nickabbey
December 29th, 2017, 17:25
I'm starting to branch out from GM'ing modules to world building.
My group started in the Darkmoon Vale area, and I've converted almost all of the PDF modules that occur in that region to FG - including the "Guide to the Darkmoon Vale" book to FG mods. Between a paid license of Adobe Acrobat and many hours in GIMP, I'm now transferring module text and maps as well as creating my own maps and tokens of very high quality and I'm very proud of my work.
However... I still have a lot to learn when it comes to world building.
I've learned that no matter how much you prepare as a GM, it's NEVER going to be enough.
Players will do either none of the things you anticipated, or all of the things you couldn't.
I would welcome some input from the community on how they handle shop inventories, and their reasons why.
Random loot tables for shops don't appeal to me as a player, but they are far easier to manage as a GM.
I was thinking of telling the players that any mundane equipment they want is available at the costs listed in the books, and then rolling random loot for shops to simulate a local economy. I figured a couple of nested random tables would do the trick nicely for this. I'd honor the max gold per transaction listed in the source material for individual town, so that no item I roll would be worth more than the limit for that town. Then I'd just use random tables to determine how many magic items are available, and use the existing random magic loot tables to generate the items themselves.
To be slightly more accommodating, I thought I would also give players looking for something specific a d20 "luck" roll to see if a particular shop has that item in stock, or can find it for the player.
My group started in the Darkmoon Vale area, and I've converted almost all of the PDF modules that occur in that region to FG - including the "Guide to the Darkmoon Vale" book to FG mods. Between a paid license of Adobe Acrobat and many hours in GIMP, I'm now transferring module text and maps as well as creating my own maps and tokens of very high quality and I'm very proud of my work.
However... I still have a lot to learn when it comes to world building.
I've learned that no matter how much you prepare as a GM, it's NEVER going to be enough.
Players will do either none of the things you anticipated, or all of the things you couldn't.
I would welcome some input from the community on how they handle shop inventories, and their reasons why.
Random loot tables for shops don't appeal to me as a player, but they are far easier to manage as a GM.
I was thinking of telling the players that any mundane equipment they want is available at the costs listed in the books, and then rolling random loot for shops to simulate a local economy. I figured a couple of nested random tables would do the trick nicely for this. I'd honor the max gold per transaction listed in the source material for individual town, so that no item I roll would be worth more than the limit for that town. Then I'd just use random tables to determine how many magic items are available, and use the existing random magic loot tables to generate the items themselves.
To be slightly more accommodating, I thought I would also give players looking for something specific a d20 "luck" roll to see if a particular shop has that item in stock, or can find it for the player.