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

[darkseraphim]

Sigh. I miss the days when fleshing out a character meant writing up a paragraph explaining why his Intelligence was 7 and his Wisdom was 16.

 

[MerricB]

Sigh. I miss the days when fleshing out a character meant writing up a paragraph explaining why his Intelligence was 7 and his Wisdom was 16.

Yeah. And when I had a gnome with a Wisdom of 6 running around after a female elf PC with a Comeliness of 28.

The player of that elf was asking for it. Really. Love-struck gnomes are fun to roleplay, although possibly not fun to roleplay with.

Cheers!

 

[molonel]

Ah, but back in The Day, we only had +1 swords that we had to walk uphill BOTH WAYS to obtain, and wade through an ocean of dragons and beholders with nothing but a leather cook's apron and a sharp stick, but gosh darn it, we LIKED those +1 swords!

Not like you kids, nowadays, with your +5 vorpal flaming shocking cold-burst adamantine greatswords.

 

[Tzeentch]

One of the worst problems created by the idea of magic shops is such shops would represent an unbelievable level of wealth concentrated in a small area. Anything less than a dungeon protecting such a place would invite robbery. Adopting a CRPG approach to the problem would create CRPG problems. If the merchants must protect thier wares, so that plundering the dungeon is more attractive than plundering the town, then they must present CR equivalent challenges to the would be robbers.

These comments are far more insightful then I think has been given credit. I think people are too wrapped up in metagame aspects of D&D via the computer games (all the way back to the old SSI games) and MMORPGs.

 

[Hussar]

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

No. If this happens in your campaign, that's a DM failure, not a game failure.

 

[MerricB]

Ah, but back in The Day, we only had +1 swords that we had to walk uphill BOTH WAYS to obtain, and wade through an ocean of dragons and beholders with nothing but a leather cook's apron and a sharp stick, but gosh darn it, we LIKED those +1 swords!

Actually, back in the day, we got +1 swords all the time. We needed them, because those swords kept failing saves whenever we got fireballed.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

These comments are far more insightful then I think has been given credit. I think people are too wrapped up in metagame aspects of D&D via the computer games (all the way back to the old SSI games) and MMORPGs.

They're true to an extent... except that 3e doesn't assume magic shops of the emporium type where everything is available. More that magic items are scattered across small shops, curio shops, old adventurers, etc... and that you can find them to purchase them.

Cheers!

 

[Tzeentch]

They're true to an extent... except that 3e doesn't assume magic shops of the emporium type where everything is available. More that magic items are scattered across small shops, curio shops, old adventurers, etc... and that you can find them to purchase them.

Aye, but the base assumption of many of the comments seems to be something analogous to a merchant at a counter with a huge laundry list of magic items and another next to him that seems to simply eat your old magic items and spit coins at you - which is essentially just the video game model of doing business.

That concept is just silly in a game without hard rules constraints that prevent players from skipping the middle man and just robbing the questgivers instead of running FedEx and Terminator missions. The only way to prevent that is through ridiculous Wrath of God results on any thieves ("WHO DARES STEAL THAT SPOON?! FACE MY WRATH <BOOM!>") or guards that miraculously know of any skullduggery and are powerful enough to singlehandedly hand a demigod their butts (i.e. Ultima and Morrowind)

 

[MerricB]

Any actual "magic emporium" would have to have pretty good guards.

Hmm - I seem to remember a couple of Gord the Rogue stories that have itinerant magic sellers and their important guards that Gord takes great delight in relieving of their possessions. Or at least they have the appearance of such...

Cheers!

 

[Vocenoctum]

These comments are far more insightful then I think has been given credit. I think people are too wrapped up in metagame aspects of D&D via the computer games (all the way back to the old SSI games) and MMORPGs.

The idea that the items in a common D&D game are concentrated in one store that has loads of magic items is mostly a strawman created by those that don't like players having free choice in magic items. Various magic shops might have small bits of inventory here and there, or have access to such, but most folks don't believe that means walking into a store where they're hanging on racks next to the gum.


In addition, lots and lots of us that feel this way, didn't grow up with CRPG's as a major influence on our games. I don't think it's fair to try to catagorize our opinions as "less D&D" than others simply because of differing playstyles. CRPG's use that style for the same reason that quite a lot of D&D games did, not automatically the other way around.

I don't roleplay out when the team purchases a longsword, or a masterwork longsword, and don't think it is a big difference to let them buy a +1 Longsword.