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Not every village and town in yourDungeons & Dragonscampaign can have stores boasting rare, magical items and the finest weapons and armor in the land. Sometimes your players need to be ready to barter with the best of the best; pawnshop owners.
Do they have what it takes to convince these hardened, shop-running NPCs to purchase the loot the party members have in their back pockets? Wait, let’s not put the cart before the horse just yet. You have to set up your pawnshop before you can run and roleplay it for your players, and here’s how.
How To Set Up A Pawnshop
Setting up a shop in D&D can range from tedious to downright daunting for any Dungeon Master (or DM for short).It can take a lot of timeif you want to hone in on every detail about the store, from design and atmosphere to items and economics. Or, if you slap the shop together at the last minute,it can fall short of being worth your players' time.
There are some things that you can do to make it as easy as second-hand pie,both for you and your players, making it so that you can land the impact you’re looking for while also letting you get back to the current events of your campaign. There are somequestions you need to ask and answer for yourselfas you’re getting started:where, what, and who.
Where Is Your Pawnshop?
Location is key, and thankfully, this isthe easiest aspect to focus onfor setting up your local pawnshop. As you begin, you’ll know where your pawnshop should be. Either becauseyou are doing the world-buildingand can pick the makeup of your villages, towns, and beyondor because it will be the next place your players are heading.
However, the more detail you know about your location,the better you can craft a realistic, or purposefully unrealistic, shop. Is your village, town, or city a rich place or a poor place? Is it urban, rural, or somewhere in between? What is the primary way the local population makes money?You don’t need to know everything about the surrounding area, but having some basic information in the back of your mind while you plan and build will help you in deciding what will be sold there and who is running the shop.
Along with where this shop is, you canget creative with what it looks like. Is it in an open-air market? In the middle of a town square? Housed inside a magnificent mansion? The options are nearly endless.
What Is For Sale? And What Do They Buy?
The beauty of many pawnshops is that they buymany different kinds of items that they then turn around and sellto make a profit. This means that you can have just about anything in your business. There are some different ways you can determine what you fill your imaginary location with.
Pull From D&D Sourcebooks
One of the first things you can do is look up or think back on what is listed in the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, or any of the other official D&D sourcebooks that list items.This includes your standard equipment, like rope, lanterns, ink, and parchment. Butit can also spread to magical items, such as potions,spell scrolls, and enchanted (or cursed) weapons.
This can be informed by the local scene. If your players are entering a village that is known for fishing, for instance, they’d likely find supplies that match that. Nets, oars, potions of water breathing,anything that fits what you would expect to see a lot of the people that live nearby would be in the market for or selling.
Or, you could insteadtailor the pawnshop a bit moreto what your party needs. This will make the shop feel less real than if you had it filled to the brim with locally curated goods. But doingthis can be very helpful. An example of doing this effectively is when your party is missing a healer. A village wouldn’t have large stockpiles of health potions, but if you want your players to have access to these more often than not, slap a few in a locking case or behind a counter.
Naturally, you may alsodo a hybrid of the above. It’s a pawnshop after all. People traveling through could have decided to sell some of the items they’ve come across in their adventures orfound themselves over-encumberedand needing to let loose some miscellaneous goods.
Item Generators
There are so many item generators, bothin sourcebooks and available online. Using an item generator is one of the best options if you do find yourself in a position whereyou need to quickly create this business, like if your party blindsided you with wanting to look for a pawnshop, or you spent all your prep time making the encounter they were about to walk into.
Some of the item generators are as easy as pressing a button and crafting a listof items for you. They can even let you filter items that can be found inside the four walls of the pawnshop. This is best forwhen you know the locationwould have very few, if any, magic items or if the party is in a place that doesn’t let you purchase weapons.
Other generators, like the one in the Dungeon Master’s Guide,are a table and you roll the specified amount of diceto determine which item will appear in the store. This is a fun option if you have more time to prepare your list of items that are for sale, but stillwant everything to be randomized.
Homebrew Items
While you should still fill up your shop with some recognizable goods, tucking a few homebrewed items into the inventory canget your players curious and engagedwith your shop. They’ll surely want to know what the new, shiny object is that they’ve never laid eyes on before.
Doing this can also allow you to do some interesting things thatotherwise wouldn’t be achievedwith solely the other two options. An idea that has been shared around is having health potions that are mimics, giving your players a scary situation to deal with when they are already vulnerable and in need of health. You can alsohidea curse on an item. They could be less likely to get a homebrewed item checked for something like a curse, distracted instead by learning what this item does on the surface.
What The Shop Is Buying?
This is something entirely up to you. You can make it so thatthe owner will buy anything if it’s cheapenough. Or you could have someone who ismore selective running your store. You can also use that same information that helped you fill the shop to determine what they will purchase.
In the fishing village example, perhaps the NPC is a hearty and frugal business owner who will only buy things they know villagers are in the market for. After all, that is going to be their biggest source of continued business. Sothey may not be interested inbuying your players' framed artwork or solid gold necklace.
You should also consider,how much is the owner willing to spend?You can start by giving your NPC a budget. Give them an amount of gold they’re working with. If the shop owner only has5,000 gold pieces to barter withand the party comes in witha magic item that is worth 10,000, then you’ll know there’s no way the shop owner would purchase the item from them.
Who Is Running Or Working Your Shop?
The next step is deciding who it is that is running your shop. This NPCcould be anyone or fill any kind of roleyou want them to.If you do want to go a more realisticor serious route, then you can run the shop like a well-oiled machine, having the owner be knowledgeable about the items on sale, where they’ve come from, and even who the previous owner was.
On the other hand,you can have them bring levityto the current situation. Are they an uninterested teenager who is running the shop for a parent? Are they a collector of all things shiny but don’t know anything beyond the outer appearance of the item?You can keep it simpleas well by just deciding on one or two adjectives to guide you through your improv. Friendly and carefree, old and gruff, the possibilities are endless.
Similarly to filling up your store, if you’re stumped on what kind of NPC to make,you can find a generator, decide by rolling some dice, or draw inspiration from media to make this character come into creation quickly and be run without much difficulty.
How To Roleplay The Shop
The most important thing is to run the store ina way that will make your session fun for you and your players. If your groupis the kind that enjoys realism, you’re able to use the above tips to make a shop that fits perfectly into the world around it with a knowledgeable owner who is going to only be interested in doing the best business possible.
If your players like a challenge, you can have your list of items and prices ready to go with a difficulty class (DC) that the players have to beat if they want to persuade the shopkeeper to come down on their price. You can also make it so that theitems are more randomized as opposed to being selectedwith the party and their current circumstances in mind.
And, of course,you can always make a silly and/or fun characterthat makes the party laugh or brings some lighthearted enjoyment to an otherwise simple and quick task of purchasing useful items for their adventure. This isthe option that has the widest varietyof what to do and how you can operate it.
A huge part of D&D isimprovising things as they happen. You can carefully craft your pawnshop and the person who runs it, but no matter how you decide to play it,you have to be open to your players and their wantswhen they enter this place.You don’t have to agree with or say yes to everythingthey want, but knowing what your players enjoy doing can inform you of how you want to play this character too.
