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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: SHARK on May 20, 2022, 04:02:25 PM

Title: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: SHARK on May 20, 2022, 04:02:25 PM
Greetings!

I have included huge, luxurious market-places in various cities and metropolises in my campaigns. Long ago, I was inspired by the historical examples of the Roman Empire's Hadrian's Market, and the vast market-places that were established in the cities of the Song Empire, in China. Hadrian's Market, for example, was seven stories high, and included hundreds of shops selling trade goods from the far corners of the Roman Empire and beyond. Hadrian's Market evidently could embrace 10,000 or more people, gathered together and shopping all at once. Just imagine what it was like going shopping in such a magnificent place!

Do you have luxurious market places in your campaigns?

In my own Thandor Campaigns, I have found them to be a great resource and setting, for goods and equipment, but also roleplaying, socializing, developing plots and adventures, and more. The players love going to these kinds of places. As a DM, I find such environments are very flexible, and really offer many different kinds of roleplaying opportunities and adventures!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: TimothyWestwind on May 20, 2022, 05:32:01 PM
Yes great markets exist in my campaign setting a Bronze Age type Sword & Sorcery Setting (Southeast Asia during the last Ice Age).

I think they fit the setting better as a place to meet, socialise, hear rumours, get hired for jobs etc. than taverns and inns which feel more medieval to me. Although I know inns existed in the Roman Empire so perhaps also in earlier times. Still markets feel more appropriate to the feeling I'm going for.

I haven't created any specific content for markets yet, other than the plants and resources that are found in the setting.

Perhaps I could think about the various people that could be found at these places.

1. Traders
2. Guards
3. Thieves
4. Beggars
5. Street urchins
6. Priests and gurus
7. Currency exchangers / lenders. If currency exists in your setting.
8. Scribes
9. Bureaucrats, tax collectors
10. Professional companions
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: SHARK on May 24, 2022, 04:17:02 PM
Yes great markets exist in my campaign setting a Bronze Age type Sword & Sorcery Setting (Southeast Asia during the last Ice Age).

I think they fit the setting better as a place to meet, socialise, hear rumours, get hired for jobs etc. than taverns and inns which feel more medieval to me. Although I know inns existed in the Roman Empire so perhaps also in earlier times. Still markets feel more appropriate to the feeling I'm going for.

I haven't created any specific content for markets yet, other than the plants and resources that are found in the setting.

Perhaps I could think about the various people that could be found at these places.

1. Traders
2. Guards
3. Thieves
4. Beggars
5. Street urchins
6. Priests and gurus
7. Currency exchangers / lenders. If currency exists in your setting.
8. Scribes
9. Bureaucrats, tax collectors
10. Professional companions

Gretings!

Yes, I think such great markets provide lots of potential for encounters, roleplaying, and campaign development. I've had groups spend entire sessions having encounters and such in great marketplaces. Lots of flexibility and variety as well in different kinds of NPC's.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Spinachcat on May 24, 2022, 05:56:38 PM
In terms of setting, how is a Grand Bazaar / Great Market different than streets of merchants?

Also, in terms of actual roleplay at the table, how is that shopping experience different?

I've got one great market in one of my scifi RPGs, but the big aspect of the market is the random-availability factor and the hard-to-find/easy-to-get-lost aspect of a market that's chaotic and massive.

The LA swap meets are surprisingly big, with lots of live entertainment and food vendors, and the main takeaway from that experience is the sameness of most merchandise with rare special goods / rare special merchants which are the exciting part of the long walk around the place.

Have you researched the Polish Christmas markets? There's many in Europe, but big holiday market in a RPG would be interesting to add.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Pat on May 24, 2022, 08:07:00 PM
In terms of setting, how is a Grand Bazaar / Great Market different than streets of merchants?

Also, in terms of actual roleplay at the table, how is that shopping experience different?
Markets were originally temporary things. Towns had a big event, publicized it, and people came from far and wide to trade. These were often associated with a festival or the like. Over time, they became regular. A day set aside for the market, whether seasonally, or weekly. And they became more permanent, with more permanent locations, more permanent structures, and more infrastructure and merchants that remained all year round. Those gradually turned into streets. So think of markets as a local or region thing, pop-up events. Grand markets may run all year round, but still have that temporary contingent, vendors who set up shops in tents instead of having to rent a storefront. They'd have the full infrastructure of auction grounds, facilities to store cattle whether bovine or human, security, and so on. But a more transient population of merchants. This would particularly suit nexuses of trade, where many people from far-off realms converge to exchange their goods.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Omega on May 24, 2022, 09:45:32 PM
I touched on this a little in the magic shop thread.

I tend to have a large market area or whole dedicated district in the larger trade route crossroads cities, and capitols. Smaller ones in any rural hub. Sometimes annual rather than permanent.

Specularum for BX was one such place. Never saw the map of it till many a year later in in an early issue of Dungeon and was pleased to see it had a merchant district and some manner of market area.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: THE_Leopold on May 26, 2022, 08:54:33 AM
Sounds like modern day Flea Markets and Bazaars you see in many asian cities.   You could probably write a whole suppliment on the various food sellers involving the PC's having to taste far off delicies such as Mango'd Manticore, Hot and Spicy Salamander, and the rare Buttery Bunyip.

The sheer breadth of fantasy food trucks could be a thing.  Never know.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: HappyDaze on May 26, 2022, 11:37:43 AM
Sounds like modern day Flea Markets and Bazaars you see in many asian cities.   You could probably write a whole suppliment on the various food sellers involving the PC's having to taste far off delicies such as Mango'd Manticore, Hot and Spicy Salamander, and the rare Buttery Bunyip.

The sheer breadth of fantasy food trucks could be a thing.  Never know.
I've never done a fantasy food truck, but we did have a cell of Rebel special operations agents in Star Wars that ran a food repulsor-truck on Nar Shaddaa as their cover. It was a fun game.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Pat on May 26, 2022, 01:01:13 PM
Sounds like modern day Flea Markets and Bazaars you see in many asian cities.   You could probably write a whole suppliment on the various food sellers involving the PC's having to taste far off delicies such as Mango'd Manticore, Hot and Spicy Salamander, and the rare Buttery Bunyip.

The sheer breadth of fantasy food trucks could be a thing.  Never know.
That could be fun in a hyper-cosmopolitan game set in a planar metropolis. Have dozens of different and exotic mounts pulling dozens of different and exotic carts, in which dozens of different and exotic races create delicacies that range from pedestrian to delicious, to downright disturbing. It would be a good place to set an investigation-based adventure, or just background color for a home base.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: THE_Leopold on May 26, 2022, 01:16:25 PM
Sounds like modern day Flea Markets and Bazaars you see in many asian cities.   You could probably write a whole suppliment on the various food sellers involving the PC's having to taste far off delicies such as Mango'd Manticore, Hot and Spicy Salamander, and the rare Buttery Bunyip.

The sheer breadth of fantasy food trucks could be a thing.  Never know.
That could be fun in a hyper-cosmopolitan game set in a planar metropolis. Have dozens of different and exotic mounts pulling dozens of different and exotic carts, in which dozens of different and exotic races create delicacies that range from pedestrian to delicious, to downright disturbing. It would be a good place to set an investigation-based adventure, or just background color for a home base.

I truly want to create this idea now with Guy FeiryHairo as down on the luck cook trying to get back into the thick of the fierce cooking competition that is coming up and he needs the PC's to go into this ONE specific dungeon for this ONE specific mushroom....

Literally recreate the whole Cooking Channel with eating competitions, skill based games, back room deals, and of course plenty of sabotaging of the other "trucks".

If WOTC had made this instead of Harry Potter .9x they would've had more to work with. 
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Pat on May 26, 2022, 02:55:07 PM
Sounds like modern day Flea Markets and Bazaars you see in many asian cities.   You could probably write a whole suppliment on the various food sellers involving the PC's having to taste far off delicies such as Mango'd Manticore, Hot and Spicy Salamander, and the rare Buttery Bunyip.

The sheer breadth of fantasy food trucks could be a thing.  Never know.
That could be fun in a hyper-cosmopolitan game set in a planar metropolis. Have dozens of different and exotic mounts pulling dozens of different and exotic carts, in which dozens of different and exotic races create delicacies that range from pedestrian to delicious, to downright disturbing. It would be a good place to set an investigation-based adventure, or just background color for a home base.

I truly want to create this idea now with Guy FeiryHairo as down on the luck cook trying to get back into the thick of the fierce cooking competition that is coming up and he needs the PC's to go into this ONE specific dungeon for this ONE specific mushroom....

Literally recreate the whole Cooking Channel with eating competitions, skill based games, back room deals, and of course plenty of sabotaging of the other "trucks".

If WOTC had made this instead of Harry Potter .9x they would've had more to work with.
Don't forget the Adamantite Chef competition, where competitors have to race to get ingredients (some so fresh they're bitey) across an obstacle course/dungeon, and then cook their dishes using the latest cookware, like a lava convection oven (don't fall) or a red-hot iron golem pressure cooker.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: THE_Leopold on May 26, 2022, 03:13:33 PM
Sounds like modern day Flea Markets and Bazaars you see in many asian cities.   You could probably write a whole suppliment on the various food sellers involving the PC's having to taste far off delicies such as Mango'd Manticore, Hot and Spicy Salamander, and the rare Buttery Bunyip.

The sheer breadth of fantasy food trucks could be a thing.  Never know.
That could be fun in a hyper-cosmopolitan game set in a planar metropolis. Have dozens of different and exotic mounts pulling dozens of different and exotic carts, in which dozens of different and exotic races create delicacies that range from pedestrian to delicious, to downright disturbing. It would be a good place to set an investigation-based adventure, or just background color for a home base.

I truly want to create this idea now with Guy FeiryHairo as down on the luck cook trying to get back into the thick of the fierce cooking competition that is coming up and he needs the PC's to go into this ONE specific dungeon for this ONE specific mushroom....

Literally recreate the whole Cooking Channel with eating competitions, skill based games, back room deals, and of course plenty of sabotaging of the other "trucks".

If WOTC had made this instead of Harry Potter .9x they would've had more to work with.
Don't forget the Adamantite Chef competition, where competitors have to race to get ingredients (some so fresh they're bitey) across an obstacle course/dungeon, and then cook their dishes using the latest cookware, like a lava convection oven (don't fall) or a red-hot iron golem pressure cooker.

[pitch meeeting voice] Amazing!

I know this is one aspect of a large open air market but with all the cooking shows I watch this was the one area I gravitated to quickly.

Change any part of these adventure seeds around and model them off the bazaars in Istanbul (look at Raiders of the Lost Ark) and you can have a huge maze of areas that are impassable, trap points, chase encounters, etc. 

Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Omega on May 29, 2022, 12:16:23 AM
Sounds like modern day Flea Markets and Bazaars you see in many asian cities.   You could probably write a whole suppliment on the various food sellers involving the PC's having to taste far off delicies such as Mango'd Manticore, Hot and Spicy Salamander, and the rare Buttery Bunyip.

The sheer breadth of fantasy food trucks could be a thing.  Never know.
That could be fun in a hyper-cosmopolitan game set in a planar metropolis. Have dozens of different and exotic mounts pulling dozens of different and exotic carts, in which dozens of different and exotic races create delicacies that range from pedestrian to delicious, to downright disturbing. It would be a good place to set an investigation-based adventure, or just background color for a home base.

I truly want to create this idea now with Guy FeiryHairo as down on the luck cook trying to get back into the thick of the fierce cooking competition that is coming up and he needs the PC's to go into this ONE specific dungeon for this ONE specific mushroom....

Literally recreate the whole Cooking Channel with eating competitions, skill based games, back room deals, and of course plenty of sabotaging of the other "trucks".

If WOTC had made this instead of Harry Potter .9x they would've had more to work with.

Theres one for DND Beyond that has something like that. Not very good though.
Radiant Citadel from WOTC could have been a great magic mega-mall setting. But WOTC of course botched that.

Theres been a few over the decades in various product. Some as small as the "Dog Cart" which eventually evolved into foot trucks and then restaurants. Quite a fascinating little history there.

Rat on a Stick from way the hell back by I believe Judges Guild has the PCs opening a fast food franchise in dungeons.

In Dragon Storm my Vorn PC always carried around cooking tools and had things not gone south with our partnership with BDP I had planned either a caravan home that could be converted into a food 'truck' and/or a cook background that would could get even more out of foods and supplies. Even without that whenever I could team up with a Werewolf PC with the hunting skill we had more than enough supplies for even large parties of refugees turned freedom fighters. We actually turned a little profit by selling foods/supplies at any town we encountered when could. Made a great cover story for whenever we were trying not to attract attention.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on May 29, 2022, 05:24:12 PM
Strongly recommend Commerce and Society in Sung China if you want to get good information on having markets in your campaign. Explains how the markets worked, the types of markets, how officials oversaw them, etc. Gets quite detailed and also gets into the various trade goods and how they were shipped.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Omega on June 02, 2022, 03:25:06 PM
Shipping and supply lines are a big thing for most larger markets that arent one-off sort of flea-market assemblies.

Another thing that I learned from my aunt who ran her own bar is that you need the right connections to stay supplied. Don't even think of starting before you have these lined up.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 03, 2022, 10:11:25 AM
Coinage may not be heavily used in some markets. Volo's Guide to Cormyr detailed 'tally sticks' which were essentially credit records, validated by the Suzail town guard, that many merchants used in place of coins. Bartering and haggling are most certainly going to be a part of any thriving market, as well.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: THE_Leopold on June 03, 2022, 10:12:50 AM
Coinage may not be heavily used in some markets. Volo's Guide to Cormyr detailed 'tally sticks' which were essentially credit records, validated by the Suzail town guard, that many merchants used in place of coins. Bartering and haggling are most certainly going to be a part of any thriving market, as well.

Notes of Mark, Bank house scrolls, letters of credit, etc.

You could recreate the entire movie Heat or GTA in a setting like this for all the heists.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 03, 2022, 10:14:12 AM
Coinage may not be heavily used in some markets. Volo's Guide to Cormyr detailed 'tally sticks' which were essentially credit records, validated by the Suzail town guard, that many merchants used in place of coins. Bartering and haggling are most certainly going to be a part of any thriving market, as well.

Notes of Mark, Bank house scrolls, letters of credit, etc.

You could recreate the entire movie Heat or GTA in a setting like this for all the heists.
Indeed. And that would make for a marvelous adventure, no matter what side the party's on.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Greentongue on June 03, 2022, 01:32:36 PM
Just how detailed would things need to be to be playable?
Seems like you could drill down to crazy detail if you had the right/wrong players.
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: THE_Leopold on June 03, 2022, 01:36:04 PM
Just how detailed would things need to be to be playable?
Seems like you could drill down to crazy detail if you had the right/wrong players.

For which setup? Heists? For the market salers?
Title: Re: Including Great Markets in your Campaigns!
Post by: Omega on June 04, 2022, 05:40:38 AM
Just how detailed would things need to be to be playable?
Seems like you could drill down to crazy detail if you had the right/wrong players.

For which setup? Heists? For the market salers?

For running a market you only need as much detail as you think the players will. Or whatever you are willing to go extra for on your own aegis. Just always stay aware that all that detail might never get used.

As a DM I usually do not detail too much unless the players start delving into those aspects. Same as for everything else. But when DMing for one of my local players who loves to delve into the merchant side of things whenever possible, I add more detail and drag out the system.

Bare bones is all you need to know is how much stuff costs

From there you can add more details like who likes to haggle and who does not. What coin is accepted and what is not. Is barter accepted. Is there a tax if some sort?

And then go further for things like rivalries, protection rackets, crime - especially pickpockets, and dishonest merchants.

And further for things like quality of goods. 2e D&D and Dragon way back introduced some mechanics for this. Like your average sword does the listed damage. But a well crafted sword gets a +1 to hit, or damage or both as if it were the equivalent of magical due to being well balanced and so on. I believe OA had this as well. Will have to check later.

And down from there there are things like supply lines. Where does the baker get his flour? Where does the weapons dealer get these fine quality spears? How many connections a merchant needs just to produce their goods can be a tale all on its own.

And down from there you have the merchants personal lives outside merchanting. Family, intrigues, past experiences.

And use some steps and not others as you deem needed.