Get your copy of The Seeker's Guide to Enchanting Emporiums, featuring my shop, the Hedgerow! www.kickstarter.com/projects/eldermancy/the-seekers-guide-to-enchanting-emporiums?ref=e06u5l
Actually I made this shopkeep in my first dnd campaign i was dming hes a goblin from the faywild he's really old and basically like a God who's super fast has the ability to telaport him and the shop he loves to joke. My players absolutely love him I bring him through every new campaign, and there always so excited to see him
My over all magic shop is Omar's Magic Shoppe. No matter what town or city they come Omar is the owner of the shop. And there a barrel of sword for sell for 1000gp. It a random roll sword table in the DM guild.
I liked how in Critical Role campaign 2, Matt would occasionally use shopping as an opportunity to remind the players about the ongoing war. They were spending most of their time far from the front lines, but they were reminded of the reach of the conflict when most of the more valuable magical items and especially healing items were being sent to the military. And of course Pumat Sol is a gem.
I was about to say something along these lines. What Matt Mercer is doing here is using the shop keepers to set mood and tone in scene. But you don't need to do this too often for the players to get it. And it doesn't need to take long. In my experience, even with interesting, entertaining NPCs, shopping in D&D is adds little more often than not. Down time should still be advancing the story. True, it's the lull between high points, but it's a way to deepen the context of the campaign and where complications can be brought to light. It's where the PCs discover while they've been out tomb raiding, the villains have not been idle. Ginny is spot on in how memorable NPCs make for great story telling opportunities and help players invest in the world. But those interactions need to count for something. Just because you have an interesting, quirky character concept for an NPC doesn't mean they belong in the story. In HBO's Rome, for instance, we do not meet all the slaves in Caesar's house---we only meet his sharp tongued body slave, Poska, who is quickly established as a literate, keen, and capable of doing business on Caesar's behalf, so very a valuable slave. And whenever we see Poska in scene, we know he is there on Caesar's order--he is a capable, smart extension of Caesar's will. A quirky, memorable NPC usually isn't enough to put them in scene. A quirky, memorable NPC who advances the overall narrative is an absolute must have. (Now I don't have magic shops in my world because I feel that reduces magic items to the newest, latest smart phone. If PCs haven't paid for their magic items in blood, they haven't earned them.) Aristotle in his Poetics says drama is real life without the boring bits. That's what screen writers call shoe leather--that is unless there is a narrative reason to have the characters in a market place, skipping it is usually best. Even in downtime, where the characters have returned to town, the story needs to be advancing. Generally speaking, I have the players give me a list of what they are wanting and I'll say either yes or no as to it's availability. If it's something clever that might take time, I'll let them know. Or if it's something that might involve a side quest, say obtaining mercury so a highly skilled smith can gild the party's steel weapons with silver. Obtaining the mercury might be a side quest that first takes them to a barber surgeon that treats prostitutes and their patrons at a local brothel---but he's only got a very small amount and he hasn't seen his supplier in a long while. The players run down the supplier only to discover he's had his throat cut by thieves leading the party into a confrontation with the thieves guild. So on and so forth.
@@TheBiggreenpig I was about to mention that. Victor the gunpowder merchant was a super memorable and super effective NPC in Campaign 1...with a combination of a funny voice and a funny personality, Matt was already able to captivate the players to him, but in future visits Victor was also helpful as a narrative driver forshadowing that Anna Ripley is still around. Plus, each and every time the players visit Viktor, there are more and more incidents of Viktor accidentally blowing himself up with the gunpowder which was hilarious!
Never underestimate the success of a throwaway NPC. I ran a game of Exalted for 6 years and one of the most beloved NPCs was Sharif the silk-cutter, a random clerk that had his lunch stolen.
I still have PTSD about the NPC who could make one potion per day that would expire when they made the next one and, for some reason, that was the most exciting thing in the entire campaign and my players put way more energy and effort into trying to convince this gnome with two hit points an no abilities to join their level 8 party so they could have one extra potion on tap.
I had a trio of frost giants attack the PCs in a Scion game in an Italian restaurant. The players dealt quickly and mercilessly with the first two goons, leaving the third 10' tall goon to fall to his knees, crying out, "Don't kill me, I got lil ice cubes at home!" I wound up with an NPC that would be a background character for years. "If you want to live, start by cleaning up the mess your friends made." Giant finds a broom and dustpan, starts sweeping up broken glass while singing "dum dum dum duh duh dum dum..." No such as a throwaway NPC.
My players latched onto a random npc that insulted them when they first entered a town, they tracked him down and I turned him into a cartel boss who was smuggling "fey dust" and the party went on a side quest to stop him.
A recurring shop in my games is these magical vending machines. I never call them that, I describe arcane mechanisms and part of the gag is the party figuring out that they are vending machines. They always happen to have exactly what the party needs and are suspiciously in ridiculous places (like dungeons) and they seem to have a little guy in them that makes them work. Like, sometimes the items will get stuck and a little arm will reach from inside and fix it. If the players complain about prices or stock, it'll grunt and change them or new stock will slide into place. I imply that all of the machines are attached to the same location through portals. I've got a few quest hooks in my back pocket for them. Some day, when the time feels right, some group will finally get to see what makes them tick.
They're a Mimic that survived for so long, and grew so much that they gained sapience, made a Pact, and is now a Sorcerer, aren't they? And either the "items" - or, better yet, the _packaging_ the items the players buy - are its offspring, dormant until discarded for a time, after which said offspring begin to consume more and more of the available items in their environment, wherever they end up.
@@jamesnoneyabizness5611 Okay real talk though? Young mimics disguising themselves as a container that's meant to be thrown away in order to spread is utterly brilliant. I might legitimately steal that idea.
@@Starfloofle No! Thou Shalt _Not_ Steal! ... take it for free, with my blessings for a full table of _terrified_ players. Merry Yule, ya messy meatsack murderhobos. 😉😁😂
@@jamesnoneyabizness5611 Honestly, this feels like the Mimic equivalent to the Oblex and I'm here for it. I could also see a type of mimic that becomes a "copy cat" specifically for items, but not a way of hunting humanoids, but as a way to increase their own abilities or to perhaps spread their offspring. Say one becomes a "Legendary weapon" but instead its the mimic learning new tricks or adapting to its environment. This gets the mimic experiences and thus more tricks and also ways to spread its offspring and even be seen as valuable so it gets protection and even food.
i always feel weird commenting on a creator’s appearance without mentioning the content of the video (which is fantastic, by the way), but GINNY IM SO IMPRESSED WITH HOW WELL UR HAIR & HEADBAND MATCH UR SHIRT WTF ITS MAGICAL
Have an awakened hamster in a glass ball he scampers about on rails and shelves known as “The Proprietor”. An elderly couple do the physical labor while he schmoozes the clientele. He is also the contact for certain organizations. Love this sort of stuff. Had a potion maker who had a fire so their wares were in the back of a wagon with a few guards selling them as part of the cost for damages and repairs. Love the flavor and your little fey is another great idea! Love it!!!
Never underestimate the appeal of "weak" magic items that have flashy or entertaining aesthetic effects. The Cloak of Billowing is a perfect example. Offer an armoire that cleans, folds, and irons any clothing placed inside. A shield that changes colors based on your pet's emotional state. A pen that only writes what you really mean. A scarf with a rippling rainbow pattern that animates down the fabric. And then make your NPCs really care about that sort of thing.
My friend had a magic shopkeep Faerie named Ari. She lived in a cluttered shop that appeared as a door on a wall, but never in the same place twice. She was temporally dislocated, you never knew if the Ari you'd meet was from your past or future. The first time she meets they're convinced you're her dearest friends. Her store was a maze of shelves, rooms, passages, all covered in clutter that served as a few adventures of their own when weird things that should NOT be in a store found their way in through a doorportal.
Reminds me of Ramiris from TenSura, especially with the time paradoxes and labyrinth theme. All in all a really fun idea, especially as the time shenanigans keeps the party on their toes and they could even meet characters from the past or future in the shop. Imagine them going in and seeing a past version of the BBEG, who is utterly innocent of any wrong doing and just wants to do the right thing. Or they run into a kid they met looking to be an adventurer only to meet his jaded and dying of a curse future self...
one of my favorite things one of my Friends made up was a shop, with "broken" items like a wagon wheel with some missing spokes, or the bird cage without the bottom in it. The shopkeep was a Goblin, that loved to haggle, and generally saw nothing wrong with the items, that to the players always seemed to be missing something for it to be complete. Getting the players to kitbash or find ways of repairing the items that actually was very cheap, as in around 50% cost of a full funtional version of the item, so as to make the items they could get from there storied by virtue of the built in quirks of having to kitbash them to make them work, the whole experience fun for the table hopefully. of course this should be a 1 off shop not located in a large city, but rather a small town, as to make the shopping more fun to figure out if you can get something usefull out of it. Remember this was meant to be a "get creative" kind of a shop, so have some fun with it if you decide to use the idea, make it something to be colaborative for the hole group, make the shopkeep fun for the group to interact with in some manner ^^
1 addition tip is to limit the number of items available to the party at once, just to avoid the analysis paralysis of the entire book worth of magic items being on sale at once. For some shops like non-magical weapons and armor its reasonable enough to let the party just make any customizations they feel like. But for the magic item shops, keep the menu simple, a couple consumables like healing potions, a couple items reasonably within budget, and 1 or 2 items out of budget to be put on the wishlist, or pool the party funds for. (Carrying over previously available stock is optional but i would keep most unpurchased items available if a player asks about them, unless you have a reason for it to be unavailable this time)
I created an urchin guild. Street urchins the players/characters can give a list of items to, and get their shopping delivered to them a few hours later. These urchins are often savvy with which stores have discounts on any given day, and can also answer whereabouts in town. It's also handy they all have the same voice, all of which makes shopping much easier on me :P Players are still free to seek out certain specific NPCs who run stores though, however most of these are like... they require a specific service, or like an upgrade to their ship, etc. Things you couldn't just put on a shopping list. But that's okay, because it cuts down on so much time already.
In my game we have Danika Ferris of the Ferris & Family General Store. Danika is an 8 year old girl who wants to be an adventurer and somehow keeps obtaining cursed magic items or captured by sewer goblins. She does provide a delivery service though. When you just overturn your bag of holding or behind a rock. Danika's probably hiding nearby with the interesting skill of having a trinket that makes a portal to the counter of her parents shop. Ring the bell, leave a note and some money and collect items. Unfortunately despite all the great stuff that Danika has per parents just run a perfectly ordinary general store. No potions, armory, weapons or holy water, just mundane equipment from the gear list. It's a way of helping players who have forgotten to have bought something before we left, run out of arrows or food.
My best shop so far as a rather new DM was a shop with thousands of weird and many seemingly worthless things in it. A very old shop where the owner doesn't really care much about things as mundane as gold and would rather trade you for something he doesn't already have. Little does the party know that the shop keep is actually a metallic dragon in human form who just wants to connect with humans as they are peculiar creatures, so he opened a shop in town when it was settled (like 400 years ago) and just changes form regularly to seem a little older, then this form leaves and gets replaced by a "new owner" he also plays. His shop is full of his HOARD of various items he finds unique and interesting for his own reasons ("This broken cart was the most prized possession of the young Timmy Hodgkins, now an old man, when he lived with his parents farther up the street. Actually broke his leg when he crashed with it at 9 years of age"). He wouldn't sell you a broken wooden toy for the 20 gp you're offering but if you've got a rusty goblin dagger he'd be interested in trading.
How I handle shopping/downtime falls into two categories: 1. If there's too much to handle for each individual character it happens outside of game time via emails, so the session(s) don't turn into one player talking to me sorting out the one thing that affects them while everyone else sits around bored. 2. I throw weird shop keepers with weird products at the players. Why does a healing potion have to be a potion? Wendle's healing meat pies are very popular with dwarves.
I made a shop that I've used a couple times where every time the party enters, I roll 1d4 which determines what it looks like on the inside and the shopkeep had corresponding personalities. Like, when the characters first enter it may be an organized lab space with a neurotic nerd shopkeep and the next time they go in (which could be the same day) it's overgrown and kinda disorganized and the shopkeep is a chill hippie. I call it The Fantastic Lambuni's Magical Market of Arcane Wonders and Exotic Wares.
I once made a magic shop owned by “Sirava the Secluded”, a yuan-ti woman who only made creepy magic items The shop had no lighting, was full of taxidermied creatures and Sirava always got a spooky joy whenever she was sold body parts, particularly fingers The party loved Sirava so much, and always looked for reasons to go shopping there 🙂
2 shops that went surprisingly well with my party when I DMed were 1 Ebony Bay, a rare to find store where all are connected by magic circles of teleportation, where odds and ends from other adventurers are sold, like the -1 sword of fire, yes minus, it did fire damage as an upside so crits were better but default damage was -1 because the metal was softened by the heat, or the shield of nope which gave +4AC but needed both hands to be used as a shield since ti was so awkward and big. 2 Ally's Chemary, an alchemy store that sold potions, ammo for the warlocks gun and sometimes had quests where a big bit of the gimick was that Ally the enby running the place was sampling some of their stock so was always high or something and the party later learnt part of the reason was to reduce pain since they had to quit adventuring after serious injury, and they can still defend the store somewhat with their own alchemic pistol custom made to hold multiple shots, not for sale.
Completely on point & accurate, as always, Ginny! A shop is a great opportunity for a variety of character interaction & dissemination of campaign hooks. As a seasoned retail & customer service professional, I possess a huge collection of experiences to use in my role-playing. Now that my wife (who LOVES to shop…) is playing D&D with me, she is likely to have an encounter in-game that is eerily similar to something I told her after work one day…
This video inspired me to think of a frantic fairy shopkeep/tinkerer with a fear of meeting new people who seeks a crossroads to the Feywild. I could picture him protecting himself with a myriad of sprites to assist and cast Heart Sight on others, while permanently being under the effects of Detect Thoughts to process transactions much faster.... and for a touch of mystery, you could also make him a tinkerer who specializes in cursed magical items. Edit: this would also make for an interesting swarmkeeper, if your DM would allow the sprites.
I homebrewed this adorable seaside hamlet as the base location for a beginners campaign. Before setting out on the next task the party wanted provisions so they went to the bakery. Having decided that they wanted to try to get a discount, the party laid the flattery on thick. Ultimately, the halfling barbarian challenged the muscular young baker woman to arm wrestle for a discount. Better than an hour was spent role playing the negotiating of muffins with a NPC that I made up on the spot.😂❤
Beyond the items, yeah the shopkeeper is EXTREMELY important. So far my players have met a goblin trapped in a cat’s body, a beholder in a trench coat, and an eccentric tiefling with an illlithid partner. A good shopkeeper will stick in their heads and make the crunchier aspects of shopping way more fun.
Your outro reminded me of something. My party's healer (a NPC) is an awakened shrub named "Holly." Being a Holly bush she always has her casting focus.
I LOVE shopping sessions! My DM always makes the most fun shopkeeps even just on the spot. Some have deep lore and quests and some are just really fun characters to meet and interact with
I've got three: A travelling wood elf alchemist named Roboute, who's shop is a portable hole/well thing. Jenkins "Old man Jenkins" Oldman, another alchemist and retired adventurer, his shop is a nice little downtown building that is very often on fire, and he does not appreciate Roboute's competition. and his brother Beckett "Old man Beckett" Oldman, an artificer. His shop is a lighthouse overlooking a lake.
I'm always reskinning items and trying to keep shops interesting. I have one shop run by a shapeshifted gold dragon, whenever she opens a shop in another city it connects to one her main shop, each location is seperated by floor and invisible to the naked eye if its not the door you enterred through. (the last part is to help avoid my players abusing the fast travel, its a feature that is available to them if they are in the dragon's good graces, but i dont want them to use it to get everywhere from day one)
Thanks for these tips Ginny!! My players spend a lot of time wanting to ask questions around town and investigate via social mechanics rather than find the physical clues or dungeon delve. So I need to keep making a variety of NPCs and make shopping engaging. Right now they have become really attached to the Owner of the General Store NPC I made, so I try to make each time they visit her full of personality and quirky little moments. But Id love for them to get this invested in some of the other ones. Your video has made me pause and really think about what makes that NPC successful though, and I think that will help with future shopkeeps, Inn proprietors and Tavern workers a lot.
BARD: 🎶If there's a Bramble in your Hedge Row, don't be alarmed now. It's just a discount for your PCs. 🎶 BRAMBLE: No discounts, kid. And no "Stairway to Heaven!" BARD: Still better service than the Guitar Center...
One thing I've found useful, as a recovering CCG addict, is to combine item cards and those card protective pages of which I had a ton laying around, to make a shop inventory that's mobile, protected, and has all the information you wish to show to your players. (and none of the details you might rather they not read) While your video is focused more on making the shopping interesting rather than quick, I think this one is more focused toward speed. If you are swimming in pages like I am, you can also have enough inventories for all of your players to pore over their own personal list, which can be a welcome buff to their patience with one another.
Lots of good advice here, as per usual. The idea of a shopkeep providing a quest, and how the players handle that quest then leading to changes in the shop's inventory, both good AND bad, is particularly interesting idea. Like in your example, Be careful that you don't damage the shop! In video games, one can often use spell effects that LOOK devastating but are nothing but spectacle and enemy damage. This here shows influence on the world.
My favorite shopkeep to use is a mysterious shopkeep who is always found in shady areas with the oddest goods, they never get a name, but due to their nature it always brings my party looking for them every chance they get
One of my all time favorite recurring NPC characters was originally a throw-away other customer at a store when the players walked in that wasnt even planned to be there, just complete in-the-moment improv
One of my easiest tweaked items that gave my Lvl 1 players a lot of utility was a 'Pouch of Holding'. Same thing as a Bag of Holding but 1/3rd the size and carrying capacity. All the fun aspects of a Bag of Holding without feeling it's too overpowered for early level play.
Great Video! It's important to me to let you know I have been watching for a while and every video I get something out of. Sadly I started getting into playing just before 2020 didn't even get to play until it was mostly over and was still doing that online and then the whole OGL thing hit. So just getting started with TTRPGs was difficult for me. But thanks to you, Bob world builder, Critical Role, DND shorts, professor DM, the Dungeon Dudes, Jocat and so many others I got to fill the hole not being able to play was filled. I want to thank all of you for what you do! Have a great holiday season and a great new year!
The individualised item description of a "basic" +1 sword is very reminiscent of the original Baldurs Gate games, where magic items by and large had unique names, and the item description had some of the story behind the item. I still remember what could have been just simply "boots of speed" being called the "Paws of the Cheetah", and that some previous adventurer who had possessed them for some time was known for his battle cry of "you can hide, but you can't run! "
Thank you so much, Ginny. While others like Pointy Hat or the Dungeon Dudes offer great lore or mechanical content, you are the D&D youtuber I come to for roleplaying advice. You never disappoint.
I made a minotaur PC with a deep backstory; but as an FDM (Forever DM), I'll probably never get to play him in a campaign. With his sailing background, I gave him a woodworking shop with a naval motif. During Dragon Heist, my players got a tavern and visited my minotaur woodworker for new furniture and repairs. I panicked for an accent, and fell on a thick Russian-esque accent; seems rarely used in fantasy tropes filled with English, Irish and Scottish accents. Anyway, he became such a beloved NPC that some of my players would spend their downtime just hanging out with him. Victory!!
This is all fantastic advice. A store keeper that the party visits repeatedly is a wonderful sleeper who can suddenly become important to an adventure. That is especially true for a side-quest session when the table is missing some players. That pixies-run plant shop is brilliant; so many quest possibilities. Every unusual plant the party finds suddenly becomes treasure! How the heck do we get this weird tree back to town anyway??
If you're in Eberron. Greywall has some very interesting ways on how shopping works due to the monster pipulace using monster teeth as currency. For example. Maybe you trade some basalisk teeth for a sword; or something else a Harpy or troll found and is bartering. Another way to spice up shopping is to have unique shops like Sorcererus Sundrunys from Baldur's Gate 3.
My players visited a city in a glacier, so I reskinned the local blacksmith to be a bonesmith- a hag who makes weapons, armor, nails, horseshoes, etc from the bones of her victims. Everything was just PHB items, not even magic items, but my players absolutely loved it.
I made a shoppkeep for my current campaign that was inspired by Dylan hollis and is so much fun to roleplay! Hes a flamboyant archfey that sells enchanted baked goods and dishes that cause random magical effects when eaten.
i have one shop keep named Adamastor and eveytime a client comes in he offers them tea and he likes to chat, the players sometimes can just enter to chat with him and drink tea, he hear ther stories and tell stories of himself as well, it kinda makes the world more alive and also give me time to "relax" wighout having to do combat math hehe
My campaign had one of those shops that's down a quiet alley except you can never find it when you go back. Popped up in a few locations when the players were wanting stuff; partly out of laziness but mostly for the bit. He stocked all the basic equipment as well as a variety of dubious "magical" items, such as the "Plus 1 Crossbow" (a crossbow that causes the owner to have one more crossbow than previously), the "Bag for Holding" (a spacious bag with a sturdy handle on the top for ease of carrying), and the "Invisible Necklace" (which was itself invisible).
made me so happy to have already met all the point in your video! Mazzie of Mazzie's Magical Musings, is a tiny energetic elf absolutely covered in pricings, necklaces and bracelets, every charm hanging off her long ears and such has it's own enchantment she gathered from her days as a traveling salesmen, no one knows just how many she has in effect. her dream is to have the biggest chain magic shop in Histonia. She was recently enabled to start building her empire when another country sponsored her during rising war efforts, and the party met her because she hosted fittings for armor to be given to the soldiers, and supplied magic items as needed. I always wanted the shopping mechanics to be immersive, Mazzie has her shop sorted into sections, ex: Garments, jewelry, potions ext Mazzzie greats them and often leaves her desk to help with their shopping. players choose which section to look through and i describe it in more detail, they show interest in a object and Mazzie takes notice, explaining effects, drawbacks(if a little minimized) and price, sometimes supplying discounts or special coupons. often they split up and who ever she isn't with gets a quick "with you in a moment!" or "please don't touch!" she has new or different wares almost every time, sometimes more sometimes less. and there is always a chance of finding her when going to a new place. she does pretty well for herself, but i have used her to affect her surroundings, such as the old magic shop in a town going out of business from the new competition. Sorry for ranting but she is probably my proudest DND creation, and my party adores her!
I remember having this small, old gnomish lady that had a trinket shop. When one of the players asked for something specific, I said "one moment, I might have just the thing" and as she went into the magazine, I described tbe sound that was coming out of there as "You hear something that could only be described as "A pack of wolves with rabies, swimming through a sea of frying pans"" their faces were pretty funny after hearing that.
Planning on doing a shopping session just before Christmas and I properly start my Keys from the Golden Vault thread so this was perfectly timed for that shopping inspo!
One of my shopkeepers is a high level gnome wizard that built a 6-story shop inside a Demiplane. That's 5 feet per floor, which is great for gnomes, but a great way to emphasize the height differences in a party. He's always on the move, with his shop turning up in all major cities, and he seems on the run from something. Or maybe he just needs lots of money? Who knows! Anyway, the players get their first opportunity to visit the shop while looking for a different shop, just simple passive perception success for whoever has the highest passive perception, a door in a place where there should (or could) not be one. If they go in, a familiar pops in shortly after sharing words of alarm with the wizard, and the players instantly get kicked out with an interesting freebie off a random nearly shelf to encourage them be speedy about it. Or perhaps the item is something that they shouldn't had received, useless to the party but of personal value to the gnome. Or maybe they get both! Anyway, this creates a seed for players to learn more about the wizard by asking for more information in a shop where they will actually get to spend their gold, and sets up future interactions with both the wizard's storyline and his shop.
I actually had a recent game where the shop the players ended up at was by design. They were there to because seemingly everyone they talked to in town pushed them that way, and there they had the opportunity to buy plenty kf camping and survival gear (tents, ropes flashlights climbing gear, field rations backpacks anything like that) and I had the shop owner be this sweet but very business oriented woman. One of the players immediately took a liking to her and of course was looking at romance stuff with her. Well the shop owner being a shop owner decided to use that to her advantage and squeezed money out of her. No real chance to romance as everytime it was brought up the shop owner blushed and said oh you're you're much and pointed to yet another Shiney object on the wall. Boom instant fun shopping. 😊
In a D&D campaign I'm the main place where we buy stuff has an alchemist store run by a VERY crazy alchemist that make unhinged and unsupervised experiments. One day the square is full of bread because a golem made of bread exploded (she pretended to cure the world's hunger with it), another time the blacksmiths from other store had their hair and facial hair exchanged (they were an elf and a dwarf, so imagine the situation. My cleric managed to get a discount thanks to tell the elf how to untangle his new hair) after she gave them the incorrect potion, another time she cloned herself... and the clone cloned herself, and that clone cloned herself too... to the point that one clone opened another branch of the store in another city, one was on vacation (they rotate), another one was experimeting about stuff and turned herself into himself, liked the change and started to pump iron until now he is a buffed gigachad (who later helped to train the Cleric to win the Atlete feat, something that made the rogue start drooling seeing him pumping iron barechest) and that's alone in that store. Didn't happen everytime, but we know that everytime we go there something weird or mundane could be happening. Something between the alchemist with burned eyebrows to an bread apocalypse (delicious bread BTW, gives temporal hit-points until next long rest) There is another magic store in other city where the owner smoke the D&D equivalent of weed at a ridiculous pace, to the point that the second time we go to his store he wasn't smoking because he decided to make his house hermetic and burn the weed in the chimney and... lets say that after leaving the shop every one of us failed the constitution save. The results? Well Both the paladin and the monk beileve themselves an ascended god, the rogue believed that the sky was falling on us, the mage believed that everyone of us was a doppelganger who wanted to kill her so she simply mistystep when the rogue tried to ask her for help and trewn at us a fireball, who everyone managed to more o less evade except the Cleric, who believed himself a bard, and tried to sing to give everyone else Bardic Inspiration to evade the fireball and took it on the chin.
One of my favorite NPC shop keepers was a Kobold I put in Baulders Gate. His name was Leekin. He had a famous cousin who was a bard shop keeper in Neverwinter Deekin. Whenever you bought something from Leekin he wanted you to toss him the coins so he could parkour off the shelves and catch them with his snout.
This is inspiring. I'm working on an urban campaign that features the party as part of a sorta turf war and a huge component of that turf war is to convince local shops that they are safer being part of your turf. There's strategy involved with for example wanting to go for the prime blacksmith in town knowing it's located in the Dwarven district of Sodmar ruled by the Sodmar Hammers. Curiously enough, the party starts with some connections to an prestigious inn frequented by students of the local bard college. Perhaps I steal your blacksmith/aspiring musician idea as a way for the party to discover an in with the blacksmith. They'll still have to fight off the Hammers, but now they'll have magic metalwork aiding them in doing so.
I came up with a recent traveling shop keeper that I think players would like. It's an elf that magically seems to follow the party around from city to city. Holding in his possession several random magical items, weapons, armor, and other assorted goods. The character seems to randomly appear and if delved into, the store keep will openly tell the party he's simply following them because he sees a good opportunity with them to make some coin. In reality this shop keep is an elder dragon that has an obsession with coins. He will never pay the party for sold items in coin, and holds basically an infinite number of random magical items that range from the most epic of magical trinkets, to the simplest of tools. All he truly cares about though is gold, and though he does safeguard his treasures, making it very obvious to the players he's not someone to trifle with. He's far more concerned about making more and more coin off the party because he just can't get enough of the glittering little circles. The idea i had for the character is simply having a merchant that can readily resupply the heros at any shop with some of the far more powerful potions, weapons, Ammuntion, scrolls, and so on. Though he prices them fairly, they're not cheap of course. So to begin with the best the players might get from him is a healing potion or two. However he's always got high level magical items sitting on display for the players to entice them to shop with him. Eventually as the party progresses the party may find they finally have the cash to pay for one or more of these legendary items. These items are random though so they may come to him and find the items he has that day are not what they want. He's also not going to always be there, and though he certainly will show up in towns from time to time, it's not a 100% guarantee he'll be there. This way other shops still serve a purpose, and it doesn't just end up with him constantly being their only shop. Just an idea i had, probably not very original but figured id share the idea since it was on topic.
Your style is growing on me. Nice to know you won't leaf us high and dry. Too bad vines have wilted. This could've made for a great bouquet of content.
Copied the link for my Start playing GM. Love the new character as well as the info, I love shopping role play even though none of my other groups do. Also love the top you wore for the video, surprised you didn't buy more of that material to make Beam less shorts, the pattern would totally fit her...
My party had a brief career as moonshine runners once when we were broke and needed to trade a favor for armor from a Dwarven smithy. Highly recommend!
In a couple of the campaigns I've ran, I've used a magical bazaar in a pocket dimension filled with fluffy white clouds as my magic item shop. The owner is a Djinn, but the face of the business is one of my original characters that I love to pieces, my clown girl bard Polly Acci. Did I do this mostly so I could roleplay my clown daughter? Yes. Did my players love her too? Also yes. We even had a session in Storm King's Thunder where the cloud giant countess that the party escaped from infiltrated the bazaar while they were getting ready for the next area.
^You could also have NPCs outside ot the shop talk about the shop like the innkeeper telling you about that rat infestation happening at the potion store prompting you to offer your rat extinction services in exchange for free items or that customer talking about that rare magical item the shop is offering underneath the table so the players know to ask the shopkeeper for those "secret" additional offerings. Also this kind of gossip could lead the players towards knowing about quirks and goals that are not obvious. In the end nothing makes players feel better than allowing them to figure out how ways of getting advantages without the DM directly pointing them towards them.
I once ran a horror campaign, set in 1990s America. The party ended up in Louisiana and decided they needed more firepower to deal with the monster. They found Jed's Gun Emporium. Once inside, they addressed the man behind the counter as Jed. I answered, "Naw, I'm Luke, Jed's my brother." Later, when they returned, they saw someone new inside and assumed he was Jed. "Naw, I'm Zeke, Jed's cousin." I don't think they ever actually met Jed. In one of my long-running D&D campaigns, the party met a traveling merchant named Ohmar. The second time they met him, he had been robbed and had no inventory. He asked if they could make a donation to getting him back on his feet. I had made out a little chart to dictate how much of a discount they would get in the future depending on how much they donated. I think they donated about 2-3 times more than the maximum value I had listed on my chart. For the rest of the campaign, Ohmar showed up in every major city they entered and he always had the best stuff for sale, at very reasonable prices. The party eventually traveled to a floating sky city that was magically enchanted so that only people who had been there could get there. When they arrived, of course Ohmar was there. When things went siddeways and the BBEG killed the royal family, breaking the spells that kept the city airborne, rather than running for a portal, they ran to Ohmar's booth. I guess they thought they wouldn't have time to reach one of the portals, but I decided to reward their faith in their favorite merchant by letting them find a teleportation scroll so they could escape the city. I don't think I've ever put so much character into any of my merchants since then.
this reminds me of the shopkeeper i had that was just an unassuming alabastor domino mask sitting on a shelf. he took a liking to the party except the tiefling fighter that had tried to “handle him” (i.e. just picking him up off the shelf). i’m definitely bringing him back for a rewrite of the campaign
The first 3e group I played with loved roleplaying shopping. The DM was great at it and made it very fun. Sadly, my current group just likes to quick run shopping without any roleplaying.
Thanks for this video! My players love shopping trips, but honestly it can bore me to tears sometimes, so hopefully this helps! Edit: This great advice. Spicing it up sometimes with quests and maybe a more interactive shop sounds great, and I can do other shopping between sessions (with occasional normal shopping to keep them on their toes)
A shop with particularly exclusive items, especially magical ones, might only operate on the barter system. "Your money is no good here." Meaning they're going to need specific items or services in exchange. And that's the only way they'll deal. Of course, some might have monetary sources to whom they sell certain items requested, but they wouldn't deal with just any pc off the streets that way.
I mean the son that doesn't want to run the shop is a good idea for a wizard or artificser build. Think about it. They go through a harrowing journey and both finds items for the shop, let him see how the items work in practice and then maybe he can expirence a trauma that makes him come back home and run the shop or maybe go the other way and with his exirence be able to convince his mom to let him keep adventuring so he can send home more valuable magic items.
Gotta love my retail-inspired discount magic item shop. Complete with anxiety-ridden teenager who has to try and upsell customers using the fantasy SALES method (and gets yelled at by everyone)
one of my favorite things to make when my players go shopping, is to give them 2 items that they want, but they only have money to purchase one of them.... it might sound cruel, but it is not only pleasent for me, but also entretaining for them that they keep some time arguing which item would be more useful for them in the future, and when they purchase one, and they acctuly use it, they just love it! i have one of my players who porchased a "deck of illusions" from a magical shop, and they were in a town that was being atacked by bandits (seven samurai style, a party of 6 players and 1 NPC vs 30 bandits) the bard than pulled a card from his deck of illusions and guess what? CLOUD GIANT! he summoned a female warrior cloud giant (he made sure to specify that evey card he invokes is gonna be female XD) with a gigantic axe in her hand, and she start screaming and treating the bandits, literaly 70% of them did not pass on the test and just ran away, and they defeated the remaining ones. they left the card there for ever, so now the town have a cloud giant protector (they made sure to tell everybody not to remove the card from the ground) and no banddits want to go there anymore because of the rumors that there is a giant woman wo will crush them, she cant do that of course, after all she is a illusion, but they dotn know that, and the town make sure to spread the rummors that she is real, so it even atract some tourists who want to see the cloud giant woman. all the party was super happy that the deck of illusions was so useful
My favorite shopkeeper (and my players) was this kobold named Flip who ran Flip's Fantastic Fstore, or, as he would say it every time; FLIPS FANTASTIC FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF...STORE! He was this dumb silly little man who spoke in a squeaky voice and had no idea what the value of anything actually was, his general store had a rolling table and percentile roll, the players could ask 'is (insert magical item) in this store somewhere?' and I'd roll to see if Flip had it and if he could find it. One time they asked for a bag of sand and he picked up one of them but it was full of scorpions and centipedes so he just casually fished them out with his hand while going 'ouchie, one- ouchie- two-' and the party was just dying of laughter the entire time, he was the highlight of that particular kingdom for the party and always made them want to come back to their home base just to vibe with him.
Fantastic video! Love the cosplay and it is so cool to get an insight into how that project went for you :D Goodluck with the Kickstarter and thank you for all of this juicy inspiration >:3 Merry Christmas!
I just finished reading the 1st playtest for Seeker's! So excited to include the Hedgerow and Bramble in my games! She fits really well with some of the themes that I've already got in ny hub city!
One of my shopkeeper hacks is to make them former PCs of mine. Immediately fleshed out, and it means I always have a great time when the party is shopping.
Get your copy of The Seeker's Guide to Enchanting Emporiums, featuring my shop, the Hedgerow! www.kickstarter.com/projects/eldermancy/the-seekers-guide-to-enchanting-emporiums?ref=e06u5l
Quick question... what lipstick are you wearing? I looove it. ❤
Actually I made this shopkeep in my first dnd campaign i was dming hes a goblin from the faywild he's really old and basically like a God who's super fast has the ability to telaport him and the shop he loves to joke. My players absolutely love him I bring him through every new campaign, and there always so excited to see him
@DogwoodDove it's Maybelline Superstay 24 Color in Very Cranberry!
That's a magnificent shirt. Did U build your room around it?
My over all magic shop is Omar's Magic Shoppe. No matter what town or city they come Omar is the owner of the shop. And there a barrel of sword for sell for 1000gp. It a random roll sword table in the DM guild.
I liked how in Critical Role campaign 2, Matt would occasionally use shopping as an opportunity to remind the players about the ongoing war. They were spending most of their time far from the front lines, but they were reminded of the reach of the conflict when most of the more valuable magical items and especially healing items were being sent to the military.
And of course Pumat Sol is a gem.
I was about to say something along these lines. What Matt Mercer is doing here is using the shop keepers to set mood and tone in scene. But you don't need to do this too often for the players to get it. And it doesn't need to take long. In my experience, even with interesting, entertaining NPCs, shopping in D&D is adds little more often than not. Down time should still be advancing the story. True, it's the lull between high points, but it's a way to deepen the context of the campaign and where complications can be brought to light. It's where the PCs discover while they've been out tomb raiding, the villains have not been idle.
Ginny is spot on in how memorable NPCs make for great story telling opportunities and help players invest in the world. But those interactions need to count for something. Just because you have an interesting, quirky character concept for an NPC doesn't mean they belong in the story. In HBO's Rome, for instance, we do not meet all the slaves in Caesar's house---we only meet his sharp tongued body slave, Poska, who is quickly established as a literate, keen, and capable of doing business on Caesar's behalf, so very a valuable slave. And whenever we see Poska in scene, we know he is there on Caesar's order--he is a capable, smart extension of Caesar's will. A quirky, memorable NPC usually isn't enough to put them in scene. A quirky, memorable NPC who advances the overall narrative is an absolute must have.
(Now I don't have magic shops in my world because I feel that reduces magic items to the newest, latest smart phone. If PCs haven't paid for their magic items in blood, they haven't earned them.)
Aristotle in his Poetics says drama is real life without the boring bits. That's what screen writers call shoe leather--that is unless there is a narrative reason to have the characters in a market place, skipping it is usually best. Even in downtime, where the characters have returned to town, the story needs to be advancing.
Generally speaking, I have the players give me a list of what they are wanting and I'll say either yes or no as to it's availability. If it's something clever that might take time, I'll let them know. Or if it's something that might involve a side quest, say obtaining mercury so a highly skilled smith can gild the party's steel weapons with silver.
Obtaining the mercury might be a side quest that first takes them to a barber surgeon that treats prostitutes and their patrons at a local brothel---but he's only got a very small amount and he hasn't seen his supplier in a long while. The players run down the supplier only to discover he's had his throat cut by thieves leading the party into a confrontation with the thieves guild. So on and so forth.
Pumat is indeed very charming
And Gilmore is also an iconic character and not just a shop keep
@@thedanishcatgirl3205 What about the powder merchant :D
@@TheBiggreenpig I was about to mention that. Victor the gunpowder merchant was a super memorable and super effective NPC in Campaign 1...with a combination of a funny voice and a funny personality, Matt was already able to captivate the players to him, but in future visits Victor was also helpful as a narrative driver forshadowing that Anna Ripley is still around. Plus, each and every time the players visit Viktor, there are more and more incidents of Viktor accidentally blowing himself up with the gunpowder which was hilarious!
Never underestimate the success of a throwaway NPC. I ran a game of Exalted for 6 years and one of the most beloved NPCs was Sharif the silk-cutter, a random clerk that had his lunch stolen.
Ha! My Exalted party needed to medic once and ended up bringing her on weird global adventures of at least 3 years....
I still have PTSD about the NPC who could make one potion per day that would expire when they made the next one and, for some reason, that was the most exciting thing in the entire campaign and my players put way more energy and effort into trying to convince this gnome with two hit points an no abilities to join their level 8 party so they could have one extra potion on tap.
I had a trio of frost giants attack the PCs in a Scion game in an Italian restaurant. The players dealt quickly and mercilessly with the first two goons, leaving the third 10' tall goon to fall to his knees, crying out, "Don't kill me, I got lil ice cubes at home!"
I wound up with an NPC that would be a background character for years. "If you want to live, start by cleaning up the mess your friends made."
Giant finds a broom and dustpan, starts sweeping up broken glass while singing "dum dum dum duh duh dum dum..." No such as a throwaway NPC.
My players latched onto a random npc that insulted them when they first entered a town, they tracked him down and I turned him into a cartel boss who was smuggling "fey dust" and the party went on a side quest to stop him.
So true
Well Bramble is just delightful, despite that....thorny personality :D
That noir gun moll diction made me smile every time!
I can totally see Bramble running her shop in The Bronx, telling customers to buy something or move along before they "have an accident, see?"
I feel like she would make for an interesting POV roleplay
Bramble... that name hits hard right now.
backstory if my newest char, Bramble is... was... her son... and he was drowned by the bad guys in game D:
A recurring shop in my games is these magical vending machines. I never call them that, I describe arcane mechanisms and part of the gag is the party figuring out that they are vending machines. They always happen to have exactly what the party needs and are suspiciously in ridiculous places (like dungeons) and they seem to have a little guy in them that makes them work. Like, sometimes the items will get stuck and a little arm will reach from inside and fix it. If the players complain about prices or stock, it'll grunt and change them or new stock will slide into place. I imply that all of the machines are attached to the same location through portals. I've got a few quest hooks in my back pocket for them. Some day, when the time feels right, some group will finally get to see what makes them tick.
Yoink; stealing that!
They're a Mimic that survived for so long, and grew so much that they gained sapience, made a Pact, and is now a Sorcerer, aren't they? And either the "items" - or, better yet, the _packaging_ the items the players buy - are its offspring, dormant until discarded for a time, after which said offspring begin to consume more and more of the available items in their environment, wherever they end up.
@@jamesnoneyabizness5611 Okay real talk though? Young mimics disguising themselves as a container that's meant to be thrown away in order to spread is utterly brilliant. I might legitimately steal that idea.
@@Starfloofle
No! Thou Shalt _Not_ Steal!
... take it for free, with my blessings for a full table of _terrified_ players.
Merry Yule, ya messy meatsack murderhobos. 😉😁😂
@@jamesnoneyabizness5611 Honestly, this feels like the Mimic equivalent to the Oblex and I'm here for it. I could also see a type of mimic that becomes a "copy cat" specifically for items, but not a way of hunting humanoids, but as a way to increase their own abilities or to perhaps spread their offspring.
Say one becomes a "Legendary weapon" but instead its the mimic learning new tricks or adapting to its environment. This gets the mimic experiences and thus more tricks and also ways to spread its offspring and even be seen as valuable so it gets protection and even food.
I was just starting to plan for next session when my players said they wanted to go shopping. Perfect timing!
Yeah, I'm currently stuck on preparing a market for my PCs next week, so this is really helpful!
It’s amazing how Ginny is consistently able to make a video that immediately relates to what I’m working on
bro same
Lucky bois.
i always feel weird commenting on a creator’s appearance without mentioning the content of the video (which is fantastic, by the way), but GINNY IM SO IMPRESSED WITH HOW WELL UR HAIR & HEADBAND MATCH UR SHIRT WTF ITS MAGICAL
It was clearly spun and woven by Bramble's seamstress sbling!
HAHA thank you! I bought a 10-pack of pastel headbands once and they have been serving me so well 😂
I was going to say something similar. Ginny always has such cool outfits, even when she's "just Ginny" and not one of her characters!
Ginny: "We don't care about businesses, we care about people"
All businesses: *surprised Pikachu*
This is such simple advice, but it really hits home.
Have an awakened hamster in a glass ball he scampers about on rails and shelves known as “The Proprietor”. An elderly couple do the physical labor while he schmoozes the clientele. He is also the contact for certain organizations. Love this sort of stuff. Had a potion maker who had a fire so their wares were in the back of a wagon with a few guards selling them as part of the cost for damages and repairs.
Love the flavor and your little fey is another great idea! Love it!!!
Never underestimate the appeal of "weak" magic items that have flashy or entertaining aesthetic effects. The Cloak of Billowing is a perfect example. Offer an armoire that cleans, folds, and irons any clothing placed inside. A shield that changes colors based on your pet's emotional state. A pen that only writes what you really mean. A scarf with a rippling rainbow pattern that animates down the fabric. And then make your NPCs really care about that sort of thing.
My friend had a magic shopkeep Faerie named Ari. She lived in a cluttered shop that appeared as a door on a wall, but never in the same place twice. She was temporally dislocated, you never knew if the Ari you'd meet was from your past or future. The first time she meets they're convinced you're her dearest friends.
Her store was a maze of shelves, rooms, passages, all covered in clutter that served as a few adventures of their own when weird things that should NOT be in a store found their way in through a doorportal.
River Song vibes, I love it!
Reminds me of Ramiris from TenSura, especially with the time paradoxes and labyrinth theme. All in all a really fun idea, especially as the time shenanigans keeps the party on their toes and they could even meet characters from the past or future in the shop.
Imagine them going in and seeing a past version of the BBEG, who is utterly innocent of any wrong doing and just wants to do the right thing. Or they run into a kid they met looking to be an adventurer only to meet his jaded and dying of a curse future self...
one of my favorite things one of my Friends made up was a shop, with "broken" items like a wagon wheel with some missing spokes, or the bird cage without the bottom in it.
The shopkeep was a Goblin, that loved to haggle, and generally saw nothing wrong with the items, that to the players always seemed to be missing something for it to be complete.
Getting the players to kitbash or find ways of repairing the items that actually was very cheap, as in around 50% cost of a full funtional version of the item, so as to make the items they could get from there storied by virtue of the built in quirks of having to kitbash them to make them work, the whole experience fun for the table hopefully.
of course this should be a 1 off shop not located in a large city, but rather a small town, as to make the shopping more fun to figure out if you can get something usefull out of it.
Remember this was meant to be a "get creative" kind of a shop, so have some fun with it if you decide to use the idea, make it something to be colaborative for the hole group, make the shopkeep fun for the group to interact with in some manner ^^
The local rag man or junkyard is often necessary.
As a fledgling DM this is been a lot of of help
1 addition tip is to limit the number of items available to the party at once, just to avoid the analysis paralysis of the entire book worth of magic items being on sale at once.
For some shops like non-magical weapons and armor its reasonable enough to let the party just make any customizations they feel like.
But for the magic item shops, keep the menu simple, a couple consumables like healing potions, a couple items reasonably within budget, and 1 or 2 items out of budget to be put on the wishlist, or pool the party funds for. (Carrying over previously available stock is optional but i would keep most unpurchased items available if a player asks about them, unless you have a reason for it to be unavailable this time)
I created an urchin guild. Street urchins the players/characters can give a list of items to, and get their shopping delivered to them a few hours later. These urchins are often savvy with which stores have discounts on any given day, and can also answer whereabouts in town. It's also handy they all have the same voice, all of which makes shopping much easier on me :P
Players are still free to seek out certain specific NPCs who run stores though, however most of these are like... they require a specific service, or like an upgrade to their ship, etc. Things you couldn't just put on a shopping list. But that's okay, because it cuts down on so much time already.
Always a good day when Ginny posts
I did a double-take - a pixie called Brambles was one of my first characters!
you, me, and Laura Bailey! 😂 good company I guess!
In my game we have Danika Ferris of the Ferris & Family General Store. Danika is an 8 year old girl who wants to be an adventurer and somehow keeps obtaining cursed magic items or captured by sewer goblins. She does provide a delivery service though. When you just overturn your bag of holding or behind a rock. Danika's probably hiding nearby with the interesting skill of having a trinket that makes a portal to the counter of her parents shop. Ring the bell, leave a note and some money and collect items. Unfortunately despite all the great stuff that Danika has per parents just run a perfectly ordinary general store. No potions, armory, weapons or holy water, just mundane equipment from the gear list. It's a way of helping players who have forgotten to have bought something before we left, run out of arrows or food.
My best shop so far as a rather new DM was a shop with thousands of weird and many seemingly worthless things in it. A very old shop where the owner doesn't really care much about things as mundane as gold and would rather trade you for something he doesn't already have. Little does the party know that the shop keep is actually a metallic dragon in human form who just wants to connect with humans as they are peculiar creatures, so he opened a shop in town when it was settled (like 400 years ago) and just changes form regularly to seem a little older, then this form leaves and gets replaced by a "new owner" he also plays.
His shop is full of his HOARD of various items he finds unique and interesting for his own reasons ("This broken cart was the most prized possession of the young Timmy Hodgkins, now an old man, when he lived with his parents farther up the street. Actually broke his leg when he crashed with it at 9 years of age"). He wouldn't sell you a broken wooden toy for the 20 gp you're offering but if you've got a rusty goblin dagger he'd be interested in trading.
How I handle shopping/downtime falls into two categories:
1. If there's too much to handle for each individual character it happens outside of game time via emails, so the session(s) don't turn into one player talking to me sorting out the one thing that affects them while everyone else sits around bored.
2. I throw weird shop keepers with weird products at the players. Why does a healing potion have to be a potion? Wendle's healing meat pies are very popular with dwarves.
Pieing a dying PC to heal them would be quite funny
I made a shop that I've used a couple times where every time the party enters, I roll 1d4 which determines what it looks like on the inside and the shopkeep had corresponding personalities. Like, when the characters first enter it may be an organized lab space with a neurotic nerd shopkeep and the next time they go in (which could be the same day) it's overgrown and kinda disorganized and the shopkeep is a chill hippie. I call it The Fantastic Lambuni's Magical Market of Arcane Wonders and Exotic Wares.
I once made a magic shop owned by “Sirava the Secluded”, a yuan-ti woman who only made creepy magic items
The shop had no lighting, was full of taxidermied creatures and Sirava always got a spooky joy whenever she was sold body parts, particularly fingers
The party loved Sirava so much, and always looked for reasons to go shopping there 🙂
2 shops that went surprisingly well with my party when I DMed were
1 Ebony Bay, a rare to find store where all are connected by magic circles of teleportation, where odds and ends from other adventurers are sold, like the -1 sword of fire, yes minus, it did fire damage as an upside so crits were better but default damage was -1 because the metal was softened by the heat, or the shield of nope which gave +4AC but needed both hands to be used as a shield since ti was so awkward and big.
2 Ally's Chemary, an alchemy store that sold potions, ammo for the warlocks gun and sometimes had quests where a big bit of the gimick was that Ally the enby running the place was sampling some of their stock so was always high or something and the party later learnt part of the reason was to reduce pain since they had to quit adventuring after serious injury, and they can still defend the store somewhat with their own alchemic pistol custom made to hold multiple shots, not for sale.
Completely on point & accurate, as always, Ginny! A shop is a great opportunity for a variety of character interaction & dissemination of campaign hooks. As a seasoned retail & customer service professional, I possess a huge collection of experiences to use in my role-playing. Now that my wife (who LOVES to shop…) is playing D&D with me, she is likely to have an encounter in-game that is eerily similar to something I told her after work one day…
This video inspired me to think of a frantic fairy shopkeep/tinkerer with a fear of meeting new people who seeks a crossroads to the Feywild.
I could picture him protecting himself with a myriad of sprites to assist and cast Heart Sight on others, while permanently being under the effects of Detect Thoughts to process transactions much faster.... and for a touch of mystery, you could also make him a tinkerer who specializes in cursed magical items.
Edit: this would also make for an interesting swarmkeeper, if your DM would allow the sprites.
I love my original Seeker’s Guide, I’ve already backed for the new one!
I homebrewed this adorable seaside hamlet as the base location for a beginners campaign. Before setting out on the next task the party wanted provisions so they went to the bakery. Having decided that they wanted to try to get a discount, the party laid the flattery on thick. Ultimately, the halfling barbarian challenged the muscular young baker woman to arm wrestle for a discount. Better than an hour was spent role playing the negotiating of muffins with a NPC that I made up on the spot.😂❤
Beyond the items, yeah the shopkeeper is EXTREMELY important. So far my players have met a goblin trapped in a cat’s body, a beholder in a trench coat, and an eccentric tiefling with an illlithid partner.
A good shopkeeper will stick in their heads and make the crunchier aspects of shopping way more fun.
Your outro reminded me of something. My party's healer (a NPC) is an awakened shrub named "Holly." Being a Holly bush she always has her casting focus.
I LOVE shopping sessions! My DM always makes the most fun shopkeeps even just on the spot. Some have deep lore and quests and some are just really fun characters to meet and interact with
I've got three:
A travelling wood elf alchemist named Roboute, who's shop is a portable hole/well thing.
Jenkins "Old man Jenkins" Oldman, another alchemist and retired adventurer, his shop is a nice little downtown building that is very often on fire, and he does not appreciate Roboute's competition.
and his brother Beckett "Old man Beckett" Oldman, an artificer. His shop is a lighthouse overlooking a lake.
I'm always reskinning items and trying to keep shops interesting. I have one shop run by a shapeshifted gold dragon, whenever she opens a shop in another city it connects to one her main shop, each location is seperated by floor and invisible to the naked eye if its not the door you enterred through. (the last part is to help avoid my players abusing the fast travel, its a feature that is available to them if they are in the dragon's good graces, but i dont want them to use it to get everywhere from day one)
Thanks for these tips Ginny!! My players spend a lot of time wanting to ask questions around town and investigate via social mechanics rather than find the physical clues or dungeon delve. So I need to keep making a variety of NPCs and make shopping engaging. Right now they have become really attached to the Owner of the General Store NPC I made, so I try to make each time they visit her full of personality and quirky little moments. But Id love for them to get this invested in some of the other ones. Your video has made me pause and really think about what makes that NPC successful though, and I think that will help with future shopkeeps, Inn proprietors and Tavern workers a lot.
BARD: 🎶If there's a Bramble in your Hedge Row, don't be alarmed now. It's just a discount for your PCs. 🎶
BRAMBLE: No discounts, kid. And no "Stairway to Heaven!"
BARD: Still better service than the Guitar Center...
One thing I've found useful, as a recovering CCG addict, is to combine item cards and those card protective pages of which I had a ton laying around, to make a shop inventory that's mobile, protected, and has all the information you wish to show to your players. (and none of the details you might rather they not read) While your video is focused more on making the shopping interesting rather than quick, I think this one is more focused toward speed. If you are swimming in pages like I am, you can also have enough inventories for all of your players to pore over their own personal list, which can be a welcome buff to their patience with one another.
Lots of good advice here, as per usual.
The idea of a shopkeep providing a quest, and how the players handle that quest then leading to changes in the shop's inventory, both good AND bad, is particularly interesting idea. Like in your example, Be careful that you don't damage the shop! In video games, one can often use spell effects that LOOK devastating but are nothing but spectacle and enemy damage.
This here shows influence on the world.
Few things bring me as much joy as a shopping session.
My favorite shopkeep to use is a mysterious shopkeep who is always found in shady areas with the oddest goods, they never get a name, but due to their nature it always brings my party looking for them every chance they get
Someone's been playing Resident Evil 4.
One of my all time favorite recurring NPC characters was originally a throw-away other customer at a store when the players walked in that wasnt even planned to be there, just complete in-the-moment improv
One of my easiest tweaked items that gave my Lvl 1 players a lot of utility was a 'Pouch of Holding'. Same thing as a Bag of Holding but 1/3rd the size and carrying capacity. All the fun aspects of a Bag of Holding without feeling it's too overpowered for early level play.
Man this is some great advice for DMs, I'm glad I came across this channel.
Great Video! It's important to me to let you know I have been watching for a while and every video I get something out of. Sadly I started getting into playing just before 2020 didn't even get to play until it was mostly over and was still doing that online and then the whole OGL thing hit. So just getting started with TTRPGs was difficult for me. But thanks to you, Bob world builder, Critical Role, DND shorts, professor DM, the Dungeon Dudes, Jocat and so many others I got to fill the hole not being able to play was filled. I want to thank all of you for what you do! Have a great holiday season and a great new year!
The individualised item description of a "basic" +1 sword is very reminiscent of the original Baldurs Gate games, where magic items by and large had unique names, and the item description had some of the story behind the item. I still remember what could have been just simply "boots of speed" being called the "Paws of the Cheetah", and that some previous adventurer who had possessed them for some time was known for his battle cry of "you can hide, but you can't run! "
I'm strongly reminded of Pumat Sol's shop, the Invulnerable Vagrant.
And, of course, the Dust of Deliciousness.
Thank you so much, Ginny. While others like Pointy Hat or the Dungeon Dudes offer great lore or mechanical content, you are the D&D youtuber I come to for roleplaying advice. You never disappoint.
I made a minotaur PC with a deep backstory; but as an FDM (Forever DM), I'll probably never get to play him in a campaign. With his sailing background, I gave him a woodworking shop with a naval motif. During Dragon Heist, my players got a tavern and visited my minotaur woodworker for new furniture and repairs. I panicked for an accent, and fell on a thick Russian-esque accent; seems rarely used in fantasy tropes filled with English, Irish and Scottish accents.
Anyway, he became such a beloved NPC that some of my players would spend their downtime just hanging out with him.
Victory!!
This is all fantastic advice. A store keeper that the party visits repeatedly is a wonderful sleeper who can suddenly become important to an adventure. That is especially true for a side-quest session when the table is missing some players. That pixies-run plant shop is brilliant; so many quest possibilities. Every unusual plant the party finds suddenly becomes treasure! How the heck do we get this weird tree back to town anyway??
I love your videos and the insights they give into world building. I'm not into D&D, but there is some great information for creative writing as well.
If you're in Eberron. Greywall has some very interesting ways on how shopping works due to the monster pipulace using monster teeth as currency.
For example. Maybe you trade some basalisk teeth for a sword; or something else a Harpy or troll found and is bartering.
Another way to spice up shopping is to have unique shops like Sorcererus Sundrunys from Baldur's Gate 3.
My players visited a city in a glacier, so I reskinned the local blacksmith to be a bonesmith- a hag who makes weapons, armor, nails, horseshoes, etc from the bones of her victims. Everything was just PHB items, not even magic items, but my players absolutely loved it.
I made a shoppkeep for my current campaign that was inspired by Dylan hollis and is so much fun to roleplay!
Hes a flamboyant archfey that sells enchanted baked goods and dishes that cause random magical effects when eaten.
i have one shop keep named Adamastor and eveytime a client comes in he offers them tea and he likes to chat, the players sometimes can just enter to chat with him and drink tea, he hear ther stories and tell stories of himself as well, it kinda makes the world more alive and also give me time to "relax" wighout having to do combat math hehe
My campaign had one of those shops that's down a quiet alley except you can never find it when you go back. Popped up in a few locations when the players were wanting stuff; partly out of laziness but mostly for the bit. He stocked all the basic equipment as well as a variety of dubious "magical" items, such as the "Plus 1 Crossbow" (a crossbow that causes the owner to have one more crossbow than previously), the "Bag for Holding" (a spacious bag with a sturdy handle on the top for ease of carrying), and the "Invisible Necklace" (which was itself invisible).
Now I need an item description for the Watering Can't.
Well, good news, that item description is included in The Seeker's Guide to Enchanting Emporiums 😜
made me so happy to have already met all the point in your video! Mazzie of Mazzie's Magical Musings, is a tiny energetic elf absolutely covered in pricings, necklaces and bracelets, every charm hanging off her long ears and such has it's own enchantment she gathered from her days as a traveling salesmen, no one knows just how many she has in effect. her dream is to have the biggest chain magic shop in Histonia. She was recently enabled to start building her empire when another country sponsored her during rising war efforts, and the party met her because she hosted fittings for armor to be given to the soldiers, and supplied magic items as needed. I always wanted the shopping mechanics to be immersive, Mazzie has her shop sorted into sections, ex: Garments, jewelry, potions ext Mazzzie greats them and often leaves her desk to help with their shopping. players choose which section to look through and i describe it in more detail, they show interest in a object and Mazzie takes notice, explaining effects, drawbacks(if a little minimized) and price, sometimes supplying discounts or special coupons. often they split up and who ever she isn't with gets a quick "with you in a moment!" or "please don't touch!" she has new or different wares almost every time, sometimes more sometimes less. and there is always a chance of finding her when going to a new place. she does pretty well for herself, but i have used her to affect her surroundings, such as the old magic shop in a town going out of business from the new competition. Sorry for ranting but she is probably my proudest DND creation, and my party adores her!
I remember having this small, old gnomish lady that had a trinket shop. When one of the players asked for something specific, I said "one moment, I might have just the thing" and as she went into the magazine, I described tbe sound that was coming out of there as "You hear something that could only be described as "A pack of wolves with rabies, swimming through a sea of frying pans"" their faces were pretty funny after hearing that.
Planning on doing a shopping session just before Christmas and I properly start my Keys from the Golden Vault thread so this was perfectly timed for that shopping inspo!
Absolutely love your positive, equitable and bright style! Very much needed for those of us who prefer the brighter side of life 😊Thankyou!
One of my shopkeepers is a high level gnome wizard that built a 6-story shop inside a Demiplane. That's 5 feet per floor, which is great for gnomes, but a great way to emphasize the height differences in a party. He's always on the move, with his shop turning up in all major cities, and he seems on the run from something. Or maybe he just needs lots of money? Who knows!
Anyway, the players get their first opportunity to visit the shop while looking for a different shop, just simple passive perception success for whoever has the highest passive perception, a door in a place where there should (or could) not be one.
If they go in, a familiar pops in shortly after sharing words of alarm with the wizard, and the players instantly get kicked out with an interesting freebie off a random nearly shelf to encourage them be speedy about it. Or perhaps the item is something that they shouldn't had received, useless to the party but of personal value to the gnome. Or maybe they get both!
Anyway, this creates a seed for players to learn more about the wizard by asking for more information in a shop where they will actually get to spend their gold, and sets up future interactions with both the wizard's storyline and his shop.
I actually had a recent game where the shop the players ended up at was by design. They were there to because seemingly everyone they talked to in town pushed them that way, and there they had the opportunity to buy plenty kf camping and survival gear (tents, ropes flashlights climbing gear, field rations backpacks anything like that) and I had the shop owner be this sweet but very business oriented woman. One of the players immediately took a liking to her and of course was looking at romance stuff with her.
Well the shop owner being a shop owner decided to use that to her advantage and squeezed money out of her. No real chance to romance as everytime it was brought up the shop owner blushed and said oh you're you're much and pointed to yet another Shiney object on the wall. Boom instant fun shopping. 😊
In a D&D campaign I'm the main place where we buy stuff has an alchemist store run by a VERY crazy alchemist that make unhinged and unsupervised experiments. One day the square is full of bread because a golem made of bread exploded (she pretended to cure the world's hunger with it), another time the blacksmiths from other store had their hair and facial hair exchanged (they were an elf and a dwarf, so imagine the situation. My cleric managed to get a discount thanks to tell the elf how to untangle his new hair) after she gave them the incorrect potion, another time she cloned herself... and the clone cloned herself, and that clone cloned herself too... to the point that one clone opened another branch of the store in another city, one was on vacation (they rotate), another one was experimeting about stuff and turned herself into himself, liked the change and started to pump iron until now he is a buffed gigachad (who later helped to train the Cleric to win the Atlete feat, something that made the rogue start drooling seeing him pumping iron barechest) and that's alone in that store. Didn't happen everytime, but we know that everytime we go there something weird or mundane could be happening. Something between the alchemist with burned eyebrows to an bread apocalypse (delicious bread BTW, gives temporal hit-points until next long rest)
There is another magic store in other city where the owner smoke the D&D equivalent of weed at a ridiculous pace, to the point that the second time we go to his store he wasn't smoking because he decided to make his house hermetic and burn the weed in the chimney and... lets say that after leaving the shop every one of us failed the constitution save. The results? Well Both the paladin and the monk beileve themselves an ascended god, the rogue believed that the sky was falling on us, the mage believed that everyone of us was a doppelganger who wanted to kill her so she simply mistystep when the rogue tried to ask her for help and trewn at us a fireball, who everyone managed to more o less evade except the Cleric, who believed himself a bard, and tried to sing to give everyone else Bardic Inspiration to evade the fireball and took it on the chin.
I have to say that I did not initially expect Bramble to talk like a sassy film noir heroine, but turns out I am loving the vibe.
And this right here is why I love Crime Malls in Shadowrun
One of my favorite NPC shop keepers was a Kobold I put in Baulders Gate. His name was Leekin. He had a famous cousin who was a bard shop keeper in Neverwinter Deekin.
Whenever you bought something from Leekin he wanted you to toss him the coins so he could parkour off the shelves and catch them with his snout.
Awesome, I always love stuff like this. Reminds me of the old Citybooks series.
This is inspiring. I'm working on an urban campaign that features the party as part of a sorta turf war and a huge component of that turf war is to convince local shops that they are safer being part of your turf. There's strategy involved with for example wanting to go for the prime blacksmith in town knowing it's located in the Dwarven district of Sodmar ruled by the Sodmar Hammers.
Curiously enough, the party starts with some connections to an prestigious inn frequented by students of the local bard college. Perhaps I steal your blacksmith/aspiring musician idea as a way for the party to discover an in with the blacksmith. They'll still have to fight off the Hammers, but now they'll have magic metalwork aiding them in doing so.
Instructions unclear, PC fell in love with the shopkeep, shopkeep became the princess of the elves and now they're married
I came up with a recent traveling shop keeper that I think players would like. It's an elf that magically seems to follow the party around from city to city. Holding in his possession several random magical items, weapons, armor, and other assorted goods. The character seems to randomly appear and if delved into, the store keep will openly tell the party he's simply following them because he sees a good opportunity with them to make some coin.
In reality this shop keep is an elder dragon that has an obsession with coins. He will never pay the party for sold items in coin, and holds basically an infinite number of random magical items that range from the most epic of magical trinkets, to the simplest of tools. All he truly cares about though is gold, and though he does safeguard his treasures, making it very obvious to the players he's not someone to trifle with. He's far more concerned about making more and more coin off the party because he just can't get enough of the glittering little circles.
The idea i had for the character is simply having a merchant that can readily resupply the heros at any shop with some of the far more powerful potions, weapons, Ammuntion, scrolls, and so on. Though he prices them fairly, they're not cheap of course. So to begin with the best the players might get from him is a healing potion or two.
However he's always got high level magical items sitting on display for the players to entice them to shop with him. Eventually as the party progresses the party may find they finally have the cash to pay for one or more of these legendary items. These items are random though so they may come to him and find the items he has that day are not what they want.
He's also not going to always be there, and though he certainly will show up in towns from time to time, it's not a 100% guarantee he'll be there. This way other shops still serve a purpose, and it doesn't just end up with him constantly being their only shop.
Just an idea i had, probably not very original but figured id share the idea since it was on topic.
Really nice advice there, Ginny. Thank you. Keep it up! I keep coming back to your videos.
Your style is growing on me. Nice to know you won't leaf us high and dry. Too bad vines have wilted. This could've made for a great bouquet of content.
If you want for players to bond with a shopkeep, give them a pet. The players will fall in love with the pet.
Copied the link for my Start playing GM.
Love the new character as well as the info, I love shopping role play even though none of my other groups do.
Also love the top you wore for the video, surprised you didn't buy more of that material to make Beam less shorts, the pattern would totally fit her...
...what are "beam less shorts"?
I have two shopping episodes this weekend. One as a player, one as a DM! Thanks!
My party had a brief career as moonshine runners once when we were broke and needed to trade a favor for armor from a Dwarven smithy. Highly recommend!
In a couple of the campaigns I've ran, I've used a magical bazaar in a pocket dimension filled with fluffy white clouds as my magic item shop. The owner is a Djinn, but the face of the business is one of my original characters that I love to pieces, my clown girl bard Polly Acci.
Did I do this mostly so I could roleplay my clown daughter? Yes. Did my players love her too? Also yes.
We even had a session in Storm King's Thunder where the cloud giant countess that the party escaped from infiltrated the bazaar while they were getting ready for the next area.
^You could also have NPCs outside ot the shop talk about the shop like the innkeeper telling you about that rat infestation happening at the potion store prompting you to offer your rat extinction services in exchange for free items or that customer talking about that rare magical item the shop is offering underneath the table so the players know to ask the shopkeeper for those "secret" additional offerings. Also this kind of gossip could lead the players towards knowing about quirks and goals that are not obvious. In the end nothing makes players feel better than allowing them to figure out how ways of getting advantages without the DM directly pointing them towards them.
I'm currently homebrewing a small system with hopes of running a one shot for my friends soon and this is giving me sooo many ideas!
I am already emotionally attached to the shrubs
I fondly remember the ugly ass halfling shopkeep 'Boblin the Goblin'. Sometimes a good backstory, as short as it is, can keep you enjoying shopping.
My favorite merchant to run is Swurley's Swap Shop. A traveling pirate who won't accept currency only trade.
I once ran a horror campaign, set in 1990s America. The party ended up in Louisiana and decided they needed more firepower to deal with the monster. They found Jed's Gun Emporium. Once inside, they addressed the man behind the counter as Jed. I answered, "Naw, I'm Luke, Jed's my brother." Later, when they returned, they saw someone new inside and assumed he was Jed. "Naw, I'm Zeke, Jed's cousin." I don't think they ever actually met Jed.
In one of my long-running D&D campaigns, the party met a traveling merchant named Ohmar. The second time they met him, he had been robbed and had no inventory. He asked if they could make a donation to getting him back on his feet. I had made out a little chart to dictate how much of a discount they would get in the future depending on how much they donated. I think they donated about 2-3 times more than the maximum value I had listed on my chart. For the rest of the campaign, Ohmar showed up in every major city they entered and he always had the best stuff for sale, at very reasonable prices. The party eventually traveled to a floating sky city that was magically enchanted so that only people who had been there could get there. When they arrived, of course Ohmar was there. When things went siddeways and the BBEG killed the royal family, breaking the spells that kept the city airborne, rather than running for a portal, they ran to Ohmar's booth. I guess they thought they wouldn't have time to reach one of the portals, but I decided to reward their faith in their favorite merchant by letting them find a teleportation scroll so they could escape the city.
I don't think I've ever put so much character into any of my merchants since then.
this reminds me of the shopkeeper i had that was just an unassuming alabastor domino mask sitting on a shelf. he took a liking to the party except the tiefling fighter that had tried to “handle him” (i.e. just picking him up off the shelf). i’m definitely bringing him back for a rewrite of the campaign
The first 3e group I played with loved roleplaying shopping. The DM was great at it and made it very fun. Sadly, my current group just likes to quick run shopping without any roleplaying.
Thanks for this video! My players love shopping trips, but honestly it can bore me to tears sometimes, so hopefully this helps!
Edit: This great advice. Spicing it up sometimes with quests and maybe a more interactive shop sounds great, and I can do other shopping between sessions (with occasional normal shopping to keep them on their toes)
A shop with particularly exclusive items, especially magical ones, might only operate on the barter system. "Your money is no good here." Meaning they're going to need specific items or services in exchange. And that's the only way they'll deal. Of course, some might have monetary sources to whom they sell certain items requested, but they wouldn't deal with just any pc off the streets that way.
Bramble is very cute and sassy. Excellent content Ginny!
Very well put and worth a pre session re watch
I mean the son that doesn't want to run the shop is a good idea for a wizard or artificser build. Think about it. They go through a harrowing journey and both finds items for the shop, let him see how the items work in practice and then maybe he can expirence a trauma that makes him come back home and run the shop or maybe go the other way and with his exirence be able to convince his mom to let him keep adventuring so he can send home more valuable magic items.
Gotta love my retail-inspired discount magic item shop. Complete with anxiety-ridden teenager who has to try and upsell customers using the fantasy SALES method (and gets yelled at by everyone)
one of my favorite things to make when my players go shopping, is to give them 2 items that they want, but they only have money to purchase one of them.... it might sound cruel, but it is not only pleasent for me, but also entretaining for them that they keep some time arguing which item would be more useful for them in the future, and when they purchase one, and they acctuly use it, they just love it!
i have one of my players who porchased a "deck of illusions" from a magical shop, and they were in a town that was being atacked by bandits (seven samurai style, a party of 6 players and 1 NPC vs 30 bandits) the bard than pulled a card from his deck of illusions and guess what? CLOUD GIANT! he summoned a female warrior cloud giant (he made sure to specify that evey card he invokes is gonna be female XD) with a gigantic axe in her hand, and she start screaming and treating the bandits, literaly 70% of them did not pass on the test and just ran away, and they defeated the remaining ones.
they left the card there for ever, so now the town have a cloud giant protector (they made sure to tell everybody not to remove the card from the ground) and no banddits want to go there anymore because of the rumors that there is a giant woman wo will crush them, she cant do that of course, after all she is a illusion, but they dotn know that, and the town make sure to spread the rummors that she is real, so it even atract some tourists who want to see the cloud giant woman.
all the party was super happy that the deck of illusions was so useful
I love the idea of a watering can't
My favorite shopkeeper (and my players) was this kobold named Flip who ran Flip's Fantastic Fstore, or, as he would say it every time; FLIPS FANTASTIC FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF...STORE!
He was this dumb silly little man who spoke in a squeaky voice and had no idea what the value of anything actually was, his general store had a rolling table and percentile roll, the players could ask 'is (insert magical item) in this store somewhere?' and I'd roll to see if Flip had it and if he could find it. One time they asked for a bag of sand and he picked up one of them but it was full of scorpions and centipedes so he just casually fished them out with his hand while going 'ouchie, one- ouchie- two-' and the party was just dying of laughter the entire time, he was the highlight of that particular kingdom for the party and always made them want to come back to their home base just to vibe with him.
Ginny fit today is amazing love the headband matching the shirt !
Fantastic video! Love the cosplay and it is so cool to get an insight into how that project went for you :D Goodluck with the Kickstarter and thank you for all of this juicy inspiration >:3 Merry Christmas!
I need to bookmark this one! Thanks Ginny!
The kickstarter's theme song might be the catchiest commercial jingle since "Funiculi Funicula".
What did we ever do to deserve the marvel that is Ginny Di? Bless you!
I just finished reading the 1st playtest for Seeker's! So excited to include the Hedgerow and Bramble in my games! She fits really well with some of the themes that I've already got in ny hub city!
that's awesome! hope it goes super well 🥰 Let me know how you find playing Bramble - I find her accent SO fun to do
Hey, you got your Radiant Quest in my Inventory Management!
You got your Inventory Management in my Radiant Quest!
Yum. 😮
One of my shopkeeper hacks is to make them former PCs of mine. Immediately fleshed out, and it means I always have a great time when the party is shopping.
Seeing as I am a rebelious man, I will make a shop keeper that is a litteral magical cardboard cutout.