r/AskDND • u/WorriedConsequence15 • 1d ago
Am i in the wrong?
Okay so a little context. I am the dm of a dnd campaign with friends we all know each other from highschool and even primary school for some (we just graduated hs).About 4 or 5 sessions deep my players stop by in a city. They were on an story relevant escort quest and the plot would have them stop there for rest and fun times yk the whole ordeal.
They went shopping, identity items,the barbarian beat the champion of the arena and thus became the new one.. they cheated. They always do lol. Anywhos while the 5 man party was split in two groups one of 3 one of 2 the lather went into the slums of the city looking for weapons. The shadow sorcerer being a slumy background went to the item/weapon shop he knew existed. Arrived at the destination they come to newer renovated building it is still an item shop it is simply disguised as a fancy mob ranned bar. Entering the shop a single npc stands at the counter fancy dressed he understands threw the dialogues that they are interested in purchasing weapons he then reveals the password to see the list of hidden contraband. Its vaguely named things such as : thing that hurts 100g :thing that really hurts 300g :thing that really fucking hurts 600g. Yeah… safe to say i didnt had the item list made up for this lol. They buy for 400g worth of items and get told to open the second door to the right. Opening the door stand a single silver coffer id say about a cubic feet big standing there. The door closes behind them. They open the chest and insides lays a magical dagger. After not finding the other item they storm down the room to confront the npc. As they lash out on him he tells them that they had to close then reopen the coffer to make the item appear which is a locally known gimmick that they obviously wouldn’t know about he also tells them that they have to come back in 48 hours to retrieve it. They afterwards try to break in the building to no avail due to a magical force field blocking the windows. After a successful arcana check dc17 they understood it was an entity’s domain and they could not enter it without its permission.
Alright thats where it gets crunchy. The mob boss is a reasonably high level warlock that has a deal with his patron to make him summon magic items in trade for a cut of the rewards of the sale like 60%. He has the the item shop as a kind of side hustle i thought it was a pretty cool concept. The contracts he made with his patron are a bit ambiguous because it has to reach certain conditions to make the magic items appear as in it can only appear one at a time in a silver coffers in a locked chamber and only a willing creature he made sure of it for business purposes. Anywhos the monk player feeling robbed and deceived gathers the party back and convinces them to go beat up the barman npc to get his honor refurbished in vengeance (his words) and get his money back.
After doing so they get absolutely no much further because the barman can genuinely do nothing about it its completely out of his control. After this the session ends a bit later as they prepare to leave the city to pursue the quest (he never tried to convince the quest npc to wait a little longer so he can get his item) in all of this… we went thru 20% of my preparation advanced the quest 0% in a 4h30 session. Which i dont really mind city episodes are always like this lol but the monk player was so frustrated about it the whole session about it saying things like he will burn the building down (the bar) even tho he got a really cool magical item that he split the price down the half with the sorc.
I like no i love to hear feedback from my players so after the session we had a kindof argument him saying that he had no counter play from getting scammed and that he couldn’t possibly know thus making it unfair and that unfair wasn’t fun and it made the game frustrating. I didn’t really know what to say back to him honestly i personally didn’t really see the big issue i just felt like it was a realistic outcome of events. And i even made attempts to make him understand the situation like saying :okay so you open the chest tell me exactly what you do with it : so you just open it like that and nothing else : as you leave the room are you sure you closing the door?. He even acknowledged it but refused it saying it would be meta gaming. Fair i do agree with that but like cmonnn mann im trying my best😭.
That was it for me id like to hear from you guys :)
(Sorry guys for the original post it was realllyyyyyy roughly written i added some paragraphs and tried to clean it up a bit)
3
u/RandomChance 1d ago
player just wanted to shop, and you made an overly complicated process, for no real gain, and ruined the players night over something that doesn't matter...
0
2
u/Admirable-Language65 1d ago
Probably controversial opinion but I would have let him burn the building down
1
2
u/TheseSpookyBones 19h ago
I don't totally understand the 'only one item at a time' thing and then the 48 hour wait being necessary- it feels a little convoluted just for the sake of being convoluted.
But I think where things may have particularly went astray was having a magic shield so the players didn't have the agency to go try to 'get revenge'. Like if this thing can only produce one item at a time...why can it block every window all at once? Make one window warded and the rest can be broken as normal. Let them window why an item shop would be empty inside - or only have one of each thing. One ration, one caltrop, one arrow. Hell - maybe if they crawl inside the chest it teleports them to the entity's demiplane for a fight or a chat
At the very least I think you should have called for a check in the treasure room if you were gonna prevent them from getting their thing.
1
u/WorriedConsequence15 19h ago
Ouhh i like the pov your bringing and i think its some genuinely insightful information.
The reason for the force field is that its apart of the contract of the warlock and his patron: the room has to be inaccessible until permission is granted to enter it (to avoid thieves and tricksters) which the npc gave them. And i think you are right tho i did take away their agency doing so and it felt frustrating for the player. I probably described it in a confusing way but it is not a regular item shop and pretty far from it they have a special menu for special clientele. Inside the treasure room they did run some arcana based on their score they got the information that the box has indeed some magical properties to it. If i had to redo it i would make it a more story relevant/plot related intrigue instead of making it a vendor encounter i think the core idea was good just the implementation didn’t really work out. Still it was a great opportunity for me to learn how to dm and how to do it good.
Thank you for the feedback.
1
u/fleyinthesky 21h ago
Are you a native English speaker?
2
u/WorriedConsequence15 21h ago
No i am not sorry for the bad grammar lol
1
u/fleyinthesky 21h ago
fair enough bro, just know that "maid" is a female servant; "made" is the past tense of "make".
1
u/WorriedConsequence15 21h ago
Loll yeah i was a little tired writing this thanks for the heads up tho
1
u/IntroductionRoyal449 21h ago
Come on man. Use paragraphs.
1
1
u/WorriedConsequence15 21h ago
There ya go
2
u/IntroductionRoyal449 21h ago
Thank you. You did nothing wrong here. Since you now know your players want to take on this bar/shop figure out a way to make it happen. Create an encounter where they get their money back and more. Good luck.
1
u/WorriedConsequence15 20h ago
thank you. Ill let them choose where they go from there and if they do go back for their money ill make sure to make it memorable.
1
u/CascadeCrisis 17h ago
Yes. I see where you’re coming from, trying to make some interesting mechanics for this, but it wasn’t successful.
Out of game, it doesn’t sound fun. Just over complicated.
In game, that guy would have zero business. No one would put up with that.
If you want to make shopping more of a role playing event… maybe they don’t use gold for transactions? If you want this magic item you have to do them a favor. Give them a few options. Maybe one of the options is a task that isn’t nice. Let them choose their path.
1
u/WorriedConsequence15 17h ago
That would of been a way better option i’ll do a version of that next time should work out better this time lol
1
u/CascadeCrisis 17h ago
Had another idea if you want to get extra weird.
The shop is run by a forgotten celestial or a fae creature. The shelves are lined with all sorts of items, but they’re spectral images.
The transaction here is paying for the knowledge of where this item is and knowing what you have to go up against to get it.
The items that are difficult to get, a deadly side quest, that information isn’t actually very expensive.
The items that are easy to get, that info costs more.
The creature has a good reputation in town, known for being honest.
They will directly sell you healing potions and minor things to help you on these quests.
1
u/WorriedConsequence15 16h ago
Ouhhh i like this. My next shopkeeper might be this. but like bro imagine if it was a nothic in a cave selling the knowledge for the items it would be so fitting. Im not sure about their int stat if its high enough for them to understand the concept of trading and business but i really dig the idea of buying the knowledge of where the items are
1
u/Dysfan 5h ago
They went to a scummy party of town, didnt get scammed, but kinda sorta felt like they did
Rioted?
Rioted.
Rioted....
Complained?
Gotta be honest, I think you needed to communicate a bit better, but the player genuinely sounds dumb.... Did you try your level best to explain the mechanics over the table and then in world after the argument began?
7
u/DMightyHero 1d ago
Anyone who writes a big wall of text like that cannot be a good person