So, in our last game my beginner players, who were on a small town, decided to go to the Blacksmith to purchase some new items. In their mind, the Blacksmith would look like an MMORPG NPC who sells and have everything that's on the book (anything, any amount of it). And they got dissapointed when I told them he basically make nails and horse shoes for the town, but he did had some weapons and a armor there available for sell right away. They didn't even wanted to role play the whole thing, they just wanted to remove the money from the sheet and get the items, and I, honestly don't like that kind of game very much, I think role play is just part of it.
I would like to know how you guys handle your stores? Does your npcs have everything? roleplaying is mandatory? or players can buy whatever they want that's on the book?
I think it’s quite reasonable that a shop not have everything. You want better selection, go to a store in a bigger town. I’ve never, ever role played shopping. Seems dreadfully boring to me. I know there’s people who like it, and that’s cool for them, but it’s not for me. I prefer to just move on with the story.
Both of these really seem like session 0 issues you should sort out with the players before the campaign starts.
IMO, most “blacksmiths” work the way you suggest, only an “armorer” or “weaponsmith” would have all of the weapons available, and most armor would need to be custom made per character and take a little while. Light armor would require a leatherworker or something instead of a blacksmith anyway. As for the RP, I typically play that by ear and leave it up to the players if they want to RP it or not. I prefer to RP that stuff, but not all players do.
My general attitude is that a Blacksmith sells everything seen in the basic armor and weapons, but might only have one or two particularly rare or unusual items. Maybe they have a single +1 Sword that they keep in the back because it's so valuable.
I do the same thing with the general store... inside any decently large town there's a general store where everything in the Adventuring Gear is available for sale. Why does some random shop in a mining town sell a 1,000gp Spyglass? Who cares, why is anyone wasting their money on a Spyglass in the first place?
How I tend to run shops is I create a location... name the character, describe the store as they enter... give the players some hint as to what stands out in the store as out of the ordinary. Maybe the Blacksmith has a particularly impressive Spear on display, or the General Store has an area set aside for fruit preserves that seem unique compared to standard rations. Greet the players in character, and if they choose to engage with the shopkeepers as full NPCs, then continue the interaction that way... if they're not interested and just treat it like visiting a shop in a videogame, oh well... let them buy their stuff and move on. Have the NPC say farewell in-character and continue the story.
I would also be restrictive of the shopping experience. I've roleplayed shopping before and kept it brief, it was a solo campaign though so it wasn't something for others to sit through. I'd only do immersed roleplay if the shopkeep had information the players might want, or was currenty being robbed by people hdden behind the counter, that sort of thing.
What I would do is give them a lead instead - "Oh, you want to buy plate armour? I'm sorry, I've never made it before, but if you should be pasing through Whalegarden on the southern coast, there's a weaponsmith there who I hear is extremely capable."
One thing I will also be doing is rewarding people who don't go down the "My character is the tallest/biggest person in every room" route by making the oversized people wait for armour to be made for them, whilst average sized people can buy it off the shelf. This would of course be flipped if they were in a goliath town in the mountains, where "little folk" would need to have stuff custom made over a day or two whilst the oversize characters can buy off the shelf goods!
I break up “the blacksmith” into the weaponsmith and armorer and they always buy and sell everything in the PHB for weapons and armor, and have a speciality magic weapon or armor item that rotates every few sessions.
There’s also the jeweler: Buy/sell art objects, gems, magic ring or rod on rotation
The Mage’s Emporium: Buy/sell spell components, 3 scrolls and a staff or wand on rotation.
The Alchemist: Buy/sell potions. Healing + a few specialty ones
The Oddities shoppe: Buy/sell anything on the trinket list, or any other odd little item you ask for and has a wondrous magic item on rotation.
The general store: Buy/sell Adventure gear, trade goods, rations, tools, basically anything else.
Every town has a general store, with 1-3 of the others randomly depending on size. Is it MMO-y? Sure. But I don’t care, it’s more fun. You see, clearly your players don’t enjoy walking into a blacksmith’s shop only to find he is a useless scrub. That also might be a large reason behind your Roleplay problem- if he sold useful things to them, and there was an incentive to check up on him (like a rotating magic item) that sets the stage for some good Roleplay.
I agree that it's reasonable for the blacksmith to chiefly concern themselves with the needs of the town rather than the needs of adventurers.
I do sympathize with the player on not necessarily wanting to roleplay every shop encounter. That level of minutae, while it can lead to more immersive play, can also be fairly boring if its something that needs to be repeated with every shopkeeper while putting a firm stop to the momentum of the story while you haggle and whatnot. It's one thing if the blacksmith is offering a side quest or something, like "I don't have the good steel I'd need to make you a blade, I work mostly with iron to shoe the horses, but bring me some left at the abandoned fort across the valley, and I'll forge you a blade worthy of legend!" that way gameplay is advanced, but if this is just a normal country blacksmith that's not able to make them weapons or armor, or only has simple weapons and armor, I'm fine handwaving those interactions rather than fully roleplaying them. Those kinds of mundane shopkeeper interactions are more valuable early on when the players are first immersing themselves in the world and maybe gear is harder to come by, but I really think you get diminishing returns on the value of that level of mundane interaction as time goes on. It just starts to add less than it contributes.
It’s completely fine for a village blacksmith not to have any metal armour and major weaponry as there would be no call for it. Maybe daggers, arrow heads stuff like that. As for roleplaying a shopping trip for regular gear? Hell no. Can’t think of anything worse. Utterly boring. Rare gear, or something that requires a special quest for then yes definitely. But regular run of the mill go to Tesco in your lunch break kind of stuff?
I sometimes miss the days of masterwork items - they helped with this a lot. I run 4 levels of craftsmen ( apprentice, journeyman, master, craft master) . Your typical village craftsman is at the apprentince to journeyman level. Larger villages/ towns might have 1 master and several journeymen, with real towns/cities having several masters as well journeymen with their own shops. Scattered through all of it are the craftmasters, these are the true masters that regularly create masterworks or work with exceptional materials like Mithril, Admantine and dragon hide. Larger cities might have auction houses that handle most of the magic item sales. Otherwise your either going to a general store or to individual tradesmen to get what you want/need. I don’t do heavy roleplay but I try to be immersive to some extent with what you do and how you treat NPCs slowly affecting your reputation.
Haven't played that many current MMOs, but even in most video game RPGs you don't see a full list of gear at a given shop. The thing with everything is usually an auction house or something like that.
Yes I remember, from 3.5 right? A +1 item without being magic, like a "very well done" item.
You guys mentioned that your weaponsmiths/armorsmiths might have some ++ magic items for sale, how do you guys handle it? I mean, it's the weaponsmith itself who make them, or they just happen to "have it" there and the item came actually from somewhere else, since they are magic?
Yes I remember, from 3.5 right? A +1 item without being magic, like a "very well done" item.
You guys mentioned that your weaponsmiths/armorsmiths might have some ++ magic items for sale, how do you guys handle it? I mean, it's the weaponsmith itself who make them, or they just happen to "have it" there and the item came actually from somewhere else, since they are magic?
For +1 Weapons, I will occasionally just say that some Smiths can craft a weapon or armor that contains some magical components (maybe there's a jewel inset into the pommel, or a magically enhanced metal was smelted into the blade), but any magic item that has more interesting effects would be something that can only be created by a dedicated enchanter.
Generally artisans and shopkeepers don’t have magic items. Either an auction house or a specialty store would have them. I create formulas for things many times. While a +1 weapon is fairly easy ( 3 castings of enchant weapon a day for the required number of days) same for basic +2 and +3 items just with an appropriate level mage to get the +2 or +3 benefit.) complex items generally take time to figure out and multiple spells several times a day. There are one or two great trading houses that sell magic but it’s mostly excess “found” items from adventurers or delivery of preorders from contract mages.
In regards to shops working in the way that they only have certain goods, that's fine. It's also fair to say that not every vendor is going to want to buy your goods back, especially if they've been used. Who knows where it originally came from. How many vendors want to take items from complete strangers, when there's used goods salespersons and fences who may take it without batting an eye.
As for roleplay, it depends on the player. If they want to make a trade without roleplay, that's fine. If others want to talk, that's also fine, it gives those who don't want to time to review their character sheets and consider their next plan of action. Not every encounter has to be acted out unless you're explicitly running that kind of game, and that should be clear from Session Zero.
Some players don't know better. I come from video games, and it's not easy to get into the habit of doing things that are more abstract and off the character sheet. Talk to your players, ask them of their expectations and remind them of yours, and come to a suitable middle-ground or keep reminding them how you run your game.
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Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
Generally artisans and shopkeepers don’t have magic items. Either an auction house or a specialty store would have them. I create formulas for things many times. While a +1 weapon is fairly easy ( 3 castings of enchant weapon a day for the required number of days) same for basic +2 and +3 items just with an appropriate level mage to get the +2 or +3 benefit.) complex items generally take time to figure out and multiple spells several times a day. There are one or two great trading houses that sell magic but it’s mostly excess “found” items from adventurers or delivery of preorders from contract mages.
In campaigns I DM, even a +1 weapon requires a formula and magic ingredients. Formulae can often be located in recovered Spellbooks like this example: Markdules stolen spellbook.
As you can see by the sample formula in that example, it isn’t easy to make a +1 weapon at all and can only be done by a magic wielder with disposable resources.
For shops I just say they have what makes sense and can generally make any non magical item that's needed if you give them the time/ source the metal. People who can make magic items reliably are hard to find and either require finding them with the Xanathar's rules, Tasha's patron rules or a quest. This is because having at will magic items even if expensive can be very powerful particularly at high levels and these npcs also make a good source of side quests.
As for making magic items...
Generally when making a magic item I have my players describe what they want and how they want to make it. So what materials they are going to use, if they're going to use any special crafting methods like doing it only under the moon light ect... Essentially player made formulas.
Then I just resolve that by saying how long it takes, the cost and if they need to fight any monsters using Xanathars rules. They may get certain discounts/ bonuses from quest reward as well or might also require research.
It's generally my attitude as DM that it's my job to set challenges not how to complete them. So if they want a specific item they need to present a plausible path to get it. In terms of what I accept I prefer them to use methods for magical items that are magical and difficult to reproduce. This is because I don't generally like players mass producing magic items ( it can be used to game the economy), its also more interesting to describe and having the players come up with the idea saves me time. I personally far prefer it to simply dropping an item they want in a store or having it conveniently on an enemy.
For example a player may want a flame tongue and so to do that they ask if they can make a sword from the loot of a dragon hoard.Then I might suggest they use a draconic crafting method like forging it in the dragon's breath and using spells in the dragon language or they come up with their own style that makes sense for them. I'd probably also give that the draconic crafting effect from the DMG which is that it warms up in the presence of dragons.
Generally when making a magic item I have my players describe what they want and how they want to make it. So what materials they are going to use, if they're going to use any special crafting methods like doing it only under the moon light ect... Essentially player made formulas.
Then I just resolve that by saying how long it takes, the cost and if they need to fight any monsters using Xanathars rules. They may get certain discounts/ bonuses from quest reward as well or might also require research.
1) It is completely reasonable for shops not to carry everything. A village blacksmith that makes nails and horsehoes and fixes plows is unlikely to have a collection of longswords, rapiers or other weapons or amor for sale since, most of the time, he doesn't have any customers for stuff like that.
2) However, don't expect folks to role play shopping expeditions most of the time ... it is extremely boring for everyone who isn't shopping and even the person who is shopping is likely looking for something specific or browsing for something special. Unless you have a plot element or something cool attached to the shop (like they might become a recurring NPC, or a source of information, or a patron for some task) then it is usually worthwhile de-emphasizing shopping expedition role play and focusing on plot related role playing.
So, in our last game my beginner players, who were on a small town, decided to go to the Blacksmith to purchase some new items. In their mind, the Blacksmith would look like an MMORPG NPC who sells and have everything that's on the book (anything, any amount of it). And they got dissapointed when I told them he basically make nails and horse shoes for the town, but he did had some weapons and a armor there available for sell right away. They didn't even wanted to role play the whole thing, they just wanted to remove the money from the sheet and get the items, and I, honestly don't like that kind of game very much, I think role play is just part of it.
I would like to know how you guys handle your stores? Does your npcs have everything? roleplaying is mandatory? or players can buy whatever they want that's on the book?
I think it’s quite reasonable that a shop not have everything. You want better selection, go to a store in a bigger town.
I’ve never, ever role played shopping. Seems dreadfully boring to me. I know there’s people who like it, and that’s cool for them, but it’s not for me. I prefer to just move on with the story.
Both of these really seem like session 0 issues you should sort out with the players before the campaign starts.
IMO, most “blacksmiths” work the way you suggest, only an “armorer” or “weaponsmith” would have all of the weapons available, and most armor would need to be custom made per character and take a little while. Light armor would require a leatherworker or something instead of a blacksmith anyway. As for the RP, I typically play that by ear and leave it up to the players if they want to RP it or not. I prefer to RP that stuff, but not all players do.
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My general attitude is that a Blacksmith sells everything seen in the basic armor and weapons, but might only have one or two particularly rare or unusual items. Maybe they have a single +1 Sword that they keep in the back because it's so valuable.
I do the same thing with the general store... inside any decently large town there's a general store where everything in the Adventuring Gear is available for sale. Why does some random shop in a mining town sell a 1,000gp Spyglass? Who cares, why is anyone wasting their money on a Spyglass in the first place?
How I tend to run shops is I create a location... name the character, describe the store as they enter... give the players some hint as to what stands out in the store as out of the ordinary. Maybe the Blacksmith has a particularly impressive Spear on display, or the General Store has an area set aside for fruit preserves that seem unique compared to standard rations. Greet the players in character, and if they choose to engage with the shopkeepers as full NPCs, then continue the interaction that way... if they're not interested and just treat it like visiting a shop in a videogame, oh well... let them buy their stuff and move on. Have the NPC say farewell in-character and continue the story.
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I would also be restrictive of the shopping experience. I've roleplayed shopping before and kept it brief, it was a solo campaign though so it wasn't something for others to sit through. I'd only do immersed roleplay if the shopkeep had information the players might want, or was currenty being robbed by people hdden behind the counter, that sort of thing.
What I would do is give them a lead instead - "Oh, you want to buy plate armour? I'm sorry, I've never made it before, but if you should be pasing through Whalegarden on the southern coast, there's a weaponsmith there who I hear is extremely capable."
One thing I will also be doing is rewarding people who don't go down the "My character is the tallest/biggest person in every room" route by making the oversized people wait for armour to be made for them, whilst average sized people can buy it off the shelf. This would of course be flipped if they were in a goliath town in the mountains, where "little folk" would need to have stuff custom made over a day or two whilst the oversize characters can buy off the shelf goods!
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I personally get offended when people try to treat D&D like it’s an MMO.
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I break up “the blacksmith” into the weaponsmith and armorer and they always buy and sell everything in the PHB for weapons and armor, and have a speciality magic weapon or armor item that rotates every few sessions.
There’s also the jeweler: Buy/sell art objects, gems, magic ring or rod on rotation
The Mage’s Emporium: Buy/sell spell components, 3 scrolls and a staff or wand on rotation.
The Alchemist: Buy/sell potions. Healing + a few specialty ones
The Oddities shoppe: Buy/sell anything on the trinket list, or any other odd little item you ask for and has a wondrous magic item on rotation.
The general store: Buy/sell Adventure gear, trade goods, rations, tools, basically anything else.
Every town has a general store, with 1-3 of the others randomly depending on size. Is it MMO-y? Sure. But I don’t care, it’s more fun. You see, clearly your players don’t enjoy walking into a blacksmith’s shop only to find he is a useless scrub. That also might be a large reason behind your Roleplay problem- if he sold useful things to them, and there was an incentive to check up on him (like a rotating magic item) that sets the stage for some good Roleplay.
I agree that it's reasonable for the blacksmith to chiefly concern themselves with the needs of the town rather than the needs of adventurers.
I do sympathize with the player on not necessarily wanting to roleplay every shop encounter. That level of minutae, while it can lead to more immersive play, can also be fairly boring if its something that needs to be repeated with every shopkeeper while putting a firm stop to the momentum of the story while you haggle and whatnot. It's one thing if the blacksmith is offering a side quest or something, like "I don't have the good steel I'd need to make you a blade, I work mostly with iron to shoe the horses, but bring me some left at the abandoned fort across the valley, and I'll forge you a blade worthy of legend!" that way gameplay is advanced, but if this is just a normal country blacksmith that's not able to make them weapons or armor, or only has simple weapons and armor, I'm fine handwaving those interactions rather than fully roleplaying them. Those kinds of mundane shopkeeper interactions are more valuable early on when the players are first immersing themselves in the world and maybe gear is harder to come by, but I really think you get diminishing returns on the value of that level of mundane interaction as time goes on. It just starts to add less than it contributes.
It’s completely fine for a village blacksmith not to have any metal armour and major weaponry as there would be no call for it. Maybe daggers, arrow heads stuff like that.
As for roleplaying a shopping trip for regular gear? Hell no. Can’t think of anything worse. Utterly boring. Rare gear, or something that requires a special quest for then yes definitely. But regular run of the mill go to Tesco in your lunch break kind of stuff?
I sometimes miss the days of masterwork items - they helped with this a lot. I run 4 levels of craftsmen ( apprentice, journeyman, master, craft master) . Your typical village craftsman is at the apprentince to journeyman level. Larger villages/ towns might have 1 master and several journeymen, with real towns/cities having several masters as well journeymen with their own shops. Scattered through all of it are the craftmasters, these are the true masters that regularly create masterworks or work with exceptional materials like Mithril, Admantine and dragon hide. Larger cities might have auction houses that handle most of the magic item sales. Otherwise your either going to a general store or to individual tradesmen to get what you want/need. I don’t do heavy roleplay but I try to be immersive to some extent with what you do and how you treat NPCs slowly affecting your reputation.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Haven't played that many current MMOs, but even in most video game RPGs you don't see a full list of gear at a given shop. The thing with everything is usually an auction house or something like that.
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Yes I remember, from 3.5 right? A +1 item without being magic, like a "very well done" item.
You guys mentioned that your weaponsmiths/armorsmiths might have some ++ magic items for sale, how do you guys handle it? I mean, it's the weaponsmith itself who make them, or they just happen to "have it" there and the item came actually from somewhere else, since they are magic?
For +1 Weapons, I will occasionally just say that some Smiths can craft a weapon or armor that contains some magical components (maybe there's a jewel inset into the pommel, or a magically enhanced metal was smelted into the blade), but any magic item that has more interesting effects would be something that can only be created by a dedicated enchanter.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Generally artisans and shopkeepers don’t have magic items. Either an auction house or a specialty store would have them. I create formulas for things many times. While a +1 weapon is fairly easy ( 3 castings of enchant weapon a day for the required number of days) same for basic +2 and +3 items just with an appropriate level mage to get the +2 or +3 benefit.) complex items generally take time to figure out and multiple spells several times a day. There are one or two great trading houses that sell magic but it’s mostly excess “found” items from adventurers or delivery of preorders from contract mages.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
In regards to shops working in the way that they only have certain goods, that's fine. It's also fair to say that not every vendor is going to want to buy your goods back, especially if they've been used. Who knows where it originally came from. How many vendors want to take items from complete strangers, when there's used goods salespersons and fences who may take it without batting an eye.
As for roleplay, it depends on the player. If they want to make a trade without roleplay, that's fine. If others want to talk, that's also fine, it gives those who don't want to time to review their character sheets and consider their next plan of action. Not every encounter has to be acted out unless you're explicitly running that kind of game, and that should be clear from Session Zero.
Some players don't know better. I come from video games, and it's not easy to get into the habit of doing things that are more abstract and off the character sheet. Talk to your players, ask them of their expectations and remind them of yours, and come to a suitable middle-ground or keep reminding them how you run your game.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
- The Assemblage of Houses, World of Warcraft
In campaigns I DM, even a +1 weapon requires a formula and magic ingredients. Formulae can often be located in recovered Spellbooks like this example: Markdules stolen spellbook.
As you can see by the sample formula in that example, it isn’t easy to make a +1 weapon at all and can only be done by a magic wielder with disposable resources.
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Hardcovers, DDB & You
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For shops I just say they have what makes sense and can generally make any non magical item that's needed if you give them the time/ source the metal. People who can make magic items reliably are hard to find and either require finding them with the Xanathar's rules, Tasha's patron rules or a quest. This is because having at will magic items even if expensive can be very powerful particularly at high levels and these npcs also make a good source of side quests.
As for making magic items...
Generally when making a magic item I have my players describe what they want and how they want to make it. So what materials they are going to use, if they're going to use any special crafting methods like doing it only under the moon light ect... Essentially player made formulas.
Then I just resolve that by saying how long it takes, the cost and if they need to fight any monsters using Xanathars rules. They may get certain discounts/ bonuses from quest reward as well or might also require research.
It's generally my attitude as DM that it's my job to set challenges not how to complete them. So if they want a specific item they need to present a plausible path to get it. In terms of what I accept I prefer them to use methods for magical items that are magical and difficult to reproduce. This is because I don't generally like players mass producing magic items ( it can be used to game the economy), its also more interesting to describe and having the players come up with the idea saves me time. I personally far prefer it to simply dropping an item they want in a store or having it conveniently on an enemy.
For example a player may want a flame tongue and so to do that they ask if they can make a sword from the loot of a dragon hoard.Then I might suggest they use a draconic crafting method like forging it in the dragon's breath and using spells in the dragon language or they come up with their own style that makes sense for them. I'd probably also give that the draconic crafting effect from the DMG which is that it warms up in the presence of dragons.
I like that idea.
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1) It is completely reasonable for shops not to carry everything. A village blacksmith that makes nails and horsehoes and fixes plows is unlikely to have a collection of longswords, rapiers or other weapons or amor for sale since, most of the time, he doesn't have any customers for stuff like that.
2) However, don't expect folks to role play shopping expeditions most of the time ... it is extremely boring for everyone who isn't shopping and even the person who is shopping is likely looking for something specific or browsing for something special. Unless you have a plot element or something cool attached to the shop (like they might become a recurring NPC, or a source of information, or a patron for some task) then it is usually worthwhile de-emphasizing shopping expedition role play and focusing on plot related role playing.
This ^^^^^.