The Magic-Walmart myth

[Raven Crowking]

Calling the term 'Magic Wal-mart' a metaphor, while true, misses the implied criticism of worlds with magic shops. The purpose of the phrase is to ridicule such worlds through exaggeration.

By what divination spell did you determine the purpose of everyone using that phrase?

 

[I'm A Banana]

You obviously missed the post where I mentioned the Spelljammer Arcane. That game was not lighthearted or intentionally silly. As I said earlier, it is possible to make a MagicMart work if it is part of the context and flavour of the campaign. It just isn't something that I generally enjoy.

Fair enough, then. Though it would still seem to be painfully self-evident that a lower-magic game wouldn't have many (if any) places where magic was treated as a common commodity.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Fair enough, then. Though it would still seem to be painfully self-evident that a lower-magic game wouldn't have many (if any) places where magic was treated as a common commodity.

Again, excepting that the game to which I refer was very low magic overall, in comparison with the 3.X standard!

(Which means it was about the same as what I run now......Which, I suspect, is more magic than most people mean when they say low-magic. I'd call it middle-magic. )

 

[Doug McCrae]

By what divination spell did you determine the purpose of everyone using that phrase?

'Magic shop' is shorter and more neutral, though still possibly misleading as it suggests modern establishments with a large stock. Why would anyone use 'magic Wal-Mart' instead of 'magic shop' unless the aim were to ridicule?

 

[Raven Crowking]

'Magic shop' is shorter and more neutral, though still possibly misleading as it suggests modern establishments with a large stock. Why would anyone use 'magic Wal-Mart' instead of 'magic shop' unless the aim were to ridicule?

Magic Shops imply, to me, those individual curio shops that might have a few assorted items, but not everything. It can easily imply a premodern economy. MagicMart implies one-stop shopping modelled on a modern (or quasi-modern) economic model. Which is why I said earlier that campaign worlds with a modern (or quasi-modern) economic model may well require MagicMarts.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Again, excepting that the game to which I refer was very low magic overall, in comparison with the 3.X standard!

However, the 3.X standard certainly doesn't assume that the characters can get any magic item they desire at the drop of some gold anywhere and everywhere.

It does assume you can buy and sell magic items, but even that is limited by things like a town's GP limit.

So how would you say it was lower-magic, if magic was more easily-available? Wouldn't the PC's have more magical toys in this campaign than they would in most campaigns? I suppose, unless the Mercane/Arcane were present and the PC's just couldn't buy any of it. Which would be an odd circumstance to claim as a Magic Mart kind of situation since a magic mart would be somewhere where the magic items are easily available, and if the PC's can't afford it it's not easily available...

 

[I'm A Banana]

Magic Shops imply, to me, those individual curio shops that might have a few assorted items, but not everything. It can easily imply a premodern economy. MagicMart implies one-stop shopping modelled on a modern (or quasi-modern) economic model. Which is why I said earlier that campaign worlds with a modern (or quasi-modern) economic model may well require MagicMarts.

Now I'm extra confused.

If your entire world consists of curio shops, but you hand-wave buying magic items so that a person with teleport can still basically find what he's looking for at market price, you would still call that a MagicMart?

Because that is somehow more "modern"?

 

[Imp]

Well, low-magic can entail any number of restrictions on the assumed ubiquity of D&D magic. You can say that magic's just very rare, that high-level magic is very rare, that it's more costly, that (certain) items are hard to craft, that it entails various quirks and instabilities not detailed in the core rules, that it is outright baleful and cursed, any number of things... One possible version of a low-magic world is where potions and scrolls are as readily available as the DMG implies, but wondrous items are not, because the feat now has a requirement of caster level 11th, two other crafting feats and Extend Spell, and that's the only change. Another version of low magic is one where people dooooon't sellll maaagic it makes them covetous and Gollumlike plus wizard's spellbooks crumble to dust as soon as the wizard who made it dies. Etc., etc.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So how would you say it was lower-magic, if magic was more easily-available? Wouldn't the PC's have more magical toys in this campaign than they would in most campaigns? I suppose, unless the Mercane/Arcane were present and the PC's just couldn't buy any of it. Which would be an odd circumstance to claim as a Magic Mart kind of situation since a magic mart would be somewhere where the magic items are easily available, and if the PC's can't afford it it's not easily available...

There was one Arcane "branch office" in one major city. This meant that there was one (known) place that you could go to buy from a MagicMart in the entire world. Overall, the world was lower magic than the 3.X D&D standard, but there was one source that was outside the norm. Field agents of the Arcane would scout the world on buying trips, though, so that you could sell magic items more readily than buy them. It was my attempt to connect the campaign world to the overarching Spelljammer campaign "worlds".

It perhaps helped that there was no ready access to Teleport magic. It also helped that this was for a group which contained (at the time) no one else who was DMing. Their idea of "what magic was out there" was largely based on what they had encountered, as well as the obvious "legendary" items (such as the vorpal sword) that everyone knew.

IMC, I tend to make it possible to gain more than standard magic at lower levels, but make the "cap" somewhat lower than that of 3.X at mid-levels and far lower at high-levels. So, at times, more magic than the norm is available, while at other times less is. Effectively, the world keeps the same "level" of magic throughout the campaign.

In my recent rewrite of the D&D rules, I have made this concept even stronger by making character skill more important than gear. For example, by using a system of weapon skill ranks, I give players the option of Power Attack for free (moving ranks from attack roll to damage roll), meaning that your skill ranks can help to overcome DR. Likewise, I use Action Points that can only be gained by meeting role-playing goals.

This game, in all its editions, can use a wide variety of elements to create an even wider variety of "feels", power levels, and so on.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

If your entire world consists of curio shops, but you hand-wave buying magic items so that a person with teleport can still basically find what he's looking for at market price, you would still call that a MagicMart?

Because that is somehow more "modern"?

(Shrug)

Feels that way to me. At least, it does if you can easily teleport to the right place to find what you want, or you handwave the search. YMMV. Different strokes for different folks and all that.