Generating a shop

[Theone0581]

Okay guys, I am creating a magic shop for my game. I dont know how I am suppose to do this without spending a lot of time on it which I am finding myself doing. I was just wondering if there is a more efficiently and convenient way to do this. I have got a shop that has approximately 50,000g worth of magic items, how should I create this shops inventory?

 

[Hunter99]

Due to the difficulty of protecting property rights in D&D, what with 15th level wizards walking around, and the lack of demand for such high-priced goods due to adventurers being an elite class I would say the following:

a. Don't have items ready-made. Rather require them to be ordered unless they can be classified as common items. (common items include low-level magic.)

b. Have some (a major portion) of the loot which your party is interested in drop from those they have killed.

c. Encourage them to craft their own items, possibly with the help of an artificer in the party.

d. You can also have the party receive some of the items they are interested in as quest rewards.

 

[Theone0581]

eh, I think that kind of defeats the purpose of my idea. Thanks for your input though.

 

[Belzbet]

I was reading a thread about a similar topic a few weeks ago... A Dm came up with the idea to have his p;ayer sell his shops inventory (in this case items the player has made, so the player could sell them for more than 50% full price). The mechanic was: at the end of every week (day, month, etc) the player rolls a d% for EACH item. 1-10 (or something) means the item was sold and 11-100 means the item was not sold that week. This may help..

 

[Hunter99]

I was reading a thread about a similar topic a few weeks ago... A Dm came up with the idea to have his p;ayer sell his shops inventory (in this case items the player has made, so the player could sell them for more than 50% full price). The mechanic was: at the end of every week (day, month, etc) the player rolls a d% for EACH item. 1-10 (or something) means the item was sold and 11-100 means the item was not sold that week. This may help..

This is an interesting point you bring up, because many players forget the purpose of the D&D game.

The purpose of D&D is not shopkeeping. The purpose of D&D is adventure, and therefore, in acknowledgement of the purpose of the D&D game a player should not seek to do those things which have nothing to do with adventuring.

Magic items exist to aid a player in their adventures. Their purpose is not to allow the player to make money by becoming a craftsmen.

Things might be different in the real world, but D&D has been expressly designed for the purposes of adventuring.

 

[Theone0581]

I will take that into consideration. What I am look at doing is creating a specific inventory for my players to choose from, however I dont see much of a get around, rather than just looking up items randomly and creating a chart and putting them on a chart. I don't mind using this method, its very time consuming because I need to make sure I have a balance between the items that I am giving out ( e.g. rods, wondrous items, armor) and on top of that make sure I dont go beyond my spending limit. I dont want to just say, this vendor has 50,000g amount of items, have at it. It kind of takes the point of adding specific vendor that sell scrolls and such.

 

[Theone0581]

This is an interesting point you bring up, because many players forget the purpose of the D&D game.

The purpose of D&D is not shopkeeping. The purpose of D&D is adventure, and therefore, in acknowledgement of the purpose of the D&D game a player should not seek to do those things which have nothing to do with adventuring.

Magic items exist to aid a player in their adventures. Their purpose is not to allow the player to make money by becoming a craftsmen.

Things might be different in the real world, but D&D has been expressly designed for the purposes of adventuring.

I understand what your saying, but when your running a complex campaign I find that it does pay off to have specific locations in a town that allows the players to explore, thus feeding on the idea of roleplaying which gives birth to D&D. Now this is my own opinion of course.

 

[Hunter99]

Of course, exploration is fine, but exploration should not detract from the focus of the game which is adventuring.

 

[Theone0581]

oh... I feel we have two different opinions the idea of "adventuring" then. I kind of think of the terms adventuring and exploration interchangeable in my games, but hell...what do I know

and... I am really not trying troll here, I promise, but this is what my dictionary (Merriam Webster) says. "Exploration: To travel over for adventure or discovery"

...in which supports my argument that I mean exploring new places to visit in a town.

 

[12hourhalfday]

If I was to create an inventory for a magic shop I would think from the perspective of the owner of the shop. (I am going to try to keep this as system nonspecific as possible)

1. Who is he and where is he getting his items?
If he is a Wizard, where would he get healing potions? Does he have a deal with a church or a method of making them?

2. The purpose of the shop is to make a profit, so how does he do that?

a. items accessible to commoners, not necessarily adventurers but might be useful to adventurers e.g. charms to bring good luck, aphrodisiacs, balms, etc

b. adventurer items - oils to improve weapons, buff potions, healing potions (might be marked up if they are coming from a church), etc

c. speciality items - things like this might be hand crafted items designed specifically to be enchanted - wands, amulets, etc. There also might be things like enchanted and protected blank spellbooks, enchanted thieves tools, other enchanted tools

d. practical adventuring items - a cluster of entry level magical weapons and armor, a cluster of entry level wondrous items.

e. a few moderate level items, think 1 or 2 per character class. A higher level weapon or armor, a higher level wand, staff, etc. Not neccessarily everything for every class at this level.

f. 1 awesome item the shops has had on hand.

3. Flavor you can add on top of this is naming the items based on the personality of the owner vs. what they are in the book, including crap. non magical items, or minor the shopkeeper talks up as super powerful, having the shopkeeper knowingly or unknowingly selling cursed items, and/or having exactly what the party wants in the shop window but it is marked sold so they have to somehow talk/force/steal the shopkeeper into selling it to them.

There are a ton of ways you can go with this. I highly suggest you have fun with it and use it as a tool to drive your adventurers.