Worlds of Design: The Problem with Magimarts

I dislike magic item stores. Here's why.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

Magic items are a part of every fantasy role-playing game, and wherever player characters meet, someone will want to buy or sell such items. What the players do among themselves is their business, in most cases; but when non-player characters (NPC) are involved the GM must know where magic items come from, how rare they are, and how hard it is to produce them. [Quoting myself from 40+ years ago]

Magimart: Still a Bad Idea​

I don't like the idea of "Magimarts" -- something like a bookstore or small department store, often with a public storefront, where adventurers can come and purchase (or sell) magic items. I said as much over 40 years ago in an article titled “Magimart: Buying and Selling Magic Items” in White Dwarf magazine. My point then still stands: at least for me and in my games, magic-selling stores don’t make sense.

They don’t make sense from a design point of view, as they may unbalance a campaign or cause power-creep. From an adventure point of view such stores partly eliminates the need to quest for specific powerful magic items. From a realistic point of view they would only provide targets for those who are happy to steal.

The Design Point of View​

From a game design point of view, how experience points, gold, and magic fit together makes a big difference. For example, if you get experience points for selling a magic item (even to NPCs), as well as for the gold you get, adventurers will sell magic items more often. If adventurers acquire scads of treasure and have nothing (such as taxes or “training”) to significantly reduce their fortunes, then big-time magic items are going to cost an awful lot of money, but some will be bought. If gold is in short supply (as you’d expect in anything approaching a real world) then anyone with a whole lot of gold might be able to buy big-time magic items.

Long campaigns need a way for magic items to change ownership, other than theft. As an RPG player I like to trade magic items to other characters in return for other magic items. But there are no “magic stores.” Usability is a big part of it: if my magic user has a magic sword that a fighter wants, he might trade me an item that I could use as a magic user. (Some campaigns allocate found magic items only to characters who can use them. We just dice for selecting the things (a sort of draft) and let trading sort it out, much simpler and less likely to lead to argument about who can use/who needs what.)

The Adventure Point of Views​

Will magic stores promote enjoyable adventuring? It depends on the style of play, but for players primarily interested in challenging adventures, they may not want to be able to go into a somehow-invulnerable magic store and buy or trade for what they want.

Magic-selling stores remind me of the question “why do dungeons exist”. A common excuse (not reason) is “some mad (and very powerful) wizard made it.” Yeah, sure. Excuses for magic-selling stores need to be even wilder than that!

I think of magic-item trading and selling amongst characters as a kind of secretive black market. Yes, it may happen, but each transaction is fraught with opportunities for deceit. Perhaps like a black market for stolen diamonds? This is not something you’re likely to do out in the open, nor on a regular mass basis.

The Realistic Point of View​

“Why do you rob banks?” the thief is asked. “’Cause that’s where the money is.”

Realistically, what do you think will happen if someone maintains a location containing magic items on a regular basis? Magimarts are a major flashpoint in the the dichotomy between believability (given initial assumptions of magic and spell-casting) and "Rule of Cool" ("if it's cool, it's OK").

In most campaigns, magic items will be quite rare. Or magic items that do commonplace things (such as a magic self-heating cast iron pan) may be common but the items that are useful in conflict will be rare. After all, if combat-useful magic items are commonplace, why would anyone take the risk of going into a “dungeon” full of dangers to find some? (Would dungeon-delving become purely a non-magical treasure-hunting activity if magic items are commonplace?)

And for the villains, magimarts seem like an easy score. If someone is kind enough to gather a lot of magic items in a convenient, known place, why not steal those rather than go to a lot of time and effort, risk and chance, to explore dungeons and ruins for items? There may be lots of money there as well!

When Magimarts Make Sense​

If your campaign is one where magic is very common, then magic shops may make sense - though only for common stuff, not for rare/powerful items. And magic-selling stores can provide reasons for adventures:

• Find the kidnapped proprietor who is the only one who can access all that magic.
• Be the guards for a magic store.
• Chase down the crooks who stole some or all of the magic from the store.

Maybe a clever proprietor has figured out a way to make the items accessible only to him or her. But some spells let a caster take over the mind of the victim, and can use the victim to access the items. And if someone is so powerful that he or she can protect a magic store against those who want to raid it, won't they likely have better/more interesting things to do with their time? (As an aside, my wife points out that a powerful character might gather a collection of magic items in the same way that a rich person might gather a collection of artworks. But these won’t be available to “the public” in most cases. Still just as some people rob art museums, some might rob magic collections.)

Of course, any kind of magic trading offers lots of opportunities for deception. You might find out that the sword you bought has a curse, or that the potion isn’t what it’s supposed to be. Many GMs ignore this kind of opportunity and let players buy and sell items at standard prices without possibility of being bilked. Fair enough, it’s not part of the core adventure/story purposes of RPGs. And magic stores are a cheap way for a GM to allow trade in magic items.

Your Turn: What part do magic-selling stores play in your games?

 

[James Gasik]

I never really subscribed to the whole "MU don't trade spells freely with each other" of easier editions. I may be misremembering but I recall something about PC wizards getting a bad reputation amongst NPC wizards if 2 in the party freely traded spells in each other's spellbooks. I always felt that idea was a little dumb.

Gary apparently didn't like the idea of Wizards being able to get the exact spells they wanted without jumping through flaming hoops of fire, and every time players figured out ways to do just that, as players do, it apparently galled him.

But rather than change the rules, he just gave other DM's pretty hostile advice on how to "punish" player ingenuity.

My personal favorite DMG bit is where he's like "hey Assassins can learn to brew poisons, but it's not in the PHB, and don't you ever tell them they can possibly do this unless they ask about it, then you can make them jump through flaming hoops to research how to do it, because why would an Assassin trainer ever mention it in universe, let alone teach you, and if you're not the exact right level, you automatically fail."

 

[cbwjm]

Well, Clerics and Thieves can use Belts of Giant Strength as well. A friend of mine had an Elven Thief in 2e who got his hands on a belt of Stone Giant Strength and suddenly he was (thanks to two weapon fighting) able to crank out some hefty damage numbers in melee...for about 2 seconds until monsters decided he needed to die in a fire lol and realized "hey there's this elf in leather armor with a d6 hit die kicking our butts". The one time I saw him actually be able to backstab was epic (though mostly only because the DM refused to accept that backstab only multiplies weapon dice for some reason- you ever have that? A DM who is super strict about most things, but then randomly allows something the players have to be way more powerful than it should be?).

So it really can be a useful item for most classes, but I can see why a Wizard might think it's a minor item because they, themselves can't use it (being class-locked*)...but, I don't know, surely they have an ally or bodyguard they could put the thing on?

*Class-locked magic items are an interesting concept and one I'd like to discuss sometime, but I don't know that it deserves it's own thread. I just recall an incident with the infamous cursed belt (you know the one) where a Wizard tried it on, the DM is like "ahahahaha, curse!" and I was like "but the DMG says Wizards can't use that belt".

He looked at me funny, checked the book, and outright declared that was stupid, lol. Then as evidence presented one of the D&D trading cards (anyone remember those?), which presented a hapless Wizard (with the Amazon Kit, somehow?) who was a victim of said belt. "Ok, so does that mean Wizards can use Girdles of Giant Strength?"

"No, that would be silly."

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

One of my favourite characters in the Icewind Dale CRPG was an elven rogue (swashbuckler). Since he gained bonuses to hit, damage, and AC for being a swashbuckler he ended up being fairly tanky, I can't recall if his strength was boosted by a belt or a potion that pushed him up to 19 but with dual wielding some speed weapons he was a whirling dervish of death.

 

[RainOnTheSun]

My post was given in response to your post:


You seemed to suggest that having a magical item shop was unrealistic because anyone in possession of magical weapons wouldn’t sell them, but would instead stockpile them to be the most powerful faction around.

This ignores a host of other possibilities:

• the seller has other priorities than outfitting and army and wielding temporal power (selling magical weapons to multiple sides to exacerbate and prolong a conflict);
• the seller isn’t meaningfully around (a djinn in the plane of air with a teleportation circle in Neverwinter, Baldur’s Gate and Waterdeep);
• the seller is one of several high power factions so stockpiling and taking over isn’t an option;
• what the seller receives in exchange for the weapons is more valuable to them than the weapons sold;
• there are other forms of power that trump being able to create multiple magical weapons.

No. A person that is able to create and sell multiple magical weapons is powerful, but it doesn’t follow that they are the most powerful group around.

Take Waterdeep. It is a location with multiple 20th level NPCs. Is an 11th level spellcaster that focuses on creating and selling magical items the most powerful person around? Not in a city with Elminster and the Masked Lord.

Oh, I see! I think I was a bit too vague, initially. I didn't mean that the faction with the most magical items wouldn't be willing to sell any of them. If anything, somebody with a dozen magic wands is probably more willing to sell/trade one of them than somebody who only has one. My point was that, if a jewelry store, a museum, or some other storehouse of valuable objects gets attacked, they'll turn to the city watch for help. Or the royal guard, or whatever the local peacekeepers are called. If the people with all the magic items get attacked, they're already more dangerous than anyone else they could call. It's a very different power dynamic than you have buying mundane goods from somebody.

The Elminster example is a good point, and one I hadn't really given enough thought to. A person in a D&D world can become overwhelmingly powerful without having to rely on equipment or allies, in a way that there's just no equivalent to in the real world. I'd still expect there to be a relative power disparity, though: an 11th level spellcaster with a shop full of magical items is probably still a lot more powerful than most of their customers, and to Elminster, the things that spellcaster creates barely qualify as magic at all. If Elminster ever needs to get a magical item that's significant by his standards, he's probably going to have to go to the Simbul, or Larloch, or Szass Tam, or one of the goddesses he's sleeping with.

 

[Maxperson]

In contrast, item creation in 3e is far more transactional. First off, it starts much, much earlier: scrolls at level 1, potions and wondrous items at level 3, wands and weapons/armor at level 5. Sure, you need the appropriate feat as well, but that's just making a particular choice when leveling up. That means it's much easier to find someone who can make a particular item. Nor do you need any particular facilities – "a fairly quiet, comfortable, and well-lit place in which to work" suffices. Once you have the feat, you can make pretty much any item as long as you can fulfill the casting prerequisites, spend the right money, and have enough downtime. Some items require more, but they are few and far between. You could argue that you're still using troll's blood and illithid dreams, it's just that you're paying someone to get them for you – but that's a big level of abstraction.

So it makes perfect sense that 3e casters would sell moderate magic items, or at least have them available for commission, while AD&D casters would do no such thing.

Except for the permanent XP cost. That would keep transactional item making to a minimum. Wizards don't like losing power permanently in order to get some gold. If they need gold, they can just make a ton of money selling their spellcasting ability and not lose that power.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, I'd like to ask the designer of the 3e trap rules what the heck the point was, and where the Kobolds keep getting all the money to make their traps!

Funded by their dragon overlords!

 

[Maxperson]

Downtime that can very well leave the rest of the party with nothing to do. The last time this came up in a game I was running, the crafter hid himself away in the inn for a few days, and next thing we all knew, the other players were trying to have a solo adventure.

"So wait, I'm sitting here making items for these guys, and they're going to earn xp without me? How is that fair?"

This is why I have never had a player actually craft a magic item. My world doesn't time stop for weeks or months so the wizard can churn out items. The other players will be doing stuff and the wizard player will just sort of be sitting there.

 

[Maxperson]

In my version of Greyhawk I created an organization called the Blue Brothers. This started as a religious organization serving Boccob, the god of magic, who very much works to profligate magic in the world. Over time, this network has become less religious, tough they still honor Boccob.

They're on a magic item creation mission from god?

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's so weird that people think +1 swords wouldn't be for sale when I'm within walking distance of at least two shops where I can purchase a wand that turns lead into corpses for the cost of a day's work.

 

[Kurotowa]

It's so weird that people think +1 swords wouldn't be for sale when I'm within walking distance of at least two shops where I can purchase a wand that turns lead into corpses for the cost of a day's work.

Those guns are cheap and widely available thanks to industrial mass production. Meanwhile, traditionally most D&D settings try to paint their pseudo-medieval world as one where magic items and enchantments only exist as artisanally crafted unique works. Eberron is the only one where proto-industrial production of low level magic items on a mass scale is a current event, as opposed to a long vanished ancient high magic civilization.

 

[Maxperson]

The one I found most pertinent was its complaints that so many typical D&D pantheons have gods and cults of baby and puppy killing that seem to meet no real needs a community would have and serve solely as sources of villains for the PC's to fight.

My big complaint against most D&D inspired pantheons are when they have "gods of the class" like "the god of rangers", the "god of paladins", the "god of fighters", the "god of magic-users", the "god of thieves", the "god of assassins", and often the "god of clerics" (a generic good god of healing and undead slaying) followed by a long laundry lists of "the gods of bad guys".

I mean Aztec gods required blood sacrifices, as did the gods of many other older cultures. Bad guy gods have a place.