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

[Storm Raven]

As Mr. Gygax noted in the original AD&D 1e DMG, the "give away" campaign is not in the intended spirit of the game. I'm of the opinion that magic item retail outlets work toward that same end, so. . . yes. I think retail magic outlets have a tendency to wreck the spirit of the game as it was originally envisioned. That said. . .

What Gygax said is oftentimes in direct contradiction to the nature of the rules he wrote. In the case of magic items, he seems to have said one thing, but provided rules that do something very different. He said magic should be rare and wondrous, but then set up a system and sold adventures that made magic items as common as wheelbarrows. He said magic items should not be for sale, but then set of a system in which the players have lots of incentives to sell off excess items, which then begs the question of who is buying the items, and do they have anything they could sell to the players. he said magic items were too valuable to be bought and sold, and then gave them price tags.

The game has changed quite a bit in scope since those days and I don't think that the spirit has remained unchanged. In the modern incarnation of D&D, I think that retail magic items are not only approrpriate but, in many cases, necessary (given the mechanical import of magic items in the current edition of the system).

I don't think it has changed since the early days with respect to magic items. I just think that the rhetoric is more in line with the reality of the rules now.

 

[Storm Raven]

Then, one might just as well say that the city is a magic shop, in the same way that one might say "a +1 sword is a +1 sword". The mechanics are the same, right? That's all that counts, right? In which case, the idea isn't a strawman.

No, the idea remains a strawman, because the "flaws" that the Wal-Mart argument latches on to are only flaws if you literally have a Wal-Mart of Magic on the corner of Ninth and Main.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I, the player, have access to a DMG and/or the SRD for magic items in addition to what is listed in the various splat books. It is quite easy for me to locate items in these sources. Vocenoctum was talking about the players having free choice you will notice.

Yes, but free choice in any meaningful context includes the idea that the choice can be followed through. In other words, when I "look for the remedies" and "want my character to acquire certain items", free choice requires that, perforce, those remedies and those items can actually be acquired. Otherwise it isn't "free choice"; it's wishing.

The strawman is saying "Wal-Magic, isn't that rediculous, having so many magical items in one place store." Pretty much everyone who argues for magical items being able to be bought and sold without great hassle are assuming that there are many stores each having just a couple items, but the abstraction of any buying/selling in the game doesn't worry about interacting with ten differenct NPCs to make your purchase.

If the abstraction "doesn't worry about interacting" then, by definition, the place where the items are being bought/sold is a Wal-Magic. Wal-Magic is any place where any magic item can be bought or sold without hassle or effort, whether that place is a hut, a city, or a wizard's tower.

 

[Raven Crowking]

No, the idea remains a strawman, because the "flaws" that the Wal-Mart argument latches on to are only flaws if you literally have a Wal-Mart of Magic on the corner of Ninth and Main.

How so? I see the flaws as being exactly the same.

 

[Hussar]

Then, one might just as well say that the city is a magic shop, in the same way that one might say "a +1 sword is a +1 sword". The mechanics are the same, right? That's all that counts, right? In which case, the idea isn't a strawman.

By George, I think he's got it. In exactly the same way that we don't ponce about going to fifteen different stores shopping for a weapon, a suit of armor, torches, bedroll, backpack, rations, holy water and the umpteen other things that my PC will buy pretty much any time he needs to.

Now, we could detail out my search for a pint of lamp oil, and, honestly, I've actually played in games where this seemed to be the case. I told the DM I wanted to buy three crossbows for our mooks that we were carting about and he had me traipsing all over Cauldron to find them. In the same way, I could rp going to fifteen different merchants trying to buy a Ring of Protection +1 for my rogue.

And if this floats your boat, go for it. I don't play at this level of simulation. I simply don't care. For my time, I'd much rather say, "Hey, DM, I have x coins, I'd like to buy a Ring of Protection +1 when we hit the city."

Poof, instant fix.

Yes, mechanically, the city is one giant Wal-Mart. How detailed you want to get with the shopping is up to the group. Detailed or hand waved, it's all good.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Now, we could detail out my search for a pint of lamp oil

By George, I think he's got it! Some of us think that equating your magic items with a pint of lamp oil perforce reduces their importance to that of a pint of lamp oil.

 

[molonel]

By George, I think he's got it! Some of us think that equating your magic items with a pint of lamp oil perforce reduces their importance to that of a pint of lamp oil.

And I think, as some of us have stated quite plainly, some magic items really ARE that important.

To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a +1 sword is just a +1 sword.

No version of D&D has imbued each and every magic item with glowing mystery and deep character. If that's the game you want to run, great. But don't act like the present incarnation of the game has somehow shamed some grand overarching tradition of characters dancing around like Ewoks after the battle singing, "Yub nub! We found a +1 dagger!"

 

[Slife]

By George, I think he's got it! Some of us think that equating your magic items with a pint of lamp oil perforce reduces their importance to that of a pint of lamp oil.

Why, one might think in a world where magic replaces technology, that you could buy magic just as you can purchase technology.

What a thought!

 

[Hussar]

By George, I think he's got it! Some of us think that equating your magic items with a pint of lamp oil perforce reduces their importance to that of a pint of lamp oil.

But, this has always been true. Groups would routinely sell off items when something better came along. Or foist it off on someone else. It was a pretty rare gamer who got emotionally attached to his +1 lumpy metal thing when that +3 one came along. (Yes, I know that YOU did, but, I'm talking about that other guy)

There's another issue that gets glossed over in these discussions. If the player is entirely dependent on the DM to gift him with magic items, players will create cookie cutter characters to maximize their chances. Particularly if modules are being used.

After all, how many NPC's that aren't merfolk would ever use a trident? So, if my PC takes tridents as his favourite weapon, spends feats on trident and whatnot, the chances he'll actually ever see a magic one are pretty much zero. Unless the DM specifically puts one in an adventure as a present.

How is that any different than the player spending cash to get a magic trident? It's special because the DM gave it to him? It's somehow more believable because it just happened to be in that treasure pile? Gimme a break.

So, players all take longswords. Because they know that the random treasure tables come up longswords far more often than any other magic weapon. Because they know that those critters in the module will most likely have a magic longsword. In other words they are gaming the system.

I know that it is threatening to so many DM's to allow their players to actually control how the player's PC advances, but, maybe a little less micromanaging might lead to a lot less stress. A mercantile trade in magical items makes historical and logical sense in most campaign settings. At least it makes enough sense to be plausible. Why the huge beefs that player's want to customize their own characters?

 

[Storm Raven]

By George, I think he's got it! Some of us think that equating your magic items with a pint of lamp oil perforce reduces their importance to that of a pint of lamp oil.

You are misinterpreting cause and effect. The ring of protection was little more important than the pint of lamp oil to begin with. You see, once you make magic items a predictable technology (a decision made in the earliest days of the development of D&D), then they become little more than well-made tools. And players (correctly) treat them as such.

Think of it this way - suppose you were playing in a modern era game. The PCs come to the "bug city" and one of them decides he wants to buy a car. He says "I'd like to buy a cherry red mustang convertible". Do you role play out his traipsing about town looking for just the right car having him follow leads and seach for just the right dealer who has that car on hand for sale, or do you say "you spend a day searching and find the car you want, it costs $45,000." You could do either, but as a DM, I would only worry about role-playing out the hunt for the car if it was something that was important for reasons other than obtaining the car - there was some plot point or contact to be made that was part of the car hunt process, and so on. Why? Because for the most part, hunting for individual equipment is an individual process, and role-laying out the day long process would just bore the only, non-participating players at the table. So you abstract out the shopping trip, the player finds what he would have found if you did the drawn out version, and the other players don't sit on their thumbs for an hour while you make the utterly ordinary +1 ring of protection "special" by boring them with the epic story of walking around the marketplace trying to find Jake the One-Eyed ring dealer.