The Magic-Walmart myth

[Nellisir]

Never mind.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

KM.. see post #47... right under yours..

I have seen 'Walmart' approaches to buying magic items, and invariably the results were not good. Perhaps its only my group that constantly has a Thief who sees a 'WalMart' as an opportunity. DM-NPC's and dues ex machina have been the only means to protect such a gathering of magical artifacts.

For me, if a GM has a shop, such as the one in post #47... I am positive the game will end poorly when the Thief uncloaks the inevitable loophole in the shops protection scheme and gets unceremoniously killed just prior to cleaning the place out.
...and yes, I am speaking from experience.

There was a HR thread a while back, almost a year now, that took a look at this issue. The solution was a simple mechanic based on Gather Information checks that allowed PC's to seek out items they want to buy or sell. The HR has the added benefit of involving a little used skill, the Rogues niche, and possibly incuring side plots {when the local police or guild notices the PC's search...}

The thread is Here for those interested.

 

[FireLance]

Is it worthwhile to distinguish between actual "magic marts" and effectively having one in the campaign?

In some cases, having an actual "magic mart" adds to the flavor of the campaign - e.g. Sigil is the crossroads of the multiverse, so anything and everything that can be bought and sold can be found in its Great Bazaar.

In most campaigns, however, no actual magic mart exists, and the key issue is how easily the PCs are able to convert gold into the magic items they want, and conversely, convert the magic items they do not want into gold. In this case, the answer is not a simple yes/no, but a continuum - some DMs simply handwave the process and assume that the PCs are well-connected or lucky enough to be able to find the items they want at short notice (the local alchemist just happened to have a couple of vials of shilversheen), others require the expenditure of game time for shipping or NPC crafting (the local weapons dealer needs a week to arrange for a +1 longsword to be delivered, or the local cleric needs a day to craft a wand of cure light wounds), and yet others require Gather Information or Diplomacy checks, the expenditure of other PC resources such as calling in favors, player effort to role-play the acquisition the item, or determine item availability randomly.

Of course, "no magic marts" carries with it mocking undertones which are not present in more neutral statements like "finding and purchasing specific magic items will be more difficult", and it is possible that some people prefer to use it for that reason.

 

[Quasqueton]

There was a HR thread a while back, almost a year now, that took a look at this issue.

The starting premise of that thread is seriously flawed:

The problem that all D&D published worlds and to an extent most home games if you follow the list in whatever the big city in the world is the limit is 100,000 gold. Thats the ability to go in to a store and buy almost anything in the DMG(this is stupid on the 2 main levels of the game)

Something being available for purchase in a city does not mean the item is in a store for pick out and pick up. The Player's Handbook lists the price of sailing ships, and they are available for purchase in most campaigns. Does that mean they are in a store? Are they in a ship lot? How about a city in the middle of a desert, or in the mountains? Even in a coastal city, is it assumed that the PCs can just go buy one in an hour?

Of course not. The assumption is that the PCs must do more than just walk into a store and buy a ship. We may not play out the whole search and deal; we may handwave all the in-game work, but it is usually understood by all concerned that there was more to it.

But with magic items, if they are available for purchase by the PCs, why must it mean they are sitting on store shelves in a Walmart? Where is the disconnect?

Quasqueton

 

[CruelSummerLord]

I think Quasqueton's original point should be picked up-if PCs can go and casually write down mundane purchases on their character sheets, subtracting the appropriate amount of money, why do people throw such a hissy fit when magic items are involved?

Speaking as someone who would probably throw one of those hissy fits, I can say that it's because whoever's running the setting doesn't want what they see as something mysterious and exotic (in this case, magic) becoming trivialized and just another commodity. If magic can be bought and sold like a CD or a pair of pants, what makes it so special, mysterious and exotic if mages can just crank it out wiithout too much trouble?

Remember, if you look back through fiction and fantasy, magic items are usually a real pain in the &** to create. If they're treated like any commodity, what makes them any different from flashlights, ceiling fans, or any of the other mundane knick-knacks we buy on a regular basis?

Maybe a compromise is in order. There are magic shops...they just don't sell permanent items. Wizards' guilds and churches might sell potions and scrolls to raise capital, just as they sell their prepared spells. If you don't have many magical weapons or armor in your campaign, maybe that oil of impact, oil of sharpness or oil of physical protection will make a handy substitute.

And, of course, all the various odds and ends needed to scribe scrolls or brew those potions in the first place can be sold at magic shops. If your PCs need diamond dust, or little crafted doors, or something else like that that cost a given amount of money, they can buy them at the magic shops. Better yet, enterprising players can have another source of income-how much will an alchemist pay for those wyvern eyes, or that horn of minotaur? The 1E DMG has all sorts of notes on what could be used to brew potions or scribe scrolls (pumpkin seeds, kobold horn, elf blood, various types of gems and herbs, etc.) so why not sell these kinds of things instead?

 

[MerricB]

In my Adventure Path games, due to the time constraints the designers have placed on the campaigns, there might as well be magic marts. I don't mind the PCs being able to buy what they want. Selling items is, of course, easy. Buying them might not be so easy, but hey, if they only have 30 minutes of downtime before the next adventure because the designers didn't leave any space of time, I'm not going to make things harder for the PCs. Let them get what they want!

For me, it's the adventures that are fun, not the "realism" of the setting.

In the campaigns I design myself, I get more picky about what the PCs can buy. I can put downtime into the adventures, so I do so. PCs can get a artificer to craft the item they want... although it'll be some weeks before they get it.

If I put cool items into the adventures, the PCs don't have to buy their own items. If I don't put cool items into the adventures, I've made a mistake, and I'm not going to hurt the players as a result.

Cheers!

 

[FireLance]

Speaking as someone who would probably throw one of those hissy fits, I can say that it's because whoever's running the setting doesn't want what they see as something mysterious and exotic (in this case, magic) becoming trivialized and just another commodity. If magic can be bought and sold like a CD or a pair of pants, what makes it so special, mysterious and exotic if mages can just crank it out wiithout too much trouble?

While I can get behind the idea that some magic should be mysterious and exotic, it is usually more trouble than it is worth (and probably impossible) to make all magic mysterious and exotic.

The magic item that the PC treasures and wants is the one that allows him to do something that he can't do (or finds difficult to do) by mundane means, but which he can't obtain easily. Simply restricting magic items in the campaign will fulfill the second criteria, but that is only one approach. Wealth by level and magic item level guidelines (from the Magic Item Compendium) can do the same, and probably scale better with PC level.

The magic item in question must also be significant enough to fulfull the first criteria. D&D's level-based scaling system means that some magic items do become trivial at higher levels. A potion of cure light wounds might mean the difference between life and death at low levels, but at high levels, a single potion of cure light wounds makes hardly any difference to a character's hit points. No matter how rare you make potions of cure light wounds in the campaign, a high-level character isn't going to go out of his way to get one, or feel particularly happy should he happen to find one. In fact, probably the best way to make magic feel trivial is to stock the world with anemic magic items that won't make much of a difference to the PCs.

Since some magic items are going to become trivial when the PCs reach the higher levels, do we really lose anything by making them available for sale?

 

[I'm A Banana]

KM.. see post #47... right under yours..

For reference:

One of the favorite places in my main D&D campaign world is a 'magic shop' run my an Elven adventurer now long since retired. A former PC, like many NPCs of note in this particular milieu, the proprietor is constantly testing and experimenting with various magical potions and spells, making entry into the store an adventure in itself. Players have opened the door to the entire place being coated in shades of orange, the shopkeeper unable to deactivate a self-inflicted polymorph and the "stock boy" (a 9 ft. troll) being lost amid the shelves for hours on end.

The shop carries, buys, sells and trades everything from magic items to spell components and is willing to identify and/or translate items and ancient texts to the best of the owner's ability. His colorful antics, foppish clothing and slightly effeminate English accent are all a carefully constructed facade to hide his vast wealth of arcane knowledge and phenomenal spellcasting ability. Make not mistake, he players the clown but is a deadly combatant. And of course, the stock boy is a troll.

For regulars and favorite customers it is not unusual for the shopkeep to preform identifications free of charge, order special, hard-to-get items and even teach a few unique spells of his own creation.

This to me is far from a Magic Walmart and I can safely say my campaign would not be the same without it.

Specifically, the poster notes that this is "far from a Magic Walmart." Rather, it's an eccentric shop run by an eccentric one-time adventurer and current spellcaster. As an expert in magic items who exists in the setting, it makes sense for this NPC to set up shop. In the "default D&D" assumptions, other adventurers exist, so this would fit right in in Eberron or FR or most homebrews who use that default D&D assumption.

So I can't see how calling it a "MagicMart" is anything other than trying to reduce his flavorful, time-built campaign element into some harmful problem waiting to happen when for him, and his group, it quite obviously isn't.

I have seen 'Walmart' approaches to buying magic items, and invariably the results were not good. Perhaps its only my group that constantly has a Thief who sees a 'WalMart' as an opportunity. DM-NPC's and dues ex machina have been the only means to protect such a gathering of magical artifacts.

Again, you call his adventurer-run shop a "Walmart" approach, which he specifically denies (and which, honestly, I don't see). You falsely assume there's only two ways (two negative ways, at that) to stop some potential "thief" from robbing the place.

For me, if a GM has a shop, such as the one in post #47... I am positive the game will end poorly when the Thief uncloaks the inevitable loophole in the shops protection scheme and gets unceremoniously killed just prior to cleaning the place out.
...and yes, I am speaking from experience.

And then you go on to claim that your experience is one that is universal? That all GM's with even flavorful, historic places where magic items and magic supplies can be bought and sold will have a problem because someone will eventually steal the items?

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. There's even more ways than that to "handle" a thief who *does* rob a place like that that the world already has in place.

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."

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).

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.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

MidknightSun pretty much nailed it. There aren't enough high level wizards in most cities for folks to buy major items (like +1 swords) off the rack. I go with about one in three wizards of sufficient level even having the crafting feats, and half of those are tied up in government contracts (the Iron Kingdoms is a bit closer to 19th Century than 12th...).

If you do want to buy a magic item you commission it, cash down, well in advance of when you will actually get it. You aren't the only one standing in the queue.

Potions and scrolls of healing or Remove Disease and the like are the most common items to find readily available, even from the temples.

The Auld Grump

 

[Destil]

Eberron, for the record, has the dragonmarked houses. You can typically find service of some of the minor spellcasting (arcane mark, cure light wounds, restoration, mending, shield other, detect poison et cetera). But the services of anyone who can use anything beyond the least dragonmark abilities (0th level to weak 2nd level spells) are beyond the availability of almost everyone (typically reserved for governments and interhouse work). Cannith can make most magic items, but anything above caster level 4-5 typically needs to be special ordered unless your in someplace major like Sharn (and even there you'll only find the most common and useful stuff "on the shelf"). Sharn also has an auction house where people specifically buy and sell powerful unique items, but it's almost never going to be a given being able to get anything that requires even, say, a 7th level caster.

All in all there's more people making magic items and selling magical services (your 6th level and higher experts with marks can do stuff like teleport, create rain, cure serious wounds, scrying and nondetection. Magewrights are an NPC wizard who mostly specializes in using craft skills with a +5 bonus, but can also learn a few other spells. And then there's artificers). But they tend to be low level and the items you find commonly for sale are cheep (relativity, their fantastically expensive for the common people) and useful to society.

Yeah, the Jorrasco cure light wounds may save your life, but you're nearly as well off with their halfling expert giving you a few days of care and bedrest. And it won't cost the equivalent of 3 month's salary.