem to be arguing against the idea that there was any set of assumptions that could be made that could plausibly result in there not even being viable small-scale scenarios, but also because such scenarios seemed to create a "slippery slope" so as to encourage "well an industry that's this small could work, why couldn't it a little bigger...or a lot bigger?" type of escalation.

I think we're all acknowledging that under the lessons learned from Economics class, there is at least one NPC/PC in virtually every D&D world who wants a magic item, and at least on NPC/PC who will try to Supply that Demand.

Nobody is questioning that desires/ideas for supply and demand exist, just that they can be met to a degree that makes them at all feasible.

If magic items do not exist, there may still be somebody who makes items they CLAIM are magical in order to meet the demand of ordinary folk. If you don't believe magic exists in the real world, then why do shops selling magic stuff exist in the real world? There is Demand, and a Supplier has arisen with an alternative product to fulfill the Demand opportunity.

That's a false analogy. Magic shops in the real world are understood to not be dealing in "real" magic, but sleight of hand and other bits of legerdemain for entertainment purposes. If people wanted to set up some sort of non-magical market to fill a demand, that's something else again.

Using Umbran's early rocket example, in the event of it being too expensive to build the product (rockets that cost too much to pay for), then Demand exists, but the Supply of actual rockets is Zero. There is still a "market" for rockets to space. Somebody will be motivated to find a way to create that Supply more cheaply. And thus, one day, it will be possible to by a rocket at an affordable price, even though it isn't possible now. The economic principals still apply, even if the quantity is zero or the price is infinity.

Someone might be motivated to find a way to create a supply more cheaply, but that doesn't mean that they'll succeed. Principles alone do not mean that the practical actualization of them will ever occur. A high enough demand is not, unto itself, a guarantee that eventually the supply for it will be made to exist.

The lesson I got from Economics is the numbers don't matter. Merely that Supply and Demand form an X on the graph and that human behavior as a group/market can be predicted when you map things to either Supply or Demand, then alter one of those variables, ceteris paribus.

Again, that's not being debated. What's being debated is that you can put one of those variables at 0, meaning that while the market desire may be there, that won't translate into any practical impact.

As to Alzrius statement that the GM can plausibly negate this in his campaign, I would say, "maybe". A GM can of course say anything is so, and it is so. But there is a line of plausibiliy set by each player that if the GM crosses, he loses that player. A player can accept that the world has dragons, but if the GM insists that the player cannot sell his Longsword +1 for anything but exactly 1/2 of the book value, the player may decide that belies common sense and be done with it.

That may be a small thing to quit a game over for, but the thinking a GM has behind that ruling may be cause to avoid a future pile of conflict.

This isn't an issue of the feasibility of the magic item ecnomy/industry, however. That's simply a question of player-GM expectations (and personal opinions on what's "rational," who should compromise, etc.) that are part and parcel of playing in a shared fantasy game world.

We can't expect the GM to be an expert on everything. So an Econ major as a player may need to chill out on some on the GM's misconceptions, just as the MD player needs to ignore the GM's silly "wounds" rules. However, it would help the GM save face if they were more careful about restrictive rulings on topics in general, and on topics they don't actually understand.

It's not a question of expertise, because the GM isn't making any misconceptions. He's simply changing the underlying assumptions, and explaining why he's done so. There's no loss of face involved if someone else doesn't necessarily agree with that. The GM is right because it's not an issue of economic viability - it's an issue of personal opinion on subjective fantasy.

I may never have an obvious way to buy a magic item in a campaign world, but I will never say it is impossible to buy a magic item in that world.

That's your prerogative, but it's the GMs prerogative to say that it's so difficult that it might as well be impossible.