Alanus's General Store
It was a single store that sold a variety of good made by a variety of people. It was such a novel concept that most people will dislike it. "It is just not the way we do things around here", they would say. Yet they still buy things here.
The small town, and it is generous to call it that, is a bit "out of the way". Yet it is the only outpost of civilization for a good distance. Travelling in this country is a bit hard, given the terrain and the unpredictable weather, so people do it only when they can. Thus a market day was not convient for anyone, venders or local. Alanus solved this problem.
His was the idea of a "General Store", one where goods from many merchants were sold to him, then resold to everyone else. Normally each merchant would have their own store or market booth. Yet given the unpredictable flow of people, many merchants would spend too much time waiting for customers that never came than making goods. So by selling to Alanus, he spends all day doing nothing but selling (and putting in an occasional order to the various merchants and traders) and they are free to make goods.
The General Store carries dry goods, some groceries, hardware from The Smith and travelling tinkers, candles, blankets, soft goods, and some fabric from local weavers and traded goods. Thus everyone can go to Alanus's for most of their needs, unless they need a real weapon. Alanus's religious beliefs do not allow him to sell weapons.
Before any of you wonder why this concept is so miraculous, after all we live with a variety of stores, the earliest "general store" came into existance in the late 1700s. So it is a proper near modern invention occuring long after the Renaissance. Until that time, all trade was done with individual market stalls which limited the owner's ability to produce as they spent time selling. These general stores were the first places to do "bulk sales". The department store did not develop until the mid 1800s.
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? Responses (3)
It is miraculous in real life when it happened, but in RP rarely is store a specialty shop unless it is a weapons store.
This might make you think harder about putting a more realistic twist on your game by having the vendors more specialized and NOT having every town with an Adventurer's Shop that has everything from grappling hooks to sharpened tacks.
I think the use of General Stores in RP is better then having the PCs wander around to 15 different stores - I'm just not that interested in in-game shopping unless it is for something truely special, or a setup for contacting an important NPC. Maybe it's not realistic, but it helps conserve valuable game time.
Actually we never shop in my games at all. The market place is just for color and location for my campaigns. So this is a location for more dramatic events.
Actually this post has three uses:
It was designed as a bit of history lesson, showing how "non historical" or "under realistic" an adventurer store/ general store is in most settings. (Hence, all those italics notes).
After your have your PC's trained that there are dozens of stores they have to go for things, you hit them with this piece of oddity.
And of course, it provides an NPC, a setting, and some dramatic elements between him and other guild people, for players to stumble over. This new way will be upsetting to many. Traders might even try to squash this idea before it can spread. Lot of various pieces of fun.