Good or Bad? Shops in RPGs

[Clockwork Knight]

Clockwork Knight and Visions: Why are there even town guards or any semblance of government if they're not going to police the sale of this dangerous stuff?

For the same reason mages are allowed to allowed to walk around popping goblinoids instead of being conscripted into the kingdom's army, and corpses are buried instead of destroyed in worlds where undead roam at night.

 

[Excidium]

What's so fucking strange about selling adventuring gear in a fantasy world?

 

[visions]

Clockwork Knight and Visions: Why are there even town guards or any semblance of government if they're not going to police the sale of this dangerous stuff?

You mean weapons? In medieval Europe for example, it was common for people to bear arms, iirc. I know that where I live (Estonia), the right of native peasants to bear swords was taken away after a failed rebellion (Jüriöö, against their foreign overlords, Danes and Germans) in the mid 14th century, before that it was thought of as normal for a man to carry a weapon. And this was the case here, where the natives were under the power of foreign overlords (who had conquered them in early 13th century).

My memory is quite hazy on medieval history, but somehow I doubt that the spread of weapons was heavily controlled elsewhere in medieval Europe either.

 

[zeitgeist]

The inadequacy of shopping as gameplay is clearly illustrated in Front Mission for the Super Famicon. This was a heavily equipment driven tactical mecha RPG. In this game, very few pieces of equipment were found in battle; the vast majority of items were purchased in shops. Each of your 10+ mecha would have 6+ pieces of equipment which would need to be routinely upgraded in shops. The quality of goods in shops increased quite often. Each time the quality of the goods increased, you would need to spend a long time going through an upgrading the equipment for all your guys. The equipment parameters were relatively simple and while each piece of gear had tradeoffs, there was usually a pretty obvious choice. Even so it was still not uncommon to spend longer in the shop than on the battlefield. It was horrible.

But that's not really an inadequacy of shopping as gameplay, the true fault lies in the rather simplistic set of customization options for each mech and how the shopping is very neatly organized by "levels". It's a similar fault that a lot of other jRPGs have: you reach the next city hub, the "game level" goes up by one, and you go and buy new equipment for everyone, that's exactly the same as old equipment only +1. In a frighteningly high number of jRPGs the same happens to character stats, they just get raised automatically at each level, and everyone gets slightly stronger in their area of expertise. Of course, wRPGs suffer from both too, but it's usually at least somewhat camouflaged.

The solution to this is to increase the number of items with unique properties, item sets that work well together (in obvious and not-so-obvious combinations), not divide items into clear level sets, implement various reasons to keep old items instead of replacing them with +1 variants and so on - in other words to increase the complexity and customization options enough that each player can dress up their little computer people/mechs/aliens/whatever according to their preferred playstyle, instead of shopping being something that might as well be streamlined into an UPGRADE EVERYTHING FOR 1000 GOLD button that would just raise the level of your equipment according to the current game level and send you off to fight appropriately leveled mobs to earn the next 1000 gold ad infinitum.

 

[felipepepe]

"My shop carries the finest weapons around, from dwarven Russian Rifles to enchanted Gold-Plated Pistols."

 

[SCO]

Clockwork Knight and Visions: Why are there even town guards or any semblance of government if they're not going to police the sale of this dangerous stuff?

For the same reason mages are allowed to allowed to walk around popping goblinoids instead of being conscripted into the kingdom's army, and corpses are buried instead of destroyed in worlds where undead roam at night.

Cannot unread

 

[Baron]

First, Brazillian Slaughter: I am not being politically correct intentionally. People who are addicted to that inferiority complex called racism get on my nerves. Also, get your head out of your butt. My avatar is just something I thought looked cool (I'm open to anime, but I've only ever kept with anything that really gripped me on some level).

FYI

Kid, first thing, drop that animefag avatar and get something decent for ya, people will take you more seriously and less of a alt.

I'm leaving as soon as I can from my grandmother's house, then I'm going to live with my mother.

I'm 1.67 meters, suitably North Brazilian. Not much for height myself, I like being inconspicious and hard to hit.

No point collecting loot if you don't have someone to hand it to; shops are a necessary evil. I've only felt The Witcher did ye olde shoppes right, it allowed you to purchase a few useful items. Shopping didn't become the point of the game like in many D&D games. In Pool of Radiance my mighty heroes would strip a charred goblin of his codpiece if they thought they could get a copper piece for it (not unlike P&P sessions). By the time of Pool of Darkness I think the lads were multi-millionaires with an absurd personal armoury. The otherwise brilliant NWN PWs were nearly ruined by that devil Mammon.

I never really enjoyed the Diablo-style of RPG with its focus on wealth hording. It should be about story or maiming monsters with a blessed hammer. True, greed in games could work well... Gauntlet was a blast on the coin-op. But for motivation to be heroic I'd rather save a princess, Jordan Mechner style. In many games you reach a point where you are opening a chest, a warm fireball trap buffeting your hair, while the fight is still raging on around you. If you're more interested in what loot is in the box than what monster is hitting you in the back of the head then the game is boring.

Shops should allow a guy with a club to one day obtain a spear, helmet AND a shield, and after that, maybe decking those items out in your favourite animal horns and furs. But I don't think the game is improved by letting the PC obtain a sword to defeat every opponent. RPG combat should be about the skill at swinging a steel sword, or strategy/cunning/diplomacy... not trading a million gold coins you scrounged for a +8 sword and armour. Less is more, and all that.

 

[PorkaMorka]

But that's not really an inadequacy of shopping as gameplay, the true fault lies in the rather simplistic set of customization options for each mech and how the shopping is very neatly organized by "levels".

You are correct that differentiating the parts more would have required the player to think about his choices more and would have added depth to the shopping minigame.

However, there is an issue with that. Even though Front Mission's shopping was very simple, it still required a very large amount of time, simply by virtue of the amount of parts you had to buy and the number of mecha you had to do it for. You spent at least 15% of your time shopping, possibly much more, depending on how much you optimized and how fast you are with the game pad. (It was way more than 15% for me, since I wanted it all perfect). If there had actually been tough choices involved, that would have taken even longer.

That's why I think this game is such a good example. It really tests how much shopping you're willing to put up with to get your stat increases. For example, if you bought new gear right before the final mission you'd potentially be dealing with 17 units (all can participate), 6(ish) parts each, plus a minor amount of comparison and testing.

The solution to this is to increase the number of items with unique properties, item sets that work well together (in obvious and not-so-obvious combinations), not divide items into clear level sets, implement various reasons to keep old items instead of replacing them with +1 variants and so on - in other words to increase the complexity and customization options enough that each player can dress up their little computer people/mechs/aliens/whatever according to their preferred playstyle, instead of shopping being something that might as well be streamlined into an UPGRADE EVERYTHING FOR 1000 GOLD button that would just raise the level of your equipment according to the current game level and send you off to fight appropriately leveled mobs to earn the next 1000 gold ad infinitum.

The principles your describe are certainly correct, but if shopping in Front Mission had actually required thought, I think that I'd still have become mired in a shopping and inventory management hell. Upgrades were simply too frequent (upgrades for every part every few battles) and there was simply too much that I needed to buy. It was just too much effort to put up with for a mediocre tactical RPG.

One has to ask, what is the point of making the player shop for 15 minutes to get stat bonuses to all the parts of his mech, then raising the enemy's stats to balance things out? The player is not stronger relative to his enemies, but he has wasted 15 minutes. The only thing that changed is that some numbers went up.

I propose that we'd be better off entirely eliminating the mundane upgrading type of shopping, implementing the "UPGRADE EVERYTHING FOR 1000 GOLD" button if necessary and reserving shopping and other tedious forms of inventory manipulation for a smaller number of items that actually have a tactically significant impact on the character's capabilities.

There isn't really any way to fix the fact that the actual process of shopping is tedious, but if it is rare and there are interesting choices involved, the player probably won't mind too much.

 

[mondblut]

People who are addicted to that inferiority complex called racism get on my nerves.

Then your Kkkodex experiences will be extremely nervous, nigger.

 

[PandaBreeder]

For once I'd like to see an RPG in which you couldn't just put on any old armor without any penalty whatsoever. Visitting a blacksmith to commission a fitted armor would be pretty nice. Perhaps if he was particularly skilled the armor would be able to absorb more damage due to its superior craftsmanship. No selling your rusty goblin swords, though, you should make money through quests and such, and maybe you could sell the gold statues you found in the lich's tomb if you had a high mercantile skill or something. You shouldn't be able to find a magical axe in your neighborhood's local shop, unless you bought them from a shady guy in a cloak who took one point of endurance off of you each time you bought one of his powerful, yet cursed items.

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

But Mondblut, I'm white as can be. I have a German last name from my dad's paternal grandfather, and according to my dad's mother both of her parents were from Italy (I'm like 2/3rds Axis of Evil). My mother's side of the family is probably old English and Irish, and they are from mid-southeast USA. I'm pretty sure both sides have some racist tendencies. Point is, why waste your time being a hater stereotype? (actually this is not the point- that was stated in the thread. Let's just drop the racism sidetopic. This ain't a self-help meeting)

Anywho, I was thinking that things might make more sense if you had to raid a military (medieval or whatever) base for weopons. That was pretty fun in KOTOR when you get to the middle of some base and find a door labeled 'ARMORY.'

I'm not saying it was necessarilly hard to do, but instead of, "Oh, the world is dangerous, so the entire world economy runs on weapons and battle equipment. Just go spend time chopping off 300 bear-asses to trade in for enough gold to buy something that's actually only decent at killing something despite being called a weapon," you get having to find your way through a level with enemies and traps and then having to gain access to an entire armory.

Granted this can be the same as buying a good chunk of stuff at a shop (earlier I refferred to this as easy acquisition of power-ups, changing the nature of the game), but this way you are using the main game mechanics (which should be fun to use in a decent game) and getting a godsend (if KOTOR were one of those games where you get to a point of hoping there is a Pokemon Center near the cave exit- err, a safe place with items to replenish your waning resources).

 

[felipepepe]

Dude, if today a fat Kwa can simply walk into any of countless guns stores and buy pistols, rifles, shotguns, body amors and shitloads of ammo to "protect his home from thiefs/communists/terrorists", how do you think that would be if there where a actually dangerous world, filled with monsters and wild animals between the suburbs and his favorite McDonald's?

And is not like the whole world economy is based on weapons, is just that usually you can only browse the weapons store inventory. Fallout had bars, bookstores, restaurants, cassinos, drug dealers, water merchants, farmers, brahmin breeders, repair shops, slavers, mercenaries, medics, whores, gecko skinners, a car dealler, uranium mines and even a nuclear power plant. Again, some had more emphasis during the game, but it's a fucking game, you can't expect them to allow you to enter the kingdom's Household Store and browse their whole stock of cutlery so you know that the economy is "real" and peasants have where to buy spoons...

Besides, when done right, stores are really fun. I love to reach a new town/merchant and see what's available, including that insanelly expensive magical/rare weapons that I'm gonna have to save money and sell lot's of stuff to be able to buy someday. And they offer freedom for customization, you can sell that useless +1 bow and buy a fire sword that you needed much more. Some games ruin the fun by giving you enough money to buy the whole store, level-scalling the itens available or only placing good itens on dungeons & bosses. but for most of the time I love having stores available in games.

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

A lot of you are saying, "Yeah, it's a game!," and TBH that is what I am having the most problems with lately. Earlier in 2011, grindan and buying new items felt normal. In fact, the shops made the world feel cooler with all this neat stuff available to anyone with a sizeable purse.

Now, as of about a month, it all feels like a necessary detriment to the RPG pie (except maybe for Jade Empire, which I have played all the way through before and am kept from doing so again by my new-found shallowness in dialogue options). If you took grindan (money farming would be more accurate, though general grindan still applies) and shops out of RPGs there would be a lot less to do, and I don't really think anyone would be happy. Keeping them a genre staple, however, suddenly makes the idea of an adventure seem a lot more 'standardized,' like, "These aren't some pretty unique circumstances. Look, business is booming! I got a cousin who stocks up from me 20% off every other day. Get back in line!"

Maybe I just broke my interest in playing more RPGs.

 

[zeitgeist]

It was just too much effort to put up with for a mediocre tactical RPG.

I have a brilliant solution for that too: they should've made it a really great tactical RPG instead*!

But seriously, even if I personally don't mind this micromanagement at all, I don't see why - especially in a game like Front Mission - this couldn't be done so that both players who like putting shiny titanium underwear on their little mechs one by one and those who don't both have options that cater to their playstyle to some extent. Don't want to tweak everyone's equipment personally? Pay a bit more for a professional mechanic to do it for you in the same shop and get the equivalent of +1 results, maybe sometimes with a nice bonus to some stat, maybe sometimes with a part that will fail randomly. A similar basic system (quick upgrade vs more involved upgrade) is actually present in many RPGs, but is usually presented the other way around - you can either craft more powerful equipment (or equipment that does something specific you want it to do for a specific character), or buy somewhat worse yet still perfectly adequate equipment in shops (or use looted items). This choice can be tied into the gameworld in many ways, and made even fuzzier by adding even more ways to achieve the same goal (equipment upgrade), with different advantages and disadvantages for each.

*it wasn't a horrible game at all, but it should've had more interesting ways to tinker with equipment, a battle system with a greater number of tactical options (stemming from both the tactical ruleset and the customization options), the differences between mech types weren't really significant enough, it could've benefited from a greater variety of missions (as well as more of them, possibly randomization of some sort) etc.

 

[treave]

Shops in RPGs aren't a good or bad dichotomy as far as the mechanics are concerned. They can be implemented well, or they can be implemented badly, or they can be not there at all. A RPG without shops can fare just as poorly in gameplay if there's retarded level design and loot scaling.

But your initial question regarding the role of shops in the typical RPG setting, from a world-building perspective has been answered, multiple times. So there's that.

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

I guess so, Treave. This was just one of those things that I would like more introspection in, but until I posted this thread no one has had any discussion about (that I could find with Google).

In the end, I think I can accept shops as a subjectively good gameplay element (at least by the reasoning that all things considered fun are subjective). I made a comment on CRPG Addict asking him to either post here or make a special topics blog post on shops. Hopefully, I'll get a little more interesting conversation on the topic from him. This thread turned out pretty good after all.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[treave]

*insert joke about Arnold and CHA*

 

[octavius]

For once I'd like to see an RPG in which you couldn't just put on any old armor without any penalty whatsoever. Visitting a blacksmith to commission a fitted armor would be pretty nice.

Try Knights of Legend.

 

[Haba]

I've been playing this game...

• Shops only sell basic goods
• You can loot some gear from enemies, but fairly rarely
• Armor is personally crafted to it's recipient
• Recipient needs to be measured so the armor fits
• Crafted armor needs readjusting to ensure optimal fit
• Instead of replacing the old armor with +1 one, you improve the existing ones
• Personally crafted and enhanced armor is the biggest money sink in the game
• Gear remains useful throughout the game (due to variety of elemental resistances and skills associated with them)
• Characters come better at using new gear through use

And this is in a jRPG...

 

[Crooked Bee]

I've been playing this game...

• Shops only sell basic goods
• You can loot some gear from enemies, but fairly rarely
• Armor is personally crafted to it's recipient
• Recipient needs to be measured so the armor fits
• Crafted armor needs readjusting to ensure optimal fit
• Instead of replacing the old armor with +1 one, you improve the existing ones
• Personally crafted and enhanced armor is the biggest money sink in the game
• Gear remains useful throughout the game (due to variety of elemental resistances and skills associated with them)
• Characters come better at using new gear through use

And this is in a jRPG...

And probably a hentai one at that?

 

[Haba]

And probably a hentai one at that?

Well. I don't own a console and don't play console games...

 

[Hirato]

I've been playing this game...

• Shops only sell basic goods
• You can loot some gear from enemies, but fairly rarely
• Armor is personally crafted to it's recipient
• Recipient needs to be measured so the armor fits
• Crafted armor needs readjusting to ensure optimal fit
• Instead of replacing the old armor with +1 one, you improve the existing ones
• Personally crafted and enhanced armor is the biggest money sink in the game
• Gear remains useful throughout the game (due to variety of elemental resistances and skills associated with them)
• Characters come better at using new gear through use

And this is in a jRPG...

Can we get a name?
I'd like to try it sometime.

 

[Turjan]

Now if only someone could come up with more info on:

When did shops originate in the genre? Have Gygax, Arneson, and/or the Gurps and Whitewolf, etc. people said anything of weight about shops?
Did I miss a reference in The Lord of the Rings and Conan the Barbarian books? How has weapon and armor manufacture and distrubution/sale been handled historically?

Sure Gygax did. Just read the old AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. There's a chapter about inflation caused by bringing too much treasure into some local economy. There is also a chapter called "Duties, Excises, Fees, Tariffs, Taxes, Tithes and Tolls". You can't just bring your treasure to town without paying duties. AD&D was already like that. Then again, it had a wandering prostitutes table.

The magic shoppe as staple was more a D&D3.x thing.

 

[Baron]

There's a chapter about inflation caused by bringing too much treasure into some local economy. There is also a chapter called "Duties, Excises, Fees, Tariffs, Taxes, Tithes and Tolls". You can't just bring your treasure to town without paying duties. AD&D was already like that.

As a money sink our DM just let us buy things... and then he just destroyed or stole them. Fireball spells would melt items we carried. Bottomless pits were a favourite as he knew most people would grab for the ledge with both hands. Some didn't, mind you.

I like to think a cursed item is one created when it first claims an adventurer's life through greed. Some items we met were sheer serial killers.