I’ve always liked the ways some games implemented shopkeepers, namely Spelunky and Nethack. There’s also …erm… I can’t even really think of any other games that implement shops this well, roguelike or other wise (of course there may be others, but none I’m immediately aware of).

Spelunky and nethack are both roguelikes, and both of them keep to the roguelike spirit of a wacky, emergent, non modular world (lack of immersion-breaking menus and alternate game screens for actions like battling, dialog or … shopping. Nethack still has an inventory menu but Spelunky takes it even further by not really having one). Even some more traditional roguelikes are less roguelike than Spelunky in my opinion (e.g. DoomRL, and to me Spelunky has a more roguelike spirit than Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, which seems to care more about … tactics(?) and stats than emergent stories, which is fine). In most games when you want to buy something from a shopkeeper there’s a one way interaction. or at most 2 way, where you can sell your items for 10% it’s price, but that kind of insentivises hauling unnecessary loot one doesn’t need and that’s why quite some games these days are doing away with it (or have it missing or hard to do for most of the playthrough). From Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup mentioned earlier, Slay the Spire and even Undertale (which mocks the thought of selling something).

But in Nethack, as should be the immersive roguelike way, you may interact with the shopkeeper as with any other creature (according to the Berlin intepretation, a trait of roguelikes that … not a lot of roguelikes, traditonal or not, tend to keep; a trait that I think would be cool if more games adopted it). So this means you can attack the shopkeeper like every other creature. His merchandise don’t take up invisible space and aren’t hidden away, they are there. On display. Like a real shop. You can pick up items. You can pick up some merchandise you want to buy. Like a real customer. And, naturally, you can (attempt to) steal. As viable or unviable as this option isl it’s there and the game is better for it.

Spelunky was inspired by Nethack (A nethack + super mario mix if you will) so naturally the shopkeeper was just like every other creature. Though stealing was a lot harder and more likely to get your character killed, but it was there. The shopkeeper was an actual character. And it was nice gosh dang it.

It really would be nice if more games could be more “non-modular” and not take the lazier path in design.

In Madcrawl, what I envision as “Roguelike: the game”, even though it was inspired by Brogue (which has no shops, despite having gold coins, which is just used as a score system), I needed a shop. One you can steal from. One you can accidentally burn down. One where you can make immortal enemies with the overpowered burly man selling you potions.

And that’s just what I did.

(A funny bug that came out if this is the shopkeeper not getting angry at you if you set his shop on fire using gas from outside, but that story is for another day.)