The Magic Item Shop: Creative Expression Through Capitalism

[CapnZapp]

The only silly thing is buying WotC's spiel about gold and treasure.

No, downtime isn't enough to motivate players to risk their characters lives for gold.

Purchasing magic items is fun.

The 3E notion isn't silly at all. It's maybe not for everyone, but it is a perfectly reasonable way to run your game. Just look at Pathfinder 2, where you by default can purchase 90% of listed items in the core rulebook.

Instead it is WotC's stance that is the fundamentalist and exclusionary.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

This leads to a bit of a conundrum. If you want to include some kind of gold / power exchange rate in your game (read: a magic item shop), how do you balance that with gold-as-RP? In other words, if you can pay for magic items, new powers, or powerful minions who are willing to fight at your side, how do you balance those hard mechanical benefits against the guy that wants to build a city wall for the town?

Ah, but does it have to be a conundrum - why not give mechanical benefits to the guy who builds the city wall for the town?

Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers rules includes a whole system for doing this.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I've got a slightly longer write-up over here, but here's the crux of the argument:


I think that it takes more than power gaming to explain why players like magic item shops. Looking at the magic item lists like a Sears Catalog might not be especially interesting in RP terms, but it does represent an effort by players to have a demonstrable impact on the world. By contrast, building a temple or owning your own inn might be solid RP, but if it doesn't have mechanical consequences, it's going to feel a bit hollow.


This leads to a bit of a conundrum. If you want to include some kind of gold / power exchange rate in your game (read: a magic item shop), how do you balance that with gold-as-RP? In other words, if you can pay for magic items, new powers, or powerful minions who are willing to fight at your side, how do you balance those hard mechanical benefits against the guy that wants to build a city wall for the town?

Give the gold expenditure tangible rewards.

If they want build a wall for a town, that town will probably reward them later, if not immediately. Maybe the blacksmith has some oricalcum in a chest in his basement that he's never had a commision significant enough to use, and the mayor has a ceremonial sword of a single piece of pure obsidian that was the property of the local lord when the area had a local lord, and he has no use for it because it isn't magical so it's a terrible weapon (too brittle to risk ever using, no matter how sharp), and the town guard captain is a bronze dragonborn with a little divine training from his time as a Knight of Bahamut before losing a leg in the last big war, and the town comes together to pay an artificer to help them craft an oricalcum bracelet that holds Absorb Elements and Protection From Evil and Good in it, and a sword that you can look through "sight beyond sight" style and see invisible things, that never chips or breaks, and has a +1 attack and damage from how razor sharp it is.

Or maybe the captain is willing to train someone in a new skill or ability, ala the alternate rewards optional rule in the DMG.

Or they build that Inn using Matt Collville's stronghold rules, or some of your own homebrew rules that give bonuses to resting in your own stronghold, and give you increased access to information from around the region, as well as a trickle of income that covers stuff like spell components, travel expenses, etc.

Maybe someone builds a mercantile company, and as a result gets free passage through it's operating area, and easier access to crafting materials.

It's DnD. You can do whatever you want.

 

[CapnZapp]

Give the gold expenditure tangible rewards.

If they want build a wall for a town, that town will probably reward them later, if not immediately. Maybe the blacksmith has some oricalcum in a chest in his basement that he's never had a commision significant enough to use, and the mayor has a ceremonial sword of a single piece of pure obsidian that was the property of the local lord when the area had a local lord, and he has no use for it because it isn't magical so it's a terrible weapon (too brittle to risk ever using, no matter how sharp), and the town guard captain is a bronze dragonborn with a little divine training from his time as a Knight of Bahamut before losing a leg in the last big war, and the town comes together to pay an artificer to help them craft an oricalcum bracelet that holds Absorb Elements and Protection From Evil and Good in it, and a sword that you can look through "sight beyond sight" style and see invisible things, that never chips or breaks, and has a +1 attack and damage from how razor sharp it is.

Or maybe the captain is willing to train someone in a new skill or ability, ala the alternate rewards optional rule in the DMG.

Or they build that Inn using Matt Collville's stronghold rules, or some of your own homebrew rules that give bonuses to resting in your own stronghold, and give you increased access to information from around the region, as well as a trickle of income that covers stuff like spell components, travel expenses, etc.

Maybe someone builds a mercantile company, and as a result gets free passage through it's operating area, and easier access to crafting materials.

It's DnD. You can do whatever you want.

What I want is the chance to use all the gold I've looted on things that make a better adventurer - better at surviving, better at killing monsters, better at overcoming dungeon traps, better at saving princesses.

In other words, all those things you list are fine.

Leaving magic items off the list is NOT fine.

It's as if you're somehow projecting generosity in the wealth of options. It's as if one is supposed to feel ungrateful for not choosing one of all those options.

But if you want chocolate, you're not interested in a wide selection of other flavors. You can offer vanilla, strawberry, blueberry, cherry, cookie dough or pistachio all you want.

It still does not excuse not serving chocolate.

 

[Celebrim]

I would put forward that if players only care about acquiring magic items, then it's because you the DM have taught them that. A player's ambitions are going to be shaped by what you as the DM have provided for. If pretty much every problem needs to be solved through violence, then your players are only going to care for things that make them better at violence. If the characters are seeing the game as a pretty simplistic game of kill or be killed, and valuing everything in the world accordingly, then it's probably because the world is a simplistic game of kill or be killed. If you created a world were everyone is a munchkin that only cares about how much +'s a thing gives, you probably created that world.

It's not (necessarily) the player's fault that they don't care how NPC's perceive them, so that honor, fame, friendship, and the like aren't valuable things to collect. If NPC's never gave any respect to PC's on account of honor, fame, or friendship and never made that worthwhile and never were liked enough by the players to make them care what those imaginary figures thought of them, then either you did that or your players really are sociopaths. If the players never care about how "cool" their PC is and don't perceive any of that coolness in terms of the trappings of wealth and luxury, and don't care to imagine the PC as having those sorts of possessions, is it because you've made it clear how little you care for anything that doesn't give +'s.

In the real world, people pursue all sorts of things from philanthropy to greed, based in part on intangible values. My perception of the original post is still that the OP is themselves unintentionally communicating to the player that only +'s matter, in that we're looking for some sort of theoretical balance that all comes down to mechanical modifiers.

Why would you buy a castle instead of a +5 sword? Because you want to be the sort of character that owns a castle?

I guess I would say if your players really do only care about getting more +'s, because tactical combat and winning big is the part of the game they find emotionally fulfilling, then don't fight that too much. Not everyone wants to play a game with landed lords, politics, low and high melodrama, and scenes that could be part of Pride and Prejudice (and Zombies?). Some people really do want to just kick down the doors, kill things, and take the stuff. Don't force them to play a way they aren't really into. But on the other hand, don't default to that just because no one has considered any other options. And there are plenty of example mini-games out there that do give the +'s for things other than swords, if you are looking for inspiration.

 

[Maxperson]

The only silly thing is buying WotC's spiel about gold and treasure.

No, downtime isn't enough to motivate players to risk their characters lives for gold.

Purchasing magic items is fun.

The 3E notion isn't silly at all. It's maybe not for everyone, but it is a perfectly reasonable way to run your game. Just look at Pathfinder 2, where you by default can purchase 90% of listed items in the core rulebook.

Instead it is WotC's stance that is the fundamentalist and exclusionary.

The whole game is exclusionary. Being exclusionary isn't in and of itself, bad. I will agree that having fully stocked magic item shops is a reasonable way to play for some people, it is also an extremely unreasonable way to play for others. Myself for example.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What I want is the chance to use all the gold I've looted on things that make a better adventurer - better at surviving, better at killing monsters, better at overcoming dungeon traps, better at saving princesses.

In other words, all those things you list are fine.

Leaving magic items off the list is NOT fine.

It's as if you're somehow projecting generosity in the wealth of options. It's as if one is supposed to feel ungrateful for not choosing one of all those options.

But if you want chocolate, you're not interested in a wide selection of other flavors. You can offer vanilla, strawberry, blueberry, cherry, cookie dough or pistachio all you want.

It still does not excuse not serving chocolate.

Tell it to someone that opposes magic items as something you can spend your gold on, man. I'm answering the OP's request.

But beyond that, what I'm offering is "the chance to use all the gold I've looted on things that make a better adventurer". Is that your "chocolate", or is only "literally magic items, as such" chocolate? Because at that point, you're getting mad at the ice cream vendor for not offering the specific variety of chocolate you want, even though he's got 6 chocolate ice creams on offer. I love dark chocolate mint with as little sugar as possible, but I'm not mad every time a creamery or frozen yogurt shop doesn't have it. I just get one of the several other chocolate options. They certainly aren't doing something that requires any sort of "excuse" by not offering it.

The DMG's alternate rewards are equivalent to magic items. One of the rewards I listed was literally magic items.

If you're going to hyperbolically rant at me as if I've personally tried to take your fun away when I wasn't even talking to you, at least fully read the post of mine that you're quoting.

edit: Sacred Night! I just reread my own post, and literally the majority of my suggestions for rewards other than magic items are things that give tangible benefits to adventuring.

Even if we ignore the fact that information and free travel do make you better at adventuring and saving princesses, getting easier access to crafting materials literally increases your ability to turn gold into magic items.

Many of the Extended Rest benefits in Matt Collvile's Stronghold rules are mechanical benefits that increase your efficacy in combat and exploration!

Every single suggestion I made includes mechanically beneficial rewards that make the PCs better at overcoming challenges in an adventure.

On top of all that, leaving magic items off the list is absolutely fine. You are not entitled to anyone catering to your preference. You can build your own campaigns however you want, and you can talk to your own DMs. The game absolutely, objectively, does not have any obligation whatsoever to make the basic core, default, rules cater to your playstyle. Period. You are one person in a community of millions, and they have weighed the preferences of as much of the community as they could get feedback from, and concluded that the best course of action was the one they chose.

If you can't deal with that, it isn't my damn problem, so don't come into a thread and reply to my post answering the OPs question acting like I've kicked your dog.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I dispute this premise. I will certainly argue against having magic items available to purchase in my campaigns. Not only will I argue against it, as the authority for such things in my campaigns, I will strike down with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers with their magic shoppes.

For crying out loud, shoppes only exist in pretentious suburban strip malls.

LOL Yes. This is why I simply allow characters to craft magic items, and generally reduce the crafting time from the wildly restrictive DMG times. I also don't require them to be spellcasters with the right spells known, and instead use a variant of the Xanathar's rules on magic item crafting.

or, they can commission an item, find a collector, etc. I also like custom items, especially when it's commissioned or crafted by the PCs, and prefer upgrading items over replacing them.

But in a world like Eberron, you can go to the Cannith foundry or the local licensed Artificer and get most uncommon items (either in stock there or they know where you can get it), and a decent selection of rare items.

I can imagine a world with full magic item shop style availability, but it certainly wouldn't look like any of the published dnd worlds, not even Eberron. It's fun to run or play in a fantasy equivalent of the futuristic sci-fi world, where you can buy an airship on credit, hack your gloves of blasting to make a trap, and the big city looks like fantasy Coruscant, but that isn't for everyone.

Also, man, I love giving enemies magic items. Maybe they aren't of use to the party, and all they can do with it is either break down the enchantment into residuum or sell/trade it, or maybe it's just what they're looking for, but either way they're gonna have to survive it being used against them in order to get it.