Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nellisir" data-source="post: 3613878" data-attributes="member: 70">No, what he asked was, "why does the phrase and comparison exist as a measuring stick?", qualified by the statement that he's never seen any (with, by his standards, two exceptions).His post, and the question, clearly refer not to a theoretical general availability of magic items in the campaign setting, but an actual "Wal-mart-like" establishment in a campaign.What is a Wal-mart-like establishment?I'd attribute the following characteristics to the term: large, characterless, low-cost items, low-quality items, lowest common denominator, uniformity, bland, faceless/unengagable managementSo if your magic shops doesn't have those qualities, then you haven't got a magic-wal-mart.  Your shop might have everything in the DMG at listed price, but if it's quaint, or interesting, or a genuine roleplaying experience, then it's probably not magic-Wal-marty as the phrase is commonly used.I'm sure campaigns exist that do include magic Wal-marts, but the term, overall, is a perjorative one, and the qualities attributed to it are not positive ones.So why does the term exist?  Why "magic Wal-mart", and not a "magic shoppe", or even "magic Woolworths"?Because it evokes negative qualities in people's mind, and it's used by people who want to create a negative image.================And just to be clear, I don't think the question was about a general availability of magic items.  It was about the phrase "magic Wal-Mart", and why it exists.  It may have -become- emotionally neutral and purely descriptive for some people, but IMO, it began and remains a negative term for most people.  It works because Walmart is a familiar quality with a negative association for the cast majority of Americans (and probably others).  It's not about the "myth" of magic item availability.</blockquote>

Verification