So… I was today years old when I found out PCs can purchase magic items.

This whole time I thought they’d have to “find them” or be given or rewarded them during game play.

Hmm...

Quote from eightyocho >>

I’ve been studying the rules of D&D due to my total obsession w/ the game for the past 7 months  

There's literally a section in DMG for Magic Items called "Buying and Selling". In all this time of studying rules you never looked at this?

That's... 

Er anyway, it depends on you and your campaign. High magic setting with plenty of magic item makers, then yes buying magic items is easy. Consider Eberron setting where whole societies basically revolve around the magic items and services offered by the Dragonmark Houses. In a lower magic setting, magic items are rarer and more difficult to come back - not purchasable, they are strange items found from the ruins of long lost civilisations - the methods of their creation lost to time. 

In other ways, the official rules of the DMG are: whatever you want it to be for your game.

I've had similar questions back in the day which can be found here. There are also a couple of good threads on the subject you may want to try google search of "dnd beyond buying magical items" to get some of the more popular ones for a baseline.

Short answer: No

Long answer: Nope

Thanks. I found it in XGTE this morning & was pretty blown away. 🤯 

It is pretty optional, so as a player you can't count on it (unlike with most RAW stuff) and as a DM you can do whatever (like with anything).

I hear you.

The mechanics is so cool. I’m about to group text my (soon-to-be) players shortly.