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?

 

[Kurotowa]

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

Most D&D evil gods are the Church of Satan as imagined by a fundamentalist Christian. Most real world unnice gods were gods of dangerous or unpleasant aspects of the world that had to be properly placated so they'd leave you alone. They weren't out to corrupt people or tear down civilization, they just got vengeful and indiscriminate if they felt you'd disrespected them. It was like "knock on wood to avoid bad luck" but writ large and personified.

Of the things that don't make sense in the traditional D&D settings, the divine pantheons are high on the list. And you might notice how the soap opera of the gods was front and center in most previous editions, yet they hardly get page space in 5e. The old gods are really out of step with the current day, but they're traditional enough they haven't been completely ditched and replaced yet.

 

[Maxperson]

Hey there, Master of Economics degree. Some implications and things for you. SOme are covered elsewhere, some are covered here, but they are points to think about.

1E) The primary makers of permanent magic items would be clerics using divine power. The simple reason is the Permanency spell. It cost a magic-user a point of Constitution to make ANY magic item. This effectively means NO minor magic items, and anything the wizard makes is likely to be for their own benefit and rather powerful, to make losing that Con point worthwhile.
Magic-users would primarily supply Potions, Scrolls, and Wands that don't require a Permanency spell to make.
Corollary: There were no bonuses or penalties for Con 9-14, other than system shock/resurrection. So, an average wizard with no Con bonus who somehow reached level 11 could potentially make up to 5 permanent magic items over their life with no HP penalties. If their Con was above 16, they could actually make more, since HP benefits were capped at 16 for non-fighters!
Corollary II: There were no feats or instructions available for creating magic items, so you winged it or did it on the fly. Even potions and the like didn't come with official ways to make them. Making them was thus dangerous unless you inherited the knowledge, so magic items should be rarer.
Corollary III: It's no good asking what Gygax did. He regularly created powerful magic items, and the players lost them, mostly by having to sell them to pay to get nasty conditions inflicted on them removed by powerful casters.
Corollary IV: If you have a bunch of minor magical weapons, someone will want to buy them. Period. They are too useful NOT to be desired, especially since AD&D had absolute damage reduction: If you didn't have the magic weapon, you often couldn't hurt the creature AT ALL if you didn't have spells!
Corollary V: With no easy magic item production, AD&D/Greyhawk is a lower magic world, especially 'low magic'. Granted, the magic items made will last forever, and both Oerth and FR have tens of thousands of years of magical history. Since magic items last almost forever, there can still be tons of them lying around. In effect, AD&D is constantly recycling and reusing ages-old magic items.
Corollary VI: most classes were expected to settle down and become nobles at some point, and that's where all their excess gold was supposed to go. Gygax himself was a bit miffed when they would rather go dungeon delving than run their kingdoms/churches/whatever.
Corollary VII: Magic item pricing was more for xp purposes than anything. I know that my characters would take Girdles of Giant Strength over +2 swords any day, but the latter were worth more?!

Stats weren't a limitation on magic item creation in 1e. Wishes negated that issue.

"It is quite usual for players to use wishes (or alter reality spells found on scrolls) to increase their ability scores in desired areas, whatever the areas might be. It is strongly suggested that you place no restrictions upon such use of wishes. However, at some point it must be made more difficult to go up in ability, or else many characters will eventually be running around with several 18s (or even higher!). Therefore, when any ability score reaches 16, then it should be ruled a wish will have the effect of increasing the ability by only l/lOth of o point. Thus, by means of wishes (or wishes and/or alter reality spells) a charisma score of 16 can only be raised to 17 by use of 10 such wishes, the score going from 16 to 16.1 with the first wish, 16.2 with the second, and so on."

The wizard just needed rest time to get over the weakness from casting Wish and he's back making magic items.

 

[Maxperson]

Most D&D evil gods are the Church of Satan as imagined by a fundamentalist Christian. Most real world unnice gods were gods of dangerous or unpleasant aspects of the world that had to be properly placated so they'd leave you alone. They weren't out to corrupt people or tear down civilization, they just got vengeful and indiscriminate if they felt you'd disrespected them. It was like "knock on wood to avoid bad luck" but writ large and personified.

Of the things that don't make sense in the traditional D&D settings, the divine pantheons are high on the list. And you might notice how the soap opera of the gods was front and center in most previous editions, yet they hardly get page space in 5e. The old gods are really out of step with the current day, but they're traditional enough they haven't been completely ditched and replaced yet.

Society doesn't determine D&D gods, though. The gods embody aspects of the universe, so god of eeeeeeevil and god of shadows, etc. make perfect sense.

 

[James Gasik]

Stats weren't a limitation on magic item creation in 1e. Wishes negated that issue.

"It is quite usual for players to use wishes (or alter reality spells found on scrolls) to increase their ability scores in desired areas, whatever the areas might be. It is strongly suggested that you place no restrictions upon such use of wishes. However, at some point it must be made more difficult to go up in ability, or else many characters will eventually be running around with several 18s (or even higher!). Therefore, when any ability score reaches 16, then it should be ruled a wish will have the effect of increasing the ability by only l/lOth of o point. Thus, by means of wishes (or wishes and/or alter reality spells) a charisma score of 16 can only be raised to 17 by use of 10 such wishes, the score going from 16 to 16.1 with the first wish, 16.2 with the second, and so on."

The wizard just needed rest time to get over the weakness from casting Wish and he's back making magic items.

Once he's much higher level, that is.

 

[Lanefan]

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?).

We.ve always had it that multipliers look at the total including all bonuses...and that they stack, thus a Thief getting a crit (which multiplies damage) on a backstrike can theoretically do stupendous amounts of damage (i.e. instant kill).

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 endorse the idea of class-specific (and alignment-specific) items.

 

[Vaalingrade]

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.

They try to paint it as such, but are really, really bad at it.

Especially when the countryside is absolutely riddled with complexes that house so many magic items as to confirm that there once was an industry of magic items to the point that they imply that current society are utter failures for apparently not having such (even though they clearly do as anyone who is leveled is kitted out with a full set of custom gear from somewhere that perfectly matches their style and theme).

 

[Lanefan]

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.

The world doesn't stop, but the party might, depending how useful they saw the new item as being.

 

[James Gasik]

We.ve always had it that multipliers look at the total including all bonuses...and that they stack, thus a Thief getting a crit (which multiplies damage) on a backstrike can theoretically do stupendous amounts of damage (i.e. instant kill).

I endorse the idea of class-specific (and alignment-specific) items.

I imagine in your games, you let Backstab be useful more often, too, lol. Played "by the book", including stuff found in non-PHB sources (like Dragon), it can get to the point where you might as well scratch the ability off your character sheet! Heck, my last Thief, a Dwarven Locksmith (2e), I didn't even write the ability on their sheet- they don't skulk about, they deal with locks and traps and can listen for danger, and started on deciphering languages and codes a lot earlier than most do. In combat, they had a short bow, and that was that.

I don't mind items that are class specific in general, but I feel there needs to be a reason for it. AD&D's reason is mostly "so non-Fighters don't outshine the Fighter before they get extra attacks", lol.

But I can attest that such a thing is a concern. In a Dragonlance game, I made a Minotaur Wizard (because apparently that's a thing in Taladas) for the novelty...and then ended up at level 1 with a 19 Strength, so that everything died in one hit from my staff! I went through an entire adventure with only casting Mage Armor. The guy playing the Fighter was pretty annoyed about it...and I think the DM was too, because we never played those characters again!

Even 5e retains some of this, with items that require certain traits in order to attune to them, though I'm leery about that one- if you find an item nobody in your party can use, what then?

 

[cbwjm]

Even 5e retains some of this, with items that require certain traits in order to attune to them, though I'm leery about that one- if you find an item nobody in your party can use, what then?

Eventually, you sell it.

 

[James Gasik]

They try to paint it as such, but are really, really bad at it.

Especially when the countryside is absolutely riddled with complexes that house so many magic items as to confirm that there once was an industry of magic items to the point that they imply that current society are utter failures for apparently not having such (even though they clearly do as anyone who is leveled is kitted out with a full set of custom gear from somewhere that perfectly matches their style and theme).

Sure, I mean, published adventures are almost always stocked with items, and after recently using the DMG encounter creation rules, even 5e has fairly common magic items found in lairs by default (just the other day, I rolled a Ring of Free Action in a Tier 1 hoard and I was like, "oh heck no!" and switched it out, then immediately ended up with another hoard that had, I kid you not (saved for posterity):

2000 cp, 1000 sp, 70 gp
6 x 25 gp art objects (Carved bone statuette, Pair of engraved bone dice, Black velvet mask stitched with silver thread, Small gold bracelet, Black velvet mask stitched with silver thread, Carved bone statuette)

4 magic items from Table F :
Ring of jumping
Winged boots
Javelin of lightning
Adamantine armor (chain mail)

I'm debating on keeping though, since the only real sticking point is the boots, and they're more limited than a Broom of Flying would be, so maybe it'll be ok...