Quote from: Haffrung;599186Magic shops are a 3E thing. Here's a quote from Carl Sargent from the introduction to Night Below (a very underrated adventure campaign, btw):

"PCs should never be allowed to buy magical items (who's going to sell them? You think that wizard spent months enchanting a wand of frost just so he could sell it?). There are times, however, when a little trading between PCs and NPCs may be appropriate."

This wasn't in 1979; Sargent wrote this in 1995. And he wasn't some freelancer with a peculiar take on magic in D&D; Sargent was a TSR employee and the principal author of Greyhawk material at the time.

He might have said that, but that was after the torch was passed.

There's all sorts of magic shops in D&D 1e.  People buy and sell magic items all the time.  In fact, buying and selling magic items are referenced multiple times in the main rulebooks in petty manner that leads one to believe it's pretty much par for course.  There are provisions for this in several published adventures.  At least on Oerth.  

Now, I have read Sargent's opinions on the matter.  I'm fairly certain that was just for the "Night Below" campaign, since there's plenty going around on the surface.  

In either case, magic shops are definitely not a 3e thing.

Maybe after the Greyhawk Wars, there wasn't as much to go around?  Also, the game changed gears.

And anyway...isn't Night Below on Faerun???

Some of us still award Experience Points based on the Gold Piece value of the treasure recovered.  Some of us also still require that Player-Characters seek out training when they level up, which requires paying the trainer a fee usually measured in Gold Pieces.  Fees are also levied for services that cannot done by one's Player-Character, or by members of their party.  For all of these things, as well as some others not mentioned here, coin is convenient and others are not- and that justifies the existence of currency.

1,500 x Current Level per week of training, for AD&D.

That can add up.

Quote from: Blackhand;5992111,500 x Current Level per week of training, for AD&D.

That can add up.

That ain't anything.

Imgaine having to learn dozens of skills and more...
with layers between them...

Quote from: Blackhand;599200There's all sorts of magic shops in D&D 1e.  People buy and sell magic items all the time.  In fact, buying and selling magic items are referenced multiple times in the main rulebooks in petty manner that leads one to believe it's pretty much par for course.  There are provisions for this in several published adventures.  At least on Oerth.

On what pages are all these things described?

Quote from: StormBringer;599215On what pages are all these things described?

Unsuccessful bait.

There's numerous references in both books in the sections on experience including conversion rules for sold magic items.  Also, Hirelings and NPCs, for buying spells and enchantment services...  Also...whatever.  Do it yourself if you're gonna be snarky.

Opinion on the Magic Shop?

 It was an alright idea when Giles took it over and opened it.

Not sure if he really should've handed it off to Anya or not.

You meant in an RPG setting?


Oops.

- Ed C.

Quote from: Blackhand;599223Unsuccessful bait.

There's numerous references in both books in the sections on experience including conversion rules for sold magic items.  Also, Hirelings and NPCs, for buying spells and enchantment services...  Also...whatever.  Do it yourself if you're gonna be snarky.

Ummmm... No.  I have had to mention this about a billion times recently, but if you want to make a claim, then you are responsible for providing the evidence to support it.

There is approximately one reference for converting gold to xp in regards to the sale of magic items.  That does not imply there are magic shops in any way, shape or form.  If the sale of such items is deemed necessary or desirable, it could very well be that the characters' only recourse is to offer them for sale to a local member of royalty (who may pay well below 'market value' or even confiscate the items!), as no common citizen is permitted to buy or own such things.  The magic item is still sold and the proceeds converted to xp, but not even the hint of a magic item shop is required.

Hirelings and NPCs in particular do not suggest the presence of magic item shops.  Clerics would be associated with a particular faith and assigned to whatever church or temple is in the area.  Magic Users would typically work out of a keep or tower that serves as home, library and research facility.  Neither of these implies spell-casters spend all day casting spells or cranking out magic items to sell at mark up in a retail magic shop.

QuoteThere's all sorts of magic shops in D&D 1e.

AD&D is a set of rules, not a specific campaign setting.  Somewhere in that set of rules there has to be a page where this sort of statement could be supported, otherwise you are making false claims.  For example: "In a typical campaign, there will be several stores principally in the domain of purchasing or selling magic items in any reasonably sized town or city" or words substantially to that effect.  Anyone is free to interpret gold piece values for magic items as justification for a magic item shop or a whole franchise of same at their own table.  What you can't do is then go on to cite that as irrefutable evidence that the rules themselves demand the existence of magic item shops.

So, what page in which AD&D 1st edition book says magic item shops unreservedly exist, and they have a high degree of ubiquity?

Quote from: StormBringer;599227DERP

Damn you sure know how to twist words around to make it something you can be mad about.  Just like a woman.

I believe that the rules actually assume the players will be able to buy a lot of magic items and casting of spells that they will need.  Perhaps nothing earth-shattering, but definitely some healing potions and maybe a few +1's.  Later on, +2's.   DMG 103 - 104 gives the hired spellcaster parameter.

I think it's entirely implied by the sections of the main rules I have given you.  Unless you disagree that it stands to reason that when players sell magic items, someone else is also going to do that.  Unless your players live in a total vacuum, it's complete fallacy to say no one else is doing this.  

I believe one magic SHOP is described in the City of Greyhawk (Maldin & Elenderi's).  

Now I'm not saying the DMG should be used as Ye Olde Wizzerdz Magickal Shoppe, ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

Yet this is more of a meta, and though there might be suggestions in passing (like all the other stuff in those 1e books) there is no argument for us to have here.

For me, this time, this game, AD&D 1e Greyhawk is gonna be shitting +1 swords and magic scrolls, with a premium on Raise Dead.

Just look at this analysis on the Temple, in terms of magic items that are gained from it.  

At the top, you'll see the entries for the Moathouse.  This is an insignificant dungeon in the larger scheme of things.  Yet, there's more magic here in this one dungeon than I handed out in the entire WFRP2e game, and a lot of D&D games I've run over the years.

You think your players will just sit on that shit?  What about when it becomes obsolete?

I'd take that shit to a wizzerd.

Quote from: Blackhand;599232Damn you sure know how to twist words around to make it something you can be mad about.  Just like a woman.

And you sure know how to make utterly unsupported claims then shit yourself when pressed for evidence, so shut your fucking cakehole with the bullshit 'the rules assume' and cite some page numbers or stop fucking posting.  

QuoteI think it's entirely implied by the sections of the main rules I have given you.  

No one gives a shit what you think is implied.  You are a complete fucking moron.

One shop in the City of Greyhawk isn't even remotely the same as:

Quote from: Blackhand;599200There's all sorts of magic shops in D&D 1e.  People buy and sell magic items all the time.

Are you going to cite page numbers or put on your big boy pants and admit you totally pooched it on the AD&D magic shop claims?

How many of your posts do you plan on going back and editing, by the way?

Quote from: StormBringer;599235How many of your posts do you plan on going back and editing, by the way?

All of them.

I hate double posting.

You know I keep checking my pants, but I don't seem to have shit myself.  First you wanted an example, now what?  Every single one cited and referenced?

Fuck you.  

Also, you should calm down before your fucking head asplode.

Quote from: Blackhand;599232I believe that the rules actually assume the players will be able to buy a lot of magic items and casting of spells that they will need

Belief belongs in the church. In an argument, if you make a claim you have to support it with actual evidence. "I strongly believe it" is not evidence.

QuoteUnless you disagree that it stands to reason that when players sell magic items, someone else is also going to do that.  Unless your players live in a total vacuum, it's complete fallacy to say no one else is doing this.

Actually, you're wrong. The whole "dungeon economy" is constructed to mimic the local economies of the historic Gold Rushes, only with loot (including magic items) instead of gold. Historically, a prospector would sell the nuggets he finds, and a trader would be buying them; but the reverse did not happen. The trader did not sell other nuggets back to the prospector, but transport them back to civilisation (which, in the original paradigm of D&D's dungeon crawling, is analogous to "outside the area of your adventures"). Same deal with diamond mining these days.

"You can sell it" does NOT necessarily imply "you can also buy it".

I'd like to kinda-sorta side with Blackhand again.

If you have spells for sale, I don't think it's right not to have magic items for sale, too.

I mean, it's like the stupid old joke:

Quote from: stupid old jokeMan: "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?"

Woman: "Sure."

Man: "What about for one dollar? Would you do it?"

Woman: "A dollar? What sort of woman do you think I am???"

Man: "We've already established you're a whore. Now we're just haggling over price."

Which is to say, if the arcane arts are accessible enough that you can buy a teleport to a distant place, or a finger of death for your business rivals, it seems silly to assume that the same sort of wizard who casts these spells for gold, wouldn't spend his precious time crafting magic items for even more gold.

Which of course brings up another point: magic item prices have to be consistent with spellcasting prices, to justify turning a profit after the time and effort (to say nothing of materials) spent on the item. I suspect the 3e+ by-the-book prices wouldn't cut it, but I'd love to see someone else (since I don't run these sort of magic-heavy games) doing the math.

Quote from: The Butcher;599286I'd like to kinda-sorta side with Blackhand again.

If you have spells for sale, I don't think it's right not to have magic items for sale, too.

I mean, it's like the stupid old joke:



Which is to say, if the arcane arts are accessible enough that you can buy a teleport to a distant place, or a finger of death for your business rivals, it seems silly to assume that the same sort of wizard who casts these spells for gold, wouldn't spend his precious time crafting magic items for even more gold.

Which of course brings up another point: magic item prices have to be consistent with spellcasting prices, to justify turning a profit after the time and effort (to say nothing of materials) spent on the item. I suspect the 3e+ by-the-book prices wouldn't cut it, but I'd love to see someone else (since I don't run these sort of magic-heavy games) doing the math.

It goes back to making sure the rules match the game and setting you want to play.

So part of this conversation deals with the ruleset, and what you've done with it.

I know that back in the day, many games had some version of magic shops.  Almost all the ones I played in did have some version of it back in the T&T and D&D games I played in.  So whether it was inferred in the rules or spread through Osmosis, it was in a great many games I played in and read about.  

Now, I also believe and believed it was a mistake for most games.  There are a few threads about that speak to this, but one of them is a thread about high level and highly lethal.   I remember clearly running my first games (in a galaxy far, far away...) and already dumping the magic shop ideal then. I think I was very tolkien and Moorcock influenced, since even my early games had rare magic, and about 3 times the amount of scrolls, potions, and weaker misc items than any of the random systems produced. And 30-odd years later, this is still the way I set things up.  Creating a potion or a scroll is much easier in my settings, which now is part of the underpinnings of why they are a lot more common.

all I am doing here, to put this in context with the Butcher's comments are that I am haggling over the whore's price.

Quote from: LordVreeg;599297It goes back to making sure the rules match the game and setting you want to play.

So part of this conversation deals with the ruleset, and what you've done with it.

Spot on, as usual. And I think a huge part of becoming a better GM is to read a ruleset and map the consequences of certain rules to the game world, and decide whether you'll like it or whether a houserule is called for.

Quote from: LordVreeg;599297I know that back in the day, many games had some version of magic shops.  Almost all the ones I played in did have some version of it back in the T&T and D&D games I played in.  So whether it was inferred in the rules or spread through Osmosis, it was in a great many games I played in and read about.  

Now, I also believe and believed it was a mistake for most games.  There are a few threads about that speak to this, but one of them is a thread about high level and highly lethal.   I remember clearly running my first games (in a galaxy far, far away...) and already dumping the magic shop ideal then. I think I was very tolkien and Moorcock influenced, since even my early games had rare magic, and about 3 times the amount of scrolls, potions, and weaker misc items than any of the random systems produced. And 30-odd years later, this is still the way I set things up.  Creating a potion or a scroll is much easier in my settings, which now is part of the underpinnings of why they are a lot more common.

all I am doing here, to put this in context with the Butcher's comments are that I am haggling over the whore's price.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "mistake", but this order of prevalence of magic and magic items -- of the sort the engenders wizards-for-sale and magic item department stores -- definitely does come across to me as something that originated in tabletop RPGs and is, as far as I know, absent from the source fic (if anyone knows of pre-D&D fantasy litearture examples, I'd love to know).

Regardless of the existence or absence of a literary precedent, I usually prefer magic to be rare and memorable, with spells gleaned from aging scrolls in a tomb sealed away ages ago under the city, and magic swords sitting on some abomination's hoard in the depths of the earth, or at the hands of a humanoid cheiftain heading a mighty horde on the warpath.

In my D&D games, spellcasting classes can create magic items but it ain't cheap; even equipping half a dozen retainers with a sword +1 is going to be prohibitive, in terms of time and monetary cost. If you want a decent magic sword, you either become BFFs with a really powerful wizard, or you go the usual route of raiding ancient ruins and hoping you'll find one before the monstruous denizens find you.

But as usual, that's just my preferred approach and I'm sure a lot of people are having a blast with magic item stores.