The Magic-Walmart myth

[Sound of Azure]

I had a player ask me for a "portable merchant", a la the djinni in Hordes of the Underdark. In effect, a "Poke-mart".

 

[AllisterH]

Er, not to be rude, but you guys do know Waterdeep has the following right?
a) a *regular* population of over 1 million (during the height of the trading/dry season, it hits over 3 million)

b) it is depicted as one of the places as to where EPIC characters could actually be found (WOTC actually has Epic Guidelines for the Guild Wizard of Waterdeep PrC),

No offense, but yeah, I do think an Robe of the Archmage should be easily bought in there.

I mean, by the time a person can afford the robe of the archmage, (which is 19th level btw), they have planar travel well in hand and should have no problem getting one ANYWAY.

Similarly, the +2 Keen Shocking Burst Greatsword of Wounding is a weapon that is only affordable to 20th level characters. Again, if you reach 20th level, I certainly think you should have no trouble finding such a weapon.

To the detractors, please actually use examples that are relevant. Hyperbole actually weakens your arguments against the "magic mart"

 

[Shadeydm]

Perhaps you should pick up a dictionary and review exactly what Hyperbole means because I was specifically referring to my campaign which the posts do state. If you want to sell robes of the archmagi and +2 keen shocking burst greatswords of wounding in aisle 5 of your little magic shop of horrors more power to you, that just not the flavor I am looking for IMC. But I was referring to my campaign so unless you are a player in it, your attempt to label how I run my game seems a bit misguided at best.

 

[Felix]

If I say "WallMagics Suck!" (and, in some contexts, let me be clear, I think that WallMagics do not suck), then that is clearly a statement of opinion, not some statement of universal truth that must be adhered to by all lest they engage in wrongbadfun.

Clearly you have not met some of the posters on teh intarweb.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Please tell me by what rational means you determine how the use of the term "pokemount" closes doen any meaningful discourse. I've never noticed that effect.

Actually I think that happened right here in this thread for a couple of pages. (Almost) everyone on both sides suddenly went on the defensive and it took well over a page to get back to where we were before the term got used.

Insults are strange things. Someone up thread said this portion of the discussion was a straw man because anything can end up being an insult. I agree and disagree with that statement. I agree that anything might be used and percieved as an insult. I disagree that it is a straw man and that this is actually the heart of the entire discussion.

When someone feels they have been insulted (intentionally or not) people have a tendancy to put up a wall and become very defensive or very aggresive. Either way the conversation has taken a severe detour and may not ever recover. Even if it does recover the coversation will never be the same as it was before.

Many people have given many reasons why Magic Mart can and has been percieved to be an insult. I have no problem giving people one free pass on the term. Maybe they didn't realise that some view it as an elitist insult on play style. After that though I can only determine that if they continue to use the phrase that they intend it to be an insult of play style and that the insults are intended.

Just take a look up thread in the discussion of if Shadowfax functions as a Paladin's Mount. Even though one poster explained how Shadowfax does fit the functionality of a Paladin's Mount other posters came and refused to apply the derogitory title of Pokemount to Gandalf's horse.

It's the exact same thing with Magic Mart. I don't see that name being any better than Pokemount.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

(And when I talk about that '1 free pass' I'm not speaking of discussions of the term itself. Heck, I use Pokemount twice in the above post. Discussions of the terms are different - I don't see how you can have a meaningful discussion of the term without using said term. Discussions of buying magic items and one person keeps using the term Magic Mart - then there will be an issue.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

Actually I think that happened right here in this thread for a couple of pages. (Almost) everyone on both sides suddenly went on the defensive and it took well over a page to get back to where we were before the term got used.

I don't buy that.

What I see as having happened is that (1) OP said Magic Walmarts were a myth, (2) Magic Walmarts were demonstrated to not be a myth, in either a metaphorical or actual sense, (3) People then tried to claim that Magic Walmarts were extremely rare, (4) It was demonstrated that there was no evidence thereof, and then (4) Rather than accept that the OP was in error, people then claimed that Magic Walmart as a term should not be used, either because it was inexact (no matter what the user might think) or insulting (again, no matter what the user might think).

IMHO, an unwillingness to accept that Magic Walmarts do exist, regardless of what evidence is presented, derailed this thread. Not the use of the term (which would have derailed it from Post One were that the case).

IMHO. AFAIK. YMMV.

RC

 

[AllisterH]

Perhaps you should pick up a dictionary and review exactly what Hyperbole means because I was specifically referring to my campaign which the posts do state. If you want to sell robes of the archmagi and +2 keen shocking burst greatswords of wounding in aisle 5 of your little magic shop of horrors more power to you, that just not the flavor I am looking for IMC. But I was referring to my campaign so unless you are a player in it, your attempt to label how I run my game seems a bit misguided at best.

My point, which I stand by, is that by RAW, by the time a person can afford Robes of the archmagi and a +2 keen shocking burst greatsword, they have enough personal power to simply go anywhere in the planes and get anything they want.

I would argue that the City of Brass run by the djinn would have these on sale and frankly, by that pt in time, your players can easily make runs to the city of brass ANYWAY.

Furthermore, using Waterdeep as an example is simply horrendous.
1. The city, as I mentioned, has a * normal* population of about 1 million. At the height of the caravan season, this reaches 3 million.

2. It is infested with portals to the outer planes.

3. It is a place where the assumption is that Epic wizards actually live. (The Guild Wizard PrC was one of the few PrC from Magic of Faerun which has been officially expanded to epic levels).

Yeah, I do think Waterdeep sells robes of the archmage and frankly, it would be kind of weird that it doesn't.

Another factor I think that gets ignored was mentioned on another thread. Magic items don't seem subject to the passage of time. Most campaign worlds are OLD worlds in that civilizations which were advanced enough to have magic items existed for thousands of years.

As noted in that other thread, if you live in many parts of Europe, you can't even dig a hole without finding an artifact from 1000 years ago to say nothing of even further back in time. If a +1 magic sword doesn't rust or only rusts at a rate 1/100 of fast as a normal sword, eventually, depending on how old your campaign world is, you're going to have an excess of +1 swords.

 

[Doug McCrae]

(1) OP said Magic Walmarts were a myth, (2) Magic Walmarts were demonstrated to not be a myth, in either a metaphorical or actual sense, (3) People then tried to claim that Magic Walmarts were extremely rare, (4) It was demonstrated that there was no evidence thereof, and then (4) Rather than accept that the OP was in error, people then claimed that Magic Walmart as a term should not be used, either because it was inexact (no matter what the user might think) or insulting (again, no matter what the user might think).

To be fair to Quasqueton, he does say in the main body of post #1 that he has encountered something like a Magic Wal-Mart twice (presumably in the literal sense). His thread title is somewhat misleading, as he himself conceded, as his point is that they are very, very rare rather than a myth.

He then goes on to say that given this rarity

So why does this phrase and comparison exist as a measuring stick? If a DM was trying to entice me to his game by saying it was low magic because there are no Magic-Walmarts, I'd have laugh. "So, it's just like Forgotten Realms, then?"

So from post #1 the discussion has been about whether 'Magic Wal-Mart' is a useful term.

 

[Hussar]

Please tell me by what rational means you determine how the use of the term "pokemount" closes doen any meaningful discourse. I've never noticed that effect. I've seen terms like anime, Tolkienesque, MagicMart, and pokemount on thread after thread, and I've never seen them close down meaningful discourse.

Really? Whenever Tolkien gets a mention in a thread, we spend fifteen pages arguing minor details or discussing authorial intent. Heck, it happened recently in the rather lengthy discussion about setting vs world building. Bring up the Professor and you know that the thread is pretty much over for the foreseeable future. Venture an opinion about the level of magic in Middle Earth and you're in for a couple of weeks.

As Doug McCrae rightly points out, the point of this discussion is whether or not a term like Magic Walmart has any real descriptive value. My opinion would be "not really". While I'm sure we could pick out examples of actual Magic Walmarts, they are certainly not assumed by RAW. Many campaign settings also do not assume this either. It's pretty much the same as me saying, "Hey, my campaign doesn't have M16's". While it might be very true, it's pretty rare that a player would assume that they can buy them, despite the fact that the rules for M16's exist in the DMG.

No one's arguing that you can never buy magic items in D&D, nor is anyone arguing that magic as commodity isn't assumed by RAW. It is. If a particular place has gp value of X, then anything under X will possibly be available, by RAW. Note, that doesn't mean that you can simply open up the DMG and start shopping. That's not assumed by RAW.

So, "No Magic Walmarts" doesn't really tell me anything about your setting, other than "My setting adheres to RAW." As an added bonus, it can come off as a wrongbadfun comparison, implying that anyone who does allow shopping for magic items is guilty of lazy DMing. Not that this is necessarily meant, but, it can be interpreted this way.

In other words, as I've been arguing for a while now, why not take the thirty seconds to actually post what you mean and not rely on sloppy shorthand that brings up ghosts of edition wars past?

And, in case you think I'm being hypersensitive here, take a look at ShadyDM's point:

I simply don't allow players to flip open the DMG point and click and bingo they have bought one.

Now, we have magic shopping being equated with video gamey. And not in a good way. Let's see, we've had comparisons to Anime, Video Games, all we need is a direct Dungeon Punk reference to 3e art and we got ourselves an edition war.