Making Better D&D Towns: How to Make D&D General Stores

On the topic of guards…remember that dogs are cheap, make great companions, AND can detect invisible intruders.

I remember a DM once had us meet a traveling merchant who tried to peddle the gear we sold to a general merchant back to us. Was a fun interaction

the modern equivalent of adventurers shopping at a general store is a fully armed special forces squad visiting a Target grocery store and loudly theory-crafting how to arrest suspects using trash cans and duct tape.

Consider offering players looking to sell expensive items the option of a shop selling it on consignment. They leave the item at the shop and check in after a bit to see if someone saw it and purchased it. If it sold, the party gets paid minus a small cut for the shop.

A tip for DMs who are dealing with players that just want to take everything that's not nailed down, have a bell attached to every door of the shop; The front and back door, as well as the door into the stock room. Remember to mention the ringing when the PCs enter to case the joint. "The ringing of the bell above the door calls the attention of everyone inside for just a moment before their attention returns to what they were doing upon noticing you and offering a friendly nod"

I like to think of health potions as a form of insurance system... No townsperson could afford one, but if 100 people pitch in 5 silvers, it could protect the town from many kinds of accidental deaths. Logging or mining injuries, heart attacks, animal attacks, drownings, burns... Whoever needs the potion simply gets it, and the town can easily recuperate the wealth lost when a worker can work another 20 years. And they all get to rest easy knowing it's available.

Not to sound old...but in past editions, excellent guidelines like these used to be included in the core rulebooks. 5e did an excellent job at streamlining things, and that was necessary. Still, I feel like this kind of info would've been helpful for aspiring DMs. Glad to see it available here though!

Best deterrence also makes for good set dressing in town: consequences for thievery. Have many bandits be one-armed, showing how thieves get their hands chopped off. Wanted posters of adventurers on town boards, with bounties. Even better, reskin campaign enemies as good rather than evil if your players go on a crime spree. Now, instead of evil cultists, your group is facing Paladin investigators hunting your group down. Shops closing when you pass, people refusing to do business with you. Make the players see the world change in response to their actions, like a moral system in game. They do good, they get welcomed into town and get discounts on prices. They do evil, shops stop doing business with them and guards put their posters up to warn people away from them.

I have used a local shop keeper that had a deal with the monsters of the local dungeon. He would buy or trade with the monsters for the stuff the monsters got off dead adventurers that the monsters didn't want or couldn't use. The store owner would then sell the stuff to other adventurers as second hand stuff or sell it to a merchant who would take the stuff to another town or city for sale so it couldn't be tracked back to the store owner. You can also use this with local bandits or as a front for the local thieves guild or smuggler ring.

The presenter will probably never see this, but damn this is masterfully done, script and presentation! I have DMed for 12 years, and knew most of this, but the way this is presentes just transforms the information into pure usableness, for lack of a better word. Instant subscribe! Cheers!

I remember a game I was a player in where the dm created alot of feel for things like the shops that when my character discovered hard candies that were a local specialty. My character became addicted and it led to alot of hilarious shenanigans when my character was willing to do nearly anything for more of these candies. When the store was out because of a shipping issue it led to a funny and fun side quest when my character drug the rest of the party into a crazy side quest to bring back the candy.

There is also a major difference to be held between this and the Trading Post which is much more focused on buying out expensive trade goods from the frontier and then resupplying those who get them. This is a prime location for your adventurers to go to get restocked and sell off loot. The general store is better for small day to day actions in a more urban situation.

I once made a general shop in a small town that my players started in, it was their first role playing game ever, so i wanted to make world a little more forgiving and friendly, so in that shop, there was a mentally handicapped man working, he was very friendly and most people in town liked him, so that's why he was working there, he never tried to upsell my players, if they asked he would be happy to tell players where they can sell some of their thing in a decent price, and sometimes if my players where in really bad situation, he would buy something not really valuable from his own money because he just liked it, so my players can buy some basic stuff, once my players found out that someone sold that man some junk but convinced him it was worth much more, and because that shopkeeper thought he would make more money for shop owner buying that, he payed with shops money, so now he was working without pay (which don't really bother him that much, but he was sad for losing shop money), so when players found out, they found that guy, beat him, found his house in different town and stole most of his things (which were mostly stolen from different people), then went to that shop in starting town, gave him a little more money than he should be paid in that no-wage working time, gave money for that junk-thing back to shop owner and then taken the rest of that money from the thief, went to biggest library in the area and bought that handicapped man a thickest book with the most amount of drawning they could find (he loved books, but could not read/write) Long time after my players left that city for some longer time, they got a letter from that man, with 3 drawings,1 drawing was that man "reading" that thick book, being very happy, second was him learning to draw from the drawing in that book, and last was him giving money to some npc traveler to find players and gave them the letter

9:53 I'll probably attach a sticky note to my GM screen just like that Great insight into local businesses... there's always something to learn from all around us that could transform the game into something a lot more immersive and engaging

On the topic of security. Guilds were a thing. There could be a guild of general stores that covers the whole kingdom. Rob one in a small town and now there are wanted pictures for you in every town/city. As soon as the robbery was noticed. The guild was contacted (via animal messenger or sending, maybe with the help of the clergy). Guild hired Caster teleported in and cast spells to see what had happened (by casting spells to see the past) & got your appearance from that. Also a team was hired to go after you. A guild for general stores would be powerful due to there being a store in every town. And with how much money goes through those stores it would be rich enough to do this.

I think, when they said “more valuable goods”, they meant that value can mean a good being more sought after goods, such as goods in high demand, not high pricing. Unrelated is an idea I had. An adventurer could purchase some basic things such as dried veggies, jerky and flour instead of ration packs themselves for better prices, as flour can pretty much just be mixed with water and baked to make hardtack, which is a very versatile bread substitute, though it doesn’t taste very good or break easily in your mouth. An alternative for the dried veggies and meat, you could simply buy lots of salt, then store meat and plant foods you forage for yourself in the salt, cutting down further on price. You could also fulfill your skyrim dreams of downing tons of food to heal by making hardtack with healing potions instead of water, though that’s quite expensive in mass amounts.

There's some interesting ideas here, but I agree with another commenter below suggesting this script applies mostly to modern, large-city stores. Even today one-horse towns might be lucky to have a single general store and might instead rely on all it's inhabitants knowing each other and keeping a small stock of common items relevant to their profession, sometimes in their own homes! and direct travellers to them when and if they show up. There's often not enough internal trade to warrant a dedicated store open 8 hours every day of the week.

A good trick for the minor adventurer goods that a small shop has: use a starting pack, like an Explorers Pack.

The main factor I use to decide how roleplay focused I want the shop to be is how big the city is. If they want to go to the shopping district in a big city I'm likely to tell them they have everything just use the PHB charts. If it's a small town with a few small stores than I'm more likely to do a full roleplay. Specialty shops are also more likely to involve more roleplay.

the lowly general store is often overlooked, your take on this is greatly appreciated. Really helps DM's rethink or honestly THINK about those locations and what is likely to be there, and how to make for the best experience for players...very well done!!!