What Should the Market for Magic Look Like?

[FireLance]

The second issue is that of thievery.

The same thievery issues would apply to a shop selling gems, jewelry or other similarly small, valuable items. If thievery doesn't prevent people from selling such items in shops in a campaign, it shouldn't prevent people from selling the cheaper magic items in shops, either.

A 50-gp item is a 50-gp item, whether it's a gem, a greatsword, a vial of antitoxin, or a potion of cure light wounds.

 

[mmadsen]

The limiting factor is that he only has enough laborers available to work 400 acres instead of the thousands he could clear and use for crops.

The question is, how did a small number of people, enough to work 400 acres, seize land that should already be held by ten times as many people -- or that would attract ten times as many people. Is this a New World scenario, where the land was just seized from hunter-gatherers? Do all the neighbors have similar options before them?

According to the economic model I used from the books the farmers effectively earn 3 GP per month. Either coin, food, or likely a combination of both.

In real life, of course, farmers don't earn a particular amount per month; they earn nothing most months, then bring in the harvest, which is taxed, in kind. A medieval farmer would be fortunate to have enough food, and much of his produce would go to his rent (via taxes to his lord). He wouldn't get coins then spend them, month by month.

Even a noble might not deal in coins much, since his wealth is in land and food derived from it, and he spends that wealth primarily on servants who are paid in fine food and a place to stay -- or who are important enough to be paid in land in return for their military service.

I say all this to paint a picture of a pre-modern economy. Only a tiny sliver of the population deals with modern transactional markets, where you buy what you want in return for money, with no long-term loyalties assumed or required.

 

[mmadsen]

You presume that they would have their shop full of magic items.

I believe he was explaining why a magic store, shelved with items, could not exist, at least not without extensive magical protection.

As for where items are kept until sold, that is a whole different story, and challenge for any would be thief to figure out.

This raises the whole issue of making items that have not been ordered (and thus sold) already. A magic item is typically a very expensive item, and a spellcaster's time is typically very expensive too.

Should a spellcaster spend thousands of gold pieces now and dedicate weeks or months of his time to create items that might find a customer in a few years' time?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The market should be clean and well lit, unless speicalizing in necromantic items. Customers should be greeted promptly and offered a non-magical beverage. Employees should not be offended if the customer asks them to take the first sip.

All items are sold as is, without any warranties or representations that they are suited for their intended purpose, or indemnification that they are uncursed.

Healing potions should be placed at the back. These are your biggest seller along with "buff" items.

If you notice the customer has a retainer inquire if they have a +1 sword. (You can usually tell this by the lack of magical gear and a coin purse) Remind the customer that their are many creatures that need a +1 or better to hit; do they really want to leave them defenseless.

Give each item a name. Customers like the rare, the unique, the mysterious. They all want to feel what they have is special, a one-of-a-kind item. Sell the sizzle not the steak.

And don't forget "Thou Disjunctions It, Thou Buyeth It!"

 

[molonel]

In my opinion, "magic shops" are a misnomer. Major magic items are stored in protected vaults in churches or in the possession of powerful nobles, rulers, clerics or wizards. On other planes, this might include the vaults of efreet (on the elemental plane of fire, for example). I can see there being powerful merchants in Sigil or the City of Brass that fit the definition of a "magic shop" in the sense that we've been discussing, perhaps run by the Leshay or another powerful epic merchant race.

 

[Emirikol]

Personally, I think magic markets should be exactly like those in the MYTH series...any variation thereto would just not be right.

A sample version is below.





jh

 

[I'm A Banana]

There was no market for siege engines, just for siege engineers, because siege engines are not portable. A trebuchet, for instance, would be built on-site from local timber for a siege. An engineer could earn a significant retainer for serving the king -- and thus no one else.

So we have "court wizards" who specialize in crafting items for the elite families that retain them. In exchange, they get sponsorship -- and even universities, where they can educate the next generation of court wizards. The king's gold secures the wizard's loyalty.

This also has the game benefit of giving kings reasons to have magic items to award PC parties who perform services for them. Basically, the PC's who have served a royal now have their own crafting wizard to make them whatever magic items they may need.

This works for clerics, too. And could be part of the stigma for spellcasters who aren't secured to a royal or organization. Sorcerers are trouble because they don't need education for their powers, they're loose canons, no one controls their magic crafting...

Precious gems were, for a long time, at least in Europe, the province of specialists within a particular minority who knew better than to channel their wealth into easy-to-seize forms, like land, and who had strong group solidarity and trust, which made dealing in portable wealth safe.

Another point for a Wizard's Guild or Wizard's College that spellcasters need to belong to. For divine spellcasters, a Church works pretty well, too. "Free Agents" are frowned upon because they're not controlled by the trusted network.

Artists tended to produce works for wealthy patrons, on a contract basis. I don't know how often wealthy families ever sold any work they already had, but I assume it wasn't often, because it would signal a decline in status.

Makes sense for D&D pretty well. A royal family might pay a real-world artist quite mightily for a portriat. In D&D, the royal family pays a D&D-world spellcaster to craft them, maybe a cloak of protection. The cloak has golden thread praising the royal family woven into it.

I like treating expensive D&D magic items as items of art, commissioned specifically. It makes a lot of sense.

And the less expensive ones can be found in random apothecary and curio shops the world over!

 

[mmadsen]

I like treating expensive D&D magic items as items of art, commissioned specifically. It makes a lot of sense.

And the less expensive ones can be found in random apothecary and curio shops the world over!

Exactly, except that even a "cheap" magic item is very, very expensive to almost anyone who is not a lord.

 

[mmadsen]

Everyone seems oddly in agreement. Would anyone like to make the case for another kind of market for magic? Under what conditions would a MagicMart make sense?

 

[Slife]

Everyone seems oddly in agreement. Would anyone like to make the case for another kind of market for magic? Under what conditions would a MagicMart make sense?

Infinite planes with easy planar travel. If there's any chance of it existing, it will.