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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheSword" data-source="post: 8337679" data-attributes="member: 6879661">The social contract. I don’t have evil players in my games or PvP.But on a broader point, DMs create opportunities for PCs to acquire resources in a balanced and level appropriate way in order to make the game more fun for players. A wizard character is empowered by the presence of a scroll merchant with a range of spell levels. The scroll merchant also adds potential solutions to problems the party might come across - needing comprehend languages for instance or a knock spell to open a tomb.Now if that scroll merchant is robbed and his stock of scrolls stolen the character breaks that balance. I then have three choices - increase the challenge of the scroll merchant with increased difficulty (I’m not sure what difficulty would justify a dozen scrolls as I certainly wouldn’t give that many out to even a difficult encounter) or I find a way to reduce the reward… which annoys the thieves. Or I accept the players now have a large number of scrolls that unbalance the spellcaster’s abilities. The end result of which is that I stop putting people who sell high cost items in the game. The problem is made much worse in earlier editions where magic economy is far more substantial.In short, there is an understanding that if I give players access to purchasable resources they don’t abuse that. Let’s be clear I’m not invalidating anything because my players don’t try to do it. They aren’t murder hobos. If they did try, I would have an out of game conversation about whether we all had the right expectations and the wider consequences of their player decisions. It’s not my ‘duty’ as DM to put up with whatever behavior my players want like a human wobble toy.I wouldn’t allow the players to use the magic item purchase downtime rules to find magic items that they then steal them either. If you want that kind of thing then go and play a game where that’s the idea game or an evil campaign.</blockquote>

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