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View Full Version : an idea on buying / selling items



elliott20
2009-05-26, 12:25 AM
One of the problems of 3.5e (and 4E as well, IIRC) is when PCs make stuff and sell it, they are forced to sell at a fixed price.

the purpose of that is quite simply so that players don't have to sit around and worry about supply and demand, etc. From a game stand point, it's probably a good thing since the game is called dungeons and dragons, not merchants and accountants.

However, what *if* you wanted a model for merchants that seemed a tad more realistic? While the prices themselves might not be a good reflection of reality or even the source material it came from, what if there was a mechanism that allows you to adjust it on the fly?

that is the subject of this thread. how can you make a model that takes into account supply and demand or at least acknowledges the existence of such?

there is one principle that I'm trying to keep in mind here. you can try to sell something higher than market price, but doing so means you gotta spend more time finding a willing buyer.

so, what does this mean?

What this means, is that when you want to sell something, you gotta make a "selling" check. (or if you want to buy something rare, a buy check) how a sell check works is basically this:

1. you set the price you want to sell your item at
2. you roll a "gather info" check to see if you can find a prospective buyer.

depending upon your sell item price, it modifies the sell check DC for success. Making the DC means you have found someone who is willing to buy at your price. If you fail, however, it does not mean you're still stuck at your current price. Depending upon how much you fail by, you might have found someone who might not be happy with the price you proposed, but has no objection to buying it at a slightly better price. (the exact margin depends upon your margin of failure)

on the other hand, if you sell at a reduced price, it lowers the DC. It also means that you could effectively lower the price enough where the DC for finding a seller would be 0, making it an automatic success. i.e. if you were to reduce it by 50% in a standard 3.5E economy

at the same time, you can modify the sell DC based on demand for the good.

the numbers, of course, will have to be worked out mathematically, but do you guys think the concept is sound?

Another_Poet
2009-05-26, 12:44 AM
Your mechanic will work okay, but seems to present little extra gameplay opportunity.

I would suggest making a series of charts. For instance, one chart that says how many shortages/overstocks the town has. A second chart that you roll on to see what kinds of shortages (grain, lumber, fine wood, metal, armour, weapons, luxuries, alchemical items, potions, etc...) and a similar table for overstocks. And then some way of deciding whether the shortage/overstock applies to all items in a category (all alchemical items sell for 5% extra!) or only a specific item (tindertwigs sell for 50% extra!).

Have each economic condition last for 2d4 weeks and your PCs have viable markets. Add a simple bartering mechanic and they might even have fun.

Beware, you must keep the potential profit margin on "playing the markets" far lower than the likely profits of level-appropriate adventuring. Otherwise your PCs will quickly become merchants instead of adventurers, aka "Fable II Syndrome."

elliott20
2009-05-26, 12:51 AM
as a gameplay mechanic? you're right, this wouldn't add to the game at all other than give the players with appraise, gather info, and maybe diplomacy a little bit extra income.

but turning that around, you could make the buying of a rare item part of the adventure too. though, admittedly, this would be better handle via normal GM fiat.

Keeping a chart on the town? now that seems like an awful lot of book keeping. The way I figured, the GM would just eyeball it, and apply a "demand" modifier on selling, and call it that. Not that I have an issue with people who would want to keep the extra tables and charts and everything, but that just seems like a lot more work.

and of course, there is the concern that players could just become merchants instead of adventurers. Like you said, keeping the margins low enough should be sufficient. (that will require some number massaging)

shadzar
2009-05-26, 08:19 AM
One of the problems of 3.5e (and 4E as well, IIRC) is when PCs make stuff and sell it, they are forced to sell at a fixed price.

No they aren't. Don't let the poor game designers at WotC try to tell you how to play a game.

DMG
At conventions, in letters, and over the phone I'm often asked for the instant answer to a fine point of the game rules. More often than not, I come back with a question--what do you feel is right? And the people asking the questions discover that not only can they create an answer, but that their answer is as good as anyone else's. The rules are only guidelines.

David 'Zeb' Cook

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

You method should work fine.

Just because a book says the designers did it one way, doesn't mean that is the only way something can be done.

Haggle for item prices with whatever check you want. Diplomacy, Appraisal, Streetwise, whatever for the edition you are using.

Also don't forget that prices may vary from town to town and merchant to merchant. So looking for someone to buy the item from for the price you are willing to sell is fine. If a DM doesn't allow it and wants to be a stickler for set prices from the book, they may be a bit too rigid of a DM.

In the time frame most of the D&D genre is set (medieval-esque for most), haggling was commonplace rather than today where everything is a fixed price at one location.

Get crazy with it and include a d4 roll and that is the % difference in listed price and actual price paid or sold for something. 1= 10% more or less value from this merchant, etc. 2=20%.

Also the PCs really would have no way of knowing the value of an item to begin with without an appraisal check or knowledge check or its quality, and then some sort of check to tell of prices and values for things in the area they wish to buy or sell from.

You could also let characters set up their own store, or sell things on commission at a merchants location, if you want to come back through later to collect the remainder of the money for it.

Have fun with your economy, as it seems you are. :smallwink:

Another_Poet
2009-05-26, 09:11 AM
Keeping a chart on the town? now that seems like an awful lot of book keeping.

How exactly? It would go something like this:

-The PCs enter the town
-You roll a couple of times, making them nervous
-Looking at the die results, you see there is a wand shortage in the town
-You make a note ("Hammleville has Wand Shortage, will last 5 weeks")

Done. If they ever talk to any merchants in town they're sure to find out about the shortage. Sucks if they wanted to stock up on wands, but if they found some in the last dungeon or one of them can craft wands, boom, they can sell them at +10% value.

ap

elliott20
2009-05-26, 10:10 AM
ahh, I see what you mean. I thought you meant like, keeping a table of values for each town's price levels for each item. strange how my mind automatically guns for the most needlessly complex method. It's like I'm Nale or something.

I kind of imagine some kind of consumer price index would work well, actually, when taking into conjunction of area and such...

I'll have to create an actual ruleset later on for this.

shadzar
2009-05-26, 10:22 AM
ahh, I see what you mean. I thought you meant like, keeping a table of values for each town's price levels for each item. strange how my mind automatically guns for the most needlessly complex method. It's like I'm Nale or something.

:smallfrown: I have done it that way before. You could simplify it to just saying this region has a greater need for certain type of thing and will pay more and charge more for them, and go with a fixed rate change for the area.

Town A has the Wand Shortage, so wands cost more and they may pay more.

Town B has a metal shortage, so all metal items will get more from them, but armor and weapons are likely to cost much more or not be available since metal is used for things of more importance to normal day life.

So you can sell your spare sword for twice as much in town B, but buying a new sword to replace it may cost 3 times as much because they would prefer to melt it down to make farm implements.

So supply and demand can help in a general sense like mentioned without having to make a list of each items price for each town if you don't want to.