My stance on this has evolved.  I used to make potions and the like available for purchase but found it unsatisfying.  I like magic to mysterious and unique, not something one finds at the local Walmart.  I now have occasional magic shops, but the few items with actual magic are mostly are mostly curiosities rather equipment or supplies, such as an enchanted shrunken head that will speak with you or two coins that always exert a slight force towards each other.  I do allow magic items to be commissioned, but doing so can be an adventure in itself.  This demands certain changes in the game though.  If the players are used to having healing potions available then something needs to take the place of those healing potions, perhaps a physician skill or redesigning the adventures so less damage is done.

No magic shops in my campaign. I do allow the PCs to commission the creation of magic items, but they have to find someone to do the work, provide the materials needed, and pay a crap-ton of coin. So far the closest the PCs have gotten is a rumor of a dwarf master smith that could potentially craft a magic shield. Another PC has dumped all of his funds into getting a suit of (evil) enchanted armor purged of its evil. Unfortunately for the PC, the purge was not 100% successful. Once the PC dons the armor, the evil spirit in the armor will enter the PC (picture "Harvey" and John Creighton in Farscape).

YMMV.

As has been noted, it depends on the setting. Eberron is probably the go-to for buying common magical items and consumables at the equivalent of the 7-11.

Long ago, I did have a campaign with a magic shop--an inter-dimensional magic shop that moved constantly, or at least it's multiple store-fronts did.  It was an adventure to get to one of those store fronts, where instead of fighting monsters to steal their treasure you had to negotiate with some of the most skilled traders.  Usually, getting something magic meant trading something magic.  Since the store moved, you couldn't just go back to it whenever you wanted, and not infrequently it appeared in remote places, meaning a quest and divination and fighting monsters just to find it.

A vague "it depends", but in practice it becomes quite easy...

- In Westeros or Middle-earth, you can't, period. same for Dark Sun.
- In Eberron or Ravnica, of course you can. Same for planescape.
- "Baseline D&D"... well, most published stuff is in Forgotten Realms, which includes very high fantasy... so yeah, I can see some magic items being for sale (but not powerful artifacts etc.).

I found commissioning a good compromise in some of my campaigns, Mishihari. It becomes an adventure unto itself because good relations toward the manufacturer and components have to be gathered. It is like an almost self-writing side quest.

Quote from: Opaopajr on January 24, 2022, 12:34:30 PM
I found commissioning a good compromise in some of my campaigns, Mishihari. It becomes an adventure unto itself because good relations toward the manufacturer and components have to be gathered. It is like an almost self-writing side quest.

A self-writing side quest that is driven, for the most part, by the desires of the PC rather than the DM. While the DM can still put magic items into the game, commissioning lets the magic items be (to the extent they can find components and a fabricator, and have enough coin) what the PCs want them to be.

YMMV.

Quote from: dkabq on January 24, 2022, 12:48:25 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on January 24, 2022, 12:34:30 PM
I found commissioning a good compromise in some of my campaigns, Mishihari. It becomes an adventure unto itself because good relations toward the manufacturer and components have to be gathered. It is like an almost self-writing side quest.

A self-writing side quest that is driven, for the most part, by the desires of the PC rather than the DM. While the DM can still put magic items into the game, commissioning lets the magic items be (to the extent they can find components and a fabricator, and have enough coin) what the PCs want them to be.

YMMV.

I always thought a good set of rules for what happens in between adventures would help. I'm thinking along the lines of Traveller's lifepaths (or Pendragon), where the player makes concrete choices, rolls, and there are specific results. The 4 year enlistments of Traveller wouldn't work, but a season (3 months) might be a good approach. This would allow downtime to be productive, whether someone decides to build a network of connections (an explicit favor system is assumed), seeks out adventure (minor benefits compared to a DM-run adventure), develops a business, builds a fortress, clears an area, trains with a master (borrowing from the weapon mastery system), creates a magic item, hear rumors, seek out components, or the like. This would also be the time required for prolonged healing, or developing certain skills. There would still be the serendipity of finding a new magic item in a dungeon, but you'd also have a structured way to develop a PC on your own. The goal would be to integrate masters and training, magic item creation and components, social networks, and the "end game" stuff with adventures.

Quote from: Pat on January 24, 2022, 05:29:13 PM

Quote from: dkabq on January 24, 2022, 12:48:25 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on January 24, 2022, 12:34:30 PM
I found commissioning a good compromise in some of my campaigns, Mishihari. It becomes an adventure unto itself because good relations toward the manufacturer and components have to be gathered. It is like an almost self-writing side quest.

A self-writing side quest that is driven, for the most part, by the desires of the PC rather than the DM. While the DM can still put magic items into the game, commissioning lets the magic items be (to the extent they can find components and a fabricator, and have enough coin) what the PCs want them to be.

YMMV.

I always thought a good set of rules for what happens in between adventures would help. I'm thinking along the lines of Traveller's lifepaths (or Pendragon), where the player makes concrete choices, rolls, and there are specific results. The 4 year enlistments of Traveller wouldn't work, but a season (3 months) might be a good approach. This would allow downtime to be productive, whether someone decides to build a network of connections (an explicit favor system is assumed), seeks out adventure (minor benefits compared to a DM-run adventure), develops a business, builds a fortress, clears an area, trains with a master (borrowing from the weapon mastery system), creates a magic item, hear rumors, seek out components, or the like. This would also be the time required for prolonged healing, or developing certain skills. There would still be the serendipity of finding a new magic item in a dungeon, but you'd also have a structured way to develop a PC on your own. The goal would be to integrate masters and training, magic item creation and components, social networks, and the "end game" stuff with adventures.

Several newer games, like Conan & TOR, have such things.  The rules in Conan are better than those in TOR in my opinion, but overall I find both those rule sets problematic.

Quote from: Persimmon on January 24, 2022, 05:33:22 PM

Quote from: Pat on January 24, 2022, 05:29:13 PM

Quote from: dkabq on January 24, 2022, 12:48:25 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on January 24, 2022, 12:34:30 PM
I found commissioning a good compromise in some of my campaigns, Mishihari. It becomes an adventure unto itself because good relations toward the manufacturer and components have to be gathered. It is like an almost self-writing side quest.

A self-writing side quest that is driven, for the most part, by the desires of the PC rather than the DM. While the DM can still put magic items into the game, commissioning lets the magic items be (to the extent they can find components and a fabricator, and have enough coin) what the PCs want them to be.

YMMV.

I always thought a good set of rules for what happens in between adventures would help. I'm thinking along the lines of Traveller's lifepaths (or Pendragon), where the player makes concrete choices, rolls, and there are specific results. The 4 year enlistments of Traveller wouldn't work, but a season (3 months) might be a good approach. This would allow downtime to be productive, whether someone decides to build a network of connections (an explicit favor system is assumed), seeks out adventure (minor benefits compared to a DM-run adventure), develops a business, builds a fortress, clears an area, trains with a master (borrowing from the weapon mastery system), creates a magic item, hear rumors, seek out components, or the like. This would also be the time required for prolonged healing, or developing certain skills. There would still be the serendipity of finding a new magic item in a dungeon, but you'd also have a structured way to develop a PC on your own. The goal would be to integrate masters and training, magic item creation and components, social networks, and the "end game" stuff with adventures.

Several newer games, like Conan & TOR, have such things.  The rules in Conan are better than those in TOR in my opinion, but overall I find both those rule sets problematic.

I'm not familiar with either of those. What did you find "problematic"? I'm guessing it's not that they're systematically racist, sexist, or something else-ist.

I've also heard that Beyond the Wall might have something in the same vague vicinity.

Quote from: Pat on January 24, 2022, 05:29:13 PM

Quote from: dkabq on January 24, 2022, 12:48:25 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on January 24, 2022, 12:34:30 PM
I found commissioning a good compromise in some of my campaigns, Mishihari. It becomes an adventure unto itself because good relations toward the manufacturer and components have to be gathered. It is like an almost self-writing side quest.

A self-writing side quest that is driven, for the most part, by the desires of the PC rather than the DM. While the DM can still put magic items into the game, commissioning lets the magic items be (to the extent they can find components and a fabricator, and have enough coin) what the PCs want them to be.

YMMV.

I always thought a good set of rules for what happens in between adventures would help. I'm thinking along the lines of Traveller's lifepaths (or Pendragon), where the player makes concrete choices, rolls, and there are specific results. The 4 year enlistments of Traveller wouldn't work, but a season (3 months) might be a good approach. This would allow downtime to be productive, whether someone decides to build a network of connections (an explicit favor system is assumed), seeks out adventure (minor benefits compared to a DM-run adventure), develops a business, builds a fortress, clears an area, trains with a master (borrowing from the weapon mastery system), creates a magic item, hear rumors, seek out components, or the like. This would also be the time required for prolonged healing, or developing certain skills. There would still be the serendipity of finding a new magic item in a dungeon, but you'd also have a structured way to develop a PC on your own.

I do that, but ad hoc/improvised. I also leave it up to the player the degree that they wish to engage. I have one player that is figuring out the CSIO bureaucracy. At one point, he kidnapped a bureaucrat to get information and to intimidate him. Another PC, in the course of visiting upscale establishments (looking to make connections and spy on the upper crust) ended up becoming a minor celebrity due to his dancing skills.

All of this is done outside our normal game sessions via Discord.

Also, I periodically allow the PCs to roll on Carousing tables. One PC (already a pig wrestler of some renown in the CSIO) got turned into a pig by a witch. That led to the pig-PC and the one other PC that could understand him fixing the pig wrestling matches to clean up on the betting.

That said, I do agree that a set of rules would be nice.

Quote from: Pat on January 24, 2022, 05:29:13 PMI always thought a good set of rules for what happens in between adventures would help.

One of the IMO big issues with D&D that I've been running my head into again and again over the years is the fact that there is no concrete temporal resolution outside of combat.

Most editions will talk about how a torch burns for "1 hour," or what have you, but that doesn't really mean anything in-fiction, because we don't (typically) track hours. We might track days, if we're lucky, but only in a vague and roundabout sense. The end result there usually seems to be that because there aren't mechanics tied to it, we don't really think about it - or if we do, it devolves into a lot of mother-may-I style of play, which isn't terribly satisfying.

Having functional game systems that players can interact with outside of adventures, like commissioning magic items and the like, is doable without a temporal framework for them to happen in, but I think having a much firmer temporal structure and more actual rules for those sorts of things would, y'know, encourage them to happen.

Quote from: Pat on January 24, 2022, 05:40:20 PM

Quote from: Persimmon on January 24, 2022, 05:33:22 PM

Quote from: Pat on January 24, 2022, 05:29:13 PM

Quote from: dkabq on January 24, 2022, 12:48:25 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on January 24, 2022, 12:34:30 PM
I found commissioning a good compromise in some of my campaigns, Mishihari. It becomes an adventure unto itself because good relations toward the manufacturer and components have to be gathered. It is like an almost self-writing side quest.

A self-writing side quest that is driven, for the most part, by the desires of the PC rather than the DM. While the DM can still put magic items into the game, commissioning lets the magic items be (to the extent they can find components and a fabricator, and have enough coin) what the PCs want them to be.

YMMV.

I always thought a good set of rules for what happens in between adventures would help. I'm thinking along the lines of Traveller's lifepaths (or Pendragon), where the player makes concrete choices, rolls, and there are specific results. The 4 year enlistments of Traveller wouldn't work, but a season (3 months) might be a good approach. This would allow downtime to be productive, whether someone decides to build a network of connections (an explicit favor system is assumed), seeks out adventure (minor benefits compared to a DM-run adventure), develops a business, builds a fortress, clears an area, trains with a master (borrowing from the weapon mastery system), creates a magic item, hear rumors, seek out components, or the like. This would also be the time required for prolonged healing, or developing certain skills. There would still be the serendipity of finding a new magic item in a dungeon, but you'd also have a structured way to develop a PC on your own. The goal would be to integrate masters and training, magic item creation and components, social networks, and the "end game" stuff with adventures.

Several newer games, like Conan & TOR, have such things.  The rules in Conan are better than those in TOR in my opinion, but overall I find both those rule sets problematic.

I'm not familiar with either of those. What did you find "problematic"? I'm guessing it's not that they're systematically racist, sexist, or something else-ist.

I've also heard that Beyond the Wall might have something in the same vague vicinity.

Beyond the annoyance of Modiphius' wokeness, the Conan RPG is just too mechanically convoluted.  Even character creation takes like 90 minutes and involves way too much flipping back and forth in the poorly organized core rulebook.  And they get cute with this meta-currency (doom & momentum) that just slows things down.  Even a simple combat can take 5 times as long as an equivalent combat in AD&D.  I'm just not a fan of the 2d20 system or really any system with varying success levels.  It's a moderate success or whatever....bah!  Do I hit or not?  Did I catch the edge of the cliff?  Just give me an actual result.  I have real life for annoying gray areas....

As for The One Ring, 75-80% of the mechanics involve stuff that can (and IMHO should) simply be roleplayed.  They have all these rules for councils, journeys, etc., that are designed to simulate the books.  But you're just rolling a bunch of dice to determine outcomes.  The ludicrousness of this is on full display in the Free League forums where people debate how to game the system to achieve desired results.  All along I'm thinking, "Or you could just roleplay it."  Likewise, they have mechanics for the "Fellowship phase," which is simply your downtime between adventures.  This is where you can acquire new skills, research found magic items, write songs, remove Shadow taint etc.  It's not quite as annoying as some of the other rules, but still seems over structured.  But it serves as an example of what people are talking about here. 

As I've said elsewhere, my main issue with TOR as written is that they just want to simulate the books.  I don't want that; I just want to game in Middle Earth.  So we're just going to use White Box with a few tweaks and run our campaign that way.  I've already sketched out very brief house rules that I think will capture the feel without the mechanical bloat.

Quote from: GnomeWorks on January 24, 2022, 06:14:50 PM

Quote from: Pat on January 24, 2022, 05:29:13 PMI always thought a good set of rules for what happens in between adventures would help.

One of the IMO big issues with D&D that I've been running my head into again and again over the years is the fact that there is no concrete temporal resolution outside of combat.

Most editions will talk about how a torch burns for "1 hour," or what have you, but that doesn't really mean anything in-fiction, because we don't (typically) track hours. We might track days, if we're lucky, but only in a vague and roundabout sense. The end result there usually seems to be that because there aren't mechanics tied to it, we don't really think about it - or if we do, it devolves into a lot of mother-may-I style of play, which isn't terribly satisfying.

Having functional game systems that players can interact with outside of adventures, like commissioning magic items and the like, is doable without a temporal framework for them to happen in, but I think having a much firmer temporal structure and more actual rules for those sorts of things would, y'know, encourage them to happen.

I don't know if you're familiar with 1e's DMG, but there are quite a few temporal rules in there. The book is packed with how much time things take, and it was clearly important in Gygax's games. The problem is, like everything else in the DMG, is it's almost completely disconnected. Yes, you can work out how long it takes to dig a 10' stretch of tunnel using 16 dwarven workers, or how long it takes to learn to ride a flying mount, or the length of a forced march, or how long it takes to train to gain a new level. But nothing pulls them together into a holistic system, it's almost obsessively granular and has a heavy wargaming focus, and a lot of the things I'm most interested in aren't really covered. So while there is a strong time focus, it doesn't really help all that much with developing the kind of off-time system I'd like.

Quote from: Pat on January 24, 2022, 05:29:13 PM

Quote from: dkabq on January 24, 2022, 12:48:25 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on January 24, 2022, 12:34:30 PM
I found commissioning a good compromise in some of my campaigns, Mishihari. It becomes an adventure unto itself because good relations toward the manufacturer and components have to be gathered. It is like an almost self-writing side quest.

A self-writing side quest that is driven, for the most part, by the desires of the PC rather than the DM. While the DM can still put magic items into the game, commissioning lets the magic items be (to the extent they can find components and a fabricator, and have enough coin) what the PCs want them to be.

YMMV.

I always thought a good set of rules for what happens in between adventures would help. I'm thinking along the lines of Traveller's lifepaths (or Pendragon), where the player makes concrete choices, rolls, and there are specific results. The 4 year enlistments of Traveller wouldn't work, but a season (3 months) might be a good approach. This would allow downtime to be productive, whether someone decides to build a network of connections (an explicit favor system is assumed), seeks out adventure (minor benefits compared to a DM-run adventure), develops a business, builds a fortress, clears an area, trains with a master (borrowing from the weapon mastery system), creates a magic item, hear rumors, seek out components, or the like. This would also be the time required for prolonged healing, or developing certain skills. There would still be the serendipity of finding a new magic item in a dungeon, but you'd also have a structured way to develop a PC on your own. The goal would be to integrate masters and training, magic item creation and components, social networks, and the "end game" stuff with adventures.

IIRC, Ars Magica has the best mechanics I've seen for this.