The Magic-Walmart myth

[tzor]

First of all, I have always thought the Magic-Wallmart was misnamed. In a true Magic-Wallmart you would not be able to buy anything you wanted. Instead you would have a plethora of magic items which would be in general demand produced by foreign wizards at relatively low prices.

In general I have never had such a store in my campaign worlds. If there was a population that could support such a store the local wizards would get together to destroy it. Supply and demand works by agreeing to keep supply lower than the demand.

This isn't to say that some wizards might not set up shops, especially in the potion business. Clerics might have a little store next to their temples to provide some additional revenue. There is also the used magic item collector, more like a high level pawn shop and of course there are those who offer connections to people with magic items who might be willing to sell them if the price was right.

Finally there are those who are willing to make magic items.

 

[Felix]

Supply and demand works by agreeing to keep supply lower than the demand.

Prices are artificially raised by keeping supply lower than demand. This is the tactic of guilds, unions, monopolists, and everyone who wants to keep competition from cutting into their profit margins.

Though it does make sense that a cabal of wizards would send thugs to break legs down at the Practical Magic-Mart; they wouldn't want anyone to buy things made in "for'n parts". Must be evil, them durn for'ners.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Different strokes for different folks.

Very true, but I do find that most players prefer solving mysteries, overcoming terrible monstrous threats from the dawn of time, foiling the plans of mad sorcerers, and preserving the very fabric of existence from the eldritch horrors lying just beyond visible reality to... SHOPPING.

I happen to not use standard magical equipment rules (I play Iron Heroes), but if I did, I certainly wouldn't eat up enormous amounts of play time RPing the search for x or y item from a or b shopkeeper or artisan. Just not where my or my players' precious time is best used.

Thus, I guess one can count me in with the handwaving-magic-shopping crowd.

 

[Storyteller01]

We've been using the blackmarket rules from an OGL source for our item shopping. It keeps the power gaming down, and gives the faceman an important role to fill. The fighter has combat, the bard gets his haggle time...

 

[Ourph]

For what it's worth, one of those at least partially responsible for the 3E magic item assumptions, Monte Cook, has magic items purchasable -- to an extent -- in his campaign setting.

In Ptolus, there's three tiers of magic item sales:

1) Most temples sell holy water (with possible restrictions depending on the customer), and may sell healing/curative potions and low level scrolls. Given the uneasy relationships between the faiths in the city, not everyone can get a potion or scroll from every temple, and even those faiths that will sell to a given customer won't necessarily sell out of every temple. The pseudo-medieval-Catholic Church -- Lothianism -- has one church out of the many in town that sells these, and it's the church for the dirty, dirty adventurers, the equivalent of a Midnight Mission sort of place. When your players decide they want to worship one of the city's wackier gods, they may well be shutting themselves out of the low end magic item market. (And if they worship Lothian, there's all sorts of complex things they've just signed up for, as you might imagine.) I think this is pretty similar to how a lot of DMs handle potions/scrolls/holy water anyway.

2) Ptolus is built on the ruins of multiple civilizations, including the laboratory/armory/barracks of Ye Olde Evil Wizard, so magic items trickle up with adventurers periodically and there's a store or two that specifically traffics in them. The inventory here is explicitly limited and includes a few bozo items that no one's going to be excited to get.

3) Finally, there's a group that makes magic items to order, but they're a lot closer to scary real world arms merchants or violent drug dealers. They have a bad habit of murdering anyone who starts selling magic items without being affiliated (making items for friends is OK) and the power to back it up. Since they're a semi-secret arm of a prominent organization, there's lots of people they might not actually take on as customers (assuming said people can find them to begin with) and if they provide a product, there's no saying it'll work as intended. And, most importantly, since the Dreaming Apothecary has no actual storefront per se, they're the easiest to drop out of the setting for DMs who don't like them. I suspect that Monte didn't have their wares constantly available, given how he wrote them up. I know that if my gnome illusionist/bard ever gets high enough to have the money and desire for a magic item, I'd be a LOT more comfortable getting a friend to make it for me than dealing with the scary-ass Dreaming Apothecary.

If we create an arbitrary scale of 1 to 10 for magic availability (10 being "ultimate magic item Wal-mart syndrome" and 1 being you can't buy any magic items, ever) and we assign Ptolus a ranking of 5 based on the above, I would have to say at least 95% of the 3e D&D campaigns I've played in qualify as at least 8 or above. This is primarily because the DMs were using the economic rules in the DMG without alteration. In other words, if the PCs were in a big enough city (like Ptolus), any magic item they wanted was available for purchase at book prices and magic items could be sold at half book price. Such transactions were handled entirely out of character with no RP or flavor implications.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Liberally snipped for space:

1> Specifically, the poster notes that this is "far from a Magic Walmart." ...

2> You falsely assume there's only two ways (two negative ways, at that) to stop some potential "thief" from robbing the place....

3> And then you go on to claim that your experience is one that is universal?...

4> There's a million and one ways to protect a location in D&D without the abuse of DM power or the strangling of verisimilitude....

First thing I would think of is "You are meddling in the affairs of wizards. You'll be lucky if being unceremoniously killed is the only thing they have planned for you." Second thing I would think of is "Troll stock boy."

5> So, your complaints with even a sensible magic shop fall very flat, and, indeed, sound more like you condemning the concept without an understanding of the concept, in other words, showing how a campaign without magic shops (like yours, presumably) is better than any possible campaign with magic shops (like The Green Adam's).

6> Your experience sounds rather poorly handled to my ears. Don't assume that privately owned stashes of magic items are always so easily accessed or obsessed over.

1> Yup, he specifically states his single building full of magic items available for sale is not a magic walmart. My issues with the 'magic walmarts' come primarily from the exisitance of a single building, modern mallish storefront with a plethora of expensive goods. Goods that can be pilfered by a cunning pilferer under the right circumstances...

2> The 'campaign flavor' stores I have seen run by eccentric NPCs do not have a sufficient security methods, more often they have gaping holes.. readily exploited. However since the PC's gaining all this 'kewl' power would be a bad thing...

3> Yup... You didn't know I am the one true gamer, all others are a pale imitation?

4> And there are a million ways of breaking into such stores and filch the goods. Since the GM has to show his hand first, by setting up the store security, the PC's get to choose a method that works.

They can't kill who they can't catch.
Troll stock boy isn't there 24/7...and can be dealt with in a number of ways if he is. {can we say 20% of the cut?}

Seems that if I were in your game..and this store was there... any attempt I make to pilfer from it would be stopped by the apparently omnipresent NPCs... sounds kinda like the two negative methods I mentioned...

5> Yes, The Green Adam's campaign world is soo lame... after all, I am the one true gamer.. so his world is just a pale imitation...
Nice turn of words tho, basing your comment that the shop is sensible even tho that opinion is debatable.

6> Yes, my experience with stores that hold large amount of 'kewl' magic gear for sale has been handled poorly in every iteration I have seen it in, regardless of edition, decade, or even game system.
Did I say 'easily accessed?' Nope. Some GM's are fairly good at designing a decent security net... But locks are there to keep the honest people out


7> You mentioned that the thread I linked to with the Gather Information checks started on a bad premise.. {sorry, I missed the exact quote}
Which obviously means that since the OP was off-base any discussion or posts that follow are also off-base and can be dismissed out of hand.
Cool... the OP in *this* thread started with a bad premise.. hence the past 3 pages of discussion can be dismissed out of hand!! Especially this post


=========================================

To the root of the matter... single location, modern malls of magic item displays bug me from the points of 'who spent the xp on all these', 'wow.. this place has the +3 flutterknife spring blade I was looking for', and the 'this place is a tempting target for thieves' angles.

A better way to represent the purchase of magic items is to have rules for searching for existing magic items {Gather Info checks} and commissioning new items. This keeps magic items from being the mass produced breakers of verisimultide...at least for me.

If you aren't bothered by any of that, more power to you.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

We've been using the blackmarket rules from an OGL source for our item shopping. It keeps the power gaming down, and gives the faceman an important role to fill. The fighter has combat, the bard gets his haggle time...

Which blackmarket rules? I am always in the market for better haggling rules

 

[Ourph]

Being able to purchase anything you can afford, given time, is not the same thing as a Magic Walmart. The phrase 'Magic Walmart' conjures up the image of a single vast store containing many, many magic items ready to be sold.

This is why the term is misleading and should not be used.

"Magic Wal-mart" is a euphemism for a play style, not a description of an actual structure in the game world.

If we're crusading against euphemisms now, can I start the threads for "spank the monkey" and "do the horizontal mambo"?

 

[Storyteller01]

Which blackmarket rules? I am always in the market for better haggling rules

The Spycraft weapons guide (I forget the books name). It's a bit complicated, but we like it.

Here's our touch up version:


Black Market Rules:
-Finding a broker requires a level check with the following DC’s:
* Untraceable civilian equipment: 12
* Illegally modified civilian equipment: 16
* Minor illegal (ex: standard law enforcement) equipment: 20
* Major illegal equipment (ex: high end law enforcement/low end military): 25
* Extremely illegal or banned items (ex: high end military/dweoware): 30
* Unique or exceptionally hard to obtain items (ex: tarrasque scale/unicorn horn): 35+

-The above roll can be modified as follows:
* Typical fence (deal check fails on a 1-5): +0
* Trustworthy fence (deal check fails on a 1-3): +5
* Scrupulous fence (deal check fails on a 1): +10
* Fighter or rogue makes the check: -2
* Character looking for a fence has the Procure feat: -5
* Gather Information was used before attempting to find a broker: -1 for every three the Gather Information result exceeded 12.

-Cutting the deal requires a contested roll with the buyer rolling Diplomacy and the fence rolling Sense Motive. One roll is used for the entire group. Each item must be rolled for separately. The Diplomacy roll is modified as follows:
* Character is a rogue or fighter: +2
* Character has the Procure feat: +5
* Deal is being made with a typical broker: +0
* Deal is being made with a trustworthy broker: +2
* Deal is being made with a scrupulous broker: +4
* Deal is being made on the broker’s turf (increase check failure chance by 2): +2
* Deal is being made on neutral territory: +0
* Deal is being made on the character’s turf (decrease check failure chance by 2): +4

-Results of a successful check:
* Check succeeded by up to 5 above what the needed DC: $500 x the items BP or 5 x the base market cost.
* Check succeeded by 6 to 10 more than the needed DC: $300 x the items BP or 3 x the base market cost.
* Check succeeded by 11 to 20 more than the needed DC: $200 x the items BP or 2 x the base market cost.
* Check succeeded by 21 or more than the needed DC: $150 x the items BP or 1.5 x the base market cost, plus all further ‘cutting the deal’ checks during the same deal are treated as one level higher.



Hope it helps.

PS: the "Deal check fails' section under the types of brokers means a roll in that range auto fails, and disasterously. Have fun.

 

[Doug McCrae]

"Magic Wal-mart" is a euphemism for a play style, not a description of an actual structure in the game world.

If we're crusading against euphemisms now, can I start the threads for "spank the monkey" and "do the horizontal mambo"?

It's not a euphemism.

From Wikipedia:

"A euphemism is an expression intended by the speaker to be less offensive, disturbing, or troubling to the listener than the word or phrase it replaces, or in the case of doublespeak to make it less troublesome for the speaker."

The phrase 'Magic Walmart' is almost the exact opposite of a euphemism, designed to be *more* offensive than saying magic items can be bought and sold. It's an exaggeration.