Warning, incoming "Dark Souls Is Pretty OSR" comment approaching. It'll be quick, I promise.
Today I want to talk about merchants, and I happen to have been playing a lot of Dark Souls recently- my first playthrough, in 2019, I am late to the party, yes. I'm enjoying the game, even if I dislike the abrasive "git good" gaming culture around Dark Souls, it's better than I thought. However, the most fascinating part to me has been how the game handles merchants, and I find it to be relevant to tabletop gaming:
- You have to find the merchants. Some of them are in the dungeons. Some of them will go back to safety, others have permanently set up their shop in these dangerous places.
- They have limited inventories, and they often sell unique gear, or at least limited gear. The rarer it is, the more it costs.
- Some of these prices are outrageous because they know you're in the middle of the dungeon and are willing to pay a premium, because who else is going to sell you this stuff?
- They can die. They can be killed. They can fall, into insanity or worse.
- Some of them sell magic, and this is the primary way magic is acquired in the game.
- Some of them even update their stock as the game progresses. Others don't.
It's not revolutionary, really, but it is *interesting*, and it feels like you actually have to pay attention to npcs and where they are located. More brain activity is required on the part of the player than in most games. In a few cases, you can even learn something about the merchants based on what they sell.
There. I'm done talking about Dark Souls. Now let's talk about how to implement a similar vibe in your games.
 |
| A sentient hat that sells you spells. |
Specialty Stores
So, back to D&D. The ideal D&D merchant, in my mind, has very specialized wares, has a low number of items in stock, and can be found in unusual locations. I want to emphasize this: Your merchants should have a theme to the type of goods they carry, a very specific theme- not just "blacksmith", but "Blacksmith focused on making Heavy Armor" or "Blacksmith that makes Bludgeoning Weapons". They should have 4-6, maybe 10 items max, these don't all have to fit the theme- maybe the blacksmith also has some magical ores to sell, or a crest he picked up in the nearby forest. But the products he's really pushing are part of that theme.
Sure, you can have Ye Olde' Adventuring Gear Shop back in town that can cover basic supplying, in fact, I encourage that, but beyond that, define your merchants. A merchant with 4 specific magic items (or weird items...) is much more interesting than a merchant with "any +1 weapon or armor", or "any basic potion found in the guidebook".
Worse, those merchants that sell basic potions will drown out more specialized vendors. Why would you go see the potion vendor with 6-10 types of potions when you can see the potion vendor back in town who carries everything? So don't have those in your world. I don't hate Magic Item Shops because they make magic feel less magical or lead to min-maxing play, I hate them because they restrict the options you have for interesting encounters.
And that's what this is about. Encounters. Having more merchants in your world, and giving players a reason to pay attention to them, this allows you to have a wider variety of interesting encounters.
Just with our example of potion vendor, you can have multiple NPCs selling potions in your world- one might specialize in healing potions, one might specialize in transmutation potions, one might sell potent stat boosters with hefty drawbacks. These three can be different NPCs, found in different places, and when your players find these NPCs, they gain access to these new resources. But only if you have scrapped and scuttled your generic vendors. Realistically, you might have the healing potion specialists found in every town, as reliable healing is useful to have, even if it's expensive. But that still leaves room for all kinds of other potion sellers, because even the "generic" potion sellers are only carrying healing..
Now do that sort of division for everything. Keep a master list of your merchants and their specialties and locations. Don't necessarily list prices, but maybe list the key magic items they're selling. THAT SAID, leave some room to develop other merchants. If the party befriends the morlock underdwellers, maybe they have a merchant who sells weird trinkets in exchange for *meat*. Just because you didn't prepare it on your list doesn't mean you can't improvise it. But add that merchant to the list.
Here's an example of what I might prepare.
Hannah
Sword Saleswoman(Traveling, Safe)
(1) Fire Sword, (1) Sword that Glows When Orcs Are Near, (2) Silver Swords, (1) Two Hander Sword, (2) Jagged Longswords (fragile, deal extra damage on crits).
Notice that I have a complete lack of any truly creative ideas in this example (I'm saving those for loot), yet I did not have to resort to +1 magic weapons and these are all items that can be explained in character ("this sword sets things on fire. And this puppy has notches built into the blade, if you catch the enemy right it'll really mess them up, but be careful because they won't last long" instead of "uh, it's magical and hits harder")
No prices, because I know what my gear is worth... and I'm pretty arbitrary about it.
Merchant Mobility
As far as merchant's movements, there's Stable merchants and Traveling merchants, and Safe merchants and Risky merchants. Stable merchants have shops set up and stay in or around them. Traveling merchants move from place to place selling their goods. Safe merchants are found in a town or other relatively easy to access location, while Risky merchants are found in the dungeon, or the middle of the wilderness.
How I organize this:
- Stable merchants are keyed, whether in town or dungeon. Easy enough.
- Traveling merchants in Safe locations can show up as random encounters in town, or while traveling along roads.
- Traveling risky merchants can show up on random encounters in the dungeon or in non-road wilderness.
I use nested encounter tables when it comes to Wandering NPCs. I put add a chance to meet a Wandering NPC to just about every encounter table, at which point I refer to a generic table for rival parties and merchants that I have roaming the world.
I don't usually use random encounters in most towns, outside of City-State of the Invincible Overlord and it's kin, instead I usually roll when the players arrive in town to see if any interesting people have showed up, or during downtime phases. .
Note: Another technique I use is having "meeting spot" locations which automatically generate meetings with traveling NPCs. These include campgrounds, safe rooms, or just memorable locations that would otherwise be quickly moved through if there wasn't someone to talk to there. The first time you come to a place is an automatic encounter, determined randomly by going back to my Wandering NPC charts, the second time onward there is, say, a 2 in 6 chance that someone else has arrived, and a 4 in 6 chance that the previous npc has moved on. These numbers are fairly arbitrary but convey the probabilities I prefer. I really, really like meeting spot locations. They keep even keyed locations from being predictable.
Why go through all this trouble? Why not key everything, or fiat everything? Well, the end result of all this is a robust world that should, hopefully feel alive. It also allows players to glean the habits of merchants- some are simply more reliable than others, and some consistently end up in dangerous places.
This is really it, but the rest of the post will be exploring the details.
Skill Trainers
 |
| Not like this. Probably. |
Never use the term "skill trainer" in-game, but that's what they are. These are the type of merchants that don't actually sell gear, but teach you new spells or combat moves and stances. Or skills, if you have a skill system. Anything that gives a character new tricks or strengthens them, but not buying new gear pieces. The chief limiter here is not the merchants stock of goods, but training time. I still consider these to be merchants, and include them on my master merchant list.
Magic as Goods
I like the idea of spells being items that can be bought and sold, if only to spice up merchant wares. When spells are items, you can do an awful lot with them. They can be found as rewards. Or they can be carried as merchant wares. I've had some merchants carry explicitly random spellbooks, with the understanding that the merchant lacks the knowledge to identify the writings, so the shopkeeper has no idea what spell they contain. So even in universe the characters do not know what they are getting, and I can roll on a table then and there. The advantage here is that generally I sell most spells as consumables, but the randomized spellbooks are 1/day items, and they're cheaper than most. This also preserves the mystery of magic a bit, when even the merchants don't 100% know what they're selling.
While Knave, one of the games I run the most, suggests spells should be itemized as spellbooks, I find giving them flavor as Orbs (arcane) or Relics (divine) lends itself to a more active mental image of casting. Instead of thumbing through a book, you're waving an orb around. I also have a lot of Potions, Scrolls, and Charms floating around- the Charms are small magical items that work similar to a scroll, but you don't have to be able to read, and some provide a passive effect instead of a spell. Anything can potentially be a spell item, of course. This isn't anything new, there's always been swords that cast spells, random charms you can find that replicate spells. Now it's the rule, rather than the exception.
An aside: I find running a game with randomized spells as loot instead of being picked causes the game to have a certain vibe, a certain frantic energy. I don't want to say "roguelike", because that's too easy, but yeah it's kinda like a roguelike. Or like raccoons, sifting through trash for anything they can get their hands on. Or possums. Yes, Knave is a game with strong Possum Energy. I'm still trying to figure out how to tap into that possum energy in more traditional B/X games.
Death of a Merchant
A benefit of Merchants only having a small number of notable items at any given time means that if the players decide to murder (or rob) them, they get less for their troubles. Some gold (merchants don't carry that much fluid gold on them), a few items, and a missed opportunity for more items in the future, plus any other consequences- bounties and the like, or a battle with their bodyguards. This pleases me, because I have to rely less on players buying into an artificial agreement not to be assholes and disrupt my fragile fiction for profit. The fiction is not fragile.
That said, most merchants should have at least one bodyguard. Or be the bodyguard, so to speak.
Other Miscellaneous Notes
- Merchants make great faction rewards, especially if the faction has a home base that you can check in at. By faction, I mean any significant world organization that has a motivation that makes them likely to hire adventurers. This is where your potent magic item sellers should be. You know, the ones that sell enchanted heavy armor, or belts of be stronger +2. If that type of item gets sold at all, it should be an in-universe reward.
- My prices are super arbitrary and often very inflated, with potions in the 100-500 gp range and non consumable items easily being thousands of gold. This is one of the ways I get rid of all that excess wealth characters end up accumulating. The other being downtime activities like investment and construction and carousing.
- I suppose this all is fairly capitalist in nature. Well, no worries. If you're sick of capitalism even in games, then instead of positioning all of this as gear to make yourselves stronger or weirder, come up with gear that can make your communities stronger (or weirder!). Also, implicit in all this is the suggestion that some merchants aren't necessarily interested in gold. Rumors, Favors, or just plain old Bartering can serve as currency.
Weird Merchants, Weird Wares
So, you have all these merchants selling stuff, and your players are going to learn to jot down who sells what pretty quick, but it'll be a lot easier if your merchants are memorable. A couple of generic medieval merchants are ok, especially for your boring town folk, but in general this is a place where I like to focus my npc creativity. Truth be told, though,My NPCs aren't super creative as a whole, even when I focus on them, so an easier way to do this is just to make sure you're selling interesting things, that way they can at least remember the merchants via "that one guy that sells beam guns".
I can't give you a magic formula for making sure your merchants are weird. One thing that helps though is to start compiling a list of interesting item types, and of course any interesting item sellers you think of, as you think of them. Jot down interesting merchants in modules or even video games. I have a huge document entitled "Cool Loot" which I use to record my favorite stuff. It's an organized mess, but a great first reference document because I know everything in there is my style. Eventually you'll get to the point where this is second nature and you can think up weird effects on the spot.
Finally: A baseline normal is required to make the weird stuff stand out. Having a normal merchant selling swords makes the guy selling beam guns stand out. Never go full gonzo. Even Slumbering Ursine Dunes had a relatively normal farmstead at the entrance to it's bear and space elf filled sand dunes.
Anyway, here's some ideas. A couple of them are explicit pulls from Dark Souls. In fact, assume all of these have some basis somewhere else and have merely been filtered throguh my brain.
D12 Weird Merchants And/Or Wares
1. A scrap merchant near a "Barrier Peaks" type retro-futuristic dungeon. Really has no idea what he is selling, but among the junk you can find some useful futuristic items and the energy cells to power them.
2. A exotic pet salesman. My vote: Baby Drakes- Young drakes and wyverns, about the size of a hawk. Trained to do basic tasks like scout or retrieve items or distract enemies. Have been stolen from their parents, and their parents may come looking for them. If you really want to be explicit with the foreshadowing of doom for the party, Baby Dragons, sold cheap.
3. A witch, living deep in the woods, knows how to prepare more... unusual potions. They can even teach you the recipes, though it'll cost you. This could be your transmutation potion specialist, for example.Could also teach you strange occult spells- not evil spells, mind you, but different, unconventional magic.
4. A sorcerer with an oversized hat is found wasting away in a cage. If you rescue him, he'll accompany you to the nearest safe location and stay there for awhile, selling magic utensils and spells. Probably will go insane by the end.
5. A somber knight wishes to sell you the belongings of a deceased traveling companion, in order to pay for the funeral. It's mostly odds and ends, but there are a few notable magic items. This is a one time deal, not a reoccurring merchant, and if you don't bite he will have found another buyer by the next time you meet him.
6. A complete scoundrel possibly named something like Cugel the Clever, is willing to sell you a mismatched assortment of magical trinkets. Absolutely sketchy as hell. Items may be defective or not work quite as marketed. Can be found both in town and in dungeons, trying to get easy loot from adventurer corpses while staying out of danger. Also sells maps that may or may not lead to treasure. The prices are dirt cheap, but you get what you pay for.
7. A Ranger selling preserved monster parts. Nothing more, nothing less, but some of them are quite exotic! Use for all your alchemy needs, or maybe just eat them. Delicious Wyvern Jerky, mmm-mmm.
8. A noblewoman from a forgotten era is trapped in a glass golem. Destroying the golem without injuring the lady inside can result in her teaching you some unusual spells that are otherwise lost to time.
9. A smuggler type with an explosives specialty. Willing to sell smoke bombs, shrapnel bombs, flashbangs, and good old fashioned dynamite. Will give you a discount if you're a member of the local thieves' organization.
10. A traveling priestess is willing to cast simple spells for the party, like cure light wounds, and also sells a variety of charms to ward off evil and maintain good health. These charms are legitimately effective. .
11. A Monster of The Dungeon. Is quite friendly, and genuine in it's friendliness, though it definitely wants to get all your money too. Sells items found off the corpses of other adventurers. Could be a talking giant spider, a clever bugbear, anything really. This is a trope that will never get old.
12. A traveling mask salesman. Honestly... enough said.
 |
| Not my art, duh. |
Like, again, none of these are revolutionary, but that's part of the point: they don't have to be revolutionary as long as they are presented as a unique opportunity to be engaged with. Every new merchant should be a potential new resource, a memorable encounter, or just open new gameplay possibilities.
tl;dr: Have merchants selling limited stocks of items. Seed them throughout your world, and your random encounter tables. Make them weird. Harness them as encounters, not dull busy work.
