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

[Rothe]

...

we played 3-4 hrs/day; 5 days/week; 50 weeks/year; for a month shy of 11 years. it took roughly 900 hrs of roleplay to reach a new level in the campaign.

...

Forget the +1 sword, what magic item did you find to stop time? I'm amazed you could get so much game time in.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Eberron for example, or Planescape, or perhaps even an Arabian Nights inspired campaign probably would have magic being sold alongside mundane items on a regular basis, and a DM that has made that decision in my mind has made a perfectly reasonable decision. But, I do not agree that such a setting is necessarily a default setting for D&D.

Buying and selling magic items is the default in 3rd ed. See the 3.5 DMG page 142. The section headed 'Magic Items'.

Nor do I agree that making the decision to run a setting where magic is not made to be mundane somehow makes you a worse DM than someone that just abstracts everything down to 'Wal-Magic' so they can get on with the monster bashing.

I agree with you entirely on this.

 

[Doug McCrae]

There is a degree to which the idea of magic item shops is the fault of the (non-Core) rules (like the MIC), but there is nothing in the Core rules, IMHO, that implies magic item shops.

From the DMG 3.5 page 142 -

The magic items described in Chapter 7 all have prices. The assumption is that, while they are rare, magic items can be bought or sold much as any other commodity can be. The prices given are far beyond the reach of almost everyone, but the very rich, including mid- to high- level PCs, can buy and sell these items or even have spellcasters make them to order. In very large cities, some shops might specialize in magic items if their clientele is very wealthy or includes a large number of adventurer [sic] (and such shops would have lots of magical protections to ward away thieves). Magic items might even be available in normal markets and shops occasionally. For example, a weaponsmith might have a few magic weapons for sale along with her normal wares.

 

[Maggan]

"If you do X, something random will happen; consult table Y" = predictable technology.

Welcome to Bizarro Land.

One might also phrase it thus:

if you do X, one standard event randomly determined from a predetemined and immutable table of events will occur.

It's not totally random. It's not entirely predictable, but there are only 9 different results on the table. Not really a bonanza of randomness, IMO.

/M

 

[donremus]

I personally don't like the idea of going to a magic shop that has anything in the DMG available for sale - just don't make plain sense to me. When I played in Shackled City there was a shop that had a few items and the DM made random rolls every so often to see what had been sold/bought by the shopkeeper. I don't have a problem with this kind of shop and sometimes an item appeared that everyone was drooling over but was way out of our price range.

 

[Storm Raven]

"If you do X, something random will happen; consult table Y" = predictable technology.

Welcome to Bizarro Land.

No, more like "if you do X, then, predictably, a result drawn from set Y will happen". The table isn't actually "random", it is a limited set of predictable results from a particular set of starting conditions.

If you swing a sword at your enemy, you might or might not hit him. When you hit him, it might do a little damage, or a lot. Does that make a sword an unpredictable technology? If I fire a black powder rifle, it might fire, or it might misfire and fail to work. Does that make rifles a non predictable technology?

I think you need to go back and rethink some of your assumptions here.

 

[Storm Raven]

I personally don't like the idea of going to a magic shop that has anything in the DMG available for sale - just don't make plain sense to me. When I played in Shackled City there was a shop that had a few items and the DM made random rolls every so often to see what had been sold/bought by the shopkeeper. I don't have a problem with this kind of shop and sometimes an item appeared that everyone was drooling over but was way out of our price range.

And I don't think anyone is saying that this is not a perfectly reasonable way to handle magic item markets in a campaign. And it is entirely within the spirit of D&D to have such a set-up.

 

[Celebrim]

"If you do X, something random will happen; consult table Y" = predictable technology.

Welcome to Bizarro Land.

He just keeps digging himself deeper doesn't he?

 

[Celebrim]

Buying and selling magic items is the default in 3rd ed. See the 3.5 DMG page 142. The section headed 'Magic Items'.

Point. Allow me to ammend that to say, "I also don't like the extent to which 3.X has made such assumptions default, particularly to the extent that 3.X rules lawyers tend to interpret such suggestions as actual immutable rules rather than guidelines and ignore the word 'might' that is liberally sprinkled through that passage."

 

[Raven Crowking]

Hopefully one can see the problem. The problem is not that the PC's easily defeat the bad guys. That's not a real problem. The problem is that the bad guys would use the same tactics back at the PC's. And that results in situations were the DM simply says to the party without any warning, "Well, nice game. You are all dead. Lets make some new character sheets....What do you mean, huh?... A goblin suicide bomber setoff a 25kt tactical nuke in the sewers less than 200' from where you are standing. You've all taken 20d20 damage, and have been buried under 20' of debris and soil in an area that's now glowing with radioactivity. You were largely incinerated and your bodies where never recovered."

And the reply would be:

"Didn't I get a Fort save?"