Players Whining that they Should be able to Buy Magic Items

[reanjr]

I see it as a recognition of the reality that in any environment in which valuable items exist, a market will arise in which people buy and sell such items. History teaches us that valuable items will be bought and sold. No matter how "sacred" or "cool" the thing in question might seem to be, people will sell it if there are people willing to buy it. There is no persuasive reason for magic items to be an exception.

That's not an entirely perfect analogy. Historically, no one was forced to place their own life force into a manufactured good to make it, as is the case with magic items (XP). I'm not saying it wouldn't happen, but it seems to me that it would be much more rare than its price would indicate (and its price would already indicate that it is rare).

 

[TheAuldGrump]

As a DM I like the more easily available magic in 3.x.

I do not have 'Ye Olde Magicke Shoppe', rather you hire the work done.

And it takes time, generally a month or so. And you have to find a city with an appropriately powerful wizard/cleric with the spells and feats to create the item - they do not grow on trees. Go through your books and see what cities have powerful enough wizards and clerics, then decide how many actually can create the items (heck, just take a look in the DMG when creating your cities, there is a chart for what level the most powerful characters in a city hold). Finding out who could create the item they want can involve seldom used skills,, or give the bard something to ruminate upon. Or perhaps the hiring of some sage who might know who would be able to create the item. Then have it be someplace not easily gotten to, or simply distant, so the purchase also involves travel, sometimes taking a month in itself, and sometimes requiring a hold on the quest they are on. I see nothing wrong with heroes saying "This day do we begin our quest to rid the Northlands of the White Wyrm Hrymfellhanjer, let us go then to the cities of the South to have the crafting of a weapon of fierey might, that we may slay the beast, and aye, with flame."

Do not make it easy to purchase the items, use the gaining an adventure in its own right, as they trek from the icy lands of the North to gain the services of the one wizard that they know can create the weapon. (He may in fact not be the only one who can, but be the only one they know the name of.)

Players are sometimes loathe to use their feats in the manner that the DM insists on, and I do not blame them for it. Allow them to purchase the item that they want, but make it part of the game.

The Auld Grump

 

[reanjr]

Alternatively, you could introduce a reclusive wizard in a tower dying scenario, whereby the PCs get to participate in an auction of the items present. Come up with several items, list them on the docket. Great way to alleviate them of all their money, especially if someone keeps outbidding them.

I like that idea, though it would fit in very few of my campaigns. Mostly feudal and the property of a person without heir would go to the landholder/king/whatever.

 

[reanjr]

A lot has been mentioned, but I have to ask this. How much gold do the PCs have? Sometimes, when you get all those coins burning a hole in your pocket, Magic Items are really the only thing that will get rid of all that gold.

Land. A nice palatial home. Bribery. Holdings. Taxation. Hordes of slaves. Sheep.

I could easily spend the 20th level starting cash without ever looking at a magic item.

 

[reanjr]

I think one of the underlying things is that the players don't want to give up the xp, but that seems a small cost to me to create what you want.

Just tell them that the NPCs don't want to give up their XP.

 

[reanjr]

I think the real problem here isn't players whining that they want to buy magical items. It's really the DMs whining that they should have ABSOLUTE POWER. You're not the only player, nor the player that matters the most. The game shouldn't be a power fantasy for the DM. If you can't work with your players to give them what they would like, you shouldn't be DMing; it's their game too.

I might be tempted to agree with you, except for one thing:

None of the players cares if I (DM) have fun.

I have been playing RPGs for 13 years. I have had the opportunity to be a player on about a dozen or so occasions. I would like to play. But no one is willing to DM (no one that the rest of the group is willing to play under, at least). So that pretty much gives me absolute power through monopolistic control. In this free market gaming society, the players may feel free to join someone else's game.

As I said, in my experience, players are not there trying to make the DM have fun. So I feel no obligation in facilitating theirs. Their fun is their own responsibility. From the few times I've played, I know that one can have fun playing in almost any type of setting, any level of magic, with any race, with any class, if one tries and is willing to. As long as the game is run well, a player's fun is mostly controlled by their choices to get involved in the game, to role-play, and the decisions they make for their characters. None of that is within my control, and so I don't bother trying.

I like creating worlds and stories, and so that is what I do. If the players can have fun in the setting I create, then great. If not, they wouldn't come back the next week (and occasionally they don't, but they always come back within the next month or two after they've tried playing with someone else or running their own game).

I know this goes against conventional wisdom.

I think DMs should create a union to protect them from overbearing players leveraging their greater numbers and hanging their involvement in the game over their DMs' heads.

 

[Vigilance]

And as others have taken pains to point out, we're not talking about magic shops, we're talking about buying and selling magic items. Not the same thing at all.

- Eric

And as *I* asserted before... I dont think buying and selling magic items is a campaign style. People have jumped in saying the players should have a general say in what sort of game they are in.

Is buying and selling magic items the deal breaker?

If it is... I find that silly.

Chuck

 

[Vigilance]

I don't understand how in a world where something is plentiful that no one would ever think to buy or sell it. "So valuable that it will never be sold" and "plentiful" are mutually exclusive, in my book. And how do the players come across these plentiful magic items? If they trade gems/items/services for magic items, that's still buying and selling them. Or maybe they're so powerful and valuable that they're all lying around in a dungeon somewhere.

So... you can suspend disbelief on the magic and the elves and the dragons kidnapping the princesses only to put them in heavily guarded towers... but any deviation from the laws of Adam Smith is a bridge too far?

Chuck

 

[reanjr]

Amusing anecdote related to this discussion in an off-topic sort of way.

I have a player who plays a monk 2/fighter X/cleric 1/wizard 1 so that they can use any wand in the game, have fairly excellent saves, and get a few bonus feats and evasion.

You can imagine how strange and confusing his backstory ends up being so that he can convince me (actually just himself, cause it never works on me) that this is the most logical progression for his character's concept.

If he's going for a prestige class, he'll drop cleric and get ranger instead (so he can still use cure wands) and add rogue for the skill points so that he can enter the prestige class as early as possible.

It's players like this that force my hand in removing things from the game and disallowing the purchase of magical items.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Land. A nice palatial home. Bribery. Holdings. Taxation. Hordes of slaves. Sheep.

I could easily spend the 20th level starting cash without ever looking at a magic item.

Interesting thing about that is its just as much an individual campaign thing as the idea of magic item shops.

I mean, really...you're actually trying to tell me that people buy LAND in D&D?! LAND?! Really now, land is plentiful and its all over the place and its not even mentioned in the Core books that you CAN buy it! Pfft! Buying land!

...sounds oddly similar to buying magic items...