Quote from: Mr. GC;596621Lmfao.

You haven't been able to feasibly convert gold into magic items in Diablo since the original game. In the second gold is useless flavor text to be ignored, and in the third hyper inflation and various other factors make it so that you're more indirectly trading items for items than directly purchasing anything even though gold is technically the currency.

So Stormbringer fails again. The world is unsurprised.

Wow, you know more about Diablo than D&D.  I wasn't expecting that at all.

Quote from: Naburimannu;596489It's a different argument, but I just want to throw in that in my games the 70kgp of treasure can only be sold for a fraction of that...

Except you have to remember that the argument is that magic items can't be sold because nobody except the king can afford them.

So if you're arguing that magic items aren't actually worth that much because they can only be sold at a fraction of their value... well, you've just said that magic items actually sell for a lot less and, therefore, magic item shops can exist.

Let me put it this way:

(1) If magic items are so expensive that only kings can afford them AND the PCs have lots of magic items, then the PCs are richer than kings.

(2) If you make magic items less expensive, then the PCs aren't richer than kings. But magic item shops are then possible.

(3) If you radically reduce the number of magic items PCs get (to 1/100th their former rate of occurrence), then the PCs aren't richer than kings and magic item shops are also impossible.

But what can never be true is a scenario in which magic items are so ludicrously expensive that only the richest of the rich can afford them, the PCs have lots of them, but for some reason the PCs aren't richer than kings.

(In a real market, of course, this would fall out naturally: The price for magic items would fall until demand equaled supply. If the supply is high enough, the prices will be low enough that lots of people can afford them and magic item shops will be possible. If the supply is low enough, the prices will be high and magic item shops won't be likely.)

Quote from: Haffrung;596630I ran this through babelfish and I still don't understand it.

Yes, that tends not to help with such things as actually understanding the game. For that you need to actually play it.

Quote from: Mr. GC;596645Yes, that tends not to help with such things as actually understanding the game. For that you need to actually play it.

Says the moron who has no experience of tabletop games and mistakenly infers everything from TGD and Diablo.

it might be interesting to revieew what happens inpseudo real magic economies such as you find in MMOs .

From what I recall shopkeepers are either insanely tough or scenery andd have infinite wealth so ignore them but P to P sales and auctions might give us some indication ?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;596640Except you have to remember that the argument is that magic items can't be sold because nobody except the king can afford them.

So if you're arguing that magic items aren't actually worth that much because they can only be sold at a fraction of their value... well, you've just said that magic items actually sell for a lot less and, therefore, magic item shops can exist.

Let me put it this way:

(1) If magic items are so expensive that only kings can afford them AND the PCs have lots of magic items, then the PCs are richer than kings.

(2) If you make magic items less expensive, then the PCs aren't richer than kings. But magic item shops are then possible.

(3) If you radically reduce the number of magic items PCs get (to 1/100th their former rate of occurrence), then the PCs aren't richer than kings and magic item shops are also impossible.

I don't think we're quite arguing past each other yet, but it's getting close.

In my world:

• If the players could find people who actually want to use the magic items the players found, they could get something close to book value.


• But if they're trying to sell to a middleman, they're facing a really steep markdown.


• Also, neither middlemen nor end-users are likely to have the free cash to afford large numbers of high-priced items. Non-cash valuables aren't necessarily things that the players want, either - unless they've already gotten into the domain game or merchanting.

I believe that this is not inconsistent with real-world economics. What am I missing?

Per the Internet, the first British "pound" coin was minted in 1583; before that the pound was just an accounting concept. Royalty may have had hundreds of thousands of pounds in income, but that doesn't mean hundreds of thousands of gp - it means, say, thousands of tons of produce, thousands of yards of fabric, ...


Although all that evolved in other systems, I'll throw in the argument from ACKS because I'm currently trying to shift in that direction: a liquid, classical-economics market in magic items depends on the easy availability of Identify. Without cheap and reliable and broadly accessible identification, who's going to trust a scruffy adventurer enough to pay them for an allegedly-magical item?

Well being a Fantasy Craft and Mage the Awakening girl ...no magic shops everything is quid pro quo.

Quote from: Mr. GC;596508. . . {I}f you cannot convert gold into magic items, it is basically worthless flavor text to be entirely ignored.

And there's the answer to the question, 'what is munchkin?'

Quote from: Black Vulmea;596832And there's the answer to the question, 'what is munchkin?'

Yes, because having something that is useless except for one thing and that cannot be used for that one thing is cheating.

Or you could just be a retard. Again.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;596387This is where I think it gets interesting.  Most DMs are a little afraid of what players are going to do with 'stupid amounts of money'.  I think more DMs should try it a time or two.  As long as players can't buy 'awesome' magical items for 'mere gold', you can pretty much see where players will take it.  Once the high-end magic is off the table, gold becomes interesting again.  Spending thousands of gold on defenses, or building a 'tax-free town' and really interacting with the setting become possibilities.

Agreed; what my players have done with money in the Albion games has been quite interesting.  Several have become real estate magnates.

RPGPundit

Quote from: mcbobbo;593126What is your opinion on the idea of a magic shop or similar source of powerful equipment in your game?

In your fantasy do you allow players to buy and sell magic items as common goods?  Or do they remain specialties?

They are one of the aspects I hate most about the standard tropes of D&D. Magic items aren't magical at all when you can pop round a store in any reasonable-sized settlement and exchange them.

Not only that, they perpetuate a much higher level of magic and gear-dependence than I favour in a setting. Any setting where "this sword my Dad used in the last war" is a laughable sentiment because you've just looted something much better off an opponent isn't one I'm particularly interested in.

Quote from: RPGPundit;597124Agreed; what my players have done with money in the Albion games has been quite interesting.  Several have become real estate magnates.

RPGPundit

And this is what happen when you have a realized setting that allows the players to adventure to further other, in-setting goals.  Bravo.

Quote from: Mr. GC;596839Yes, because having something that is useless except for one thing and that cannot be used for that one thing is cheating.

Anyone have a 'slobbering Diablo playing idiot-to-English' translator handy?

Quote from: Kiero;597143They are one of the aspects I hate most about the standard tropes of D&D. Magic items aren't magical at all when you can pop round a store in any reasonable-sized settlement and exchange them.

Not only that, they perpetuate a much higher level of magic and gear-dependence than I favour in a setting. Any setting where "this sword my Dad used in the last war" is a laughable sentiment because you've just looted something much better off an opponent isn't one I'm particularly interested in.

Exactly.  Kiero speaks for me in these matters.

Quote from: LordVreeg;597151And this is what happen when you have a realized setting that allows the players to adventure to further other, in-setting goals.  Bravo.

The same reason why having magic item shops isn't a big deal in the Majestic Wilderlands. They make sense given my premises, they are just one of many things a wealthy player can spend money on, and finally owning the biggest plus sword doesn't solve every problem that wealthy character face or even a majority of them. In some circumstance getting what the player wants involves acquiring a lot real estate. For others being able to build a big damn castle will help achieve their goal. For others still being able to outfit caravans to all points of the compass is the pathway to what they want to achieve.

I think that if I were to have a lot of magic items in my setting I'd institute a custom such as that that was wide spread in pre Roman Europe, wherein people just through valuable shit into lakes. this custom actually survives today in the form of the wishing well. According to some book or other I have laying about the house J. Caesar financed his exploits in Gaul by dredging up such deposits.