Merchants and Shops

[zeifly]

I'm running a 3 PC campaign and they're about to stop in their first major city of the storyline. I've never really been good with creating shops or merchants. Does anyone have advice for me? How do you guys handle stores and such in your campaigns?

[blacklight101]

Gloss over it and deduct cash from the character sheet, minimum of role playing. The short and sweet method always worked for the groups I've been in.

P1: Hey, <DM> can I get this?
DM: Sure, its x gp.
P1: Cool. *scribblescribble*

[Seharvepernfan]

You don't need to do anything like that unless the item is too expensive for the town/city, as described in the DMG. Then you should (could, anyway) have it be a sort of adventure to procure that item.

[Bullet06320]

for mundane, common, easily available items handwaving the shopping trip is fine, and timesaving
for expensive, rare, unique, illegal, and such items, some role playing or gather info, knowledge local checks is called for at my table

[Milodiah]

For magic item shops and stuff like that, I use generators if I'm not up for writing out stocks by hand and stuff. But an average store? Yeah, gloss over it. I mean, it's one thing to put work into describing the tavern at which they're staying the entire night...but the store they're in for five minutes to pick up a new waterskin and some climbing gear? Just think about the size of the town/city in question, and what's logically available there. If there's virtually no chance that it wouldn't be stocked somewhere in town, then they can just have it for a good price.


The only time I put work into it is if I want to offer them something special, if they're looking for something unusual (like a Tiny-sized rapier, came up last game) or if there's a bunch of mechanical choice involved in the items they're looking over, like weapons and armor types, in which case I'll go for the car-dealership approach and throw a salesman at them who's as much there to help them make decisions as he is to roleplay the shopping trip.

[kaffalidjmah]

Usually i use three different set up:

Number 1: low magic city. Item up to level 10 (magic item compendium) and supplies and service.

Number 2: medium magic city. Item up to level 20, woth more stock of low level item

Number 3: high magic city. Item to level 30, woth unlimited stock of item level up to 13 and big stock of level up to 21.

There are some stuff like "this isn't a city, there are 3 house, what do you want to find?" and "guys, it's sigil, you can find anything" but apart from that, worked fine until now

[Deophaun]

No such thing as a physical magic item store. There are brokers, rumors of magic lost in ruins, cash-strapped adventurers in need of jobs, and nobles with gambling problems that need to unload their family heirloom. The actual transaction is hand waved away, and why they just coincidentally happened to have exactly the Ioun stone the player wanted is attributed to the narrative. But never a store. Otherwise the party thieves would have a field day.

The only thing that actually takes any work on the players' part are custom items.

[Coidzor]

I'm running a 3 PC campaign and they're about to stop in their first major city of the storyline. I've never really been good with creating shops or merchants. Does anyone have advice for me? How do you guys handle stores and such in your campaigns?

One thing is to have them create their shopping lists between sessions and then go through some highlights of how they acquire certain of them during play.

It breaks up the flow a bit, but taking a 5, 10, or 15 minute break to double-check what people want to try to acquire immediately and go from there can help, so that anything else can be put off to time outside of the session. Or having them plan out what they want to get when they go to town in advance if they want to RP anything involving it.

As far as characterizing vendors... You really only need a few types to draw from rather than fully fleshed out characters. The gruff and no-nonsense expert, the strong independent woman who don't need no man, the slightly unhinged tinkerer, the slimy salesman, whatever.

If you want to do randomized magic shops there's some magic shop generators floating around online, though I prefer to gloss over that sort of thing based upon settlement guidelines and doing the occasional line-item veto if an item that I'd veto would even exist in-setting.

If they do find themselves commissioning a crafter, then it helps to have that crafter become a notable NPC friend or ally, but the crafting is mostly just... how they know one another and doesn't have to define the characterization itself, though if they want to be an Ace Hardware type or always on the lookout for an opportunity to further sell their services, those'll work too.

[JDL]

Quoted from the 3.5 Magic Item Compendium, p. 231.

A player points to an item published in this book or the Dungeon Master’s Guide and asks, “Can I buy this?” The answer should usually be, “Yes.”

Magic items are an important part of every character’s arsenal of abilities. Most monsters and encounters assume that characters have a certain amount of gear to make the challenge appropriate. Furthermore, at many levels magic items represent a character’s only option for customization; picking up a new magic ring or bag of potions is significantly more fun than allotting skill points.

That’s not to say that you can’t apply occasional constraints to how and when magic items can be purchased, only that the constraints should be reasonable and shouldn’t prevent players from equipping their characters fairly. For instance, a character seeking a magic item should be in a community whose gold piece limit is equal to or greater than the cost of the desired item (see Table 6–10: Community GP Limits). You might also choose to limit particular items for campaign story reasons—maybe the knowledge of how to create certain items is a closely guarded secret of a particular group, or even forgotten to all.

In general, though, you should allow characters with sufficient funds to equip themselves as they desire. Even the most thoughtfully constructed series of treasure hoards almost certainly fails to provide all your players the items they want to maximize their enjoyment as they advance in level.

A few DMs will knee-jerk and say no to most questions about buying magical items. I've played in games where this happens and it's not much fun for the player. There's certainly reasons you are allowed to say no, especially where the item in question isn't available in your campaign setting. However the majority of the time, if a player asks to buy something and is shopping in a place that could reasonably be expected to stock it, you should say yes.

[jedipotter]

For a little day trip, go visit some Ye Old Timey Shops. Avoid Big-Box places. Pay close attention to the shop, the owner, the description....everything. Take notes.

Shop example number one: Grandpa's Cheese Barn. It's in big wooden barn!. The ground floor is a ''gift shop'', with the typical over priced ''country'' gifts. The second floor is the awesome cheese bard part. A long counter cuts the room in half. Grandpa, and 3-4 young, pretty girls work behind the counter. Behind the counter are all types of ''cheese machines''. There are all sorts of blocks of all sorts of cheese on the counter, behind the counter or in little glass windows. None of the cheese is refrigerated. Mention that and Grandpa (or Marcy) will give you a long tongue lashing about how ''real cheese does not need to be refrigerated''. Grandpa, and all the girls, are cheese experts and can go on forever about cheese. They give out lots of free samples. There is a vague sign about cheese costs, but really Grandpa will just say ''$5'' or ''$10'' or whatever.. You get a hand written receipt and a little ''how to care for your cheese'' booklet Grandpa only takes cash.

Shop example number two: Fin, Fur and Feather. The ''shop'', is a gutted house, garage, two sheds and an barn all linked together by enclosed hallways to make one crazy monstrosity of a building. Every square inch of the walls and ceiling...and most of the floor is stuffed full of hunting and fishing and outdoor supplies. Everywhere. It's hard to walk much of anywhere with out say, the rain coats hanging from the ceiling hitting your head. Everything has hand written price tags. Most stuff is quite cheap, though they only have maybe three of most things. Ed runs/owns the place and is mostly found in the 'island' in the middle of the 'house' part of the store where some guns and ammo are kept. Most of the guns and ammo is down stairs in the 'basement', past a locked iron gate, and is more ''by appointment'' then ''random browsing''. Patty, Ed's wife, runs the main checkout in what was once the garage. She has a push button cash register from the a long time ago, that has the numbers engraved on little white slips and has a huge arm that is pulled to make a sale with a big 'Cha-Ching'. Patty has a little card and a pencil and pad of paper to add the sales tax. They do take credit cards, but the line is very slow, so expect to wait a couple minutes...and quite comically, they only have the one phone line, so if Ed is on the phone they can't use the credit card machine. Though they do have the ancient old carbon paper back up too...

Ok....that is just two shops that are not ''Wal-Mart''. Then you just take the shop and make it fit your world.

[Deophaun]

Shop example number one: Grandpa's Cheese Barn. It's in big wooden barn!. The ground floor is a ''gift shop'', with the typical over priced ''country'' gifts. The second floor is the awesome cheese bard part. A long counter cuts the room in half. Grandpa, and 3-4 young, pretty girls work behind the counter. Behind the counter are all types of ''cheese machines''. There are all sorts of blocks of all sorts of cheese on the counter, behind the counter or in little glass windows. None of the cheese is refrigerated. Mention that and Grandpa (or Marcy) will give you a long tongue lashing about how ''real cheese does not need to be refrigerated''. Grandpa, and all the girls, are cheese experts and can go on forever about cheese. They give out lots of free samples. There is a vague sign about cheese costs, but really Grandpa will just say ''$5'' or ''$10'' or whatever.. You get a hand written receipt and a little ''how to care for your cheese'' booklet Grandpa only takes cash.

Bonus points if it is attached to a cheese foundry.

[goto124]

like a Tiny-sized rapier

Just to clarify, is that a small tiny rapier, or a giant rapier meant for a giant named Tiny?

[Knaight]

Actual small stores can be used as inspiration. Beyond that though, any merchant is more than just a merchant. It might be their only profession (though if you're aiming for a more historical campaign, people in the merchant class also having other professions wasn't exactly rare), but there's more to their life. Establish a little bit in that, and then see about it influencing the appearance of the shop somehow.

A lot of shops would also be run largely by people directly involved in the crafts, which frequently involved masters of a craft, various apprentices, other professionals working under them, hired contractors, and a bunch of other things. You can have an entire cast to work with, and that opens up options.