If you don't like Magic Marts and don't use them, please don't fill up this thread saying that Magic Marts are horrible etc.
For those of you that use "Magic Marts" what form do they take?
A Walmagic store. (A huge store with anything you want.)
A consortium of merchants and casters that get magic items all over the world.
Small shops spread all over the city with the PC having to search for the item.
Independent ownership, the PCs have to track down someone that owns the item and buy it.
Handwavium, they are just available.
I personally use the small shops, if you want a magic sword the PC checks out all the swordsmiths and weapon shops (although in practical purposes it is handwaved. The PCs spend several days/weeks shopping that doesn't take up time from the actual adventure.)
I have a series of shops with a strong merchant's guild.
The randomly generated items are seeded throughout different shops (at random or hand-picked), and if PCs want something else, they would be able to find it sometimes, and order it if they cannot find it.
I've thought a good way to model it is that magic items are art objects worth the amount it takes to create them (i.e. trade goods). Most of them will be owned and used by the people in the community, but when people start flashing around the cash (i.e. Adventurers are willing to pay double the cost to make the item), people sell them off, then use the money to commission a new item and pocket the difference.
Ultimate Campaign makes this more feasible from the crafter's perspective, as they can work to generate Magic Goods and thus profit even while selling magic items at 'craft' cost.
So magic crafters spend most of their time making Magic Goods. They then make and sell items at creation costs to normal townsfolk willing to wait. Impatient adventurers buy those goods off the townsfolk for 'market rate', the difference is compensation for the inconvenience of going without you doodad for however long it takes to get a new one. It seems a terrible shame to have magic items sitting on a shop shelf; surely the merchant owing a +2 Ring of Protection will wear it until he parts with it, after all.
When adventurers sell items, they're selling to people who have a use for it. You don't sell a Crystal Ball to a shop, you sell it to the town guard who use it to keep track of patrols. At the same amount it costs to create one, because the town guard doesn't NEED a Crystal Ball, so they're not going to pay more than 'normal' value.
So 'Magic Mart' effectively exists in a community, without actually being a store. If you're going to hire someone to make something, they'll charge creation cost, but take the time to generate Magic Goods such that they make 50% profits.
Hand waved away (my implicit assumption would be a combination of small shops, private collectors and wealthy institutions).
I think I already mentioned my world spanning consortium of casters (mostly sorcerers and wizards) who more or less control the market for significant magic items. Most stores that sell magic items are contacted by the consortium and invited to participate as brokers if they want to, but the scope of the consortium is not revealed to the shop owner (or collector or academic or whatever). High level magic items are monitored and tracked by the consortium. As are powerful magic users.
For lower level PCs the world seems pretty similar to most worlds. Small villages might have a shop that sells consumables and a few minor magic items. In many cases the magic stuff they have is not really stuff adventurers are interested in. In my world "adventurer" is not a career or profession. Adventuring is rare, much too rare to build an economy around. So most magic shops cater to the village, town or city they are in, meaning they sell a lot of charisma enhancing items, and not so many weapons or armor.
By the time the PCs are looking for powerful magic items, they have almost certainly come to the attention of the consortium and they will be contacted by agents (secretly of course) and that agent will decide how much to help, or hinder, the PCs based on the consortium's instructions. The consortium has its own internal factions, and on occasion a powerful member of the consortium will take an interest in the PCs and become a sort of secret benefactor or patron. On occasion the PCs will become pawns in internal consortium schemes and counter-schemes.
My wife and I once used a large store with visible armed guards and protective magic. We had a pair of players whose characters would have tried shoplifting magic items if it had been possible.
For most campaigns, we handwave the whole process. "You have time to go shopping. What do you want to buy? You should be able to find anything up to a +2 longsword." Details about shops are included only if the players will be staying in town for a few sessions. In my experience, the players usually do their shopping before leaving town, rather than when arriving in town.
But sometimes the adventure hook is that they stop in a town to resupply and discover a problem to solve. In that case, a wizard or alchemist or blacksmith running his or her own small magic shop makes a good contact for information about the local troubles. And a big Walmagic store would imply too much ability for the town to deal with its own problems.
If you don't like Magic Marts and don't use them, please don't fill up this thread saying that Magic Marts are horrible etc.
For those of you that use "Magic Marts" what form do they take?
A Walmagic store. (A huge store with anything you want.)
A consortium of merchants and casters that get magic items all over the world.
Small shops spread all over the city with the PC having to search for the item.
Independent ownership, the PCs have to track down someone that owns the item and buy it.
Handwavium, they are just available.
I personally use the small shops, if you want a magic sword the PC checks out all the swordsmiths and weapon shops (although in practical purposes it is handwaved. The PCs spend several days/weeks shopping that doesn't take up time from the actual adventure.)
It is handwavium, but if a player wanted details I would say it is a combination of merchants and retired adventures that no longer need certain gear.
Sometimes the PCs are looking for something that is unlikely to be found in a local shop. The last time was when a PC was looking for a specific enchantment on a falchion. The local armorer referred them to a nearby arms collector who had a wide collection of weapons, and who happened to be a fan of the falchion. That became a hook for a plot element and ended up with the PCs having developed a connection (although they did not know it) with the world-spanning consortium.
The falchion was not immediately available, they were told they would need to perform a service in lieu of outright purchasing the falchion. It was a short side quest which advanced the plot in a significant way, and by the time they got back, the falchion was available and off they went.
That sort of thing happens on occasion in my campaigns. Which is why I bristle at the "magic mart" pejorative. You can satisfy player requests in a reasonably plausible manner with a little effort without resorting to overt GM fiat if you want to.
Sometimes, if the players want an item that is overpriced for the area I will allow them to order it, but it generally takes 10 to 14 days in game time.
Basically the shop owner contacts someone he knows to pull in a favor. This may or may not involve a markup in price, but no more than 10%.
Wraith, that's more or less what "membership" in the consortium's magic item distribution system provides for shop owners, collectors or whatever. They receive a magical device that allows them to query about the availability of an item and then receive instructions on how to "order" it. For low level shops that usually means some mundane means of delivery, but for major shops which deal in very high level magic items, it could mean teleporting the requested item directly to the shop.
This is one way that the consortium keeps tabs on powerful individuals. With very little effort they can retrieve detailed information about just about any character's inventory of magical items. Which is a very critical bit of information to have in case they need to intervene in some way with those individuals.
I'll throw in another vote for shopping being handwaved, though I see it as an assortment of (depending on the location) large organizations of mages/merchants, smaller shops, free-lance crafter, and other adventurers selling off gear/loot.
In my experience, a bit of handwaving on shopping is a good idea unless your group is really into that kind of thing. Then again, I might be biased on account of that one 3.5 campaign I played in where we spent more time shopping than we did actually adventuring. Even though the DM put a lot of work into trying to make the shopping fun and entertaining, once we're two hours into the session and only half the party has gotten gear the quirky shopkeepers and unique items started wearing thin.
Most cities have multiple small shops that handle most of the magic item stuff. Larger ones have Wizards Guilds who keep the majority of the big ticket items in their coffers (or major churches, etc).
There is, however, The Consortium. The Consortium is just that, a consortium of merchants who were tired of either having magic items stolen by adventurers, or only being able to get them from Guilds.
The Consortium has one store in every major city (Metropolis or larger), and they are always custom built. 2 to 4 floors, walls lined with lead (6 inches), windows have leaded glass (2 feet thick), and all the walls warded vs scrying. Each store has a ring gate inside leading to a central repository. Anything that can fit through the gates can be had in a few hours. Anything that can't can usually be put into a portable hole and then sent through. Things that can't be done that to, can be sent overland for a markup, or you can go and get them yourself.
Upon entry, you are looked up and down by someone with true-sight goggles. You are required to leave all your magic items with the front desk, who puts them in a cage with your name on it. Then you may walk around the shop, talk to any sales people, make special requests, whatever. If you are caught casting, you will be thrown out and never allowed back in. The consortium keeps both physical guards, magical guards, golems, and wizards/sorcerers/witches/etc on retainer to guard the place, and they are open 24/7 (no down time for people to break in that way). There's always someone on duty. The markup on a single +4 sword can pay the wages of everyone in the store for half a year, so it's worth it to pay people to stand around.
If a war breaks out, the store sends all it's inventory to the central repository (which is actually in a created pocket dimension), and pulls out items on request.
mdt,
The "consortium" in my game world deals with the security issue differently than what you describe. Instead of building a bunch of fortresses and employing an army of security guards, most shops who participate in the consortium have the ability to provide the customer with illusionary versions of their stock. The actual stock itself is mostly kept off-site in a secure location. In the case of very high level items, those are usually kept in the consortium's special demi-plane storage facility.
When a customer agrees to buy an item, the actual item is retrieved or delivered.
A thief who tried to steal something at the store itself would typically find only some very low level items and some consumables that just aren't worth the effort of stowing in the secure location. Also that thief would discover one of the other benefits of becoming a partner with the consortium. The Consortium doesn't like thieves stealing their magic stuff.
When I did this (I do not anymore) instead of having magic marts, i would instead have magic commission marts. Meaning there werent stores where you could buy whatever you want, though there were shops to buy consumables. For permanent magic items you went to mages guilds or academies to find a buyer for an item you wanted to unload or to find someone to make an item you wanted.
Hand waved away (my implicit assumption would be a combination of small shops, private collectors and wealthy institutions).
Ditto.
Truthfully though, shopping sprees are infrequent in my games. I tailor my loot enough that my players don't end up with a lot of random crap that they'd rather sell than use.
I understand that some find it hard to believe when PCs just happen to find valuable items useful to their particular class/build, but this is also a game where PCs also just happen to encounter 'Goldie Locks' enemies and hazards much more often than probability would indicate. To a significant degree, the PCs are simply born lucky, even in sandbox-y 'impartial' games, so what the hell right?
A thief who tried to steal something at the store itself would typically find only some very low level items and some consumables that just aren't worth the effort of stowing in the secure location. Also that thief would discover one of the other benefits of becoming a partner with the consortium. The Consortium doesn't like thieves stealing their magic stuff.
They do that for really expensive things (50K or more), but it's a pain to keep things lower than that in a central place and distribute. Anything up to that cut off is usually kept on site.
As to thieves, there are dozens of cages around each store, each containing a small frog, or bird, or cat, or turtle. Each cage/aquarium/etc has a small plaque with the name of the balefully polymorphed thief contained within.
There are also statues, very detailed ones, with small plaques as well (some stores hire Medusa's as security enforcers).
Heh, I like the polymorphed thieves thing...
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Typically handwavium at my table. With my most recent game being Kingmaker where the players get to decide how many magic shops are in their cities, I've only really had to limit what's available based on the item's market price.
The party's sorcerer is the only player out of six that has recognized the potential this gives them, and even he isn't abusing it like I expected them all to try.
As they are all now high level adventurers and nobility, I expected some of them would invest in magical life insurance (resurrection scrolls, clones, etc.) but it hasn't happened.
So far two PCs have died and only one was brought back with a Reincarnation, from half-orc to elf. He was not happy that the party chose Reincarnate to save gold.
I subsume the searching for a shop with the 75% availability roll. So, little bit of both handwavium and go searching for it.
I tend to break things up between different stores, and then I make the PCs work for it.
For Example right now I am building a small town that is going to be the center of my campaign for at least a half dozen levels or so. One of the things I spent time on with it is who can the PCs buy and sell from.
Avro Galt's Adventurer's Emporium is run by a con-artist pretending to be a powerful wizard to take advantage of adventurers exploring the dungeons that have been uncovered near by. PCs can buy standard gear, sell any strange treasures they might find and will find any Misc. Magic items, wands, rings, etc... that are available here. PCs have to be shrewd when dealing with Avro though cause he is in it to milk them for all the gold in their pockets.
Mama Grosk is a cantankerous old Half-Orc Witch with a flare for potions but she hates just about everyone so if PCs want to buy from her they have to earn her respect first.
Igmar Ironfist is a veteran Dwarf who retired to the life of a smith. He has no magic weapons or armor for sale but his skill is great enough to make them if the PCs can win him over.
Lastly Shinga the Hedge Wizard is a Tengu who runs a small back alley shop that few people even know about. While Friendly he is also extremely introverted. If the PCs can find his shop and get him to accept them he can sell them scrolls and magical tattoos.
In each case there is a Role-Playing challenge for the PCs to face before they will be able to buy items from the Vendor. If they can meet each challenge then they will be able to buy just about any of the items they want to get but it's going to take some effort on their part first.
While I do not use magic marts per se, magic items are purchasable. People don't have magic items out on shelves; they're too tempting a target for thieves, and few people can both afford and make use of a magic item.
Magic items are instead constructed by commission. You find a vendor, tell him what you want, and pay half up front (aka his crafting cost), then pay the other half upon completion.
Kind of handwavium. Below a certain price threshold they are readily available, but it takes a gather information check to track down specific items. The threshold is larger or smaller depending on the size of the city, and small villages may have only a few specific minor items for sale. These are the items provided by "magic marts" and people who live off of providing magic to those who can pay.
Above that threshold, I have a specific list of what's "on the market" at a given time that cycles on a monthly basis (I just randomly pull a few items off and replace them with others). These more expensive items are found through gather information checks as well, and offerred for sale on a case by case basis from private sellers. These are the sorts of things sold by other adventurers and usually brokered by merchant guilds or other professionals for a cut of the sale price.
Aside from that, players can commission specific items from contacts.