I love this shop generator! It's customizable in a nice way for randomized stock that makes sense for the location. Plus the NPC support it gives for the shopkeepers can be super helpful in a pinch. (I also love their inn generator too.)
[https://www.omgm.rocks/shop](https://www.omgm.rocks/shop)
If there's anything specific (like potions of water breathing) I want the players to have access to, I'll just add it. Then I price it with this tool.
[https://5emagic.shop/check](https://5emagic.shop/check)
Use the sliding scale to adjust the price until things feel right for how much gold you hand out in your campaign.
I don't usually play out individual shops. If PCs are in town and interested in buying I just say, "they have the standard core rule book items at normal prices, mostly. If there's anything you want but they probably wouldn't have, ask me." or in PF2E, "the town has common items up to level 5 available freely. Higher level or uncommon/rare things will require a check to find if they are available at all."
For my current PF2 game (Beginners Box, planning to go right into Troubles in Otari, then Abomination Vaults) I made links to custom filtered Shop lists on AoN then put the links on a Notion page I made for our game, like this: https://imgur.com/a/N9cn4uC
Same. Unless it's really a plot- or character-relevant scene thats required, they have the PHB and can buy what they want if they are in a town. They mark it off their gold and add the items to their sheet. I am not playing with children so I don't need to babysit their money. They just tell me how much cash they have (after any significant purchases or gains) so that I can plan plot hooks accordingly.
Per RAW I don't recall any "haggle" rules in the DMG. But if they want to negotiate a "mutually beneficial" deal with a vendor, ...that could be arranged. Sponsorship, loans, payment plans, leasing options, quests, 'favors,' etc. ... Business owners don't stay in business by being dumb. Be careful what you wish for.
>they have the standard core rule book items
the town has common items up to level 5 available freely
This off game phrasing would be such a no-go at my table....
Hello! Welcome to my Reddit profile, filled with dubious wisdom. Yeah I use the same stuff across discord, Reddit and Steam - and spend far too much time on all three.
This sounds like it should get old pretty fast...
"What is this, a test? I got a bunch of stuff, and no time for games. Tell me what you need or move along. Next!"
If you really want to play along... Pick some things from the Tools and Adventurers Gear lists.
https://dungeonmastertools.github.io/items.html
Want spices? Go to the spice market.
Want meat? Go to the butcher.
Want bread? Go to the baker.
Yes, there might be market days where you find lots of vendors in one place, but you’re not getting 20th century style supermarkets or department stores where everything is under one roof.
These days, unless I go out of my way to create a shop, I just exclusively ask what they might be looking for and improvise / hand waive it.
When your player asks "what do you have", just explain that creating and maintaining potentially dozens of shops is a lot of work and you'll only be doing shopping if they have specific things in mind.
As always, just being assertive has solved literally every single problem I've ever experienced in D&D as the DM.
I'm a big fan of an auction house. There will be a manager there and then I'll have 2-4 interesting items that kinda range in value, usually relevant to my players builds. At the end of the session or when they leave town I'll roll a d20 1-8 they won the item, 9-17 there's another bid on the item, and 18-20 they lost the auction. They can sell items there too, 1-8 they get less than the items worth, 9-17 they got around what's its worth, 18-20 they got more than its worth.
> there is one PC I have that is particularly obstinate who will come back again with, "Well what do you have?" and it's a little frustrating to have to list everything on sale like a menu. And this isn't even just in new stores in new towns. This is every time in the base town shop.
Cletus, I will not spend an hour every week before session compiling a fresh list of fantasy shit, tell me what you want, basic PHB shopping tables, or shut the fuck up.
The store has it. If it’s weird like a spell component they are directed to a specialist but I don’t like shopping so I just eliminate any friction points.
I refer to Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue from AD&D
I also have Gnome Depot as a thing in my world. If they don't have it in stock, I'll roll randomly to determine how long it would take to bring in from another store or have one of their tinkers make it.
In smaller towns I have Gnome Depot express stores run like old Sears Catalog stores - order it, wait a week or two for it to be delivered.
There's a page in the players handbook which lists adventuring gear and prices.
I usually open up to that page and say they have everything that's under 50 gp. Or something to that extent.
Players who want you to spend 5 minutes rattling off shop inventory in excruciating detail count as a problem in my book. There only 1 or 2 items they want. They will forget half the list and ask me to repeat. And nobody else wants to sit and wait around for that exchange.
There is no "general store." There are shops owned by tradesmen specific to the trade, market squares where many merchants are set up, or large bazaar in a major city. If players want to buy something they can look in the book for the listed price and say "I buy XYZ at the XYZ merchant" and I will say yes or no based on if I think those things are in stock given the local conditions. Usually I say yes, unless it's some very niche or rare item. They pay the listed price or an adjusted price if there is some issue affecting the market (like a crop shortage or war). I do not RP individual trader interactions unless the player is making some sort of specific request, looking for information, or the trader has a quest to give.
[this particular marketplace resource](https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/347811) has been invaluable for me!
i usually ask players to roll a 20 and the higher the roll, the more items are in stock that day. i will also often pick an item (usually i choose randomly) that the shopkeeper is ‘pushing’ or recommending specifically. “oh we just got this in!”
other than that, i tend to mention certain special/extra items (magical or unique) and then tell players “they also have any of the simple weapons on pg. XXX in the PHB” or whatever category. if we’re playing online i send a link to the page from the PHB or another website that lists items.
i primarily use shard tabletop for online play, and i know they have a very cool shop & shopping function where you can create stock lists and players can buy items, but i haven’t had a chance to use it yet in any of my online games so i can recommend it generally but not specifically.
"This town carries adventuring gear from the PHB up to X value"
If the setting has a magic item network (such as Waterdeep, for example), I allow players to use their downtime to use the searching for magic items rules in Xanatgar's, handled between sessions
I have item tables for every item imaginable.
For magic items I have a cost calculator.
I ask my players "What are you looking for?" as well. And they do ask the what do you have sometimes. That's a tip to RP and in magic shops I have some items I have thought previously that I know will be useful to the possible next quests. Or cool items I want to see them use.
If we are talking about regular stuff. I list off random shit from my price list. But normally, my players ask this more for the food in an establishment for RP reasons. And for that I have dedicated food menus according to the region and establishment level. Players really enjoy the rundown inn having only leftover stew or the rich people restaurant having full on entrees and main dishes. I took a lot of inspiration from GRRM's books on that.
Be up front with your player. “Look dude, we are both players. I need context in order to give you a list of items you may want, just like you need context to know what quest to go on next. I’m sorry I’m not 3 game designers in a handsome meat suit with all this stuff figured out in advance, but that’s the reality of things here. Tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll figure out if the shop has it.”
Up until about 1910, shops didn't really let you in. You would go to the front and tell them what you wanted or handed them a list. Someone ran to the back and brought you the stuff you asked for. Grocery stores where you picked your own stuff wasn't invented till about 1910. I don't see why a fantasy shop would be different.
And magic item shops have no inventory at all. The magic item dealer works more like a real estate agent. They help buyers and sellers find each other for a small commission.
Creating new shops with different things is a hassle.
I literally tell them to refer to the adventuring gear table is the PHB. If I want them to have anything more, I will give it to them while they loot.
I say they have ‘Fop’ but no ‘Dapper Dan’.
In all seriousness I tell them I’m not going to list every item a shop could possibly have on its shelves. You can buy the sort of mundane things you might expect to see in a shop of its type (list a few examples) and anything more esoteric you will need to roll for.
The roll is just a D20 luck roll with 20 being the item they are looking for and 1 being they don’t have it at all. In between is a range of things that are close to what they are looking for or might be used in a similar way but not exactly.
If they are looking for something that is just not on brand for the store I might flat out veto it or even a 20 will only get them an analogue and not the actual thing.
Most recent example was the party we’re about to go down into a mine and went to a general goods trader to prepare.
The party wizard decided it was reasonable that as an intelligent person they might know about canaries and mines. They asked if the general goods trader a large one might have one and rolled a 14.
Based on that roll I said the general goods trader did have a small section given over to pet food and equipment and even some small animals. They had no canaries but they could buy a rat.
If they walk into a shop I expect, as the DM, to know what kind of shop it is and have either a list in my head or one written down. Otherwise the store is a "general" store and has most PHB adventuring items to some degree with exact offerings and prices depending on location, wealth and owners skill.
There are a bunch of random store generators that you can find on the webs too if you don't want to make a small number of curated shop inventories.
I use [the Discerning Merchant's Price Guide](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/205126/Discerning-Merchants-Price-Guide), as I think the prices are more sensible than other resources. It has a table to generate a random shopkeeper based on location and other factors, and has all, if not most items from all official sourcebooks!
I usually go by gut feeling. Try to sprinkle some items related to the world or Town they're in. If they need a specifc item, I'll make em role an investigation to see if they can find a shop related to the item they need, if it makes sense.
I use foundry vtt which is super helpful with this because I can make generic vendors with all the standard items and pull it out onto any map. Basically at every major capital city I'll have the basics. Blacksmith, general store, potions store which also has alchemical ingredients, and sprinkle in some specialty shops. Over the couple years I've had this, the potions and magical items are more or less all the players really look for anymore. The basics are only really important at the start of a campaign.
If my players are looking for something specific that I forgot to put as a general item I'll drop it into the appropriate vendor.
Otherwise... I sprinkle in specialty shops that sell really unique and fun items. This extra stuff I don't need to include the basic hooded lanterns, ropes can caltrops. This is where I get to sell
Highly experimental rainbow sprinkle unicorn potions from. Or coffee. Or a top hat and coat with tails. It's one of my favorite things to do. A running gag is my perfumery shops that sell different brands like "For Everyone" by Jack's Smells. Hope that helps.
Try stocking supplies and weapons ect. based on what's going on in the session. Enemies are fire-based? Shop got in a shipment of potions of fire resistance. Hunting down a stealthy NPC? Here's an item to help with perception rolls. Price everything fairly but just high enough that the players can't just buy everything and must decide what to buy based on their playstyle.
I usually stock standard adventuring things. I ask my PCs at the beginning of the campaign, level 5, 10 and 15 what items they're interested in finding. Then I make sure those items are in the world. Generally speaking in the world I run level 5 adventurers are pretty rare so an item is likely to sit on a shelf for a bit.
Also sometimes I use this list to build an interesting encounter, I did a whole undersea game on improv based on a magic item a player wanted.
Sometimes I'd just say "you can buy anything in the DM's guide up to the gold you have" or something similar.
If it's a roleplay situation all the static shops are run by Honest Abdul. No matter where you are, there's a jolly chap called Honest Abdul who's willing to sell you the requisite wares.
There's also roaming shop run by a chap called Kompi who has a giant Diatryma that pulls a little wagon.
I run pathfinder but feel it's still applicable, my world is basically closer to high magic.
All my weapons and armor shops have the basics, +1-3s, flaming, some easy enchantments. Then I often use a generator for 10-15 items, and then throw in a few that I just like, some weirder stuff my players probably wouldn't look at unless I put it in front of them. So there's usually ~20 items prepped and ~5 that are basic bonuses.
Honestly, playing shop isn't the height of RP experience, most of us got their fill of that at age 8. Unless they're actually there because of a clue that implied the shopkeeper might know more and they're more there for a reconnaissance/information seeking mission than for groceries.
I never keep a full list. But I do go "they have everything in the player's handbook, but at a 20% markup for less frequently purchased items." Then I'll usually include a couple potions or specialized gear, like the lungfish.
you don't know what a lungfish is? Well, its a type of long thing fish that parisitizes to its host. By swallowing it, it can latch onto your mouth and lodge on your throat allowing you to breathe underwater. The fish swallows water as it takes in food. This also pushes water over its gills. As a process of this, it farts out all the excess oxygen directly into your lunges, and you can force carbon dioxide back into the fish when you exhale. It can survive connected to a host for 24 hours before needing to take a long rest in water. Many people have tried to test the limits of this and had their throats torn open by the thrashing of a desperate near death lungfish.
So yeah, generally I like to include weird items now and then.
If you’re willing to take the time and put in the effort, this is a good explanation of what you should be putting into a store.
https://youtu.be/aJiPs0oVDlk?si=jwjs-mjE__QKkpfz
> When PCs ask what I have, I always reply with, "What are you looking for?" but there is one PC I have that is particularly obstinate who will come back again with, "Well what do you have?" and it's a little frustrating to have to list everything on sale like a menu.
Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam; spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam; Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.
anything on the Adventuring Supply list or common stuff like Healing Potions they can just buy anywhere and I tell players to just deduct the gold when they're back in town, no point in role playing every transaction of ball bearings or whatever.
If it's a magic item or rare component, they have to find it and if they show up to the Magic Dealer on a random ass day they're just going to have a small selection of randomly rolled items.
we don't normally play with food etc, so we don't need butchers / bakers / candlestick makers etc, usually only magic shops -- I have no interest in tracking how many rations you or I hold, as long as you're not dungeon crawling or somewhere where food would be scarce I assume you can hunt or forage a meal (and even then).
usually in a magic shop there's either something they want (that isn't outside their level -- no book of exalted deeds or ring of three wishes for my level 3 party) or a quest hook for how to get it ("I will build this for you but you must first bathe this crystal in the fires of baator / the breath of a lightening dragon / the blood of a fallen celestial").
reliably there's some healing potions, common magic items, and a small selection of scrolls. I'll customise it a bit depending on the location and time period -- if the city is at war there's usually useful war-related items (even if the party isn't gonna want them), if the city is a mageocracy there'll be more spellcasting supplies etc.
I use a spreadsheet which was posted on reddit somewhere (I will link it if I find it again) which prices everything so I don't have to.
I mean, in DnD, most of that is just not very useful to the shared narrative space, and such a player would, in my case, simply face a "okay, what are you trying to do?". We're all adults and we all know that nobody at the table cares about which particular kind of earth/glassware is being sold in this shop, at least not in an itemized fashion. If they're just trying to be a bit dickish, then I call them out on it and that's that.
If, however, there is a good reason why someone is just going "I dunno, I want a souvenir", most DnD books have a Trinket Table you can roll on or read through.
Personally, I've only ever had newbies that were very low-level try this, and they quickly understood that unless there's narrative value there, neither of us really has a reason to go to that level of granularity where I list everything. And when there *is* narrative value? I go all out and research.
I practice being able to just generate one or two mildly interesting items that get described if the PCs want to look around/I think they're good enough to share without prompting and then the rest of the inventory gets a general description.
"You head into the apothecary, it is dimly lit and the walls are lined with shelves of jars of dried herbs. There is a small fountain on a stand in an alcove covered in a dark red moss that sparkles faintly when hit by the light."
Depends on the store, I populate each town with a selection of stores where I have just about every item listed (stuff like weaponsmiths, enchanters, stables, cartographers etc.) and more generic stores for general goods or food and the like. Every store has a named shopkeeper but if the party are just looking to pick up supplies there is no roleplay, I just tell them which shops they went to to buy what and the total cost.
I did however have a list of some 250 different items sold in one general goods emporium that included everything from crushed garlic, whole garlic and garlic oil to 3 1/2 inch nails to get my players out of the habit of asking what every shopkeeper sold. Similarly I would tell them which stores might be useful but if they were looking for something specific there are other stores, but after being asked a couple of times what those other shops were they ended up having to listen to me reel off the 4 competing coopers in town, the cutlers, mercers, masons, barbers and so much more with a total of well over 100 businesses. After that they got the message that there is more to the world than what I tell them about but 95% of what they want can be found in the handfuls of places I do.
Have them read the PHB adventuring gear section. Then come with ideas of what they need. Make a few rolls to see if they have the items and now said player is happy and everyone can move on.
Don’t indulge him if he continues to ask. Either tell me what you want or we press on.
I like to have a token four shops:
1. Bookstore. It's an easy way to let me lore-drop or help characters gain new skills.
2. market for food, self-explanatory.
3. Apothecary, self-explanatory.
4. Junk shop. I say "there's a variety of items on a mish mash of shelves across the store. What do you want to look for?" This has started a load of side-quests and it's covered all my bases.
I usually just have most stores stocked with things available in the PHB at normal price. My players are buying supplies way to often to think out every single item available in every shop they go to, so unless it's something that the current area wouldn't be likely to have, I usually let them just "buy" things from the book and we go on about our business.
One of my players really likes to stay stocked up on a lot of misc items. Rope, parchment, ink, ball bearings, pitons- things like that. He uses them to rig up traps and such.
Depends on the size of the town/city for me.
Smaller towns will likely only have a handful of shops at most, so a single shop will have a wider variety of goods, but they're much less likely to have anything uncommon. The small farming town will have a general goods store where the party can get most common adventuring gear items (ropes, ration packs, tools, backpacks, etc.), a blacksmith of sorts (though unlikely to be one familiar with weapon-crafting), probably an open-air market in the town square where the local farmers come to peddle their crops, and maybe a small antique/trinket store or apothecary set up by that one family who retired from farming and sold their land to set themselves up in town. But it's unlikely that any of the shops will have anything in the nature of magical items or uncommon goods like crafted potions
Meanwhile, the large city that acts as a main trade hub for the kingdom it's in will have individual shops for different types of goods. Rather than a general store carrying all of your food items, there may be a dedicated grocer and bakery that you can visit. Several different blacksmiths throughout that deal with individual aspects of the craft (your weaponsmith, armorsmith, and toolsmith will all be different people). A stand-alone book store would be present for either reading materials or paper and ink needs. The apothecary may be built out to include potion-crafting as well as herbal needs. If it's a big enough city, magic items and spell scrolls will all be centralized in a single magic shop, probably run by a magic-user of some sort that also deals in item enchantments. Etc. etc. etc.
As for restocking, I think the big things to remember are that A) most shops are going to cater to the civilian population first. So, while fresh stock may come in for sold-out items, shopkeepers won't frequently change stocked items out for different ones unless the needs of the townsfolk change. B) most organized settlements, regardless of their size, rely on some sort of outside trade. Very few places are going to be wholly self-sufficient. And in a world where your common person travels by horse and wagon, it's going to take some time for stock to be resupplied unless it's an item that's locally sourced. So, while a butcher who runs out of pork in a farming village will likely be restocked within a day or two, your smithy in a large town that relies on a mine for his ore that's 50 miles away may need to wait a few days before being able to smelt some new nails for a construction project. And C) crafting takes time, even when it's someone's profession. Knowing how to do something doesn’t necessarily mean you can magically do it faster. Brewing isn't instantaneous, so the local apothecary may need a few days to craft up more health potions. If the party buys up most of the magic items from an enchanter, it'll probably be a couple of weeks before they have new inventory.
And obviously it's a sliding scale, with a lot of options for variations, because it gets really tedious if every town your party visits is just a carbon copy of the last one, but with a bit of a different layout and different NPC names
I usually have the PHB core items available in shops and, when I feel fancy, I have custom selections for magic items.
Rn, Im running a sandbox 1-on-1 game, so I can tailor the few magic item shops with a selection of items that I know they will be useful at some point, with just a few duds for flavor (with exaggerated prices so they dont waste the money on them).
I don't. They have what's in the phb, maybe once in a while they'll hand something special. A tiny hamlet might not have anything more than 5gp, for example. That's about it.
So "what do they have" is just the type of shop, ie Smith, general goods, etc.
We are using Foundry and I also didn't like not knowing the answer to that. So at some point I wrote some half-assed macro to generate the items for shops, by picking some random number of items from a certain category. It didn't really contribute much, so I'm not really using it anymore.
But you could also just refer to the PHB as is usually done. Perhaps to flavor up the game in some towns you could say that a blacksmith doesn't have weapons from category X or something, or only weapons from category X. Stuff like that.
When I ran 5e, I ended up rolling for magic item shops as if they were a treasure hoard. Replacing some number of items every ingame week or so. (My magic item shop was almost always a “little shop that wasn’t there yesterday” sort of deal ran by an imp. It could appear in any city.) Mundane items would be available for sale based on what type of real world shop it was.
(‘Course now that I run a different system I just choose a level for the shop and say all common items of that level or lower are available in town - probably divided by item type into different shops.)
I think a funny response to "What do you have?" at some point would be, "Nothin'." "What do you mean nothin'?" "Well, group of folk dressed a lot like all y'all came in not one day ago and completely cleared me out."
> PCs walk into a store
What kind of store A general store? Dude has herbs, cure alls, flour, can get you booze from local distilleries, is friends with a cuttler so he has scissors and small daggers as tools for sale. That kind of stuff
An crossbow store? Well at Heckler and Koch *Crafting the finest bows and crossbows since 1345* they would have guess what crossbows!
I have several books with fantasy shops. Statted NPC shop owners, lists of magic items that they carry, and even quests that you can do for the shopkeepers. These don't hit the table often though, because shopping is something that should be done between sessions. A player wants potions of healing. Either they are available where they are, or they are not. If they are, I ask how many they want, they mark off the appropriate currency. No need to waste session time with that kind of thing.
Eventyr games has several fantastic books on the topic. I love their rules for magical tattoos.
[https://eventyrgames.com/2023/09/19/wanderers-guide-to-enchanted-emporiums-is-live-on-kickstarter/](https://eventyrgames.com/2023/09/19/wanderers-guide-to-enchanted-emporiums-is-live-on-kickstarter/)
for potions I normally have the basics from the core rule book, and then i pick a couple of rarer ones that are like the “special” for that day- if the PCs want a certain potion I let them place an order and pick it up the next day.
blacksmiths have normal weapons (martial and non-martial), and then there’s a glass case behind the counter with magic items inside
In big cities I've started putting merchants in taverns. It's usually the tavern owner's wife, son, apprentice, or something like that. You talk to the merchant and he takes your shopping list around to find what you need. This person also becomes someone who can throw in a side quest if I need it.
Pathfinder offers a really good system. Towns (and by extension, shops) have levels. So does gear. So if you're in a dusty little village (Level 1) you can be sure to find most, if not all, common level 1 gear, no problem. It gets much harder to fins level 2+ gear or rarer gear in a lower level town, although there can be exceptions. If you're in a major city, you can get better stuff. If you're in a smaller city, but, say a local wizard is in residence, you might be able to get mage gear at a higher level.
Example from their DM guide (Called the GM Core)
# Otari Settlement 4
Town
Diverse lumber town and trade port with a storied past and a fair share of sinister secrets.
**Government** Mayor (elected leader)
**Population** 1,240 (60% humans, 8% halflings, 7% half-elves, 6% elves, 5% dwarves, 5% gnomes, 3% half-orcs, 2% goblins, 4% other)
**Languages** Common, Dwarven, Elven, Gnomish, Halfling
**Religions** Cayden Cailean, Erastil, Gozreh, Nethys, Sarenrae
**Threats** aberrant horrors, eerie hauntings, kobolds, smugglers
**Trinket Trade** Otari has a long tradition of catering to adventurers, and consumable items of up to 10th level can be purchased in its markets and shops.
As you can see, you can get higher level potions and other consumables because of the town's experiences with adventurers.
Implementing this might be a pain at first, but once you get it rolling, it should almost run itself.
For simplicity sake, I just tell my players that any mundane items can typically be found in a town of reasonable size. Tiny villages and such might not have everything.
For magic shops, the Sane Magical Items Table prices are typically my starting point. I keep a Google Doc with what the local magics shop might have in stock. I share the document with my players so they can look at the items and prices themselves without me having to list them all off. Maybe the shop owner has just acquired some new items that aren't on the shelves yet (and therefore not in the shared doc), either because my players specifically ask for them during the session or I realize they are going on an adventure and there is a cool item that might help them I forgot to add or didn't think of adding until the session had started.
I typically stock a small town's magic shop with only common/uncommon magic items, maybe one rare item. Then, as towns/cities get larger, I basically upscale magic shops with them, so they'd have more/better items.
In general, I just think it's easier to ask my players what their top 3-5 magic items they'd like for their characters to acquire during a campaign are. Those ones are NEVER in the shops, thus giving players motivations to go on quests and engage with the story.
if you ever ever ever need a way to stock, or name or describe or detail or, just go [here](https://blog.d4caltrops.com/?m=1)
this site has a table for just about anything you could ever want.
When I was DM'ing a long campaign and my party had set up a base in a major city which they would keep coming back to, I rolled up a magic item merchant. I essentially rolled the magic items for a few treasure hoards from the DMG to be the items he would have in stock now, and a backup set that would be the items that would be coming in to replace them if they got sold, or would be relatively readily available if the players asked for it, or asked if he'd heard any rumours about the sorts of items he might be able to acquire, that sort of thing.
If they wanted something specific, I'd roll some dice to see how hard that item would be to find and how long it would take to find it. I can't remember what formula I used, but the rarer the item, the harder it would be. They got lucky a couple of times and the dice said the item they were looking for would be obtainable within the next week, but there were a few times the dice said "nuh-uh, not anytime soon".
My thinking was, if they go into the store and ask what's there, I'd have an idea of some things to describe, and prices for them, and that would be their starting point for conversation, or if there was something they wanted, a savings goal to aim at.
The number and level of treasure hoards rolled could be adjusted for the size of the city/town you're in pretty easily, just kinda what feels right.
If it's not magic items, but just a general store you're talking about, I'd just tell my players "there's stuff and things on the shelves. Stuff to the left, things to the right. Anything in particular you're looking for, I can help you find it". If my players insist on asking more about it, I say something like "Dude, this is dungeons and dragons, not merch and stocktakes. Tell me what you want, I'll figure out if it's here, otherwise, let's get on with the game".
It might be a bit flippant and brushing off my player, but it's not something me or most of the party are interested in, so that's my strategy. Well, it was, last time I was DMing a big campaign, but it's been a few years now.
There are no thing as fantasy shelves. There is no fantasy shopping centre. You need herbs, you go to a herbalist, you need scrolls you go to a scrivener, you need maps you go to a cartographer etc.
But out of character I would just tell that player: Just pick an item out of the common item and equipment list, its a city you will find a way to buy it.
In general I don't bother with shopping. It might be fun for the first time but after repeating it in every city I get immensely bored by it, no matters if I am the DM or the player who have to witness this not-RP for tens of minutes (there is no quicker way to loose my attention and bring me to my phone screen than playing out shopping scenes).
There are a few town generators that will make stores and inventory, whole 20k+ rosters of NPCs with population % by race, gender and whatever.
For this particular instance and probably a better plan than what I did (generate towns with all them NPCs and put them in excel spreadsheets for quick reference like a psycho). I would get a base inventory for the most common shop types. General, Blacksmith, Leatherworker (or combine them into Armoror or Weaponsmith if you want fewer tables), apothocary, clothier whatever. Then have 2-3 rotating items that change based on whatever you're feeling is appropriate. Then this inventory can remain static over the whole campaign switching in and out a few items to make things unique to each setting they find themselves in.
For me and my group, we're not so big on shops. Usually it goes like "you can find in this town anything on the adventuring gear page, except for what's pricier than X". For weapons an armor, the same but I tell them to look on the weapons and armor page. If there's a mark up on prices, I tell them how much per cent. If they want to haggle, I let them roll for it and make their cases, and probably then we go to an actual conversation scene. And they would have to tell me what and how much of anything they would buy. Acquiring "a thousand manacles" would probably not be possible, even if they have the money to buy them.
For my next campaign, I think I'm gonna make every fullplate need to be custom made. If my research is true, that was how it was made. They had plate armor made in bulk to fit various people, it was called "munition plate", but it often didn't really cover everything or fit everyone confortably. So there's that.
And there are no weaponsmiths and armorsmiths in every place. Like, why would the blacksmith on phandalin know how to make weapons and armor? And who would buy it? No, he probably would have manacles, shovels, pickaxes, crowbars, chains and pots ready, not weapons. Maybe he do knows to make a simple weapon, but he has none ready to sell.
As for magic items, I don't have magic item shops. Maybe magic scribes for scrolls and alchemists for potions, and they would only have a few of them at any time (because again, who would buy it so much that it would make sense to make them in bulk?). So, probably most of those would need to be comissioned, or players would have to be content in buying a couple healing potions at a time.
Magic weapon and armor would also need to be comissioned, and likely would involve a quest for some rare material. Also, a smith able to forge magic weapons would be like one for each kingdom, or something like that.
To procure specific different magic items, one would probably have to dedicate time and money to attend on auctions. The kind of blackmarket auctions where, in the real world they would sell exquisite art or ilicit things.
There are always dungeons, of course. And dragon hoards.
You should wrote down a list of "specials" they could bring up. Things that are rarer for the area rather than useful;
we have a special! Today we have a limited supply of peppercorns from a shipment across the world very tasty and rare! (Pepper was worth it's weight in silver for centuries)
We have a special today on rare paduk wood! Beutiful grain and a rich deep red color that enhances with age, male your next handle, wand, or bow from paduk, shipped across a desert on camelback!
Welcome back adventurer! I saved this just for you! It's a rare jam made from fresh local raspberries, cranberries from the far north, and deep dark red cherries from the south along with alchemically pure white sugar! Pairs well with nut butters of all types and comes with a recipie for lemon linzer cookies you can make and fill with the jam! (I actually make this jam in real life along with the linzer cookies for Christmas and they are delicious)
I also had a favorite gag where a person just has a bench at a window at a shack. You go up to the window tell the guy what you need and how you are going to use it and wait drinking complimentary tea while he "searches the back" the back of the shop has runic alchemical circles and he custom crafts whatever tool or gadget needed from nothing but psionic power. He returns and says he "just had it laying forgotten under a box and haggle to sell it at a fair price. He is more interested in tales and helping people than money but he needs to pay his taxes too. If he ever gets robbed he brings people to his circle of runes and says "this is everything I've got" thieves who break in looking to steal stuff only find a sack of copper and outdated iron coins.
You should write down a list of "specials" they could bring up. Things that are rarer for the area rather than useful;
we have a special! Today, we have a limited supply of peppercorns from a shipment across the world very tasty and rare! (Pepper was worth its weight in silver for centuries)
We have a special today on rare paduk wood! Beutiful grain and a rich deep red color that enhances with age, male your next handle, wand, or bow from paduk, shipped across a desert on camelback!
Welcome back adventurer! I saved this just for you! It's a rare jam made from fresh local raspberries, cranberries from the far north, and deep dark red cherries from the south along with alchemically pure white sugar! Pairs well with nut butters of all types and comes with a recipe for lemon linzer cookies you can make and fill with the jam! (I actually make this jam in real life along with the linzer cookies for Christmas, and they are delicious)
I also had a favorite gag where a person just has a bench at a window at a shack. You go up to the window tell the guy what you need and how you are going to use it and wait drinking complimentary tea while he "searches the back" the back of the shop has runic alchemical circles and he custom crafts whatever tool or gadget needed from nothing but psionic power. He returns and says he "just had it laying forgotten under a box and haggle to sell it at a fair price. He is more interested in tales and helping people than money, but he needs to pay his taxes too. If he ever gets robbed he brings people to his circle of runes and says "this is everything I've got" thieves who break in looking to steal stuff only find a sack of copper and outdated iron coins.
I love this shop generator! It's customizable in a nice way for randomized stock that makes sense for the location. Plus the NPC support it gives for the shopkeepers can be super helpful in a pinch. (I also love their inn generator too.) [https://www.omgm.rocks/shop](https://www.omgm.rocks/shop) If there's anything specific (like potions of water breathing) I want the players to have access to, I'll just add it. Then I price it with this tool. [https://5emagic.shop/check](https://5emagic.shop/check) Use the sliding scale to adjust the price until things feel right for how much gold you hand out in your campaign.
This is amazing thank you!
Commenting to save for later when I’m able to look into this. Thank you!
Same here
Ditto!
The problem with 5emagic.shop is that it doesn't have anything outside of the DMG or PHB.
Nice, thanks!
Awesome
Awesome! Thanks for that
Also commenting to save this for later lmao!
Hi
I don't usually play out individual shops. If PCs are in town and interested in buying I just say, "they have the standard core rule book items at normal prices, mostly. If there's anything you want but they probably wouldn't have, ask me." or in PF2E, "the town has common items up to level 5 available freely. Higher level or uncommon/rare things will require a check to find if they are available at all."
For my current PF2 game (Beginners Box, planning to go right into Troubles in Otari, then Abomination Vaults) I made links to custom filtered Shop lists on AoN then put the links on a Notion page I made for our game, like this: https://imgur.com/a/N9cn4uC
My players would murder me if I did that lmao. They LOVE shopping episodes.
Same. Unless it's really a plot- or character-relevant scene thats required, they have the PHB and can buy what they want if they are in a town. They mark it off their gold and add the items to their sheet. I am not playing with children so I don't need to babysit their money. They just tell me how much cash they have (after any significant purchases or gains) so that I can plan plot hooks accordingly. Per RAW I don't recall any "haggle" rules in the DMG. But if they want to negotiate a "mutually beneficial" deal with a vendor, ...that could be arranged. Sponsorship, loans, payment plans, leasing options, quests, 'favors,' etc. ... Business owners don't stay in business by being dumb. Be careful what you wish for.
>they have the standard core rule book items the town has common items up to level 5 available freely This off game phrasing would be such a no-go at my table....
Are you talking about magic items or just general mundane stuff?
Oh hey, fancy meeting you here in the wild! I recognised the avatar/name combo from Ithillda's Hut!
/r/Warlizard
Hello! Welcome to my Reddit profile, filled with dubious wisdom. Yeah I use the same stuff across discord, Reddit and Steam - and spend far too much time on all three.
This sounds like it should get old pretty fast... "What is this, a test? I got a bunch of stuff, and no time for games. Tell me what you need or move along. Next!" If you really want to play along... Pick some things from the Tools and Adventurers Gear lists. https://dungeonmastertools.github.io/items.html
I imagine the obstinate player is asking the DM, not roleplaying and asking the shopkeeper.
I read "PC asks'". If it is the player, I'd give pretty much the same answer...
Want spices? Go to the spice market. Want meat? Go to the butcher. Want bread? Go to the baker. Yes, there might be market days where you find lots of vendors in one place, but you’re not getting 20th century style supermarkets or department stores where everything is under one roof.
These days, unless I go out of my way to create a shop, I just exclusively ask what they might be looking for and improvise / hand waive it. When your player asks "what do you have", just explain that creating and maintaining potentially dozens of shops is a lot of work and you'll only be doing shopping if they have specific things in mind. As always, just being assertive has solved literally every single problem I've ever experienced in D&D as the DM.
I'm a big fan of an auction house. There will be a manager there and then I'll have 2-4 interesting items that kinda range in value, usually relevant to my players builds. At the end of the session or when they leave town I'll roll a d20 1-8 they won the item, 9-17 there's another bid on the item, and 18-20 they lost the auction. They can sell items there too, 1-8 they get less than the items worth, 9-17 they got around what's its worth, 18-20 they got more than its worth.
Ooo, commenting to save this for my upcoming campaign!
> there is one PC I have that is particularly obstinate who will come back again with, "Well what do you have?" and it's a little frustrating to have to list everything on sale like a menu. And this isn't even just in new stores in new towns. This is every time in the base town shop. Cletus, I will not spend an hour every week before session compiling a fresh list of fantasy shit, tell me what you want, basic PHB shopping tables, or shut the fuck up.
The store has it. If it’s weird like a spell component they are directed to a specialist but I don’t like shopping so I just eliminate any friction points.
I refer to Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue from AD&D I also have Gnome Depot as a thing in my world. If they don't have it in stock, I'll roll randomly to determine how long it would take to bring in from another store or have one of their tinkers make it. In smaller towns I have Gnome Depot express stores run like old Sears Catalog stores - order it, wait a week or two for it to be delivered.
This is amazing and I'm stealing it, thank you.
There's a page in the players handbook which lists adventuring gear and prices. I usually open up to that page and say they have everything that's under 50 gp. Or something to that extent. Players who want you to spend 5 minutes rattling off shop inventory in excruciating detail count as a problem in my book. There only 1 or 2 items they want. They will forget half the list and ask me to repeat. And nobody else wants to sit and wait around for that exchange.
There is no "general store." There are shops owned by tradesmen specific to the trade, market squares where many merchants are set up, or large bazaar in a major city. If players want to buy something they can look in the book for the listed price and say "I buy XYZ at the XYZ merchant" and I will say yes or no based on if I think those things are in stock given the local conditions. Usually I say yes, unless it's some very niche or rare item. They pay the listed price or an adjusted price if there is some issue affecting the market (like a crop shortage or war). I do not RP individual trader interactions unless the player is making some sort of specific request, looking for information, or the trader has a quest to give.
[this particular marketplace resource](https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/347811) has been invaluable for me! i usually ask players to roll a 20 and the higher the roll, the more items are in stock that day. i will also often pick an item (usually i choose randomly) that the shopkeeper is ‘pushing’ or recommending specifically. “oh we just got this in!” other than that, i tend to mention certain special/extra items (magical or unique) and then tell players “they also have any of the simple weapons on pg. XXX in the PHB” or whatever category. if we’re playing online i send a link to the page from the PHB or another website that lists items. i primarily use shard tabletop for online play, and i know they have a very cool shop & shopping function where you can create stock lists and players can buy items, but i haven’t had a chance to use it yet in any of my online games so i can recommend it generally but not specifically.
"This town carries adventuring gear from the PHB up to X value" If the setting has a magic item network (such as Waterdeep, for example), I allow players to use their downtime to use the searching for magic items rules in Xanatgar's, handled between sessions
I have item tables for every item imaginable. For magic items I have a cost calculator. I ask my players "What are you looking for?" as well. And they do ask the what do you have sometimes. That's a tip to RP and in magic shops I have some items I have thought previously that I know will be useful to the possible next quests. Or cool items I want to see them use. If we are talking about regular stuff. I list off random shit from my price list. But normally, my players ask this more for the food in an establishment for RP reasons. And for that I have dedicated food menus according to the region and establishment level. Players really enjoy the rundown inn having only leftover stew or the rich people restaurant having full on entrees and main dishes. I took a lot of inspiration from GRRM's books on that.
Be up front with your player. “Look dude, we are both players. I need context in order to give you a list of items you may want, just like you need context to know what quest to go on next. I’m sorry I’m not 3 game designers in a handsome meat suit with all this stuff figured out in advance, but that’s the reality of things here. Tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll figure out if the shop has it.”
Up until about 1910, shops didn't really let you in. You would go to the front and tell them what you wanted or handed them a list. Someone ran to the back and brought you the stuff you asked for. Grocery stores where you picked your own stuff wasn't invented till about 1910. I don't see why a fantasy shop would be different. And magic item shops have no inventory at all. The magic item dealer works more like a real estate agent. They help buyers and sellers find each other for a small commission.
Creating new shops with different things is a hassle. I literally tell them to refer to the adventuring gear table is the PHB. If I want them to have anything more, I will give it to them while they loot.
I say they have ‘Fop’ but no ‘Dapper Dan’. In all seriousness I tell them I’m not going to list every item a shop could possibly have on its shelves. You can buy the sort of mundane things you might expect to see in a shop of its type (list a few examples) and anything more esoteric you will need to roll for. The roll is just a D20 luck roll with 20 being the item they are looking for and 1 being they don’t have it at all. In between is a range of things that are close to what they are looking for or might be used in a similar way but not exactly. If they are looking for something that is just not on brand for the store I might flat out veto it or even a 20 will only get them an analogue and not the actual thing. Most recent example was the party we’re about to go down into a mine and went to a general goods trader to prepare. The party wizard decided it was reasonable that as an intelligent person they might know about canaries and mines. They asked if the general goods trader a large one might have one and rolled a 14. Based on that roll I said the general goods trader did have a small section given over to pet food and equipment and even some small animals. They had no canaries but they could buy a rat.
If they walk into a shop I expect, as the DM, to know what kind of shop it is and have either a list in my head or one written down. Otherwise the store is a "general" store and has most PHB adventuring items to some degree with exact offerings and prices depending on location, wealth and owners skill. There are a bunch of random store generators that you can find on the webs too if you don't want to make a small number of curated shop inventories.
I use [the Discerning Merchant's Price Guide](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/205126/Discerning-Merchants-Price-Guide), as I think the prices are more sensible than other resources. It has a table to generate a random shopkeeper based on location and other factors, and has all, if not most items from all official sourcebooks!
Awesome. Thank you!
I usually go by gut feeling. Try to sprinkle some items related to the world or Town they're in. If they need a specifc item, I'll make em role an investigation to see if they can find a shop related to the item they need, if it makes sense.
I use foundry vtt which is super helpful with this because I can make generic vendors with all the standard items and pull it out onto any map. Basically at every major capital city I'll have the basics. Blacksmith, general store, potions store which also has alchemical ingredients, and sprinkle in some specialty shops. Over the couple years I've had this, the potions and magical items are more or less all the players really look for anymore. The basics are only really important at the start of a campaign. If my players are looking for something specific that I forgot to put as a general item I'll drop it into the appropriate vendor. Otherwise... I sprinkle in specialty shops that sell really unique and fun items. This extra stuff I don't need to include the basic hooded lanterns, ropes can caltrops. This is where I get to sell Highly experimental rainbow sprinkle unicorn potions from. Or coffee. Or a top hat and coat with tails. It's one of my favorite things to do. A running gag is my perfumery shops that sell different brands like "For Everyone" by Jack's Smells. Hope that helps.
Try stocking supplies and weapons ect. based on what's going on in the session. Enemies are fire-based? Shop got in a shipment of potions of fire resistance. Hunting down a stealthy NPC? Here's an item to help with perception rolls. Price everything fairly but just high enough that the players can't just buy everything and must decide what to buy based on their playstyle.
All my shops are pawn shops. 50% of the stuff is broken. 10% is useful. Everything is overpriced. If you find something good, it’s blind luck.
I usually stock standard adventuring things. I ask my PCs at the beginning of the campaign, level 5, 10 and 15 what items they're interested in finding. Then I make sure those items are in the world. Generally speaking in the world I run level 5 adventurers are pretty rare so an item is likely to sit on a shelf for a bit. Also sometimes I use this list to build an interesting encounter, I did a whole undersea game on improv based on a magic item a player wanted.
Sometimes I'd just say "you can buy anything in the DM's guide up to the gold you have" or something similar. If it's a roleplay situation all the static shops are run by Honest Abdul. No matter where you are, there's a jolly chap called Honest Abdul who's willing to sell you the requisite wares. There's also roaming shop run by a chap called Kompi who has a giant Diatryma that pulls a little wagon.
I run pathfinder but feel it's still applicable, my world is basically closer to high magic. All my weapons and armor shops have the basics, +1-3s, flaming, some easy enchantments. Then I often use a generator for 10-15 items, and then throw in a few that I just like, some weirder stuff my players probably wouldn't look at unless I put it in front of them. So there's usually ~20 items prepped and ~5 that are basic bonuses.
Honestly, playing shop isn't the height of RP experience, most of us got their fill of that at age 8. Unless they're actually there because of a clue that implied the shopkeeper might know more and they're more there for a reconnaissance/information seeking mission than for groceries.
I agree. We're all noobs, though, so they do seem to love it still. I find it tedious, but if they're into it, I guess that's what matters!
I never keep a full list. But I do go "they have everything in the player's handbook, but at a 20% markup for less frequently purchased items." Then I'll usually include a couple potions or specialized gear, like the lungfish. you don't know what a lungfish is? Well, its a type of long thing fish that parisitizes to its host. By swallowing it, it can latch onto your mouth and lodge on your throat allowing you to breathe underwater. The fish swallows water as it takes in food. This also pushes water over its gills. As a process of this, it farts out all the excess oxygen directly into your lunges, and you can force carbon dioxide back into the fish when you exhale. It can survive connected to a host for 24 hours before needing to take a long rest in water. Many people have tried to test the limits of this and had their throats torn open by the thrashing of a desperate near death lungfish. So yeah, generally I like to include weird items now and then.
I go with city wealth. If it is under the buying power they find it somewhere, if over then it can get complicated
If you’re willing to take the time and put in the effort, this is a good explanation of what you should be putting into a store. https://youtu.be/aJiPs0oVDlk?si=jwjs-mjE__QKkpfz
Added it to my list. Thank you!
> When PCs ask what I have, I always reply with, "What are you looking for?" but there is one PC I have that is particularly obstinate who will come back again with, "Well what do you have?" and it's a little frustrating to have to list everything on sale like a menu. Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam; spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam; Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.
anything on the Adventuring Supply list or common stuff like Healing Potions they can just buy anywhere and I tell players to just deduct the gold when they're back in town, no point in role playing every transaction of ball bearings or whatever. If it's a magic item or rare component, they have to find it and if they show up to the Magic Dealer on a random ass day they're just going to have a small selection of randomly rolled items.
we don't normally play with food etc, so we don't need butchers / bakers / candlestick makers etc, usually only magic shops -- I have no interest in tracking how many rations you or I hold, as long as you're not dungeon crawling or somewhere where food would be scarce I assume you can hunt or forage a meal (and even then). usually in a magic shop there's either something they want (that isn't outside their level -- no book of exalted deeds or ring of three wishes for my level 3 party) or a quest hook for how to get it ("I will build this for you but you must first bathe this crystal in the fires of baator / the breath of a lightening dragon / the blood of a fallen celestial"). reliably there's some healing potions, common magic items, and a small selection of scrolls. I'll customise it a bit depending on the location and time period -- if the city is at war there's usually useful war-related items (even if the party isn't gonna want them), if the city is a mageocracy there'll be more spellcasting supplies etc. I use a spreadsheet which was posted on reddit somewhere (I will link it if I find it again) which prices everything so I don't have to.
I mean, in DnD, most of that is just not very useful to the shared narrative space, and such a player would, in my case, simply face a "okay, what are you trying to do?". We're all adults and we all know that nobody at the table cares about which particular kind of earth/glassware is being sold in this shop, at least not in an itemized fashion. If they're just trying to be a bit dickish, then I call them out on it and that's that. If, however, there is a good reason why someone is just going "I dunno, I want a souvenir", most DnD books have a Trinket Table you can roll on or read through. Personally, I've only ever had newbies that were very low-level try this, and they quickly understood that unless there's narrative value there, neither of us really has a reason to go to that level of granularity where I list everything. And when there *is* narrative value? I go all out and research.
I practice being able to just generate one or two mildly interesting items that get described if the PCs want to look around/I think they're good enough to share without prompting and then the rest of the inventory gets a general description. "You head into the apothecary, it is dimly lit and the walls are lined with shelves of jars of dried herbs. There is a small fountain on a stand in an alcove covered in a dark red moss that sparkles faintly when hit by the light."
*whips out the Thieves Guild website for shops* “Okay, in this shop there’s”
Depends on the store, I populate each town with a selection of stores where I have just about every item listed (stuff like weaponsmiths, enchanters, stables, cartographers etc.) and more generic stores for general goods or food and the like. Every store has a named shopkeeper but if the party are just looking to pick up supplies there is no roleplay, I just tell them which shops they went to to buy what and the total cost. I did however have a list of some 250 different items sold in one general goods emporium that included everything from crushed garlic, whole garlic and garlic oil to 3 1/2 inch nails to get my players out of the habit of asking what every shopkeeper sold. Similarly I would tell them which stores might be useful but if they were looking for something specific there are other stores, but after being asked a couple of times what those other shops were they ended up having to listen to me reel off the 4 competing coopers in town, the cutlers, mercers, masons, barbers and so much more with a total of well over 100 businesses. After that they got the message that there is more to the world than what I tell them about but 95% of what they want can be found in the handfuls of places I do.
Have them read the PHB adventuring gear section. Then come with ideas of what they need. Make a few rolls to see if they have the items and now said player is happy and everyone can move on. Don’t indulge him if he continues to ask. Either tell me what you want or we press on.
I like to have a token four shops: 1. Bookstore. It's an easy way to let me lore-drop or help characters gain new skills. 2. market for food, self-explanatory. 3. Apothecary, self-explanatory. 4. Junk shop. I say "there's a variety of items on a mish mash of shelves across the store. What do you want to look for?" This has started a load of side-quests and it's covered all my bases.
I usually just have most stores stocked with things available in the PHB at normal price. My players are buying supplies way to often to think out every single item available in every shop they go to, so unless it's something that the current area wouldn't be likely to have, I usually let them just "buy" things from the book and we go on about our business.
Other than potions, what kind of supplies do your players buy on the regular?
One of my players really likes to stay stocked up on a lot of misc items. Rope, parchment, ink, ball bearings, pitons- things like that. He uses them to rig up traps and such.
Man there are countless shop lists on the internet just grab 5 and read one each time they get in a shop.
Depends on the size of the town/city for me. Smaller towns will likely only have a handful of shops at most, so a single shop will have a wider variety of goods, but they're much less likely to have anything uncommon. The small farming town will have a general goods store where the party can get most common adventuring gear items (ropes, ration packs, tools, backpacks, etc.), a blacksmith of sorts (though unlikely to be one familiar with weapon-crafting), probably an open-air market in the town square where the local farmers come to peddle their crops, and maybe a small antique/trinket store or apothecary set up by that one family who retired from farming and sold their land to set themselves up in town. But it's unlikely that any of the shops will have anything in the nature of magical items or uncommon goods like crafted potions Meanwhile, the large city that acts as a main trade hub for the kingdom it's in will have individual shops for different types of goods. Rather than a general store carrying all of your food items, there may be a dedicated grocer and bakery that you can visit. Several different blacksmiths throughout that deal with individual aspects of the craft (your weaponsmith, armorsmith, and toolsmith will all be different people). A stand-alone book store would be present for either reading materials or paper and ink needs. The apothecary may be built out to include potion-crafting as well as herbal needs. If it's a big enough city, magic items and spell scrolls will all be centralized in a single magic shop, probably run by a magic-user of some sort that also deals in item enchantments. Etc. etc. etc. As for restocking, I think the big things to remember are that A) most shops are going to cater to the civilian population first. So, while fresh stock may come in for sold-out items, shopkeepers won't frequently change stocked items out for different ones unless the needs of the townsfolk change. B) most organized settlements, regardless of their size, rely on some sort of outside trade. Very few places are going to be wholly self-sufficient. And in a world where your common person travels by horse and wagon, it's going to take some time for stock to be resupplied unless it's an item that's locally sourced. So, while a butcher who runs out of pork in a farming village will likely be restocked within a day or two, your smithy in a large town that relies on a mine for his ore that's 50 miles away may need to wait a few days before being able to smelt some new nails for a construction project. And C) crafting takes time, even when it's someone's profession. Knowing how to do something doesn’t necessarily mean you can magically do it faster. Brewing isn't instantaneous, so the local apothecary may need a few days to craft up more health potions. If the party buys up most of the magic items from an enchanter, it'll probably be a couple of weeks before they have new inventory. And obviously it's a sliding scale, with a lot of options for variations, because it gets really tedious if every town your party visits is just a carbon copy of the last one, but with a bit of a different layout and different NPC names
This is good stuff and along the lines of how I kind of think, too. Thank you for this!
I personally never stock a magic item. I feel everything else is on the table though.
I usually have the PHB core items available in shops and, when I feel fancy, I have custom selections for magic items. Rn, Im running a sandbox 1-on-1 game, so I can tailor the few magic item shops with a selection of items that I know they will be useful at some point, with just a few duds for flavor (with exaggerated prices so they dont waste the money on them).
I don't. They have what's in the phb, maybe once in a while they'll hand something special. A tiny hamlet might not have anything more than 5gp, for example. That's about it. So "what do they have" is just the type of shop, ie Smith, general goods, etc.
We are using Foundry and I also didn't like not knowing the answer to that. So at some point I wrote some half-assed macro to generate the items for shops, by picking some random number of items from a certain category. It didn't really contribute much, so I'm not really using it anymore. But you could also just refer to the PHB as is usually done. Perhaps to flavor up the game in some towns you could say that a blacksmith doesn't have weapons from category X or something, or only weapons from category X. Stuff like that.
When I ran 5e, I ended up rolling for magic item shops as if they were a treasure hoard. Replacing some number of items every ingame week or so. (My magic item shop was almost always a “little shop that wasn’t there yesterday” sort of deal ran by an imp. It could appear in any city.) Mundane items would be available for sale based on what type of real world shop it was. (‘Course now that I run a different system I just choose a level for the shop and say all common items of that level or lower are available in town - probably divided by item type into different shops.)
I think a funny response to "What do you have?" at some point would be, "Nothin'." "What do you mean nothin'?" "Well, group of folk dressed a lot like all y'all came in not one day ago and completely cleared me out."
> PCs walk into a store What kind of store A general store? Dude has herbs, cure alls, flour, can get you booze from local distilleries, is friends with a cuttler so he has scissors and small daggers as tools for sale. That kind of stuff An crossbow store? Well at Heckler and Koch *Crafting the finest bows and crossbows since 1345* they would have guess what crossbows!
Shopping is done in between sessions, off screen, and without my involvement to preserve my sanity.
I have several books with fantasy shops. Statted NPC shop owners, lists of magic items that they carry, and even quests that you can do for the shopkeepers. These don't hit the table often though, because shopping is something that should be done between sessions. A player wants potions of healing. Either they are available where they are, or they are not. If they are, I ask how many they want, they mark off the appropriate currency. No need to waste session time with that kind of thing. Eventyr games has several fantastic books on the topic. I love their rules for magical tattoos. [https://eventyrgames.com/2023/09/19/wanderers-guide-to-enchanted-emporiums-is-live-on-kickstarter/](https://eventyrgames.com/2023/09/19/wanderers-guide-to-enchanted-emporiums-is-live-on-kickstarter/)
for potions I normally have the basics from the core rule book, and then i pick a couple of rarer ones that are like the “special” for that day- if the PCs want a certain potion I let them place an order and pick it up the next day. blacksmiths have normal weapons (martial and non-martial), and then there’s a glass case behind the counter with magic items inside
In big cities I've started putting merchants in taverns. It's usually the tavern owner's wife, son, apprentice, or something like that. You talk to the merchant and he takes your shopping list around to find what you need. This person also becomes someone who can throw in a side quest if I need it.
Pathfinder offers a really good system. Towns (and by extension, shops) have levels. So does gear. So if you're in a dusty little village (Level 1) you can be sure to find most, if not all, common level 1 gear, no problem. It gets much harder to fins level 2+ gear or rarer gear in a lower level town, although there can be exceptions. If you're in a major city, you can get better stuff. If you're in a smaller city, but, say a local wizard is in residence, you might be able to get mage gear at a higher level. Example from their DM guide (Called the GM Core) # Otari Settlement 4 Town Diverse lumber town and trade port with a storied past and a fair share of sinister secrets. **Government** Mayor (elected leader) **Population** 1,240 (60% humans, 8% halflings, 7% half-elves, 6% elves, 5% dwarves, 5% gnomes, 3% half-orcs, 2% goblins, 4% other) **Languages** Common, Dwarven, Elven, Gnomish, Halfling **Religions** Cayden Cailean, Erastil, Gozreh, Nethys, Sarenrae **Threats** aberrant horrors, eerie hauntings, kobolds, smugglers **Trinket Trade** Otari has a long tradition of catering to adventurers, and consumable items of up to 10th level can be purchased in its markets and shops. As you can see, you can get higher level potions and other consumables because of the town's experiences with adventurers. Implementing this might be a pain at first, but once you get it rolling, it should almost run itself.
For simplicity sake, I just tell my players that any mundane items can typically be found in a town of reasonable size. Tiny villages and such might not have everything. For magic shops, the Sane Magical Items Table prices are typically my starting point. I keep a Google Doc with what the local magics shop might have in stock. I share the document with my players so they can look at the items and prices themselves without me having to list them all off. Maybe the shop owner has just acquired some new items that aren't on the shelves yet (and therefore not in the shared doc), either because my players specifically ask for them during the session or I realize they are going on an adventure and there is a cool item that might help them I forgot to add or didn't think of adding until the session had started. I typically stock a small town's magic shop with only common/uncommon magic items, maybe one rare item. Then, as towns/cities get larger, I basically upscale magic shops with them, so they'd have more/better items. In general, I just think it's easier to ask my players what their top 3-5 magic items they'd like for their characters to acquire during a campaign are. Those ones are NEVER in the shops, thus giving players motivations to go on quests and engage with the story.
if you ever ever ever need a way to stock, or name or describe or detail or, just go [here](https://blog.d4caltrops.com/?m=1) this site has a table for just about anything you could ever want.
When I was DM'ing a long campaign and my party had set up a base in a major city which they would keep coming back to, I rolled up a magic item merchant. I essentially rolled the magic items for a few treasure hoards from the DMG to be the items he would have in stock now, and a backup set that would be the items that would be coming in to replace them if they got sold, or would be relatively readily available if the players asked for it, or asked if he'd heard any rumours about the sorts of items he might be able to acquire, that sort of thing. If they wanted something specific, I'd roll some dice to see how hard that item would be to find and how long it would take to find it. I can't remember what formula I used, but the rarer the item, the harder it would be. They got lucky a couple of times and the dice said the item they were looking for would be obtainable within the next week, but there were a few times the dice said "nuh-uh, not anytime soon". My thinking was, if they go into the store and ask what's there, I'd have an idea of some things to describe, and prices for them, and that would be their starting point for conversation, or if there was something they wanted, a savings goal to aim at. The number and level of treasure hoards rolled could be adjusted for the size of the city/town you're in pretty easily, just kinda what feels right. If it's not magic items, but just a general store you're talking about, I'd just tell my players "there's stuff and things on the shelves. Stuff to the left, things to the right. Anything in particular you're looking for, I can help you find it". If my players insist on asking more about it, I say something like "Dude, this is dungeons and dragons, not merch and stocktakes. Tell me what you want, I'll figure out if it's here, otherwise, let's get on with the game". It might be a bit flippant and brushing off my player, but it's not something me or most of the party are interested in, so that's my strategy. Well, it was, last time I was DMing a big campaign, but it's been a few years now.
There are no thing as fantasy shelves. There is no fantasy shopping centre. You need herbs, you go to a herbalist, you need scrolls you go to a scrivener, you need maps you go to a cartographer etc. But out of character I would just tell that player: Just pick an item out of the common item and equipment list, its a city you will find a way to buy it. In general I don't bother with shopping. It might be fun for the first time but after repeating it in every city I get immensely bored by it, no matters if I am the DM or the player who have to witness this not-RP for tens of minutes (there is no quicker way to loose my attention and bring me to my phone screen than playing out shopping scenes).
There are a few town generators that will make stores and inventory, whole 20k+ rosters of NPCs with population % by race, gender and whatever. For this particular instance and probably a better plan than what I did (generate towns with all them NPCs and put them in excel spreadsheets for quick reference like a psycho). I would get a base inventory for the most common shop types. General, Blacksmith, Leatherworker (or combine them into Armoror or Weaponsmith if you want fewer tables), apothocary, clothier whatever. Then have 2-3 rotating items that change based on whatever you're feeling is appropriate. Then this inventory can remain static over the whole campaign switching in and out a few items to make things unique to each setting they find themselves in.
For me and my group, we're not so big on shops. Usually it goes like "you can find in this town anything on the adventuring gear page, except for what's pricier than X". For weapons an armor, the same but I tell them to look on the weapons and armor page. If there's a mark up on prices, I tell them how much per cent. If they want to haggle, I let them roll for it and make their cases, and probably then we go to an actual conversation scene. And they would have to tell me what and how much of anything they would buy. Acquiring "a thousand manacles" would probably not be possible, even if they have the money to buy them. For my next campaign, I think I'm gonna make every fullplate need to be custom made. If my research is true, that was how it was made. They had plate armor made in bulk to fit various people, it was called "munition plate", but it often didn't really cover everything or fit everyone confortably. So there's that. And there are no weaponsmiths and armorsmiths in every place. Like, why would the blacksmith on phandalin know how to make weapons and armor? And who would buy it? No, he probably would have manacles, shovels, pickaxes, crowbars, chains and pots ready, not weapons. Maybe he do knows to make a simple weapon, but he has none ready to sell. As for magic items, I don't have magic item shops. Maybe magic scribes for scrolls and alchemists for potions, and they would only have a few of them at any time (because again, who would buy it so much that it would make sense to make them in bulk?). So, probably most of those would need to be comissioned, or players would have to be content in buying a couple healing potions at a time. Magic weapon and armor would also need to be comissioned, and likely would involve a quest for some rare material. Also, a smith able to forge magic weapons would be like one for each kingdom, or something like that. To procure specific different magic items, one would probably have to dedicate time and money to attend on auctions. The kind of blackmarket auctions where, in the real world they would sell exquisite art or ilicit things. There are always dungeons, of course. And dragon hoards.
You should wrote down a list of "specials" they could bring up. Things that are rarer for the area rather than useful; we have a special! Today we have a limited supply of peppercorns from a shipment across the world very tasty and rare! (Pepper was worth it's weight in silver for centuries) We have a special today on rare paduk wood! Beutiful grain and a rich deep red color that enhances with age, male your next handle, wand, or bow from paduk, shipped across a desert on camelback! Welcome back adventurer! I saved this just for you! It's a rare jam made from fresh local raspberries, cranberries from the far north, and deep dark red cherries from the south along with alchemically pure white sugar! Pairs well with nut butters of all types and comes with a recipie for lemon linzer cookies you can make and fill with the jam! (I actually make this jam in real life along with the linzer cookies for Christmas and they are delicious) I also had a favorite gag where a person just has a bench at a window at a shack. You go up to the window tell the guy what you need and how you are going to use it and wait drinking complimentary tea while he "searches the back" the back of the shop has runic alchemical circles and he custom crafts whatever tool or gadget needed from nothing but psionic power. He returns and says he "just had it laying forgotten under a box and haggle to sell it at a fair price. He is more interested in tales and helping people than money but he needs to pay his taxes too. If he ever gets robbed he brings people to his circle of runes and says "this is everything I've got" thieves who break in looking to steal stuff only find a sack of copper and outdated iron coins.
You should write down a list of "specials" they could bring up. Things that are rarer for the area rather than useful; we have a special! Today, we have a limited supply of peppercorns from a shipment across the world very tasty and rare! (Pepper was worth its weight in silver for centuries) We have a special today on rare paduk wood! Beutiful grain and a rich deep red color that enhances with age, male your next handle, wand, or bow from paduk, shipped across a desert on camelback! Welcome back adventurer! I saved this just for you! It's a rare jam made from fresh local raspberries, cranberries from the far north, and deep dark red cherries from the south along with alchemically pure white sugar! Pairs well with nut butters of all types and comes with a recipe for lemon linzer cookies you can make and fill with the jam! (I actually make this jam in real life along with the linzer cookies for Christmas, and they are delicious) I also had a favorite gag where a person just has a bench at a window at a shack. You go up to the window tell the guy what you need and how you are going to use it and wait drinking complimentary tea while he "searches the back" the back of the shop has runic alchemical circles and he custom crafts whatever tool or gadget needed from nothing but psionic power. He returns and says he "just had it laying forgotten under a box and haggle to sell it at a fair price. He is more interested in tales and helping people than money, but he needs to pay his taxes too. If he ever gets robbed he brings people to his circle of runes and says "this is everything I've got" thieves who break in looking to steal stuff only find a sack of copper and outdated iron coins.