On 12/4/05, Eric Funk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Plus, it takes less than a minute to walk into a shop and by a "wand of > fireballs", but 120h for a Magery 4+ wizard to learn the spell of Fireball > from a teacher...
---------------------------------- Am I the only one bothered by the idea of an easily-accessed shop full of high-powered magic items? Keep in mind the economy of this. It takes 120h to learn this spell, nearly as many to make the wand. You're paying a mage somewhere for over 200 hours of their time to make a wand. And mages are relatively rare - probably far MORE so, if people buy the "it takes less than a minute" line. They can justly charge quite a bit for their time. Keep in mind that shopkeep wants to make a profit, too. You're probably spending quite a heap of change to buy that "wand of fireballs" But it probably does NOT work that way. YOu don't have mages working as manufacturers to supply shopkeeps. This is a silly abstraction we build on our industrial-age assumptions. Magic items are giong to be fairly rare, usually created by mages for specific individuals, for quests, for communities in need of protection... They would come into adventurer's hands from treasure troves, through black markets, through inheritance, as rewards for service... Rarely in any logical setting would a shop be found full of magic items. Now, one curiosity might find its way to a shopkeep's hands... But its presence in a store should be an element to larger stories, and not merely a convenience for the powerhungry adventurer. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
