Are fixed prices an anachronism?

[Talakeal]

My game system has a pseudo-abstract wealth system.

In short, players have a wealth score which represents not only hard coin, but also favors, credit, opportunities, and various liquid resources.
Players increase their wealth score by completing missions and accomplishing objectives.
When they buy something, they make a roll using their business skill against a difficulty set by the value of the item, and then reduce their wealth score based on how well they rolled.

For me this system works because:
1: It cuts down on bookkeeping and money-grubbing.
2: It puts more emphasis on mundane non-combat skills.
3: The world is a non-industrialized pseudo-post apocalyptic setting and they are buying things that often rare, dangerous, or illegal. Rather than just going into a store, they may have to buy the items used, have them custom made, or track them down from a fence, auction house, wandering trader, or private collection.

Anyway, in my latest game, the entire party decided to dump charisma and nobody wanted to take the business skill. This isn't a huge deal, the game still provides more than enough wealth to get what they need, it just takes a little bit longer. However, one of my players insisted that it was stupid that they had to make a haggle roll at all rather than just being able to buy whatever the needed off the rack at a fixed price.

I looked it up, and afaict, in olden times goods were always haggled over. The idea of items having a fixed price was, according to Wikipedia, first used in New York in the 1840s, Paris in the 1850s, or Philedelphia in the 1860s, depending on which account you believe.

The player said that was nonsense, that may have been the first time there was a market value set across an entire community or industry, but there have always been fixed prices in stores and people have always had the option of just going in and buying what they wanted off the rack without negotiating.

And you know, this idea does appeal to me, and I can't imagine a world where you have to expend the time and emotional energy negotiating for every little purchase my entire life.

So, does anyone have any historical knowledge of how things actually worked when it came to stores and setting prices in pre-modern times? Or any ideas on how it ought to work in fantasy RPG setting?





TLDR: Is it historically accurate for items in a shop located in a pseudo-medieval setting to have fixed price-tags the same way that they would in a modern store?

[MoiMagnus]

I find gothwalk's answer on reddit to be quite illuminating on medieval shops: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b0o5ay/im_going_shopping_in_a_large_medieval_european/

I'll extract what I think are the most important points:


You probably would not have been able to walk in and buy finished goods, though, even in the cities, unless they were second-hand. If you were looking for new goods, then you would go to the craftsperson in question, discuss what you wanted with them, and have it made. This sounds slow, but it was often possible - assuming you could spend enough - to have clothes made in 24-48 hours, smaller furniture in only a slightly longer time, and so on. Everything was custom-made and custom-fitted - armour in particular. The modern idea of off-the-shelf clothing or armour simply wasn't there.

So basically your idea of a shop simply doesn't exists, because in a lot of cases no one had any stocks ready to sell. If everything takes more than a day to obtain, adding a short negotiation beforehand doesn't change much.


Food, too, was purchased directly from the producer, with very few exceptions. Indeed, buying goods and reselling them was treated as a crime in many English towns and cities

So the whole concept of "shops" as an intermediary between you and the producer simply does not exists. Note that this "illegality of reselling" has one important loophole, which is second-hand goods:


These second-hand goods could be bought from open markets, and from particular retailers who specialised in such things - or direct from the people who previously owned them.

Back to the subject of fixed prices:

So as you see, the "this is on the shelve with a price tag and you can buy it" is a little alien to medieval time. Does that always mean lengthy negotiations? Only if you want to buy cheap while not being a regular customer.

I'd expect that most of the time, there would be a default price, which would include a significant "more expensive because I don't know you" tax if you're not part of the local social network (of a value that might depends on what you look like, possibly including the religious symbols you have visible on you).

[Slipjig]

More important than realism is the question is whether or not your players enjoy these haggling sessions. It sounds like they don't.

But even if the haggling IS realistic, it seems like it mostly would have happened for larger purchases where the craftsman likely to spend at least several hours producing the item. An innkeeper probably isn't going to haggle over every room he rents, let alone every mug of beer.

As for having goods ready in the shop, it's a question of how long the craftsman expects something to sit on the shelf. Armor and most weapons would sell rarely enough that it probably wouldn't make sense to keep any in stock. Household goods or dual-use items might be stocked, though.

[llama-hedge]

One of the DMs I play with has his own explanation for fixed prices in pseudo-mediaeval fantasy which is as follows: the fixed prices in rulebooks are an approximation of the value you eventually end up with after a normal amount of negotiation. The haggling is assumed to have happened but typically doesn't take up table time unless players want it to because it just isn't that interesting. Rolls should be reserved for things can go wrong in interesting ways and buying basic supplies typically doesn't fall into this category. Buying rare or illegal goods on the other hand, would.

[Anymage]

One of the DMs I play with has his own explanation for fixed prices in pseudo-mediaeval fantasy which is as follows: the fixed prices in rulebooks are an approximation of the value you eventually end up with after a normal amount of negotiation. The haggling is assumed to have happened but typically doesn't take up table time unless players want it to because it just isn't that interesting. Rolls should be reserved for things can go wrong in interesting ways and buying basic supplies typically doesn't fall into this category. Buying rare or illegal goods on the other hand, would.

On the one hand, yes. A lot of players don't like haggling period, and a lot more don't like the idea of devoting table time to it when there are more interesting things their adventurers could be doing with that time.

On the other hand, if it all gets abstracted down to one dice roll and the system clearly spells out how that'll be a thing, I'm also conscious of how many players will want to dump their social stats and then use some justification for why their characters should not suffer social penalties. In which case the realistic answer (big purchases, whether bulk items or just one big thing, tend to have more haggling built in even today) happens to cover most of the things adventurers should want past the lowest levels. Even if you ignore how the idea of a general store with full shelves of fixed price items might well be anachronistic.

[Talakeal]

Rolls should be reserved for things can go wrong in interesting ways and buying basic supplies typically doesn't fall into this category. Buying rare or illegal goods on the other hand, would.

The cost of regular goods is hand-waived away. This system is for rare things that would be the equivalent of Magic Items in Dungeons and Dragons, in this particular case it was potions.


More important than realism is the question is whether or not your players enjoy these haggling sessions. It sounds like they don't.

It isn't a haggling session, in character or out, it's a single dice roll no different than an Aquisition role in in a fully abstract wealth system.

What he doesn't like is not the concept of haggling, but the feeling of being taken advantage by paying more when he rolls really poorly.


On the one hand, yes. A lot of players don't like haggling period, and a lot more don't like the idea of devoting table time to it when there are more interesting things their adventurers could be doing with that time.

On the other hand, if it all gets abstracted down to one dice roll and the system clearly spells out how that'll be a thing, I'm also conscious of how many players will want to dump their social stats and then use some justification for why their characters should not suffer social penalties. In which case the realistic answer (big purchases, whether bulk items or just one big thing, tend to have more haggling built in even today) happens to cover most of the things adventurers should want past the lowest levels. Even if you ignore how the idea of a general store with full shelves of fixed price items might well be anachronistic.

Indeed.

[NichG]

I can sort of see why the dice roll haggling is annoying, because its using (eventually) a very large number of rolls to just simulate the average. A fixed 1% discount per point of skill modifier might be better there.

Where you could use rolls is to say, any time someone is trying to buy anything beyond a mundane good (e.g. something where availability is actually in question), its a roll to see if they find that good at all, modified based on the population/economic situation of the location, with a certain number of rolls per location per week that you get. That way, each roll has a specific and significant consequence - if you're bad at it, its not just your gold is adjusted up/down by a few percent, but you actually have a harder time gearing up and getting what you need. Obviously this shouldn't be used for things like 'a longsword' or 'a tavern we can stay at'. But, someone wants a specific item like a +1 Keen Icy Burst voulge-guisarme? Roll for it. Failed? You can't find anyone who can make that for you on demand, try again in a month or maybe pay an NPC with a better modifier than you to try to find you an item crafter to commission.

[Talakeal]

I can sort of see why the dice roll haggling is annoying, because its using (eventually) a very large number of rolls to just simulate the average. A fixed 1% discount per point of skill modifier might be better there.

Dealing with numbers like that is a lot more math intensive and finer grain than I really want to deal with in my system, and there are also meta currencies that can be used to influence the roll. You can also have interesting dramatic outcomes with degrees of success.


Where you could use rolls is to say, any time someone is trying to buy anything beyond a mundane good (e.g. something where availability is actually in question), its a roll to see if they find that good at all, modified based on the population/economic situation of the location, with a certain number of rolls per location per week that you get. That way, each roll has a specific and significant consequence - if you're bad at it, its not just your gold is adjusted up/down by a few percent, but you actually have a harder time gearing up and getting what you need. Obviously this shouldn't be used for things like 'a longsword' or 'a tavern we can stay at'. But, someone wants a specific item like a +1 Keen Icy Burst voulge-guisarme? Roll for it. Failed? You can't find anyone who can make that for you on demand, try again in a month or maybe pay an NPC with a better modifier than you to try to find you an item crafter to commission.

I actually tried that at first. It didn't go over well.

Basically, players would simply look for every item every session to see what was available, wasting a ton of time.

So then I limited how many items that could look for in any given session. The problem was 9/10 players, both at my table and on the forums, saw a failure in such a system as "the merchant steals my money and runs away giving me nothing in return."


I find gothwalk's answer on reddit to be quite illuminating on medieval shops: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b0o5ay/im_going_shopping_in_a_large_medieval_european/

I'll extract what I think are the most important points:



So basically your idea of a shop simply doesn't exists, because in a lot of cases no one had any stocks ready to sell. If everything takes more than a day to obtain, adding a short negotiation beforehand doesn't change much.



So the whole concept of "shops" as an intermediary between you and the producer simply does not exists. Note that this "illegality of reselling" has one important loophole, which is second-hand goods:



Back to the subject of fixed prices:

So as you see, the "this is on the shelve with a price tag and you can buy it" is a little alien to medieval time. Does that always mean lengthy negotiations? Only if you want to buy cheap while not being a regular customer.

I'd expect that most of the time, there would be a default price, which would include a significant "more expensive because I don't know you" tax if you're not part of the local social network (of a value that might depends on what you look like, possibly including the religious symbols you have visible on you).

Thank you for that, it was very enlightening, although I still am curious about how people established a baseline for where to start negotiations at.

[Segev]

I imagine produce sellers with carts or stalls had, if not a listed price, at least an announced price to start a haggle with.

[NichG]

I actually tried that at first. It didn't go over well.

Basically, players would simply look for every item every session to see what was available, wasting a ton of time.

So then I limited how many items that could look for in any given session. The problem was 9/10 players, both at my table and on the forums, saw a failure in such a system as "the merchant steals my money and runs away giving me nothing in return."


If I remember correctly, you combined this with decaying/transient wealth that couldn't be banked, so yeah clearly in that case it's a problem if the system says 'use it or lose it' but also says 'roll to see if you can use it'. But if you don't have decaying wealth, well, of course players may still complain if they expect to just be able to buy anything whenever they like, and your players may just complain for any reason whatsoever, but at least it wouldn't be incoherent.

[llama-hedge]

What he doesn't like is not the concept of haggling, but the feeling of being taken advantage by paying more when he rolls really poorly.
You can change how something feels through how it's presented without changing the balance. Most people are roughly twice as sensitive to loss as they are to gain, so if you make the baseline worse but increase the opportunity for discounts it feels like a better deal even if the expected value is the same.


The problem was 9/10 players, both at my table and on the forums, saw a failure in such a system as "the merchant steals my money and runs away giving me nothing in return."
I genuinely don't understand how a botched haggling roll could possibly lead to anything worse than "no one will sell you the item you are looking for at a price you can afford, you annoy all the merchants, and your time spent looking is wasted." How is anyone stealing anything here?

Another thing I thought of is, does searching for specific magic items cost in-game time? If it doesn't, then there's no incentive not to keep looking for different items until you find something.

[Telok]

So then I limited how many items that could look for in any given session. The problem was 9/10 players, both at my table and on the forums, saw a failure in such a system as "the merchant steals my money and runs away giving me nothing in return."

On the original question: absolutely.

On the quote: Critical question, does the system require them to "spend money" to begin the interaction? Because the way that makes it sound is they pay $ up front and then roll to see if they get it.

One system I've found to use a semi-wealth stat with players who **** about every least coin of loot is follows: They decide "specific" or "general", that is do they want a flaming falcion that shoots lasers or will any old magic sword do? Finding the thing takes time & a roll. Time is decreased by decreasing the specificity of what they want to find and by upping the difficulty of the roll. The roll decides the availability of what they want. Hammer it in that this isn't strictly "price", they could be hiring someone to make a (not awesome/magic) duplicate and perform an untracable swap or something. Then if they didn't roll well enough to get the item outright, they interact with whatever metacurrency & loot pile handovers exist (this needs to be where they "spend money in their minds) or they can choose to get the "fun" side effects like permanent wealth stat downgrades or getting a hot stolen car.

The trick is setting the time it takes to get to roll as part of your downtime &/or game time. Thats the limiter on "roll for everything" instead of just arbitrary per session limits, they're on one "cool item bargain hunt" at a time. So they aren't spending anything but time until after they roll low and they can choose not to "spend" anything but time.

Another option is just setting a "items of x value per y time" rating based on the character wealth & haggle stats. They just flat out get whatever the straight average rolls would get them, with the option to wait longer for the better stuff. No rolls needed. They just have to accept that they'll never "get a good roll" or get to spend the metacurriences/whatever to get above average stuff.

[Talakeal]

You can change how something feels through how it's presented without changing the balance. Most people are roughly twice as sensitive to loss as they are to gain, so if you make the baseline worse but increase the opportunity for discounts it feels like a better deal even if the expected value is the same.

This is an interesting idea. Care to elaborate on what it would mean in practice?

I have some ideas, but not sure how to implement them without numbers scaling into the stratosphere.


If I remember correctly, you combined this with decaying/transient wealth that couldn't be banked, so yeah clearly in that case it's a problem if the system says 'use it or lose it' but also says 'roll to see if you can use it'. But if you don't have decaying wealth, well, of course players may still complain if they expect to just be able to buy anything whenever they like, and your players may just complain for any reason whatsoever, but at least it wouldn't be incoherent.

Good memory, that was ~seven years ago now.

In short, the system didn't track money at all, the players just got to make acquisition roles periodically. The problem is that if they failed all of their acquisition roles, it looked like whatever money they earned during that time was being "stolen" because they didn't have anything concrete to show for it.


On the quote: Critical question, does the system require them to "spend money" to begin the interaction? Because the way that makes it sound is they pay $ up front and then roll to see if they get it.

Not in that system, no. They just only got so many chances to look for an item in a given period of time, but because the game didn't track wealth failing all those roles gave them the feeling of being robbed.



One system I've found to use a semi-wealth stat with players who **** about every least coin of loot is follows: They decide "specific" or "general", that is do they want a flaming falcion that shoots lasers or will any old magic sword do? Finding the thing takes time & a roll. Time is decreased by decreasing the specificity of what they want to find and by upping the difficulty of the roll. The roll decides the availability of what they want. Hammer it in that this isn't strictly "price", they could be hiring someone to make a (not awesome/magic) duplicate and perform an untracable swap or something. Then if they didn't roll well enough to get the item outright, they interact with whatever metacurrency & loot pile handovers exist (this needs to be where they "spend money in their minds) or they can choose to get the "fun" side effects like permanent wealth stat downgrades or getting a hot stolen car.

The trick is setting the time it takes to get to roll as part of your downtime &/or game time. Thats the limiter on "roll for everything" instead of just arbitrary per session limits, they're on one "cool item bargain hunt" at a time. So they aren't spending anything but time until after they roll low and they can choose not to "spend" anything but time.

That's more or less how it works now, and what gets the player upset that she can't just buy the item off the rack and sticker price if she rolls low.

[NichG]

Good memory, that was ~seven years ago now.

In short, the system didn't track money at all, the players just got to make acquisition roles periodically. The problem is that if they failed all of their acquisition roles, it looked like whatever money they earned during that time was being "stolen" because they didn't have anything concrete to show for it.


Right. So instead, I'd say something like this:

- You have a Wealth level, and finding 'significant loot' raises your Wealth level to the level of the loot you found. Finding loot at your Wealth level gives you a 'pip' towards the next level, and four pips (so five instances total) advances your level. Finding loot below your Wealth level has no impact. Each level of Wealth represents 5x the monetary resources of the previous level.

- In general, you can acquire 'commonly available' things two levels below your Wealth in places they're available without question, and without impacting your Wealth. Buying something one level below your Wealth when you have no pips reduces you to 4 pips of the previous level. If you have at least one pip at your current level, buying things one level below your Wealth has no impact. Buying something at your Wealth level lowers it by one pip, or reduces it to the level below if you have no pips. Haggling over these common goods is pointless, as its a rounding error compared to the overall Wealth impact due to the exponential scale, and you simply aren't going to get 80% off no matter how good you are.

- The price of consumable things that do not have permanent effects is 'the price to have this consistently available'. If you e.g. buy '1 potion of healing', that basically means you refresh up to that level of 'potions of healing' whenever you return to your supplier. Basically you're buying a supply contract, not a single item. Consumable things with permanent effects do not follow this rule.

- Some items of significance are 'not commonly available' - magical gear, etc. These have to be commissioned, found at auction, etc. Once per week per location each person can make an Economics check, modified positively by the size of the settlement and general level of wealth. The character finds someone who can procure, craft, or otherwise obtain 'items of significance' whose Wealth value is up to 1 per 5 points that their check exceeds 10 - so Wealth 1 items at 15, Wealth 2 at 20, Wealth 3 at 25, etc. By voluntarily raising the price the character is willing to pay by an entire Wealth level, they can increase the Wealth level of the custom items they can obtain by 1, but this cannot be used to raise the result by more than 1. Similarly, this roll determines the maximum value of gear or other items that they can convert back into Wealth - if they want to sell a Wealth 3 sword but only obtain a Wealth 2 result, they would only get Wealth 2 for selling the sword in that location. In no case are they obligated to go through with any transactions if they don't like the result of the roll!

- Illegal items, extremely rare items, etc may have 'virtual Wealth' - that is to say, the roll needed to be able to obtain them is higher than the actual cost of the item by 1 or more levels.

[llama-hedge]

This is an interesting idea. Care to elaborate on what it would mean in practice?

I have some ideas, but not sure how to implement them without numbers scaling into the stratosphere.



I don't know the specifics of your system, so I'll try to demonstrate for a simple hypothetical system with three possible outcomes for a given roll: good, bad and mediocre.




Sticker price is 60 GP
Sticker price is 66 GP
Final cost


Bad roll
10% price hike
pay sticker price
66


Mediocre roll
pay sticker price
~9% discount
60


Good roll
10% discount
~18% discount
54



In column A, the outcome of the bad roll is presented as a penalty, whereas in column B it's merely the absence of a benefit. The percentage values in column B are a hint that something is up, but rounding them to something nicer isn't going to make a huge difference balance-wise.

[Mastikator]

Historically there are examples of guilds fixing prices, and imposing quality standards, and even impose anti-haggling policies. So it's not impossible for a DM to explain why standard items have fixed nonnegotiable prices, fixed resell values, and are functionally identical.

On the flip side you can go to two different stores today, find the exact same product and find they have different price tags.

So for modern, historic and fantasy it's more of a "anything goes, depends on item, store and DM" scenario.

[Silly Name]

Fixed prices of any sort are an acceptable break from reality, not just historical accuracy, in most games. In the real world, the worth and value of any item changes depending on a lot of factors and can vary between even relatively short distances and over short periods of time. Sometimes governments tried to fix the prices of at least certain primary goods, but overall prices tend to vary.

A game manual saying "a sword is worth 5 gold coins" (purely hypothetical numbers here) is an abstraction and simplification. As pointed out up-thread, in real life before industralisation and mass production, most goods were made on commission: no carpenter would build a table and then put it up for sale, the tailor didn't waste cloth on clothes nobody has asked them to make, the same way a weaponsmith didn't have racks of weapons ready to be sold to whoever walked in, and so on. Certain places had markets were people would go to buy and sell farm animals or other resources - markets were pretty much the economic hotspot of a region, in fact, and many cities arose around markets -, and we haven't even touched on bartering goods, which was historically quite common even relatively recently (again, depending on time and place, actual physical money may be relatively rare and so people of the lower classes would tend to barter with each other).

On the haggling part: depending on where and when, fixed prices may or may not have been a thing. You can even interpret fixed price as meaning "baseline price the seller is asking for", and haggling may or may not be socially acceptable. There's no one size fits all answer, and even if some form of haggling is involved, it may take different forms - e.g., you commission a carpenter to build you an armoire of so-and-so size and made with so-and-so wood and decorated thusly, they say it'll cost 5 gold coins, you think that's too much and ask if there's some way to make it cheaper... which leads to the carpenter suggesting to make it smaller, or using cheaper wood, or skipping the decorations. You don't haggle over the price per se, but over the product.

I'd say that, for the sake of the game and dismissing any concerns of realism and historical pseudo-accuracy, it's acceptable for the players to know that a certain item's baseline price is X if they don't want to engage with bartering or haggling. Consider it just another form of abstraction of the buying process: a player says they want to buy X and don't care how much they spend, they'll just pay the starting price. Quick and fast.

[KorvinStarmast]

However, one of my players insisted that it was stupid that they had to make a haggle roll at all rather than just being able to buy whatever the needed off the rack at a fixed price. Your problem isn't in your system, or in 'historical or not' - your problem is a player who is unwilling to get into the game. I have one response to players like that, which is basically "quit your whining and play" though how I phrase it will vary on the scenario.

Is it historically accurate for items in a shop located in a pseudo-medieval setting to have fixed price-tags the same way that they would in a modern store? In most cases no, but someone else already mentioned how guilds engaged in price fixing so I won't. If we go back to ancient Greece (The Peloponnesian War era) one silver drachma was the wage for a standard oarsman on a galley. And I think it was a 'wage' standard that also fit in the 'journeyman' craftsman ... I'd need to check a notebook that's in the attic somewhere. The other point about "things being made to order" is where I'd suggest you 'lean into it' insofar as verisimilitude. With all of that said, in the original RPG gold coins were both a weight marker and a game currency that allowed one to "keep score" since 1 GP = 1 XP was the rule.

I think that letting the haggling be abstracted into a die roll is a very good idea unless you want the back and forth of haggling to be a part of the game play. Just like an attack roll or a saving throw or a diplomacy check ... depending on the system.

[GloatingSwine]

Your problem isn't in your system, or in 'historical or not' - your problem is a player who is unwilling to get into the game. I have one response to players like that, which is basically "quit your whining and play" though how I phrase it will vary on the scenario.

Given that this is Takaleal's group, they've all decided not to invest in a skill and now they don't like the consequences of that decision.

I'll have a look at the rules again later, it's possible they've found a rough edge when absolutely nobody has the business skill, depending on how negative the experience of trying to get anything without it feels.

[Zuras]

Good memory, that was ~seven years ago now.

In short, the system didn't track money at all, the players just got to make acquisition roles periodically. The problem is that if they failed all of their acquisition roles, it looked like whatever money they earned during that time was being "stolen" because they didn't have anything concrete to show for it.

Not in that system, no. They just only got so many chances to look for an item in a given period of time, but because the game didn't track wealth failing all those roles gave them the feeling of being robbed.

That's more or less how it works now, and what gets the player upset that she can't just buy the item off the rack and sticker price if she rolls low.

It seems like the issue is either a lack of granularity in the system, or a lack of ways to fail forward or get success at a cost.

Maybe you could shift the system to a level+adds system? So if you have base wealth of 2 and 5 treasure points (or whatever you call them) every time you miss on one roll your wealth goes up a fractional point? Then (depending on how you want it to work) a set number of fractional points could be traded for an average result, and fractional points above a certain level give an optional bonus to your rolls (say, 5 treasure points let you shift a roll +1 level better, OR force an average result).

You could also let players force a success and buy something technically only available at the next tier of wealth at the cost of reducing their wealth level by 1. I played in a Fate campaign that basically worked this way (though mostly for buying stuff a full scale level higher, mostly representing the classic sci-fi trope of liquidating all your other assets to buy a starship Ayer the party lost the first one).

From your description though, basically any system that tracks failures on wealth rolls and lets you use them as a resource later would mitigate the feel-bad factor.

[Slipjig]

What he doesn't like is not the concept of haggling, but the feeling of being taken advantage by paying more when he rolls really poorly.

Regardless of whether it's one roll per item, one roll for the shopping trip, or a full in-character negotiation encounter, my question remains, "Is this system enhancing anybody's enjoyment of the game?"

And he's always got the option to walk away instead of making the purchase. The haggle would determine the best price he can achieve, but doesn't obligate him to actually take the deal at that price. And if he acquires a reputation for walking out rather than taking a bad deal, that could actually contribute to him getting better deals in the future (at least with merchants familiar with his reputation).

As for how merchants would set their initial sticker price, that's going to be highly dependent on the culture. In high-haggle cultures, it may be normal to start with a sky-price on one side and a total lowball on the other and everybody is fine with it. But in a low-haggle culture, it may be EXTREMELY insulting to make an offer that's clearly not a serious one. e.g. if both parties know that the cost of a new barrel has been in the 3-5 SP range, if the seller starts at 6 then he'd better be able to argue why his barrel is superior or that there's a shortage driving up the price. Ditto for a buyer who starts at 2 SP, though they have the added challenge of suggesting the goods are of sub-standard quality without insulting the craftsman.

[Zuras]

Your problem isn't in your system, or in 'historical or not' - your problem is a player who is unwilling to get into the game. I have one response to players like that, which is basically "quit your whining and play" though how I phrase it will vary on the scenario.

In my own game, I would just say “I abstracted that mechanic away specifically to avoid having this sort of discussion, please don’t do this.”

I do think the system could be tweaked if failed rolls vanishing into the ether is causing a feel-bad situation with players wondering what happened to their money. De-simplifying your system for a player who seems to want to game it (whether intentionally or not) always gets a no from me. This reminds me of the player who wants to switch to a pure weight based encumbrance system because the abstract system accounted for their beloved 10’ pole by volume and awkwardness rather than weight.

[Telok]

So the vibe I'm getting is more the whole "random stranger walks into the apothecary, says something about healing potions, apothecary decides if this person is worth the hassle" is what's getting rolled and there's one or more characters who are ugly, uncouth, filthy, foreigners, dressed in stained and roughly patched peasant clothing. These people (being dump stat pcs without certain non-combat skills) totally fail the roll and there's... either no option to spill piles of money & gems to overcome the apothecary's distaste for the person with pure greed, or they don't want to pay that much.

If correct then suggest adding a "pay extra for service because character is ugly & rude" option. Heck, call it that. Be explicit. Yeah, its basically setting the cash & carry economy back in with a 200% tax or something. Heck, as word gets out these guys are easy marks the prices could creep even higher in places they regularly visit.

[Talakeal]

snip.

That is actually very close to how it does function.

The problem in this case is that players don't have the business skill and therefore have to sacrifice wealth (barring an amazing role) to find rare items, and they instead have to sacrifice wealth levels to get it, and thus complain about a lack of fixed price tags where they can just walk up to the merchant and pay them a flat price equivalent to an "average" business roll.


I don't know the specifics of your system, so I'll try to demonstrate for a simple hypothetical system with three possible outcomes for a given roll: good, bad and mediocre.




Sticker price is 60 GP
Sticker price is 66 GP
Final cost


Bad roll
10% price hike
pay sticker price
66


Mediocre roll
pay sticker price
~9% discount
60


Good roll
10% discount
~18% discount
54



In column A, the outcome of the bad roll is presented as a penalty, whereas in column B it's merely the absence of a benefit. The percentage values in column B are a hint that something is up, but rounding them to something nicer isn't going to make a huge difference balance-wise.

That's what I was thinking.

The problem is that my game already does that "under the hood" as the players receive roughly twice as much treasure as they need to buy their gear as the system assumes failure to haggle as the default.

Just doubling the cost of items and rewriting haggling as a discount could work I suppose, but that has knock on effects for how the crafting system plays out.


In my own game, I would just say “I abstracted that mechanic away specifically to avoid having this sort of discussion, please don’t do this.”

I do think the system could be tweaked if failed rolls vanishing into the ether is causing a feel-bad situation with players wondering what happened to their money. De-simplifying your system for a player who seems to want to game it (whether intentionally or not) always gets a no from me. This reminds me of the player who wants to switch to a pure weight based encumbrance system because the abstract system accounted for their beloved 10’ pole by volume and awkwardness rather than weight.

Oh trust me, we have had that same discussion at my table many a time.


So the vibe I'm getting is more the whole "random stranger walks into the apothecary, says something about healing potions, apothecary decides if this person is worth the hassle" is what's getting rolled and there's one or more characters who are ugly, uncouth, filthy, foreigners, dressed in stained and roughly patched peasant clothing. These people (being dump stat pcs without certain non-combat skills) totally fail the roll and there's... either no option to spill piles of money & gems to overcome the apothecary's distaste for the person with pure greed, or they don't want to pay that much.

If correct then suggest adding a "pay extra for service because character is ugly & rude" option. Heck, call it that. Be explicit. Yeah, its basically setting the cash & carry economy back in with a 200% tax or something. Heck, as word gets out these guys are easy marks the prices could creep even higher in places they regularly visit.

That's exactly what is happening.

Yes, there is an option to spend "piles" of money on the item, that is what the player is complaining about.

[Satinavian]

That is actually very close to how it does function.

The problem in this case is that players don't have the business skill and therefore have to sacrifice wealth (barring an amazing role) to find rare items, and they instead have to sacrifice wealth levels to get it, and thus complain about a lack of fixed price tags where they can just walk up to the merchant and pay them a flat price equivalent to an "average" business roll.
If they want average, then something like "Take 10" would work. Having no business skill still would mean they would on average pay more.

[Telok]

That's exactly what is happening.

Yes, there is an option to spend "piles" of money on the item, that is what the player is complaining about.

Well, the only thing I'd be able to say at my table would be "you chose for your character to be bad at this". Of course the system I run with abstract wealth is basically a point buy, so no random rolls making a character completely lack social skills.

Look at the plus side, at least your players aren't joking about plating their rooms & gear in gold because the system doesn't give them anything to do with it in the time they have between attacks.

[Talakeal]

If they want average, then something like "Take 10" would work. Having no business skill still would mean they would on average pay more.

Even with a ten, their low charisma still means a bad result.

Basically, what he means by standardized prices is that people with high charisma should get a better price, but those with a low charisma shouldn’t get a worse price.


Well, the only thing I'd be able to say at my table would be "you chose for your character to be bad at this". Of course the system I run with abstract wealth is basically a point buy, so no random rolls making a character completely lack social skills.

Look at the plus side, at least your players aren't joking about plating their rooms & gear in gold because the system doesn't give them anything to do with it in the time they have between attacks.

This just leans into the psychology of my players.

Basically, they min-max their characters so hey are ridiculously good at one or two things and really bad at everything else.

If their weaknesses ever come up, its a GM screwjob.

If the dice go in their favor, they roll with it. If the dice go against them, they try and argue about why the results are unrealistic or try and retroactively bypass the role by wanting to play the scene out.

[BRC]

Even with a ten, their low charisma still means a bad result.

Basically, what he means by standardized prices is that people with high charisma should get a better price, but those with a low charisma shouldn’t get a worse price.


Eh, I mean, that's not an unrealistic approach.


If we imagine there are two options, lets say there's a Guild that enforces standards of quality and has set prices. You want a magic sword, The Guild is there, and can get you a guild-certified magic sword at a Guild rate.

Alternatively, you could go scour the curiosity shops and flea markets and hang around the bars where retired adventurers drink and see if you can pick up a Magic Sword for cheaper from them.

If you try that and fail, The Guild is still there.


If you want this to be an actual choice instead of just a "Roll to see if you get better". Guild Stuff is always made-to-order, and you pay up front, No Refunds if the product is completed on time. So if you want that magic sword you're given the choice to either put in an order with the Guild and wait for it, or spend your time trying to get a better deal on the secondhand market. If you keep trying until you've exhausted the local secondhand market and confirmed that no, you cannot get a magic sword for cheaper than Guild rates, you can take your money back to the Guild.

And then you need to wait for the Guild to finish your sword.


So assuming downtime is a limited resource, there IS a real risk in going for the cheaper approach, you're just risking TIME instead of Money. It's also fairly realistic.


This does move the roll from haggling with a specific merchant to a more extended process of trying to find somebody with the item in question willing to part with it for cheaper than the Guild will, but still.


You could also use this same system to cut down on the time to get a magic item, especially if the PC is willing to pay more for it to get it now rather than waiting for guild artisans to craft one for them. If the guild charges 500 gold for the sword which takes a week to make, you might be able to make a roll to find one available for sale elsewhere, and reduce the difficulty if you are willing to pay extra to walk out with it today.


Edit: I suppose this DOES put in the possibility of putting in a Guild order, still looking for a cheaper sword, then when your Guild-ordered sword comes in trying to sell that for guild rates on the secondhand market, but that might be enforceable by saying that the Guild looks down upon buying their goods just to resell them and might blacklist you if you get caught doing that.

[Zuras]

Maybe you could split the process into separate availability and reaction components? That way you have more narrative guidance, and you could use basically fixed prices while incorporating more story hooks.

It sounds like what the players want is some narrative guidance with some positive consequences for failure. For example, if they have to pay 3x the expected cost for a motorcycle, it’s because the only ones they found were owned by Tony Three-Sticks, who would only give them up if you beat him in a game of grenade pong, which is where the extra cost came from.

In the end, they pay 3x more, but they get the cycle, a few leftover grenades, and advantage when dealing with Tony in the future. It’s just the sort of thing that needs quite a bit of improv every time, and would probably be helped out quite a bit by random tables (downtime complications tables or something similar). Do you have some good genre-specific complications tables?

[KillianHawkeye]

Basically, what he means by standardized prices is that people with high charisma should get a better price, but those with a low charisma shouldn’t get a worse price.

Better or worse than what, exactly? :smallconfused:

We're talking about relative terms here. If a high charisma person gets a better price than a low charisma person, then by definition the low charisma person is getting a worse price than the high charisma person. That can't possibly not be true.

If being bad at business means they get the worst possible price, then that was the item's listed price and they failed to improve it. Right?

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, the player is asking for standardized prices but is upset about paying the standard price.

[NichG]

That is actually very close to how it does function.

The problem in this case is that players don't have the business skill and therefore have to sacrifice wealth (barring an amazing role) to find rare items, and they instead have to sacrifice wealth levels to get it, and thus complain about a lack of fixed price tags where they can just walk up to the merchant and pay them a flat price equivalent to an "average" business roll.


In the system I wrote, players would have the option to:

- Intentionally visit a bunch of cities in a short time to get extra rolls
- Just go to very wealthy cities so they can use the city's bonus on the roll in place of their Business skill - two levels of Wealth is the difference between rolling a 10 or a 20.
- Still just walk up to merchants and pay a flat price for commonly available things anyhow

But also, in your particular case, I wouldn't use your particular play group as a testing group to check if rules are reasonable or well-designed. If one of your players said 'I feel like I should be able to just buy a +5 Vorpal weapon in this village market' I'd say 'it doesn't exist here, get over it'.

That said, I'll warrant that specifically what I wrote should work, but not e.g. 'what I wrote + wealth decays' or 'what I wrote except Cure Light Wounds pots are a rare item' or 'what I wrote except city wealth and economics values give more like a +2 than a +10'.

[Batcathat]

Better or worse than what, exactly? :smallconfused:

We're talking about relative terms here. If a high charisma person gets a better price than a low charisma person, then by definition the low charisma person is getting a worse price than the high charisma person. That can't possibly not be true.

If being bad at business means they get the worst possible price, then that was the item's listed price and they failed to improve it. Right?

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, the player is asking for standardized prices but is upset about paying the standard price.

If you are, I'm misunderstanding the same thing, since this is pretty much my conclusion too.


This just leans into the psychology of my players.

Basically, they min-max their characters so hey are ridiculously good at one or two things and really bad at everything else.

If their weaknesses ever come up, its a GM screwjob.

If the dice go in their favor, they roll with it. If the dice go against them, they try and argue about why the results are unrealistic or try and retroactively bypass the role by wanting to play the scene out.

Based on your many, many horror stories about your players, I think this will be the issue no matter how you change the rules. Do you think there's a realistic chance that you'll find the "perfect" rules (for specifically buying stuff or in general) and your players will suddenly start behaving like adults?

[Jay R]

There is a wide spectrum between “items having a fixed price” and “hav[ing] to expend the time and emotional energy negotiating for every little purchase my entire life”. Neither the modern world nor a pseudo-medieval setting fits either of those descriptions.

To start, let’s get rid of the notion that products in our modern world have a “fixed price”.

In today’s stores, there is usually a temporary fixed price on most things, set by the store. That price is changed on a regular basis, and it’s different from the price on the same item in a nearby competitor’s shop, or in a different city, or on a different day. It can change if you buy several at a time, if you have a standing order, or if you pay by credit. And sometimes, sales reps have a limited ability to change prices. This is nowhere near a “fixed price” as established in many game systems, where a potion of X always costs Y gp, no matter where you are, who’s selling it, or how many you want.

Some seafood restaurants near the coast have menus with no prices listed for their most expensive dinners. The price any given day depends on how much of that delicacy was caught that day (and, I suspect, on how well-dressed the customer is). I haggled over items on the bargain table at a nearby comics shop last week. I haggle at flea markets, game conventions, and garage sales. Wholesale prices are very often haggled (although they say “negotiate” in order to feel more pompous professional). When somebody quotes me a price on a construction project on my home, I will often simply say, “No thanks,” to see if I get a lower offer. And I wouldn’t dream of paying list price on an independent Christmas tree lot.

We do not live in a fixed-price economy. Even the largest, most bureaucratic store chains have varying prices in different cities, different parts of town, and different days.

Similarly, artists and crafts people (including potion makers) will adjust their prices regularly, based on supply and demand. If she has just made a large bunch of healing potions, and is therefore very low on cash, she might offer a lower price if the party will buy a dozen or more. This is no different from the fact that a package of 12 minis costs less than 12 times the cost of a single mini.

[I have a vague belief that the prices listed in the game books are the high prices they offer rich adventurers, and that they sell to their neighbors at a much lower price.]

In any event, either in the modern world or a pseudo-medieval gaming world, most of the time you don’t haggle; you pay the price or don’t buy. But that price won’t be the same as the one in another town, or the one offered yesterday, or the one offered to their neighbors. The price of food is based, in part, on what the weather was like in the growing season. If you want accurate simulation, then the pearls needed for spell components should cost much less near the coast, and cost a lot more (or maybe be unavailable) far inland. A continent-wide fixed price is simply not possible, in any world.

So no, there will not be an automatic unchanging fixed price.
And no, you don’t have to “expend the time and emotional energy negotiating for every little purchase.”

[MoiMagnus]

Better or worse than what, exactly? :smallconfused:

We're talking about relative terms here. If a high charisma person gets a better price than a low charisma person, then by definition the low charisma person is getting a worse price than the high charisma person. That can't possibly not be true.

If being bad at business means they get the worst possible price, then that was the item's listed price and they failed to improve it. Right?

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, the player is asking for standardized prices but is upset about paying the standard price.

If you might accidentally insult the seller before buying, then buying something without saying a word can be cheaper than going through some "mandatory negotiation". They might even choose not to sell you the good (and even call the guards) if you're so bad at talking that when you discuss about buying a sword they suddenly start to fear that you might use that same sword to backstab them.

Even from a purely economic point of view, if after exchanging a few words they feel like you are a risk person that might try to give fake money, or might be a diversion to commit a robbery, or might use their good in a way that damage their company, etc they might raise the price to compensate for the risk. If one every ten "total stranger that look antipathic" cause them to loose 100gp, then increasing the price of their good by 10gp for "total strangers that look antipathic" is a rational business decision.

What's the difference? The difference is that this additional tax for "dumping social" is not just "you pay a fixed high price". If the seller really doesn't like you can literally multiply by 100 their price for you specifically, in the off-chance that you are a rich idiot that will still buy.

[Talakeal]

snip.

Again, that is more or less how the system works already.

The big question is how much sense it makes for such a guild to exist and how much influence it might have.


Maybe you could split the process into separate availability and reaction components? That way you have more narrative guidance, and you could use basically fixed prices while incorporating more story hooks.

It sounds like what the players want is some narrative guidance with some positive consequences for failure. For example, if they have to pay 3x the expected cost for a motorcycle, it’s because the only ones they found were owned by Tony Three-Sticks, who would only give them up if you beat him in a game of grenade pong, which is where the extra cost came from.

In the end, they pay 3x more, but they get the cycle, a few leftover grenades, and advantage when dealing with Tony in the future. It’s just the sort of thing that needs quite a bit of improv every time, and would probably be helped out quite a bit by random tables (downtime complications tables or something similar). Do you have some good genre-specific complications tables?

I really don't think my players want more narrative consequences.

Is is, the system has a partial success mechanic where if you meet the acquisition difficulty exactly you get the sort of scenario you describe. As a rule, players absolutely hate "succeed at a cost" mechanics and consider them to be worse than a flat failure.

What my players tend to want to do is, as I mentioned above, resolve the situation with no OOC thought and a simple dice roll, but if the dice roll fails then they will resort to weaseling for an excuse why they shouldn't fail either IC or OOC.

For example:

Me: What do you do?
PC: Look for clues.
Me: How do you do that?
PC: With my search skill.
Me: Ok, give me a roll.
PC: I rolled a 2.
Me: You search the room thoroughly but don't find anything.
PC: Ok, well then I am going to look under the bed, and tear open the mattress, and search the desk for secret compartments, and knock on the walls to find hollow spots, and pour water on the floor to see where it drains, and...

Or just argue OOC that the concept of a search roll is flawed and a trained investigator would never miss a clue.


Better or worse than what, exactly? :smallconfused:

We're talking about relative terms here. If a high charisma person gets a better price than a low charisma person, then by definition the low charisma person is getting a worse price than the high charisma person. That can't possibly not be true.

If being bad at business means they get the worst possible price, then that was the item's listed price and they failed to improve it. Right?

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, the player is asking for standardized prices but is upset about paying the standard price.

Than someone with average charisma.

Basically, they want a "floor" on how bad a deal they can get.

So, for example, if sticker price on a sword is 300 gold, a charismatic person can haggle them down to 200 gold, but an unwashed hobo who wanders into the store and rants about his disapproval for the shop's color scheme will still never pay more than 300 gold.


Based on your many, many horror stories about your players, I think this will be the issue no matter how you change the rules. Do you think there's a realistic chance that you'll find the "perfect" rules (for specifically buying stuff or in general) and your players will suddenly start behaving like adults?

Absolutely not.

But in this case their method was arguing that not having a fixed price was unrealistic and absurd, and if that is true that might mean the system really is fundamentally flawed rather than my players just being, well, my players.


That said, I'll warrant that specifically what I wrote should work, but not e.g. 'what I wrote + wealth decays' or 'what I wrote except Cure Light Wounds pots are a rare item' or 'what I wrote except city wealth and economics values give more like a +2 than a +10'.

Out of curiosity, is time a limited resource?

Because if it isn't, why have a system at all if the players can simply try over and over again until they get the best possible result?

If it is, isn't that effectively the same as decaying wealth?


The big problem with separating time and money completely is that the haggling system and the crafting system have to work together rather than in opposition.


As an aside, I have noticed that PCs have a sort of distorted view of how time and money interact. If you give a PC a large amount of spare time, they will invariably ask if they can use their profession / crafting skills to make a ton of money, but on the other hand if they want to spend an inordinate amount of time traveling the world searching for the best possible gear at the best possible price they see it as an unrealistic screw job to have that cost them money. In both circumstances, they seem to have a blind spot to the fact that living expenses are a very real thing, especially when traveling.


snip”

That is more or less my thinking.

Of course, I have abstracted all of those factors, and many more, down to a few dice rolls.

The problem is, I guess, that it is all "under the hood" and so all the players ever see is "I rolled low so I am being ripped of by a merchant!".

[GloatingSwine]

Anyway, in my latest game, the entire party decided to dump charisma and nobody wanted to take the business skill. This isn't a huge deal, the game still provides more than enough wealth to get what they need, it just takes a little bit longer. However, one of my players insisted that it was stupid that they had to make a haggle roll at all rather than just being able to buy whatever the needed off the rack at a fixed price.

How ordinary is the thing they're trying to buy?

Whilst it's true that a pre-modern world everything will be bespoke made you wouldn't just buy it off a rack, the difficulty of getting normal things of normal quality is not going to be anywhere near as high as the baked in difficulty of the Haggle skill seems to be (20 + 2xIQ).

A normal human by your rules has a Charisma of 5, so without the Business skill they would, as I understand it, only have a 25% chance of being able to buy an item of ordinary (0) quality. If they fail they still incur one debt and if their starting wealth is equal to their Business and they haven't tagged that as a primary or secondary skill they just have their base stat. Even the attempt with those super low odds costs 20% of all their worldly wealth.

That's a skill you only want to try and use uninvested when the rewards are really high, in other words.

The implication in the wealth rules is that you would use Haggle to get all your character's equipment, but it's way too high stakes a skill for that.

Also the outcomes of the Crit and Fumble are wildly asymmetric. Critical Success is roughly equal to either succeeding at a DC 2 points higher (get an item of +1 quality which would be 2 points harder to roll against), but a Fumble costs you the full value of what you wanted to buy and you don't get the item and for some reason is not followed with the phrase "and then you stabbed the merchant in the face" because that's what absolutely every RPG character in the world would do in that situation.

[KorvinStarmast]

Given that this is Takaleal's group, they've all decided not to invest in a skill and now they don't like the consequences of that decision. Indeed, he has regaled us in the past with his group's dysfunctional habits. Choices have consequences. And the other players seem to accept this, whereas this one player is choosing to create friction over it.

In my own game, I would just say “I abstracted that mechanic away specifically to avoid having this sort of discussion, please don’t do this.” Nicely put. :smallsmile:

Well, the only thing I'd be able to say at my table would be "you chose for your character to be bad at this". Yep. Dump stats - sometimes, it hurts to discover that the dump stat is needed...

Even with a ten, their low charisma still means a bad result. They chose to dump a stat, so they get to reap the whirlwind.

Basically, they min-max their characters so hey are ridiculously good at one or two things and really bad at everything else. See above.


If their weaknesses ever come up, its a GM screwjob.
And there we go: it's a player problem, not a GM problem nor a problem with your custom built system. (Which again, is a good idea IMO, unless there is a desire to RP the negotiation piece that fits into the general narrative rhythm of play).

[Segev]

One thing to consider is: what is your desired player behavior? And what is the desired outcome of this subsystem?

[NichG]

Out of curiosity, is time a limited resource?

Because if it isn't, why have a system at all if the players can simply try over and over again until they get the best possible result?

If it is, isn't that effectively the same as decaying wealth?

The big problem with separating time and money completely is that the haggling system and the crafting system have to work together rather than in opposition.

As an aside, I have noticed that PCs have a sort of distorted view of how time and money interact. If you give a PC a large amount of spare time, they will invariably ask if they can use their profession / crafting skills to make a ton of money, but on the other hand if they want to spend an inordinate amount of time traveling the world searching for the best possible gear at the best possible price they see it as an unrealistic screw job to have that cost them money. In both circumstances, they seem to have a blind spot to the fact that living expenses are a very real thing, especially when traveling.


Okay there seems to be some misunderstanding here. First, lets say time isn't a strongly limited resource.

Lets say the players have a Wealth of 4, they're currently in a small town with a Wealth of 1, and they want to buy an item of Wealth 3, and they have not invested in Business, so their results range from 10 to 20. That means that yes, they could basically 'take 20', spend 4 months in that town, and find the item. If the players want to do that, fine! The system made an impact on their decision-making and the story, and this is now a major event in the lives of those characters - they spent like 1% of their lifespan (if human) searching for this item. Or they could send one of the PCs to the country capitol with a Wealth score of 3 to just pick the thing up off the shelves. It'd be a few days journey, but not 4 months of rolls, and they'd just have it - again, the system made an impact on decision-making and 'we went to the capitol because we couldn't find this item locally' becomes part of the story.

So no wealth decay here. Things you own are things you own.

Now lets say there's time pressure. That leans heavily on the 'go to the metropolis' solution or even 'give up on this item for now and deal with the time pressure stuff first' - so again, it factors into decision-making. But is it decaying wealth? No, absolutely not. The players had a Wealth of 4 before, and ten years later they will still have a Wealth of 4. They maybe can't buy the thing they want now, but that fact does not make them any less able to buy it later at least as far as their own resources go even if their response to the time pressure is 'we run away and let the world burn while we hide until its over' or something like that.

And as far as 'time is money', well, with this Wealth system, you basically can't turn time into money arbitrarily. Because once you have Wealth 4, producing items at Wealth 3 for sale doesn't change your Wealth - you'd have to actually get better enough at crafting to produce Wealth 4 items for sale. And as far as crafting instead of buying, sure, you can do that, but then you're not wasting time on the Business rolls because you're just going to craft the item anyhow.

Also, now lets say a PC builds for Business. If the richest city in the world is only Wealth 4, but the party finds something really valuable - say Wealth 8 - then that PC's investment would be the only way to actually obtain a Wealth 8 item no matter how long anyone wants to sit and roll for. So investing in Business isn't just 'we say we spend 2 weeks instead of 2 months looking', but is actually a hard gate for getting certain things. If high Wealth stuff is sufficiently better than low Wealth stuff, you could have a 'Business build' that ends up OP.

And as far as living expenses, note: in the system I described, there should not be living expenses that matter after the PCs hit Wealth 1. So if you're adding that stuff back in implicitly, yeah, it breaks the design.

[Talakeal]

How ordinary is the thing they're trying to buy?

Whilst it's true that a pre-modern world everything will be bespoke made you wouldn't just buy it off a rack, the difficulty of getting normal things of normal quality is not going to be anywhere near as high as the baked in difficulty of the Haggle skill seems to be (20 + 2xIQ).

A normal human by your rules has a Charisma of 5, so without the Business skill they would, as I understand it, only have a 25% chance of being able to buy an item of ordinary (0) quality. If they fail they still incur one debt and if their starting wealth is equal to their Business and they haven't tagged that as a primary or secondary skill they just have their base stat. Even the attempt with those super low odds costs 20% of all their worldly wealth.

That's a skill you only want to try and use uninvested when the rewards are really high, in other words.

The implication in the wealth rules is that you would use Haggle to get all your character's equipment, but it's way too high stakes a skill for that.

Also the outcomes of the Crit and Fumble are wildly asymmetric. Critical Success is roughly equal to either succeeding at a DC 2 points higher (get an item of +1 quality which would be 2 points harder to roll against), but a Fumble costs you the full value of what you wanted to buy and you don't get the item and for some reason is not followed with the phrase "and then you stabbed the merchant in the face" because that's what absolutely every RPG character in the world would do in that situation.

That's close, but you are missing a few key subtleties.

A failure doesn't mean that you can't find the item, it means that you can't negotiate a great deal and must either walk away (at the cost of one to represent squandered time and opportunities) or pay an additional cost equal to the amount you failed by.

An average guy with an average roll buying an average set of tools will pay roughly double what they would had the successfully haggled. This is what the narrative assumes is roughly "market price" and what the system assumes the PCs will be paying for their gear.

An ordinary item with a value of four isn't something like a shovel, a chicken, a cartwheel, or a bag of flour, it is an entire set of artisan's tools. This isn't going to be a casual purchase for your average person, it is going to be something that they have to save up for.

Your wealth score doesn't represent all the wealth you have in the world, but rather your total disposable income at any given time. In game, hypothetical average man is going to be able to spend or save up five wealth every month after having also paid living expenses for himself, his household, and his business.

Higher quality gear also multiplies its value by ten as well as the difficulty by two, so while you are correct that it is wildly asymmetrical, it is in the players favor.

And yeah, I can't imagine most players wouldn't try and enact violent revenge after being scammed, which could well be an adventure in and of itself. But again, just because they players default to walking into a store and a merchant grabbing their money and running away giving them nothing in return, that isn't what a scam is going to look like in reality. What's more likely is something like not being able to find a reputable dealer, being approached by a peddler in an alley with a sob story, and being sold a forgery that you don't realize is a fake until much later and the peddler is long gone.

Every scam I or a comrade has ever fallen victim to IRL has not resulted in a situation where violence was an option. My brother has been rolled before while dead drunk. My parents get talked into giving some guy money for a service and then he simply never shows up and gave them a fake name and number. I had some guys pull a scam on me and my roommate in a parking lot, and they were driving away with the money before I even had the opportunity to get my gun out of the case in the trunk even if I had been so inclined to escalate the situation to lethal violence over a hundred bucks.

[Zuras]

Based on your response, I’d say your players are just being players, and wanting to have things both ways. If you’re willing to compromise just to make the whining stop, maybe split the costs into tiers, with standard availability stuff at fixed prices in a town of size X but limited availability items still requiring rolls. That would at least let them feel they had some control over their rolls despite dumping charisma (since they could travel to a bigger town to improve their chances).

(Edit) It seems like you’re already doing this to a major extent, so it would be more of a question of how much higher to push the line for “standard gear” up to, or to differentiate between standard and black market goods. If they’re annoyed they can’t get a list price for a tank or something, there’s no help for them.

This reminds me of the whining from players new to 5e coming from older games with magic item shops.

[Talakeal]

Okay there seems to be some misunderstanding here. First, lets say time isn't a strongly limited resource.

Lets say the players have a Wealth of 4, they're currently in a small town with a Wealth of 1, and they want to buy an item of Wealth 3, and they have not invested in Business, so their results range from 10 to 20. That means that yes, they could basically 'take 20', spend 4 months in that town, and find the item. If the players want to do that, fine! The system made an impact on their decision-making and the story, and this is now a major event in the lives of those characters - they spent like 1% of their lifespan (if human) searching for this item. Or they could send one of the PCs to the country capitol with a Wealth score of 3 to just pick the thing up off the shelves. It'd be a few days journey, but not 4 months of rolls, and they'd just have it - again, the system made an impact on decision-making and 'we went to the capitol because we couldn't find this item locally' becomes part of the story.

So no wealth decay here. Things you own are things you own.

Now lets say there's time pressure. That leans heavily on the 'go to the metropolis' solution or even 'give up on this item for now and deal with the time pressure stuff first' - so again, it factors into decision-making. But is it decaying wealth? No, absolutely not. The players had a Wealth of 4 before, and ten years later they will still have a Wealth of 4. They maybe can't buy the thing they want now, but that fact does not make them any less able to buy it later at least as far as their own resources go even if their response to the time pressure is 'we run away and let the world burn while we hide until its over' or something like that.

And as far as 'time is money', well, with this Wealth system, you basically can't turn time into money arbitrarily. Because once you have Wealth 4, producing items at Wealth 3 for sale doesn't change your Wealth - you'd have to actually get better enough at crafting to produce Wealth 4 items for sale. And as far as crafting instead of buying, sure, you can do that, but then you're not wasting time on the Business rolls because you're just going to craft the item anyhow.

Also, now lets say a PC builds for Business. If the richest city in the world is only Wealth 4, but the party finds something really valuable - say Wealth 8 - then that PC's investment would be the only way to actually obtain a Wealth 8 item no matter how long anyone wants to sit and roll for. So investing in Business isn't just 'we say we spend 2 weeks instead of 2 months looking', but is actually a hard gate for getting certain things. If high Wealth stuff is sufficiently better than low Wealth stuff, you could have a 'Business build' that ends up OP.

And as far as living expenses, note: in the system I described, there should not be living expenses that matter after the PCs hit Wealth 1. So if you're adding that stuff back in implicitly, yeah, it breaks the design.

I think there is a miscommunication between OOC and IC here.

Time is meaningful to the characters, but not the players.

I have played plenty of games with "realistic" wealth systems where the PCs lived in a cardboard box eating raman and doing nothing but sleeping and going to work for years on end because the player gets a mechanical financial advantage for doing so, and the game doesn't model the extreme physical and psychological stress that such a lifestyle would impose on a person.

Likewise, if I tell a player that they are going to have to spend six months of downtime tracking down the vorpal sword, they will say "Ok. So its six months later and I have my sword. Cool."

And again, living expenses are hand-waived away by the system, but that doesn't mean they don't exist in the setting (unless you are playing in a post scarcity utopia). So while "wealth decay" may seem like a ridiculous punishment akin to a merchant grabbing your gold and running away, it is absolutely what would happen in any realistic setting where a character spends six months traveling the world searching for bargains on rare items rather than actually working to make a living or maintain what they already have.

[GloatingSwine]

Takaleal's system isn't a "wealth level" system. It's money plus a bunch of substitutes for money (connections knowledge and favours) bundled together, running on coarse grained numbers which don't have fixed real value and totted up irregularly.

It's still something you basically spend on getting stuff, rather than an upper bound on what stuff you can reliably get without worrying about spending it except on really big purchases.

It seems fine as far as it goes for taking out all the bookkeeping and coin counting, I think the problem here is that the Haggle skill is the wrong tool for mundane purchases of "stuff adventurers need all the time", but the rules imply that it is the tool for doing that.

(I can't find out in the rules how item quality and value interact either, please always put relevant concepts together in the rules and include play examples. Break the fluff and crunch out into seperate books if you have to for length.)

(Oh, and D20s are maybe too big a dice to explode)



An average guy with an average roll buying an average set of tools will pay roughly double what they would had the successfully haggled. This is what the narrative assumes is roughly "market price" and what the system assumes the PCs will be paying for their gear.


Yeah, I think that's probably overestimating the amount of impact haggling should have on mundane purchases, plus a psychological disincentive to engage.

It's always a good idea to remember the Rested XP example here. Back in early World of Warcraft they tried to discourage super long play sessions (and incentivise regular logins) by applying a penalty to XP after a certain amount, and everyone hated it and complained about it. The fix was that they did exactly the same thing but communicated it as a bonus you got for the first so many XP for the day instead with the "normal" amount being the old penalty amount. Exactly the same numbers, different communication, nobody complains at all.

If the "expected" outcome of your Haggle system is that people will pay twice the list value, they're gonna hate it. The normal experience should be the normal price.

Also it means it scales badly with item value, because the difficulty is keyed off of quality. A failure of 5 points on a value 12 item is a 40% markup, on a value 4 item it's a 120% markup but these two outcomes have the same chance of happening. If the players are at the wealth level where they will be going for really high quality items, if the item value is multiplied by 10 for each quality, then going for a value 12 quality 5 item no realistic failure can ever move the needle on how much the item costs.


Your wealth score doesn't represent all the wealth you have in the world, but rather your total disposable income at any given time. In game, hypothetical average man is going to be able to spend or save up five wealth every month after having also paid living expenses for himself, his household, and his business.

The rules for wealth and how it changes don't read that way. Characters start with wealth equal to business and then it goes up and down based on their incomes (completed objectives) and expenditures (incurred debts).

[BRC]

That's close, but you are missing a few key subtleties.

A failure doesn't mean that you can't find the item, it means that you can't negotiate a great deal and must either walk away (at the cost of one to represent squandered time and opportunities) or pay an additional cost equal to the amount you failed by.

An average guy with an average roll buying an average set of tools will pay roughly double what they would had the successfully haggled. This is what the narrative assumes is roughly "market price" and what the system assumes the PCs will be paying for their gear.

looking back through the thread, I think we're hitting the root issue, one of presentation


That's what I was thinking.

The problem is that my game already does that "under the hood" as the players receive roughly twice as much treasure as they need to buy their gear as the system assumes failure to haggle as the default.

Just doubling the cost of items and rewriting haggling as a discount could work I suppose, but that has knock on effects for how the crafting system plays out.


If I understand correctly, from your perspective, the treasure is doled out assuming the PC's fail to haggle, and so anything you get from having a good charisma is bonus. You give them enough money to buy a sword, and ask them to roll to see if they have some money left over.

From your PC's perspective, you give them enough money to buy TWO swords, then make them roll to haggle and when they roll badly, tell them "You will pay double for the sword".


I think your terminology might be part of the issue. You use the phrase "Haggle", but in haggling, the worst thing that can happen is you end up paying the initial offer.


I'm curious for an example of how a haggling roll might go. It sounds right now like it goes like this

Player: I would like to buy a Sword
GM: Swords cost 500, roll Charisma to haggle
Player: I got a bad roll, only a 4
GM: Okay, you must pay 750.


If you present the price as 500, then ask them to Haggle, a bad roll resulting in paying MORE feels very bad. It sounds like they got scammed, and since you present the price as 500, it sounds like they should be able to walk into the shop and agree to pay 500 gold.

If the idea is that 500 is an average price, and that shopkeepers start the price at 750, you should present it as Swords Cost 750, and with an average haggling roll you get it down to 500.

Edit: It sounds like on your back end you assume 750, then present it to the players as 500, then make them pay 750 (The assumed price) when they fail to haggle. That just feels bad.


Edit II: this exact thing is why I dislike FATE system. For some reason it feels really bad to have a skill value of 4 and fail a difficulty 2 test, even though it's basically the same thing as failing a difficulty 8 test with a skill of +5 in a d20 system. "Coming in below average" feels worse than "not getting a good enough bonus"

[Herbert_W]

And he's always got the option to walk away instead of making the purchase.

Does he, though? That's an important point to clarify.

There's two questions here:


By the rules, is a player committed to spending money when they make a roll?
Psychologically, can a player walk away from a bad deal that's necessary for their hyper-specific planned build?


That second point is a particularly important one for your players:

Basically, they min-max their characters so hey are ridiculously good at one or two things and really bad at everything else. If their weaknesses ever come up, its a GM screwjob.
IIRC, one of your players in an earlier thread refused to spend money on anything other than enhancing their sword, refusing even to spend a few GP on an inn or to buy very cheap armor. IIRC, a player (the same player?) got mad when they were "unfairly targeted" by intelligent enemies who recognized a glass cannon build and responded in a tactically appropriate manner.

In order to make a system that these players will be willing to accept, it's necessary to that their psychology into account. People in general are far more sensitive to losses than to gains and this seems especially so for your players.

looking back through the thread, I think we're hitting the root issue, one of presentation. I think BRC hit the nail on the head here. So, I'm going to borrow and simplify BRC's idea:


Everything available on the open market has a fixed list price. "Here's a table," you can say to your players. This establishes a clear mental benchmark for the default price. Players may buy anything for the list price with no roll needed.
Using the merchant skill gives a player a chance to buy something for less than the list price. This skill cannot be (to borrow 3e terminology) used untrained.
Players are never compelled to spend money. A player who attempts a merchant roll and doesn't like the result can just not buy the thing. This means that what they want isn't available at a price that they'll accept. They can choose to roll again later (say, after another week/module/level/whatever) or can change their mind and buy the item at the established price.
Items that are rare, illegal, or otherwise hard to get can only be obtained with a merchant roll. Players don't automatically know what these items are or how much they might cost. The merchant skill has an "ask around" use which lets players know what exists. Players who know that an items exists can make a merchant roll for it as normal.


On the player psychology side:
This establishes a benchmark. Players never loose money relative to this price; they can only gain savings.
Players who don't invest in the merchant skill will never roll badly; they don't roll at all.
Players never feel screwed over by a bad roll.
If nobody uses this system, then nobody knows what they're missing re: rare and illegal items.


On the worldbuilding side:

There's lots of ways that this could fit into lots of worlds. The list price might be an off-the-shelf price, a guild-set rate, the normal price for a commission of average quality made to a stranger, etc.
Using the merchant skill is . . . well, a rough modern equivalent would be checking thrift stores/kijiji/letgo/craigslist/etc. It takes some skill - you need to know that these options exist and where to find them - just as using the merchant skill requires connections. Most importantly, doing it badly wastes nothing except for time.
Once again, this is realistic. People often go to look for something that they want, but don't need immediately, and decide to wait and see if they can get a better price.
This is realistic. I have very little idea of what e.g. illegal weapons would cost or how far I'd need to travel to find one.



A failure [...] means that you can't negotiate a great deal and must either walk away (at the cost of one to represent squandered time and opportunities) or pay an additional cost equal to the amount you failed by.

That's realistic, but I think that mechanic is a poor fit for your players. It feels like they're being punished for declining to invest in a system. This would normally be OK (look at what happens to DnD characters who don't invest in AC or saves), but your players can't handle the consequences of choosing to make their character bad at something gracefully.

BRC's system gives players a performance floor which they can, if I may overextend the metaphor of a performance floor, comfortably sit on.

[NichG]

I think there is a miscommunication between OOC and IC here.

Time is meaningful to the characters, but not the players.

I have played plenty of games with "realistic" wealth systems where the PCs lived in a cardboard box eating raman and doing nothing but sleeping and going to work for years on end because the player gets a mechanical financial advantage for doing so, and the game doesn't model the extreme physical and psychological stress that such a lifestyle would impose on a person.

Likewise, if I tell a player that they are going to have to spend six months of downtime tracking down the vorpal sword, they will say "Ok. So its six months later and I have my sword. Cool."

And again, living expenses are hand-waived away by the system, but that doesn't mean they don't exist in the setting (unless you are playing in a post scarcity utopia). So while "wealth decay" may seem like a ridiculous punishment akin to a merchant grabbing your gold and running away, it is absolutely what would happen in any realistic setting where a character spends six months traveling the world searching for bargains on rare items rather than actually working to make a living or maintain what they already have.

The thing is though, if I'm presenting 'here's a system I might use' and then you say 'but my players would complain because (thing not in the system, but which I'm assuming due to my own world model)', thats not really a fair discussion of the system I presented.

In the system I presented, if someone with Wealth 1 can make ends meet in your area and you have Wealth 2 (+1 pip), then cost of living is considered to be irrelevant to your finances because Wealth is on an exponential scale. I compressed the scale here to make book-keeping less tedious (imagine 99 pips to go up a level... awful), but imagine if one Wealth level represented a factor of 100 instead of a factor of 5. If Jeff Bezos quit his job and retired, do you think renting the world's most expensive apartment for the next 100 years would actually put a dent in his spending power? So if you have to justify it to yourself, consider it as something like the character making uninspired but safe investments (renting land to tenants, etc) such that anything an order of magnitude below their actual resources can basically get absorbed without changing the number. So there is no decay, and there's also no mechanical advantage from living in a cardboard box eating ramen. The intended design of the system is to make those choices completely neutral mechanically, so there is no reason to do the weird murderhobo thing and no feeling of being punished for not taking bad deals when offered or taking time when its needed.

So yeah, if you get rid of those assumptions and try to bring back your world model in which 'no, actually you can't take the 6 months', the players will have the same complaints as with your existing system, because you're bringing back those aspects of the system that they found unpleasant. My point here is, a player saying 'okay, we spend six months' should be completely legit if they really have nothing else they want or need to be doing in those 6 months. You're an adventurer risking your life, you just found the equivalent of $20 million in a cave somewhere, yes if you want to just retire on that and live like you were doing with $50k/year income for the rest of your life, you should be able to actually go do that - even assuming no leverage on your investments, if you were tracking dollars that would correspond to at least 400 years of income.

[Talakeal]

Break the fluff and crunch out into seperate books if you have to for length.)

This is a big tangent, but does anyone besides D&D and maybe GURPS actually do that? I can't remember the last RPG I read that didn't bottle them together, indy studios and big name publishers alike.


looking back through the thread, I think we're hitting the root issue, one of presentation



If I understand correctly, from your perspective, the treasure is doled out assuming the PC's fail to haggle, and so anything you get from having a good charisma is bonus. You give them enough money to buy a sword, and ask them to roll to see if they have some money left over.

From your PC's perspective, you give them enough money to buy TWO swords, then make them roll to haggle and when they roll badly, tell them "You will pay double for the sword".


I think your terminology might be part of the issue. You use the phrase "Haggle", but in haggling, the worst thing that can happen is you end up paying the initial offer.


I'm curious for an example of how a haggling roll might go. It sounds right now like it goes like this

Player: I would like to buy a Sword
GM: Swords cost 500, roll Charisma to haggle
Player: I got a bad roll, only a 4
GM: Okay, you must pay 750.


If you present the price as 500, then ask them to Haggle, a bad roll resulting in paying MORE feels very bad. It sounds like they got scammed, and since you present the price as 500, it sounds like they should be able to walk into the shop and agree to pay 500 gold.

If the idea is that 500 is an average price, and that shopkeepers start the price at 750, you should present it as Swords Cost 750, and with an average haggling roll you get it down to 500.

Edit: It sounds like on your back end you assume 750, then present it to the players as 500, then make them pay 750 (The assumed price) when they fail to haggle. That just feels bad.

That is more or less correct as I see it.

In play, it goes like this:

PC: I am looking to buy a +1 long sword.
GM: Ok, give me a business roll, difficulty 22.
PC: I got a 27!
GM: Ok. You find a local weapon smith who happens to have a few leftover from an order he made for the mayor's guard. You can haggle him down to a reasonable price. Reduce your wealth score by four.

OR

PC: I got 1 19.
GM: Ok, you can find one. But the seller won't budge on his price. He tells you that he can always sell spare swords to the local militia, so you will need to do better than they can. Reduce your wealth score by 8.

OR

PC: I got a 13.
GM: Well, you can't find any for sale. But you might be able to get the local sword smith to forge you one, or your buddy Fat Tony might be able to track one down if you don't ask to many questions. Either way, you are going to have to pay a bit more than you normally would. Either way, if you want the sword you need to reduce your wealth by 13. If you want to just walk away, reduce your wealth by one to represent the time you wasted in the search, both your own and your contact's.

Or less likely:

PC: I got a 45!
GM: Wow! Well, while you are wandering the market, you see a little girl carrying an oversized sword. She says it was her father's before he died, and now her mother wants her to sell his old heirlooms. You recognize that this is a +2 sword, and happily pay her what she is asking, plus maybe a little extra. Reduce your wealth score by four.

PC: I got a 1.
GM: Ouch. Well, you can't find a merchant who has any to spare, and you can't afford to pay what the weapon smith is asking for a rush job. As you go home dejected, a man in a dark cloak approached and says he heard you were looking for a sword on the cheap, and wouldn't you know it, he just happens to have an extra one due to a clerical error. You swallow his story and give him the remarkably small amount of gold he was asking for, reduce your wealth score by four. It isn't until you are training the next day that you realize this sword is actually a cheap forgery dressed up to look like something special.

PC: I got a 22 exactly.
GM: Well, there aren't any for sale. But you notice that the old captain of the guard keeps one on a shelf in his office as a trophy of his time in the field before he retired from active duty. He won't sell it though, sentimental reasons, but he might be able willing to part with it if you can bring him information on Fat Tony's smuggling operation. Of course, you could also come back after hours and take it... the lock on the case looks shoddy and you don't plan on hanging around town for long anyway.

[GloatingSwine]

This is a big tangent, but does anyone besides D&D and maybe GURPS actually do that? I can't remember the last RPG I read that didn't bottle them together, indy studios and big name publishers alike.


No, but your rulebook is 550 pages long already and doesn't have play examples which makes it really hard to grok how any of it is supposed to go in practise other than by guesswork which inevitably leads to missing bits of the rules out.

[Talakeal]

The thing is though, if I'm presenting 'here's a system I might use' and then you say 'but my players would complain because (thing not in the system, but which I'm assuming due to my own world model)', thats not really a fair discussion of the system I presented.

In the system I presented, if someone with Wealth 1 can make ends meet in your area and you have Wealth 2 (+1 pip), then cost of living is considered to be irrelevant to your finances because Wealth is on an exponential scale. I compressed the scale here to make book-keeping less tedious (imagine 99 pips to go up a level... awful), but imagine if one Wealth level represented a factor of 100 instead of a factor of 5. If Jeff Bezos quit his job and retired, do you think renting the world's most expensive apartment for the next 100 years would actually put a dent in his spending power? So if you have to justify it to yourself, consider it as something like the character making uninspired but safe investments (renting land to tenants, etc) such that anything an order of magnitude below their actual resources can basically get absorbed without changing the number. So there is no decay, and there's also no mechanical advantage from living in a cardboard box eating ramen. The intended design of the system is to make those choices completely neutral mechanically, so there is no reason to do the weird murderhobo thing and no feeling of being punished for not taking bad deals when offered or taking time when its needed.

So yeah, if you get rid of those assumptions and try to bring back your world model in which 'no, actually you can't take the 6 months', the players will have the same complaints as with your existing system, because you're bringing back those aspects of the system that they found unpleasant. My point here is, a player saying 'okay, we spend six months' should be completely legit if they really have nothing else they want or need to be doing in those 6 months. You're an adventurer risking your life, you just found the equivalent of $20 million in a cave somewhere, yes if you want to just retire on that and live like you were doing with $50k/year income for the rest of your life, you should be able to actually go do that - even assuming no leverage on your investments, if you were tracking dollars that would correspond to at least 400 years of income.

Ok, so why have a system at all at that point?

Why not just say the players have the best possible gear at the best possible prices available to them at all times.

[NichG]

Ok, so why have a system at all at that point?

Why not just say the players have the best possible gear at the best possible prices available to them at all times.

A system exists to give options and to hand over elements of resolution to the players so they can plan and know what their difference choices trade off between. I didn't make this system in order to force the players to suffer for dumping Business, I made this system to:

1. Make it more clear 'what do you gain if you invest in Business' and to make that directly correspond to things players already want (good gear).
2. Create a decision logic that drives play in directions based on what the players want.
3. Simplify the book-keeping and kind of tedious repetitive gaming associated with gold tracking, haggling, etc.

To point 1, the upper end of gear you can buy is higher if you pump Business than if you don't, even if you have infinite Wealth. Top city in the world is Wealth 4, you have Wealth 9.2, you want to gear yourself out with a full set of Wealth 8 items? The 'price' of getting those Wealth 8 items is investing ranks/feats/what-have-you into Business. If you do invest, you get the items eventually; if you don't invest, you don't ever get the items. So that's the strong offer 'why should you consider Business for your highly optimized build?'

To point 2, if you aren't going all in like that, the system still tells you 'things you could do to get what you want', which means that it creates structures for players to come up with goals and plans and intermediate steps. "We can't buy the item we need locally, but the system tells us that we're guaranteed to be able to if we travel to that other nation's capitol, or an interplanar metropolis, or whatnot. Now we have reasons to spontaneously say 'hey, DM, we want to go to X!'" without the DM having to come up with specific reasons to 'get players to go there'. If the only thing that can be said of that journey is 'you take 6 months, get the item, and return' then so be it - that's a choice about what you want to spend screentime doing. If instead its 'you embark on the journey, pass through a bunch of places with weird stuff going on, notice that a dragon has been stalking the party, end up parleying with it rather than fighting to drive it off, get to the border of the other nation and discover that they're searching everyone for a magical bomb they suspect will be smuggled in to disrupt their once-a-century ritual of longevity, ...' then hey, 'I want to buy a Vorpal Sword' just generated two months of gaming.

To point 3, removing living expenses and wealth decay is a feature not a bug!

But the system is not there to force players to invest in Business, or to enforce some concept of wealth decay/use-it-or-lose-it.

[BRC]

This is a big tangent, but does anyone besides D&D and maybe GURPS actually do that? I can't remember the last RPG I read that didn't bottle them together, indy studios and big name publishers alike.



That is more or less correct as I see it.

In play, it goes like this:

PC: I am looking to buy a +1 long sword.
GM: Ok, give me a business roll, difficulty 22.
PC: I got a 27!
GM: Ok. You find a local weapon smith who happens to have a few leftover from an order he made for the mayor's guard. You can haggle him down to a reasonable price. Reduce your wealth score by four.

OR

PC: I got 1 19.
GM: Ok, you can find one. But the seller won't budge on his price. He tells you that he can always sell spare swords to the local militia, so you will need to do better than they can. Reduce your wealth score by 8.

OR

PC: I got a 13.
GM: Well, you can't find any for sale. But you might be able to get the local sword smith to forge you one, or your buddy Fat Tony might be able to track one down if you don't ask to many questions. Either way, you are going to have to pay a bit more than you normally would. Either way, if you want the sword you need to reduce your wealth by 13. If you want to just walk away, reduce your wealth by one to represent the time you wasted in the search, both your own and your contact's.

Or less likely:

PC: I got a 45!
GM: Wow! Well, while you are wandering the market, you see a little girl carrying an oversized sword. She says it was her father's before he died, and now her mother wants her to sell his old heirlooms. You recognize that this is a +2 sword, and happily pay her what she is asking, plus maybe a little extra. Reduce your wealth score by four.

PC: I got a 1.
GM: Ouch. Well, you can't find a merchant who has any to spare, and you can't afford to pay what the weapon smith is asking for a rush job. As you go home dejected, a man in a dark cloak approached and says he heard you were looking for a sword on the cheap, and wouldn't you know it, he just happens to have an extra one due to a clerical error. You swallow his story and give him the remarkably small amount of gold he was asking for, reduce your wealth score by four. It isn't until you are training the next day that you realize this sword is actually a cheap forgery dressed up to look like something special.

PC: I got a 22 exactly.
GM: Well, there aren't any for sale. But you notice that the old captain of the guard keeps one on a shelf in his office as a trophy of his time in the field before he retired from active duty. He won't sell it though, sentimental reasons, but he might be able willing to part with it if you can bring him information on Fat Tony's smuggling operation. Of course, you could also come back after hours and take it... the lock on the case looks shoddy and you don't plan on hanging around town for long anyway.


Yeah, I think the issue is about as I diagnosed it. You're giving them gold, but in order to spend it they need to engage with this whole complex system, which feels to them like they're being punished for not being built to engage with it/rolling badly. Your presentation is such that Success means getting the default, and so Failure feels bad, and success mostly feels like they've just avoided the consequences for failure. You're forcing them to roll to do anything with their gold, and then saying "Okay, you don't find a deal you like, you STILL spend money". It's punishment all the way down. It feels like you're saying "BAD PLAYERS, for not investing in being good at business you pay EXTRA, IF you roll well enough to get a chance to buy it at all!"


There are plenty of situations where this presentation is fine, but turning your gold into a tangible reward shouldn't be one. They've already EARNED the gold by adventuring, they shouldn't then need to jump through more hoops to spend it. If you want this system in place, it should be for getting more use out of the gold they have.

"Commission the weaponsmith" should be a no-roll required option, and presented as the default.



Edit: Your general complaint is that your players don't invest in something, and then complain when they suffer the consequences for that.


Generally, you're valid. However, reading this I wonder if your game perhaps possesses too many "Mandatory" systems that the players will be punished for not investing towards being good at. Being bad at business should mean closing off certain options (Like getting discounts), it shouldn't turn a regular game mechanic (spending money) into a ritual of humiliation where the system tells them they're bad at buying swords and then graciously allows them to buy the item at a considerable markup, or makes them do crimes to get it.

[Jay R]

Basically, they want a "floor" on how bad a deal they can get.

So, for example, if sticker price on a sword is 300 gold, a charismatic person can haggle them down to 200 gold, but an unwashed hobo who wanders into the store and rants about his disapproval for the shop's color scheme will still never pay more than 300 gold.

This is easily fixable. If you have a base price of 300 gold, and the roll might make that as low as 200 or as high as 400, then tell them the sticker price is 400, and they are rolling to see if they can do better than that.

[This is true, by the way. Nobody spends more than the sticker price when there is one.]

There is no difference in the mechanic, but a huge difference in the feel.

[Talakeal]

Yeah, I think the issue is about as I diagnosed it. You're giving them gold, but in order to spend it they need to engage with this whole complex system, which feels to them like they're being punished for not being built to engage with it/rolling badly. Your presentation is such that Success means getting the default, and so Failure feels bad, and success mostly feels like they've just avoided the consequences for failure. You're forcing them to roll to do anything with their gold, and then saying "Okay, you don't find a deal you like, you STILL spend money". It's punishment all the way down. It feels like you're saying "BAD PLAYERS, for not investing in being good at business you pay EXTRA, IF you roll well enough to get a chance to buy it at all!"


There are plenty of situations where this presentation is fine, but turning your gold into a tangible reward shouldn't be one. They've already EARNED the gold by adventuring, they shouldn't then need to jump through more hoops to spend it. If you want this system in place, it should be for getting more use out of the gold they have.

"Commission the weaponsmith" should be a no-roll required option, and presented as the default.



Edit: Your general complaint is that your players don't invest in something, and then complain when they suffer the consequences for that.


Generally, you're valid. However, reading this I wonder if your game perhaps possesses too many "Mandatory" systems that the players will be punished for not investing towards being good at. Being bad at business should mean closing off certain options (Like getting discounts), it shouldn't turn a regular game mechanic (spending money) into a ritual of humiliation where the system tells them they're bad at buying swords and then graciously allows them to buy the item at a considerable markup, or makes them do crimes to get it.

This reads a super melodramatic imo, especially the "ritual of humiliation" and the "EARNED their gold by adventuring" bits, and I really wonder how those exact same arguments would fly in a by the book D&D game where the DM determines what magic items are available behind the screen and no amount of gold will change it.


The thing is, its less "bad players" and more "free willed and rational human beings who recognize that they will be good at the things they choose as strengths and bad at things the choose as weaknesses". In reality, they chose to create characters who were bad with money, and will thus be a few sessions slow in acquiring gear compared to a hypothetical party who chose to invest in financial skills, but will be stronger in other areas to make up for it. But, to here the players talk, their characters are perfect, and thus any failure is caused by either a spiteful GM or unrealistic rules.


That being said, you do seem to agreeing with the general sentiment that the problem is just that the item's listed value is half the cost of a failure rather than double the cost of a success, right?


snip.

Maybe I am not understanding your proposed system, I will look more closely when I am not at work.

My point is, that if there is no cost for retrying, then you have effectively eliminated any variables and have instead assumed the maximum possible result. Its the same logic behind "take 20" in D&D.

Time is often used in place of a cost, but time rarely actually has any value to RPG characters, and so an efficient player is going to treat it as meaningless. Thus the prevalence of balance issues brought upon by the "15 minute workday" paradigm.

Of course, when it comes to acquisition roles, any sort of cost for retrying is going to be seen as wealthy decay / the players being robbed.


No, but your rulebook is 550 pages long already and doesn't have play examples which makes it really hard to grok how any of it is supposed to go in practice other than by guesswork which inevitably leads to missing bits of the rules out.

Yeah. I do agree that examples are really helpful, and have been putting a lot of thought about how to include them.

But the idea that fluff and crunch are better off segregated in different volumes just jumped out as a relic of a bygone era of game design.


This is easily fixable. If you have a base price of 300 gold, and the roll might make that as low as 200 or as high as 400, then tell them the sticker price is 400, and they are rolling to see if they can do better than that.

[This is true, by the way. Nobody spends more than the sticker price when there is one.]

There is no difference in the mechanic, but a huge difference in the feel.

That's all well and good, but it goes back to the initial question of if having a sticker price is appropriate for these sort of deals in the first place.

It also removes the situation where the player can't find the item for sale in the normal markets, but then spends additional resources to buy the item at auction, or from a private collection, or have it shipped a great distance, which realistically speaking is the most likely outcome for most high end magic items.

Also, the whole concept of a sticker price is pretty iffy for big ticket items even in modern. I know I have had several occasions in the last few years where I went to buy a car, gun, or video game system and ended up paying well over MSRP and even the merchant's quoted sticker price due to supply chain issues and all sorts of hidden fees.


One thing to consider is: what is your desired player behavior?

Player or character?


And what is the desired outcome of this subsystem?

1: To give a small mechanical advantage and bit of spotlight time to charisma based characters.
2: To abstract the system so that there is less math and record keeping.
3: To abstract lifestyle so that players can play out millionaire playboy, ascetic monk, or wasteful barbarian fantasies without being mechanically punished for doing so.
4: To remove the incentive for players to grub for every copper by, for example, stripping the dungeon dressing and hauling it all off the a pawnshop.
5: To give players a use for leftover meta currencies at the end of the adventure.
6: To add a little bit of uncertainty and narrative drama; allowing for an occasional great opportunity or story-line complication to pop up.

Although maybe those are goals rather than outcomes?

Outcome I guess would be that players who invested in the business skill get their gear slightly faster and those who don't get their gear slightly slower.


The rules for wealth and how it changes don't read that way. Characters start with wealth equal to business and then it goes up and down based on their incomes (completed objectives) and expenditures (incurred debts).

Well sure, I assumed that said average guy was out there completing the average number of objectives. If he is just sitting on his butt all day, he is going to have to be significantly more spendthrift.



I can't find out in the rules how item quality and value interact either, please always put relevant concepts together in the rules and include play examples. Break the fluff and crunch out into seperate books if you have to for length.)

I generally agree with you, but sometimes it just isn't possible without actively repeating text. In this case, I had to decide whether I should put the rules for the business skill with the other skills or with the section on gear, and went with the former because it fit the overall layout better. I agree it is not a great solution.


Oh, and D20s are maybe too big a dice to explode.

I generally agree here, although in practice it works out pretty much identically to 3E D&D's "confirm a critical" rule and is fine at the table except in some really weird edge cases that aren't likely to come up outside of a forum debate.


Yeah, I think that's probably overestimating the amount of impact haggling should have on mundane purchases, plus a psychological disincentive to engage.

It's always a good idea to remember the Rested XP example here. Back in early World of Warcraft they tried to discourage super long play sessions (and incentivise regular logins) by applying a penalty to XP after a certain amount, and everyone hated it and complained about it. The fix was that they did exactly the same thing but communicated it as a bonus you got for the first so many XP for the day instead with the "normal" amount being the old penalty amount. Exactly the same numbers, different communication, nobody complains at all.

If the "expected" outcome of your Haggle system is that people will pay twice the list value, they're gonna hate it. The normal experience should be the normal price.

Its funny, I was actually going to relate that exact same story, good thing I went back and saw your edit!



Also it means it scales badly with item value, because the difficulty is keyed off of quality. A failure of 5 points on a value 12 item is a 40% markup, on a value 4 item it's a 120% markup but these two outcomes have the same chance of happening. If the players are at the wealth level where they will be going for really high quality items, if the item value is multiplied by 10 for each quality, then going for a value 12 quality 5 item no realistic failure can ever move the needle on how much the item costs.

Percentages MIGHT work better, but I do not want my game to require players to do math that can't be quickly done mentally by the average person or to deal with fractions.

I used to have it with flat numbers, but the thing is that the cost of a failure should always be the same regardless of the item you were buying. I used to have it be a binary "get the item for half price if you succeed" but there would be times when a player would then fail by one point and it felt absolutely terrible, where as now its just one extra debt. And the meta-currencies involved to influence the roll are still static regardless of the value of the item being purchased.

So I doubled the amount of treasure given out, but changed the way haggling worked from discount on a success to extra cost on a failure. The math would be the same if I swapped it back, but A: I like the more granularity in mission design from more potential objectives and B: as is I can use the same values for crafting and several other subsystems as it.


Does he, though? That's an important point to clarify.

There's two questions here:

By the rules, is a player committed to spending money when they make a roll?
Psychologically, can a player walk away from a bad deal that's necessary for their hyper-specific planned build?


You can walk away. You do, however, incur a single debt for doing so.

In character, this represents squandered time and burning through contacts.

Out of character, this is because there needs to be some cost or else players will just roll endlessly until they get a natural 20 as I was saying to NichG above.



IIRC, one of your players in an earlier thread refused to spend money on anything other than enhancing their sword, refusing even to spend a few GP on an inn or to buy very cheap armor. IIRC, a player (the same player?) got mad when they were "unfairly targeted" by intelligent enemies who recognized a glass cannon build and responded in a tactically appropriate manner.


Good memory! But its actually worse than that!

Not only did Bob give his character a minimum strength and then refer to grappling as "a cheat code for the GM" and refused to buy any armor or defensive magic items and got mad when enemies targeted him, but...


Sessions 1: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 2: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 3: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 4: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 5: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 6: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 7: Bob misses a session. His character gets a share of the treasure. One of the other players asks if Bob will craft an item for them at no cost to himself, and I say sure.
Sessions 8: Bob finds out about what happened, and says that he is working towards a special project that he won't finish until well after the campaign, but would never take time away from it to craft for his allies. He says that he feels that his character has been literally robbed and enslaved, and demands I retcon it or he will murder the rest of the party IC and then never play with us again OOC. I am told on the forums that by not giving into him I am simultaneously a "nazi" and a "communist" so we retcon it.
Sessions 9: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 10: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 11: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 12: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Session 13: Bob spends all of his gold buying a single offensive item that is priced and balanced around a character two full tiers of play higher than this campaign.
Sessions 14: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 15: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 16: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 17: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 18: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 19: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 20: Bob spends all of his money on high level potions, wands, and scrolls well beyond his intended power level. He enters the final encounter with a cartload of them and steamrolls the BBEG under the power of his wealth.

[BRC]

This reads a super melodramatic imo, especially the "ritual of humiliation" and the "EARNED their gold by adventuring" bits, and I really wonder how those exact same arguments would fly in a by the book D&D game where the DM determines what magic items are available behind the screen and no amount of gold will change it.


The thing is, its less "bad players" and more "free willed and rational human beings who recognize that they will be good at the things they choose as strengths and bad at things the choose as weaknesses". In reality, they chose to create characters who were bad with money, and will thus be a few sessions slow in acquiring gear compared to a hypothetical party who chose to invest in financial skills, but will be stronger in other areas to make up for it. But, to here the players talk, their characters are perfect, and thus any failure is caused by either a spiteful GM or unrealistic rules.


That being said, you do seem to agreeing with the general sentiment that the problem is just that the item's listed value is half the cost of a failure rather than double the cost of a success, right?


Yes to bold. It's an issue of presentation.

"You fail, so you get no discount and pay 8" is a world of difference from "You fail, and so must pay extra, for a total of 8"


If I'm being melodramatic it's because that's how you've described your player's responses. Anything their characters are not ideal for handling is a Spiteful DM throwing impossible challenges at them. Anything they didn't think of is an impossible puzzle that requires reading the GM's mind.

When players react badly to a mechanic or encounter, it's important to step back and put yourself in their shoes. You know that this whole thing boils down to "You didn't invest in being good with money, so you're going to be a bit slower to acquire gear compared to a party that has some business savvy", and that's how you see it. You also built this system with the inbuilt assumption that getting the gold is only step 1 to buying the sword, actually buying the sword is part of the challenge of the game.




To your players, the sword has a cost and they have treasure. From their perspectives, they've already done what they needed (Got treasure) to get the sword. Regardless of the historical accuracy of fixed prices, your players are (presumably) used to the modern world, where if something is listed as costing $20, you could buy it for $20. They go to buy the sword and are told "HOLD ON, make a ROLL YOU ARE BAD AT, hrmmm, you must pay double list price for this sword". They're going to take that as "The GM is punishing us for being bad at charisma". It's partially just the grass being greener on the other side, if they went with a charisma party, they'd feel like you were punishing them for not being as good at beating up skeletons as a hypothetical party of average strength.


Reframing how you present things can help mitigate that.

[NichG]

T
Maybe I am not understanding your proposed system, I will look more closely when I am not at work.

My point is, that if there is no cost for retrying, then you have effectively eliminated any variables and have instead assumed the maximum possible result. Its the same logic behind "take 20" in D&D.

Time is often used in place of a cost, but time rarely actually has any value to RPG characters, and so an efficient player is going to treat it as meaningless. Thus the prevalence of balance issues brought upon by the "15 minute workday" paradigm.

Of course, when it comes to acquisition roles, any sort of cost for retrying is going to be seen as wealthy decay / the players being robbed.


There is intentionally no 'serious' cost to retrying, other than the opportunity cost of not having the item for another week. At the very most, 'taking 20' gets you +2 Wealth levels of stuff you can acquire. If you want to get stuff 3+ levels above the local economy, you have to invest in the skill.

As far as whether the time cost is meaningful or not, well, it should not always be meaningful. It's okay for the players to be comfortable spending something (time) without feeling like they're losing out because of that. Now, if you're in a sequence with lots of time pressure, the time it takes could be a serious cost - 'we need to get a Hat of Disguise for the heist next week when the Jeweled Panoply is going to be passing through the local museum'. But if you're in a sequence where there's no time pressure, its intentionally a non-cost. 'Not being under time pressure' has value, and being able to retry on a weekly basis lets the party cash out on that value. The choice of timescale (a week) determines the scale at which time pressure becomes meaningful to item acquisition - if you made that once a month, you really need to be relaxed. If you made it once a day, you only need to not be immediately under the gun. Players who frequently 'take 20' on this check will find that the campaign ends up actually spanning years - this is a good thing, IMO, since many campaigns suffer the problem of characters transforming from apprentice to archmage over the course of weeks or days. Heck, lifespan might even become relevant, awesome!

And a single player wanting to take 20 when everyone else isn't on board may well find that the GM goes around and says 'okay, while character A is waiting for a week to pass, what do the rest of you want to do this week?'. If it's 'craft stuff' or 'work on my business' or whatever, again, great! That's engagement. It could also be 'I'm going to check out that dungeon' or 'I'm going to steal from the local nobles' or whatnot, in which case other party members are going to effectively be generating time pressure for the guy who wants to wait since stuff will happen that requires uptime. But if everyone wants to timeskip 20 years ahead, why not just let them, and have them step into a world in which everyone else has been doing things for 20 years, maps have changed, new forces are on the rise and old ones on the wane, etc?

If you're really stuck on the 'I can't let players take 20' thing, just don't make it a roll at all. 'Every 5 levels of your Business modifier increases the Wealth value of rare items you can find in the local market, no roll needed' - done. Want to buy a Vorpal Sword in the capitol? You need to get your Business modifier up to 15 minimum.

[Zanos]

As a player, I just really don't care to roleplay purchasing things. I'm used to 3.5 but this will work for most editions of D&D. Lets say I am playing a wizard. I'm looking for scrolls of ten different spells so that I can learn them. Are we really going to go through the process of me going to shop, making a bunch of rolls to figure out which of the scrolls I'm looking for they actually have, and then doing an IC haggling process with a roll for every scroll to see if I get ripped off(because for some reason, there's never a surplus of anything, only ever a shortage)? Or hell, I'm not a wizard but I want to kit up for an expedition, and I want to buy a cart, a mule, a month worth of rations, twenty hours of lamp oil, an oil lamp, 200ft of rope, a bedroll, a waterskin, a grappling hook, a tent, a woodcutting axe, a longsword, a set of leather armor, a bow with 30 arrows, a blah blah blah.

Frankly, taking the time to sort all of this out in character just isn't engaging or interesting. Just give people some arbitrary restriction on what's available for purchase in a town, make them spend a day of downtime looking for whatever they need, and deduct the cost of the items from their inventory, so players can get back to the good parts of RPGs. When DMs insist that shopping is done in session we often waste entire sessions just sorting out what people are going to buy and I sit there playing mount and blade or whatever.

[RandomPeasant]

Most gear players use day-to-day should be things they can buy without effort, or things they got randomly as treasure. Having a specific magical sword because you happened to find that magical sword on a specific adventure is good, because it connects your character to the campaign. Having a specific magical sword because you went down your list of most favorite magical swords and happened to make a successful "buying stuff" roll on the third one is lame.

I think there is room for detailed economic simulation, but it should largely be for stuff that players don't need to care about. You can do all the trade and arbitrage stuff that is interesting about the economy with spices or flour or whatever other stuff the PCs are not normally buying, and doing it that way makes things massively easier for people who just want to buy the gear they want. And remember that a little goes a long way. Having a three-level "X is scarce/X is normal/X is abundant" gives plenty of room for trade routes to emerge naturally from low-level mechanics, and is very simple to track.


Lets say I am playing a wizard. I'm looking for scrolls of ten different spells so that I can learn them. Are we really going to go through the process of me going to shop, making a bunch of rolls to figure out which of the scrolls I'm looking for they actually have, and then doing an IC haggling process with a roll for every scroll to see if I get ripped off(because for some reason, there's never a surplus of anything, only ever a shortage)?

There's a general principle here, which is that while having an involved process for doing something tangential to your actual goals once can be fun, that process is almost never going to be fun the tenth time you do it. This applies to going into detail when people purchase gear, but also to things like "what if non-combat magic involved big rituals with rare components" and "what if we make the party play out long trips from city to city".

[Yakk]

Sounds like your PCs need to hire a money manager.

I'm sure that won't go poorly.

[Lacco]

As a player, I just really don't care to roleplay purchasing things. I'm used to 3.5 but this will work for most editions of D&D. Lets say I am playing a wizard. I'm looking for scrolls of ten different spells so that I can learn them. Are we really going to go through the process of me going to shop, making a bunch of rolls to figure out which of the scrolls I'm looking for they actually have, and then doing an IC haggling process with a roll for every scroll to see if I get ripped off(because for some reason, there's never a surplus of anything, only ever a shortage)? Or hell, I'm not a wizard but I want to kit up for an expedition, and I want to buy a cart, a mule, a month worth of rations, twenty hours of lamp oil, an oil lamp, 200ft of rope, a bedroll, a waterskin, a grappling hook, a tent, a woodcutting axe, a longsword, a set of leather armor, a bow with 30 arrows, a blah blah blah.

Frankly, taking the time to sort all of this out in character just isn't engaging or interesting. Just give people some arbitrary restriction on what's available for purchase in a town, make them spend a day of downtime looking for whatever they need, and deduct the cost of the items from their inventory, so players can get back to the good parts of RPGs. When DMs insist that shopping is done in session we often waste entire sessions just sorting out what people are going to buy and I sit there playing mount and blade or whatever.

Some players actually enjoy that. I love RPing walking through town, finding the hidden shops and finding stuff I did not even know I needed. Makes the world feel alive and it's fun to spend virtual money I can get for casually murdering monsters. That's just what I like.

On the other hand, I know not to do that when there are 4 other people who are interested only in getting the show on the road and hitting the next dungeon. That's just general politeness.

And since I'm almost never a player, I tend to provide this kind of experience for my players - if they are interested. So it often comes down to the basics: know your players. If they are in for the shopping, they get the shopping. If they are in for the fights, they get fights. If they are in for hopeless death due to ancient lovecraftian horrors, they get ancient lovecraftian horrors.

Knowing what the players enjoy and providing it is exactly one of the things a GM should do.


Sounds like your PCs need to hire a money manager.

I'm sure that won't go poorly.

Well, time to break out the supporting cast: the accountant, two servants, a groom or two, a driver and few guards...

I liked the Loot mechanic in Blade of the Iron Throne: it was a dice pool wealth mechanic (check if your Loot level provides you with the thing or roll to see if you can afford it), and it assumed that unless you took a specific skill for handling money, your Loot level will naturally decrease over time as an adventurer you will not lead an ascetic life.

As for prices, my usual go-to is:
If we are speed-shopping (players send me a list of what they want to find, I check what is available locally, provide options...), they usually get to roll if they haggled something down and I use the fixed prices from price list.
If we are doing the sightseeing route, each shop will have limited amount of stuff and prices will go from "damn, that's pricey" to "oooh, that's almost for free!", depending on the locale (e.g. a city with district full of blacksmiths close to high-quality iron mines during peace? swords at 50% price!), events (famine = 200% to foodstuffs), or just mood of the salesperson and reputation of the PCs.

Mechanically, I manage it through my large pile of random tables and some simple rolls.

[GloatingSwine]

Percentages MIGHT work better, but I do not want my game to require players to do math that can't be quickly done mentally by the average person or to deal with fractions.

I used to have it with flat numbers, but the thing is that the cost of a failure should always be the same regardless of the item you were buying. I used to have it be a binary "get the item for half price if you succeed" but there would be times when a player would then fail by one point and it felt absolutely terrible, where as now its just one extra debt. And the meta-currencies involved to influence the roll are still static regardless of the value of the item being purchased.

So I doubled the amount of treasure given out, but changed the way haggling worked from discount on a success to extra cost on a failure. The math would be the same if I swapped it back, but A: I like the more granularity in mission design from more potential objectives and B: as is I can use the same values for crafting and several other subsystems as it.


I think this is still working around the problem, which is that the Haggle skill is too high stakes and swingy and scales really weirdly.

Because items scale in value exponentially with quality the consequences of failure decrease exponentially but the consequences of a fumble increase exponentially. But the chances of a failure or fumble stay roughly linear unless you invest quite a lot into Business, at which point you can reduce them by one exponent.

Because the breakpoint for an average uninvested person is success on a 15 that also means that the average person in your setting will fumble one in twenty five nontrivial purchases (If they roll a 1 they need a 15 or better to cancel the fumble). If you had a one in twenty five chance to lose all your money every time you bought anything other than food and gas you'd never buy anything! (Adventurous PCs should be making a lot more interesting purchases than the average person).

The combination of these is that Business is really uncomfortable to use at low levels without at least tagging it primary at average charisma, which means it's a bad experience for players buying the sort of interesting things PCs should be buying, and the consequences of a fumble scale much much harder than the ability to protect yourself from it , all the way up to "kill everyone in town and take everything of value and you probably don't recover half of the loss". (roughly one thousand times harder due to exponential values)

[Zanos]

Sounds like your PCs need to hire a money manager.

I'm sure that won't go poorly.
You joke, but if there's a market inefficiency, it would make sense for there to be people who would be willing to take advantage of that to capture some of that value. If you're a skilled negotiator and you can get people things for 20 fantasy dollars instead of 40 fantasy dollars with a small amount of effort, why not offer to do that for them for a markup of 10 fantasy dollars? They're still saving money. Considering the tremendous sums that adventures usually deal in, the commission for negotiation services probably wouldn't even be very high.

Weirdly enough, "I hire someone good at something I am bad at and pay them for their time" rarely seems to be an acceptable solution to a problem in a city of skilled professionals in TTRPGs.


Some players actually enjoy that. I love RPing walking through town, finding the hidden shops and finding stuff I did not even know I needed. Makes the world feel alive and it's fun to spend virtual money I can get for casually murdering monsters. That's just what I like.

On the other hand, I know not to do that when there are 4 other people who are interested only in getting the show on the road and hitting the next dungeon. That's just general politeness.

And since I'm almost never a player, I tend to provide this kind of experience for my players - if they are interested. So it often comes down to the basics: know your players. If they are in for the shopping, they get the shopping. If they are in for the fights, they get fights. If they are in for hopeless death due to ancient lovecraftian horrors, they get ancient lovecraftian horrors.

Knowing what the players enjoy and providing it is exactly one of the things a GM should do.
I think, as RandomPeasant said above, it's about repetition. Chatting with shopkeepers can be fun a couple of times, but over the course of a campaign there's a lot of shopping to do and it's pretty frustrating to spend four hours talking to NPCs over very basic transactions when you only play once a week. When the party gets out of a major adventure and each person has 4+ magic items they want to buy, I don't want to burn an entire session on chitchat with shopkeepers about how they don't have the thing we want but they do have a totally unrelated item I don't want to buy. I think the last time a DM tried to get me to RP with every shopkeeper I reanimated a skeleton and told it to pay people for items on a list and ignore them if they said anything unrelated to that task, which settled it from then on. Not that I'm only there for combat, but when our next major RP encounter is to, say, negotiate with local nobility during a period of national reform to influence how the nation will be run in the future, I'd much rather do that then discuss how I'm paying a markup because the scrolls are scribed on high quality sheepskin.

In one of OP's examples a PC makes a check, does not fail, but makes, a check to purchase a +1 sword. Instead of acquiring it, he finds that a farmer is willing to trade it for information on a local criminal element, or he can attempt to steal it as it's poorly secured. So instead of just buying a +1 sword, which is a very basic and frankly rather boring item, you're now taking probably > an hour so that one party member can go on a miniature quest where he either spies on a crime guild or attempts a heist on a farmer. Or he pulls the rest of the party into his mini-adventure to get the +1 sword. It's a sword that adds +1 to hit. Just let him buy it and move on, because the other three players are going to be needing similarly basic items as well and before you know it you've spent the entire session on the adventures to get people +1 swords, when they just got done going on adventures to get gold to buy +1 swords. If you want to have a mini-adventure to get a holy avenger, that's fine. I don't want to do it for a +1 sword and +1 armor and +1 ring of protection and a +1 cloak of resistance.

I think you could have fun with it, but it requires the shopkeepers to talk about stuff the character would actually care about that isn't so interesting that it completely takes over from other stuff that's going on. Which is a delicate balance that most DMs don't bother to strike.

[AdAstra]

Truly fixed universal prices aren't even an anachronism, they're just a useful simplification from the sort of price variation and haggling that you see all the time in the modern day. A very useful simplification, but people have gone over all that, along with the fact that a lot of shops in the old days didn't even have inventories.

However, I find your player's feelings pretty reasonable, even if they're expressing them in a super annoying way. They could just be terrible and feel anything that isn't actively biased in their favor is rigged. But here I think most people would probably not like this mechanic.

As a general rule, if a player is required to take a chance that can leave them in a worse position than they started, it's going to feel like a hostile action on the part of the world when it goes badly (i.e. roll to wrestle the rabid bear). That doesn't gel well with shopkeeps, who are expected to be, if not friendly, at least interested in having a positive, profitable interaction with customers, and that you generally need to interact with if you want to get things. An opposed roll with a shopkeep that leaves you paying more than the listed price is going to feel like fighting the shopkeep over coin, not having a mundane interaction with another person. And not buying things isn't much of an option unless you give alternative, convenient means to acquire them.

Even if negotiating was purely a choice, a person's obviously going to feel disincentivized to make that choice if the chance/impact of things getting worse dwarfs the chance/impact of things getting better. They'll try to avoid it and attempt alternatives. Your players seem to like wheedling when they don't want to do something, but here them not wanting to do it seems fair.

I agree with the solution of just having the worst possible price be the listed one, if you're still interested in having haggling/situational pricing. For reasonably available items, there should be a price that no one would refuse if they interested in selling something, and you should use that as the base (and thus, if the players just want to pay that price, you can just let them have it). Price increases should be for special circumstances, like buying food during a famine and buying the clothes off a man's back. Maybe have a "push your luck" roll as an option if you want to try to get a better price than what you got from the first roll at the risk of pissing off the shopkeep, but any rolls you have to make shouldn't be able to make things worse when you're dealing with mundane acts and not threats. People usually don't want to experience "fumbled a mundane social interaction and actively suffered for it" in a game, even if it's something that happens IRL.

It's still not a foolproof solution, since your players have direct experience with the old pricing and are liable to notice that the change doesn't actually change the math much from the previous "unfair"-feeling version.

[Segev]

1: To give a small mechanical advantage and bit of spotlight time to charisma based characters.
2: To abstract the system so that there is less math and record keeping.
3: To abstract lifestyle so that players can play out millionaire playboy, ascetic monk, or wasteful barbarian fantasies without being mechanically punished for doing so.
4: To remove the incentive for players to grub for every copper by, for example, stripping the dungeon dressing and hauling it all off the a pawnshop.
5: To give players a use for leftover meta currencies at the end of the adventure.
6: To add a little bit of uncertainty and narrative drama; allowing for an occasional great opportunity or story-line complication to pop up.

Although maybe those are goals rather than outcomes?

Outcome I guess would be that players who invested in the business skill get their gear slightly faster and those who don't get their gear slightly slower.


Alright. Is this system accomplishing these goals? It sounds like the players dislike the system, so asking yourself two questions will help, here: do they dislike it because they do not feel these goals are worth achieving, or do they dislike it because this system is not achieving those goals?

To address each point individually, though, based on what you're saying here and what you've said in the past:

1: To give a small mechanical advantage and bit of spotlight time to charisma based characters.
This is a laudable goal, but is it truly the best place to do it? "I got a discount on X because I have Charisma" doesn't really sound like it's giving spotlight. Spotlight involves screen time, not just a couple of rolls and moving on. Spotlight would, to me, mean that they can solve in-game problems with their Charisma-based checks and skills. The time for this kind of character to have spotlight is in negotiating with NPCs, recruiting allies, manipulating enemies, and generally in navigating society and politics and diplomacy. Sure, it's nice to also have Charisma translate into better gear, but I don't think it's giving spotlight. Advantage, yes, but not spotlight.

You could achieve this same goal with "fixed prices" by simply having a "haggling" or similar check that, with a high degree of success, can lower the price. 5e's XGE has downtime rules for hunting down items that use Charisma fairly extensively; you may want to take a look at it at least to see how one game system does it. It may not be what you want, but it may also play closer to what your players are looking for, given what you've said about their attitude towards things. They seem to really like having tangible amounts of gp.


2: To abstract the system so that there is less math and record keeping.It doesn't sound like this is accomplishing that. I may be mistaken, but if you have a "wealth rating," the bookkeeping is still the same, because they still have to track their wealth rating.


3: To abstract lifestyle so that players can play out millionaire playboy, ascetic monk, or wasteful barbarian fantasies without being mechanically punished for doing so.The easiest way to do this is to not make lifestyle cost money in game terms. Or, alternatively, to simply treat existing gp the same way you plan to treat "wealth level." That is, if they have a big pile of gp, let them live a high lifestyle if they choose as long as they still have that pile of gp, and not worry about the expenditures.

The way to let lifestyle be just fluff is to let it be just fluff. If you don't want to tie it to in game gp piles, then if they want to claim they live the high life, let them. If they want to claim they're too broke to afford an inn, let them. Let them explain where the wealth they live on comes from, or why their big pile of loot doesn't buy them a nice room at the inn. If you do want to tie it to gp piles but don't want to track it, then again, just use gp thresholds the same way you would use "wealth rating."

But the easiest one is just to let it be fluff if lifestyle doesn't have any mechanical impact and you don't use it to drive stories. If you do use it to drive stories, just make sure that any lifestyle can get you spotlight, and let what kind of story it drives be the incentive to pick one or another depending on the stories the player wants for his PC.


4: To remove the incentive for players to grub for every copper by, for example, stripping the dungeon dressing and hauling it all off the a pawnshop.Why? Serious question, not rhetorical. Why is this actually a problem? Do the players not enjoy doing this? Do you find it annoying to have to calculate the price of every fixture? Is it interfering with them getting on with the plot?

You can combat some of this in-game by creating time pressure. Make it take a long time in-game to truly strip every last bit of metal from a dungeon, and track rations and what is going on elsewhere while they do it. Make them explain how they cart it all back, and remember that hirelings and pack animals need pay and food and such. Make the "last coppers" worth of stuff not sell well for the amount of effort they have to put in.

You can combat other parts of it by simply telling the players that you don't enjoy it. Or, if they don't enjoy it, just tell them how much they can get by looting the place of a "reasonable" amount, and that anything more is "worthless" after you account for xyz whatever hidden costs and time consumption.

You can also make the time it takes cost them elsewhere. Let them know that they've got a limited time to get the Idol of Roap back to High Priestess Skaalhet at the Temple of Baalrum before it becomes worth far less, either in reward gp or because plot reasons mean it isn't useful anymore. So now they weigh the prize value lost to failure to get it back in time against the few coppers they could get for another many days of work.

And you can also just...let them do this. If they like stripping everything to the bone and selling it off, what's the problem? WHY is it a problem? Once you identify why it's a problem, you can examine if the problem needs solving, and how to solve THAT problem rather than trying to fight them on something they want to do. And if they don't enjoy it, then just don't make it rewarding, and they'll feel okay with stopping.


5: To give players a use for leftover meta currencies at the end of the adventure.That is, I have found, best done by letting them RP with them. If they have value that factors into this wealth value or whatever, then they must have value to someone. Use finding that someone as an adventure hook, or let them be creative in coming up with ways to cash them in for favors or what-have-you.


6: To add a little bit of uncertainty and narrative drama; allowing for an occasional great opportunity or story-line complication to pop up.I am not sure how this system accomplishes that in a way that a simple haggling roll with standard gp that the players are used to and like wouldn't. What do you foresee this system enabling that standard gp plus some haggling rolls would fail to?


Good memory! But its actually worse than that!

Not only did Bob give his character a minimum strength and then refer to grappling as "a cheat code for the GM" and refused to buy any armor or defensive magic items and got mad when enemies targeted him, but...

The Saga of Bob
Sessions 1: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 2: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 3: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 4: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 5: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 6: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 7: Bob misses a session. His character gets a share of the treasure. One of the other players asks if Bob will craft an item for them at no cost to himself, and I say sure.
Sessions 8: Bob finds out about what happened, and says that he is working towards a special project that he won't finish until well after the campaign, but would never take time away from it to craft for his allies. He says that he feels that his character has been literally robbed and enslaved, and demands I retcon it or he will murder the rest of the party IC and then never play with us again OOC. I am told on the forums that by not giving into him I am simultaneously a "nazi" and a "communist" so we retcon it.I mean, I think Bob could be more of a team player, but it's his character, so if he's not willing to make stuff for the party free of charge, that is his prerogative.

Sessions 9: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 10: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 11: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 12: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Session 13: Bob spends all of his gold buying a single offensive item that is priced and balanced around a character two full tiers of play higher than this campaign.This, however, is more within your control. This item does not have to be available to him at any price, and if Bob complains, you simply tell him, "This item is priced and balanced around a character two full tiers of play higher than this campaign, so I am not going to make it available as it will unbalance things." Ideally, you've told the players that only items balanced around the campaign's tier of play will be available, but from what you've said of Bob, that won't matter, because Bob will insist he didn't know that or that that shouldn't be the case, and pretend you won't let him spend gold on "anything" because he can't get the overpowered item(s) he wants.

It's worth noting, though, that WBL rules in D&D 3.5 (which I know isn't your system, but it's still a useful reference point) strongly suggest forbidding purchase of any singular item that is even worth more than half the recommended wealth at that level. This is precisely for the reason of restricting what's available to appropriate tiers of play.

Sessions 14: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 15: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 16: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 17: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 18: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 19: Bob refuses to spend any gold and complains that the GM is too stingy handing out treasure.
Sessions 20: Bob spends all of his money on high level potions, wands, and scrolls well beyond his intended power level. He enters the final encounter with a cartload of them and steamrolls the BBEG under the power of his wealth.
I would personally just not invite Bob to future games, given all the complaining. If he acts hurt, express surprise he'd want to be in them, given that he did not enjoy the previous one, and cite the complaints about the GM being too stingy handing out treasure as the reason. And any other complaints he leveled.

That said, again, you don't have to make the one shots available at any price, if they're out of line, power-wise, with what he should have. If he has fun by buying all that stuff and steamrolling the fight, is it really a problem? (The answer can be "yes," but then you need to analyze why. Did it diminish everyone else's fun? Again, don't permit the items, then.) The real problem to me is all the complaining before he uses saved wealth to "win." And that's why I wouldn't invite him to future games.

[Willie the Duck]

So, does anyone have any historical knowledge of how things actually worked when it came to stores and setting prices in pre-modern times? Or any ideas on how it ought to work in fantasy RPG setting?

Examples:
Some of the oldest bits of writing (not sure I can link, since real world stuff) are laws and codes. Many of them have fixed prices/costs not just for goods, services, and tolls, but also fines and penalties. Set prices written in stone (/clay).
The first vending machine was made to dispense holy water, exchanging a fixed value of coinage for a given product. This was BCE.
Ever so slightly before 1840, 'penny dreadfuls' and the like came into existence, with a fixed price of a penny (not the smallest denomination*, as the British of the time also used partial penny denominations) per episode or small book
*I think 'and everyone knows this item costs the least you can spend' probably predates other fixed prices, although I don't have information on hand to support this.

Overall, 1840s was when ubiquitous, declared, fixed prices for multiple dry goods sold in the same place became a norm (with the 'price tag' apparently being a 1861 invention), but it clearly wasn't the first instance. As others have said, a lot of this has to do with pre-made goods and general product resale stores being relatively uncommon throughout the world until recently. What that means for your campaign, I guess you decide.


Thank you for that, it was very enlightening, although I still am curious about how people established a baseline for where to start negotiations at.
Institutional knowledge. Everyone in town knows that baker John sells his bread for 3 loaves a pence (4 if he likes you). Alewyfe Jane will fill the barkeep's tun for four shillings, five for the good stuff. Last year your textiles-trade ship dropped off loads of un-cut linen for a farthing per manweight or somesuch, and you haven't heard any reason why it should be half- or twice- that. Although people in pre-industrial times did indeed travel and move about a lot more than the old 'never been more than five miles from home' thing we sometimes get in fantasy-medieval stories, they rarely went somewhere new that someone from home hadn't been. If you're taking the pilgrimage to Shrewsbury, hopefully you are going with someone who has already been. If not, hopefully you can ask someone. If not, yeah, you are rather ripe for being taken advantage of (one of the reasons people tried not to).



This just leans into the psychology of my players.
Basically, they min-max their characters so hey are ridiculously good at one or two things and really bad at everything else.
If their weaknesses ever come up, its a GM screwjob.
If the dice go in their favor, they roll with it. If the dice go against them, they try and argue about why the results are unrealistic or try and retroactively bypass the role by wanting to play the scene out.

Same ol' boilerplate 'we can't come up with enough rules to fix the gaming situation you keep bringing forward. If they don't want consequences for dumping stats, then they are voting for the entire challenge- and meaningful-decision- portion of the game to be illusory. It sounds like something that needs to be discussed in a session zero.' You know the drill.

[MoiMagnus]

This just leans into the psychology of my players.

Basically, they min-max their characters so hey are ridiculously good at one or two things and really bad at everything else.

If their weaknesses ever come up, its a GM screwjob.

If the dice go in their favor, they roll with it. If the dice go against them, they try and argue about why the results are unrealistic or try and retroactively bypass the role by wanting to play the scene out.

I think an important point to handle weird player psychology is to ensure that "bad decisions" get punished by "bad consequences" on the same time-scale. In other words:
(1) If you want to assign penalty to character builds, penalise them with predictable and constant effects. For example, give them a table of "Average Charisma => Base Reputation" and "Total Reputation => Default Prices - Y%" at character creation.
(2) Whenever you would have a scene that would significantly penalise some characters, make sure that the way to avoid it was earlier in the session (or the previous session), not 3 months ago when the character got created. The usual solution for minmaxed characters is to recruits some NPCs, so make sure to point it to them. Body-guards for physically weak characters, a ranger/druid as a guide if no one is able to organise and expedition, an accountant/merchant if no PC wants to handle selling and buying. Sure, it costs money, but at least they know how to solve their problem if they want to solve it. And it's much better to point to immediate solutions to their problems rather than saying "I hope the remaining of this campaign is miserable enough so that you don't minmax your next character".

Obviously, those are not perfect solutions. You'll still find players that are unable to accept any negative consequences to their actions. But it's easy for players to get stuck in an equilibrium where they're convinced there is no other way to play, so it's important that when they receive negative feedback about some actions, this negative feedback comes with a solution.

[tyckspoon]

And it's much better to point to immediate solutions to their problems rather than saying "I hope the remaining of this campaign is miserable enough so that you don't minmax your next character".


.. given the reported history of Talakeal's players, at least one of them would utterly over-correct in the other direction, build a character that is only any good at Business/Merchanting/whatever-the-acquiring-stuff-skill-is-called.. and then complain that the 'GM is specifically trying to get them' when their above-level gear isn't good enough to make up for not having any combat skills and they still get stabbed, caught while trying to sneak, get lost navigating uncharted lands, etc.

[Satinavian]

I looked it up, and afaict, in olden times goods were always haggled over. The idea of items having a fixed price was, according to Wikipedia, first used in New York in the 1840s, Paris in the 1850s, or Philedelphia in the 1860s, depending on which account you believe.
Fixed prices are indeed incredibly old. At the same time haggling was far more common "in the olden times".

How does this go together ? Simple :

Fixed prices only work for standardized stuff. And for many types of goods (but very far from all types of goods) such standardisation only really happened with industrialisation. If everything is unique, you can't really set fixed prices.

That said, even custom made stuff sometimes had a fixed price and even when it was not fixed, it generally did not fluctuate in the ballpark of orders of magnitute. Also all of this is obviously extremely dependend on location, time and type of goods, so generalisations are hard. And don't forget politics, law makers and trade associations having a say about what kind of prices are ok and which would get you thrown into prison/out of town if you are lucky.

[Talakeal]

Its funny, considering how much hate as acquisition rolls get both at my table on the forums, it is so weird how many modern RPGs use them in place of coin counting, and how little I hear people ranting about this trend online.

Also, let me offer a hypothetical:

The player characters save a town from rampaging orcs. In addition to their promised reward, one of the local shop-keepers gives the players a voucher for half off any item in his store. The players look through his stock, and though there are several very useful magic items, none of them are optimal for the player's builds and they decide to pass up on the offer.

Is this an example of decaying wealth? Is the merchant stealing from the players?



snip.

The issue is whether or not the players actually want to play this game or are doing it because its the most efficient tactic.

Like, I once had a D&D game where the players came up with the following idea; they all play elves, and they all spend the first 200 years of the game sitting in town crafting and then start adventuring with ~50,000 gold at first level.

Its not that anyone actually wanted to play a 300 year old elven craftsmen, its just that it gave such an overwhelming mechanical advantage that they would be foolish not to do it.

And, of course, the logical next step is then donating all of that money to a party fund, suiciding said 300 year old elven craftsmen, and then bringing in the characters they actually want to play. Or repeating the process several times over.

This is what MMO designers call a "toxic gameplay element", something that isn't really fun or engaging on a fictional level, but players feel compelled to do anyway because the mechanical incentives are too rewarding to ignore.


I think an important point to handle weird player psychology is to ensure that "bad decisions" get punished by "bad consequences" on the same time-scale. In other words:
(1) If you want to assign penalty to character builds, penalise them with predictable and constant effects. For example, give them a table of "Average Charisma => Base Reputation" and "Total Reputation => Default Prices - Y%" at character creation.
(2) Whenever you would have a scene that would significantly penalise some characters, make sure that the way to avoid it was earlier in the session (or the previous session), not 3 months ago when the character got created. The usual solution for minmaxed characters is to recruits some NPCs, so make sure to point it to them. Body-guards for physically weak characters, a ranger/druid as a guide if no one is able to organise and expedition, an accountant/merchant if no PC wants to handle selling and buying. Sure, it costs money, but at least they know how to solve their problem if they want to solve it. And it's much better to point to immediate solutions to their problems rather than saying "I hope the remaining of this campaign is miserable enough so that you don't minmax your next character".

Obviously, those are not perfect solutions. You'll still find players that are unable to accept any negative consequences to their actions. But it's easy for players to get stuck in an equilibrium where they're convinced there is no other way to play, so it's important that when they receive negative feedback about some actions, this negative feedback comes with a solution.

This is kind of the opposite of the problem.

The idea is absolutely not to "punish" the players.

There are no punishments here, just natural consequences. A character that is devotes resources into being good at one thing will have an easier time when it is relevant; a character who gives their character a weakness will struggle when it is relevant. This is totally a player choice.

The problem is that, rather than realizing its just their own choices playing out, they view it as a punishment.

To refer back to the example above, the problem was not that Bob took the minimum strength score, but that he then proceeded to call grappling cheating.
It wasn't that he refused to buy armor, its that he then thought that he was being picked on anytime an intelligent foe chose to attack the softest target.

In the current group, the problem isn't really the min-maxxing per se, its the lack of synergy. For some reason, everyone wanted to hyper focus on their will save and dump charisma. And again, that's only a problem when the players refuse to accept that they will struggle in charisma based situations and instead complain that the rules themselves are unrealistic.


Truly fixed universal prices aren't even an anachronism, they're just a useful simplification from the sort of price variation and haggling that you see all the time in the modern day. A very useful simplification, but people have gone over all that, along with the fact that a lot of shops in the old days didn't even have inventories.

However, I find your player's feelings pretty reasonable, even if they're expressing them in a super annoying way. They could just be terrible and feel anything that isn't actively biased in their favor is rigged. But here I think most people would probably not like this mechanic.

As a general rule, if a player is required to take a chance that can leave them in a worse position than they started, it's going to feel like a hostile action on the part of the world when it goes badly (i.e. roll to wrestle the rabid bear). That doesn't gel well with shop-keeps, who are expected to be, if not friendly, at least interested in having a positive, profitable interaction with customers, and that you generally need to interact with if you want to get things. An opposed roll with a shop-keep that leaves you paying more than the listed price is going to feel like fighting the shopkeep over coin, not having a mundane interaction with another person. And not buying things isn't much of an option unless you give alternative, convenient means to acquire them.

Even if negotiating was purely a choice, a person's obviously going to feel disincentivized to make that choice if the chance/impact of things getting worse dwarfs the chance/impact of things getting better. They'll try to avoid it and attempt alternatives. Your players seem to like wheedling when they don't want to do something, but here them not wanting to do it seems fair.

I agree with the solution of just having the worst possible price be the listed one, if you're still interested in having haggling/situational pricing. For reasonably available items, there should be a price that no one would refuse if they interested in selling something, and you should use that as the base (and thus, if the players just want to pay that price, you can just let them have it). Price increases should be for special circumstances, like buying food during a famine and buying the clothes off a man's back. Maybe have a "push your luck" roll as an option if you want to try to get a better price than what you got from the first roll at the risk of pissing off the shopkeep, but any rolls you have to make shouldn't be able to make things worse when you're dealing with mundane acts and not threats. People usually don't want to experience "fumbled a mundane social interaction and actively suffered for it" in a game, even if it's something that happens IRL.

It's still not a foolproof solution, since your players have direct experience with the old pricing and are liable to notice that the change doesn't actually change the math much from the previous "unfair"-feeling version.

So, right now, a success on the business roll is effectively purchasing the item "at cost"; you are paying only for the raw materials and neither the crafter or the reseller are making any profit on the transaction.

The more you fail by, the more of a markup you are getting. The game is designed around the assumption that an average person with an average business score with average rolls finding average treasure will get "Best in slot" gear after twenty sessions. In practice, it is almost always faster than this, even in a party like ours that doesn't have a dedicated money guy / face man and dumps charisma. If there was a "market price" this is where it would be, what an average person would pay on an average roll.

One of the players is complaining about the process of needing to haggle, even though it is purely beneficial, I assume because loss aversion means the fear of paying more for the rare bombed roll outweighs the equally likely incentive of getting a great deal.

I could put a "market value" into the book and the option to refrain from haggling, but doing so would be a "sucker's bet", the equivalent of standing on a 16 when the dealer has a king showing because you are afraid of going bust.

That still seems a bit weird to me from a verisimilitude perspective, especially at high levels where you are bartering for one of kind legendary items, and seems a bit clunky from a game design perspective, but its easily doable.


This whole thing actually started a few years ago when the entire party took a flaw that made him actively bad at haggling in exchange for extra character points, and then got mad that the system still required them to roll haggling rather than just buying everything off the rack and ignoring the flaw, and that issue would still exist.


As a player, I just really don't care to roleplay purchasing things. I'm used to 3.5 but this will work for most editions of D&D. Lets say I am playing a wizard. I'm looking for scrolls of ten different spells so that I can learn them. Are we really going to go through the process of me going to shop, making a bunch of rolls to figure out which of the scrolls I'm looking for they actually have, and then doing an IC haggling process with a roll for every scroll to see if I get ripped off(because for some reason, there's never a surplus of anything, only ever a shortage)? Or hell, I'm not a wizard but I want to kit up for an expedition, and I want to buy a cart, a mule, a month worth of rations, twenty hours of lamp oil, an oil lamp, 200ft of rope, a bedroll, a waterskin, a grappling hook, a tent, a woodcutting axe, a longsword, a set of leather armor, a bow with 30 arrows, a blah blah blah.

Frankly, taking the time to sort all of this out in character just isn't engaging or interesting. Just give people some arbitrary restriction on what's available for purchase in a town, make them spend a day of downtime looking for whatever they need, and deduct the cost of the items from their inventory, so players can get back to the good parts of RPGs. When DMs insist that shopping is done in session we often waste entire sessions just sorting out what people are going to buy and I sit there playing mount and blade or whatever.

You may not realize it, but I wholly agree with you.

The purpose of this system is to minimize time spent shopping and book keeping. Mundane gear is totally ignored under this system.

Spells were the worst. We used to call it "spell-whoring" when the Wizard players would check at every merchant for every scroll in the game every time while the rest of the party's eyes glazed over and their will to live flew out the window.

Out of curiosity, what system are you playing where you can haggle but only get ripped off? That seems weird from both a mechanical and narrative perspective.

In my system shopping is handled by one or two quick rolls at the beginning or the end of the session, shouldn't take more than a couple minutes max.


Which is not to say we don't have similar situations though; last session we spent three bloody hours sitting in town because we were going into a lightless dungeon and nobody was willing to carry a lantern and we couldn't agree on how to split the cost of hiring a torch-bearer. Three. Goshdarned. Hours.


Most gear players use day-to-day should be things they can buy without effort, or things they got randomly as treasure. Having a specific magical sword because you happened to find that magical sword on a specific adventure is good, because it connects your character to the campaign. Having a specific magical sword because you went down your list of most favorite magical swords and happened to make a successful "buying stuff" roll on the third one is lame.

I think there is room for detailed economic simulation, but it should largely be for stuff that players don't need to care about. You can do all the trade and arbitrage stuff that is interesting about the economy with spices or flour or whatever other stuff the PCs are not normally buying, and doing it that way makes things massively easier for people who just want to buy the gear they want. And remember that a little goes a long way. Having a three-level "X is scarce/X is normal/X is abundant" gives plenty of room for trade routes to emerge naturally from low-level mechanics, and is very simple to track.

There's a general principle here, which is that while having an involved process for doing something tangential to your actual goals once can be fun, that process is almost never going to be fun the tenth time you do it. This applies to going into detail when people purchase gear, but also to things like "what if non-combat magic involved big rituals with rare components" and "what if we make the party play out long trips from city to city".

Again, I wholeheartedly agree. My system is designed to minimize all that sort of thing, not encourage it.


I think this is still working around the problem, which is that the Haggle skill is too high stakes and swingy and scales really weirdly.

Because items scale in value exponentially with quality the consequences of failure decrease exponentially but the consequences of a fumble increase exponentially. But the chances of a failure or fumble stay roughly linear unless you invest quite a lot into Business, at which point you can reduce them by one exponent.

Because the break point for an average uninvested person is success on a 15 that also means that the average person in your setting will fumble one in twenty five nontrivial purchases (If they roll a 1 they need a 15 or better to cancel the fumble). If you had a one in twenty five chance to lose all your money every time you bought anything other than food and gas you'd never buy anything! (Adventurous PCs should be making a lot more interesting purchases than the average person).

The combination of these is that Business is really uncomfortable to use at low levels without at least tagging it primary at average charisma, which means it's a bad experience for players buying the sort of interesting things PCs should be buying, and the consequences of a fumble scale much much harder than the ability to protect yourself from it, all the way up to "kill everyone in town and take everything of value and you probably don't recover half of the loss". (roughly one thousand times harder due to exponential values)

Are we talking about narrative or mechanics?

Because if its narrative, I agree, a d20 is far too swingy to properly simulate a functioning fictional world. It should only be used for exciting moments in the lives of adventurers who lead interesting lives.

From a mechanical perspective, its really a non issue. Fumbles are extremely rare in actual play and can be recovered from in a single session (although again, players are irrational and any loss no matter how small is perceived as the end of the world as well as a personal slight).

The cost of failure is linear, as is the penalty for a fumble. It only looks like it scales weirdly when you are measuring it as a percentage of the specific item being haggled for rather than the total cost of gearing up your character. The only exception I can think of is a guy who uses a 2 handed weapon will suffer slightly less than someone who dual wields or uses a sword and shield, but that is so small its basically a rounding error.

And again, the average guy who is perfectly average and always performs averagely and has no business skill or other skills who help him make money or craft gear will still be advancing at the same rate as someone paying a hypothetical market value.

Now, I do see how being forced to interact with a system that your character has no interest in can feel discouraging, but I don't see any reason why haggling is unique in that regard; is it any different than having traps in a party without a rogue, or injuries in a party without a healer, or wilderness travel in a party without a survivalist, or random encounters in a party without a warrior, or hidden enemies / treasure in a party without a lookout, etc.?


In one of OP's examples a PC makes a check, does not fail, but makes, a check to purchase a +1 sword. Instead of acquiring it, he finds that a farmer is willing to trade it for information on a local criminal element, or he can attempt to steal it as it's poorly secured. So instead of just buying a +1 sword, which is a very basic and frankly rather boring item, you're now taking probably > an hour so that one party member can go on a miniature quest where he either spies on a crime guild or attempts a heist on a farmer. Or he pulls the rest of the party into his mini-adventure to get the +1 sword. It's a sword that adds +1 to hit. Just let him buy it and move on, because the other three players are going to be needing similarly basic items as well and before you know it you've spent the entire session on the adventures to get people +1 swords, when they just got done going on adventures to get gold to buy +1 swords. If you want to have a mini-adventure to get a holy avenger, that's fine. I don't want to do it for a +1 sword and +1 armor and +1 ring of protection and a +1 cloak of resistance.

Several things here:

First, its funny how upthread people were saying that players liked having hooks and interesting business opportunities and now its being used as an example of a negative experience. Different strokes I suppose.

Second, that's not a standard success, that is a rare partial success, and it isn't meant to be an hour long mini adventure, but rather something resolved with a couple of skill checks and narrative consequences.

Third, if it is going to be a mini adventure, any even halfway decent GM is going to make it fun and or rewarding for the whole group and weave it into the larger narrative. If you really consider stuff like this to be boring, I kind of wonder why you are even playing RPGs in the first place or, if your interests are so narrow and self centered, why the rest of the group would put up with you.

Fourth, even if it was an hour long mini adventure, that is way more lucrative than just killing monsters and exploring dungeons for treasure and using it to buy swords.


You could achieve this same goal with "fixed prices" by simply having a "haggling" or similar check that, with a high degree of success, can lower the price. 5e's XGE has downtime rules for hunting down items that use Charisma fairly extensively; you may want to take a look at it at least to see how one game system does it. It may not be what you want, but it may also play closer to what your players are looking for, given what you've said about their attitude towards things. They seem to really like having tangible amounts of gp.

Again, this is more or less exactly how it works currently, just phrased differently.

Honestly, the only real difference would be taking away the player's ability to throw money at the situation if they really must have a rare item that simply isn't available for sale in the area.


It doesn't sound like this is accomplishing that. I may be mistaken, but if you have a "wealth rating," the bookkeeping is still the same, because they still have to track their wealth rating.

Its a single small whole number. No fractions, no change, etc.

But the big advantage is being able avoid small amounts of money both positive and negative. Players don't have to say "Ok, we loot the orcs and find 5 shirts of chainmail, 7 short swords, 12 daggers, 4 spears, 8 suits of leather armor, 27 boots, 8 helmets, seven javelins, and twelve hand axes. How much can we get from the merchant if we also want to buy seventy feet of rope, a cart, 2 mules, eight weeks of iron rations, fourteen torches, a gallon of lamp oil, 4 oilskins, and a long-sword +1."

It also saves the players hoarding all sorts of random crap hoping to sell it for a quick buck at some point down the road.

It would serve even better in this regard if I went the route of most modern systems and simply didn't allow characters to bank their resources from one adventure to the next, but that is apparently an unforgivable sin in the communities I am a part of.


The easiest way to do this is to not make lifestyle cost money in game terms. Or, alternatively, to simply treat existing gp the same way you plan to treat "wealth level." That is, if they have a big pile of gp, let them live a high lifestyle if they choose as long as they still have that pile of gp, and not worry about the expenditures.

The way to let lifestyle be just fluff is to let it be just fluff. If you don't want to tie it to in game gp piles, then if they want to claim they live the high life, let them. If they want to claim they're too broke to afford an inn, let them. Let them explain where the wealth they live on comes from, or why their big pile of loot doesn't buy them a nice room at the inn. If you do want to tie it to gp piles but don't want to track it, then again, just use gp thresholds the same way you would use "wealth rating."

But the easiest one is just to let it be fluff if lifestyle doesn't have any mechanical impact and you don't use it to drive stories. If you do use it to drive stories, just make sure that any lifestyle can get you spotlight, and let what kind of story it drives be the incentive to pick one or another depending on the stories the player wants for his PC.

This is more or less how I do it.

The problem is that pesky loss aversion once again.

Players can accept that they can pay living expenses for a year and have it be abstracted away. What they can't accept is that their downtime earnings might also be abstracted away.

This literally happened in my last game; Bob was playing a pickpocket and demanded I periodically increase his wealth rating because the money he steals doesn't "just vanish".

Likewise, they can't accept is that a failed business venture, like say spending a year searching every market on the continent for a specific magic item or repeatedly making expeditions into the wilderness to extract out every last bit of copper from a dungeon, might actually cost them unless the "merchants are actively stealing from them".



Why? Serious question, not rhetorical. Why is this actually a problem? Do the players not enjoy doing this? Do you find it annoying to have to calculate the price of every fixture? Is it interfering with them getting on with the plot?

You can combat some of this in-game by creating time pressure. Make it take a long time in-game to truly strip every last bit of metal from a dungeon, and track rations and what is going on elsewhere while they do it. Make them explain how they cart it all back, and remember that hirelings and pack animals need pay and food and such. Make the "last coppers" worth of stuff not sell well for the amount of effort they have to put in.

You can combat other parts of it by simply telling the players that you don't enjoy it. Or, if they don't enjoy it, just tell them how much they can get by looting the place of a "reasonable" amount, and that anything more is "worthless" after you account for xyz whatever hidden costs and time consumption.

You can also make the time it takes cost them elsewhere. Let them know that they've got a limited time to get the Idol of Roap back to High Priestess Skaalhet at the Temple of Baalrum before it becomes worth far less, either in reward gp or because plot reasons mean it isn't useful anymore. So now they weigh the prize value lost to failure to get it back in time against the few coppers they could get for another many days of work.

And you can also just...let them do this. If they like stripping everything to the bone and selling it off, what's the problem? WHY is it a problem? Once you identify why it's a problem, you can examine if the problem needs solving, and how to solve THAT problem rather than trying to fight them on something they want to do. And if they don't enjoy it, then just don't make it rewarding, and they'll feel okay with stopping.

Normally one or two players are profit driven enough to do it, and the rest of the party and the GM just kind of go along bored with it because it is mechanically optimal.

Yes, it bores everyone and stalls the plot. Especially if the players then get really pushy for not getting top dollar for all of their useless crap.

It also forms a sort of "gotcha PCing" where the DM has to think very very carefully about every little thing lest they wreck the game's economy. I remember one time when the GM had a hallway in a kobold lair that had chains stretching across it at all angles every foot or so, making it so the kobolds could move freely but we were having to climb through an obstacle course. After the kobolds eventually died, we went back and ran the math, and realized that the amount of chains in that hallway was mind-boggling, and looked up the price of chain in the PHB, and realized this chain was worth more than all the treasure we would find in our entire 1-20 adventuring career. At this point we are no longer adventurers, we are chain merchants, and that is the whole campaign. Its the optimal course of action, but not the game anyone signed on for.


That is, I have found, best done by letting them RP with them. If they have value that factors into this wealth value or whatever, then they must have value to someone. Use finding that someone as an adventure hook, or let them be creative in coming up with ways to cash them in for favors or what-have-you.

I think we have a different definition of meta currency, or I just don't follow.

What I am talking about is things like rerolls and other things that can influence a dice roll; its nice to have things during downtime that players can use these unspent resources on.


I am not sure how this system accomplishes that in a way that a simple haggling roll with standard gp that the players are used to and like wouldn't. What do you foresee this system enabling that standard gp plus some haggling rolls would fail to?

That's more or less the system I am using; I just round individual coins off to "treasure parcels*" to make the math easier and hand-waive away small amounts of treasure that waste everyone's time and energy.

I would like to switch to full acquisition rolls, but I am apparently the only one and don't want to risk the torch-wielding mobs.


*The actual terms are objectives, which are positive; debts, which are negative; and wealth rating, which is the sum of the two.


I mean, I think Bob could be more of a team player, but it's his character, so if he's not willing to make stuff for the party free of charge, that is his prerogative.

Yeah, its more about throwing a temper tantrum, calling the rest of the party names, and threatening to ruin the game over something which was utterly trivial and cost him nothing in or out of character.

And then me getting called simultaneously a communist and a nazi for daring to balance the game around the assumption that if players invest in a skill they will be willing to use it for the good of their party rather than making gifts for your NPC waifu that won't even be completed before the end of the campaign.


This, however, is more within your control. This item does not have to be available to him at any price, and if Bob complains, you simply tell him, "This item is priced and balanced around a character two full tiers of play higher than this campaign, so I am not going to make it available as it will unbalance things." Ideally, you've told the players that only items balanced around the campaign's tier of play will be available, but from what you've said of Bob, that won't matter, because Bob will insist he didn't know that or that that shouldn't be the case, and pretend you won't let him spend gold on "anything" because he can't get the overpowered item(s) he wants.

As I said above, the system does let players throw ludicrous amounts of money at items that would ordinarily be unavailable to them.

Honestly, that may be the major disconnect between my system and my players. My game doesn't do a lot to hold your hand, and lets you do whatever you want if you are willing to accept the natural consequences of it. My players, on the other hand, don't like to take responsibility for anything, and are always looking for someone, be it the GM, their fellow players, or the rules, for anything that doesn't go their way.


That said, again, you don't have to make the one shots available at any price, if they're out of line, power-wise, with what he should have. If he has fun by buying all that stuff and steamrolling the fight, is it really a problem? (The answer can be "yes," but then you need to analyze why. Did it diminish everyone else's fun? Again, don't permit the items, then.) The real problem to me is all the complaining before he uses saved wealth to "win." And that's why I wouldn't invite him to future games.

Its not that they were OP in a vacuum, its that he decided to use half a campaigns worth of consumables in a single encounter.

Which is, not ideal, there is something narratively lacking about the big climactic fight that the whole campaign has been leading up to being amongst the easiest fights of the game, but it isn't really a bad thing.

The bad thing was the price everyone had to pay getting there, where Bob is struggling in every previous fight for lack of resources and then complaining about how the fights are over tuned and I am too stingy with treasure.

[Slipjig]

I think your terminology might be part of the issue. You use the phrase "Haggle", but in haggling, the worst thing that can happen is you end up paying the initial offer.

That's correct, but in a culture where haggling is expected, the "initial offer" from the merchant is going to be inflated. And im a situation like that, a bad haggle role probably DOES represent the players not managing to bring the offer down at all.

One alternative to the merchants raising their prices for ugly players is that everybody having dumped Business might mean that they don't know the places where good deals are available (or who would buy a given magic item). Greg the Vegetable Merchant doesn't really have any use for a magic sword, but if the players try to use him as an all-purpose vendor he might lowball the characters on an offer with the intent of immediately turning around and selling it to somebody who outfits adventurers.

Also, your players are really weird. "I spend 200 years crafting?" And they expect the world to just sit there, stable around them?

[Batcathat]

Yeah, its more about throwing a temper tantrum, calling the rest of the party names, and threatening to ruin the game over something which was utterly trivial and cost him nothing in or out of character.

And then me getting called simultaneously a communist and a nazi for daring to balance the game around the assumption that if players invest in a skill they will be willing to use it for the good of their party rather than making gifts for your NPC waifu that won't even be completed before the end of the campaign.

Is it just me or is trying to create a system that works with this sort of player quite similar to pimping your car so that it's up to the specifications of the person who's gonna beat you up and steal it?


Honestly, that may be the major disconnect between my system and my players. My game doesn't do a lot to hold your hand, and lets you do whatever you want if you are willing to accept the natural consequences of it. My players, on the other hand, don't like to take responsibility for anything, and are always looking for someone, be it the GM, their fellow players, or the rules, for anything that doesn't go their way.

I think the only way you're going to have a system that has a chance of being accepted by your players (which I don't see why you would want, but you've been told that a billion times already) is to start at the other end. Figure out what sort of barter system would be acceptable to your players and work backwards from there, instead of starting with what makes sense or what you would prefer and trying to adapt it for your players.

[LibraryOgre]

TLDR: Is it historically accurate for items in a shop located in a pseudo-medieval setting to have fixed price-tags the same way that they would in a modern store?

It is not an anachronism because this is not actually the Earth medieval era.

I've said it before, most standard D&D worlds have a lot more in common with movie Westerns than they do with historical Europe.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It is not an anachronism because this is not actually the Earth medieval era.

I've said it before, most standard D&D worlds have a lot more in common with movie Westerns than they do with historical Europe.

This (true) principle covers a lot more than this as well. The idea that <fictional world>'s history and culture would follow the same progression[1] as any real-world culture or history is just wrong--history and culture are contingent and fact specific. Heck, even something as "small" as just having different distributions of resources will change things in large ways. And having different resources (including, you know, magic) is going to make substantial differences in technological, historical, cultural, and other such patterns.

[1] the idea that there is a singular pattern or an "arc of history" is a-historical for our own world. It's way more messy than that. This is not Civilization with fixed tech trees.

[Batcathat]

This (true) principle covers a lot more than this as well. The idea that <fictional world>'s history and culture would follow the same progression[1] as any real-world culture or history is just wrong--history and culture are contingent and fact specific. Heck, even something as "small" as just having different distributions of resources will change things in large ways. And having different resources (including, you know, magic) is going to make substantial differences in technological, historical, cultural, and other such patterns.

I wish more authors/designers/etc. kept that in mind, so we'd get less fantasy settings that are basically some part of real world history (or a halfway accurate version there of, at least) with magic or other supernatural elements glued onto it, changing very little about it.

Have I complained about it already in this thread? I probably rant about it too often, but it's a pet peeve.

[NichG]

Its funny, considering how much hate as acquisition rolls get both at my table on the forums, it is so weird how many modern RPGs use them in place of coin counting, and how little I hear people ranting about this trend online.

Also, let me offer a hypothetical:

The player characters save a town from rampaging orcs. In addition to their promised reward, one of the local shop-keepers gives the players a voucher for half off any item in his store. The players look through his stock, and though there are several very useful magic items, none of them are optimal for the player's builds and they decide to pass up on the offer.

Is this an example of decaying wealth? Is the merchant stealing from the players?


It's definitely a 'feel-bad' moment, because it takes something that looked like a nice gesture and then reveals it to be worthless. And it is similar to several real-world scammy mercantile behaviors where someone offers a discount on something you don't actually want (or more frequently, more of something than you need) to create a pressure to buy it - 15% off of milk but only in a size 50% larger than what you're going to use before it goes bad, 20% off of the wine that's 40% more expensive than what you normally buy, etc. You could definitely read this situation as 'as a reward, you can give me more money than you were going to have done, for something that isn't what you actually need!'. That's as a one-off event.

Now if all rewards are basically built around these kinds of things, that really is scammy. Like an amusement park where you have to convert real money into 'park money' to use the facilities inside before you know what they cost or what you're going to do, and of course you can't convert park money back to real money if you don't spend it. It's like a company paying its employees with credits to the company store rather than actually giving them a wage they could spend elsewhere. Or getting offered stock options instead of a salary at a startup.

I think it would be expected for people to walk away from that kind of thing feeling exploited rather than feeling rewarded.



The issue is whether or not the players actually want to play this game or are doing it because its the most efficient tactic.

Like, I once had a D&D game where the players came up with the following idea; they all play elves, and they all spend the first 200 years of the game sitting in town crafting and then start adventuring with ~50,000 gold at first level.

Its not that anyone actually wanted to play a 300 year old elven craftsmen, its just that it gave such an overwhelming mechanical advantage that they would be foolish not to do it.

And, of course, the logical next step is then donating all of that money to a party fund, suiciding said 300 year old elven craftsmen, and then bringing in the characters they actually want to play. Or repeating the process several times over.


At least up to the character suiciding bit I'd love to have players do that, it'd be awesome. We'd do it once, and people would determine whether they liked it or not. Rather than being afraid of these things, I find its much better to just do them and let players get bored of them (or discover they actually like these things). I've run games where you could get infinite wealth at low level, or where players could get damage outputs in the millions through ridiculous cheese that probably shouldn't be allowed. In the end, the player who was just looking for the most potent mechanical thing became a lot more sophisticated in what they went for in subsequent campaigns.

And anyhow, this again is not a problem with the system I presented to you. In that system, you could have a billion year old immortal crafting hermit or dynasty of identical Bobs who kill themselves and leave money to their kids, and that wouldn't get you more than at most 1 level of Wealth higher. Someone who spends as much time as possible looking for the best deals, taking 20 to find the best possible procurement pathway they can - that benefit caps out at +2 Wealth, and probably only caps out at a few months spent on it rather than hundreds of years unless you make the reroll interval years rather than weeks.

[BRC]

Its funny, considering how much hate as acquisition rolls get both at my table on the forums, it is so weird how many modern RPGs use them in place of coin counting, and how little I hear people ranting about this trend online.

I think the issue is that acquisition rolls serve a different role than countable treasure.


Acquisition Rolls/Wealth scores are great for systems where you're playing functional members of a society, "Being Rich" is part of your character's skillset, and progression/advancement isn't really supposed to be tied to the acquisition of expensive pieces of equipment, at least not ones that can be purchased with currency. Buying stuff is supposed to be a way you solve problems, rather than a way you make your character more powerful.


Tangible Treasure on the other hand, especially in the context of D&Desque games, is part of a loot/reward structure. The basic paradigm is that treasure is part of your reward for adventuring, just like XP is (In fact, in the earliest editions, treasure WAS XP). You get gold so you can buy stuff to make your character more powerful. Tracking coins is a nice measurable way for players to feel rewarded for their efforts, turning those coins into magic items and the like is a method of progression parallel to leveling up.

Of course, the issue with the Tangible Treasure model is that 1) it requires you to actually try to build something resembling actual economics in your game system (How much should a Sword cost compared to a donkey?) and 2) If Wealth-by-level and equivalents are assumed to be part of calculating a character's power, it tends to limit the sorts of stories you can tell to Mercenary Murderhobos Pursuing Things That Can Get Them Rich.

If WBL is a relevant part of character power, then "Son of a Trade Prince adventuring to seek new opportunities for his family's business" and "Army deserter" need to somehow end up with similar amounts of wealth available, and adventures need to involve acquiring wealth or magic items somehow. The quest to Kill The Great Beast only works if it's either sitting on a pile of gold or if somebody is offering a reward for it's head.


Acquisition rolls and wealth ratings and the like are great because they move away from that paradigm, but they're also doing something completely different than treasure as reward.


It's also why your system might be getting some hate from your players. If your players are emotionally invested in the character-progression treadmill, messing with their ability to acquire new gear can anger them.


Edit: Addmittedly, it seems like your approach solves the "How many swords per donkey" issue decently well.

[2BobHeroes]

You joke, but if there's a market inefficiency, it would make sense for there to be people who would be willing to take advantage of that to capture some of that value.

Zanos hit the nail on the head. Rather than banging the mechanics with a hammer, let the players hire Bob the Pander, or save Lord Frufflepants, who will let the players give purchase requests to his steward as a return favor.

In either case, the players get some NPC who is actually competent at purchasing.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I wish more authors/designers/etc. kept that in mind, so we'd get less fantasy settings that are basically some part of real world history (or a halfway accurate version there of, at least) with magic or other supernatural elements glued onto it, changing very little about it.

Have I complained about it already in this thread? I probably rant about it too often, but it's a pet peeve.

You're not the only one for whom it's a peeve. It makes me roll my eyes every time I see complaints about "realism" for technological, cultural, historically contingent etc. things. Or complaints about anachronisms or "that's not medieval!!1!".

[GloatingSwine]

Are we talking about narrative or mechanics

Because if its narrative, I agree, a d20 is far too swingy to properly simulate a functioning fictional world. It should only be used for exciting moments in the lives of adventurers who lead interesting lives.

From a mechanical perspective, its really a non issue. Fumbles are extremely rare in actual play and can be recovered from in a single session (although again, players are irrational and any loss no matter how small is perceived as the end of the world as well as a personal slight).


Mechanics create narrative. If the mechanics posit a 4% chance of robbery on any purchase for the average person, they create a world which must be responded to in those terms. Where paranoia about the intentions of any transactor is only rational and sensible.


The cost of failure is linear, as is the penalty for a fumble. It only looks like it scales weirdly when you are measuring it as a percentage of the specific item being haggled for rather than the total cost of gearing up your character. The only exception I can think of is a guy who uses a 2 handed weapon will suffer slightly less than someone who dual wields or uses a sword and shield, but that is so small its basically a rounding error.

Even if the costs are linear over time, players are not spreadsheets running an average of all their transactions, they are focused on this transaction now. And now the consequence of failure is proportional to the known value of the item.


And again, the average guy who is perfectly average and always performs averagely and has no business skill or other skills who help him make money or craft gear will still be advancing at the same rate as someone paying a hypothetical market value.

But he doesn't feel that way if you are telling him he fails 75% of the time. He feels like he's getting crapped on every time he goes to market with an additional spice of sometimes getting robbed. Why would he engage with this rigged system? Mechanics create narrative.


Now, I do see how being forced to interact with a system that your character has no interest in can feel discouraging, but I don't see any reason why haggling is unique in that regard; is it any different than having traps in a party without a rogue, or injuries in a party without a healer, or wilderness travel in a party without a survivalist, or random encounters in a party without a warrior, or hidden enemies / treasure in a party without a lookout, etc.?


Because buying stuff is a mundane task from real life and success or failure on the Haggle skill doesn't proceed into novel decisions like "how are we going to get around these traps using the abilities we do have?". The only decision is "how much **** do I feel like eating to get this item?" and sometimes you don't even get that, you just have to eat all of it.

(Actually extending that to the Haggle skill would lead a party where nobody has invested in Business to the inevitable conclusion that they should not attempt to buy anything, their exclusive form of equipment procurement should now be robbery either by force or guile because that's likely the skillset they do have).

[Talakeal]

It's definitely a 'feel-bad' moment, because it takes something that looked like a nice gesture and then reveals it to be worthless. And it is similar to several real-world scammy mercantile behaviors where someone offers a discount on something you don't actually want (or more frequently, more of something than you need) to create a pressure to buy it - 15% off of milk but only in a size 50% larger than what you're going to use before it goes bad, 20% off of the wine that's 40% more expensive than what you normally buy, etc. You could definitely read this situation as 'as a reward, you can give me more money than you were going to have done, for something that isn't what you actually need!'. That's as a one-off event.

Now if all rewards are basically built around these kinds of things, that really is scammy. Like an amusement park where you have to convert real money into 'park money' to use the facilities inside before you know what they cost or what you're going to do, and of course you can't convert park money back to real money if you don't spend it. It's like a company paying its employees with credits to the company store rather than actually giving them a wage they could spend elsewhere. Or getting offered stock options instead of a salary at a startup.

I think it would be expected for people to walk away from that kind of thing feeling exploited rather than feeling rewarded.


Its not meant to be a scam or screw job in or out of character, it is a well meaning show of gratitude, the sort you see all the time in fiction or video games, that just doesn't ultimately amount to much. Although the players probably wouldn't actually walk away empty handed, they would either cash in their voucher for a keg of his best alcohol or a raincheck for a later day or a dress for their sweetheart; in any case it doesn't translate into character power, and thus I feel like my players would read the situation as the shopkeeper literally stealing money from their pockets.


At least up to the character suiciding bit I'd love to have players do that, it'd be awesome. We'd do it once, and people would determine whether they liked it or not. Rather than being afraid of these things, I find its much better to just do them and let players get bored of them (or discover they actually like these things). I've run games where you could get infinite wealth at low level, or where players could get damage outputs in the millions through ridiculous cheese that probably shouldn't be allowed. In the end, the player who was just looking for the most potent mechanical thing became a lot more sophisticated in what they went for in subsequent campaigns.

And here is where, I think, cognitive dissonance kicks in.

We play games to win, and we want to do well. But there comes a point when games get less fun because they are too easy.

For example, in a video game I will optimize the heck out of my character and try and squeeze every last bit out of my build and scour dungeons for every last bit of treasure. But at the same time, I could just type in a cheat code or utilize an infinite damage / wealth / character point exploit. And then the game becomes a lot less fun.

There is a line between optimal play within the system and ignoring the system entirely, and I feel like a lot of systems which allow you to endlessly convert a meaningless resource like IC time into a concrete resource like gold and magic items or XP cross that line.



And anyhow, this again is not a problem with the system I presented to you. In that system, you could have a billion year old immortal crafting hermit or dynasty of identical Bobs who kill themselves and leave money to their kids, and that wouldn't get you more than at most 1 level of Wealth higher. Someone who spends as much time as possible looking for the best deals, taking 20 to find the best possible procurement pathway they can - that benefit caps out at +2 Wealth, and probably only caps out at a few months spent on it rather than hundreds of years unless you make the reroll interval years rather than weeks.

I haven't thoroughly checked out your proposed system yet, apologies, but I can tell you right now that if my players found themselves in that situation, they would be asking why it only amounts to +1 wealth level and then wonder who is "stealing" all their money when by all rights they should be amongst the richest people in the world.

I had a similar problem in Exalted. In short, in Exalted you have a resource score from 1-5 and items have rating from 1-5. You can trivially buy things with a lower value, but you are limited to buying one item per adventure with an equal rating. So, the PCs have a rating of four, and that means once a month they can buy a ship or an equivalently valuable item. My players immediately wanted to "save up" the wealth every month they didn't buy a boat, and also wanted a bonus to their resources for selling boats they bought in the previous month, and always asked why they never went up to resources five despite having the all of that leftover boat money. When I explained the system didn't work that way, they defaulted to assuming someone, likely that damn boat merchant, was robbing them blind over and over again and wanted to know who they had to kill to reclaim all that was stolen from them.

I can't see your system not having a similar problem. But again, maybe I am missing something.

[BRC]

Because buying stuff is a mundane task from real life and success or failure on the Haggle skill doesn't proceed into novel decisions like "how are we going to get around these traps using the abilities we do have?". The only decision is "how much **** do I feel like eating to get this item?" and sometimes you don't even get that, you just have to eat all of it.

(Actually extending that to the Haggle skill would lead a party where nobody has invested in Business to the inevitable conclusion that they should not attempt to buy anything, their exclusive form of equipment procurement should now be robbery either by force or guile because that's likely the skillset they do have).

I think this is kind of key here.

The system as described currently doesn't sound especially interesting to use, and sounds bad to not be good at.


If you use it, you make a good roll and get a discount on some stuff. Sure, that's a good, tangible benefit, and if you're REALLY into the Character Progression treadmill, you'll probably love how far you can stretch your treasure. But if what you primarily care about is The Adventuring, then being good at haggling doesn't open up many possibilities out On The Adventure. Yeah, it's quite a practical skill to have, but it's not exciting or interesting to use.

Meanwhile, at the other end of it, if you don't have it you get repeatedly reminded of your failure (This is the presentation issue, fixed by reframing haggling into getting discounts from a higher list price, rather than making you pay OVER list price).





I had a similar problem in Exalted. In short, in Exalted you have a resource score from 1-5 and items have rating from 1-5. You can trivially buy things with a lower value, but you are limited to buying one item per adventure with an equal rating. So, the PCs have a rating of four, and that means once a month they can buy a ship or an equivalently valuable item. My players immediately wanted to "save up" the wealth every month they didn't buy a boat, and also wanted a bonus to their resources for selling boats they bought in the previous month, and always asked why they never went up to resources five despite having the all of that leftover boat money. When I explained the system didn't work that way, they defaulted to assuming someone, likely that damn boat merchant, was robbing them blind over and over again and wanted to know who they had to kill to reclaim all that was stolen from them.

I can't see your system not having a similar problem. But again, maybe I am missing something.

This is kind of what I was talking about in my other post. Resources are supposed to represent "Your character is Rich, and can do Rich People things", NOT a literal "Every month you get a giant pile of cash dumped in your lap".

With such a system is supposed to come an understanding by the players that Resources are more akin to Spell Slots than Gold, and it doesn't really hold up to a D&D Lootgremlin mindset.

(lest you think your players are unique in this sort of thinking, I once had a player in Shadowrun who did something similar with character creation. In Shadowrun character creation there is a limit to how much of your starting resources you can convert to actual starting cash, with the idea being you're supposed to be spending that on equipment and lifestyle for your character, rather than just starting with a massive pile of liquid capital. This player's line was "I use all my remaining Resources to buy gold bullion, which I then convert back to liquid cash as soon as play starts")

[Telok]

Its funny, considering how much hate as acquisition rolls get both at my table on the forums, it is so weird how many modern RPGs use them in place of coin counting, and how little I hear people ranting about this trend online....

....It would serve even better in this regard if I went the route of most modern systems and simply didn't allow characters to bank their resources from one adventure to the next, but that is apparently an unforgivable sin in the communities I am a part of....

...I would like to switch to full acquisition rolls, but I am apparently the only one and don't want to risk the torch-wielding mobs....

...And then me getting called simultaneously a communist and a nazi for daring to balance the game around the assumption that if players invest in a skill they will be willing to use it for the good of their party rather than making gifts for your NPC waifu that won't even be completed before the end of the campaign.

Eh, that's really just a super noisy minority. I mean, you're keeping stats, asking advice, and willing to adjust based on data results. There's always going to be a few that complain anyone not doing things the exact way they want are bad, stupid, incompetent, lying, etc.

You probably just see more of it because your table has above average drama and you're using a house system with well calibrated mechanics instead of a commercial system (no matter the calibration of it's systems).

[Silly Name]

The issue is whether or not the players actually want to play this game or are doing it because its the most efficient tactic.

Like, I once had a D&D game where the players came up with the following idea; they all play elves, and they all spend the first 200 years of the game sitting in town crafting and then start adventuring with ~50,000 gold at first level.

Its not that anyone actually wanted to play a 300 year old elven craftsmen, its just that it gave such an overwhelming mechanical advantage that they would be foolish not to do it.

And, of course, the logical next step is then donating all of that money to a party fund, suiciding said 300 year old elven craftsmen, and then bringing in the characters they actually want to play. Or repeating the process several times over.

At my table, such a "tactic" would simply be met with "alright, now make characters who will actually go on an adventure/partecipate in the story while your 300 year old elves stay in town and craft weapons and armor. We'll get back to them... someday. Maybe."
Even if I wanted to run a purely sandbox game, you'd still get that answer: we are here to play a game, not to pore over spreadsheets and optimise quarterly revenue. Either we actually get to play the game, or the night's over and I'm having a beer.


The idea is absolutely not to "punish" the players.

There are no punishments here, just natural consequences. A character that is devotes resources into being good at one thing will have an easier time when it is relevant; a character who gives their character a weakness will struggle when it is relevant. This is totally a player choice.

The problem is that, rather than realizing its just their own choices playing out, they view it as a punishment.

As usual with a lot of your issues, Talakeal, what you have is neither a mechanics nor a setting's problem: you have a people problem - social relationships and wording, presentation, expectations and outcomes conflicting, miscommunication (and, from what you say about Bob, borderline antisocial behaviour).

Assuming at least some good faith from your players, let's do an experiment: sit back, look at your system and how you present it. Then read it out loud, maybe to a rubber duck. See if you spot something that may make the players go "failing a Business roll costs me money, so I should avoid rolling Business at all if I don't have a good score in it", instead of conveying, succintly and clearly, that a successful Business roll saves you money, and at worst failure is spending more time to track down the desidered item and/or have to buy it at asking price instead of managing to negotiate a deal.

And, yes, you should include some expectations for at least "mundane" items - the not one-of-a-kind stuff that your player may still want to buy. While, as me and others explained, prices can and do fluctuate, at a large scale you can figure out the "average" price of, say, a cannon.


The more you fail by, the more of a markup you are getting.

If you frame it like this, then it absolutely comes across as a punitive system: the message seems to be "you're getting ripped off", which, OOC, feels like the merchant is stealing from me, in a sense. Ideally, you could reframe it as "the more you succeed by, the higher the discount you get". IMHO, the worst result of a roll shouldn't be "extreme markup", but rather a failure to locate/obtain what you want at all.

In fact, as GloatingSwine said, it risks players coming to the conclusion that if they don't have a good haggler, they may as well never engage with buying and selling and just start stealing everything. It saves money, overall!


The game is designed around the assumption that an average person with an average business score with average rolls finding average treasure will get "Best in slot" gear after twenty sessions. In practice, it is almost always faster than this, even in a party like ours that doesn't have a dedicated money guy / face man and dumps charisma. If there was a "market price" this is where it would be, what an average person would pay on an average roll.

One of the players is complaining about the process of needing to haggle, even though it is purely beneficial, I assume because loss aversion means the fear of paying more for the rare bombed roll outweighs the equally likely incentive of getting a great deal.[QUOTE]

So, are the PCs in question bad at the Business skill, or merely average? Also, how is the system purely beneficial, if they can fail and therefore get the item sold at a steep markup?

[QUOTE]I could put a "market value" into the book and the option to refrain from haggling, but doing so would be a "sucker's bet", the equivalent of standing on a 16 when the dealer has a king showing because you are afraid of going bust.

It'd surprise you to learn that a lot of people prefer the safe and well-trodden road over the risky, quick shortcut, but it's how things are.


That still seems a bit weird to me from a verisimilitude perspective, especially at high levels where you are bartering for one of kind legendary items, and seems a bit clunky from a game design perspective, but its easily doable.

Legendary, unique items shouldn't be subject to a Business roll at all, in my opinion. Characters should either obtain them from the loot of their adventures, receive them as rewards for some grand quest, or have a whole adventure be about obtaining that item.

In short, that sort of stuff shouldn't be up for sale. In some legends, Arthur sometimes lends Excalibur to a few of his knights for particularly difficult or important quests, but he'd never put it up for sale.



Now, I do see how being forced to interact with a system that your character has no interest in can feel discouraging, but I don't see any reason why haggling is unique in that regard; is it any different than having traps in a party without a rogue, or injuries in a party without a healer, or wilderness travel in a party without a survivalist, or random encounters in a party without a warrior, or hidden enemies / treasure in a party without a lookout, etc.?

This may be about your player's expectations: if they feel that traps, undead, wilderness travel and all that are expect parts of the game, they understand that not preparing for them means they will be at a disadvantage when those elements present themselves. But if they don't see haggling as an expected, or even a desirable, aspect of play, they'd natually get more upset at having to deal with it.



Yeah, its more about throwing a temper tantrum, calling the rest of the party names, and threatening to ruin the game over something which was utterly trivial and cost him nothing in or out of character.

And then me getting called simultaneously a communist and a nazi for daring to balance the game around the assumption that if players invest in a skill they will be willing to use it for the good of their party rather than making gifts for your NPC waifu that won't even be completed before the end of the campaign.

Again... it doesn't feel like there's any way to appease Bob, and people like Bob, and still have a functional game you enjoy.

[Jay R]

You have invented a new sub-game in your system. Since it's new and unusual, it needs to be tested. And the measure of the sub-game is players' enjoyment.

Are your players invested in this new sub-game such that it is increasing their enjoyment of the game?

If so, keep using it, and accept that sometimes people don't like what happens.

If not, the problem isn't the players' attitude. It's a sub-game that they don't want to play and won't invest any resources into trying to win.

There's no point running a system for your players that your players don't want to play.

[NichG]

Its not meant to be a scam or screw job in or out of character, it is a well meaning show of gratitude, the sort you see all the time in fiction or video games, that just doesn't ultimately amount to much. Although the players probably wouldn't actually walk away empty handed, they would either cash in their voucher for a keg of his best alcohol or a raincheck for a later day or a dress for their sweetheart; in any case it doesn't translate into character power, and thus I feel like my players would read the situation as the shopkeeper literally stealing money from their pockets.


But it comes off that way, and in the real world that sort of thing often is a scam to get people to spend more money than they otherwise would, or to get people to take on risk on someone else's behalf without giving recompense. I mentioned stock options at a startup and I think this is a really good example of this. Stock options can be presented as having inflated value (because when we do go public, this will be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars!) so if people aren't familiar with e.g. the timescales and failure rates and conditions like 'you have to still be at the company when it vests', it sounds like they're just being handed riches. But those riches both come with constraints on their behavior (can't leave the company to go someplace else), come with added risk (what if the company doesn't vest? what it it just takes a long time - could you have made more money investing a higher salary into the market in that time?), and often are used in place of salary when competing with other potential employers over e.g. 'total compensation' types of numbers. I've personally had the experience of 'we could pay you $50k/yr, or $35k/yr but give you stock options', 'I'll take the money', 'don't you believe in our company?!' sorts of manipulation.

As other posters have been telling you, presentation, perception, etc matters a lot. And if you actually do reduce other rewards or use the expectation that some portion of rewards will be in the form of this kind of voucher as something you balance around, then it really is to the players detriment rather than a bonus on top, and they're not wrong in noticing that rewards with strings attached or conditions for their use are fundamentally less rewarding than just getting cash.



And here is where, I think, cognitive dissonance kicks in.

We play games to win, and we want to do well. But there comes a point when games get less fun because they are too easy.

For example, in a video game I will optimize the heck out of my character and try and squeeze every last bit out of my build and scour dungeons for every last bit of treasure. But at the same time, I could just type in a cheat code or utilize an infinite damage / wealth / character point exploit. And then the game becomes a lot less fun.

There is a line between optimal play within the system and ignoring the system entirely, and I feel like a lot of systems which allow you to endlessly convert a meaningless resource like IC time into a concrete resource like gold and magic items or XP cross that line.


This is not true to the same extent for everyone. If you're forcing this philosophy on someone who doesn't agree with it, yes, they are going to fight back against you, complain, be miserable, etc, and nothing you do while trying to hold onto this ideal is going to satisfy them. But this is retreading things we've argued about a lot in the past, and I don't think its worth doing that all over again.



I haven't thoroughly checked out your proposed system yet, apologies, but I can tell you right now that if my players found themselves in that situation, they would be asking why it only amounts to +1 wealth level and then wonder who is "stealing" all their money when by all rights they should be amongst the richest people in the world.


Its an exponential scale - Wealth 8 is Jeff Bezos, Wealth 1 is a guy working at a call center, Wealth 2 is a middle manager, Wealth 3 is a doctor or lawyer. The call center guy can save up and get to middle manager levels of Wealth maybe. That's what the 'pips' are for in the system I presented - they do let you save up your Wealth 1 income to become Wealth 2 eventually. But even if they work for a million years they're not going to save up as much wealth as Bezos makes in one year. To become as rich as Bezos, they would need to change their job to one that pays several orders of magnitude more, not just do it for longer.



I had a similar problem in Exalted. In short, in Exalted you have a resource score from 1-5 and items have rating from 1-5. You can trivially buy things with a lower value, but you are limited to buying one item per adventure with an equal rating. So, the PCs have a rating of four, and that means once a month they can buy a ship or an equivalently valuable item. My players immediately wanted to "save up" the wealth every month they didn't buy a boat, and also wanted a bonus to their resources for selling boats they bought in the previous month, and always asked why they never went up to resources five despite having the all of that leftover boat money. When I explained the system didn't work that way, they defaulted to assuming someone, likely that damn boat merchant, was robbing them blind over and over again and wanted to know who they had to kill to reclaim all that was stolen from them.

I can't see your system not having a similar problem. But again, maybe I am missing something.

The Wealth score in my system isn't a monthly income, so there isn't a 'use it or lose it or save it up' thing. If you have Wealth 3, you could directly translate that to having a pile of say 1000gp. If you have Wealth 4, you could directly translate that to having a pile of say 5000gp. Your gold doesn't spontaneously increase over time.

However, the system gives players an extra perk - it says 'if you have enough gold, you have the option of handwaving anything below 1/10th of your current gold supply but taking this option means agreeing that we handwave it in both directions'. If they still didn't like that, I'd have them propose a system and agree to be bound by it and the kind of game it would imply - which we would talk out explicitly, like:

- "Okay, lets go back to tracking individual gold pieces. This means that we'll spend a lot of time on tracking small numbers here and there, and there will be various expenses that we've been handwaving so far like room and board and taxes and such. Can we agree that this is what we want to play?"

or

- "Okay, I'll run a game with infinite wealth, and anything can be purchased. At any point when you're in civilization, just pick whatever items from the books you want to have on you. I won't run combats in detail that you'll steamroll though, so it will primarily be a non-combat play experience unless you aim at stuff where the outcome would actually be meaningfully in question. You can still win fights, I will just narrate 'you easily wipe out the band of goblins' etc. Can we agree that this is what we want to play?"

And if we can't all agree on something we all want to play, we find the subset of people in the group who can agree and the others sit out that campaign (and maybe we do their tastes next time and different people sit out). And if that leaves too few people to play, we don't play, we just hang out and chat or whatever.

[LibraryOgre]

FWIW, I like "wealth checks" instead of hard numbers of currency... I've gotten too old for bean-counting to be fun.

[Talakeal]

Mechanics create narrative. If the mechanics posit a 4% chance of robbery on any purchase for the average person, they create a world which must be responded to in those terms. Where paranoia about the intentions of any transactor is only rational and sensible.

Let me rephrase that.

Are you talking about:

A: Rigidly applying the rules to a background NPC who only exists on the fluff level when the PC's aren't around.*
B: Talking about how the system plays out the table.
C: Talking about how the system plays out in a hypothetical white-room situation that only exists on internet forums lacking context.

Because those are each very different situations.

In actual play, fumbles are really rare, and you have to go out of your way to make a character who is really terrible at something to actually see them with any regularity. And if you did that, well, its on you, that's like wanting to play Launchpad McQuack and then getting mad that you keep crashing the plane.

*: The rules are for larger than life characters in dramatic situations, not for your every day Joe. For example, if Robin Hood ties a rope to an arrow and shoots it into the tower and then attempts to tightrope walk across, the GM might give him an 85% chance to succeed, and a 15% chance to fall into the moat. This does not mean that 15% of all acrobats will fall and injure or kill themselves every time they do a tightrope walk as part of a circus performance under controlled and practiced conditions.


Even if the costs are linear over time, players are not spreadsheets running an average of all their transactions, they are focused on this transaction now. And now the consequence of failure is proportional to the known value of the item.

Right.

And while I agree that human psychology does tend to (somewhat irrationally) compare percentages rather than absolute values, I really don't think there is that big of a psychological difference between "You rolled a 19 and therefore save 3 gold when buying your 8 gold sword" vs "You rolled a 19 and therefore saved 40% when buying your 8 gold sword" to justify having to pull out a calculator or piece of scratch paper to determine that 40% and 8 is 3.2 and then having to figure out what to do with that leftover .2 gold in the latter situation.

Likewise, if you have a resource that allows you to modify or reroll a dice, its a lot easier and less stressful to decide when to use it if you know that a 19 always saves you three gold regardless of what you are buying.


But he doesn't feel that way if you are telling him he fails 75% of the time. He feels like he's getting crapped on every time he goes to market with an additional spice of sometimes getting robbed. Why would he engage with this rigged system? Mechanics create narrative.

For the same reason I and billions of other worker class people continue to pay ever increasing costs for the same goods and services despite corporations posting record profits year after year.

Except in an RPG you can actually choose not to be the poor working class guy by simply deciding to play an archetype who has good business skills or money to burn if you don't like the idea of being the every man struggling for his daily bread.



But he doesn't feel that way if you are telling him he fails 75% of the time.

Because buying stuff is a mundane task from real life and success or failure on the Haggle skill doesn't proceed into novel decisions like "how are we going to get around these traps using the abilities we do have?". The only decision is "how much **** do I feel like eating to get this item?" and sometimes you don't even get that, you just have to eat all of it.

Now, just to clarify, this is purely a matter of presentation, correct?

Saying "You rolled a 20 to haggle, and thus pay 6 gold for the sword, which is 2 gold below retail" is a nice reward, while saying "You rolled a 20 to haggle, and thus pay 6 gold for the sword, which is 2 gold above wholesale" is punishment and equivalent to eating crap, right?



(Actually extending that to the Haggle skill would lead a party where nobody has invested in Business to the inevitable conclusion that they should not attempt to buy anything, their exclusive form of equipment procurement should now be robbery either by force or guile because that's likely the skillset they do have).

And that is a perfectly viable method of play!

It takes a bit of thought, and you will still have occasions where you want something custom made and will have piles of gold and nothing to spend it on, but its doable.

Honestly, that's more or less how Bob plays all of the time; he just doesn't actually make a character who is capable of surviving under such conditions and instead prefers to shield himself with accusations that the GM and other players are picking on him if his character is injured or asked to contribute to the rest of the group.


Is it just me or is trying to create a system that works with this sort of player quite similar to pimping your car so that it's up to the specifications of the person who's gonna beat you up and steal it?

I think the only way you're going to have a system that has a chance of being accepted by your players (which I don't see why you would want, but you've been told that a billion times already) is to start at the other end. Figure out what sort of barter system would be acceptable to your players and work backwards from there, instead of starting with what makes sense or what you would prefer and trying to adapt it for your players.

They won't. Doesn't mean I can't glean useful feed back from them when checked against the forum hive mind.


I wish more authors/designers/etc. kept that in mind, so we'd get less fantasy settings that are basically some part of real world history (or a halfway accurate version there of, at least) with magic or other supernatural elements glued onto it, changing very little about it.

Have I complained about it already in this thread? I probably rant about it too often, but it's a pet peeve.

All fiction takes short cuts for the sake of familiarity.

The odds of an alternate world having any recognizable life forms is effectively zero, so I don't think having them turn out with recognizable culture's or economies is that much bigger of an ask.

Even a perfectly mundane novel set in the real world with a fictional protagonist strains plausibility, just think how many quantum butterflies they would have created over the source of their life, and how many more must have existed in the past to bring them into existence?

In either case, I have declared my setting to be a post apocalyptic one where society collapsed just before the equivalent of the industrial revolution in the 19th century, and is thus primarily operating on the barter system rather than with fixed prices, and one of my players said that was wholly implausible, and I wanted to get a second opinion.


I think the issue is that acquisition rolls serve a different role than countable treasure.


Acquisition Rolls/Wealth scores are great for systems where you're playing functional members of a society, "Being Rich" is part of your character's skillset, and progression/advancement isn't really supposed to be tied to the acquisition of expensive pieces of equipment, at least not ones that can be purchased with currency. Buying stuff is supposed to be a way you solve problems, rather than a way you make your character more powerful.


Tangible Treasure on the other hand, especially in the context of D&Desque games, is part of a loot/reward structure. The basic paradigm is that treasure is part of your reward for adventuring, just like XP is (In fact, in the earliest editions, treasure WAS XP). You get gold so you can buy stuff to make your character more powerful. Tracking coins is a nice measurable way for players to feel rewarded for their efforts, turning those coins into magic items and the like is a method of progression parallel to leveling up.

Of course, the issue with the Tangible Treasure model is that 1) it requires you to actually try to build something resembling actual economics in your game system (How much should a Sword cost compared to a donkey?) and 2) If Wealth-by-level and equivalents are assumed to be part of calculating a character's power, it tends to limit the sorts of stories you can tell to Mercenary Murderhobos Pursuing Things That Can Get Them Rich.

If WBL is a relevant part of character power, then "Son of a Trade Prince adventuring to seek new opportunities for his family's business" and "Army deserter" need to somehow end up with similar amounts of wealth available, and adventures need to involve acquiring wealth or magic items somehow. The quest to Kill The Great Beast only works if it's either sitting on a pile of gold or if somebody is offering a reward for it's head.


Acquisition rolls and wealth ratings and the like are great because they move away from that paradigm, but they're also doing something completely different than treasure as reward.


It's also why your system might be getting some hate from your players. If your players are emotionally invested in the character-progression treadmill, messing with their ability to acquire new gear can anger them.


Edit: Admittedly, it seems like your approach solves the "How many swords per donkey" issue decently well.

I don't know about that. I see a lot of games with acquisition roles, many of which do seem to correlate to the wealth = power = progression D&D paradigm.

For example, the Warhammer based systems all do it, and I would be hard pressed to say that power armor and a plasma canon don't equal player power, and the fact that you get bonuses on acquisition roles for successful missions and that nobody comes and takes them back afterward does seem to imply that it is meant as a sort of soft progression system, although the specifics very based on which exact game and edition you are playing.

[Segev]

First off, just don't play with Bob.

Secondly, does your system actually result in tour players having more fun? Great!

Thirdly, regardless of whether Bob is there or not, you CAN put your foot down and say you're not calculating out all the prices of the junk ripped out of the walls of the dungeon. "You won't get anything for it, and will lose money trying to transport it all," should be sufficient. Tell your players what you balance around, and let them deal with it. What is in your world is up to you.

Fourthly, once again: do your players like this new system better than the gp-tracking one from before?

[Talakeal]

You have invented a new sub-game in your system. Since it's new and unusual, it needs to be tested. And the measure of the sub-game is players' enjoyment.

Are your players invested in this new sub-game such that it is increasing their enjoyment of the game?

If so, keep using it, and accept that sometimes people don't like what happens.

If not, the problem isn't the players' attitude. It's a sub-game that they don't want to play and won't invest any resources into trying to win.

There's no point running a system for your players that your players don't want to play.

Most of the players are fine with it, one of them has a big problem with it. But honestly, he has a problem with spending money in any context, in game or out.

But regardless of how the players feel, I don't enjoy it. I am never going back to a system where we spend hours a night bookkeeping and shopping and grubbing for every last copper. As a wise man once said:


FWIW, I like "wealth checks" instead of hard numbers of currency... I've gotten too old for bean-counting to be fun.



As usual with a lot of your issues, Talakeal, what you have is neither a mechanics nor a setting's problem: you have a people problem - social relationships and wording, presentation, expectations and outcomes conflicting, miscommunication (and, from what you say about Bob, borderline antisocial behavior).

Assuming at least some good faith from your players, let's do an experiment: sit back, look at your system and how you present it. Then read it out loud, maybe to a rubber duck. See if you spot something that may make the players go "failing a Business roll costs me money, so I should avoid rolling Business at all if I don't have a good score in it", instead of conveying, succinctly and clearly, that a successful Business roll saves you money, and at worst failure is spending more time to track down the desired item and/or have to buy it at asking price instead of managing to negotiate a deal.

I agree, although its more from this thread than my players, they tend not to phrase things so rationally.

"Phrasing X% below retail sounds more rewarding than paying X% above wholesale" is a bit different from "Your setting is BS, there is always a sticker price and no society ever relied on bartering!".

I have already softened the wording once, and plan to do so again tonight.

Now, the one thing my system does is allow for players to throw unreasonable amounts of money after an item that would otherwise be completely unavailable otherwise, but that's less the player getting robbed and giving someone options in an already bad situation.


And, yes, you should include some expectations for at least "mundane" items - the not one-of-a-kind stuff that your player may still want to buy. While, as me and others explained, prices can and do fluctuate, at a large scale you can figure out the "average" price of, say, a cannon.

Haggling is only for exceptional stuff. You don't haggle for mundane items, or indeed pay for them at all, you just get them (within reason).



If you frame it like this, then it absolutely comes across as a punitive system: the message seems to be "you're getting ripped off", which, OOC, feels like the merchant is stealing from me, in a sense. Ideally, you could reframe it as "the more you succeed by, the higher the discount you get". IMHO, the worst result of a roll shouldn't be "extreme markup", but rather a failure to locate/obtain what you want at all.

And indeed, it is that latter state that my players find intolerable. If they have the gold for it, they should always be able to find Excalibur on the shelves of the local mom and pop grocers with a fixed sticker price on the hilt (and the option to steal swipe it consequence free if they don't like said sticker price or Mom and Pop's attitude.)



So, are the PCs in question bad at the Business skill, or merely average? Also, how is the system purely beneficial, if they can fail and therefore get the item sold at a steep markup?

Depends on how you define "bad".

Bad for a commoner? Or bad for adventurers?

The highest skill in the party is an 8, which is above average for a commoner and below average for an adventuring party. It is listed as "amateur" which makes them the equivalent of, say, visits a flea market once a month looking for knickknacks.

Now, two campaigns ago the group was actively bad. They all took flaws that penalized their business, and the highest score in the party was a 4. They still bitched, but I have less sympathy for them, as I said up thread, that's like going out of your way to make Launchpad and then complaining when the plane crashes.

Because an average roll is still just paying what would be "market price", but if the players have any sort of meta currency leftover they will swing it in their favor, and as critical successes are so much better than fumbles they will still come out ahead in the end.



It'd surprise you to learn that a lot of people prefer the safe and well-trodden road over the risky, quick shortcut, but it's how things are.

Right. But in this case the "risky" path is guaranteed to pay out more in the long run.

Refusing to haggle is actually more like refusing to invest in your company's retirement account because you don't like giving up 6% of your paycheck each month even though it will pay out many times over in the long run.


Legendary, unique items shouldn't be subject to a Business roll at all, in my opinion. Characters should either obtain them from the loot of their adventures, receive them as rewards for some grand quest, or have a whole adventure be about obtaining that item.

In short, that sort of stuff shouldn't be up for sale. In some legends, Arthur sometimes lends Excalibur to a few of his knights for particularly difficult or important quests, but he'd never put it up for sale.


Well, its about perspective.

In a high end campaign, the latter might be exactly what happens; wealth is explicitly listed as also representing good-will on the part of your benefactors, so the system could absolutely represent Arthur trusting you enough to length out Excalibur to you for the duration of your quest.

More likely though, it involves something like bartering in a palace of gold in the market's of Shangri-la using a currency of mortal souls, miracles, and such esoteric goods as apples of youth or the true names of saints and arch-demons.

Mechanically though, the system works more or less the same at all levels of play, which is imo important.



This may be about your player's expectations: if they feel that traps, undead, wilderness travel and all that are expect parts of the game, they understand that not preparing for them means they will be at a disadvantage when those elements present themselves. But if they don't see haggling as an expected, or even a desirable, aspect of play, they'd natually get more upset at having to deal with it.

Indeed.

I have often said that the biggest obstacle in game design is resistance to doing things differently than they did in Wisconsin in 1974.


But it comes off that way, and in the real world that sort of thing often is a scam to get people to spend more money than they otherwise would, or to get people to take on risk on someone else's behalf without giving recompense. I mentioned stock options at a startup and I think this is a really good example of this. Stock options can be presented as having inflated value (because when we do go public, this will be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars!) so if people aren't familiar with e.g. the timescales and failure rates and conditions like 'you have to still be at the company when it vests', it sounds like they're just being handed riches. But those riches both come with constraints on their behavior (can't leave the company to go someplace else), come with added risk (what if the company doesn't vest? what it it just takes a long time - could you have made more money investing a higher salary into the market in that time?), and often are used in place of salary when competing with other potential employers over e.g. 'total compensation' types of numbers. I've personally had the experience of 'we could pay you $50k/yr, or $35k/yr but give you stock options', 'I'll take the money', 'don't you believe in our company?!' sorts of manipulation.

As other posters have been telling you, presentation, perception, etc matters a lot. And if you actually do reduce other rewards or use the expectation that some portion of rewards will be in the form of this kind of voucher as something you balance around, then it really is to the players detriment rather than a bonus on top, and they're not wrong in noticing that rewards with strings attached or conditions for their use are fundamentally less rewarding than just getting cash.

They can also be more rewarding than getting cash though.

Again, I agree it is about perception and loss aversion.

If a voucher ended up being less rewarding than cash, the players feel like they are being robbed and want to kill the merchant. If the voucher turns out to be more rewarding than cash, they don't suddenly feel guilt and turn themselves over to the authorities for their heinous crimes. Its a one way street.

Players can be upset that things don't always turn out in their favor; that doesn't mean the rules are flawed, or the setting is unrealistic, that NPCs are evil criminals, or that the GM is out to get them.


Its an exponential scale - Wealth 8 is Jeff Bezos, Wealth 1 is a guy working at a call center, Wealth 2 is a middle manager, Wealth 3 is a doctor or lawyer. The call center guy can save up and get to middle manager levels of Wealth maybe. That's what the 'pips' are for in the system I presented - they do let you save up your Wealth 1 income to become Wealth 2 eventually. But even if they work for a million years they're not going to save up as much wealth as Bezos makes in one year. To become as rich as Bezos, they would need to change their job to one that pays several orders of magnitude more, not just do it for longer.

If I had a billion years and even a modicum of business acumen I can guarantee you I would be worth more than Jeff Bezos.

Napkin math, a standard IRA with a base investment of only $1000 dollars will be worth more than Jeff Bezos in 221 years.


However, the system gives players an extra perk - it says 'if you have enough gold, you have the option of handwaving anything below 1/10th of your current gold supply but taking this option means agreeing that we handwave it in both directions'. If they still didn't like that, I'd have them propose a system and agree to be bound by it and the kind of game it would imply - which we would talk out explicitly, like:


This is not true to the same extent for everyone. If you're forcing this philosophy on someone who doesn't agree with it, yes, they are going to fight back against you, complain, be miserable, etc, and nothing you do while trying to hold onto this ideal is going to satisfy them. But this is retreading things we've argued about a lot in the past, and I don't think its worth doing that all over again.

I agree people have different tolerances; but it is a fairly universal truth that people tend to play to win and tend to enjoy a game where there is actually elements of challenge and risk.

There are outliers, but most people don't get invested in games with the cheat codes on, and at some point if you just wave your hand and let the players auto win, you aren't really playing the game anymore.

A pretty good analogy is the classic Twilight Zone episode where (70 year old spoilers) the gambler dies and goes to Heaven where he can gamble all day, then realizes that he always wins up there, loses all joy in the game, and then realizes he is actually in Hell.

And yeah, some people don't feel this way, but I don't think the game should be designed based around those outliers, or that the rest of the group should have to bend over to accommodate such shenanigans because they aren't technically against the rules, or that reasonable people don't suffer cognitive dissonance in situations where such easy and game breaking exploits exist.
Again though, players can still complain that they can't leverage those small purchases into larger sums. I mean, that's basically how my system works, and the players constantly complain that they are being robbed when those small 1/10th purchases are rounded away in their detriment, and wonder why they can't save up the 1/10th purchases that are rounded in their favor into something bigger.

[NichG]

They can also be more rewarding than getting cash though.

Again, I agree it is about perception and loss aversion.

If a voucher ended up being less rewarding than cash, the players feel like they are being robbed and want to kill the merchant. If the voucher turns out to be more rewarding than cash, they don't suddenly feel guilt and turn themselves over to the authorities for their heinous crimes. Its a one way street.

Players can be upset that things don't always turn out in their favor; that doesn't mean the rules are flawed, or the setting is unrealistic, that NPCs are evil criminals, or that the GM is out to get them.


But it does mean that the players should refuse the quest if its clear the payment is going to be in vouchers. Like in the case of stock options, if a company said 'we will pay you in stock options', I will say 'no, pay me cash or you don't get my labor'. And I would consider that company sleazy for trying to get effectively free labor and warn others off of it. And if someone tried to make it an industry standard, like unpaid internships or doing art for games 'for the exposure', I'd publically denounce that and mock it as exploitative, because its in my interest to not let it become a standard thing for companies, employers, etc to dump all their risks on me.

So for the PCs, letting a village who wants to pay them in 'gratitude' burn down rather than saving it, and making sure you know that they can't get hooked into quests unless the quest-giver plays it straight with them and gives them guaranteed, cold hard cash is in their interests.



If I had a billion years and even a modicum of business acumen I can guarantee you I would be worth more than Jeff Bezos.

Napkin math, a standard IRA with a base investment of only $1000 dollars will be worth more than Jeff Bezos in 221 years.


If you put that in your system, I'd call it a self-own. If you have a billion years and actually do things with your money to make more money, then yeah you can be richer than Bezos. If you literally do what your players asked to do: repeat X action 30000 times off-screen, you should just get 30000 times the value of X action minus whatever it costs to live for 30000 repetitions of X.

If you want to turn your $1000 into $10^11 through investments, tell me how you're investing, interact with the people involved, tell me what you do when the city your investments operate in ends up occupied by an army of orcs, tell me what you do a hundred years later when a new king declares that all old money must be turned in to the state to fund a war, or nationalizes that business you've been pouring resources into, etc.



I agree people have different tolerances; but it is a fairly universal truth that people tend to play to win and tend to enjoy a game where there is actually elements of challenge and risk.

There are outliers, but most people don't get invested in games with the cheat codes on, and at some point if you just wave your hand and let the players auto win, you aren't really playing the game anymore.


I mean, I don't care for challenge and risk at all. I'm fine with cheat codes, though there are better ways to do what cheat codes do for me. Personally, I like the feeling of 'getting away with something' - that is, destroying something that is supposed to be challenging, using some specific pattern of behavior or action or exploits or whatnot that wouldn't necessarily work if I had not actively sought them out. Like making eternal potions that give you +10000 to stats in Morrowind by exploiting the fact that potion strength is based on Intelligence, and buffing your Intelligence with a potion to make an even stronger Intelligence potion has escalating rather than diminishing returns. So my preferred form of cheating is using either stuff that isn't working as intended in games, and/or adding a bunch of really complicated but overpowered mods that completely wreck the intended balance of the game but which require engaging with new subsystems in order to actually do that.

A cheat code isn't like getting away with something, because it just gives you things, but for me its great for reducing the friction of a game that has bits that you just want to not be doing - there are a number of games I enjoy only because I can use cheat codes to basically delete the parts of the game that I don't enjoy. Being able to periodically toggle into Creative mode in Minecraft for example is just great. I'd like the game a lot less if I couldn't, but I still tend to play in Survival mode and toggle Creative rather than just playing Creative all the time, because I want to actively do things like make a machine that makes infinite gunpowder for me rather than just editing in gunpowder when I need it, since doing it that way is what creates the feeling of 'getting away with something' for me.

I basically don't care about challenge one way or another. And I actively dislike risk in games.

So that's my profile, at least. And its why I can understand why your one player would be constantly annoyed at you, even if I think basically you two should just find different games rather than constantly fighting each-other over this point you'll never really empathize over.



Again though, players can still complain that they can't leverage those small purchases into larger sums. I mean, that's basically how my system works, and the players constantly complain that they are being robbed when those small 1/10th purchases are rounded away in their detriment, and wonder why they can't save up the 1/10th purchases that are rounded in their favor into something bigger.

Players can complain about anything, but as I said, the thing to do then is to say 'propose something different and lets agree to be bound by it, and if you want to complain after that, complain to yourself since you picked it'

[Zanos]

If you have some level of domain knowledge that you know how much an item actually costs to make in labor and materials, you should be able to just put your foot down for a reasonable price and most people will cave because it's better to make a sale for a reasonable profit than get nothing. It's not like adventurers who can need and afford magic items are common. But we have a baked into the system where if you decide to not purchase something for a x2 markup, you just lose money and get nothing. Why are you burning through contacts and wealth to find things that people, presumably, want to sell to you? If I was paying my contacts to find me goods, and they kept coming back to me with people selling goods at twice the usual price, I'd feel as though they were spending my money pretty poorly(and wondering if they were getting a cut of the final sale) myself. If I see used cars of a particular make and model going for 10k, I might buy one for 10.5k because I can't work the dealer down and just don't want to deal with the bull****, but I'm never going to pay 20k for the same car. Someone would have to be completely ignorant of absolutely everything related to economics to pay double the minimum profitable sale price for anything. The difference between being a skilled negotiator and not is just too large.


Same ol' boilerplate 'we can't come up with enough rules to fix the gaming situation you keep bringing forward. If they don't want consequences for dumping stats, then they are voting for the entire challenge- and meaningful-decision- portion of the game to be illusory. It sounds like something that needs to be discussed in a session zero.' You know the drill.
Not familiar with OPs group, but most systems if nobody in the party is good at something you can outsource it with some effort. Priests for healing conditions, scrolls for spells out on adventures, a cart and a mule for carrying capacity. Yeah, it's worse than having someone in the party who is a specialist, but you can generally cover weaknesses without immense suffering.

Constantly hitting a characters weaknesses can be seen as unfair if it's artificial; if every encounter has a mage that hits the fighter with a Will save or lose and a big scary monster that grapples the low strength caster, the party is going to rightful feel like the DM is going out of his way to engineer encounters to exploit their weaknesses. And a lot of the time you can just avoid this stuff. If nobody in the party has fantastic charisma, you can just avoid encounters where you're likely to have to do a lot of non-violent problem solving. Nobody who has trap skills? That's fine, we'll avoid the notoriously trapped labyrinth of death and for regular traps just have a summoned monkey walk down the hallway before the party(although it sounds like OP to some degree wants to avoid logical solutions to issues that bypass the need for skill checks).




You may not realize it, but I wholly agree with you.

The purpose of this system is to minimize time spent shopping and book keeping. Mundane gear is totally ignored under this system.
It doesn't sound like it's accomplishing this task? I can see how not counting every copper could save up on time but usually players will just write down their loot and figure out how much they can get for it later.



Spells were the worst. We used to call it "spell-whoring" when the Wizard players would check at every merchant for every scroll in the game every time while the rest of the party's eyes glazed over and their will to live flew out the window.

This is why ideally shopping is handled out of session. I just give players a price limit for the settlement they are in and they send me a list of stuff they want and tell them to deduct the gold from their sheet. Jobs done, unless they want something unique or otherwise very special. I'm not sure how your system fixes this one, unless you just are hand waving scrolls.


Out of curiosity, what system are you playing where you can haggle but only get ripped off? That seems weird from both a mechanical and narrative perspective.
No system in particular, just reminiscing on my experience with DMs who treat every merchant like a shady used car salesmen who overcharges you, and the best negotiation roll only gets you to 190% of the actual price of the item. Some people are just very combative about it when you want to spend your money from adventuring on a +1 longsword.


In my system shopping is handled by one or two quick rolls at the beginning or the end of the session, shouldn't take more than a couple minutes max.
It's good that that's your goal, but is that how it's worked out in practice? It sounds like quite a bit is happening with your rolls.



Which is not to say we don't have similar situations though; last session we spent three bloody hours sitting in town because we were going into a lightless dungeon and nobody was willing to carry a lantern and we couldn't agree on how to split the cost of hiring a torch-bearer. Three. Goshdarned. Hours.
I mean, is this a problem with the wealth bonus system? If a torchbearer costs 2 gold to hire, everyone pays half a gold piece, right? Does he even cost enough to be worth deducting a wealth bonus?


Second, that's not a standard success, that is a rare partial success, and it isn't meant to be an hour long mini adventure, but rather something resolved with a couple of skill checks and narrative consequences.
Not familiar with your system, but generally I would assume that the DC is the DC, and if you meet it you achieve what you were trying to do.


First, its funny how upthread people were saying that players liked having hooks and interesting business opportunities and now its being used as an example of a negative experience. Different strokes I suppose.

Third, if it is going to be a mini adventure, any even halfway decent GM is going to make it fun and or rewarding for the whole group and weave it into the larger narrative. If you really consider stuff like this to be boring, I kind of wonder why you are even playing RPGs in the first place or, if your interests are so narrow and self centered, why the rest of the group would put up with you.

Fourth, even if it was an hour long mini adventure, that is way more lucrative than just killing monsters and exploring dungeons for treasure and using it to buy swords.

I'll just address these as one but in two parts. The first is shopkeepers, and the second is my general view on loot distribution.


Using shopkeepers to feed the party hooks is fine. Creating a mini-adventure to get a free magic item is a good opportunity, but is probably bad for the game. You can either run a solo adventure for the fighter where he gets a free magic item while everyone else does nothing, or pull the rest of the party in to help him with it and they get nothing, even though they're risking either trouble with the law or trouble with the outlaws. If you want to use a shopkeeper to feed the party an adventure, feed them an adventure that they're all going to be interested in, because "the quest to get the fighter a +1 sword, for free, even though he has money to buy one right now" isn't something that goes to the top of my list.

As far as loot distribution, people should just get equal shares. You might consider my outlook "selfish" but I'd just call it fair. If my character is going to be pulled into a series of events that are committing an actual crime(stealing the sword) or possibly getting on the bad side of local criminals(spying on them), I'd want, both IC and OOC, to be appropriately compensated for the associated risk, considering the fighter or whatever is getting a free magic sword out of this mini-adventure and my character is getting nothing. If the party gets a reward of a magic item that is obviously suited to a single person in the party them keeping it is fine, but it's value needs to count against the characters future shares, because people will often take a mile when given an inch and it isn't long before characters are saying they "need" every +3 longsword and +2 ring of protection, and then turn around and sell them and keep the entire value of the sale, even when such items might represent 90% or more of the actual material value retrieved in an adventure. This is even worse because many DMs forget that there are characters that don't really use armor or weapons(druids, wizards, monks), and so the fighter has an armory of hundreds of thousands of gold worth of magic weapons and armor and the monk has nothing. A little bit of accounting keeps everyone honest, and treating magic items retrieved by the party as group loot to be distributed, and counted against the share of the person who claims it stops folks from grabbing stuff worth tens of thousands of gold they don't actually plan to use. This method has been fairly popular with other people I play with because it turns out that nobody really wants to adventure with the guy who says the 16,0000gp +2 weapon we find at the end of the temple of spiders is his because he's proficient with it, and nobody else gets anything. Sure, he can keep it, but he's going to count it's sell value against his share of the treasure. Oh, and if I catch the rogue stealing loot from under the party's nose, he gets gutted and left for vultures.



I had a similar problem in Exalted. In short, in Exalted you have a resource score from 1-5 and items have rating from 1-5. You can trivially buy things with a lower value, but you are limited to buying one item per adventure with an equal rating. So, the PCs have a rating of four, and that means once a month they can buy a ship or an equivalently valuable item. My players immediately wanted to "save up" the wealth every month they didn't buy a boat, and also wanted a bonus to their resources for selling boats they bought in the previous month, and always asked why they never went up to resources five despite having the all of that leftover boat money. When I explained the system didn't work that way, they defaulted to assuming someone, likely that damn boat merchant, was robbing them blind over and over again and wanted to know who they had to kill to reclaim all that was stolen from them.
I mean, yeah, most wealth rating systems don't make any sense. I think d20 modern was the first system that used it, and in that game a character with a high wealth rating will lose 1 wealth bonus from buying a high end handgun that costs 1200$ and buying a literal main battle tank that costs millions of dollars, because both items have a purchase DC higher than 15. There's value to abstraction, but when a character with the same abstract value of wealth could own nothing or a literal armada of warships or 12 handguns vs 12 main battle tanks, it doesn't really have much value anymore, because it doesn't seem to be measuring anything sane. Maybe exalted was first, but if your "wealth abstraction" results in two characters with the same wealth rating with vastly different material possessions because the system assigns the same mechanical value to items of vastly different real value, I don't see the point. An actual amount of money that you have and some kind of system for rolling a skill to get more money to represent whatever passive income you might have is more accurate, less abusable, and really not all that complicated. Buying things is just addition and subtraction, which most wealth abstractions use anyway, except you have to look up the specific rules for your wealth abstraction system to remember how to do it correctly because "price" isn't a concrete concept anymore.

[Satinavian]

FWIW, I like "wealth checks" instead of hard numbers of currency... I've gotten too old for bean-counting to be fun.
I am not a fan of bean-counting either.

But there are many ways to solve this/simplify this, with wealth checks/acquisition rolls being only one of them.

A problem with a system based on such rolls is that it easily can feel like gambling : You have a limited number of tries and can aim for various prices, with the most desirable ones being the most elusive.

Now some people love gambling, some even a bit too much. Some tolerate it but many hate it with a passion. Making the primary/mandatory method to acquire stuff in a game feel like gambling will always lead to many people utterly hating the system. Hating it in a way the gambling lovers never really can understand. It makes people say "I would rather go back to bean counting than using this."

[GloatingSwine]

Let me rephrase that.

Are you talking about:

A: Rigidly applying the rules to a background NPC who only exists on the fluff level when the PC's aren't around.*
B: Talking about how the system plays out the table.
C: Talking about how the system plays out in a hypothetical white-room situation that only exists on internet forums lacking context.

Because those are each very different situations.

In actual play, fumbles are really rare, and you have to go out of your way to make a character who is really terrible at something to actually see them with any regularity. And if you did that, well, its on you, that's like wanting to play Launchpad McQuack and then getting mad that you keep crashing the plane.

*: The rules are for larger than life characters in dramatic situations, not for your every day Joe. For example, if Robin Hood ties a rope to an arrow and shoots it into the tower and then attempts to tightrope walk across, the GM might give him an 85% chance to succeed, and a 15% chance to fall into the moat. This does not mean that 15% of all acrobats will fall and injure or kill themselves every time they do a tightrope walk as part of a circus performance under controlled and practiced conditions.

And yet this situation has arisen because you're using the rules for an everyday activity for adventurers (buying relatively normal adventuring equipment with incremental benefits over their current). Which is why your players want an "off the shelf" price. Their purchase feels to them as if it should be too mundane for high stakes rules to apply.


Right.

And while I agree that human psychology does tend to (somewhat irrationally) compare percentages rather than absolute values, I really don't think there is that big of a psychological difference between "You rolled a 19 and therefore save 3 gold when buying your 8 gold sword" vs "You rolled a 19 and therefore saved 40% when buying your 8 gold sword" to justify having to pull out a calculator or piece of scratch paper to determine that 40% and 8 is 3.2 and then having to figure out what to do with that leftover .2 gold in the latter situation.

Likewise, if you have a resource that allows you to modify or reroll a dice, its a lot easier and less stressful to decide when to use it if you know that a 19 always saves you three gold regardless of what you are buying.

It's not just percentage vs. flat. They're comparing the price they paid now for this one transaction to the known list price for the item. They will always know exactly how ripped off they are getting.

The percentage vs. flat issue comes when you combine this system with your exponential value from quality system. If you fail a purchase for a quality 0 high calibre rifle by 10 you pay 22, which is a huge markup. If you fail a purchase of a quality 2 high calibre rifle by 10 (because the difficulty only moved by 2) you pay 1210 which is so small you don't notice it.


Now, just to clarify, this is purely a matter of presentation, correct?

Saying "You rolled a 20 to haggle, and thus pay 6 gold for the sword, which is 2 gold below retail" is a nice reward, while saying "You rolled a 20 to haggle, and thus pay 6 gold for the sword, which is 2 gold above wholesale" is punishment and equivalent to eating crap, right?

Yes. It's presentation. Because success gets you the list price which you know in advance, and failure makes you eat a markup or pay 1 to even have participated and get nothing the feelings of success and failure are asymmetric. You never feel like you came out ahead, you only avoided falling behind. An important part of skill design is making sure that success feels like success.

Your Haggle skill doesn't do that, it doesn't make success feel good it only makes failure feel bad.

A possible fix would be to have degrees of success like you have degrees of failure, and to have banded success/failure. So for example every 5 points you succeed/fail by moves the price up or down by 1*(IQ*10).

So:



Price Modifier
Score Q0 Q1 Q2

<=-20 Fumble
-19 to -15 +3 +30 +300
-14 to -10 +2 +20 +200
-9 to -5 +1 +10 +100
-4 to +4 List Price
+5 to +9 -1 -10 -100
+10 to +14 -2 -20 -200
+15 to +19 -3 -30 -300
>= +20 Critical



Also I still think fumbles need a more interesting and less nakedly punitive consequence than "lol you got robbed". That's the commercial equivalent of "you accidentally chopped your own head off".


And that is a perfectly viable method of play!

It takes a bit of thought, and you will still have occasions where you want something custom made and will have piles of gold and nothing to spend it on, but its doable.

Honestly, that's more or less how Bob plays all of the time; he just doesn't actually make a character who is capable of surviving under such conditions and instead prefers to shield himself with accusations that the GM and other players are picking on him if his character is injured or asked to contribute to the rest of the group.

It's not a naturally emergent consequence of skill investment or otherwise though though, in the way your other examples were. It's something the GM has to prepare for and specifically enable.

[KorvinStarmast]

{snip a valid used car analogy}

No system in particular, just reminiscing on my experience with DMs who treat every merchant like a shady used car salesmen who overcharges you, and the best negotiation roll only gets you to 190% of the actual price of the item. Some people are just very combative about it when you want to spend your money from adventuring on a +1 longsword. I treat magic items differently than that.
There are no magic shops.
There is NO "a +1 longsword is worth 700 GP" system in place anywhere.
There are cases of "I know a guy" where you meet a contact and a trade or a negotiation can happen. There are also exclusive, private, and often shady auctions that the vast majority of people know nothing about. (Something like Anthony Bourdain's story about the secret gourmet dinners where they ate an endangered species of bird called an ortalan).
You can only show up if you have an invitation, someone in that elite/exclusive circle owes you a favor, or if you have something to put on the auction block and the word gets out, and you get contacted ...
As a DM, you can either RP the auction or roll the dice on the Xanathar's tables as regards complications or price fluctuations.

Magic items are rare and much sought after. Think Sotheby's, but you have to 'know someone on the inside' to even get a ticket to the auction.

I have made one exception by adapting Captain Xandros in the Ghosts of Salt Marsh (who allegedly can get her hands on pretty much anything) but I generally rolled dice to see what she had access to at any given time. The Captain always wanted something in trade (not just gold) for what she had available.

As to the general case being discussed with the OP, I am pretty sure that the opening question is an X-Y problem. It's got very little to do with the system and everything to do with one player and the general lack of trust at their table which the OP has been regaling us with for some years.

[Satinavian]

I treat magic items differently than that.
Magic items are rare and much sought after. Think Sotheby's, but you have to 'know someone on the inside' to even get a ticket to the auction.

The OP has made a system that expects each player to upgrade several (five ?) slots for items roughly every 20 sessions with a larger + item even before considering any unique effects or consumables, if i understood this correctly. He also made an easily accessible crafting system that can turn money into most kinds of magic items.

You can't make a system that does this and at the same time treats magic items as super rare and something to fawn about.

[Talakeal]

Yes. It's presentation. Because success gets you the list price which you know in advance, and failure makes you eat a markup or pay 1 to even have participated and get nothing the feelings of success and failure are asymmetric. You never feel like you came out ahead, you only avoided falling behind. An important part of skill design is making sure that success feels like success.

I will respond to the rest later, but I wanted to say something here that I think is getting lost.

There is no list price, known or unknown.

That is the whole point of this thread, is that I don't put a list price on items as high quality gear is custom made or bought second hand and then haggled over rather than being stocked on store shelves and one of my players find this system unrealistic and implausible.


Items do have a "value rating" but this is absolutely not the "market price" anymore than Exalted saying that a new yacht is a "value 4 item" means that you can buy one for "four gold" or trade in four value one hammers for a new yacht.

[GloatingSwine]

I will respond to the rest later, but I wanted to say something here that I think is getting lost.

There is no list price, known or unknown.

That is the whole point of this thread, is that I don't put a list price on items as high quality gear is custom made or bought second hand and then haggled over rather than being stocked on store shelves and one of my players find this system unrealistic and implausible.

Yes, there is.

You don't think that's what it means, but you've written a number in your game manual for the amount of wealth each thing costs. That's a price. Your items have prices. That is how everyone is going to understand that and it absolutely is how the characters interact with that number. It is an amount of their characters' wealth score they have to spend to get the item. That the prices are abstract not reified as currency doesn't change that.

[BRC]

I will respond to the rest later, but I wanted to say something here that I think is getting lost.

There is no list price, known or unknown.

That is the whole point of this thread, is that I don't put a list price on items as high quality gear is custom made or bought second hand and then haggled over rather than being stocked on store shelves and one of my players find this system unrealistic and implausible.


Items do have a "value rating" but this is absolutely not the "market price" anymore than Exalted saying that a new yacht is a "value 4 item" means that you can buy one for "four gold" or trade in four value one hammers for a new yacht.

Calling it a "Value rating" isn't going to change much.

If they open the book and see "Value Rating = 4" they're going to parse that as Price = 4, even if they consciously know that a "Value Rating" is just an abstracted representation of what you'd expect to pay with average stats and an average haggling roll. There's some importance nuance there, but it's close enough to the concept of a list Price that people are going to think about it that way rather than internalizing some new concept of an "Average price you can expect to pay if you get an average result". Especially since your system does use wealth as an expendable resource (It's abstracted so as to avoid counting individual coins).


By my understanding, your system is that you have an abstracted wealth rating, which is used to cover common purchases, nonmagical gear, lifestyle expenses, horses, transportation, ect. Getting treasure can increase your wealth rating. Big Purchases, like magic items or setting up a business or a stronghold, incur "Debts" which reduce your wealth rating.

This isn't a bad system, but it's close enough to "You have 8 Money, this sword costs 4 money" that a player that isn't especially invested in the nuances of the system is going to see it that way.

Similarly, a Value Rating 4 isn't QUITE "This costs 4 money", but it's close enough for most purchases that players are going to probably see it that way, because those are the terms that are familiar to them. Internalizing nuance is hard, especially when it comes to the un-fun part of a fun activity (Learning rules for an RPG). People are usually going to jump on the first functional understanding they come to, which in this case is that Wealth = Money and Value Rating = Price.

[GloatingSwine]

If they open the book and see "Value Rating = 4" they're going to parse that as Price = 4, even if they consciously know that a "Value Rating" is just an abstracted representation of what you'd expect to pay with average stats and an average haggling roll. There's some importance nuance there, but it's close enough to the concept of a list Price that people are going to think about it that way rather than internalizing some new concept of an "Average price you can expect to pay if you get an average result". Especially since your system does use wealth as an expendable resource (It's abstracted so as to avoid counting individual coins)..

The other half of it is that the value rating is not "average price you expect to pay if you get an average result", it's the floor you pay on a favourable result. The "average result" for a noninvested character of average charisma is 5 points above the value rating (because they'll fail by 5 on average).

You have to have at least 5 charisma *and* tag Business as a primary skill to have a 50/50 chance of actually paying the value rating.

[Talakeal]

The other half of it is that the value rating is not "average price you expect to pay if you get an average result", it's the floor you pay on a favourable result. The "average result" for a noninvested character of average charisma is 5 points above the value rating (because they'll fail by 5 on average).

You have to have at least 5 charisma *and* tag Business as a primary skill to have a 50/50 chance of actually paying the value rating.

Logically speaking, wouldn't what an average person pays with an average roll BE the market price?

Also, keep in mind that a 5 charisma value is what an ordinary person has, PCs are a bit more special, and you also use the best value amongst the whole party. In play, a party with only a +5 business score as the highest value is an outlier, not the average.


Calling it a "Value rating" isn't going to change much.

If they open the book and see "Value Rating = 4" they're going to parse that as Price = 4, even if they consciously know that a "Value Rating" is just an abstracted representation of what you'd expect to pay with average stats and an average haggling roll. There's some importance nuance there, but it's close enough to the concept of a list Price that people are going to think about it that way rather than internalizing some new concept of an "Average price you can expect to pay if you get an average result". Especially since your system does use wealth as an expendable resource (It's abstracted so as to avoid counting individual coins).


By my understanding, your system is that you have an abstracted wealth rating, which is used to cover common purchases, nonmagical gear, lifestyle expenses, horses, transportation, ect. Getting treasure can increase your wealth rating. Big Purchases, like magic items or setting up a business or a stronghold, incur "Debts" which reduce your wealth rating.

This isn't a bad system, but it's close enough to "You have 8 Money, this sword costs 4 money" that a player that isn't especially invested in the nuances of the system is going to see it that way.

Similarly, a Value Rating 4 isn't QUITE "This costs 4 money", but it's close enough for most purchases that players are going to probably see it that way, because those are the terms that are familiar to them. Internalizing nuance is hard, especially when it comes to the un-fun part of a fun activity (Learning rules for an RPG). People are usually going to jump on the first functional understanding they come to, which in this case is that Wealth = Money and Value Rating = Price.

So, both mechanically and narratively, getting something at value rating = getting it at cost with neither the craftsman or the vendor making any appreciable profit. If you are reliably paying less than the value, you can break the game with infinite money exploits.

If you always paid value rating, you would quickly run out of things to buy and no longer interact with economic aspects of the game. In turn, you could then check out of a lot of other aspects of the game, as you no longer care about completing objectives or finding treasure, and can simply buy your way through most challenges (like Bob with the cartload of consumables vs the BBEG in my story up thread).

The reason I do it this way instead of listing a "market price" is:

1: It allows the GM more flexibility in placing treasure and assigning objectives.
2: It allows for the possibility of simply being unable to find an extremely rare item.
3: It allows me to use a single value rating for every system in the game rather than having one value for shopping, one value for crafting, one value for a technomancer casting fabricate, a different value for a transmuter casting Midas' Touch, and alchemist creating tonics of drudgery, etc.

From a mechanical perspective its a functional elegant system.

Changing it might feel better psychologically, but it would be a lot clunkier to learn and to present.

[BRC]

So, both mechanically and narratively, getting something at value rating = getting it at cost with neither the craftsman or the vendor making any appreciable profit. If you are reliably paying less than the value, you can break the game with infinite money exploits.

If you always paid value rating, you would quickly run out of things to buy and no longer interact with economic aspects of the game. In turn, you could then check out of a lot of other aspects of the game, as you no longer care about completing objectives or finding treasure, and can simply buy your way through most challenges (like Bob with the cartload of consumables vs the BBEG in my story up thread).

The reason I do it this way instead of listing a "market price" is:

1: It allows the GM more flexibility in placing treasure and assigning objectives.
2: It allows for the possibility of simply being unable to find an extremely rare item.
3: It allows me to use a single value rating for every system in the game rather than having one value for shopping, one value for crafting, one value for a technomancer casting fabricate, a different value for a transmuter casting Midas' Touch, and alchemist creating tonics of drudgery, etc.

From a mechanical perspective its a functional elegant system.

Changing it might feel better psychologically, but it would be a lot clunkier to learn and to present.

I've got to say I pretty strongly disagree here.

What you've done is present a number that exists several steps removed from what players actually care about. Players primarily care about the price they will pay for the item, that's what they'll actually interact with. What you've done is presented them with the value of materials and labor to craft the item such that the crafter makes no profit. That's useful if you're playing a game of Fantasy Economics Simulator, but from the perspective of a Player trying to buy something, it's just adding unnecessary steps and confusion.

Let me break down your specific points




The reason I do it this way instead of listing a "market price" is:

1: It allows the GM more flexibility in placing treasure and assigning objectives.

Not sure about "Flexibility" here. I guess it does add some simplicity, if the idea is that A value X treasure you find in the dungeon should be worth more than Value X of gold (otherwise the more flexible gold is just better than any actual items, since it could be used to buy anything), you can calculate "Okay, I'll create several "treasure Lots" consisting of either a Value X treasure OR Value X of Gold". And the math is done for you.



2: It allows for the possibility of simply being unable to find an extremely rare item.


Unless I'm missing something, it does not. What allows for that possibility is a rule somewhere that says "The GM may determine that you simply cannot find an extremely rare item".

What you have right now is Prices With Extra Steps.


3: It allows me to use a single value rating for every system in the game rather than having one value for shopping, one value for crafting, one value for a technomancer casting fabricate, a different value for a transmuter casting Midas' Touch, and alchemist creating tonics of drudgery, etc.

Once again, Prices with Extra Steps. Your system doesn't really save any labor on anybody's part.

Ideally, things should be presented based on the Most Common Use Case, namely "A PC wants to buy this thing, and needs to take a guess on how much it will cost". That's the number Players care about 90% of the time.

Your system CAN work if you've got in plain text some simple rule like "The starting cost to buy an item is twice it's value rating" or whatever, because that's fairly simple math with small numbers. But even that's not ideal.

Do you HAVE set math for shopping, crafting, casting fabricate, casting midas's touch, creating tonics of drudgery, ect? Are those set modifications of the Value Rating for an item?

Or do you just have a list that says "+1 Sword, Value Rating 4" and ask your players to guess how that actually translates to what is relevant to their life.

[Herbert_W]

Calling it a "Value rating" isn't going to change much. . . . it's close enough to "You have 8 Money, this sword costs 4 money" that a player that isn't especially invested in the nuances of the system is going to see it that way. [...] People are usually going to jump on the first functional understanding they come to, which in this case is that Wealth = Money and Value Rating = Price.

Yes, exactly this.

I might be beating a dead horse here, but I really do think that this is the heart of the issue. Players will think that they're entitled to get a sword for 4 money becasue they think a sword costs 4 money . . . and then they get mad when they find out that, no, that's not how this works.

You (Talakeal) are accidentally making your players think that you're promised that they can get X goods for Y gold. This isn't what you intended to promise, so you don't fulfill it - and your players mistakenly see this as a broken promise.

The easiest solution here is to make it so that players can get what they're going to think they were promised. That means what are effectively sticker prices for all items that are on the open market. (These don't need to be actual sticker prices, worldbuilding-wise. They could be just the market price for a commission of average quality made to a stranger, or a guild rate, or something else. They just need to act as if they were sticker prices.)

In other words: if a player wants to invest nothing except for gold into getting a sword - meaning no merchant skill investment, no charisma, not even a roll with a risk of failure, just and only gold - then that's an option for the player. (This doesn't need to be a fixed price that the character knows about - it just needs to be a guaranteed option for the player.)


. . . I wonder if your game perhaps possesses too many "Mandatory" systems that the players will be punished for not investing towards being good at.

I think that's the other 10% of the issue. 90% of the problem here is described above, but this is important too.

Every mandatory system in your game is a potential pain point, so all else being equal, fewer mandatory systems is better.
Obviously a DnDlike game needs some mandatory systems - nobody gets a free pass on interacting with AC and saves, for example - but most systems aren't mandatory and there's a good reason for that. Non-spellcasters don't need to think about choosing spells, non-druids don't need to worry about wildshape, non-melee characters don't need to worry about the feats that they aren't choosing between, etc.

Unless there's some compelling reason why merchant skills need to be a mandatory system like AC and saves, I'd strongly recommend letting players opt out.


The reason I do it this way instead of listing a "market price" is:
1: It allows the GM more flexibility in placing treasure and assigning objectives.


I don't see much of a connection here. We're talking about how players spend wealth - that's largely independent of how they gain it.

Abstract wealth can still easily interact with non-abstract prices. The usual way to do this is with thresholds - say, if an item costs less than a given threshold, you can just buy it and not bother to track the cost. The wealthier you are, the higher this threshold is. (Of course, this threshold has to cut both ways - you can't buy a below-threshold and therefore "free" sword 100 times, then sell you above-threshold pile of 100 swords to increase your wealth.)



2: It allows for the possibility of simply being unable to find an extremely rare item.


That's always possible, regardless of what system you use. In fact, having (effective, not necessarily actual) "sticker prices" makes this even easier and much simpler to communicate: if an item isn't on the chart of sticker prices, that tells the player that they can't expect to find it on the open market.



3: It allows me to use a single value rating for every system in the game rather than having one value for shopping, one value for crafting, one value for a technomancer casting fabricate, a different value for a transmuter casting Midas' Touch, and alchemist creating tonics of drudgery, etc.


OK, but you could still do that with sticker prices. Under this system:

The sticker price is the maximum amount that the item can cost. This is the "if you invest nothing except for gold" price.
The merchant skill is one way to get items for a lesser price, or to get items which aren't available on the open market at all.
Crafting is another way to get items for cheap, or that aren't available on the open market - maybe applicable to a different set of otherwise-unobtainable items.
The fabricate spell is another way to get items for cheap, etc.
Midas touch, etc. are all more ways to get items more cheaply or with more items available than would be found on the open market.


In short, merchant skill, crafting, etc. can all be different ways to get items for less than their listed "effective sticker price" and can all refer back to that same price. The most important difference between what I'm proposing and you current system is that the "effective sticker price" should be (a) the first price that the player sees and (b) something that they can just pay to get the item, with no other investment or rolls needed.

[Telok]

Logically speaking, wouldn't what an average person pays with an average roll BE the market price?
...
The reason I do it this way instead of listing a "market price" is:
...
Changing it might feel better psychologically, but it would be a lot clunkier to learn and to present.

Woah! Possible easy solution: Insert an "normal sale value" of your system's assumed result in front of "value rating" in the player referenced "how to get gear" section, and maybe change "value rating" in that section to "crafting value rating".

What we've got is an information & perception gap of people not understanding nuances of how that part of the game works. Be explicit and give a bit more info in the form of "what the pcs can expect to pay normally". You can't make people read all the rules (sad but true) so you need to make the bits they will read & recall cause them to get the correct message.

Now instead of something like:


Uber sword, value rating 3
Doom sword, value rating 4
Nuke sword, value rating 5

You have:


Uber sword, normal sale value 8, crafting value 3
Doom sword, normal sale value 10, crafting value 4
Nuke sword, normal sale value 13, crafting value 5

[Herbert_W]

There are also exclusive, private, and often shady auctions that the vast majority of people know nothing about. [...] You can only show up if [reasons] or if you have something to put on the auction block and the word gets out, and you get contacted ... [my emphasis]

This is a separate reply becasue this is a separate subject - but I'd just like to point out that this is both very cool worldbuilding and very good game design.

This leads to interesting player choices: every magic item that the players find could be something that they use as-is - or it could be used as their ticket in to an auction.

This solves the old "piles of useless gold" and "magic items shops make items less special" problems: players can spend gold to get items, but the DM determines what they can get and they can't get any specific item reliably.

This isn't what OP's game is balanced around, but if I were building a game from the ground up I'd very happily borrow this idea.

[Segev]

The player characters save a town from rampaging orcs. In addition to their promised reward, one of the local shop-keepers gives the players a voucher for half off any item in his store. The players look through his stock, and though there are several very useful magic items, none of them are optimal for the player's builds and they decide to pass up on the offer.

Is this an example of decaying wealth? Is the merchant stealing from the players?The merchant has magical items, but nothing generically useful enough that anybody could use it? Healing potions, beads of force, iron bands of Bilarro, +1 bolts or arrows?

I mean, to answer your question, no, it's not cheating them, but I totally get the players being a bit disappointed by what they view as a non-prize, and why some would seek to transform it into an advantage by trying to buy something they might be able to sell elsewhere for more than they paid. Not that that works well when they paid half price for it and sell prices are usually also half price. But still, maybe they can barter it for something elsewhere. Or use it as materials in a magic item. (Of course, those are D&D assumptions; I don't know what your system says about such things.)



The issue is whether or not the players actually want to play this game or are doing it because its the most efficient tactic.Does your wealth rolling system change this? Do your players like it better? If they still feel like they are compelled to play against this rule or to try to exploit this rule to "be most effective," it's worth examining what it is they think they need to do to make it effective when they aren't having fun doing so.




In the current group, the problem isn't really the min-maxxing per se, its the lack of synergy. For some reason, everyone wanted to hyper focus on their will save and dump charisma. And again, that's only a problem when the players refuse to accept that they will struggle in charisma based situations and instead complain that the rules themselves are unrealistic.You did just change Charisma into being "the money Ability Score." If it wasn't, before, and they hadn't internalized how this new rule worked, I can see why they'd feel annoyed. Imagine if you joined a D&D game and built a dex-based rogue, only to learn that armor class and saves vs. AoEs are based on Strength in this game. Sure, maybe it was mentioned to you, but you hadn't delved into the changes to really internalize it, so now you're frustrated that your rogue sucks at the very things you thought he should be good at.



You may not realize it, but I wholly agree with you.

The purpose of this system is to minimize time spent shopping and book keeping. Mundane gear is totally ignored under this system.

Spells were the worst. We used to call it "spell-whoring" when the Wizard players would check at every merchant for every scroll in the game every time while the rest of the party's eyes glazed over and their will to live flew out the window.

Out of curiosity, what system are you playing where you can haggle but only get ripped off? That seems weird from both a mechanical and narrative perspective.

In my system shopping is handled by one or two quick rolls at the beginning or the end of the session, shouldn't take more than a couple minutes max.Is it? Then why is there a problem? What are players upset about?

As for "spell-whoring," this is easily enough solved by not checking for every spell to see if the shop has it, but rather by checking to see which spells the shop has.


Which is not to say we don't have similar situations though; last session we spent three bloody hours sitting in town because we were going into a lightless dungeon and nobody was willing to carry a lantern and we couldn't agree on how to split the cost of hiring a torch-bearer. Three. Goshdarned. Hours.This is a table problem, not a system problem. Why were these such an issue? What was the disagreement, and why, and what sides were there?



First, its funny how upthread people were saying that players liked having hooks and interesting business opportunities and now its being used as an example of a negative experience. Different strokes I suppose.They're hooks if the players buy into them. They're ignorable if players are uninterested...and if they're not, then they become nuisances to the players. The suggestions up thread are mainly to take the efforts to sell stuff and carry every last ounce of metal out of a dungeon into their own adventures, because the logistical problems are real and solving them can be their own fun, and the reward for the extra adventure is built in: they get to cash in the extra stuff they looted.


Again, this is more or less exactly how it works currently, just phrased differently.

Honestly, the only real difference would be taking away the player's ability to throw money at the situation if they really must have a rare item that simply isn't available for sale in the area.If the item is unbalancing at this level and tier of play, then that's exactly what you should do. No amount of money will, today, buy me a potion of youth or a magical candle that will summon an angel to do my bidding. The same can be true in your campaign.




Its a single small whole number. No fractions, no change, etc.

But the big advantage is being able avoid small amounts of money both positive and negative. Players don't have to say "Ok, we loot the orcs and find 5 shirts of chainmail, 7 short swords, 12 daggers, 4 spears, 8 suits of leather armor, 27 boots, 8 helmets, seven javelins, and twelve hand axes. How much can we get from the merchant if we also want to buy seventy feet of rope, a cart, 2 mules, eight weeks of iron rations, fourteen torches, a gallon of lamp oil, 4 oilskins, and a long-sword +1."

It also saves the players hoarding all sorts of random crap hoping to sell it for a quick buck at some point down the road.You can do this with gp, too, just by telling them "it's this much weight and bulk of stuff, and it'll sell for x gp. ARe you sure you want to haul it all?"

They'll likely feel less cheated and more like they're making smart choices to leave things behind if they know in advance what they can get for it and how much trouble it'll be to


It would serve even better in this regard if I went the route of most modern systems and simply didn't allow characters to bank their resources from one adventure to the next, but that is apparently an unforgivable sin in the communities I am a part of.The only systems I know of that do that aren't more modern than ones that don't; they're just more episodic, and often are organized play systems built to accommodate the difficulty of tracking loot with changing rosters of players.




This is more or less how I do it.

The problem is that pesky loss aversion once again.

Players can accept that they can pay living expenses for a year and have it be abstracted away. What they can't accept is that their downtime earnings might also be abstracted away.

This literally happened in my last game; Bob was playing a pickpocket and demanded I periodically increase his wealth rating because the money he steals doesn't "just vanish".That's not "loss aversion." That's Bob making problems by trying to eke out every advantage he can through metagame complaint. Stop playing with Bob.

Is it really all of your players that feel the trade of no incidental expenses for no incidental increases to their pocketbooks over downtime is a problem? Or is it just Bob, or Bob and one other?


Likewise, they can't accept is that a failed business venture, like say spending a year searching every market on the continent for a specific magic item or repeatedly making expeditions into the wilderness to extract out every last bit of copper from a dungeon, might actually cost them unless the "merchants are actively stealing from them".I mean, that IS frustrating. But again, is that really all of your players? And if you know it's going to result in that, why not just tell them up front that they can't find it?

Why aren't there adventures that involve them going and searching, and even if they don't find what they're looking for, they find other loot and treasure?


Normally one or two players are profit driven enough to do it, and the rest of the party and the GM just kind of go along bored with it because it is mechanically optimal.Your system allegedly makes it not mechanically optimal, but one or two players still complain and insist they should get wealth increases off of tiny amounts of pickpocketing. It isn't the system that's the problem, here.


It also forms a sort of "gotcha PCing" where the DM has to think very very carefully about every little thing lest they wreck the game's economy. I remember one time when the GM had a hallway in a kobold lair that had chains stretching across it at all angles every foot or so, making it so the kobolds could move freely but we were having to climb through an obstacle course. After the kobolds eventually died, we went back and ran the math, and realized that the amount of chains in that hallway was mind-boggling, and looked up the price of chain in the PHB, and realized this chain was worth more than all the treasure we would find in our entire 1-20 adventuring career. At this point we are no longer adventurers, we are chain merchants, and that is the whole campaign. Its the optimal course of action, but not the game anyone signed on for.Or you make hauling the chain as difficult as hauling that much chain should be, and point out how hard it's going to be to sell it. Or you make the chains all rusted and gross so they won't sell. Kobolds have lower standards, you see.


I think we have a different definition of meta currency, or I just don't follow.

What I am talking about is things like rerolls and other things that can influence a dice roll; its nice to have things during downtime that players can use these unspent resources on.Ah, not what I was thinking of. WEll, if that's a goal, this system does accommodate that.


That's more or less the system I am using; I just round individual coins off to "treasure parcels*" to make the math easier and hand-waive away small amounts of treasure that waste everyone's time and energy.

I would like to switch to full acquisition rolls, but I am apparently the only one and don't want to risk the torch-wielding mobs.


*The actual terms are objectives, which are positive; debts, which are negative; and wealth rating, which is the sum of the two.Not sure what "acquisition rolls" would be in a way that's different here, but again, you need to analyze what the desired behavior from the players is, in implementing any such rule change, and then analyze whether this really makes the game more enjoyable for them.


Yeah, its more about throwing a temper tantrum, calling the rest of the party names, and threatening to ruin the game over something which was utterly trivial and cost him nothing in or out of character.Don't game with this person.


And then me getting called simultaneously a communist and a nazi for daring to balance the game around the assumption that if players invest in a skill they will be willing to use it for the good of their party rather than making gifts for your NPC waifu that won't even be completed before the end of the campaign.No, what you were called out on was not asking the player if it was okay for his character to do a thing. Which, honestly, I don't blame you for, but when you turn around and act horrified or flabberghasted that the player might object to it to the point that you want justification to force his PC to do something, yes, you'll get called out on it. Maybe that wasn't your intent, but given that it's Bob, and a lot of the time people will side with you and tell you Bob should be made to suck it up, it probably came off that way. This was a rare instance where Bob was, if not fully righteous, at least in the right in saying he doesn't want his PC forced to do that.

That said, since his reason for not doing it is that his PC is working on something that won't have any impact on the game, he's making an excuse for a choice to contribute less to the party and game. This is part of a pattern of Bob being disruptive and a downer. Stop gaming with Bob.


As I said above, the system does let players throw ludicrous amounts of money at items that would ordinarily be unavailable to them.

Honestly, that may be the major disconnect between my system and my players. My game doesn't do a lot to hold your hand, and lets you do whatever you want if you are willing to accept the natural consequences of it. My players, on the other hand, don't like to take responsibility for anything, and are always looking for someone, be it the GM, their fellow players, or the rules, for anything that doesn't go their way.That's not just the system. That's the setting and, ultimately, you, the GM. Just tell them when something they want is unavailable to them at any price. Don't include it in the game in a way or place they can get it if it's going to ruin the fun.


Its not that they were OP in a vacuum, its that he decided to use half a campaigns worth of consumables in a single encounter.

Which is, not ideal, there is something narratively lacking about the big climactic fight that the whole campaign has been leading up to being amongst the easiest fights of the game, but it isn't really a bad thing.

The bad thing was the price everyone had to pay getting there, where Bob is struggling in every previous fight for lack of resources and then complaining about how the fights are over tuned and I am too stingy with treasure.1) Don't make that many one-shots available in one place at the time he needs them, in that case.

2) Don't run games with Bob as a player anymore.

[Zanos]

I treat magic items differently than that.
There are no magic shops.
There is NO "a +1 longsword is worth 700 GP" system in place anywhere.
There are cases of "I know a guy" where you meet a contact and a trade or a negotiation can happen. There are also exclusive, private, and often shady auctions that the vast majority of people know nothing about. (Something like Anthony Bourdain's story about the secret gourmet dinners where they ate an endangered species of bird called an ortalan).
You can only show up if you have an invitation, someone in that elite/exclusive circle owes you a favor, or if you have something to put on the auction block and the word gets out, and you get contacted ...
As a DM, you can either RP the auction or roll the dice on the Xanathar's tables as regards complications or price fluctuations.
I think if you want to do this magic items should probably be more interesting than a +1 sword and a +1 ring, but if it's 5e there's not much you can do without breaking the entire system over your knee as it is.

But as demonstrated, OP's setting doesn't have magic items that are as rare as invitations to parties to eat endangered animals.



Calling it a "Value rating" isn't going to change much.

If they open the book and see "Value Rating = 4" they're going to parse that as Price = 4, even if they consciously know that a "Value Rating" is just an abstracted representation of what you'd expect to pay with average stats and an average haggling roll. There's some importance nuance there, but it's close enough to the concept of a list Price that people are going to think about it that way rather than internalizing some new concept of an "Average price you can expect to pay if you get an average result". Especially since your system does use wealth as an expendable resource (It's abstracted so as to avoid counting individual coins).


By my understanding, your system is that you have an abstracted wealth rating, which is used to cover common purchases, nonmagical gear, lifestyle expenses, horses, transportation, ect. Getting treasure can increase your wealth rating. Big Purchases, like magic items or setting up a business or a stronghold, incur "Debts" which reduce your wealth rating.

This isn't a bad system, but it's close enough to "You have 8 Money, this sword costs 4 money" that a player that isn't especially invested in the nuances of the system is going to see it that way.

Similarly, a Value Rating 4 isn't QUITE "This costs 4 money", but it's close enough for most purchases that players are going to probably see it that way, because those are the terms that are familiar to them. Internalizing nuance is hard, especially when it comes to the un-fun part of a fun activity (Learning rules for an RPG). People are usually going to jump on the first functional understanding they come to, which in this case is that Wealth = Money and Value Rating = Price.
I don't think is a player perception problem. It's just a system problem. d20 modern abstracts wealth in a weird way that you deduct an amount relative to your Wealth bonus only when you acquire something greatly above it, and you add your Wealth bonus to your acquisition rolls. Exalted works similarly in that your rating is just a list of what you can access and it never really goes down. OP's system is basically money with the zeros shaved off and mundane goods aren't worth anything. Who cares if you deduct 4 "wealth points" or 4000 "gold pieces" from your sheet? It doesn't sound like it's some non-linear scaling rating that's a measure of your economic influence. It's just cash, except you don't know how much stuff costs until you already committed to spending at least 1 point to find out that you rolled bad and the thing you want costs 15.

[Vahnavoi]

Shortly about the main topics and some tangents that have come up:

Yes, fixed prices are an anachronism. More, they are a transparent game conceit, existing to make a particular subgame easier to deal with. The argument from realism is laughable, and your player probably knew that; nothing about their behaviour suggest they genuinely want realism, or that they would even recognize it when they saw it. Instead, they've learned that appealing to realism is a good way to manipulate you to get what they want. The fact that you even bothered to come here to ask about it, when the answer is this obvious, demonstrates this. Stop being a sucker for such weak arguments. If your players can't make their own case, ignore them.

Yes, negative consequences in a game are punishments. Why? A punishment is an intentional negative consequence. The scenario of a roleplaying game is intentionally staged by the game's designer and intentionally enforced by the game's referee. Every negative consequence enforced as true within the game by you can therefore validly seen as a punishment by you. This is allright. As a game's designer, it's your right to decide which kind of behaviour your game punishes or doesn't, as a referee it is likewise your right and duty to punish players and their characters. Your players either have to suck that up or stop playing games designed and refereed by you. If they cannot understand the distinction between a punishment fairly given under a game's rules from a referee screwjob, that's on them.

Yes, a lot of games abstract away counting money and haggling, because they want to focus on something else. No, this does not mean counting money and haggling are inherently uninteresting. To the contrary, there are entire game series focused on counting money and haggling, which only becomes more obvious if you look outside the genre of fantasy roleplaying games. Haggling is a form of negotiation and negotiation between humans as a game mechanic is robust enough to serve as a backbone of a game on its own. Nothing good is gained from hating on them in a vacuum.

Yes, all forms of "wealth" that involve rolling dice are form of gambling. This includes even old-school stuff such as randomized treasure, and definitely includes all forms of acquisition rolls. Fundamentally, all such mechanics are like loot boxes, at most you manage to remove a few steps (gaining and spending money) on the way to opening the box. Conceptually, this means occasionally losing without being able to do anything about it within rules of the game. Always. This is what your players have a problem with, this is what you have to hammer into their heads. If you cannot, either tell them to get bent or switch to a fully deterministic system.

Yes, challenge and "playing to win" are core game aesthetics. There are, depending on how you count, at least seven other game aesthetics, and hence at least seven other forms of "fun" to consider. You can't always serve all of them with the same mechanic. Emphasize challenge enough and you will drive away people who wanted relaxation, and vice versa, to give a simple example.

The above is mostly a rehash of what others have said, now on to something else.


The issue is whether or not the players actually want to play this game or are doing it because its the most efficient tactic.

Like, I once had a D&D game where the players came up with the following idea; they all play elves, and they all spend the first 200 years of the game sitting in town crafting and then start adventuring with ~50,000 gold at first level.

Its not that anyone actually wanted to play a 300 year old elven craftsmen, its just that it gave such an overwhelming mechanical advantage that they would be foolish not to do it.

And, of course, the logical next step is then donating all of that money to a party fund, suiciding said 300 year old elven craftsmen, and then bringing in the characters they actually want to play. Or repeating the process several times over.

This is what MMO designers call a "toxic gameplay element", something that isn't really fun or engaging on a fictional level, but players feel compelled to do anyway because the mechanical incentives are too rewarding to ignore.



If I had a billion years and even a modicum of business acumen I can guarantee you I would be worth more than Jeff Bezos.

Napkin math, a standard IRA with a base investment of only $1000 dollars will be worth more than Jeff Bezos in 221 years.

NichG already called this a self-own, and I'm going to second that, but with heavier emphasis.

Bluntly: the fact that your players thought their plan would work, and the fact that you thought your napkin math has any value whatsoever, show that neither you nor them understand the systems you're trying to operate in.

More directly, this was shown by your comment about how in-character time is a meaningless or valueless resource. That can only be the case if you make it so, and the only reason to make it so is if you're unwilling or unable to consider flow of time, both in and out of the game.

What's wrong with both the 300 year craftsmen plan and your napkin math on a 221 year investment, is that they try to extrapolate a very small part of an overall system into the far future. This is fallacious to the extreme. In a D&D game, a sane referee would point out that staying in a town for 300 years means the game calendar advances by 300 years and the characters have to deal with that many years' worth of game events. The players coming up with the plan is not a sufficient reason for the game master to ignore all the other subsystems the game has, such as random encounters, weather, enemy movements, etc. that would be active while the player characters are crafting. Therefore, while a single game day spent crafting might involve less detail and less real time than a game day spent adventuring, going through 300 times 365 days would take substantial real time to go through, and count as a very meaty game all on its own.

Allowing players to bypass only makes sense if a game master doesn't want to process all that and is fine with the player character starting off with inflated wealth. In every other case, it's throwing the players a bone they did not deserve and which does not follow from the game rules as a whole. It's not an efficient tactic at all.

Likewise, in the real world, 221 years is long enough that presuming any investment to be stable and growing throughout is baseless. Such napkin math means nothing, because it's leaving too many things unaccounted for.

If you want to show a gameplay element is toxic due to unwarranted efficiency or because it incentivizes wrong kind of behaviour, you have to correctly calculate its efficiency and show that the incentive is created from correct understanding of its efficiency. If that's not the case, then it's not the gameplay element that's toxic, it's the players who are bad at playing the game, and their toxic bevaviour is a result of them being either unwilling or unable to do better. Related, people usually take time and effort to get any good at anything. If your players never engage your systems or if you keep changing your systems, their viewpoint, and consequently any feedback you receive from them, is forever rooted in them being bad at playing your games. I'd argue you're well past the point where anything they say is of any worth. Stop listening to them and stop changing your systems before you find someone who is not them to playtest them with.

[Talakeal]

This thread blew up, still need to go back through and respond to people one at a time when I get a moment.


snip

Great post. I agree with everything you said here 100%, and really, yeah, I guess I knew it before I ever started the thread, but thanks for the reassurance!


snip
NichG already called this a self-own, and I'm going to second that, but with heavier emphasis.

Bluntly: the fact that your players thought their plan would work, and the fact that you thought your napkin math has any value whatsoever, show that neither you nor them understand the systems you're trying to operate in.

More directly, this was shown by your comment about how in-character time is a meaningless or valueless resource. That can only be the case if you make it so, and the only reason to make it so is if you're unwilling or unable to consider flow of time, both in and out of the game.

What's wrong with both the 300 year craftsmen plan and your napkin math on a 221 year investment, is that they try to extrapolate a very small part of an overall system into the far future. This is fallacious to the extreme. In a D&D game, a sane referee would point out that staying in a town for 300 years means the game calendar advances by 300 years and the characters have to deal with that many years' worth of game events. The players coming up with the plan is not a sufficient reason for the game master to ignore all the other subsystems the game has, such as random encounters, weather, enemy movements, etc. that would be active while the player characters are crafting. Therefore, while a single game day spent crafting might involve less detail and less real time than a game day spent adventuring, going through 300 times 365 days would take substantial real time to go through, and count as a very meaty game all on its own.

Allowing players to bypass only makes sense if a game master doesn't want to process all that and is fine with the player character starting off with inflated wealth. In every other case, it's throwing the players a bone they did not deserve and which does not follow from the game rules as a whole. It's not an efficient tactic at all.

Likewise, in the real world, 221 years is long enough that presuming any investment to be stable and growing throughout is baseless. Such napkin math means nothing, because it's leaving too many things unaccounted for.

If you want to show a gameplay element is toxic due to unwarranted efficiency or because it incentivizes wrong kind of behaviour, you have to correctly calculate its efficiency and show that the incentive is created from correct understanding of its efficiency. If that's not the case, then it's not the gameplay element that's toxic, it's the players who are bad at playing the game, and their toxic bevaviour is a result of them being either unwilling or unable to do better. Related, people usually take time and effort to get any good at anything. If your players never engage your systems or if you keep changing your systems, their viewpoint, and consequently any feedback you receive from them, is forever rooted in them being bad at playing your games. I'd argue you're well past the point where anything they say is of any worth. Stop listening to them and stop changing your systems before you find someone who is not them to playtest them with.

Oh, for sure you can't just throw a 1000 dollars in an IRA, wait 200 years, and be the world's richest man.

My point still stands that if you are immortal, and if you live an ascetic life, and if you are talented with a good head for business, you will be ludicrously wealthy by any regular standing, barring occasional rocky periods following the collapse of a market or the like.

Likewise, the money situation is something that seems to be rules legal, and seems plausible to the players. Its not "realistic" or following the "spirit of the rules" and it may not even be following the letter of the rules depending on how closely you look and how you make judgement calls, but it is still an example of something that is ripe for PC exploitation and will be perceived as a GM screwjob if you step in to stop the free money train.

[Segev]

My point still stands that if you are immortal, and if you live an ascetic life, and if you are talented with a good head for business, you will be ludicrously wealthy by any regular standing, barring occasional rocky periods following the collapse of a market or the like.

This is irrelevant. Think of it this way: rather than your players saying, "we're going to play these boring PCs, except we're just going to fast-forward to the far future and then suicide them to play our real PCs," what if they instead said, "We want to play the heirs to 300-year-old financial empires?" That's what they're really doing. If that's whta they want to play, are you okay with running that?

You say, "well, that's just optimal," but if that were optimal, then you could reasonably say that literally every NPC also does the same thing. I doubt your players really want that.

Also, again, is this "your players," or is this "Bob?"

Stop playing with Bob.

[Talakeal]

You know, at this point I am wondering if I shouldn't just rewrite the whole system to be GM facing. Something like:

"When your character is in civilized lands, you may incur a single debt to make a shopping trip. Doing so automatically refills your supply of food, drink ammunition, explosives, lamp oil, and provides you with plenty of materials to craft and maintain your gear. You may also pick up as many ordinary goods as you can carry. During each shopping trip, you may seek out a single rare item. The DM then consults availability (rolls the shopper's business against the item's quality exactly like they do now) and then tells the player what the cost of the item is due to current market factors. If you choose not to purchase it, you can check again during your next shopping trip to see if the market has changed in your favor."

Its exactly the same mechanically, and it doesn't fix Bob's demand that there be a universal fixed sticker price, but it seems like the presentation would bypass most of the complaints raised in this thread.


That's correct, but in a culture where haggling is expected, the "initial offer" from the merchant is going to be inflated. And im a situation like that, a bad haggle role probably DOES represent the players not managing to bring the offer down at all.

One alternative to the merchants raising their prices for ugly players is that everybody having dumped Business might mean that they don't know the places where good deals are available (or who would buy a given magic item). Greg the Vegetable Merchant doesn't really have any use for a magic sword, but if the players try to use him as an all-purpose vendor he might lowball the characters on an offer with the intent of immediately turning around and selling it to somebody who outfits adventurers.

Also, your players are really weird. "I spend 200 years crafting?" And they expect the world to just sit there, stable around them?

Yep.

Heck, Bob even took that one step further once; I gave the players a time machine to allow them to adventure in any era, and Bob's immediate response was to lock himself in a time-loop in his library groundhog day style and expected infinite XP for having infinite time to study because "its realistic",


I mean, I don't care for challenge and risk at all. I'm fine with cheat codes, though there are better ways to do what cheat codes do for me. Personally, I like the feeling of 'getting away with something' - that is, destroying something that is supposed to be challenging, using some specific pattern of behavior or action or exploits or whatnot that wouldn't necessarily work if I had not actively sought them out. Like making eternal potions that give you +10000 to stats in Morrowind by exploiting the fact that potion strength is based on Intelligence, and buffing your Intelligence with a potion to make an even stronger Intelligence potion has escalating rather than diminishing returns. So my preferred form of cheating is using either stuff that isn't working as intended in games, and/or adding a bunch of really complicated but overpowered mods that completely wreck the intended balance of the game but which require engaging with new subsystems in order to actually do that.

A cheat code isn't like getting away with something, because it just gives you things, but for me its great for reducing the friction of a game that has bits that you just want to not be doing - there are a number of games I enjoy only because I can use cheat codes to basically delete the parts of the game that I don't enjoy. Being able to periodically toggle into Creative mode in Minecraft for example is just great. I'd like the game a lot less if I couldn't, but I still tend to play in Survival mode and toggle Creative rather than just playing Creative all the time, because I want to actively do things like make a machine that makes infinite gunpowder for me rather than just editing in gunpowder when I need it, since doing it that way is what creates the feeling of 'getting away with something' for me.

I basically don't care about challenge one way or another. And I actively dislike risk in games.

I accept that, but I feel like you are even more of an outlier than Bob in that regard, and trying to please you even more fruitless. A dice game without risk is just a bizarre goal imo, as is trying to create a system with the ultimate goal of people taking pleasure in finding ways to exploit and bypass it.



But it does mean that the players should refuse the quest if its clear the payment is going to be in vouchers. Like in the case of stock options, if a company said 'we will pay you in stock options', I will say 'no, pay me cash or you don't get my labor'. And I would consider that company sleazy for trying to get effectively free labor and warn others off of it. And if someone tried to make it an industry standard, like unpaid internships or doing art for games 'for the exposure', I'd publically denounce that and mock it as exploitative, because its in my interest to not let it become a standard thing for companies, employers, etc to dump all their risks on me.

So for the PCs, letting a village who wants to pay them in 'gratitude' burn down rather than saving it, and making sure you know that they can't get hooked into quests unless the quest-giver plays it straight with them and gives them guaranteed, cold hard cash is in their interests.

That wasn't the reward they were promised, this was a little bonus thrown on to them that could have equaled player power but didn't and IC was a good faith offer on the part of the shop-keeper who didn't have a ton of cash but still wanted to help out the heroes who saved him home.

I was giving it as an example of a situation where one could get a tangible power reward out of it, or they could not, based on the vagaries of fate if played out, but which would be seen as theft if abstracted away to an acquisition role.


If you put that in your system, I'd call it a self-own. If you have a billion years and actually do things with your money to make more money, then yeah you can be richer than Bezos. If you literally do what your players asked to do: repeat X action 30000 times off-screen, you should just get 30000 times the value of X action minus whatever it costs to live for 30000 repetitions of X.

If you want to turn your $1000 into $10^11 through investments, tell me how you're investing, interact with the people involved, tell me what you do when the city your investments operate in ends up occupied by an army of orcs, tell me what you do a hundred years later when a new king declares that all old money must be turned in to the state to fund a war, or nationalizes that business you've been pouring resources into, etc.

By RAW 3.5 a first level skilled laborer nets ~6 gold a week after living expenses. That is, by RAW, ~60,000 gold in 200 years. Given a billion years, that's 312,000,000,000 gold, significantly more buying power than Jeff Bezos.

Of course no, its not realistic that you wouldn't have to do anything to maintain your wealth, but an immortal who is skilled in business absolutely could generate that level of wealth over the course of centuries.

I agree, that isn't how my system works or how D&D is intended to work, but it looks close enough to RAW that players would see any attempt to interfere as a GM screwjob and looks close enough to reality that they could call the rule set flawed if they didn't like it.


If you have some level of domain knowledge that you know how much an item actually costs to make in labor and materials, you should be able to just put your foot down for a reasonable price and most people will cave because it's better to make a sale for a reasonable profit than get nothing. It's not like adventurers who can need and afford magic items are common. But we have a baked into the system where if you decide to not purchase something for a x2 markup, you just lose money and get nothing. Why are you burning through contacts and wealth to find things that people, presumably, want to sell to you? If I was paying my contacts to find me goods, and they kept coming back to me with people selling goods at twice the usual price, I'd feel as though they were spending my money pretty poorly(and wondering if they were getting a cut of the final sale) myself. If I see used cars of a particular make and model going for 10k, I might buy one for 10.5k because I can't work the dealer down and just don't want to deal with the bull****, but I'm never going to pay 20k for the same car. Someone would have to be completely ignorant of absolutely everything related to economics to pay double the minimum profitable sale price for anything. The difference between being a skilled negotiator and not is just too large.

Look at real life prices.

Retailers typically charge about 160% of wholesale while wholesalers typically charge about double the cost of materials. Again, that's a quick average, but it makes the idea that you feel you are getting ripped off if you pay more than ~30% of the sticker price is kind of crazy.

Again, the "value" score in my game is the cost to make the item, not the "market price".

The debate is about whether or not there should be a fixed "sticker price" for rare items in a post apocalyptic non-industrial society where barter and haggling is the norm.

And yeah, you wouldn't pay double the "market value" of a car under normal circumstances, but you might if you are looking for a specific collector's item that hasn't been made for 50 years and there aren't a whole lot left in circulation. Heck, look the prices Magic Cards or D&D minis from the 90s go for on eBay!


Constantly hitting a characters weaknesses can be seen as unfair if it's artificial; if every encounter has a mage that hits the fighter with a Will save or lose and a big scary monster that grapples the low strength caster, the party is going to rightful feel like the DM is going out of his way to engineer encounters to exploit their weaknesses. And a lot of the time you can just avoid this stuff. If nobody in the party has fantastic charisma, you can just avoid encounters where you're likely to have to do a lot of non-violent problem solving. Nobody who has trap skills? That's fine, we'll avoid the notoriously trapped labyrinth of death and for regular traps just have a summoned monkey walk down the hallway before the party(although it sounds like OP to some degree wants to avoid logical solutions to issues that bypass the need for skill checks).

Yeah, I agree.

Generally, its not about clever ideas bypassing skill checks, its that the players are too lazy to think up clever solutions before rolling, and unwilling to spend resources after the fact.
Instead, they will want to resolve the situation with a dice roll, but if it doesn't come up in their favor they will come up with all sorts of excuses about how failure should have been impossible based on doing X, Y, & Z that they are only now mentioning after the fact.

For example, rather than saying "I tap the floor tiles with a 10' pole" they say "I search for traps." If I ask for elaboration, they freeze up and tell me I am asking too much of them, "How should they know what their character does, they aren't a rogue in real life!" Then, I give them a DC, and the roll the dice. If they pass, they move on. If they fail and I tell them they don't find traps, then when they step on the trapped floor tile they will say "Wait! I searched here! There is no way I wouldn't have tapped every tile with a 10' pole! This is a GM screwjob!"

Likewise, they won't waste a spell slot on summoning a monkey.


It doesn't sound like it's accomplishing this task? I can see how not counting every copper could save up on time but usually players will just write down their loot and figure out how much they can get for it later.

Oh, its a heck of a lot faster and easier to say "You salvage the orc's gear for scrap, mark down 1 objective" than figuring out the resale value of a huge pile of varying weapons and armor in varying states of disrepair sized for orcs.


This is why ideally shopping is handled out of session. I just give players a price limit for the settlement they are in and they send me a list of stuff they want and tell them to deduct the gold from their sheet. Jobs done, unless they want something unique or otherwise very special. I'm not sure how your system fixes this one, unless you just are hand waving scrolls.

My system doesn't have scrolls, wizards just know every spell.

If I were to play 3.5 again, I would probably just do what you are doing and give them a price cap, but that's not how we did it in the old days.


I mean, is this a problem with the wealth bonus system? If a torchbearer costs 2 gold to hire, everyone pays half a gold piece, right? Does he even cost enough to be worth deducting a wealth bonus?

Oh! Well you see...

Bob doesn't want to carry the lantern because it will make him a target.



It's good that that's your goal, but is that how it's worked out in practice? It sounds like quite a bit is happening with your rolls.

It works out fine, aside from the standard bellyaching that comes from my players when they fail any roll.


Not familiar with your system, but generally I would assume that the DC is the DC, and if you meet it you achieve what you were trying to do.

My system has five degrees of success. If you roll exactly equal to the DC number, you get a partial success or a success with a cost. For buying and selling, this usually takes the form of having the opportunity to get the item for free if you perform some additional task. It probably isn't actually a quest, although it can certainly be tied into one, more likely its just a single skill check or optional encounter.


As far as loot distribution, people should just get equal shares. You might consider my outlook "selfish" but I'd just call it fair. If my character is going to be pulled into a series of events that are committing an actual crime(stealing the sword) or possibly getting on the bad side of local criminals(spying on them), I'd want, both IC and OOC, to be appropriately compensated for the associated risk, considering the fighter or whatever is getting a free magic sword out of this mini-adventure and my character is getting nothing. If the party gets a reward of a magic item that is obviously suited to a single person in the party them keeping it is fine, but it's value needs to count against the characters future shares, because people will often take a mile when given an inch and it isn't long before characters are saying they "need" every +3 longsword and +2 ring of protection, and then turn around and sell them and keep the entire value of the sale, even when such items might represent 90% or more of the actual material value retrieved in an adventure. This is even worse because many DMs forget that there are characters that don't really use armor or weapons(druids, wizards, monks), and so the fighter has an armory of hundreds of thousands of gold worth of magic weapons and armor and the monk has nothing. A little bit of accounting keeps everyone honest, and treating magic items retrieved by the party as group loot to be distributed, and counted against the share of the person who claims it stops folks from grabbing stuff worth tens of thousands of gold they don't actually plan to use. This method has been fairly popular with other people I play with because it turns out that nobody really wants to adventure with the guy who says the 16,0000gp +2 weapon we find at the end of the temple of spiders is his because he's proficient with it, and nobody else gets anything. Sure, he can keep it, but he's going to count it's sell value against his share of the treasure. Oh, and if I catch the rogue stealing loot from under the party's nose, he gets gutted and left for vultures.

Ok, so this is probably my "commie-nazi" talking, but I think the players should split treasure and expenses evenly.

But, on the other hand, this is a group of people who are working together for years, trusting one another with their lives, and working towards some greater goal (even if it is just that fabled big score).

Demanding an extra share of treasure because you are helping the fighter recover an artifact sword, or the mage a lost spell, or the paladin a holy relic of his god, or the bard is trying to rescue her lost love, or the thief needs to pass a guild initiation or whatever just seems petty and short sighted. You are getting your regular share of treasure and XP anyway, and holding it against the person whose "spotlight" quest it is just leads to bad feelings in the sort term, and is kind of pointless as everyone will get their own share of spotlight adventures in the end.

(This brings me back to another classic Bob story. See, Bob refuses to contribute to party expenditures, and he also refuses to purchase items that aren't "best in slot" and is thus doesn't pull his weight a lot of the time. Then, if any of the other players ever said anything, he came to me (the GM) and said that I shouldn't allow other players to make him feel bad because he is "better with money than they are". And when it was pointed out that his spellbook alone was worth more than most other character's entire load-outs, he gave this whole big speech about how its unfair to compare individual wealth totals when we are a party. And then, the very same session, they found a plot relevant artifact sword worth a truck-load of gold, and Bob insisted that whomever ended up wielding it would have to pay him an equal share of its value to "keep things fair".)
The new kid and I don't want to carry the lantern because we are front-line fighters and need our shields to survive.
Johnny doesn't want to carry the lantern because he is an ogre and will need to get one custom made for his big hands, and that will cost money.
Sarah can't carry the lantern because she is a pixie and its just too heavy.
And the new girl can't carry the lantern because she is a ranged character and needs to be behind the party, not in front.

And so, we eventually decide that nobody wants to budge and we will have to hire a torch-bearer.


And yet this situation has arisen because you're using the rules for an everyday activity for adventurers (buying relatively normal adventuring equipment with incremental benefits over their current). Which is why your players want an "off the shelf" price. Their purchase feels to them as if it should be too mundane for high stakes rules to apply.

Yeah, that is the flip-side of the same argument.

Players shouldn't have a chance of failure during a dramatic moment because if there was a chance of failure it would make ordinary moments seem ridiculous.

I personally don't find seeking out high quality weapons to be a mundane daily task. For example, last year I purchase https://gunsonlinestore.com/product/browning-1911-22-black-label-medallion-22-lr-pistol/ and I ended up spending almost double that 499.99 sticker price and putting dozens of hours into tracking it down, filling out forms, and picking it up.


It's not just percentage vs. flat. They're comparing the price they paid now for this one transaction to the known list price for the item. They will always know exactly how ripped off they are getting.

Again though, that is just being a glass is half full kind of guy.

That's like referring to any damage roll that doesn't one shot the enemy as "exactly how badly I failed to kill the dragon."

Again, the book doesn't have a list price (which is what the whole thread is about) but if it did, the players aren't regularly paying more than it.


The percentage vs. flat issue comes when you combine this system with your exponential value from quality system. If you fail a purchase for a quality 0 high calibre rifle by 10 you pay 22, which is a huge markup. If you fail a purchase of a quality 2 high calibre rifle by 10 (because the difficulty only moved by 2) you pay 1210 which is so small you don't notice it.

Oh, ok. Yeah, that's a bit different.

First, you aren't going to be buying things more than 1 step of quality beyond the baseline unless something really weird is going on (even Bob's crazy shenanigans I mentioned up thread were only resulted in a 2 step x100 increase). 1210 wealth is more than most characters will see in an entire campaign, let alone spend on a single item.

But the thing is, players always have the option to walk away from a bad roll. Nobody would actually accept a bad roll if the cost of failure was multiplied by ten, they would just try again later. Such a system might feel more intuitive, but its a lot more stressful in practice and makes it a no-brainer to try and find ways to bypass the roll entirely, which might appeal to someone like NichG but is going to frustrate average players and GM's alike.

But!

How to split the cost of the torch-bearer?

The new girl is a ranged character so her penalties for darkness will be doubled without a light so she should pay two shares!
Johnny and Sarah have low light vision, so their darkness penalties are halved so they should only pay a half share!
And of course, Bob has dark vision, so he shouldn't have to pay a share at all.


Yes. It's presentation. Because success gets you the list price which you know in advance, and failure makes you eat a markup or pay 1 to even have participated and get nothing the feelings of success and failure are asymmetric. You never feel like you came out ahead, you only avoided falling behind. An important part of skill design is making sure that success feels like success.

Your Haggle skill doesn't do that, it doesn't make success feel good it only makes failure feel bad.

Psychology is weird.

To me, saying "I got it for wholesale!" doesn't sound like failing and falling behind.

Its just to weird that people see "paying above cost" as punishment but "paying below" retail as a reward even the if the latter is objectively more than the former.

But I will try and soften the phrasing again.


A possible fix would be to have degrees of success like you have degrees of failure, and to have banded success/failure. So for example every 5 points you succeed/fail by moves the price up or down by 1*(IQ*10).

So:



Price Modifier
Score Q0 Q1 Q2

<=-20 Fumble
-19 to -15 +3 +30 +300
-14 to -10 +2 +20 +200
-9 to -5 +1 +10 +100
-4 to +4 List Price
+5 to +9 -1 -10 -100
+10 to +14 -2 -20 -200
+15 to +19 -3 -30 -300
>= +20 Critical




That's actually how I had it for a while.

The thing is, it feels really bad to be just shy of a bracket, a constant and gradual slope of failure is a lot easier to swallow.


Also I still think fumbles need a more interesting and less nakedly punitive consequence than "lol you got robbed". That's the commercial equivalent of "you accidentally chopped your own head off".


If you say so.

I have personally been swindled numerous times, or otherwise never actually received a usable product due to questionable business practices, outside circumstances, or my own negligence.

And I am not someone who regularly haggles or deals with transactions for a living; just a gamer who sometimes buys and sells collectibles or commissions artwork.

Accidentally chopping one's head off is something that is damn near physically impossible, and not something I have ever even personally witnessed or even heard of happening aside from a few accidents involving falls or heavy machinery.


I treat magic items differently than that.
There are no magic shops.
There is NO "a +1 longsword is worth 700 GP" system in place anywhere.
There are cases of "I know a guy" where you meet a contact and a trade or a negotiation can happen. There are also exclusive, private, and often shady auctions that the vast majority of people know nothing about. (Something like Anthony Bourdain's story about the secret gourmet dinners where they ate an endangered species of bird called an ortalan).
You can only show up if you have an invitation, someone in that elite/exclusive circle owes you a favor, or if you have something to put on the auction block and the word gets out, and you get contacted ...
As a DM, you can either RP the auction or roll the dice on the Xanathar's tables as regards complications or price fluctuations.

Magic items are rare and much sought after. Think Sotheby's, but you have to 'know someone on the inside' to even get a ticket to the auction.

I have made one exception by adapting Captain Xandros in the Ghosts of Salt Marsh (who allegedly can get her hands on pretty much anything) but I generally rolled dice to see what she had access to at any given time. The Captain always wanted something in trade (not just gold) for what she had available.

As to the general case being discussed with the OP, I am pretty sure that the opening question is an X-Y problem. It's got very little to do with the system and everything to do with one player and the general lack of trust at their table which the OP has been regaling us with for some years.

That is more or less how actual unique artifacts are handled in my system.

The haggling rules are for more "mundane" items that are the equivalent of +X magic item's in D&D which aren't common by any means, but are not quite that degree of special.


Yes, there is.

You don't think that's what it means, but you've written a number in your game manual for the amount of wealth each thing costs. That's a price. Your items have prices. That is how everyone is going to understand that and it absolutely is how the characters interact with that number. It is an amount of their characters' wealth score they have to spend to get the item. That the prices are abstract not reified as currency doesn't change that.

I don't know.

I have played plenty of games that use value rating, mostly White Wolf systems or variants of Call of Cthulhu or Warhammer, and I have never once confused it for a price tag.

Maybe I am just weird (along with the other people who write such systems).

More likely, I guess its something about the hybrid nature of my system that leads people into approaching it with the coin-counting mindset and I need to figure out how to offset that.


Not sure about "Flexibility" here. I guess it does add some simplicity, if the idea is that A value X treasure you find in the dungeon should be worth more than Value X of gold (otherwise the more flexible gold is just better than any actual items, since it could be used to buy anything), you can calculate "Okay, I'll create several "treasure Lots" consisting of either a Value X treasure OR Value X of Gold". And the math is done for you.

Having 10 objectives per mission instead of 5 allows the GM a lot more flexibility in adventure design without risking breaking game.


What you've done is present a number that exists several steps removed from what players actually care about. Players primarily care about the price they will pay for the item, that's what they'll actually interact with. What you've done is presented them with the value of materials and labor to craft the item such that the crafter makes no profit. That's useful if you're playing a game of Fantasy Economics Simulator, but from the perspective of a Player trying to buy something, it's just adding unnecessary steps and confusion.

This is not a D&D style dungeon-crawling simulator.

Playing a merchant or a craftsman are wholly viable characters options in this game.

It removes unnecessary steps when you are crafting an item.

It doesn't add any extra steps at any point, and its less "confusion" as, I don't know what you would call it, an maybe "entitlement sticking point*" of players who just casually glance at the system.

*I am sure there is some actual marketing term for this; probably related to the concept of "anchoring". I know in World of Warcraft, for example, a lot of people consider the lowest price they have ever purchased a commodity for to be "the price" for it and anything above that to be them getting ripped off.


Unless I'm missing something, it does not. What allows for that possibility is a rule somewhere that says "The GM may determine that you simply cannot find an extremely rare item".

What you have right now is Prices With Extra Steps.

In a way.

I mean, a GM can always barge in and declare items available / unavailable by FIAT, and in most D&D systems that is seen as the norm. My PC's would see it as a screwjob, which honestly it kind of is.

In my system, its basically up to the dice to say "this item isn't available for a reasonable price right now" and then up to the player to decide to either accept that and try again later or to throw ludicrous amounts of money at the problem and make someone an offer they can't refuse.

Of course, that assumes they have a ludicrous amount of money. Most of the time, they won't, at which point "Its not available right now for a price you can afford" is the more accurate statement.


Once again, Prices with Extra Steps. Your system doesn't really save any labor on anybody's part.

Ideally, things should be presented based on the Most Common Use Case, namely "A PC wants to buy this thing, and needs to take a guess on how much it will cost". That's the number Players care about 90% of the time.

Your system CAN work if you've got in plain text some simple rule like "The starting cost to buy an item is twice it's value rating" or whatever, because that's fairly simple math with small numbers. But even that's not ideal.

Do you HAVE set math for shopping, crafting, casting fabricate, casting midas's touch, creating tonics of drudgery, ect? Are those set modifications of the Value Rating for an item?

Or do you just have a list that says "+1 Sword, Value Rating 4" and ask your players to guess how that actually translates to what is relevant to their life.

Ok so first off, I am still tinkering with my system and the playtest doc in my sig is not fully up to date, so please don't "gotcha" me if the summary below isn't 100% accurate, but:

My system has five resources; vitality, mana, destiny, wealth, and concentration, all of them of roughly equal value.

There are basically three ways to acquire an item:

A craftsman can build it. They do this by succeeding at a skill test and expending concentration equal to its value.
A merchant can buy it. They do this by succeeding at a skill test and expending wealth equal to its value.
A wizard can fabricate it. They do this by succeeding at a skill test and expending mana equal to its value.

In all three cases, they can expend additional resources to turn a failure into a success. Wealth to purchasing is the easiest and most direct as it is the one which non-specialized characters are most likely to engage in.

Further, you can convert one resource to another.

The exact efficiency of these conversions varies based on character skill and the roll of the dice; on average its about 50% efficient, but will never be more than 100% efficient.

Healers can convert mana into vitality.
Wyld Magic can convert mana into destiny.
Changelings can convert vitality into mana.
Transmuters can convert mana into wealth.
Merchants can convert wealth into vitality, mana, destiny, or concentration.
Alchemists can convert concentration into vitality, mana, or destiny.
And artists can convert concentration into wealth.

Destiny can't be converted directly, but can reroll any of the above.


Right now, the system is pretty unified and elegant, with all of the resources equally valuable.

Changing one or the other drastically will imbalance it with the rest of the system.

Of course, I can just double the value and say that Fabricate and Crafting work off half value, but that adds another step to both of those processes and requires putting in a much more awkward and math intensive gradient to purchasing an item with jagged points that feel really bad to get stuck on.


Every mandatory system in your game is a potential pain point, so all else being equal, fewer mandatory systems is better.
Obviously a DnDlike game needs some mandatory systems - nobody gets a free pass on interacting with AC and saves, for example - but most systems aren't mandatory and there's a good reason for that. Non-spellcasters don't need to think about choosing spells, non-druids don't need to worry about wildshape, non-melee characters don't need to worry about the feats that they aren't choosing between, etc.

Unless there's some compelling reason why merchant skills need to be a mandatory system like AC and saves, I'd strongly recommend letting players opt out.

Out of curiosity, is healing mandatory?

Would you say that a fighter has "opted out" of healing because they aren't the ones casting the spells even though they are the ones who are the most common recipients?


Because the hypothetical "everyone is average" party isn't reality, normally there will be a party face man / accountant who handles all of the buying and selling for the entire group.

Our last party had one character who invested heavily into business. Eventually the player left, but the character was still part of the party as an NPC. They were a mercenary company, and she was the "quartermaster", she paid everyone an equal wage, and then was responsible for all of the buying and selling and distributing the loot and making sure everyone got upgrades equally.

If you really don't want to interact with the system, this is a pretty normal setup unless nobody at the table wants to deal with business, which is kind of an outlier setup that requires a bit of extra thought.

And if you aren't interested in a setup something like the above, I would posit that maybe you are actually interested in engaging with the economic side of the game, you just want to have your cake and eat it too by getting the best prices but also not investing into the skills necessary to do that.



I don't see much of a connection here. We're talking about how players spend wealth - that's largely independent of how they gain it.

Players can also get items by crafting or conjuring them.

Right now, a character who buys their items, a technomancer who conjures them, and a blacksmith who crafts them will all gear up at the same rate. Adjust the efficiency of bartering, and it changes the comparative value of the other two unless you also adjust the amount of treasure which is given out.

As treasure is rounded into whole objectives rather than given out by the coin, the bigger each treasure parcel is, the last flexibility the GM has in handing it out.


Woah! Possible easy solution: Insert an "normal sale value" of your system's assumed result in front of "value rating" in the player referenced "how to get gear" section, and maybe change "value rating" in that section to "crafting value rating".

What we've got is an information & perception gap of people not understanding nuances of how that part of the game works. Be explicit and give a bit more info in the form of "what the pcs can expect to pay normally". You can't make people read all the rules (sad but true) so you need to make the bits they will read & recall cause them to get the correct message.

Now instead of something like:


Uber sword, value rating 3
Doom sword, value rating 4
Nuke sword, value rating 5

You have:


Uber sword, normal sale value 8, crafting value 3
Doom sword, normal sale value 10, crafting value 4
Nuke sword, normal sale value 13, crafting value 5


It looks like that is what I am going to have to do.

Its a lot of wasted page space and kludgy math for something that is already told to the players in the text, but c'est la vies.



You know, something else just hit me. The other problem with sticker prices? Players will want to steal items. If you establish "yes, this city has every magic item in the book up to 300,000 gold" then they will want to murder the shopkeeper and then just add "every item in the book up to 300,000 gold" to their character sheets free of charge.

Its kind of the inverse, lol.

If you use an abstract wealth system, munchkins will complain about the merchants stealing their wealth and then use it to justify murdering them.
If you use a coin counting system, munchkins will demand merchants have all that wealth sitting in their inventory and then use it as incentive to murder them.



And that's all I can type for now.

[BRC]

This is not a D&D style dungeon-crawling simulator.

Playing a merchant or a craftsman are wholly viable characters options in this game.

It removes unnecessary steps when you are crafting an item.

It doesn't add any extra steps at any point, and its less "confusion" as, I don't know what you would call it, an maybe "entitlement sticking point*" of players who just casually glance at the system.

*I am sure there is some actual marketing term for this; probably related to the concept of "anchoring". I know in World of Warcraft, for example, a lot of people consider the lowest price they have ever purchased a commodity for to be "the price" for it and anything above that to be them getting ripped off.



In a way.

I mean, a GM can always barge in and declare items available / unavailable by FIAT, and in most D&D systems that is seen as the norm. My PC's would see it as a screwjob, which honestly it kind of is.

In my system, its basically up to the dice to say "this item isn't available for a reasonable price right now" and then up to the player to decide to either accept that and try again later or to throw ludicrous amounts of money at the problem and make someone an offer they can't refuse.

Of course, that assumes they have a ludicrous amount of money. Most of the time, they won't, at which point "Its not available right now for a price you can afford" is the more accurate statement.



Ok so first off, I am still tinkering with my system and the playtest doc in my sig is not fully up to date, so please don't "gotcha" me if the summary below isn't 100% accurate, but:

My system has five resources; vitality, mana, destiny, wealth, and concentration, all of them of roughly equal value.

There are basically three ways to acquire an item:

A craftsman can build it. They do this by succeeding at a skill test and expending concentration equal to its value.
A merchant can buy it. They do this by succeeding at a skill test and expending wealth equal to its value.
A wizard can fabricate it. They do this by succeeding at a skill test and expending mana equal to its value.

In all three cases, they can expend additional resources to turn a failure into a success. Wealth to purchasing is the easiest and most direct as it is the one which non-specialized characters are most likely to engage in.

Further, you can convert one resource to another.

The exact efficiency of these conversions varies based on character skill and the roll of the dice; on average its about 50% efficient, but will never be more than 100% efficient.

Healers can convert mana into vitality.
Wyld Magic can convert mana into destiny.
Changelings can convert vitality into mana.
Transmuters can convert mana into wealth.
Merchants can convert wealth into vitality, mana, destiny, or concentration.
Alchemists can convert concentration into vitality, mana, or destiny.
And artists can convert concentration into wealth.

Destiny can't be converted directly, but can reroll any of the above.


Right now, the system is pretty unified and elegant, with all of the resources equally valuable.

Changing one or the other drastically will imbalance it with the rest of the system.

Of course, I can just double the value and say that Fabricate and Crafting work off half value, but that adds another step to both of those processes and requires putting in a much more awkward and math intensive gradient to purchasing an item with jagged points that feel really bad to get stuck on.


Not responding to everything right now, but
Hrmm, if that's how you envision it, I can see why you set the system up that way? Of course, my question is now how much do your players actually approach things as artists, alchemists, ect. Most of your stories seem to be about a D&D-style "Kill things take money" style experience. But if you intend crafting to be as central a mechanic as looting, your approach makes sense. You MIGHT just have to bend to the fact that most players will approach this as a D&Desque.

It might be as simple as a bit of sleight of hand presentation work. Have a line about "The Standard Price for an item is twice it's Value Rating, success on a Haggling check may reduce that price"

So when your PC fails their haggling check they think "Oh, I'm still getting the Standard Price".


Another thing to do is perhaps just change the terminology around. "Value Rating" sounds a little too translatable to "Price". If the value Rating is Materials+Labor for crafting, maybe just use that as the base.


Rather than use "Value Rating", use the term "Crafting Cost" or something to indicate that number refers to the cost of CREATING an item, and that the standard price to buy an item is twice that.

"I spent 8 on a Value 4 Sword" sounds like you got ripped off. "I spent 8 on a sword that cost 4 to craft" sounds like you took place in a normal business transaction where the swordsmith got to make a profit.

[NichG]

I accept that, but I feel like you are even more of an outlier than Bob in that regard, and trying to please you even more fruitless. A dice game without risk is just a bizarre goal imo, as is trying to create a system with the ultimate goal of people taking pleasure in finding ways to exploit and bypass it.


I'm just self-aware and have no shame about saying what it is that I like and don't like. Easy games are common. Cheating on single player games is common. People don't actually just instantly get bored of games and drop it when they cheat. As Vahnovoi pointed out, there are lots of different kinds of fun to be had. I mean, people play idle games! Walking simulators! Visual novels that are 99% passive! Simulation games, which even sometimes get called 'zero player games'!

The Siralim series, for example, are games where the ultimate goal is people taking pleasure in finding ways to exploit and trivialize the game, in weird, meme-y, and bizarre ways - create a party of monsters that constantly die and resurrect themselves and damage enemies and themselves when they resurrect leading to an infinite loop, create a party of monsters that reactively and proactively applies every status condition to every enemy along with a monster that gains stats whenever an enemy gains a status condition that has been hybridized with a monster that deals damage whenever an enemy gains a status condition, create a party of monsters that share all of their special abilities with each-other and have one guy who casts a spell to give everyone a new special ability each round, etc.

It's fine if that's not the game you want to run, but then don't expect people who want that kind of thing to enjoy what you'd rather run. Which, as Segev has said, probably means: don't play with Bob. I'd be pretty upset if after telling you my tastes you kept saying over and over 'hey, join my new campaign, help my test my system, I listened to your comments, etc' but then kept not changing the actual thing about the game that I explicitly said I didn't want to play. If it were me, I'd just walk away in that case.


at's 312,000,000,000 gold, significantly more buying power than Jeff Bezos.

Of course no, its not realistic that you wouldn't have to do anything to maintain your wealth, but an immortal who is skilled in business absolutely could generate that level of wealth over the course of centuries.

I agree, that isn't how my system works or how D&D is intended to work, but it looks close enough to RAW that players would see any attempt to interfere as a GM screwjob and looks close enough to reality that they could call the rule set flawed if they didn't like it.


Doing the 'skilled in business' stuff is the gameplay there. Don't assume it on behalf of the players, force them to be concrete. If they say literally 'I do nothing other than make my clay pots and sell them at market', don't assume for them that they're taking the proceeds and investing in arms when there are rumors of war, or keeping the assets in a variety of places so they won't be noticed or stolen, or doing anything particularly clever when the local population dwindles to three old ladies and seven cats, and a new metropolis starts up somewhere else. When something like that comes up, you can stop the time-skip and say 'this is happening, do you change what you're doing?'. Then the player has to say what they're doing differently if anything, and that back and forth actually becomes the gameplay.

An immortal skilled in business can generate huge wealth by taking actions using that wealth. That should not be assumed on the behalf of the player. Make them tell you what those actions are.

[Talakeal]

It's fine if that's not the game you want to run, but then don't expect people who want that kind of thing to enjoy what you'd rather run. Which, as Segev has said, probably means: don't play with Bob. I'd be pretty upset if after telling you my tastes you kept saying over and over 'hey, join my new campaign, help my test my system, I listened to your comments, etc' but then kept not changing the actual thing about the game that I explicitly said I didn't want to play. If it were me, I'd just walk away in that case.
.

I make changes based on Bob's feedback all the time. Honestly, it's one of the main reasons I still game with him, he gives good feedback and spots problems other people don't.

It's just that he also likes to bitch and moan anytime something doesn't go his way, and sometimes its hard to tell whether something is a legitimate problem or just him kvetching for advantage.

He does seem to genuinely like my games, as I am the only GM he will actually tolerate for more than a few sessions and Heart of Darkness is the only system he ever lets me run anymore.


Doing the 'skilled in business' stuff is the gameplay there. Don't assume it on behalf of the players, force them to be concrete. If they say literally 'I do nothing other than make my clay pots and sell them at market', don't assume for them that they're taking the proceeds and investing in arms when there are rumors of war, or keeping the assets in a variety of places so they won't be noticed or stolen, or doing anything particularly clever when the local population dwindles to three old ladies and seven cats, and a new metropolis starts up somewhere else. When something like that comes up, you can stop the time-skip and say 'this is happening, do you change what you're doing?'. Then the player has to say what they're doing differently if anything, and that back and forth actually becomes the gameplay.

Again, that is what I DO in these situations, and the players invariably bitch and claim I am screwing them over out of spite because they outsmarted the system.

They don't WANT to play merchants and all that that entails, they want an "I Win" button.

Like, one concrete example, again involving Bob, involves him being on an epic quest to save the world. He felt that the campaign was too hard, as he always does, and said he wanted to go grind XP for three years until he was to the point where he felt he could kill the BBEG without any risk to himself.

I responded by saying that if he let's the BBEG go unopposed for three years, that the BBEG will finish his grand evil schemes and have destroyed the world or ascended to godhood.

To this day, Bob still tells that story as an example of a GM railroading.

And I know, I know, don't play with Bob, but honestly, he is not the worst of that sort of player I have dealt with over the years, he is just to go to example because he has managed to hover just below the threshold of being a net positive to the group while the others have crossed that line and been ejected.

[Duff]

You seem to have a few questions going on here, all rolled into one:

Are fixed prices historical? - Irrelevant unless you're playing in an actual historical place. "It's historical" in a fictitious setting is a bit like "It's what my character would do". It might be true, but that doesn't mean it's not your choice
What do you think of my abstract wealth system? I'm a fan of such systems. Save the math. No "subtract 2 silver for soup or 5 for roast" at the inn. No "What's 347 gold divided by 4?" I'd make each character's wealth score be influenced by their charisma and business skill, rather than have a haggle role, but that's very much a style choice
How can I manage my player's response to the way the rules interact with my players and their choices? You are Talakeal and you have the table you have. So the obvious answer is "with difficulty". Maybe try simply giving a price up front which assumes normal haggling then if they want to haggle they can. This would probably play best with my suggestion of including the character's abilities in the wealth stat rather than the cost



Also, Monty Python have opinions on haggling
https://youtu.be/8iQ7nr8xEPo

[Talakeal]

You seem to have a few questions going on here, all rolled into one:

Are fixed prices historical? - Irrelevant unless you're playing in an actual historical place. "It's historical" in a fictitious setting is a bit like "It's what my character would do". It might be true, but that doesn't mean it's not your choice
What do you think of my abstract wealth system? I'm a fan of such systems. Save the math. No "subtract 2 silver for soup or 5 for roast" at the inn. No "What's 347 gold divided by 4?" I'd make each character's wealth score be influenced by their charisma and business skill, rather than have a haggle role, but that's very much a style choice
How can I manage my player's response to the way the rules interact with my players and their choices? You are Talakeal and you have the table you have. So the obvious answer is "with difficulty". Maybe try simply giving a price up front which assumes normal haggling then if they want to haggle they can. This would probably play best with my suggestion of including the character's abilities in the wealth stat rather than the cost



Also, Monty Python have opinions on haggling
https://youtu.be/8iQ7nr8xEPo

Thank you so much, I needed that. I am definitely going to have to RP the potion vendor as played by Eric Idle next time Bob goes to market in my game!

Also, I wouldn't really call my system abstract and I didn't really come here asking for reviews, its more of a half-way compromise between abstract and coin counting after seeing how well a full abstract system went over (like a plutonium hang-glider), but it was inevitable as it is tangential to the discussion and I have never been able to back down from a good debate.

[KorvinStarmast]

The OP has made a system that expects each player to upgrade several (five ?) slots for items roughly every 20 sessions with a larger + item even before considering any unique effects or consumables, if i understood this correctly. He also made an easily accessible crafting system that can turn money into most kinds of magic items.

You can't make a system that does this and at the same time treats magic items as super rare and something to fawn about. I was responding to a different post that established a premise that there was an expected price to a given magic item. I was not responding to the OP in that instance. (yeah, it's a convoluted thread, easy to get lost)

Yes, there is.

You don't think that's what it means, but you've written a number in your game manual for the amount of wealth each thing costs. That's a price. Your items have prices. That is how everyone is going to understand that and it absolutely is how the characters interact with that number. It is an amount of their characters' wealth score they have to spend to get the item. That the prices are abstract not reified as currency doesn't change that. That's a nice root cause analysis.

This is a separate reply becasue this is a separate subject - but I'd just like to point out that this is both very cool worldbuilding and very good game design.

This leads to interesting player choices: every magic item that the players find could be something that they use as-is - or it could be used as their ticket in to an auction.

This solves the old "piles of useless gold" and "magic items shops make items less special" problems: players can spend gold to get items, but the DM determines what they can get and they can't get any specific item reliably.

This isn't what OP's game is balanced around, but if I were building a game from the ground up I'd very happily borrow this idea. Our tables have found it enjoyable. My original DM in 5e did a variation on this and we, as players, enjoyed it also.

I think if you want to do this magic items should probably be more interesting than a +1 sword and a +1 ring, but if it's 5e there's not much you can do without breaking the entire system over your knee as it is. Not True. Not even close.

This thread blew up, Quelle suprise




That is more or less how actual unique artifacts are handled in my system.

The haggling rules are for more "mundane" items that are the equivalent of +X magic item's in D&D which aren't common by any means, but are not quite that degree of special. I use artifacts as plot engines. Each campaign will have it's own framework for stuff like that.

[Telok]

(like a plutonium hang-glider)

...and now I'm trying to figure out what I need to make plutonium hang-gliiders viable in some spot of my setting. I have over a hundred spelljammer/exalted/wod/wh40k crystal spheres to go I'm sure I can... invert gravity gradiants in a sphere... that might work... or some sort of negative mass zone or... radiation converted to lift but you'd need to lead line the top side maybe...

[Segev]

I make changes based on Bob's feedback all the time. Honestly, it's one of the main reasons I still game with him, he gives good feedback and spots problems other people don't.

It's just that he also likes to bitch and moan anytime something doesn't go his way, and sometimes its hard to tell whether something is a legitimate problem or just him kvetching for advantage.

He does seem to genuinely like my games, as I am the only GM he will actually tolerate for more than a few sessions and Heart of Darkness is the only system he ever lets me run anymore.The fact you phrase it as "that he will let you run" is a serious red flag, to me. Run something else, unless it's specifically what you want to run, and let Bob not play. I could be wrong, here, but it sounds to me like you're the only GM left who tolerates Bob's abuse, rather than the only GM he can tolerate. Bob can bully you into letting him make the game unfun, and quits other GMs' games because they put their foots down, is what it sounds like, to me.




Again, that is what I DO in these situations, and the players invariably bitch and claim I am screwing them over out of spite because they outsmarted the system.

They don't WANT to play merchants and all that that entails, they want an "I Win" button.

Like, one concrete example, again involving Bob, involves him being on an epic quest to save the world. He felt that the campaign was too hard, as he always does, and said he wanted to go grind XP for three years until he was to the point where he felt he could kill the BBEG without any risk to himself.

I responded by saying that if he let's the BBEG go unopposed for three years, that the BBEG will finish his grand evil schemes and have destroyed the world or ascended to godhood.Is this really "the players" and "they," or is this "Bob?"


To this day, Bob still tells that story as an example of a GM railroading.Then Bob doesn't know what railroading is. Railroading is when the DM sets up barriers to prevent anything but one choice and solution. The players don't control what NPCs do, and not allowing them to dictate that NPCs should behave the way the players wish they would is not railroading. He may as well say that it's DM railroading if the DM doesn't let the players control the monsters in the fight! In fact, every time Bob brings up this story, just state that. Take away HIS fun, and point out that what he considers "railroading" is the DM controlling the actions of the NPCs, rather than Bob getting to dictate them.


And I know, I know, don't play with Bob, but honestly, he is not the worst of that sort of player I have dealt with over the years, he is just to go to example because he has managed to hover just below the threshold of being a net positive to the group while the others have crossed that line and been ejected.He sounds like the one making all of your problems. Maybe I'm wrong and the other players are just as bad, or close to it, but if they were, I suspect they wouldn't be bored by the boring merchant simulators that Bob wants to play out.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, that is the flip-side of the same argument.

Players shouldn't have a chance of failure during a dramatic moment because if there was a chance of failure it would make ordinary moments seem ridiculous.

I personally don't find seeking out high quality weapons to be a mundane daily task. For example, last year I purchase https://gunsonlinestore.com/product/browning-1911-22-black-label-medallion-22-lr-pistol/ and I ended up spending almost double that 499.99 sticker price and putting dozens of hours into tracking it down, filling out forms, and picking it up.


Should've haggled more I guess?


Again though, that is just being a glass is half full kind of guy.

That's like referring to any damage roll that doesn't one shot the enemy as "exactly how badly I failed to kill the dragon."

Again, the book doesn't have a list price (which is what the whole thread is about) but if it did, the players aren't regularly paying more than it.

People actually will think like that, if there was a reasonable expectation that they could have killed the dragon with that hit in the first place. If you leave something on a couple of HP you always notice it.

And again, you don't intend the book to have a list price but mechanically it does because your wealth system is just money abstracted so it can include non-reified things like favours. Wealth level systems generally assume that your wealth does not go down when you make purchases. If you have wealth 2 and you want to buy a value 1 item in a wealth level system you are still wealth 2 when you have bought it. You don't "spend" wealth in those systems, you do spend it in yours. Wealth in your system is money you spend on things.


Oh, ok. Yeah, that's a bit different.

First, you aren't going to be buying things more than 1 step of quality beyond the baseline unless something really weird is going on (even Bob's crazy shenanigans I mentioned up thread were only resulted in a 2 step x100 increase). 1210 wealth is more than most characters will see in an entire campaign, let alone spend on a single item.

Then your entire purchasing system is over-systematised for something that's only relevant at the start of the game. (and coincidentally the start of the game are when it is also the most punishing due to linear costs of failure). Primary tagging Business feels like necessary a character startup tax not a long term useful choice (because the higher value items you want the less relevant further investment into business will be in getting them, investing in business beyond the level required to realistically avoid a fumble on a +1 purchase roll is a trap).


But the thing is, players always have the option to walk away from a bad roll. Nobody would actually accept a bad roll if the cost of failure was multiplied by ten, they would just try again later. Such a system might feel more intuitive, but its a lot more stressful in practice and makes it a no-brainer to try and find ways to bypass the roll entirely, which might appeal to someone like NichG but is going to frustrate average players and GM's alike.

No, they don't. They get charged for their bad roll no matter what. And early on when the purchasing system is the relevant way to get gear is when that cost bites the most. By the time they've got the banked wealth that they don't care about paying 1 to walk away they are hitting the practical limit of what the system expects them to ever buy anyway.


But!

How to split the cost of the torch-bearer?

The new girl is a ranged character so her penalties for darkness will be doubled without a light so she should pay two shares!
Johnny and Sarah have low light vision, so their darkness penalties are halved so they should only pay a half share!
And of course, Bob has dark vision, so he shouldn't have to pay a share at all.

That's a table problem, not a system problem. (PS if they don't come up with a reasonable solution you probably don't keep the new player,)


Psychology is weird.

To me, saying "I got it for wholesale!" doesn't sound like failing and falling behind.

Its just to weird that people see "paying above cost" as punishment but "paying below" retail as a reward even the if the latter is objectively more than the former.

But I will try and soften the phrasing again.

Because the book does not communicate item values as the "wholesale cost" or "cost of production". It says "this item costs 6 if you pass your haggle roll, and 6+N if you fail by N".

You don't think that's what it says because you're reading it through the filter of your intent when you wrote it, but that's demonstrably how people are interacting with it.

So yes, you want to put in standard retail costs alongside production costs if you want to keep using wealth as money, and write the haggle skill so that players understand they are able to get something by using it not just avoid losing.


That's actually how I had it for a while.

The thing is, it feels really bad to be just shy of a bracket, a constant and gradual slope of failure is a lot easier to swallow.

It feels way worse going in knowing that you don't get anything for success you just get to avoid the suck. You might want a constant and gradual slope of failure buy you need to balance it with a constant and gradual scope of success.


If you say so.

I have personally been swindled numerous times, or otherwise never actually received a usable product due to questionable business practices, outside circumstances, or my own negligence.

And I am not someone who regularly haggles or deals with transactions for a living; just a gamer who sometimes buys and sells collectibles or commissions artwork.

Accidentally chopping one's head off is something that is damn near physically impossible, and not something I have ever even personally witnessed or even heard of happening aside from a few accidents involving falls or heavy machinery.


My dude you get swindled out of your time every time you sit at a table with Bob.

[Vahnavoi]

My point still stands that if you are immortal, and if you live an ascetic life, and if you are talented with a good head for business, you will be ludicrously wealthy by any regular standing, barring occasional rocky periods following the collapse of a market or the like.

No, it doesn't. That's the point. In order for your point to stand in any given system, you have to correctly show it to follow from the workings of the entire system. If you don't do that, it's just spherical cows in a vacuum (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow) argument that has no real value.


Likewise, the money situation is something that seems to be rules legal, and seems plausible to the players. Its not "realistic" or following the "spirit of the rules" and it may not even be following the letter of the rules depending on how closely you look and how you make judgement calls, but it is still an example of something that is ripe for PC exploitation and will be perceived as a GM screwjob if you step in to stop the free money train.

It's not rules legal and if it seems plausible to your players, there's something they didn't understand about the rules. It's not an example of something that's ripe for exploitation, because considering all the other rules, it cannot be exploited in the fashion suggested at all. (https://xkcd.com/1494/) If players perceive a referee stopping them as a screwjob, that's them complaining about the referee to get an unfair advantage. A sane referee does not give these kinds of arguments time of the day.

Based on your descriptions, you players, and Bob in particular, are just bad at playing your games, and possibly, bad at playing games in general. There's a way to test this. Pick some well-analyzed game or sport. Chess, Poker, Judo, MMA, soccer. Explain the rules to them. Make them watch a few matches, or even play a few matches.

If my hypothesis is correct, you will see them suggest the players ought to do things that are known to be bad plays, then complain "the rules are stupid" when this is pointed out to them. You will see them complain about referee decisions based on whether the referee is backing up the side they want to win, rather than whether the referee is doing their job. And of course, if you make them play, they will just suck at those games, getting stuck at really basic strategies that won't carry them far, and refuse to change even if this is pointed out to them.

If, on the other hand, my hypothesis proves incorrect, and they show capacity to play all these games not designed and not refereed by you, then you need to take a good long look at the mirror. Because that's where the guilty party is. If your players can play other games in ways other people agree is fine, but you have exceedingly hard time to get them play your game in a way that you think is fine, then it's your analysis of your own games that is wrong.

[Herbert_W]

The issue is whether or not the players actually want to play this game or are doing it because its the most efficient tactic.

Like, I once had a D&D game where the players came up with the following idea; they all play elves, and they all spend the first 200 years of the game sitting in town crafting and then start adventuring with ~50,000 gold at first level.

Its not that anyone actually wanted to play a 300 year old elven craftsmen, its just that it gave such an overwhelming mechanical advantage that they would be foolish not to do it.

And, of course, the logical next step is then donating all of that money to a party fund, suiciding said 300 year old elven craftsmen, and then bringing in the characters they actually want to play. Or repeating the process several times over.

This is what MMO designers call a "toxic gameplay element", something that isn't really fun or engaging on a fictional level, but players feel compelled to do anyway because the mechanical incentives are too rewarding to ignore.


Since the conversation has turned to talking about this specific example of a toxic gameplay element - despite the fact that it was only even intended as an example - here's what I have to say:

This is just the "real powergamers love negative levels" problem all over again. There's an exploit in DnD 3e where players deliberately loose levels from level drain in order to get ahead of the wealth-by-level curve, since loosing levels doesn't cost them any wealth. Assuming that the DM adjusts encounter difficulty to match the party's lowered level, this allows them to have better equipment than the game's balancing expects at the cost of slower overall advancement. I've never seen this exploit actually used - it'd make the game grindy - but at least theoretically and for one definition of optimization, it is the optimal way to play.

Whether any specific exploit of this type would actually work is besides the point. The fact that it might work - that players might reasonably (even if mistakenly) think that it ought to work and attempt it - is in itself a problem.

The solution for this specific problem is to ensure that, if there's multiple tracks whereby players can gain power, the game is consistent about whether it expects them to be coupled or uncoupled. If they're coupled, then the rules shouldn't allow them to separate too far and should make this fact obvious. If they're uncoupled, then the game's balance must adjust to take both of them into account. This exploit is only possible in 3e becasue the rules don't enforce wealth-by-level in any way but do assume that wealth-by-level advancement will be followed.

More generally: if there's a toxic gameplay element, then the solution is for the game designer to make that behavior impossible. You can't trust players to fix the problem. Most players don't directly try to have fun when they play a game; they try to win, and they expect the game to be structured in such a way that trying to win will cause them to have fun.


They don't WANT to play merchants and all that that entails, they want an "I Win" button.

This is exactly right. The problem is that letting them get exactly what they want won't be fun for them.


"When your character is in civilized lands, you may incur a single debt to make a shopping trip. Doing so automatically refills your supply of food, drink ammunition, explosives, lamp oil, and provides you with plenty of materials to craft and maintain your gear. You may also pick up as many ordinary goods as you can carry. During each shopping trip, you may seek out a single rare item. The DM then consults availability (rolls the shopper's business against the item's quality exactly like they do now) and then tells the player what the cost of the item is due to current market factors. If you choose not to purchase it, you can check again during your next shopping trip to see if the market has changed in your favor."

This all sounds much better than what was originally presented. The single point of debt is presented here as the cost for refilling all of the character's mundane consumables, not as a cost of failure for trying to search for a rare item.

There's a bit of a disconnect here, and seeing this rephrasing has made me realize what it is. Wherever prices have random variation, availability almost always has much more variation. My experience with looking through thrift stores, kijiji, etc. is that I very often find items that I wasn't specifically looking for but which are still tempting - and even when I find something that's very similar to what I hoped for it's rarely an exact match. Being able to find exactly what you were looking for with some reliability, but with the price being a crapshoot, is just a weird combination of market factors that doesn't correspond to anything real-world (and there's a reason for that. Random variability in prices, with a predictable distribution, combined with reliably availability of buyers and sellers would represent a market inefficiency that someone could profitably reduce by buying low and selling high.)

Perhaps this shopping paradigm is confusing and generates misunderstandings becasue it doesn't correspond to any real-world shopping paradigm. People who pay attention to different aspects of the system make different assumptions about what's going on under the hood.

I'd suggest a system like the following if you want to replicate something that'd make sense as a real-world market:


During each shopping trip, you may seek out a rare item. Roll business against a DC determined by item's quality and the size of the market; more valuable items are harder to find and smaller markets make it harder to find specific items. If you succeed, you find an item of a type that you specify, e.g. "weapon" or "potion." The cost of the item is equal to the item's quality, plus the result of a die roll where the size of the die depends on quality: quality 1 means a d2, quality 2 means a d4, and so on and so forth.

For every point of success you may either specify one trait of the item or reduce the die used to determined the item's cost by one size. Reducing a d2 results in the item's cost being just it's quality with no die. The remaining traits are generated randomly. You may, of course, choose not to purchase the item once you learn what the randomly-generated traits and cost are.

On a failed roll, the item cannot be found in that market. You can wait for a week to roll again - although it'll usually be faster, and you'll have more opportunities for gainful adventure, if you travel to another market in order to reroll.

Also worth noting: with your new phrasing, you run the risk that players will refuse to go shopping until they're entirely out of mundane consumables becasue that's "more efficient." You also run the risk that players will expect to be able to look for an item without going through the rest of the process of a shopping trip, becasue "realistically I should be able to do that" (never mind whether this is actually realistic. I can easily imagine a culture where shopkeepers gladly give information to people who are already paying customers but don't like non-customers wasting their time.)


Out of curiosity, is healing mandatory? Would you say that a fighter has "opted out" of healing because they aren't the ones casting the spells even though they are the ones who are the most common recipients?

Basically yes. A fighter can still benefit from (and will still want to bother to calculate) natural healing each night - but other than that their HP just goes up as much and when their cleric buddy tells them it does. They don't need to worry about what spells are making this happen. They don't need to worry about the efficiency of cure xyz wounds vs mass cure xyz wounds vs heal vs mass heal etc.

The key point is that, even if they're interacting with the system indirectly, they don't need to think about it and won't be punished for failing to exhibit system mastery with it.


And if you aren't interested in a setup something like the above, I would posit that maybe you are actually interested in engaging with the economic side of the game, you just want to have your cake and eat it too by getting the best prices but also not investing into the skills necessary to do that.

Was this directed at me or your players?

I don't want to have my cake and eat it too. I would, in their shoes, just want to eat the cake that the rules say that I can eat. If these some subtlety of the rules that means that I only get about half what I expected . . . well, that's upsetting. Even if it's my fault for not fully understanding all of the rules, including a subsystem that doesn't interest me, that's still upsetting.


Players can also get items by crafting or conjuring them. Right now, a character who buys their items, a technomancer who conjures them, and a blacksmith who crafts them will all gear up at the same rate. Adjust the efficiency of bartering, and it changes the comparative value of the other two unless you also adjust the amount of treasure which is given out.

Well, that's an interesting complication.

Ultimately, it's not as much as an obstacle as you seem to be presenting it as: all it means is that, when you change any one of these systems, the rest ought to change to match. Assuming that you want there to be obvious parity between all of these systems it makes perfect sense that you'd want them to follow the same basic mechanics, just with different resources and items, so this is something that you'd likely want to do anyways.

I'm going to go out on a limb here at guess that one of the two following things is true:

Your crafting and summoning systems have exactly the same potential problem as your market system - you just haven't noticed it because players don't use those systems.
Your crafting and summoning systems have exactly the same potential problem as your market system - you just haven't noticed it because the players who do use those systems see them as a specialty and therefore bother to read and fully understand the rules.


That last point might be worth emphasizing. Players who craft or summon are choosing to interact with a system that, otherwise, is something that their character wouldn't do at all. They'll be motivated to read and understand the rules for that system.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, what you've done is to (accidentally - no malice on your part) force everyone to be merchants becasue that's the only way that they can convert loot into something that's meaningful to them. Since this is forced, and they don't want to be merchants, they're bad merchants.


As treasure is rounded into whole objectives rather than given out by the coin, the bigger each treasure parcel is, the last flexibility the GM has in handing it out.

I think I see the issue here. Random prices allow for some "fuzzyness" which allows for differentiation in prices that's more fine than the integer steps of your wealth scale.

However, you don't need random prices to achieve this effect - having your players roll to see whether they gain loot should work just as well. Say, for example, your players have killed a bunch of orcs. They might roll 1d4 per orc, marking 1 objective for every 4. Goblins, on the other hand, might be worth one objective on an 8 on a d8.


My system has five resources; vitality, mana, destiny, wealth, and concentration, all of them of roughly equal value.

There are basically three ways to acquire an item:

A craftsman can build it. They do this by succeeding at a skill test and expending concentration equal to its value.
A merchant can buy it. They do this by succeeding at a skill test and expending wealth equal to its value.
A wizard can fabricate it. They do this by succeeding at a skill test and expending mana equal to its value.

In all three cases, they can expend additional resources to turn a failure into a success. Wealth to purchasing is the easiest and most direct as it is the one which non-specialized characters are most likely to engage in.

Further, you can convert one resource to another.

The exact efficiency of these conversions varies based on character skill and the roll of the dice; on average its about 50% efficient, but will never be more than 100% efficient.

Healers can convert mana into vitality.
Wyld Magic can convert mana into destiny.
Changelings can convert vitality into mana.
Transmuters can convert mana into wealth.
Merchants can convert wealth into vitality, mana, destiny, or concentration.
Alchemists can convert concentration into vitality, mana, or destiny.
And artists can convert concentration into wealth.

It sounds like you have a very mathematically elegant resource-management game there.

The issue is that this doesn't seem to support the "kill, loot, repeat" game that your players think that they're playing.

In order to better fit a "kill, loot, repeat" game, I'd rework all of these systems such that:

On a success, you get a useful item for a price in a predictable range (which is, behind the scenes, on average about double the value rating).
If there are multiple points of success, you get more control over the characteristics of the item and/or reduce the price down to an entirely nonrandom minimum (which is, behind the scenes, the actual value rating).
On a failure, you don't waste resources. Instead, you need to go on a quest for materials, travel to another market, etc. This means adventure. Alternatively, you can just wait - but you wait long enough that adventure will probably come to you in the meanwhile. Basically, the cost for failure is that you need to conduct an adventure without your new gear.


This system would have the side benefit of encouraging players to invest in multiple creation systems. Say you want a new item - it's advantageous to be able to try to summon it, then to craft it if that doesn't work, then to buy it if that doesn't work . . . and only then, if none of those work, to go on an adventure before trying all of them again.

[Duff]

The fact you phrase it as "that he will let you run" is a serious red flag, to me. Run something else, unless it's specifically what you want to run, and let Bob not play. I could be wrong, here, but it sounds to me like you're the only GM left who tolerates Bob's abuse, rather than the only GM he can tolerate. Bob can bully you into letting him make the game unfun, and quits other GMs' games because they put their foots down, is what it sounds like, to me.

Segev is not wrong about that looking red flaggy.
Bob may be right or wrong. You may or may not be the "badguy" in a particular incident.

But it does seem like you give Bob more power over you than is healthy, given how Bob interacts.

[Talakeal]

I meant to say this yesterday, but ran out of time and can no longer find the specific post I was referring to, but someone mentioned that players see an item's value in the book and this feels like the price they should be expected to pay.

Does this actually work that way in other system?

Because haggling in my system is only for high end items, not for ordinary gear.

Like, take D&D 3.5.

The book lists a longsword as costing 15gp.

But if I want, say, a +3 silver longsword I am paying 15gp + 300gp + 90gp + (3x3)x2000 gp, for a total of 18,405gp.

It seems a bit odd to assume that people see the price for mundane gear and then fix it in their head that this is also the price for magical gear, and this is not something I have heard anyone complain about in relation to other systems, or indeed about my system until this thread.


Does your wealth rolling system change this? Do your players like it better? If they still feel like they are compelled to play against this rule or to try to exploit this rule to "be most effective," it's worth examining what it is they think they need to do to make it effective when they aren't having fun doing so.

This is a much broader question.

Basically, most players want to "be the best" and feel that their characters are much weaker than they actually are.

Heck, go browse the 5e forum for a while and you will see lots of stories about people soloing deadly+ encounters or 13th level parties stomping the strongest monsters in the game.

In general, games are set up so that PCs are way stronger in practice than they look on paper, and thus players get it in their heads that they need every little advantage just to scrape by.

Add in the fact that having the most powerful character is, for most players, the real goal of the game as you can't "win" an RPG in the traditional sense.


You did just change Charisma into being "the money Ability Score." If it wasn't, before, and they hadn't internalized how this new rule worked, I can see why they'd feel annoyed. Imagine if you joined a D&D game and built a dex-based rogue, only to learn that armor class and saves vs. AoEs are based on Strength in this game. Sure, maybe it was mentioned to you, but you hadn't delved into the changes to really internalize it, so now you're frustrated that your rogue sucks at the very things you thought he should be good at.

Nah. Haggling has been in the game since the first proto iteration of the system I came up with in 1998, as Daggerfall and Fallout were both bigger inspirations for me than D&D and both had bartering skills based on charisma.

Heck, my very first game of the system involved the players going to pick up some illicit goods for their master. He gave them 60 gold. They wanted to haggle with the contact, feeling that they could keep the leftover money. I let them roll and talk him down to 50. The players, not being satisfied with the result, told him they would give him 40 or they walked. I told them 50 is as low as he would go, they said the system was stupid and unrealistic, and walked. Then they got mad at me when they failed the mission and pissed off their employer.

This was before Bob even joined the group; for whatever reason I just have a history of players that use OOC bitching or "logic" to dispute dice rolls that don't come out how they like.


If the item is unbalancing at this level and tier of play, then that's exactly what you should do. No amount of money will, today, buy me a potion of youth or a magical candle that will summon an angel to do my bidding. The same can be true in your campaign.[/SIZE][/U][/B]

One item won't break the game.

Heck, literally giving a starting PC Excalibur won't break the game, although it might make the other players jealous.

The problem is more about the amount of resources being funneled into a singular item leaves the character weaker overall, which frustrates said player. Again though, if the player understands the choice they are making that's fine, I just have bad luck with players who bull-headedly make questionable decisions and then blame other people when said decisions have repercussions.


Does your wealth rolling system change this? Do your players like it better? If they still feel like they are compelled to play against this rule or to try to exploit this rule to "be most effective," it's worth examining what it is they think they need to do to make it effective when they aren't having fun doing so.

This was years ago in D&D, my system has never allowed such a thing.


Not sure what "acquisition rolls" would be in a way that's different here, but again, you need to analyze what the desired behavior from the players is, in implementing any such rule change, and then analyze whether this really makes the game more enjoyable for them.

Generally, Aquisition rolls allow players to periodically make a roll to see if they can get an item. If they pass the roll they get it, if they don't they have to wait and try again later. Typically, bonuses to a character's wealth, like say finding a treasure hoard, allow them additional acquisition rolls or give them a bonus to rolls for the rest of the session.

The problem is that it is too random for many people, the system doesn't have a way to bank money, and failed rolls (even those which receive a bonus from in-game wealth) don't translate into an increase in player power and so it feels like the character is being robbed or their money is just vanishing.

So I have gone with a hybrid system that isn't quite as elegant as a pure acquisition system, but smoothes over the common complaints.


No, what you were called out on was not asking the player if it was okay for his character to do a thing. Which, honestly, I don't blame you for, but when you turn around and act horrified or flabberghasted that the player might object to it to the point that you want justification to force his PC to do something, yes, you'll get called out on it. Maybe that wasn't your intent, but given that it's Bob, and a lot of the time people will side with you and tell you Bob should be made to suck it up, it probably came off that way. This was a rare instance where Bob was, if not fully righteous, at least in the right in saying he doesn't want his PC forced to do that.

I can see Bob not being happy with it, the "horrified and flabberghasted" is more that he would wreck the entire campaign and his RL friendships over something so minor.

The "communist and nazi" bit came from a longer discussion and the sentiment I expressed that the base assumption is that all PCs are equally powerful, and will contribute equally to the party, and will get an equal share of loot. A crafter who maintains and builds everyone's gear is an asset to the party and contributes as much to their success as anyone else. A craftsman who keeps all of his gear to himself and won't help anyone else is, as far as the team is concerned, just an underpowered fighter and does not deserve an equal share of the treasure because he is not contributing as much to the teams' success.

In short, my "Commie-Nazi" attitude is that all PCs should do their best to help the party succeed using whatever skills are at their disposal and should be viewed as equal members worth an equal share of the treasure.

The "freedom-loving humanist capitalist" view is that the crafter sells his wares to the other PCs, the fighter gets paid per kill, the cleric gets paid per heal, the wizard gets paid per spell, etc.


That's not just the system. That's the setting and, ultimately, you, the GM. Just tell them when something they want is unavailable to them at any price. Don't include it in the game in a way or place they can get it if it's going to ruin the fun.[/SIZE][/U][/B]

That doesn't seem reasonable to me.

Like, IRL, if I want to sell my house and buy a Ferrari, I can do that. Its really stupid to my long-term wellbeing, but I can do that. I don't see why its either the setting or the GM's place to tell a PC they can't because "reasons".


This is irrelevant. Think of it this way: rather than your players saying, "we're going to play these boring PCs, except we're just going to fast-forward to the far future and then suicide them to play our real PCs," what if they instead said, "We want to play the heirs to 300-year-old financial empires?" That's what they're really doing. If that's what they want to play, are you okay with running that?

You say, "well, that's just optimal," but if that were optimal, then you could reasonably say that literally every NPC also does the same thing. I doubt your players really want that.

Also, again, is this "your players," or is this "Bob?"

Stop playing with Bob.

NPCs can't do it because they don't get to choose to be elves and don't get to choose to be born with a talent for crafting and business. I would assume, however, that the game does have a fair number of elven lords who have tons of unexplained wealth Elrond style.

I don't think this was Bob, it honestly sounds more like a Dave scheme.

If we are playing by the book 3E D&D, as we were in that example, playing the heirs to a financial empire is going to break the game. If we were playing a game like Heart of Darkness or Exalted where you can spend character points to came from a ludicrously wealthy background, then sure.


Not responding to everything right now, but
Hrmm, if that's how you envision it, I can see why you set the system up that way? Of course, my question is now how much do your players actually approach things as artists, alchemists, ect. Most of your stories seem to be about a D&D-style "Kill things take money" style experience. But if you intend crafting to be as central a mechanic as looting, your approach makes sense. You MIGHT just have to bend to the fact that most players will approach this as a D&Desque.

It might be as simple as a bit of sleight of hand presentation work. Have a line about "The Standard Price for an item is twice it's Value Rating, success on a Haggling check may reduce that price"

So when your PC fails their haggling check they think "Oh, I'm still getting the Standard Price".


Another thing to do is perhaps just change the terminology around. "Value Rating" sounds a little too translatable to "Price". If the value Rating is Materials+Labor for crafting, maybe just use that as the base.


Rather than use "Value Rating", use the term "Crafting Cost" or something to indicate that number refers to the cost of CREATING an item, and that the standard price to buy an item is twice that.

"I spent 8 on a Value 4 Sword" sounds like you got ripped off. "I spent 8 on a sword that cost 4 to craft" sounds like you took place in a normal business transaction where the swordsmith got to make a profit.

That is the intent, yes.


The fact you phrase it as "that he will let you run" is a serious red flag, to me. Run something else, unless it's specifically what you want to run, and let Bob not play. I could be wrong, here, but it sounds to me like you're the only GM left who tolerates Bob's abuse, rather than the only GM he can tolerate. Bob can bully you into letting him make the game unfun, and quits other GMs' games because they put their foots down, is what it sounds like, to me.

First, its freaking hard to get players. Especially when you tend to run games that aren't Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder, particularly homebrew systems.

Like, my local gaming store had a meetup recently with the goal of forming new groups. I went, there were about eight other people, we seemed to hit it off, one of us ran a one shot, and afaict everyone had fun. We arranged to meet again the next two weeks. Every single person either cancelled or just didn't show up again.

Right now, I have six players; two can game weekly, two can game bi-weekly, and two can game monthly.

I can't afford to kick someone from the group because they don't like the system, if any player puts their foot down and refuses to play a system, we play something else.


I have gamed with a lot of people over the years. Long term players are hard to come by. But both players and GMs have a sliding scale of how much BS they give and how much BS they are willing to take. Bob gives an amount of crap that is just under my tolerance line. His tolerance is much lower than mine, and I have seen him leave a lot of other GM's games that I was content to play in.

On the other hand, there have been a lot of people (both GM and players) whose capacity to produce BS far exceeds my ability to put up with it, and they have been exiled from my group or I exiled myself from theirs. Heck, I have even had to call the cops on a player before, and have had GM's threaten to beat me up.


And again, you don't intend the book to have a list price but mechanically it does because your wealth system is just money abstracted so it can include non-reified things like favors.

You know, I am thinking about it, this whole conversation has taken a weird turn.

My player's problem was not that they thought there was a list price and they were paying more than it, that is wholly a forum complaint. My player's problem is that there is no price list and they think there should be.


If you have wealth 2 and you want to buy a value 1 item in a wealth level system you are still wealth 2 when you have bought it. You don't "spend" wealth in those systems, you do spend it in yours. Wealth in your system is money you spend on things.

While you don't spend wealth in a wholly abstract system, your wealth also doesn't go up if you fail an acquisition roll or just don't make one at all, hence the complaints about money vanishing or the PCs being robbed by dishonest merchants.



No, it doesn't. That's the point. In order for your point to stand in any given system, you have to correctly show it to follow from the workings of the entire system. If you don't do that, it's just spherical cows in a vacuum (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow) argument that has no real value.



It's not rules legal and if it seems plausible to your players, there's something they didn't understand about the rules. It's not an example of something that's ripe for exploitation, because considering all the other rules, it cannot be exploited in the fashion suggested at all. (https://xkcd.com/1494/) If players perceive a referee stopping them as a screwjob, that's them complaining about the referee to get an unfair advantage. A sane referee does not give these kinds of arguments time of the day.

Based on your descriptions, you players, and Bob in particular, are just bad at playing your games, and possibly, bad at playing games in general. There's a way to test this. Pick some well-analyzed game or sport. Chess, Poker, Judo, MMA, soccer. Explain the rules to them. Make them watch a few matches, or even play a few matches.

If my hypothesis is correct, you will see them suggest the players ought to do things that are known to be bad plays, then complain "the rules are stupid" when this is pointed out to them. You will see them complain about referee decisions based on whether the referee is backing up the side they want to win, rather than whether the referee is doing their job. And of course, if you make them play, they will just suck at those games, getting stuck at really basic strategies that won't carry them far, and refuse to change even if this is pointed out to them.

If, on the other hand, my hypothesis proves incorrect, and they show capacity to play all these games not designed and not refereed by you, then you need to take a good long look at the mirror. Because that's where the guilty party is. If your players can play other games in ways other people agree is fine, but you have exceedingly hard time to get them play your game in a way that you think is fine, then it's your analysis of your own games that is wrong.

That example comes from 3.5 D&D. I did not write 3.5 D&D. I wish I had :)

Regardless of which game we play or who is GMing, there are several players in my group, both current and former, who won't accept failure and appeal to logic or realism or fairness to get the GM to try and change the ruling in their favor.

Heck, Dave, a former player who unfortunately left our group due to tragic RL issues, was way worse about it than Bob is. He even does it in combat; I remember one time he cut off one of a hydra's head and lost his poop because it was unrealistic for a multi-headed creature to be able to survive without a head. Or the first time we tried to use the "2-hit minions" rule where if you damage them but don't kill them they are marked as wounded and then go down on the second hit and then he went on a rant about how stupid it is that he can't even "one shot a chipmunk anymore" even though the rule didn't actually have anything to do with the odds of one-shotting something, he just failed to roll a high enough damage result to do so.


Since the conversation has turned to talking about this specific example of a toxic gameplay element - despite the fact that it was only even intended as an example - here's what I have to say:

This is just the "real powergamers love negative levels" problem all over again. There's an exploit in DnD 3e where players deliberately loose levels from level drain in order to get ahead of the wealth-by-level curve, since loosing levels doesn't cost them any wealth. Assuming that the DM adjusts encounter difficulty to match the party's lowered level, this allows them to have better equipment than the game's balancing expects at the cost of slower overall advancement. I've never seen this exploit actually used - it'd make the game grindy - but at least theoretically and for one definition of optimization, it is the optimal way to play.

Whether any specific exploit of this type would actually work is besides the point. The fact that it might work - that players might reasonably (even if mistakenly) think that it ought to work and attempt it - is in itself a problem.

The solution for this specific problem is to ensure that, if there's multiple tracks whereby players can gain power, the game is consistent about whether it expects them to be coupled or uncoupled. If they're coupled, then the rules shouldn't allow them to separate too far and should make this fact obvious. If they're uncoupled, then the game's balance must adjust to take both of them into account. This exploit is only possible in 3e becasue the rules don't enforce wealth-by-level in any way but do assume that wealth-by-level advancement will be followed.

More generally: if there's a toxic gameplay element, then the solution is for the game designer to make that behavior impossible. You can't trust players to fix the problem. Most players don't directly try to have fun when they play a game; they try to win, and they expect the game to be structured in such a way that trying to win will cause them to have fun.

This is exactly right. The problem is that letting them get exactly what they want won't be fun for them.

This is very much what I was trying to say.


This all sounds much better than what was originally presented. The single point of debt is presented here as the cost for refilling all of the character's mundane consumables, not as a cost of failure for trying to search for a rare item.

There's a bit of a disconnect here, and seeing this rephrasing has made me realize what it is. Wherever prices have random variation, availability almost always has much more variation. My experience with looking through thrift stores, kijiji, etc. is that I very often find items that I wasn't specifically looking for but which are still tempting - and even when I find something that's very similar to what I hoped for it's rarely an exact match. Being able to find exactly what you were looking for with some reliability, but with the price being a crapshoot, is just a weird combination of market factors that doesn't correspond to anything real-world (and there's a reason for that. Random variability in prices, with a predictable distribution, combined with reliably availability of buyers and sellers would represent a market inefficiency that someone could profitably reduce by buying low and selling high.)

Perhaps this shopping paradigm is confusing and generates misunderstandings because it doesn't correspond to any real-world shopping paradigm. People who pay attention to different aspects of the system make different assumptions about what's going on under the hood.

It feels a lot better to me to, despite being exactly the same system.


I'd suggest a system like the following if you want to replicate something that'd make sense as a real-world market:


On a failed roll, the item cannot be found in that market. You can wait for a week to roll again - although it'll usually be faster, and you'll have more opportunities for gainful adventure, if you travel to another market in order to reroll.

The possibility that an item is simply impossible to find was the big pain point for my previous wholly abstracted wealth system. People hated it because they felt the system was unfair and akin to gambling, and because there was no way to save up a ton of money for a big-ticket item that is normally beyond their means to find.

In my head such a situation was handled by simply trying every week until you get that nat 20 and then rationalize it by saying you were saving up all along until you found it for a price you could afford, but that was too swingy and abstract for anyone I showed the system to so I ditched it.




Was this directed at me or your players?

I don't want to have my cake and eat it too. I would, in their shoes, just want to eat the cake that the rules say that I can eat. If these some subtlety of the rules that means that I only get about half what I expected . . . well, that's upsetting. Even if it's my fault for not fully understanding all of the rules, including a subsystem that doesn't interest me, that's still upsetting.


It's not aimed at anyone. Its aimed at a hypothetical player who is uninterested in dealing with bartering but still wants his items that keeps being brought up as the example of who the system should be designed around.



Well, that's an interesting complication.

Ultimately, it's not as much as an obstacle as you seem to be presenting it as: all it means is that, when you change any one of these systems, the rest ought to change to match. Assuming that you want there to be obvious parity between all of these systems it makes perfect sense that you'd want them to follow the same basic mechanics, just with different resources and items, so this is something that you'd likely want to do anyways.

I'm going to go out on a limb here at guess that one of the two following things is true:

Your crafting and summoning systems have exactly the same potential problem as your market system - you just haven't noticed it because players don't use those systems.
Your crafting and summoning systems have exactly the same potential problem as your market system - you just haven't noticed it because the players who do use those systems see them as a specialty and therefore bother to read and fully understand the rules.



No, because players can accept failure in this circumstances.

If you fail to cast a spell, the spell fizzles, the mana is wasted.

If you fail to craft an item, you get something non functional, the materials are ruined and the time you spent working can't be recovered.

But failure at buying means that you failed to find the item and the money was "stolen".


That last point might be worth emphasizing. Players who craft or summon are choosing to interact with a system that, otherwise, is something that their character wouldn't do at all. They'll be motivated to read and understand the rules for that system.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, what you've done is to (accidentally - no malice on your part) force everyone to be merchants because that's the only way that they can convert loot into something that's meaningful to them. Since this is forced, and they don't want to be merchants, they're bad merchants.

Sort of. But again, only one person in the party needs to actually do all of the buying and selling.

But again, I don't see how that is different than any other skill; if you choose not to have a healer then someone needs to deal with treating wounds, if you choose not to have a rogue, someone else needs to deal with traps and locks, if you choose not to have a ranger someone else needs to deal with wilderness survival, etc.

And as I said upthread, a hypothetical average guy with average rolls and no training in business still gets enough treasure to get all of his gear, he just gets it a little bit slower.

The only problem is someone who chooses to do this and is then resentful of the fictional fat-cats who make money at his expense OOC, which might make sense in real life or IC, but is pretty weird in a game where you can build your character however you like.



I think I see the issue here. Random prices allow for some "fuzzyness" which allows for differentiation in prices that's more fine than the integer steps of your wealth scale.

However, you don't need random prices to achieve this effect - having your players roll to see whether they gain loot should work just as well. Say, for example, your players have killed a bunch of orcs. They might roll 1d4 per orc, marking 1 objective for every 4. Goblins, on the other hand, might be worth one objective on an 8 on a d8.

Not quite.

Basically, your resources are determined by your ability scores, which range from 1-10, save for wealth, which is based on the number of objectives you completed in your previous mission.

Crafting and conjuration only get you items on a success, not a failure. Thus if you got a discount on a success, that makes them strictly inferior methods of gearing up. It ALSO breaks the wealth cycle, as you will, on average, run out of things to buy hallway through each tier as you are getting wealth to fast.

So, the solution there is either pay the value on a success and a markup on a failure (what I have currently) or halve the number of objectives in each mission. I chose against the latter both because the 1-10 scale better matches the other resources (and failing to do so can create weirdness when converting one resource to another through art or alchemy) but also because having 10 objectives to work with gives the GM a lot more flexibility when designing adventures; you can, for example, have a primary objective worth significantly more than the secondary objectives or have a mission without a single primary objective and, say, ten smaller treasures hidden throughout a ruined city.


Then your entire purchasing system is over-systematised for something that's only relevant at the start of the game. (and coincidentally the start of the game are when it is also the most punishing due to linear costs of failure). Primary tagging Business feels like necessary a character startup tax not a long term useful choice (because the higher value items you want the less relevant further investment into business will be in getting them, investing in business beyond the level required to realistically avoid a fumble on a +1 purchase roll is a trap).

The economy scales with each tier of play. Play in tier 5 is fundamentally the same mechanically as it is in tier 1, albeit with a few more toys on the player's end to manipulate things in their favor.

But again, this is going into the system way more than is necessary for this discussion.


You don't think that's what it says because you're reading it through the filter of your intent when you wrote it, but that's demonstrably how people are interacting with it.

Is it though?

That hasn't been my player's impression.

That has just been the impression of a few people in this thread based not on actually reading the rulebook, but based on my summary of the system.

Which is not to say that I don't have a problem with my presentation, but I am not convinced it is going to be a universal takeaway.



It feels way worse going in knowing that you don't get anything for success you just get to avoid the suck. You might want a constant and gradual slope of failure buy you need to balance it with a constant and gradual scope of success.


You are getting an item. That is a good thing. This isn't like a saving throw where you are rolling to avoid a punishment.

Likewise, a success is a success. You don't need to "soften it" a its already a good thing.

I see a lot of mechanics like "fail forward" or "half damage on a miss" to soften failure, I have never seen anyone advocate that you need to put in lesser successes or succeses with a cost to make ordinary success feel more challenging and less rewarding.







Tangent here, but it is amazing how many times I had to censor myself in this post from saying a four-letter word for human excrement. I am shocked I have never gotten an infraction for letting one slip through.

[Fiery Diamond]

Getting an item at "average value" or whatever isn't a success, though. That's "neutral" on the "failure-to-success" scale. This is how the majority of people will see it. A success is getting it at LESS than average value, a failure at MORE. Most people, I think, will vastly prefer a system in which failing isn't an option, and you just have neutral or degrees of success. That is, for the most part, the default expectation of money/loot-to-bought-gear.

Also, you talk about an average person getting average rolls, and I want to point out that there is a difference between "average over time" and "average all the time," and from a player standpoint, when it comes to things that you shouldn't be failing at in the first place (such as exchanging earned loot for magic items/gear), the default for someone with 0 investment in the subsystem should be "average all the time," not "average over time." Only game designers and number crunchers care about "average over time." Players? Not so much.

In response to your comment about the +3 silver longsword... well, yeah, the 18405 gp is the list price, and if a DM decided to force me to haggle for it and I ended up having to pay 22000 gp because I didn't bargain well enough to get "average," I would be upset at the DM as a player. If, on the other hand, haggling was 100% a choice and it was ONLY to see if I could get it down to LESS than 18405, that would be fine.

I've played D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e as both DM and player, and I think the very conceits that your wealth system is based on are unattractive. Your players (especially Bob) sound nightmarish based on the various horror stories, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to be a player of yours either.

Side note: you have, multiple times in this thread, fallen afoul of the "this is my personal life experience, so clearly this is normal for everyone" attitude, and it's seeping into your game design. Main example: being ripped off/scammed. Guess what? I've never been scammed. Have I received scam calls/emails? Yeah. Have I gotten bilked when I tried to purchase something? Never. I can't speak for other countries, but I'd say that most Americans at least have 99.9%+ of their purchases be sticker price from store/web with no haggling. I have literally only bought items that didn't have a sticker price in two circumstances: at local yearly arts & crafts festival where some of the stands don't have everything labeled (guess what? the vast majority do at that festival!) and the one time I bought a game console second-hand directly from the previous owner in person with zero haggling for the price he initially proposed (slightly less than the cost of a new system, but it came with multiple controllers and a couple games). People's IRL experiences shape what they view as "fair" in the game, not their artificial construction of what would "actually" be "realistic" in the setting of the game world.

[Talakeal]

Getting an item at "average value" or whatever isn't a success, though. That's "neutral" on the "failure-to-success" scale. This is how the majority of people will see it. A success is getting it at LESS than average value, a failure at MORE. Most people, I think, will vastly prefer a system in which failing isn't an option, and you just have neutral or degrees of success. That is, for the most part, the default expectation of money/loot-to-bought-gear.

That "or whatever" is doing a lot of work here.

Again, a success is getting an item at cost with absolutely no profit margin for either the craftsman or the middleman.

Unless you actively make a character who is absolutely terrible at business (and again, it's not fair to go out of your way to give your character a weakness and then complain when said weakness is a weakness) the system IS "failure is not an option, there are only degrees of success".


...when it comes to things that you shouldn't be failing at in the first place (such as exchanging earned loot for magic items/gear)...

Ok, so just to clarify, in a player's mind, nobody ever fails to haggle and ends up paying retail price. This is what you are saying?



In response to your comment about the +3 silver longsword... well, yeah, the 18405 gp is the list price...

No, no it is not.

The book never lists that number anywhere. It lists a longsword as costing 15gp.

Then it has a bunch of math for how you calculate the value of a masterwork sword, a silver sword, and a +3 sword, and you add them together.

Then you get 18405. But that number isn't listed anywhere. And this is very important; because my system never lists the number for +X longsword either, it instead lists the value for a basic longsword and then also has math to calculate how much you can expect to pay for +X version.

But then, you are explicitly told that this is double the cost to make the item. And you have no chance to haggle in 3.5

So right out of that gate you are automatically paying double what you have defined as the "average value or whatever" and 1,227 times the "list price" which is what we are assuming an average player will think the price should be.


if a DM decided to force me to haggle for it and I ended up having to pay 22000 gp because I didn't bargain well enough to get "average," I would be upset at the DM as a player

In standard D&D, I would to.

If we were playing in a game system or a setting where haggling was the default (say Fallout for example) I would shrug and get over it because it's not a big deal.


If, on the other hand, haggling was 100% a choice and it was ONLY to see if I could get it down to LESS than 18405, that would be fine.

Why would it be optional if it was purely beneficial? That's just bad game design as not haggling is a trap option.

But really, that cuts to the heart of the issue. Haggling is the norm in many cultures, and nobody would ever haggle if it was always one sided. If your game is set in such a culture, its just part of the immersion and not really a big deal.



I've played D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e as both DM and player, and I think the very conceits that your wealth system is based on are unattractive.

That's your prerogative, but I will say that coin counting systems are few and far between these days.

Even D&D doesn't let you buy magic items for money in most editions, instead hiding the loot that actually matters on treasure tables behind the DM's side of the screen.

I think coin counting is actually terrible from both a realism and a player enjoyment standpoint, but its such a small thing that I certainly wouldn't refuse to play in one of the few games that does it based on that fact alone.



Side note: you have, multiple times in this thread, fallen afoul of the "this is my personal life experience, so clearly this is normal for everyone" attitude, and it's seeping into your game design. Main example: being ripped off/scammed. Guess what? I've never been scammed. Have I received scam calls/emails? Yeah. Have I gotten bilked when I tried to purchase something? Never. I can't speak for other countries, but I'd say that most Americans at least have 99.9%+ of their purchases be sticker price from store/web with no haggling. I have literally only bought items that didn't have a sticker price in two circumstances: at local yearly arts & crafts festival where some of the stands don't have everything labeled (guess what? the vast majority do at that festival!) and the one time I bought a game console second-hand directly from the previous owner in person with zero haggling for the price he initially proposed (slightly less than the cost of a new system, but it came with multiple controllers and a couple games). People's IRL experiences shape what they view as "fair" in the game, not their artificial construction of what would "actually" be "realistic" in the setting of the game world.

Ok, so a few things here:

First, modern American's live in an industrialized society. They do not live in a post apocalyptic society where most items are hand made by a few rare skilled craftsmen. So no, I wouldn't expect them to haggle. But again, that cuts back to the initial question of the thread.

Second, even if they are paying sticker price, they could have paid less by shopping around or finding someone who is willing to haggle.

Third, sticker price is, on average, more than triple the cost to make an item. So, these 99.9%+ percent of people are getting utterly screwed over. I don't think it is possible to make a character in my system who pays more than triple the cost to create an item 99.9% of the time.

Fourth, you are putting the cart before the horse. I came up with the system and the concept of degrees of success long before I had ever been scammed. I am not designing the system around my personal experiences, I designed this system was symmetrical degrees of success that stem from the situation, and IMO being taken advantage of is the natural lowest (reasonable) failure state that mirrors a success. I only brought up my own history to refute the statement that being scammed is "the financial equivalent of cutting your own head off" which is clearly absurd. Personal anecdotes aside, I have never heard of someone cutting their own head off, but a quick google search will reveal literally millions of stories about people being scammed.

Fifth, this argument works both ways. Claiming that you won't accept the rules because they have never happened to you is no more logical than claiming they are reasonable because they have happened to the author. Actually, less so, because it is much harder to prove a negative.


Edit: And again, I could add a rule that stated you can simply buy items off the rack for double (or if you actually care about realism triple) the item's creation cost. And heck, if it actually causes you as much distress as you let on, I would suggest you propose such a house rule if you somehow ever find yourself playing in my system. But even so, that rule is only there to soothe the egos of loss averse and paranoid players, because it is a trap option; in actual play you will always* save money by haggling even if your character hasn't devoted any skill to it.

*In the long run. On an individual transaction always goes down to "almost always".

[Satinavian]

I meant to say this yesterday, but ran out of time and can no longer find the specific post I was referring to, but someone mentioned that players see an item's value in the book and this feels like the price they should be expected to pay.

Does this actually work that way in other system?Yes, that is indeed the way that works in most systems (that are detailed enough to bother at all).

Prices for the items are the prices you buy them for in the default case. All other values and prices tend to be derived from this. You find many systems that e.g. do "crafting costs are 1/2 or 1/3 of list price + (optional) price of special materials. It also takes time (usually depending on list price) and skill/tool requirements".


Sometimes buying stuff can use a modified price. That is where haggling rules come in or rules where items have rarities and you can spend more money to find them easier etc. But list price is always the default and what people think of as the proper value.



Because buying the stuff is the default that all players


Because haggling in my system is only for high end items, not for ordinary gear.

Like, take D&D 3.5.

The book lists a longsword as costing 15gp.

But if I want, say, a +3 silver longsword I am paying 15gp + 300gp + 90gp + (3x3)x2000 gp, for a total of 18,405gp.

It seems a bit odd to assume that people see the price for mundane gear and then fix it in their head that this is also the price for magical gear, and this is not something I have heard anyone complain about in relation to other systems, or indeed about my system until this thread.It has been some time that i played 3.5. But in nearly every group that was exactly what people paid for their items while they sold loot they didn't want for half price. Because everyone knew that D&D rules were not good economy simulation anyway with prices totally removed from demand and no one really wanted to waste more time on this nonsense than necessary.
What did change however, was what kind of items could be bought, what kind of items could be commissioned and what was out of reach.

Also it never mattered in any system if there was an explicit pricelist or only formulas for the price. The majority of players i have played with could do such simple math in seconds and would treat list and formula as functionally the same.
There are players who can't do that that easily but usually they just ask someone else.




The "communist and nazi" bit came from a longer discussion and the sentiment I expressed that the base assumption is that all PCs are equally powerful, and will contribute equally to the party, and will get an equal share of loot. A crafter who maintains and builds everyone's gear is an asset to the party and contributes as much to their success as anyone else. A craftsman who keeps all of his gear to himself and won't help anyone else is, as far as the team is concerned, just an underpowered fighter and does not deserve an equal share of the treasure because he is not contributing as much to the teams' success.

In short, my "Commie-Nazi" attitude is that all PCs should do their best to help the party succeed using whatever skills are at their disposal and should be viewed as equal members worth an equal share of the treasure.Yes, is see the problem here. Most crafter characters heavily pay in other abilities for being able to craft and want in return at least to have better gear than the rest of the group. Being basically forced to work for the others so so can shine alone with the threat of getting no more raw material will ruffle some feathers. It sounds like the old "being forced to play a healbot and use no other spells" cleric discussions.

I have been in many groups with crafter characters that worked quite well. Generally the crafters would craft for other PCs and the whole group would have better gear than without the crafter if they had to buy all of it. But the crafters would always have the best gear if they were able to craft it themself.


My player's problem was not that they thought there was a list price and they were paying more than it, that is wholly a forum complaint. My player's problem is that there is no price list and they think there should be.If your players want list prices, your players want list prices. The forum is not going to give you a reason that will convince your players to not want list prices. Because that is a preference. There is no "proper" way to do pricing in an RPG. There are several methods that work, each with benefits and detriments. People choose what they like most.

You obviously do like your system a lot and bartering for every item that anyone actually cares about and the whole concept of acquisition rolls and you have a dislike for bean counting. All of this is fine, you know, what you want. But your players don't share your likes and dislikes and no matter how much you tinker with the details of your system, they will continue to grumble.


While you don't spend wealth in a wholly abstract system, your wealth also doesn't go up if you fail an acquisition roll or just don't make one at all, hence the complaints about money vanishing or the PCs being robbed by dishonest merchants.Splittermond also has a hybrid system : It goes like this :

Important items are bought with money, everything else is automatically paid with your wealth (that is a stat and gets not reduced). There are long descriptions about what lifestyle each wealth level affords. You pay for wealth with XP only. You increase your wealth with XP only though adventures that result in huge treasures might hand out the equivalent of bound XP that need to go to wealth. So no saving to get rich. However you can live frugally to get more money to buy equipment. You can lower your lifestyle for a quarter of a year to get a wealth depending cash injection. You can do this once per year. Twice per year with a special build.
You buy items at list price. Items also have a rudimentary rarity system that basically says how big a settlement has to be to find [thing]. There is an optional haggling rule and you can invest in it, but it won't move the price all that much in the end. There are also quite detailed crafting rules.

In practice this system works reasonably well. Especially the "only track important purchases" part. It is also completely different from yours and pretty shy of randomness. And I have seen other similar systems as well. It is not that "acquisition rolls" or "abandon pricelists, embrace randomness" are the only way to get rid of bean counting. Far the opposite actually.

[Segev]

On crafting: depends a bit on the character, but most who are crafters - especially the wizards - when I play them, will charge the other party members 75% of market value for items they craft. This 25% profit margin for the crafter then goes into the crafter's own crafting budget, or, as a wizard, his spellbook budget.


With your system, Talekeal, the notion that "a success is buying the item at cost..." how does that actually make any difference? The "cost" at which it is bought is meaningless to the purchaser in any system, other than knowing that they got it at the exact price the seller paid to get it. But that knowledge doesn't really matter; if Salesman Steve is selling a Magical Widget for 1,000 gp, and Bargain Bob is selling it for 800 gp, does it really matter to the purchaser that Steve paid 900 gp for it and that Bob paid 400 gp for it? If Steve can be talked down to "at cost" but Bob just refuses to budge on the price, Bob is still selling it for less than Steve is. Most people - assuming that all else is equal between buying the Magical Widget from Bob or buying it from Steve - will still pay Bob's 800 gp price even after haggling Steve down to Steve's cost. Bob making 400 gp profit while Steve makes 0 gp still has the buyer spending less money buying from Bob.

It's actually conceptually weird to me that "success" is convincing the seller to make no profit. Let alone that rolling higher still convinces them to somehow take a loss. But that's not really important to the system itself, other than noting that this theoretically means that a craftsman character can't make the item for less consumption of his Wealth score than a successful "buy the thing" roll costs to just buy it.

What is important is that, to the buyer, the final price is all that really matters. How much profit the seller is making, or how much of a loss he is taking, only matters insofar as knowing it might help talk them down further. If you know Bob makes a profit even at 500 gp, you might think you can talk him down further, as long as Bob doesn't know that Steve can't be talked below 900 gp (and, in fact, in my hypothetical, Bob won't budge on price because he knows he's the lowest price around already, and isn't so desperate to sell that he can't afford to let the next customer buy it after the PCs leave).

So reiterating that a success is buying the item at cost doesn't really mean much. You don't have listed prices, and even if you did have listed prices, the fact that "success" on a purchasing roll gets you that price means that that is, psychologically, what the "true" price is. But again, the players have no reason to care if it is 'at cost' or not. If they talked Steve down to 750 gp, they saved 50 gp compared to what they could get out of the intransigent Bob. Why do they care that Steve lost 150 gp on the deal? They probably don't. Steve is the one who cares about that. And Bob, to a lesser extent, since he now has to consider whether driving Steve slowly out of business is worth slower business on his end. But those are dynamic world elements, not something that the PCs will know or care about - especially the way you describe your players and where their interest in the game lies.

Maybe you already do it this way, but I would treat rolling to buy something with a Wealth score (assuming it's anything like Resources in Exalted, which I believe you've said it is) not as "here's a price for the thing and you're buying it, with a success, at cost," but instead as, "The DC to purchase it is a combination of how hard it is to find, how much you have to spend to find it, and how much you have to spend to get it once you find it." Emphasize that a big part of it is just spending money and favors and the like to to do the legwork, pay informants, buy drinks and schmooze at the right soirees, so that you can hunt down rumors and dealers and contacts and learn who has it and what the price is. Charisma plays into not just haggling at the end, but that information-gathering stage as you wine and dine people. Your Wealth score factors in as it represents how much money you have to throw around without harming your lifestyle and ability to keep spending money. If you succeed with your base Wealth score (plus your charisma modifier or equivalent, plus any other meta-resources you threw at it), your expenses to find the item are low enough that they don't impact your Wealth score and you were able to find it at a price that also didn't impact your Wealth score. Success at an even higher value than that should mean that you found it more quickly, or that there is some added perk such as having been able to earn a favor from the seller as well (perhaps the seller was desperate for the deal and your generosity in purchasing it at the asking price was better than he'd really hoped anybody would do, etc. etc.).

Failure by small amounts might mean that you found the item, but for each degree of failure, the final price to get the item would cost you a Wealth rating. Perhaps failure by more degrees of success than your Wealth rating represents not being able to find the item at all.

Maybe, if the player is willing to gamble on it, the player can pre-emptively reduce his Wealth rating to throw even more money and other resources at the problem, helping to ensure the hunt for it is successful. This should buy at least 2 degrees of success/failure worth of result added to the roll, because the after-the-fact costs 1 Wealth per degree of failure to still get the item. But it should be absolutely clear to the player that this still could result in failure to find it, or failure to find it at a price they can still afford. That this is a gamble, and nobody's cheating them if they lose at it. It's up to them if they want to take the risk. (Failure by few enough degrees of failure could still let them have FOUND the item but need to spend still more Wealth to GET it.)


Now, I actually am not sure how close what I described is to your system. I suspect it rhymes, if it isn't exactly on target. But what I'm trying to drive at is presentation. Rather than telling your players that "a success is getting the item at cost," focus on "success" being "finding and getting the item for so little money that it doesn't impact your Wealth score."

And then you set the DC on items as you deem appropriate for how rare and expensive they are. You're factoring in both difficulty of finding one for sale, and how hard it is to convince a seller to part with it. A PC with enough Charisma, Wealth, and other factors that you allow to benefit the roll will be able to find more rare and expensive items and still afford to buy them without impacting his overall Wealth rating. Additionally, you could set the "did you find it?" DC at a specific value rather than rating it on whether they could possibly blow all their Wealth to get it or not. If they find it, but don't succeed on the "buy it without spending any Wealth rating" roll, you could offer them the chance to spend Wealth to get it...or offer them a quest hook to get it by some other means. Tell them either who has it or woh claims he can get it for them, and what this person will give it to them for if they do for him. Or that they could possibly steal it. Or however you want to set up the situation involving who has it, and how much the PCs know about it, and whether they'll take something in trade for it.

Maybe the owner of the item will trade for a thing the party has, rather than nebulous Wealth. Maybe he'll give it to them as a quest reward if they go do a thing for him. Maybe they know enough about where it is to steal it. Maybe all three are true!


But again, the presentation here matters: this isn't about "success getting the item at cost," because the players really have no reason to care about that. All they care about is what it costs them to get it. Let "success" be, "It only cost me the downtime activity required to make the roll." This represents throwing money around that they can afford to throw around, and finding the item at a price that they still find negligible at their Wealth rating. The very wealthy PC may easily say, "Oh, it only cost me a couple hundred gp to find it, and twice that to buy it? Pff, that's a rounding error!" and hit the mark more easily than the less-wealthy PC (with the same scores in other areas) AND without having to hurt his wealth rating.

Degrees of failure aren't "they're cheating me!" but rather "it cost so much to find it that, if I now try to spend more to BUY it, I'll be liquidating a significant portion of my wealth!" or even, "Well, I couldn't find it in the time I had." They are welcome to try again; unless they took the gamble and still failed, they've not lost anything but time, because the money they spent searching was "trivial" to them, and they can spend more money and more time to make the same roll again when they have the downtime to spend.

And remember that you are free to simply rule it can't be found. You determine how hard the "locate it" DC is, and how much below the "buy it" DC it is. If they do find it but can't buy it (or don't want to spend the wealth levels it would take to do so), you can offer them enough information to build a quest around, whether it's a player-driven "how can we talk him into giving it to us/take it from him?" quest or an NPC-driven "I hear you're looking for my Magical Widget; if you'll just provide me that Mystical Doohicky you've got, I'll trade/If you'll just go on this quest to humiliate my rival by spilling tea on her dress at the Baroness's Ball, I'll give it to you," sorts of things. Set the quest to be suitably dramatic and dangerous for what the item represents, maybe with it being easier the fewer degrees of failure they missed the "just buy it" DC by.

But again: presentation. Make success not be about "getting it at cost," but about "getting it without having to reduce your wealth rating." The players do not have reason to care if the item is "at cost" or not. What they care about is whether it impacts their Wealth rating to get it.

[KorvinStarmast]

Make success not be about "getting it at cost," but about "getting it without having to reduce your wealth rating." The players do not have reason to care if the item is "at cost" or not. What they care about is whether it impacts their Wealth rating to get it. KISS principle; nice suggestion.

[Talakeal]

Yes, is see the problem here. Most crafter characters heavily pay in other abilities for being able to craft and want in return at least to have better gear than the rest of the group. Being basically forced to work for the others so so can shine alone with the threat of getting no more raw material will ruffle some feathers. It sounds like the old "being forced to play a healbot and use no other spells" cleric discussions.

I have been in many groups with crafter characters that worked quite well. Generally the crafters would craft for other PCs and the whole group would have better gear than without the crafter if they had to buy all of it. But the crafters would always have the best gear if they were able to craft it themself.

I have no problem with the crafter making their own gear first or keeping the best for themselves. That is to be expected.

But a crafter who won't make things for the party at all is a strictly inferior character; crafting is a support skill balanced around helping the whole group.

And its really weird to me to demand an equal share of the group's profit / treasure when you are playing an intentionally selfish / suboptimal character who objectively contributes less to the group's success than they would if they used their skills to help the rest of the party.


Also it never mattered in any system if there was an explicit pricelist or only formulas for the price. The majority of players i have played with could do such simple math in seconds and would treat list and formula as functionally the same.

All right then, so why couldn't they do the same with my system and see that the minimum price on a haggle roll is that same as the cost to craft the item rather than the market price?



If your players want list prices, your players want list prices. The forum is not going to give you a reason that will convince your players to not want list prices. Because that is a preference. There is no "proper" way to do pricing in an RPG. There are several methods that work, each with benefits and detriments. People choose what they like most.

One player, Bob, wants list prices, and he only wants them when he fails a haggle roll, when he succeeds he is fine and happy with the system.

But the thing is, Bob's complaint is fundamentally different from the forum's complaint.

Bob says not having a sticker price is unrealistic and there should never be mandatory haggling.
The forum's complaint is that the listed price in the book is the minimum you pay rather than the maximum / average.



snip

Ok so:

In system, the item's value is the amount of resources you get the item for on a success, be it crafting, conjuring, or bartering.

In universe, wealth is an abstraction. You probably aren't literally getting the item at cost (although you might if the craftsman owes you a favor, remember wealth isn't just coin its also goodwill and contacts) but you are mechanically getting it for the same amount of resources you would spend had you crafted it yourself and narratively getting the "best possible price".

On a critical success, you probably are getting the item for less than cost; but that is a rare and special occurrence. Maybe its a gift, maybe its an estate sale or salvage operation where the guy doesn't know the true value of what he is trying to offload, maybe the guy he made the item for died before paying and he wants to offload it now rather than spending a year looking for another buyer, maybe the previous owner used the item once but has recently had a personal emergency and needs cash fast and is selling off his possessions dirt cheap.


As I said upthread, one of the goals of the system is elegance, so that, assuming successful rolls and the proper skills, one can freely transform one of the games five resources into one the others on a one for one basis. Having you pay a different value on a success for one sort of resource than another would break that elegance and make some skills strictly inferior to others or lead to infinite power exploits.


Now yeah, the players shouldn't fixate on how much of a profit the NPC is making off the transaction. And indeed, I have never had a player at the table who did. But the forum complaint about my system is that they see the minimum price as "the list price" and will then see any expenditure about this point as being ripped off, being robbed, forced to endure the suck, being forced to eat poop or a dozen other colorful metaphors.



My system absolutely does "Emphasize that a big part of it is just spending money and favors and the like to to do the legwork, pay informants, buy drinks and schmooze at the right soirees, so that you can hunt down rumors and dealers and contacts and learn who has it and what the price is. Charisma plays into not just haggling at the end, but that information-gathering stage as you wine and dine people. Your Wealth score factors in as it represents how much money you have to throw around without harming your lifestyle and ability to keep spending money. "


Now, your proposed system is a hell of a lot like the first iteration of my system, the fully abstract one that went over like a plutonium hang glider.

The problem with it is that the players have to be limited in how often they make attempts (otherwise the whole system just becomes an exercise in wasting everyone else's time as you are assured to eventually get everything they need at the best possible price after enough rolling) and that players can't bank failures / declining to look for an item. Because previous failures don't have a tangible benefit going forward, the system seems random and the players feel like they have been robbed by some hypothetical merchant NPC each time they fail a roll.

So, I compromised on this hybrid system where you can indeed save up rolls, but to make that work I had to have a cost for success.

[Satinavian]

I have no problem with the crafter making their own gear first or keeping the best for themselves. That is to be expected.

But a crafter who won't make things for the party at all is a strictly inferior character; crafting is a support skill balanced around helping the whole group.

And its really weird to me to demand an equal share of the group's profit / treasure when you are playing an intentionally selfish / suboptimal character who objectively contributes less to the group's success than they would if they used their skills to help the rest of the party.Well supporting character is how most crafters are played. But even a crafter that never eqipps his groups is actually a common fantasy. That of the gadgeteer. Someone like Ironman. Who would not called selfish/suboptimal for not being primarily a supporter providing gear in the background. It is basically just a fantasy with gear instead of magic/superpowers/implausible training etc as power source. That is a valid way to play.


All right then, so why couldn't they do the same with my system and see that the minimum price on a haggle roll is that same as the cost to craft the item rather than the market price?I spoke about my players, not yours. I have long stopped trying to analyze your players, they seem way too bizarre.

But yes, once i have played a system that worked more like yours with the listed prices being basically the crafting ingredients and a lot of math building on that. My players did get it. They found it unnecessarily cumbersome (because the math was far more convoluted than yours) but they got it on the first try.

One player, Bob, wants list prices, and he only wants them when he fails a haggle roll, when he succeeds he is fine and happy with the system.My bad. Missed the apostrophe. Well, if it is only a Bob problem again and all the other players love your system, then ignore Bob.

Bob is always trying to find exploit and complains when you don't allow him to abuse them. It is impossible to make a a fast and abstract system that isn't exploitable. Because abstraction always means that the edge cases are not well presented if you look really close at them.


But the thing is, Bob's complaint is fundamentally different from the forum's complaint.Of course it is. Bob is a munchkin. I would have long lost hope if the forums complaints would match Bobs. Bob just wants to get stuff cheaper than intended and/or being able to dump buissness without paying a price. Considering how often Bob comes up with exploits, he probably does understand your rules and intention well enough and just chooses to ignore the latter.
The forum however, where many players know many system and lots have experience in writing their own, have ideas about elegance and presentation of your rules. They also have all personal tastes about randomness in purchase.

[Fiery Diamond]

That "or whatever" is doing a lot of work here.

Again, a success is getting an item at cost with absolutely no profit margin for either the craftsman or the middleman.

Unless you actively make a character who is absolutely terrible at business (and again, it's not fair to go out of your way to give your character a weakness and then complain when said weakness is a weakness) the system IS "failure is not an option, there are only degrees of success".



Ok, so just to clarify, in a player's mind, nobody ever fails to haggle and ends up paying retail price. This is what you are saying?




No, no it is not.

The book never lists that number anywhere. It lists a longsword as costing 15gp.

Then it has a bunch of math for how you calculate the value of a masterwork sword, a silver sword, and a +3 sword, and you add them together.

Then you get 18405. But that number isn't listed anywhere. And this is very important; because my system never lists the number for +X longsword either, it instead lists the value for a basic longsword and then also has math to calculate how much you can expect to pay for +X version.

But then, you are explicitly told that this is double the cost to make the item. And you have no chance to haggle in 3.5

So right out of that gate you are automatically paying double what you have defined as the "average value or whatever" and 1,227 times the "list price" which is what we are assuming an average player will think the price should be.



In standard D&D, I would to.

If we were playing in a game system or a setting where haggling was the default (say Fallout for example) I would shrug and get over it because it's not a big deal.



Why would it be optional if it was purely beneficial? That's just bad game design as not haggling is a trap option.

But really, that cuts to the heart of the issue. Haggling is the norm in many cultures, and nobody would ever haggle if it was always one sided. If your game is set in such a culture, its just part of the immersion and not really a big deal.




That's your prerogative, but I will say that coin counting systems are few and far between these days.

Even D&D doesn't let you buy magic items for money in most editions, instead hiding the loot that actually matters on treasure tables behind the DM's side of the screen.

I think coin counting is actually terrible from both a realism and a player enjoyment standpoint, but its such a small thing that I certainly wouldn't refuse to play in one of the few games that does it based on that fact alone.




Ok, so a few things here:

First, modern American's live in an industrialized society. They do not live in a post apocalyptic society where most items are hand made by a few rare skilled craftsmen. So no, I wouldn't expect them to haggle. But again, that cuts back to the initial question of the thread.

Second, even if they are paying sticker price, they could have paid less by shopping around or finding someone who is willing to haggle.

Third, sticker price is, on average, more than triple the cost to make an item. So, these 99.9%+ percent of people are getting utterly screwed over. I don't think it is possible to make a character in my system who pays more than triple the cost to create an item 99.9% of the time.

Fourth, you are putting the cart before the horse. I came up with the system and the concept of degrees of success long before I had ever been scammed. I am not designing the system around my personal experiences, I designed this system was symmetrical degrees of success that stem from the situation, and IMO being taken advantage of is the natural lowest (reasonable) failure state that mirrors a success. I only brought up my own history to refute the statement that being scammed is "the financial equivalent of cutting your own head off" which is clearly absurd. Personal anecdotes aside, I have never heard of someone cutting their own head off, but a quick google search will reveal literally millions of stories about people being scammed.

Fifth, this argument works both ways. Claiming that you won't accept the rules because they have never happened to you is no more logical than claiming they are reasonable because they have happened to the author. Actually, less so, because it is much harder to prove a negative.


Edit: And again, I could add a rule that stated you can simply buy items off the rack for double (or if you actually care about realism triple) the item's creation cost. And heck, if it actually causes you as much distress as you let on, I would suggest you propose such a house rule if you somehow ever find yourself playing in my system. But even so, that rule is only there to soothe the egos of loss averse and paranoid players, because it is a trap option; in actual play you will always* save money by haggling even if your character hasn't devoted any skill to it.

*In the long run. On an individual transaction always goes down to "almost always".

Let's tackle these in order:

1) Presentation is everything. In D&D as regards price and crafting, List Price isn't double crafting cost, crafting cost is half list price. The fact that these are mathematically identical is completely irrelevant. They are not perceived the same. At all. And unless you actually do have the nitty gritty details of crafting, supplying, etc. etc., you should be working backwards from price, not forwards from crafting cost ANYWAY. Your book-listed Wealth Value ("or whatever") should be from the effective price, not the crafting cost. I fundamentally disagree with your design decision to do it the other way.

2) With this taken into consideration, "paying retail price" isn't "failing to haggle," it's "not engaging with the haggle system," which should 100% be an option. Roll super poorly and get the same result as not haggling at all, don't get a worse result than "average." In D&D terms, if the effective price is 1000 gp, you should never pay over 1000 gp - your options are "haggle and roll poorly so you pay 1000gp", "not haggle and pay 1000gp," or "haggle and roll well so you pay less than 1000gp." Again, crafting cost is irrelevant, as it should be based on default price, not the other way around.

3) If the book lists "component A is Xgp, component B is Ygp, component C is Zgp" than is functionally identical to literally listing product with components ABC at price X+Y+Z gp. Saying otherwise is a false argument. I have no idea why you don't see this. Also, sure, D&D doesn't have a built-in haggling system, but one could easily be added without changing literally anything about how the price system already works other than offering a possibility of paying less than list price, which again, is what the cost is based off of, not vice versa.

4) I would hate any system where haggling was the default on principle, unless haggling was a purely beneficial option with no potential downsides. My real life does not include haggling, and I would hate it in my games unless it was purely beneficial. I don't care about whether it's "realistic" for the setting, I care about whether it fits my gameplay preferences.

5) Uh, no. Having an opt-in system that only gives benefits is not a "trap option" for not opting in unless the effects of that system are taken into consideration as part of game balance. For example, if I were to add a haggling system to D&D that allowed players to spend less to get gear, I wouldn't adjust WBL. I'd simply let anyone who invested in the skill do better than WBL and possibly up the challenges they faced to compensate, the same way I would up the challenges to compensate for a gestalt game rather than making gestalt games automatically low-wealth or something equally stupid.

6) People's expectations as players are based on their experiences. "Is this game element worse than my real life experience when I'm playing it for fantasy escapism" is a valid criterion for saying a game element is unacceptable (from that specific player's perspective). "Is this game element realistic, even though my potential players will find it unrelatable and negative" is NOT a valid reason to put it in. Realism is always less important than player enjoyment. My point was that you seemed to be using your experience with haggling and getting scammed as somehow justifying its inclusion (whether or not that's the REASON for its inclusion), when I was pointing out that that's nowhere near a universal experience for potential players, whose emotional opinions are more important than any appeal to realism ever could be.

BONUS) Game rules are there to support the game; they are not the game. You mentioned finding DM fiat somehow worse than pure randomness for deciding whether an item was available. I feel the exact opposite: if you are delegating decisions to the rules (as opposed to using the rules to assist in decision making), either the game rule structure is bad or you're a bad GM [EMPHASIS: FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, NOT OBJECTIVELY].

Also, say it with me: in games, unless you actually have "this item, which has a cost of [Insert amount] to acquire, plus this labor amount, which is valued at [insert amount], are necessary to make an item" levels of detail on item crafting, the crafting cost is based on the selling price, not the other way around. It doesn't work like real life.

[Segev]

Now, your proposed system is a hell of a lot like the first iteration of my system, the fully abstract one that went over like a plutonium hang glider.

The problem with it is that the players have to be limited in how often they make attempts (otherwise the whole system just becomes an exercise in wasting everyone else's time as you are assured to eventually get everything they need at the best possible price after enough rolling) and that players can't bank failures / declining to look for an item. Because previous failures don't have a tangible benefit going forward, the system seems random and the players feel like they have been robbed by some hypothetical merchant NPC each time they fail a roll.

So, I compromised on this hybrid system where you can indeed save up rolls, but to make that work I had to have a cost for success.

I guess I'm missing the question, then. What is it that your players are unhappy with in the system as you run it?

[Talakeal]

5) Uh, no. Having an opt-in system that only gives benefits is not a "trap option" for not opting in unless the effects of that system are taken into consideration as part of game balance. For example, if I were to add a haggling system to D&D that allowed players to spend less to get gear, I wouldn't adjust WBL. I'd simply let anyone who invested in the skill do better than WBL and possibly up the challenges they faced to compensate, the same way I would up the challenges to compensate for a gestalt game rather than making gestalt games automatically low-wealth or something equally stupid.

That's not what a trap option means.

If one option is clearly better than another option, the inferior option is a "trap option".

If something has no cost to use and no possible downside, there is no reason not to use it.

Choosing not to use it is the trap option.

It's like if I had two human variants; one gets a bonus feat at first level and the other does not, and all other things are equal. Option 2 is a trap option.

Likewise, if haggling is purely beneficial and risk free, then choosing to shop without haggling is the definition of a "trap option".


I guess I'm missing the question, then. What is it that your players are unhappy with in the system as you run it?

Bob doesn't like the fact that he can't opt out of the haggling system and buy options at list price because there is no list price.

The reason he wants this in the short term is because he doesn't like failing rolls, ever, and will look for an excuse for why his failure shouldn't count when one comes up.

In the long term, it's so he can create characters who receive bonus character points for flaws that hinder his ability to haggle and then simply opt out of the system entirely so the flaws aren't actually flaws, just free character points.


1) Presentation is everything. In D&D as regards price and crafting, List Price isn't double crafting cost, crafting cost is half list price. The fact that these are mathematically identical is completely irrelevant. They are not perceived the same. At all. And unless you actually do have the nitty gritty details of crafting, supplying, etc. etc., you should be working backwards from price, not forwards from crafting cost ANYWAY. Your book-listed Wealth Value ("or whatever") should be from the effective price, not the crafting cost. I fundamentally disagree with your design decision to do it the other way.

As I said though, D&D does not do this either.

Keep in mind, there is no list cost for exceptional items, only ordinary items, in either my game or D&D.

Then, in both my game and D&D, they have modifiers for magical and masterwork (albeit in D&D these are flat / exponential modifiers and mine are multipliers).

The difference is that D&D has no haggling rules and says successfully crafting get it for half price, whereas my system says successfully crafting (or haggling / conjuring) gets it without the multipliers (which equates to half price).

In short, the difference that this whole thread has devolved into is:
"The cost for magic items is doubled. It is then halved on a successful test." vs. "The cost for magic items is doubled on a failed test."
And whether the clunkiness of the former outweighs the psychological impact of the latter.


4) I would hate any system where haggling was the default on principle, unless haggling was a purely beneficial option with no potential downsides. My real life does not include haggling, and I would hate it in my games unless it was purely beneficial. I don't care about whether it's "realistic" for the setting, I care about whether it fits my gameplay preferences.


Real life also doesn't include wandering monsters, and wandering monsters are seldom beneficial. Snark aside, a lot of people prefer games to be more risky and random than real life, so they can feel excitement and adventure in a safe way. And for a lot of people, being a master negotiator who has tons of money and can always make the deal is a power fantasy to be explored.

Preferences are preferences. You are welcome to yours. Just as people who like haggling are welcome to hate games without them.

I just think it's a weird thing to get so hot under the collar about one way or the other as it is a very minor thing.


6) People's expectations as players are based on their experiences. "Is this game element worse than my real life experience when I'm playing it for fantasy escapism" is a valid criterion for saying a game element is unacceptable (from that specific player's perspective). "Is this game element realistic, even though my potential players will find it unrelatable and negative" is NOT a valid reason to put it in. Realism is always less important than player enjoyment. My point was that you seemed to be using your experience with haggling and getting scammed as somehow justifying its inclusion (whether or not that's the REASON for its inclusion), when I was pointing out that that's nowhere near a universal experience for potential players, whose emotional opinions are more important than any appeal to realism ever could be.

Balancing realism with player enjoyment is a whole other thread, much weightier than this one. They aren't separate though; many people tie their enjoyment to realism and blame their lack of enjoyment on lack of realism (and it goes both ways; sometimes an unrealistic element hurts enjoyment, sometimes people blame lack of enjoyment on unrealistic elements).

I only brought up real life experiences to counter the specific claim that getting scammed is "as rare as cutting one's own head off", and while anecdotes aren't data, they work just find to refute arguments of "X is impossible!".

Negative consequences are generally there as limiting agents and mathematical symmetry, not realism. Although generally realism should be an outline for what the rules handle; being stabbed should hurt rather than heal for example, and there are certain times when a mechanically optimal solution would be rejected because its too big a break from reality.

[Fiery Diamond]

That's not what a trap option means.

If one option is clearly better than another option, the inferior option is a "trap option".

If something has no cost to use and no possible downside, there is no reason not to use it.

Choosing not to use it is the trap option.

It's like if I had two human variants; one gets a bonus feat at first level and the other does not, and all other things are equal. Option 2 is a trap option.

Likewise, if haggling is purely beneficial and risk free, then choosing to shop without haggling is the definition of a "trap option".



Bob doesn't like the fact that he can't opt out of the haggling system and buy options at list price because there is no list price.

The reason he wants this in the short term is because he doesn't like failing rolls, ever, and will look for an excuse for why his failure shouldn't count when one comes up.

In the long term, it's so he can create characters who receive bonus character points for flaws that hinder his ability to haggle and then simply opt out of the system entirely so the flaws aren't actually flaws, just free character points.



As I said though, D&D does not do this either.

Keep in mind, there is no list cost for exceptional items, only ordinary items, in either my game or D&D.

Then, in both my game and D&D, they have modifiers for magical and masterwork (albeit in D&D these are flat / exponential modifiers and mine are multipliers).

The difference is that D&D has no haggling rules and says successfully crafting get it for half price, whereas my system says successfully crafting (or haggling / conjuring) gets it without the multipliers (which equates to half price).

In short, the difference that this whole thread has devolved into is:
"The cost for magic items is doubled. It is then halved on a successful test." vs. "The cost for magic items is doubled on a failed test."
And whether the clunkiness of the former outweighs the psychological impact of the latter.



Real life also doesn't include wandering monsters, and wandering monsters are seldom beneficial.

Preferences are preferences. You are welcome to yours. Just as people who like haggling are welcome to hate games without them.

I just think it's a weird thing to get so hot under the collar about one way or the other as it is a very minor thing.



Balancing realism with player enjoyment is a whole other thread, much weightier than this one. They aren't separate though; many people tie their enjoyment to realism and blame their lack of enjoyment on lack of realism (and it goes both ways; sometimes an unrealistic element hurts enjoyment, sometimes people blame lack of enjoyment on unrealistic elements).

I only brought up real life experiences to counter the specific claim that getting scammed is "as rare as cutting one's own head off", and while anecdotes aren't data, they work just find to refute arguments of "X is impossible!".

Negative consequences are generally there as limiting agents and mathematical symmetry, not realism. Although generally realism should be an outline for what the rules handle; being stabbed should hurt rather than heal for example, and there are certain times when a mechanically optimal solution would be rejected because its too big a break from reality.

RE: Trap option - you misinterpreted what I was saying. I'm saying that, given an optional benefit and a no-benefit default, the no-benefit default is NOT a trap option unless game balance is designed around the assumption that some people with actually use the optional benefit. If game balance is designed around NOT using the optional benefit, then just because using the benefit is better doesn't make it objectively a "correct" decision (which is what trap options actually are - objectively "incorrect" decisions presented as equal options). Opportunity costs are a thing. If the player would rather spend their limited meta-resources (character points, stats, skills, whatever) on other things (as your players seem to have decided), that's a valid choice, not a trap option, unless the game balance is designed with the assumption that the benefit will be used. I'm saying my personal opinion is that haggling for better prices should be purely beneficial and allow you to do BETTER than the game balance assumes with regard to gear acquisition, much like it's not a "trap option" to play a non-gestalt game when you could have chosen to play a gestalt game instead. Gestalt is simply higher-powered, period, and haggling should be treated the same way.

You seem to have something against handing over pure benefits. I have no idea why. People choose to forgo certain benefits for various reasons all the time besides "sometimes randomness makes it negative instead." It's not a trap option any more than, to make a callback to your earlier remarks, having cheat codes makes "not using a cheat code" a trap option.

Also, you're just wrong about D&D. If it has list prices for components of an item and tells you that the item is available, that's IDENTICAL to having a list price of the item, if the price is supposed to be equal to the sum of the components (which in D&D is stated). It's LITERALLY the same thing. Stop saying it isn't.

[Talakeal]

So, I just did a test run of twenty purchases using my system as is.

I used an average guy with no training in business.

He paid list price 6 times.
He paid above list price 3 times.
He paid below list price 11 times.

His worst single roll was paying 38% above list price, which is still less than the average retail sticker price IRL.
His average savings was 17%.

I could continue to run the numbers longer (and in actual play it is going to be much more advantageous than this because you take the best business score in the party not the average, and you have meta currencies and supplemental skills and abilities to boost the roll) but I am pretty sure this is a fairly representative sample.


Now; my question is; would you go through your entire adventuring career 17% poorer than the rest of your party to avoid the feeling of being ripped off those 3 times out of twenty?

If not, would making this system optional really change anything?


Also, you're just wrong about D&D. If it has list prices for components of an item and tells you that the item is available, that's IDENTICAL to having a list price of the item, if the price is supposed to be equal to the sum of the components (which in D&D is stated). It's LITERALLY the same thing. Stop saying it isn't.

Please cite your sources if you are going to tell someone they are just wrong like that, otherwise this turns into a "nuh-uh your wrong!" schoolyard squabble.

[Segev]

Bob doesn't like the fact that he can't opt out of the haggling system and buy options at list price because there is no list price.

The reason he wants this in the short term is because he doesn't like failing rolls, ever, and will look for an excuse for why his failure shouldn't count when one comes up.

In the long term, it's so he can create characters who receive bonus character points for flaws that hinder his ability to haggle and then simply opt out of the system entirely so the flaws aren't actually flaws, just free character points."You took the flaws; deal with the consequences."

Bob will complain because Bob is a munchkin, and a much more shameless one than I am. (I am a powergamer, but I try to curb munchkinly tendencies.)


So, I just did a test run of twenty purchases using my system as is.

I used an average guy with no training in business.

He paid list price 6 times.
He paid above list price 3 times.
He paid below list price 11 times.

His worst single roll was paying 38% above list price, which is still less than the average retail sticker price IRL.
His average savings was 17%.

I could continue to run the numbers longer (and in actual play it is going to be much more advantageous than this because you take the best business score in the party not the average, and you have meta currencies and supplemental skills and abilities to boost the roll) but I am pretty sure this is a fairly representative sample.Is there a list price, per this quote, or not, per Bob's gripe about not being able to just pay a list price by opting out of the system being an impossible "ask" due to there being no list price?

Or am I misunderstanding something, still?


Now; my question is; would you go through your entire adventuring career 17% poorer than the rest of your party to avoid the feeling of being ripped off those 3 times out of twenty?Depends strongly on whether the times I failed had higher opportunity cost than the times I succeeded paid back, in my experience. If the times I failed just happened (truly by luck, or for whatever other reason) to align with the times I could've gotten something really spiffy or cool or that fit my desires neatly, I'd probably lean towards paying the 17% surcharge on my next character.


If not, would making this system optional really change anything?It would for Bob, apparently, who has likely made it so that, thanks to the defects he took for bonus points, he'd be failing a lot more often and not see the 17% savings.



Please cite your sources if you are going to tell someone they are just wrong like that, otherwise this turns into a "nuh-uh your wrong!" schoolyard squabble.I'm not fiery diamond, but 3.5 D&D absolutely has list prices for each canon magic item.

5e does not, but has its own system for figuring out how much it costs to find and buy one, as well as a more fixed price (and quest requirement) for making them. See: Xanathar's Guide to Everything for the good system, or the DMG for a poorly-done version of it.

[NichG]

Now; my question is; would you go through your entire adventuring career 17% poorer than the rest of your party to avoid the feeling of being ripped off those 3 times out of twenty?


If interacting with the system that would get me that extra 17% feels frustrating or tedious or even just leads to frequent and unnecessary arguments over minutiae, then sure. If I could get extra points elsewhere in exchange for not having to deal with a system I found frustrating or tedious, even more certainly so. I mean, if the shopping gameplay really took a lot of time, I'd go so far as to make a character who is as minimally dependent on gear as possible so I could just say 'skip'.

[Talakeal]

Is there a list price, per this quote, or not, per Bob's gripe about not being able to just pay a list price by opting out of the system being an impossible "ask" due to there being no list price?

Or am I misunderstanding something, still?



Items have a value rating. This is what it costs to craft.

The system used to be:
Market price for a high-quality item is 2x value. On a successful business test, you can get it for half (aka equal to value rating).

Now it is:
On a success you get it for value rating. If you fail, the market price is currently value rating + amount you failed by.

The system works much the same, but it the variable failure makes it a little softer rather than a jagged binary; but it also fixed Bob's exploit of nuking his business score for bonus points and then just paying market price for everything.


I'm not fiery diamond, but 3.5 D&D absolutely has list prices for each canon magic item.

5e does not, but has its own system for figuring out how much it costs to find and buy one, as well as a more fixed price (and quest requirement) for making them. See: Xanathar's Guide to Everything for the good system, or the DMG for a poorly-done version of it.

Named magic items yes.

It does not have listed prices for "Chain Mail +2" or "Long Sword +4". It has formulas you can use to find the price.

The argument is in my game that people will see the "Value Rating" for a long sword in the core book and assume that is the price for all long swords regardless of their bonus and then be mad when the +3 Long Sword costs more than the price that is listed for a mundane long sword.

If that were the case, I don't know why people in D&D wouldn't also see the "15gp" entry for a long sword in the PHB and then get mad when they found at that they would have to pay an extra 300 gold for masterwork and then an extra 2k x bonus squared for magic.

[NichG]

The argument is in my game that people will see the "Value Rating" for a long sword in the core book and assume that is the price for all long swords regardless of their bonus and then be mad when the +3 Long Sword costs more than the price that is listed for a mundane long sword.


That has not been the argument that people have made. That's something you're bringing in.

[Talakeal]

That has not been the argument that people have made. That's something you're bringing in.

I must have grossly misunderstood what this line of conversation was about then. (Which is certainly possible.)


I will respond to the rest later, but I wanted to say something here that I think is getting lost.

There is no list price, known or unknown.

That is the whole point of this thread, is that I don't put a list price on items as high quality gear is custom made or bought second hand and then haggled over rather than being stocked on store shelves and one of my players find this system unrealistic and implausible.


Items do have a "value rating" but this is absolutely not the "market price" anymore than Exalted saying that a new yacht is a "value 4 item" means that you can buy one for "four gold" or trade in four value one hammers for a new yacht.


Yes, there is.

You don't think that's what it means, but you've written a number in your game manual for the amount of wealth each thing costs. That's a price. Your items have prices. That is how everyone is going to understand that and it absolutely is how the characters interact with that number. It is an amount of their characters' wealth score they have to spend to get the item. That the prices are abstract not reified as currency doesn't change that.

[GloatingSwine]

Items have a value rating. This is what it costs to craft.

The system used to be: Price for a high-quality item is 2x value. On a successful business test, you can get it for half.
Now it is: On a success you get it for value rating. If you fail, the market price is currently value rating + amount you failed by.


So you have a couple of things to balance here.

1. The value of a point of skill investment between crafting and buying should be the same. This balance point may not be at the same point as the cost price of the items.
2. Success at both systems should feel good.

Right now, the system doesn't deliver at 2 for purchases. Bob has found the failure mode in it but isn't expressing it usefully. (Items should[i] have a list price, and that should be the average price that an average character pays on an average business roll, which right now is value+5, and success should be or feel symmetric with failure)


Named magic items yes.

It does not have listed prices for "Chain Mail +2" or "Long Sword +4". It has formulas you can use to find the price.

The argument is in my game that people will see the "Value Rating" for a long sword in the core book and assume that is the price for all long swords regardless of their bonus and then be mad when the +3 Long Sword costs more than the price that is listed for a mundane long sword.

No, that's not the argument.

The argument is that people see the value rating for a long sword and are annoyed that they are being charged +5 [I]over the value rating for a long sword with absolutely no modifiers which is the statistical average for a non-Cha dump character who didn't tag Business.

[Talakeal]

The argument is that people see the value rating for a long sword and are annoyed that they are being charged +5 over the value rating for a long sword with absolutely no modifiers which is the statistical average for a non-Cha dump character who didn't tag Business.

What do you mean when you say "with no modifiers?"

Are you saying "I am paying 5 more for a sword with a bonus than I would for an ordinary sword" or "I am paying an extra 5 wealth and getting no modifiers in return."

Because the former is incorrect. Remember, the haggling rules are only used for exceptional quality items.

And I don't see how the latter is any different than paying the +300 gold for a masterwork item (plus whatever for materials and enchantments) in D&D.

[NichG]

I must have grossly misunderstood what this line of conversation was about then. (Which is certainly possible.)

The argument has been that, however you calculate it, when a system says that there is an objective value associated with a thing it feels different to have to pay more than that value to get it versus paying less than that value (but the listed value just being higher).

I'd personally add that the direction of risk matters as well above and beyond that. Adding a cost based on 'how much you fail by' means you have a soft upper-bound of cost (especially if the roll can have situational modifiers, etc), but the lower-bound is hard - you know you will never pay less than X. Adding a discount based on 'how much you succeed by' means you have a hard upper bound and a soft lower bound - you know you will never pay more than X, but you might pay as low as zero if you built for it. Both should IMO be hard bounds - no matter what, you will never pay more than X or less than Y, where X would be the value calculated from the rules and Y would be at least 10-20% above the cost to make the item (to avoid arbitrage exploits).

Of course people will still feel bad when they receive less than that value when they're the ones selling stuff. The whole 'why do I have to sell my loot for half price?' is an old, old complaint in D&D circles, and that's not getting resolved any time soon in any system in which you can both buy and sell. I do think an actual abstract wealth system (where you basically never gain nor lose wealth barring exceptional circumstances, but your wealth level determine what sorts of things you have access to) resolves this complaint, but at some point you have to take the complaining player aside and say 'the game needs something that works, that doesn't have infinite loops or exploits, etc; if you aren't happy with this one, what would you have us do instead?' and if they keep complaining, well, 'you chose this, complain to yourself'.

[GloatingSwine]

What do you mean when you say "with no modifiers?"

Are you saying "I am paying 5 more for a sword with a bonus than I would for an ordinary sword" or "I am paying an extra 5 wealth and getting no modifiers in return."

Because the former is incorrect. Remember, the haggling rules are only used for exceptional quality items.


What is an "exceptional quality item?"

Your rulebook absolutely does not expound on this in the haggle rules or the item rules.

As far as the rules are written, buying an absolutely generic piece of gear is a haggle roll and you get it at the value rating only on a success, which for a character with Cha 5 described in the rules as average and no specific investment in Business happens 25% of the time.

If a brand new character with Cha 5, no Business skill, just created at the start of their adventure, wants to buy a high calibre rifle (value 12) item with no quality modifer how does that play? (This item is worth 2.4x their starting wealth, are they even allowed to have it?)

Remember how I said your book needs play examples? Your book needs play examples.

[Talakeal]

The argument has been that, however you calculate it, when a system says that there is an objective value associated with a thing it feels different to have to pay more than that value to get it versus paying less than that value (but the listed value just being higher).

I'd personally add that the direction of risk matters as well above and beyond that. Adding a cost based on 'how much you fail by' means you have a soft upper-bound of cost (especially if the roll can have situational modifiers, etc), but the lower-bound is hard - you know you will never pay less than X. Adding a discount based on 'how much you succeed by' means you have a hard upper bound and a soft lower bound - you know you will never pay more than X, but you might pay as low as zero if you built for it. Both should IMO be hard bounds - no matter what, you will never pay more than X or less than Y, where X would be the value calculated from the rules and Y would be at least 10-20% above the cost to make the item (to avoid arbitrage exploits).

Of course people will still feel bad when they receive less than that value when they're the ones selling stuff. The whole 'why do I have to sell my loot for half price?' is an old, old complaint in D&D circles, and that's not getting resolved any time soon in any system in which you can both buy and sell. I do think an actual abstract wealth system (where you basically never gain nor lose wealth barring exceptional circumstances, but your wealth level determine what sorts of things you have access to) resolves this complaint, but at some point you have to take the complaining player aside and say 'the game needs something that works, that doesn't have infinite loops or exploits, etc; if you aren't happy with this one, what would you have us do instead?' and if they keep complaining, well, 'you chose this, complain to yourself'.

I just don't get why getting a +X sword for the cost of a mundane sword doesn't feel like a reward.

[Talakeal]

What is an "exceptional quality item?"

Your rulebook absolutely does not expound on this in the haggle rules or the item rules.

As far as the rules are written, buying an absolutely generic piece of gear is a haggle roll and you get it at the value rating only on a success, which for a character with Cha 5 described in the rules as average and no specific investment in Business happens 25% of the time.

If a brand new character with Cha 5, no Business skill, just created at the start of their adventure, wants to buy a high calibre rifle (value 12) item with no quality modifer how does that play? (This item is worth 2.4x their starting wealth, are they even allowed to have it?)

Copy pasted from the playtest rules in my sig:

"Acquisition
A character may purchase new equipment or upgrade their existing gear by visiting a suitable marketplace and taking on a number of debts equal to its value.

By default this gear is of ordinary quality; poor quality gear is acquired at half the usual debt and high quality gear with a bonus equal to the team’s animus costs double, each further tier of quality increases the debt by a factor of ten.

The haggle ability (see Chapter Three) can be used to reduce the incurred debt or to find normally unavailable items."

"Haggle
This ability can be used to track down or commission high-end equipment and negotiate a reasonable price. This ability is used after deciding to acquire an item as described in Chapter Five.

On a success, the buyer finds the item and negotiates a good price, incurring half the usual debt.

On a failure they may either acquire the item for a number of debts equal to half the usual cost plus the amount they failed by, or walk away empty handed. In the later case, the character will still take on a single debt, representing fruitless leads, bad investments, burning through contacts, impulse buys, money put down toward a future purchase, or squandered shopping time."



Remember how I said your book needs play examples? Your book needs play examples.

I'm reading you loud and clear.

[Lord Foul]

This is kinda the rule for Vampire the masquerade.

They have a "resource" background. You roll Int (or charisma, depending on character also I could be misremembering this part) plus finance plus resource whenever they make a purchase big enough they have to care about it

[GloatingSwine]

Yes, I've read the rules pertaining to these skills (it takes a lot of cross referencing between pages 130 and 190 or so*).

They are not sufficiently explanatory because they use vague terms like "ordinary quality" and "poor quality" without specific explanation.

What is an Exceptional Quality item. Does it have a fixed mechanical definition? Is is a +1? +2? Presence of a certain value in modifications? What?


* You've done that thing where you have pages that aren't numbered, which is fine for a print book but annoying for a PDF because your index is always 3 pages off when you type a page number in the quick jump feature.

[Talakeal]

Yes, I've read the rules pertaining to these skills (it takes a lot of cross referencing between pages 130 and 190 or so*).

They are not sufficiently explanatory because they use vague terms like "ordinary quality" and "poor quality" without specific explanation.

What is an Exceptional Quality item. Does it have a fixed mechanical definition? Is is a +1? +2? Presence of a certain value in modifications? What?


* You've done that thing where you have pages that aren't numbered, which is fine for a print book but annoying for a PDF because your index is always 3 pages off when you type a page number in the quick jump feature.

Equipment quality is elaborated upon on the following page (194).

In brief, high quality gear adds a +1-5 bonus to the wielder's rolls much as a magic item would in D&D, ordinary gear does not.

[NichG]

I just don't get why getting a +X sword for the cost of a mundane sword doesn't feel like a reward.

That has nothing to do with anything I said though.

I said that being told how to calculate that a +X sword has a value of 27, but ending up paying 28 doesn't feel like a reward, whereas being told that a +X sword has a value of 29, but ending up paying 28 does.

No one is talking about a mundane sword.

[Vahnavoi]

Let me try to get to the same point in different way. There are plenty where the base cost of an item is separate from over-the-table cost, but these kind of systems are very explicit about what multiplier is applied to get the final cost. Often, the base cost is not even commmunicated to the player unless they specifically ask for it - in mundane terms, mark-up and tax are already included in the sticker price.

Majority of such systems work out in practice like people have suggested your system ought to: a person who doesn't haggle just pays the sticker price. End of.

The base criticism aimed at your system is simply that it implies the base cost is the sticker price - and then the players get hit by mark-up and tax at the check-out counter.

[Talakeal]

That has nothing to do with anything I said though.

I said that being told how to calculate that a +X sword has a value of 27, but ending up paying 28 doesn't feel like a reward, whereas being told that a +X sword has a value of 29, but ending up paying 28 does.

No one is talking about a mundane sword.

I get that.

The thing is, my book doesn't list the price of a magic sword; it lists the price of mundane swords, and then your haggle roll determines how much of a markup you will pay for a magic sword, which might be zero but is never going to be less than the cost of a mundane sword (which also happens to be the crafting cost of a magic sword).

The value of a magic sword is never listed at all in the book, which is what Bob was upset about in the first place.


But yes, I get that the main thrust of the thread is that people would feel better about having a "worst price" listed and then rolling up from there even if it is mathematically identical, but doing that is just so wordy and clunky compared to the system I have now.



Let me try to get to the same point in different way. There are plenty where the base cost of an item is separate from over-the-table cost, but these kind of systems are very explicit about what multiplier is applied to get the final cost. Often, the base cost is not even commmunicated to the player unless they specifically ask for it - in mundane terms, mark-up and tax are already included in the sticker price.

Majority of such systems work out in practice like people have suggested your system ought to: a person who doesn't haggle just pays the sticker price. End of.

The base criticism aimed at your system is simply that it implies the base cost is the sticker price - and then the players get hit by mark-up and tax at the check-out counter.


I get that. It's just weird psychology.

In most fully abstract wealth systems, you are totally at the mercy of the dice and have no decision points or ability to save up or get a partial success on a failed roll.

Then there are other hybrid systems. Like, I have played Mordheim for years. In Mordheim, you get 1 attempt per game to buy a rare item. First you declare what you are looking for, then you roll to see if it is available, then you take the base price and roll to see how much of a markup you pay. In ~25 years of playing that game on and off, I have never heard anyone complain about the markup, because they are so happy that they are getting a rare item.

My system is essentially the same, but it is streamlined into a single roll, slanted so that the players have a lot more control over the process, and there are softer failure states to make cold dice a little less harsh, but all of this "generosity" seems to be met with the opposite response from people.

Like upthread when (I think Gloating Swine) was talking about how it looks bad that there are degrees of failure but not degrees of success. That is just so counter intuitive to me, because in my mind success is success, you got it, you are happy, you won. But failure feels bad, so having it be a gradual loss rather than all or nothing softens the blow and is strictly mathematically superior to a straight bet, but makes the system somehow "feel worse" than the old "pay market price on a failure, pay half on a success".

[NichG]

I get that.

The thing is, my book doesn't list the price of a magic sword; it lists the price of mundane swords, and then your haggle roll determines how much of a markup you will pay for a magic sword, which might be zero but is never going to be less than the cost of a mundane sword (which also happens to be the cost of a magic sword).

The value of a magic sword is never listed at all in the book, which is what Bob was upset about in the first place.


This may just be your system being bonkers in another weird way that went unstated, but let me make absolutely sure of this:

In your system, is the crafting cost of a magic sword the same as the crafting cost of a mundane sword?

If not, then based on what you've said previously in the thread, yes, the value of a magic sword is listed in the book, and is different from a mundane sword.

If so, then why is the fact that it's magic even relevant to the conversation?

Because if this isn't just a misunderstanding, this feels very much like putting words in other people's mouths.

[Talakeal]

This may just be your system being bonkers in another weird way that went unstated, but let me make absolutely sure of this:

In your system, is the crafting cost of a magic sword the same as the crafting cost of a mundane sword?

If not, then based on what you've said previously in the thread, yes, the value of a magic sword is listed in the book, and is different from a mundane sword.

If so, then why is the fact that it's magic even relevant to the conversation?

Because if this isn't just a misunderstanding, this feels very much like putting words in other people's mouths.

Sorry, left out a key word in my last post.

The cost to CRAFT a magic sword just so happens to be the same as the cost to BUY a mundane sword.

This number is the lowest price you will ever pay when going to BUY a magic sword. (Any cheaper and you can set up infinite wealth exploits).

[NichG]

Sorry, left out a key word in my last post.

The cost to CRAFT a magic sword just so happens to be the same as the cost to BUY a mundane sword.

This number is the lowest price you will ever pay when going to BUY a magic sword. (Any cheaper and you can set up infinite wealth exploits).

So it costs the same to craft a magic sword regardless of the nature of the magic?

[Talakeal]

So it costs the same to craft a magic sword regardless of the nature of the magic?

For the purposes of this discussion yes.

There are tiers of play and special rules for buying or crafting items out of one's tier, and there are unique artifacts that are not bought and sold, but for the vast majority of cases the power level of magic weapons is standardized.

[NichG]

For the purposes of this discussion yes.

There are tiers of play and special rules for buying or crafting items out of one's tier, and there are unique artifacts that are not bought and sold, but for the vast majority of cases the power level of magic weapons is standardized.

Is there actually any reason to have wealth and economics in the game at all then given this level of tight balancing? I mean, you complained earlier that it was unrealistic to limit access to items because you could sell your house and buy a Ferrari. But doesn't this basically just mean 'access to items is limited to your tier' anyhow?

[Talakeal]

Is there actually any reason to have wealth and economics in the game at all then given this level of tight balancing? I mean, you complained earlier that it was unrealistic to limit access to items because you could sell your house and buy a Ferrari. But doesn't this basically just mean 'access to items is limited to your tier' anyhow?

That's way beyond the scope of this thread.

Most of the gameplay ties into equipment in some capacity, it would be like asking "Does Dungeons and Dragons really need Divine magic at all?" I mean, maybe it doesn't, but it would require rewriting basically the entire game from scratch mechanically and cut off a lot of narrative possibilities for both characters and scenarios.

There are tons of ways to get out of tier items (for example the aforementioned critical success on a haggling role), they just don't really have any impact on the cost of a standard magic or mundane weapon.

[NichG]

That's way beyond the scope of this thread.

Most of the gameplay ties into equipment in some capacity, it would be like asking "Does Dungeons and Dragons really need Divine magic at all?" I mean, maybe it doesn't, but it would require rewriting basically the entire game from scratch mechanically and cut off a lot of narrative possibilities for both characters and scenarios.

There are tons of ways to get out of tier items (for example the aforementioned critical success on a haggling role), they just don't really have any impact on the cost of a standard magic or mundane weapon.

I mean, it matters if its leading to interpreting other posters' posts based on things they couldn't possibly know because you didn't mention them, and/or which are sort of coincidences. Like, if you hadn't made the value of a magic weapon exactly 2x the value of the non-magic equivalent, there wouldn't be this thing about 'why should someone complain about getting the magic for free?'. There's no reason to talk about the mundane and magic goods in the same breath - they're different items.

The value of a magic weapon is X. In your system, you can craft it for X or buy it for a cost >= X based on a haggle result. People are saying it would feel better if instead you said 'the value of a magic weapon is Y, you can craft it for Y/2 or buy it for a cost Y/2 <= cost <= Y based on the roll of a haggle result'.

The fact that you happened to make a non-magic weapon cost X/2 to make is irrelevant.

[Talakeal]

I mean, it matters if its leading to interpreting other posters' posts based on things they couldn't possibly know because you didn't mention them, and/or which are sort of coincidences. Like, if you hadn't made the value of a magic weapon exactly 2x the value of the non-magic equivalent, there wouldn't be this thing about 'why should someone complain about getting the magic for free?'. There's no reason to talk about the mundane and magic goods in the same breath - they're different items.

The fact that you happened to make a non-magic weapon cost X/2 to make is irrelevant.

People were saying that hypothetical players would see the "value" listed for a sword and assume that was the "sticker price" that they would be paying and then get upset when they ended up paying more than that. This is what I was responding to.

I was explaining that the "value" is the cost for the mundane sword (which also happens to be the cost for crafting a magic sword), while the haggling rules are only used for buying magic swords, and the math is about how much extra you pay for the enchantment beyond the cost of the base sword (or the crafting cost of the magic sword if you prefer).

Sword being a stand in for any item of course, it doesn't have to be a sword.


The value of a magic weapon is X. In your system, you can craft it for X or buy it for a cost >= X based on a haggle result. People are saying it would feel better if instead you said 'the value of a magic weapon is Y, you can craft it for Y/2 or buy it for a cost Y/2 <= cost <= Y based on the roll of a haggle result'.

I get that. I well and truly do.

I just think it is bizarre because it is mathematically less punishing the way it is now and a lot less clunky, both to write and to play out.

But again, it's mostly just presentation and hardly with going back and forth over for a hundred posts.

[NichG]

People were saying that hypothetical players would see the "value" listed for a sword and assume that was the "sticker price" that they would be paying and then get upset when they ended up paying more than that. This is what I was responding to.

I was explaining that the "value" is the cost for the mundane sword (which also happens to be the cost for crafting a magic sword), while the haggling rules are only used for buying magic swords, and the math is about how much extra you pay for the enchantment beyond the cost of the base sword (or the crafting cost of the magic sword if you prefer).


This defines 'the value of a magic sword' in your rules. Splitting the math up into a calculation doesn't change that. In D&D the price of a +3 Longsword is defined by the rules as 18115gp, not 15gp. Just because you have to add three numbers together to get there doesn't mean 'oh, just ignore one of them' or 'there isn't really a defined price'. People asking for the maximum cost to be defined rather than the minimum aren't saying 'we should be able to get a +3 Longsword in D&D for 15gp, and on top of that lets haggle to reduce the price further!'. They're saying 'make 18115gp the maximum you'd ever pay, and if you want to include haggling mechanics maybe make it so you might be able to get that down a bit further'.

[Talakeal]

This defines 'the value of a magic sword' in your rules. Splitting the math up into a calculation doesn't change that. In D&D the price of a +3 Longsword is defined by the rules as 18115gp, not 15gp. Just because you have to add three numbers together to get there doesn't mean 'oh, just ignore one of them' or 'there isn't really a defined price'. People asking for the maximum cost to be defined rather than the minimum aren't saying 'we should be able to get a +3 Longsword in D&D for 15gp, and on top of that lets haggle to reduce the price further!'. They're saying 'make 18115gp the maximum you'd ever pay, and if you want to include haggling mechanics maybe make it so you might be able to get that down a bit further'.

My rules are "There is no set price for a X, but you will never pay less than Y, Y being the cost of the materials that go into it."

That is very different than saying "There is a listed price and you will always get screwed over by the system into paying more than it," which seems to me to be what most of the posters in this thread have read it as.

I get that it gives people a good feeling to have a sticker price to pay less than (which is why most every chain store has fake sale prices), I just can't figure out a way to do it without massively convoluting my rules and taking control away from the players.

Which is also related to, but different than, Bob's original complaint which was that it was unrealistic for a pre-industrial (or post-apocalyptic) society to be based on haggling rather than having inflexible sticker prices.

[Telok]

Which is also related to, but different than, Bob's original complaint which was that it was unrealistic for a pre-industrial (or post-apocalyptic) society to be based on haggling rather than having inflexible sticker prices.

Which only comes up when said player throws a bad roll or takes flaws that make them worse at (and thus paying more for market purchased) buying stuff. That correct?

Also, if I'm understanding right, the whole buy vs craft vs conjure setup is currently in balance and basically works the same way across each appropriate resource & stats combo? That would make "buy with money" mechanically equal to "craft with bits" and mechanically equal to "conjure with mana". Yes? So is there anything particular stopping a char from dumping their wealth & buying and just relying on their crafting to keep themselves appropriately geared?

Probably for this forum yoy've hit some sort of "uncanny valley" between a full abstract wealth system and a system with coin counting, multiplication, division, janky downtime business rules, convoluted crafting rules, and punishingly idiotically simplistic shopping rules.

[Talakeal]

@NichG:

I have been thinking a lot about what you said about balance this weekend.

For me, its fairly easy to spot when one option is clearly superior / inferior to another option, what I refer to as a trap option or dominant strategy. IMO this is a bad thing because for power gamers one of the options is just wasted space in the book, and for RPers or people who are into the game for a specific fantasy they might be punished for their preferences (like if I just saw Frozen and want to create Elsa but then discover that frost wizards just do flat out less damage than fire wizards and are otherwise identical, that feels bad).

And when adding a house rule to an existing game, its pretty easy to see if it is clearly superior or inferior to existing options, even if it is a new option. For example, if you add haggling to D&D and it is purely beneficial, it is going to be the superior option unless it also has some kind of skill or feat requirement.


But, when creating whole a system, what is balance? How do you decide if the system is balanced around something or is purely beneficial? What does that even mean? Like, in a traditional competitive board game like, say, Chess, or even something more complex like Starcraft, it is fairly easy to balance around both players having a 50/50 chance of winning. But in an RPG? What sort of benchmarks would you even use to determine if the system was balanced around an option like not? What sort of diagnostic would you even do to determine if the system was balanced around the aforementioned 17% discount for haggling or not?

This is a legitimate question, not rhetorical. I have long had problems trying to hit upon the "sweet-spot" of game balance. I used to follow 3Es implied guidelines of 80% resource expenditure per average adventuring day, but that was a: never explicitly said, b: has no proof that it is better than any other arbitrary number, and c: still results in the perception of me as a killer DM both at my table and on the forums despite never having had a TPK.



Also, if I'm understanding right, the whole buy vs craft vs conjure setup is currently in balance and basically works the same way across each appropriate resource & stats combo? That would make "buy with money" mechanically equal to "craft with bits" and mechanically equal to "conjure with mana". Yes? So is there anything particular stopping a char from dumping their wealth & buying and just relying on their crafting to keep themselves appropriately geared?

Bartering is much more versatile.

Crafting is split up into several skills and is less forgiving for an untrained character.

Making a dedicated crafter is a much bigger investment than making a character who is only good at business.


Which only comes up when said player throws a bad roll or takes flaws that make them worse at (and thus paying more for market purchased) buying stuff. That correct?

Correct, but just because he isn't arguing in good faith doesn't mean he isn't right.


Probably for this forum you've hit some sort of "uncanny valley" between a full abstract wealth system and a system with coin counting, multiplication, division, janky downtime business rules, convoluted crafting rules, and punishingly idiotically simplistic shopping rules.

Possibly.

For some reason tinkering with wealth systems is really controversial, and I get way more push back, both at the table and on forums, than I do for any other system.

[Jay R]

I get that. It's just weird psychology.

No, it's not. It's perfectly normal psychology, as proven by the fact that it describes what actually happened in your game, and that several people on this thread also feel that way.

"I should have to pay X, but I paid more than X" will always feel like a penalty. That is perfectly normal. And even if it was weird, it's how your player reacted. And how many of us reacted.

Besides, the weirdness level is irrelevant. You don't have to deal with how you think hypothetical "normal" people should react; you have to deal with how your actual players react, even if it's weird.


But yes, I get that the main thrust of the thread is that people would feel better about having a "worst price" listed and then rolling up from there even if it is mathematically identical, but doing that is just so wordy and clunky compared to the system I have now.

You're a good writer; you could write it up in a less clunky way if you tried.

You asked for advice. We are giving it to you; you even acknowledge that this specific advice is "the main thrust of the thread".

If your primary goal in running a game is to minimize wordiness and clunkiness, then keep doing what you're doing.

But if your primary goal is to entertain your players, then change it to something that (in your own words) people would feel better about.

[Talakeal]

No, it's not. It's perfectly normal psychology, as proven by the fact that it describes what actually happened in your game, and that several people on this thread also feel that way.

"I should have to pay X, but I paid more than X" will always feel like a penalty. That is perfectly normal. And even if it was weird, it's how your player reacted. And how many of us reacted.

Besides, the weirdness level is irrelevant. You don't have to deal with how you think hypothetical "normal" people should react; you have to deal with how your actual players react, even if it's weird.

Right.

The weird part is they are objectively paying less AND getting a better deal, but it feels worse because they don't have an inflated sticker price to "anchor" it in their mind.

I know its normal, which is why big chain stores always put "Normally X! Save Y!" signs above the actual price tag, it just seems really odd to me.

Likewise, I think the idea of a merchant selling everything at cost as the default would sound absurd to most people, but if you don't have an inflated sticker price, apparently the "cost" is what anchors people and its now expected.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Right.

The weird part is they are objectively paying less AND getting a better deal, but it feels worse because they don't have an inflated sticker price to "anchor" it in their mind.

I know its normal, which is why big chain stores always put "Normally X! Save Y!" signs above the actual price tag, it just seems really odd to me.

Likewise, I think the idea of a merchant selling everything at cost as the default would sound absurd to most people, but if you don't have an inflated sticker price, apparently the "cost" is what anchors people and its now expected.

Prices have very little to do with the cost to manufacture the item. The labor theory of value is just false. Prices have to do with how much people will pay.

So what something costs to buy is only correlated with cost to create in that people who can't get some value over their own cost don't tend to make/sell very much unless they're using it as a loss leader.

In this case, setting the "base price" at the build cost makes for an elegant, but incoherent system. One that does not fit what everyone knows (even if they can't express it well) about how prices work.

More generally, elegance is often a trap for designers. Especially mathematical elegance. It rarely matters in actual play. All the fancy dice probability math doesn't really matter very much to play. And by trying for elegance, you often sacrifice the playability for anyone who didn't design it.

[NichG]

@NichG:

I have been thinking a lot about what you said about balance this weekend.

For me, its fairly easy to spot when one option is clearly superior / inferior to another option, what I refer to as a trap option or dominant strategy. IMO this is a bad thing because for power gamers one of the options is just wasted space in the book, and for RPers or people who are into the game for a specific fantasy they might be punished for their preferences (like if I just saw Frozen and want to create Elsa but then discover that frost wizards just do flat out less damage than fire wizards and are otherwise identical, that feels bad).

And when adding a house rule to an existing game, its pretty easy to see if it is clearly superior or inferior to existing options, even if it is a new option. For example, if you add haggling to D&D and it is purely beneficial, it is going to be the superior option unless it also has some kind of skill or feat requirement.


But, when creating whole a system, what is balance? How do you decide if the system is balanced around something or is purely beneficial? What does that even mean? Like, in a traditional competitive board game like, say, Chess, or even something more complex like Starcraft, it is fairly easy to balance around both players having a 50/50 chance of winning. But in an RPG? What sort of benchmarks would you even use to determine if the system was balanced around an option like not? What sort of diagnostic would you even do to determine if the system was balanced around the aforementioned 17% discount for haggling or not?

This is a legitimate question, not rhetorical. I have long had problems trying to hit upon the "sweet-spot" of game balance. I used to follow 3Es implied guidelines of 80% resource expenditure per average adventuring day, but that was a: never explicitly said, b: has no proof that it is better than any other arbitrary number, and c: still results in the perception of me as a killer DM both at my table and on the forums despite never having had a TPK.


It's a complicated question. I wouldn't even say that in chess 'it is fairly easy to balance around both players having a 50/50 chance of winning' because you'll almost always have a more skilled player. Games like Go use a handicap system coupled with a ranking system to try to provide a tool that would let even players of different skill levels have a 50/50 shot of winning a given game against each-other, but handicap play actually requires different strategies than the base game and very large handicaps don't really work. In general, games of skill have an opening-up phase where a given strategy might work well for one player but poorly for another (formally, players following particular understandings of the game at middle levels of skill have a non-transitive relationship with one another: its possible to see player A always wins against player B who always wins against player C who always wins against player A. When people approach mastery of the game, that property disappears, and you start to get that one way of playing becomes strictly better than another, because a master of the game understands all of those strategies and their relationship to one-another and should be able to use any of them, so it just becomes a meta-strategy to understand which they should pick against a given opponent.

For me when designing a TTRPG, I basically want to land the game squarely in that non-transitive region. The goal isn't to make sure that all the options are equal, the goal is to make it so that every option feels like the best option to someone - even after they've chosen that option, lived with it, have had other people argue about it with them, etc. TTRPGs give you things to achieve this that 1v1 competitive games don't have, because players can have different goals they want to achieve. So in the 1v1 competitive games, you ultimately can't escape losing that non-transitivity when people really master the game, but in TTRPGs you don't actually have to lose it since different players can bring in different goals, different senses of what they think would be cool, different aesthetics of play.

Bolding the important bit: I try to make a game where every player thinks they're getting something really good, but no player would choose to switch with another's choices seeing the two characters side by side. That means leaning into the psychological aspects of 'what it feels to play' rather than just trying to reduce everything to numbers that are balanced against each-other. So while in my systems you could certainly pit two builds against each-other on an open field and maybe one would kill the other 99% of the time, my job as a designer is to make that not feel either obvious or relevant to the players, even if it would be mathematically true.

So for me, if I were designing a Business skill, I'd want to design it to advertise to prospective players 'there's something you might find cool here' but to do so in a way that doesn't make it something that everybody should care about - I'm looking only to catch the eye of the player whose fantasy does involve merchantry or shrewd business. I'd then want that thing to give an obvious and unqualified return on investment to a player who took the effort to understand it and get into it and 'execute the moves of it' whatever those are, but at the same time I'd want to make that something like a direction of mental engagement or spotlight usage or something like that so its not just like everyone says 'yeah we do it too, give us the discount'. Basically, its like a placard saying 'hey player, if you find the idea of spending 10% of your time playing the game on this thing and if you mentally engage with the mechanics of how to do it, I promise you'll get something for it!'. Even better if the thing the player gets for it is really unique and not just a discount or numerical shift that risks ending up 'strictly better' or 'strictly worse' due to acting as an instrumental support for other goals or strategies.

I've done kind of two things here. One is the non-transitive bit about the player getting something unique, but another is that in general if you bother to read more of the rules, pay attention to more of the mechanics, I want to reward that. That's not a thing about balance between characters at all, but it very much sets the tone for how good the game feels to engage with. When the player puts in a bit of mental effort, there should be a payoff, even a 'strictly better' payoff. You have to be a bit careful of these so not too many of them directly stack, or you'll get a game where experienced and inexperienced players can't really play side-by-side, but I think its good to have these things scattered about.

Anyhow, that's why if I were designing a Business skill, I'd focus on making there some things which practically speaking are impossible to get (or impossible to control whether or not you get) without the skill, rather than just costing more. So that's why I tend in the direction of 'use Business to determine if you can find the item for sale' rather than 'use Business to determine the cost of the item' as the core role of the skill. Because that means that there's a relatively clean bargain the system is making with a player: 'if you want to be the guy who can find and acquire the precise items that you or others would like to have, just invest in this skill'. But on top of that saying 'oh, AND you get things for strictly less than characters who didn't invest' is okay to sweeten the pot, just so long as its not so much better than other players would want to abandon their particular line of build for the advantage it gives.

Actually doing this design project the right way would likely involve me also changing a bunch of other things about how (e.g. your) system works to be compatible with this overall goal though, so looking at the one decision in a vacuum is tricky. For example, I'd want to identify potential bottlenecks that modulate large sections of character competence (to-hit rolls for example, or major controlling attributes for particular classes), and I'd want to avoid having magic items which stack directly into those rolls or attributes. Instead I'd tend to design items to be things like conditional passives or reactives, extra limited-usage abilities, narrative enablers that create new options in certain circumstances, new modalities of information acquisition, or very rarely 'meta-modifiers' that change how the game actually works for someone using the item. I'd also want to design the game to have lots of non-gear ways to benefit from wealth and the ability to find buyers and sellers - stronghold building subsystems, ways to build magical rooms and the like that give perks to the party, special locations where if you have a base there they give perks to anyone using the base, a robust system for retaining NPC services and contacts so you can potentially combo Business with spymaster-y things, etc.

So investing in Business shouldn't make a character who wants to be slaying the dragon better at slaying the dragon, but it should make it possible for another character to say locate and buy the perfect bribe to get the dragon to just go away.

[Talakeal]

Prices have very little to do with the cost to manufacture the item. The labor theory of value is just false. Prices have to do with how much people will pay.

So what something costs to buy is only correlated with cost to create in that people who can't get some value over their own cost don't tend to make/sell very much unless they're using it as a loss leader.

In this case, setting the "base price" at the build cost makes for an elegant, but incoherent system. One that does not fit what everyone knows (even if they can't express it well) about how prices work.

More generally, elegance is often a trap for designers. Especially mathematical elegance. It rarely matters in actual play. All the fancy dice probability math doesn't really matter very much to play. And by trying for elegance, you often sacrifice the playability for anyone who didn't design it.

I get all of that.

Again though, the goal is that the game/setting doesn't have fixed prices and everything is haggled for.

There really shouldn't be any sort of a "base price" at all in the player's mind; and the closest thing to a "market value" is what an average person will get on an average roll (which is what it was listed at in previous versions that were both clunkier and more punitive).

The only reason "base price" comes into it at all is that the best possible success while haggling is getting the item at cost (because if people could reliably get items for less than cost, they could easily set up an infinite wealth loop).

[PhoenixPhyre]

I get all of that.

Again though, the goal is that the game/setting doesn't have fixed prices and everything is haggled for.

There really shouldn't be any sort of a "base price" at all in the player's mind; and the closest thing to a "market value" is what an average person will get on an average roll (which is what it was listed at in previous versions that were both clunkier and more punitive).

The only reason "base price" comes into it at all is that the best possible success while haggling is getting the item at cost (because if people could reliably get items for less than cost, they could easily set up an infinite wealth loop).

That's...kinda both really obnoxious and not very elegant. Haggling is always a sign that the system is messed up, that information is lacking[0]. Yet you've got rigid "this thing always costs X to produce" and "if you haggle this well, you can always get it for Y" walls that says that information is perfect. Those two don't go together. So you have an incoherent (formally) system that is absolutely more anachronistic and more illogical and harder to wrap your mind around than any kind of fixed prices would be. Especially since you're defying genre conventions and tropes, which exist for a really darn good reason--to reduce cognitive load. Those tropes are full of fixed prices. By bucking that trend you've made everyone's life harder and created a system that works on paper, for you, but only because you designed it.[1]

And you haven't signposted that haggling is the default and that you must engage with the Haggling mechanic or you're getting screwed over relative to the only prices you've posted. Because you have posted prices. That's what Value Rating means in practice--every real price is a fixed function of those Value Ratings--just with some mathematical mumbo-jumbo modifying it in opaque ways. And the name is a strong indicator--when you say that something has a Value Rating of X, you're saying it's worth X. And putting those VRs in front of the players means that yes, you've published base prices. You've strongly pinned people's minds to the idea that item X is worth Y. Except then they can't get it for that unless they put substantial build resources into something they don't find interesting. You've made a character-resource tax in people's minds. Either put valuable resources into Haggling or pay (seemingly) inflated prices.

And the actuality (the overall distribution) doesn't matter. People don't work that way. And people are the ones playing the game, not statistics bots. Perception is reality when it comes to such things. In game design, elegance counts for nothing if the players don't see it as elegant. Elegant-and-unfun is still unfun, which is fatal to its use in a game environment.

So from what I see, you've made something that neither simulates a coherent economy nor is gameable (those two are often at odds, but either one can be valuable).

[0] and even in situations where haggling is normalized, there are very strong bands of "acceptable prices". Everyone knows how much things are actually worth within some band. In reality, haggling is mostly a cultural thing, not a price-discovery thing. You haggle to adjudicate and display status and respect, not to get better prices outside some culturally-fixed, fairly narrow band. Like 10-15%, unless you're an outsider who just gets screwed/taken advantage of.
[1] this is a common trap, even for writers. Its why having a separate editor is so critical. Because lots of things make sense to the person who wrote them but don't make any sense to anyone who lacks the internal context of the writer.

[Talakeal]

Those two don't go together. So you have an incoherent (formally) system that is absolutely more anachronistic and more illogical and harder to wrap your mind around than any kind of fixed prices would be. Especially since you're defying genre conventions and tropes, which exist for a really darn good reason--to reduce cognitive load. Those tropes are full of fixed prices. By bucking that trend you've made everyone's life harder and created a system that works on paper, for you, but only because you designed it.[1]

[0] and even in situations where haggling is normalized, there are very strong bands of "acceptable prices". Everyone knows how much things are actually worth within some band. In reality, haggling is mostly a cultural thing, not a price-discovery thing. You haggle to adjudicate and display status and respect, not to get better prices outside some culturally-fixed, fairly narrow band. Like 10-15%, unless you're an outsider who just gets screwed/taken advantage of.

Can we go back in time and have this conversation 150 posts ago?

Because this is actually what I created the thread to discuss.

How narrow are bands usually? How much different is the merchant's normal opening offer from a "sticker price" in a society where haggling is common place? What is the usual markup on goods? How much does this vary by time and place?

Is it genre inappropriate? Most post apocalyptic settings I see go out of their way to establish that FIAT currency isn't a thing anymore. All of the Fallout games have a bartering skill which you use on every purchase while the items "market value" is hidden to the player without the aid of a wiki, and way back in the before times my system originally started as a Fallout hack (and hence every iteration since its inception has had some form of bartering skill and haggling mechanic).


And you haven't signposted that haggling is the default and that you must engage with the Haggling mechanic or you're getting screwed over relative to the only prices you've posted. Because you have posted prices. That's what Value Rating means in practice--every real price is a fixed function of those Value Ratings--just with some mathematical mumbo-jumbo modifying it in opaque ways. And the name is a strong indicator--when you say that something has a Value Rating of X, you're saying it's worth X. And putting those VRs in front of the players means that yes, you've published base prices. You've strongly pinned people's minds to the idea that item X is worth Y. Except then they can't get it for that unless they put substantial build resources into something they don't find interesting. You've made a character-resource tax in people's minds. Either put valuable resources into Haggling or pay (seemingly) inflated prices.

Maybe I am giving players too much credit.

So do you not think a player will pick up on the fact that on a successful haggling roll they are getting a finished item for the same price as the raw materials or that they are getting a magic item for the same cost as a mundane item of the same sort?



It is also weird how I am trying to protect players from themselves with this system. Scaling off of failure rather than success reduces cognitive load and math, allows for lower prices overall and has more of a gradual slope, and it avoids the actually tedious system of every player haggling for every item in the game after every adventure and only actually making purchases on those they achieve a critical success on.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Can we go back in time and have this conversation 150 posts ago?

Because this is actually what I created the thread to discuss.

How narrow are bands usually? How much different is the merchant's normal opening price from a "sticker price" in a society where haggling is common place? Is it genre appropriate?

Is it genre inappropriate? Most post apocalyptic settings I see go out of their way to establish that FIAT currency isn't a thing anymore. All of the Fallout games have a bartering skill which you use on every purchase while the items "market value" is hidden to the player without the aid of a wiki, and way back in the before times my system originally started as a Fallout hack (and hence every iteration since its inception has had some form of bartering skill and haggling mechanic).


Those post-apocalyptic settings actually, mechanically, have fixed prices (the price you get for 0 investment in the appropriate skill) and bartering only decreases them. They have nothing to do with "cost of production" which is entirely arbitrary. And currency =/= fiat currency. At all. You can have fixed prices in sheep. Or measures of salt (apocriphally where we get the word "salary"). Bride prices are usually denominated in herd animals (at least in fiction).

And haggling is, in every instance I've experienced it (and all the fiction that was trying to do it right), more about establishing yourself as an insider and paying appropriate respects. It's an elaborate dance with an outcome known by both parties in advance. Sure, there might not be a formally fixed prices, but everyone knows that a sheep is worth X, a loaf of bread costs Y, etc. And the whole "quote an outrageous price to start" thing just isn't so--doing that means you'll get treated as non-serious and ignored. Same goes for salary negotiations or car negotiations.

The only place those outrageous prices come into play is with outsiders, who don't know any better, and only for very-high-value things. Case in point--when I was in Eastern Europe (specifically Daugavpils, Latvia, about 2001), we were a bunch of westerner kids (19-21) renting apartments. When one of our local contacts asked how much we paid for our apartment, they were flabbergasted. We were paying something like the local median monthly income just in rent, a markup of something like 4x. Why? Because we didn't know any better. On the other hand, when we went to the local market (where haggling was a thing), we generally paid about the same prices (+- 5%) as anyone else. Without haggling. Why? Because no one wants to bother haggling over a kilo of potatoes.

So really, there were fixed prices. There were just two of them--one for outsiders and one for locals. And the haggling was just noise. The only time you get actual price discovery like that is for things that cannot be valued easily or that are highly illiquid markets. The value of a unique item? Yeah, that's going to auction. Because no one knows how much it's worth. But that's not your system. Everyone knows exactly how much things are worth (the Value Rating entirely specifies that). But then you lard on a huge transaction cost in uncertainty.



Maybe I am giving players too much credit.

So do you not think a player will pick up on the fact that on a successful haggling roll they are getting a finished item for the same price as the raw materials or that they are getting a magic item for the same cost as a mundane item of the same sort?

You notice...because you've internalized the entire system. Your players don't do that. Few players of any system do. Because, fundamentally, those prices are arbitrary and so are the markups. Combine that with loss aversion (losses are psychologically worse than the magnitude of the equivalent gain) and you have a system that appears guaranteed to screw the players over. Even if it's entirely fair. But that perception is way more important than reality.

And when I say signpost, I mean literally. As in big bold text that says "if you have a haggle rating of less than Z, you will always pay a markup of X - Y over Value Rating and will feel horrible. Don't do it". Or flat out disallow dumping haggle below the average. System expectations should not be failable--those expectations should set the floor of your possible performance unless you consciously and painstakingly anti-optimize.

Or put the band of outcomes explicitly into the tables. Such as
* Longsword. VR X, Selling Price (Y - Z).



It is also weird how I am trying to protect players from themselves with this system. Scaling off of failure rather than success reduces cognitive load and math, allows for lower prices overall and more a more gradual slope, and it avoids the actually tedious system of every player haggling for every item in the game after every adventure and only actually making purchases on those they achieve a critical success on.

Except...evidence is that your intent and your outcomes are not the same. In theory, your system works. But the difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference but in practice there is. And practice wins against theory every time. No amount of complaining or "elegance" will change that.

If you want lower cognitive load, having a system that scales based on equations isn't it. You've ended up in the bitter corner (opposite of a sweet spot) between a fully abstract wealth system and a fully concrete one. You've got all the downsides of both, without the benefits of either.

[Talakeal]

Those post-apocalyptic settings actually, mechanically, have fixed prices (the price you get for 0 investment in the appropriate skill) and bartering only decreases them. They have nothing to do with "cost of production" which is entirely arbitrary. And currency =/= fiat currency. At all. You can have fixed prices in sheep. Or measures of salt (apocriphally where we get the word "salary").

Out of curiosity, when you say a fixed price, do you mean a floor?

Because, to continue the Fallout example, it doesn't have a fixed price visible anywhere to the players.

The game has an internal value rating for each item but you will ALWAYS sell your gear for less than this number and ALWAYS pay more than this amount when buying it.

So is the difference here that my system doesn't have a theoretical floor (even if in actual play it will never be seen) or that the item's base "value" is printed in the book rather than being hidden in the code and handled "behind the screen". Or both? Or neither? Or something else I am missing?


And when I say signpost, I mean literally. As in big bold text that says "if you have a haggle rating of less than Z, you will always pay a markup of X - Y over Value Rating and will feel horrible. Don't do it". Or flat out disallow dumping haggle below the average. System expectations should not be failable--those expectations should set the floor of your possible performance unless you consciously and painstakingly anti-optimize.

This assumes everyone is a money hungry goblin who suffers from severe loss aversion and lack of internalized understanding of prices.

There are plenty of players who don't really care about squeezing every last copper out of their build, or actually enjoy playing a character who is bad with money. We had one of the latter in my last campaign.

I don't know what "failable" means in this context; a character who sinks their business score to oblivion is a perfectly fine character overall; they just won't optimize their expenditures. Which is no big deal mechanically, just psychologically for some people. To me that's like banning the "arachnomancer" prestige class because some players might be arachnophobic and choose to play an arachnomancer anyway.




Except...evidence is that your intent and your outcomes are not the same. In theory, your system works. But the difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference but in practice there is. And practice wins against theory every time. No amount of complaining or "elegance" will change that.

Ok. But in practice, the system is fine. All of my players like it. Bob complains about it when he fails a roll or has an exploit fixed, but then again he does that about everything.

The only people who get up in arms about it are forumites who have not actually played the game or read the rules.

More on that in a sec.




If you want lower cognitive load, having a system that scales based on equations isn't it.

I am not sure what you mean by this. Could you please extrapolate?




You've ended up in the bitter corner (opposite of a sweet spot) between a fully abstract wealth system and a fully concrete one. You've got all the downsides of both, without the benefits of either.

Ok, so IMO people are really sensitive to loot in games. Like, really sensitive.

If I ask for feedback about a rule involving something loot related, I get always get a 100+ post thread telling me how terrible it is, while other house rules rarely get more than a couple of responses.

The weird part is, most of these complaints don't show up in actual play. Further, there are many other published games that have used identical mechanics for years, and I can't find anyone complaining about those mechanics if I actually look for them. Heck, I remember one guy recommending Atlantis: The Second Age as an example of an abstract wealth system done "right" only for me to look it up and find that the system was identical to the one I had come up with*.

Some people absolutely hate coin counting systems.
Some people absolutely hate acquisition systems.

Overall, most people seem to be in the former group, and most RPGs seem to be written for the latter. The problem is, I am also in the latter group, and thus I am not motivated to write a coin counting game even if it would be easier to make the players happy that way.

As it stands, I feel like I have eliminated the most common "pain points" from both systems with my hybrid, and am pretty happy with it. The only complaint at my table is that haggling all the time for rare goods is "unrealistic" and the forum complaints seem like they could easily be solved by adding some extra text listing the "market price" of items, adding a little extra multiplication when it comes to prices, and eliminating some player agency when it comes to really bad rolls.


*Well, there was one single difference. In Atlantis, the number of rare items you could look for in a session was equal to your intelligence score, where as in my system it was equal to the number of objectives you had completed in the previous session.

[PhoenixPhyre]

@Talakeal -- wealth rules get more comments because they're more obviously, stand-alone analyzable than anything else. Combat rules (for example) require knowing the whole system due to having lots of interacting parts. And fewer people are willing to look into it very far. And there's lots of room to wiggle there--lots of things that work all along the crunchyness "spectrum" (it's a multi-dimensional problem/solution-space).

Wealth rules? They're fairly easy to check out. And there are really only two that have been shown to work well--fully abstract ones and fully concrete ones. No one's ever proposed a really viable middle ground. The first only really work when gear isn't a major factor in performance. And since the things you're buying are fairly abstract mechanically and the game doesn't really care about wealth (it's one of many ways to have power but the returns to wealth are sharply diminishing so you need exponentially more of it to actually get more power), the wealth/money thing can be abstract as well. And those tend to have fixed costs and incredibly simple mechanics--0 cost if it's below your rating and available at all, 1 if it's equal to your rating, not gettable by purchase if it's above your rating. That's dead simple to understand and play.

Your system isn't that way. You've got meaningful, measurable differences in performance from your gear--you even said that getting higher tier gear too soon threatens game balance. In that case, having a fully concrete system with fixed sticker prices is the side that works well.

So the flaws of a hybrid system are more apparent--you're abstracting away and hiding behind opaque mechanics stuff that directly impacts character performance and can even threaten system balance. So it very much appears like an attempt to put the screws to the players (or more generously, to balance the system on their backs by hiding the good stuff).

As long as gear matters and money[1] is concrete and comes and goes, you've got a concrete price system. Your particular implementation just hides the math under a lot of rugs. And that's not fatal to enjoyment, but it's certainly not helping anything. Nor is your insistance that it's so generous and "low effort". It's not, except for you. I'd much rather have a known price with the opportunity to get discounts by haggling (but failure means either paying more or not getting it at all). That's symmetric--if I do well, I get a bargain below the stated price. If I do well, I get a worse price or lose out on the chance to buy it. Yours feels like it's all downside--the only price you advertise is the floor on the price. So you will always pay at least that much. And succeeding just limits the bleeding. It's not symmetric at all. The whole "cost of crafting" thing is a red herring--it's absolutely orthogonal to the whole deal. Because it has its own costs[2].

Now, to be honest, you also have players (ok a player in particular) who will complain no matter what. The solution to that is to just not play with Bob at all.

[1] no matter what form it takes, fiat currency, favors, or whatever. You've got currency, it's just not in coin.
[2] character investment, time, etc. Those who want to craft...want to craft. If I, as a player, haven't invested in that, it's not even an option.

[Talakeal]

snip.

I get most of what you are saying.

It still doesn't explain the negativity where people will be fine with published games that use similar systems go without complaint but proposing them for a new system invokes internet rage mobs though.



It's not, except for you. I'd much rather have a known price with the opportunity to get discounts by haggling (but failure means either paying more or not getting it at all).

Are you? Because it seems like for most people either one of those or the other seems to be the fatal flaw that kills the system entirely.


Your system isn't that way. You've got meaningful, measurable differences in performance from your gear--you even said that getting higher tier gear too soon threatens game balance. In that case, having a fully concrete system with fixed sticker prices is the side that works well.

I didn't say that as such. I said that Bob bought an item that was intended for two tiers of play higher. Honestly, it isn't really that big a deal if players are an entire tier ahead or behind the expected wealth curve, and a single item won't really break anything at all.

But again, I still don't believe that a suit of power armor and a plasma canon in the 40K RPGs aren't a meaningful measurable difference in power, and those games use a fully abstracted wealth system and are very popular, so clearly that isn't some hard line.



It's not, except for you. I'd much rather have a known price with the opportunity to get discounts by haggling (but failure means either paying more or not getting it at all).

Are you? Because it seems like for most people either one of those or the other seems to be the fatal flaw that kills the system entirely.


As long as gear matters and money[1] is concrete and comes and goes, you've got a concrete price system. Your particular implementation just hides the math under a lot of rugs. And that's not fatal to enjoyment, but it's certainly not helping anything. Nor is your insistance that it's so generous and "low effort". It's not, except for you.


Still wondering what you meant about equations in the previous post.


So, my current system is: Price for a normal magic item = value, +1 per point you failed by. Price for an out of tier item = valuex10, +1 per point you failed by.

That seems really straightforward and math lite to me.

Compared to how I envision it working if I removed forum complaints:

Price for a normal magic item is value x2, -1 per point you succeeded by, to a minimum of value. Price for an out of tier item = valuex10, -1 per point you succeed by, to a minimum of valuex5.

The second one is both harsher and more math intensive IMO, but is preferable to players because it puts the sticker price upfront?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Still wondering what you meant about equations in the previous post.


So, my current system is: Price for a normal magic item = value, +1 per point you failed by. Price for an out of tier item = valuex10, +1 per point you failed by.

That seems really straightforward and math lite to me.

Compared to how I envision it working if I removed forum complaints:

Price for a normal magic item is value x2, -1 per point you succeeded by, to a minimum of value. Price for an out of tier item = valuex10, -1 per point you succeed by, to a minimum of valuex5.

The second one is both harsher and more math intensive IMO, but is preferable to players because it puts the sticker price upfront?

If I want to know "can I afford something" under your system, all I care about is the worst case. Which means sitting down and doing the probabilities. Which is absurdly labor intensive. You've got
* value rating
* a random roll against a non-fixed DC, which then can modify the price up to some amount that I have to know the DCs for to figure out what my worst case is.
* The (completely artificial and meta) "tier" system, which then modifies things based on my "level" vs it's "level".

So if I don't care about haggling (which it appears most of your players don't, nor do most of the people here), there's no safe "strike price". I can't just say "ok, I budgeted X for this item but it's gonna cost me Y if I fail, so I can't afford it" without doing the math.

Whereas in the other case, there's a ceiling on how much I'll have to pay for it. If I can afford the no-haggle cost[1], I can just walk in and grab it, pay, and go. No math, no haggling, no muss.

In your system, failure is guaranteed. The only value to having more skill is to fail by less. You'll never (or rarely) actually even "break even" (get something for its value), and if you do by some miracle succeed...you don't get any benefit from it (or not nearly enough to make it worth it). Because you're at the floor.

In a sane system, your floor is the baseline (the "asking price"). And success means getting a better deal than that. And the more you succeed, the better you are.

What you're doing is presuming incompetence. They have to make some costly investment just to get to the system's expected baseline (the number you balance all the wealth drops around[2]). Which means that they can fail and fall below the thresholds by no real fault of their own, just dumb luck. Better systems presume competence. They let bonuses actually be bonuses, so someone who invests more gets more. Or they just make wealth not that valuable.[3]

[1] Value is not a function of cost to produce in the real world. The cost to produce something influences the quantity produced, not the price level. Because that's set by market competition (what people will pay). Doesn't matter if it costs $10k to make your artisanal coffee...if people are only wiling to pay $3, you can charge whatever you want and won't sell a darn thing. Unless you sell for $3 or less. Your whole issue here is trying to tie everything back to some fixed, known "cost to make". It completely destroys the economy and is a well known "this doesn't work" theory. Sounds great in principle, doesn't work at all in practice.

[2] which is another source of discontent--you're requiring (to meet the system math) some conversion of wealth into character power. Having too much wealth makes a mess, as does having too little. That's inherently fragile. System-expected numerical values shouldn't, IMO, be able to be missed. You shouldn't have to do any extra work in scenario design or loot distribution or "balancing the wealth economy" to make sure they have the right +X at the right level just to hold steady. That's a mistake 3e, PF1e, PF2e, and 4e all made. And it makes for wealth-obsessive players, as you're finding out. Because not doing so means they're falling behind. And it's insanely fragile--you have to take active measures to ensure their wealth is right in the sweet spot and they can't get extra value-for-treasure or other exploits. Because you're allowing conversion of wealth into power directly.[3]

[3] In the WH games, what usually gates that set of power armor/plasma weapon isn't wealth. As a Rogue Trader, you've got wealth coming out your ears. As a Space Marine...you don't even really get paid. No, what gates those is influence, rank, and favors. And that's much more predictable. And it's also gated by character decisions--give a guardsman a suit of power armor and they won't be able to use it very well. In D&D terms...they're not proficient. So you have incomesurables.

[Talakeal]

snip

At this point you are just going out of your way to phrase everything in the most negative light possible and afaict very little of what you are saying has anything to do with my system, either in principle or practice.


I have been play testing my system for years now, as both as GM and a PC, and I have never had a bartering system go anything like you are describing. Its typically more like "Ok, I want a widget. Roll a dice and compare two two digit numbers and find the price of widgets. Then either mark of a single or low double digit cost and get the item or decide you don't like the price and wait until next session."

And even if it was true, its not like a pure coin counting system doesn't have any of these problems (Ok, so I have exactly 77,000 gold pieces, and I want to buy a +4 adamant fiery burst great axe, do I know if have enough gold without 5 minutes of digging through books and doing math?), and its not like you apply "assume the worst case scenario" to any other aspect of the game (Ok, so let's plan tactics for the fight against the dragon; so we will go in, get surprised, get fire breathed, all fail our saves, take maximum damage, then we lose initiative, get critically hit for maximum damage, and then when we finally fet our turn those of us who are still standing will miss their attacks while those who aren't fail their death saves...).

[NichG]

At this point you are just going out of your way to phrase everything in the most negative light possible and afaict very little of what you are saying has anything to do with my system, either in principle or practice.


I have been play testing my system for years now, as both as GM and a PC, and I have never had a bartering system go anything like you are describing. Its typically more like "Ok, I want a widget. Roll a dice and compare two two digit numbers and find the price of widgets. Then either mark of a single or low double digit cost and get the item or decide you don't like the price and wait until next session."

And even if it was true, its not like a pure coin counting system doesn't have any of these problems (Ok, so I have exactly 77,000 gold pieces, and I want to buy a +4 adamant fiery burst great axe, do I know if have enough gold without 5 minutes of digging through books and doing math?), and its not like you apply "assume the worst case scenario" to any other aspect of the game (Ok, so let's plan tactics for the fight against the dragon; so we will go in, get surprised, get fire breathed, all fail our saves, take maximum damage, then we lose initiative, get critically hit for maximum damage, and then when we finally fet our turn those of us who are still standing will miss their attacks while those who aren't fail their death saves...).

Wise players absolutely do plan for the worst case in combat. That's why you don't stand next to dragons and full attack them even if you're a beefy warrior type. Because if you don't kill them, and if they roll well, you're gone.

Learned that one the hard way.

[Witty Username]

Well,
Asking prices could still exist without fixed prices. A blacksmith may ask for say 10 gp if you express an interest in her display sword. Even if sword was 5-15 gp asking price from town to town to blacksmith.

As for anachronism, I personally wouldn't worry about it, as long as the world building is consistent and it leads to interesting play decisions.

I like the idea of asking price, then haggling, for speed of play reasons.

[Segev]

It still doesn't explain the negativity where people will be fine with published games that use similar systems go without complaint but proposing them for a new system invokes internet rage mobs though.

He actually did explain it. Your system - unless we're all misunderstanding it very badly - is not a purely abstracted one, and is not a pure "you have X currency; items either have a fixed gp cost or have a way of determining a random currency cost within a range that may or may not allow for or include haggling," system. His assertion is that either extreme - pure abstract or pure hard "currency" - tends to work, and he outlines the kinds of games they tend to work for. He asserts your game is one where hard currency would work better.

So, then, your reply here is not replying substantively to what he said; you're presuming that he agreed with you that your system is one that is similarly implemented in published systems that "go without complaint." His assertion is the exact opposite: systems similar to yours have never been successful in published works, according to him. So there is no dichotomy between "published games that use similar systems" and your "new system." Both invoke discontent from players.

I don't see internet rage mobs coming for you, here, either. We're discussing - strenuously - your system as best we understand it from what you've laid out, but it feels to me like every time people address what you say your system is, you get upset and tell us we aren't addressing your system at all and are attacking phantoms.

This strikes me as a communications failure. One of two things must be happening: either we are not understanding what you are telling us about your system, which causes us to continually address an incorrect model that does not reflect your system; or we ARE addressing your system and its flaws and you are not understanding our critiques.

So, let me ask you this: Do you believe you have, in any one post, fully outlined the details of your system such that we should be able, from that post, to assess it completely and understand why our critiques are not addressing that system as you put it forth? If so, could you please link that post?

[Duff]

crafting is a support skill balanced around helping the whole group.

That may be your intent.
It may be what the math says

You the system designer care about this.

But for "You the GM"... You probably shouldn't be getting this deep in telling people how to play their character.
At least, not unless you're specifically asked.

[Vahnavoi]

Wise players absolutely do plan for the worst case in combat. That's why you don't stand next to dragons and full attack them even if you're a beefy warrior type. Because if you don't kill them, and if they roll well, you're gone.

Learned that one the hard way.

You, Talakeal and PhoenixPhyre aren't on the same level on the meaning of "worst case scenario", nevermind why a player would only consider it.

Here. I'll use a system I actually know to illustrate the difference:

In LotFP, a player rolls 3d6 to see if they've successfully hire a retainer. Each retainer has a base cost, in terms of wage, living space, etc.. The roll is further modified by Charisma. The balance of the roll is such that if a player character has average Charisma and pays the baseline, they have a 50/50 chance of hiring that retainer. The odds can further be influenced by offering a better or worse deal than the baseline.

That last bit means that a player can bypass rolling the dice, provided they are willing and able to throw enough money and goods at a person. This would be the cost ceiling for that person. This ceiling seems to be what PhoenixPhyre calls the "worst scenario" in the situation at hand. Considering only this "worst case" escapes the probabilistic function and reduces the affair to the binary question "am I able to afford this person or not?"

This kind of thinking rarely holds for combat, because you usually can't meet the ceiling, or because the ceiling is lower than 100%. Due to tyranny of the dice and game equations, your chances to kill the dragon this turn might cap at 95%, and its chance of killing you on its turn might not be able to go lower than 5%, no matter what you do. This means there's that 1 in 400 chance things just won't go your way.

To go back to LotFP, the equivalent situation would be normal gameplay where you don't have limitless wealth to throw around. Even paying the most you can, you only have some % chance to succeed. The real worst case, then, is that you get no retainers whatsoever.

But how likely is that? Why would you specifically plan for that situation, before checking if the situation actually comes to pass?

That's what Talakeal's getting at. To go back to combat, why would you assume that 1 in 400 chance is the one that comes to pass?

This kind of assuming the worst becomes increasingly absurd when the worst case is terminal. Continuing through an adventure without retainers? That can be done and planned for. Continuing through an adventure when all your characters are dead? That's "good game, see you next week". There is no on-going plan that can be made from those premises. No victory can be squeezed from the jaws of assuming your own loss before the fact.

(This is, coincidentally, also why Quertus's "if you roll the dice at all, you've already failed" mindset is obvious nonsense for all games that force the player to roll even once, and even worse nonsense for games where those rolls have enforced floor and ceiling for their results. I saw you take pains explaining to Quertus in another thread.)

Fundamentally, this comes down to basic game design principle: any system that has enforced loss rate at any fraction of time, is gambling. You can count the odds in such a game, you can defy them, you can act in spite of them, but you cannot beat them, if you catch my drift.

[NichG]

You, Talakeal and PhoenixPhyre aren't on the same level on the meaning of "worst case scenario", nevermind why a player would only consider it.

Here. I'll use a system I actually know to illustrate the difference:

In LotFP, a player rolls 3d6 to see if they've successfully hire a retainer. Each retainer has a base cost, in terms of wage, living space, etc.. The roll is further modified by Charisma. The balance of the roll is such that if a player character has average Charisma and pays the baseline, they have a 50/50 chance of hiring that retainer. The odds can further be influenced by offering a better or worse deal than the baseline.

That last bit means that a player can bypass rolling the dice, provided they are willing and able to throw enough money and goods at a person. This would be the cost ceiling for that person. This ceiling seems to be what PhoenixPhyre calls the "worst scenario" in the situation at hand. Considering only this "worst case" escapes the probabilistic function and reduces the affair to the binary question "am I able to afford this person or not?"

This kind of thinking rarely holds for combat, because you usually can't meet the ceiling, or because the ceiling is lower than 100%. Due to tyranny of the dice and game equations, your chances to kill the dragon this turn might cap at 95%, and its chance of killing you on its turn might not be able to go lower than 5%, no matter what you do. This means there's that 1 in 400 chance things just won't go your way.

To go back to LotFP, the equivalent situation would be normal gameplay where you don't have limitless wealth to throw around. Even paying the most you can, you only have some % chance to succeed. The real worst case, then, is that you get no retainers whatsoever.

But how likely is that? Why would you specifically plan for that situation, before checking if the situation actually comes to pass?

That's what Talakeal's getting at. To go back to combat, why would you assume that 1 in 400 chance is the one that comes to pass?

This kind of assuming the worst becomes increasingly absurd when the worst case is terminal. Continuing through an adventure without retainers? That can be done and planned for. Continuing through an adventure when all your characters are dead? That's "good game, see you next week". There is no on-going plan that can be made from those premises. No victory can be squeezed from the jaws of assuming your own loss before the fact.

(This is, coincidentally, also why Quertus's "if you roll the dice at all, you've already failed" mindset is obvious nonsense for all games that force the player to roll even once, and even worse nonsense for games where those rolls have enforced floor and ceiling for their results. I saw you take pains explaining to Quertus in another thread.)

Fundamentally, this comes down to basic game design principle: any system that has enforced loss rate at any fraction of time, is gambling. You can count the odds in such a game, you can defy them, you can act in spite of them, but you cannot beat them, if you catch my drift.

I mean, this is ultimately about whether to put a game like that in front of players who hate gambling. The game is not a fait accompli here, that we must simply accept what it sets forth as good and right and its premises are virtuous to obey. It'd be completely valid for someone to say 'I don't like the aesthetics of being unable to bound my possible expenses' or 'when I'm shopping (or really doing anything), I want to be able to plan in such a way that I can know absolutely in advance whether or not I can get certain things, even if there may be uncertainties elsewhere'.

Randomness in games reduces the planning horizon. Bounded randomness allows asymmetry in what things can/cannot be planned, where the direction of the bound determines the asymmetry. Knowing I will never pay more than X,Y,Z for things A,B,C allows me to know what I need in order to obtain a 100% chance of getting A,B,C, but leaves me unable to accurately predict if, e.g., my rival would manage to buy them first for less. Knowing I will never pay less than X,Y,Z for things A,B,C allows me to know with 100% certainty about a period in which my rival can't buy them, but outside of that period my ability to sequentially plan shrinks. I would say that PhoenixPhyre and I are making statements about which of those structures feels better to us in a game, not making statements about 'what is someone supposed to do in Talakeal's game as it is?'

Because ultimately this is about what systems we would think would be good and what systems we think would tend to make players discontented, not whether formally speaking Talakeal's system constitutes a self-consistent game ruleset or something like that.

There are lots of things that are possible and formally valid games, but which I and others would find miserable to play after all.

And as far as the thing with Quertus, I'll note that for the systems he's usually talking about - older editions of D&D - he's absolutely correct that the best way to play them is avoid rolling dice at all costs. There are reasons for that which come down to 'what does a dice roll mean?', which were different in the system I was talking about in that other thread. In Talakeal's system, the meaning of these dice rolls is somewhere between the two but as PhoenixPhyre said its something of a worst of both worlds thing where the dice roll represents a risk of immediate consequence despite trying to ask a 'what does success cost?' question rather than a 'do you succeed?' question - because asking 'what does success cost?' itself has a cost in Talakeal's system.

[Segev]

I am pretty sure - though he may please correct me if I am wrong - PhoenixPhyre is using "plan for the worst-case scenario" as a guideline to determine whether a risk is worth taking.

Now, to focus this on the stuff-buying system in question, what PhoenixPhyre is saying is that, in order to plan his budget for stuff to buy, he has to assume that everything will cost the most it possibly could under the system, and then see what the minimum he could afford under that is. Because he doesn't want to go and start buying stuff that he needs in combination only to find out that one or two items cost more than he expected, leaving him unable to complete the shopping trip and with his planed combination of items incomplete.

Whether your "combination of items" is really as delicate as, say, a recipe for a cake (where being unable, in the end, to afford the eggs would be catastrophic even if you had every other ingredient), or whether you can make do with the magic weapon and magic cleats and not need the magic saddle and armor will depend a lot on what your combo is and why you're trying to go for it. But it's still a consideration.

And his point still stands about looking at the wealth rating required to purchase something and knowing that that is not a "safe" wealth rating, but is, in fact, what perfect success will let you purchase it for makes the mental math to determine whether you can actually afford it a lot harder. Unless there is no time cost to making the "can I buy this?" roll, it's frustratingly difficult to know if it's worth rolling to check to see if you can afford it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I am pretty sure - though he may please correct me if I am wrong - PhoenixPhyre is using "plan for the worst-case scenario" as a guideline to determine whether a risk is worth taking.

Now, to focus this on the stuff-buying system in question, what PhoenixPhyre is saying is that, in order to plan his budget for stuff to buy, he has to assume that everything will cost the most it possibly could under the system, and then see what the minimum he could afford under that is. Because he doesn't want to go and start buying stuff that he needs in combination only to find out that one or two items cost more than he expected, leaving him unable to complete the shopping trip and with his planed combination of items incomplete.

Whether your "combination of items" is really as delicate as, say, a recipe for a cake (where being unable, in the end, to afford the eggs would be catastrophic even if you had every other ingredient), or whether you can make do with the magic weapon and magic cleats and not need the magic saddle and armor will depend a lot on what your combo is and why you're trying to go for it. But it's still a consideration.

And his point still stands about looking at the wealth rating required to purchase something and knowing that that is not a "safe" wealth rating, but is, in fact, what perfect success will let you purchase it for makes the mental math to determine whether you can actually afford it a lot harder. Unless there is no time cost to making the "can I buy this?" roll, it's frustratingly difficult to know if it's worth rolling to check to see if you can afford it.

Yeah. And the "plan for the worst-case" is (for me) fairly specific to shopping, and shopping as someone who doesn't like haggling. It provides a backstop. An "I know I can afford at least this. If I have extra, great!. But I'll at least get this" confidence. And especially in a system with a meaningful cost for even shopping in the first place, that's important.

If the system didn't assume I'd have specific ranks of magic items at specific points, that'd be one thing. Gambling is ok...as long as it's not with your food/essentials budget. But if I have to gamble (with the risk of losing everything/not being able to buy what I need) just to stay relevant...yeah. Count me out. Maybe if the game was Merchants and Marketplaces and I'd agreed that haggling would be a major draw for the game...but even then I'd want a fully fleshed out, "primary" system for doing so, not a half-abstract, half-concrete chimera.

[Talakeal]

If anyone cares, I rewrote the system last night to add in a floor. Hopefully that will remove the psychological impact of being screwed if you don't get the best possible price.

I figured out how to do it while keeping the odds the same, and it only added one extra step to the math.


That may be your intent.
It may be what the math says

You the system designer care about this.

But for "You the GM"... You probably shouldn't be getting this deep in telling people how to play their character.
At least, not unless you're specifically asked.

He missed a session, as the GM I have to decide what his character does while he is gone, and one of the players asked if he would craft something for them, I thought it was a reasonable request and said ok.

The "commie-nazi" stuff came from me saying on the forum that I don't see anything wrong with the assumption that everyone uses all of their skills for the benefit of the group and takes an equal share of the treasure rather than charging their teammates per monster killed, spell cast, item crafted, trap disarmed, etc.


He actually did explain it. Your system - unless we're all misunderstanding it very badly - is not a purely abstracted one, and is not a pure "you have X currency; items either have a fixed gp cost or have a way of determining a random currency cost within a range that may or may not allow for or include haggling," system. His assertion is that either extreme - pure abstract or pure hard "currency" - tends to work, and he outlines the kinds of games they tend to work for. He asserts your game is one where hard currency would work better.

So, then, your reply here is not replying substantively to what he said; you're presuming that he agreed with you that your system is one that is similarly implemented in published systems that "go without complaint." His assertion is the exact opposite: systems similar to yours have never been successful in published works, according to him. So there is no dichotomy between "published games that use similar systems" and your "new system." Both invoke discontent from players.

I don't see internet rage mobs coming for you, here, either. We're discussing - strenuously - your system as best we understand it from what you've laid out, but it feels to me like every time people address what you say your system is, you get upset and tell us we aren't addressing your system at all and are attacking phantoms.

This strikes me as a communications failure. One of two things must be happening: either we are not understanding what you are telling us about your system, which causes us to continually address an incorrect model that does not reflect your system; or we ARE addressing your system and its flaws and you are not understanding our critiques.

So, let me ask you this: Do you believe you have, in any one post, fully outlined the details of your system such that we should be able, from that post, to assess it completely and understand why our critiques are not addressing that system as you put it forth? If so, could you please link that post?

Most of this comes from a previous attempt to make a purely abstract system. This is NOTHING compared to the hate that system got, even though many of the elements in it were wholly lifted from popular games like Dark Heresy, and one guy specifically said I should look at Atlantis: The Second Age for an example of such a system done right, only for me to find it was identical to my system except for one small detail.

My current system is a hybrid that, in my opinion, isn't perfect by a long shot, but eliminates most of the worst "pain points" of both abstract and coin counting systems; although I can see why people who prefer one or the other would hate it, after all, a wise man once said "compromise is fancy way of saying nobody gets what they want".

Yes, I absolutely am overly talkative and defensive. I will own up to that.

But I get really frustrated when people:

1: Make assumptions, particularly negative ones, when they haven't actually played the game / read the book*
2: Hate the idea that a dice game contains dice rolls.
3: Take a "glass is half empty" / "If you ain't first you're last" perspective where they phrase every result short of perfection in the worst possible way.**


*:Not that I expect you to! Its just kind of weird when I ask about one very specific thing and people go off on tangents criticizing other things without knowing what they are talking about.
**: Like when I was talking about balancing combat a few years ago, and someone told me that I should treat every close victory a TPK because they feel the same in the player's minds.



[1] Value is not a function of cost to produce in the real world. The cost to produce something influences the quantity produced, not the price level. Because that's set by market competition (what people will pay). Doesn't matter if it costs $10k to make your artisanal coffee...if people are only wiling to pay $3, you can charge whatever you want and won't sell a darn thing. Unless you sell for $3 or less. Your whole issue here is trying to tie everything back to some fixed, known "cost to make". It completely destroys the economy and is a well known "this doesn't work" theory. Sounds great in principle, doesn't work at all in practice.

I agree with you, although you sure get a lot of people IRL who claim the opposite. For example, I payed 20$ for a BLT at Subway this weekend and was told that they had to increase prices by half again overnight because "the minimum wage went up".

In setting that is probably mostly true as well, but if you are getting your gear custom made for you (as is most often going to be the case, especially for clothing and armor) you craftsman is going to want to be fairly compensated for both his expenses and his time and that will be reflected in the price he quotes you, especially if he is the only person in the area who has the skills to make what you need.

Mechanically, its just easier. It reduces math, cuts down on page count, and prevents system exploits. Heck, even D&D does the simple "market price is always half the cost of materials".



[2] which is another source of discontent--you're requiring (to meet the system math) some conversion of wealth into character power. Having too much wealth makes a mess, as does having too little. That's inherently fragile. System-expected numerical values shouldn't, IMO, be able to be missed. You shouldn't have to do any extra work in scenario design or loot distribution or "balancing the wealth economy" to make sure they have the right +X at the right level just to hold steady. That's a mistake 3e, PF1e, PF2e, and 4e all made. And it makes for wealth-obsessive players, as you're finding out. Because not doing so means they're falling behind. And it's insanely fragile--you have to take active measures to ensure their wealth is right in the sweet spot and they can't get extra value-for-treasure or other exploits. Because you're allowing conversion of wealth into power directly.[3]

Its not required though.

The system math assumes you will increase the quality of all your gear by +1 every 20 sessions. An average character will meet this.

A party that is really bad at business might take close to all 20 sessions, and one who is really good at business might make it in 10-15 sessions, but that isn't going to break the game, especially when you consider that you spent the character points on something besides business or vice versa.

Because of the metric increases in cost for quality, someone with extra wealth will not pull that far ahead, and it is basically impossible to fall significantly behind.

The weirdness on Bob's part is that he refuses to buy equipment except for a single big offensive item and hoards consumables for the one big fight rather than spreading them out as needed, but he does that in every system, including 3.5 coin counting D&D.


[3] In the WH games, what usually gates that set of power armor/plasma weapon isn't wealth. As a Rogue Trader, you've got wealth coming out your ears. As a Space Marine...you don't even really get paid. No, what gates those is influence, rank, and favors. And that's much more predictable. And it's also gated by character decisions--give a guardsman a suit of power armor and they won't be able to use it very well. In D&D terms...they're not proficient. So you have incomesurables.

Isn't that just semantics though? Whether the acquisition system represents treasure, or favors, or renown, or credit, or whatever else, it is still the mechanical system by which players leverage their actions in game into getting better gear and the power that goes with it.




* The (completely artificial and meta) "tier" system, which then modifies things based on my "level" vs it's "level".

Its not artificial and meta, its just abstracted and truncated for ease of use.

All characters have an animus score, which is kind of like a soft level system. It goes up by 1 every twenty sessions, which is considered to be a narrative arc.

Every time your animus goes up, you truncate your wealth, dropping the last digit.

At animus 1, one wealth has the rough buying power of a stone of copper.
At animus 2, one wealth has the rough buying power of a stone of silver.
At animus 3, one wealth has the rough buying power of a stone of gold.
At animus 4, one wealth has the rough buying power of a stone of orichalcum.
At animus 5, one wealth has the rough buying power of a mote of ambrosia.

A +1 item has a market value equal to double its value in stones of copper.
A +2 item has a market value equal to double its value in stones of silver.
A +3 item has a market value equal to double its value in stones of gold.
A +4 item has a market value equal to double its value in stones of orichalcum.
A +5 item has a market value equal to double its value in motes of ambrosia.

It might seem complicated, but it really isn't, and all the math is done under the hood.

As far as the player is concerned:
If you are buying an item with a bonus equal to your animus score, it costs you wealth equal to its value on a successful roll.
If you are buying with a bonus one higher than your animus, it costs you wealth equal to ten times its value on a successful roll.
If you are Bob and saving all of your wealth for an entire tier to buy a single item with a bonus 2 higher than your animus, it costs wealth equal to 100 times its value on a successful roll.


Yeah. And the "plan for the worst-case" is (for me) fairly specific to shopping, and shopping as someone who doesn't like haggling. It provides a backstop. An "I know I can afford at least this. If I have extra, great!. But I'll at least get this" confidence. And especially in a system with a meaningful cost for even shopping in the first place, that's important.

If the system didn't assume I'd have specific ranks of magic items at specific points, that'd be one thing. Gambling is ok...as long as it's not with your food/essentials budget. But if I have to gamble (with the risk of losing everything/not being able to buy what I need) just to stay relevant...yeah. Count me out. Maybe if the game was Merchants and Marketplaces and I'd agreed that haggling would be a major draw for the game...but even then I'd want a fully fleshed out, "primary" system for doing so, not a half-abstract, half-concrete chimera.

This isn't really how shopping has ever worked in my game, because you are never going to make or break your build based on a single +1 bonus.

In actual play, you decide what you want to prioritize, roll a dice to check the price at the end of each session, and then buy it when you feel like its a good price / have enough saved up and are tired of waiting.

Its slightly more engaging than simply buying items off a list, but not much more dramatic one way or the other.


As I mentioned above, its basically a slightly more forgiving version of the system Mordheim and Necromunda have been using since the 90s, and in neither my play test for my system nor any of the Mordheim / Necromunda groups I have been in over the years have had anywhere near the melodramatic reaction you and others in this thread have been having, its not that big a deal. The typical reaction just a minor endorphin rush for getting your item, especially if its a rare one.

[Telok]

Having broken down and read the system (granted skimming/skipping the setting & magic item lists & spells & etc.*) it's fine. There's no ambiguity in how it works, although there's no discussion of the intent of the setup but then D&D et al isn't exactly a shining example of that either.

Its not hard to be good at business and there isn't a major perk for being bad at it, that's just minmaxing to extremes if you totally nuke your ability there. Bob could easily drop points for the artifact and heirloom traits then pick weapon crafting as a non-zero skill to get a uber-sword faster and then just normal buy his expendables to get basically the same result without acting like a Scrooge the entire game.

Biggest thing is you never seem to discuss probabilities of stuff anywhere. So the chances at crafting, buying, etc., at different levels vs. values isn't (or I just didn't see) noted. People might be trying for upgrades faster than they can afford to be the %s and feeling like they're losing out on stuff. Frankly though I'd (personally) vastly perfer this system to something like Pazio's Starfinder weath **** up ****.

*I rather like the mulligan being an action type.

[Talakeal]

Having broken down and read the system (granted skimming/skipping the setting & magic item lists & spells & etc.*) it's fine. There's no ambiguity in how it works, although there's no discussion of the intent of the setup but then D&D et al isn't exactly a shining example of that either.

Its not hard to be good at business and there isn't a major perk for being bad at it, that's just minmaxing to extremes if you totally nuke your ability there. Bob could easily drop points for the artifact and heirloom traits then pick weapon crafting as a non-zero skill to get a uber-sword faster and then just normal buy his expendables to get basically the same result without acting like a Scrooge the entire game.

Biggest thing is you never seem to discuss probabilities of stuff anywhere. So the chances at crafting, buying, etc., at different levels vs. values isn't (or I just didn't see) noted. People might be trying for upgrades faster than they can afford to be the %s and feeling like they're losing out on stuff. Frankly though I'd (personally) vastly perfer this system to something like Pazio's Starfinder weath **** up ****.

*I rather like the mulligan being an action type.

Thank you for taking the time!

I get a lot of complaints about lack of examples and explanations. What I think I am going to do is, once the system is finalized, release two alternate digital formats, one with annotations to explain things, and one stripped down public domain version with just the crunch and none of the fluff.

You got me curious about Star Finder, going to have to track a copy down.

[BRC]

Re: Melodrama

Part of it might be how you describe things.

Not going back through the entire thread, but IIRC Your description has been "The player wants this because they want to roll for potential benefit, but don't want to have to suffer any consequences".

When the exact same complaint could be made of a player that just wants to be able to know how much they can afford with the resources they have available so they can plan out a shopping in full without rolling the dice for each item. "I have 10, I can buy this thing that costs 4 and two things that cost 3" isn't an unreasonable thing to want to be able to say with confidence, and a set price floor of "Here is what you will pay if you fail" isn't taking away the power of the dice, it's just giving the player a bit of information.

(I don't need to convince you of any of that, you've already agreed to it all and added a floor).


From reading all your horror stories, one might conclude that your table consists exclusively of cartoonishly horrible players who exist to ruin your time as both GM and system designer, players who don't approach the game in anything resembling good faith, who insist on maximum reward for minimal thought and treat everything from poor dice rolls to the consequences of their own decisions as the GM trying to destroy them.


So either you have for some reason stuck with a group dedicated to making every gaming experience as miserable as possible, OR you're exaggerating a bit and your system is worthy of some criticism.

Looking back through this thread, we start with this presentation



Anyway, in my latest game, the entire party decided to dump charisma and nobody wanted to take the business skill. This isn't a huge deal, the game still provides more than enough wealth to get what they need, it just takes a little bit longer. However, one of my players insisted that it was stupid that they had to make a haggle roll at all rather than just being able to buy whatever the needed off the rack at a fixed price.

This could be taken as "The player wants to get full discount despite being bad at business", or "The player knows they'll fail the business rolls, and so wants to skip that and just know what the price will be if they get a bad roll". The latter seems more likely. The player is saying "Just tell me what i'll pay when I fail, since that's almost certainly what is going to happen"


Later you say



Basically, what he means by standardized prices is that people with high charisma should get a better price, but those with a low charisma shouldn’t get a worse price.


Now the request has been reframed as a bad-faith attempt to bypass the consequences of being bad at haggling, a desire to Freely dump a skill with no consequences beyond what you'd suffer for being average at the skill.


Next you say



What my players tend to want to do is, as I mentioned above, resolve the situation with no OOC thought and a simple dice roll, but if the dice roll fails then they will resort to weaseling for an excuse why they shouldn't fail either IC or OOC.


Now we've gone past the specific example of haggling, into a general complaint that your players never interact with the game in good faith, they just want the dice to hand them success and if that doesn't work start arguing why the dice shouldn't actually mattter.




Honestly, that may be the major disconnect between my system and my players. My game doesn't do a lot to hold your hand, and lets you do whatever you want if you are willing to accept the natural consequences of it. My players, on the other hand, don't like to take responsibility for anything, and are always looking for someone, be it the GM, their fellow players, or the rules, for anything that doesn't go their way.



One we reach this point, we can treat things one of three ways. Either you're exaggerating your player's reactions, your players are not engaging with the game in good faith, or you are underplaying/not seeing the flaws in your system.

If the first, then there's no point in responding if we've just decided not to believe what you're saying.

If the second, "That sounds like a bob problem, stop playing with Bob"

If the third, maybe a bit of melodrama is called for. Also, it's the internet, how do we talk except melodramatic exaggeration for effect.

[Talakeal]

One we reach this point, we can treat things one of three ways. Either you're exaggerating your player's reactions, your players are not engaging with the game in good faith, or you are underplaying/not seeing the flaws in your system.

If the first, then there's no point in responding if we've just decided not to believe what you're saying.

If the second, "That sounds like a bob problem, stop playing with Bob"

If the third, maybe a bit of melodrama is called for. Also, it's the internet, how do we talk except melodramatic exaggeration for effect.

I would say the answer is somewhere between all three.

You are only hearing about the problems and only from my perspective, so it seems worse than it is (both the players and the system, neither of which are perfect).

The whole "if you don't like a roll try and argue your way out of abiding by it" is something I have seen across multiple groups and multiple systems. Bob is pretty bad about it, but he is by no means the worst, my former player Dave was a master of it, and all of my players do it to some degree or other.

So to consolidate what I meant earlier in the thread:

An average character who devotes no resource to haggling (which is an outlier in actual play) will still get an average of a 17% discount if he chooses to haggle*. Our current group is much better than that, and Bob knows this, he still continues to haggle, but when he rolls badly he then complains and says the system is flawed / unrealistic, and I created this thread to try and figure out if that was accurate or just an excuse to kvetch about a bad dice roll.

The only reason not to haggle would be if you intentionally anti-optimized a character for being bad at business, but in that case I would consider that engaging with the system in bad faith as you are getting extra points for taking flaws but then refusing to interact with the system so that they never come up.

Although, I suppose, one could argue that since haggling is purely beneficial, that is, itself the flaw. I certainly had the fight with my GM when I took a flaw that made it so my character couldn't craft and he said it was worth zero points if I didn't chase good money after bad and sink points into crafting skills I could never use, so I can see the argument from the other side.

*: And that's without a floor!

[BRC]

I would say the answer is somewhere between all three.

You are only hearing about the problems and only from my perspective, so it seems worse than it is (both the players and the system, neither of which are perfect).

The whole "if you don't like a roll try and argue your way out of abiding by it" is something I have seen across multiple groups and multiple systems. Bob is pretty bad about it, but he is by no means the worst, my former player Dave was a master of it, and all of my players do it to some degree or other.

So to consolidate what I meant earlier in the thread:

An average character who devotes no resource to haggling (which is an outlier in actual play) will still get an average of a 17% discount if he chooses to haggle*. Our current group is much better than that, and Bob knows this, he still continues to haggle, but when he rolls badly he then complains and says the system is flawed / unrealistic, and I created this thread to try and figure out if that was accurate or just an excuse to kvetch about a bad dice roll.

The only reason not to haggle would be if you intentionally anti-optimized a character for being bad at business, but in that case I would consider that engaging with the system in bad faith as you are getting extra points for taking flaws but then refusing to interact with the system so that they never come up.

Although, I suppose, one could argue that since haggling is purely beneficial, that is, itself the flaw. I certainly had the fight with my GM when I took a flaw that made it so my character couldn't craft and he said it was worth zero points if I didn't chase good money after bad and sink points into crafting skills I could never use, so I can see the argument from the other side.

*: And that's without a floor!


Bold is the emphasis.

If you take a price floor because you think you'll fail the roll anyway, that's still dealing with the consequences of being bad at business. It's just skipping the step where you roll dice. Sure, you're not making a roll to be bad at, but you are still suffering the consequences.

The consequences for being bad at something are not always "You must roll this and be bad at it" sometimes it's "You don't even want to try this thing because you're bad at it".


Picture the following situation, the PC is trying to sneak into a fancy noble party. They can either bluff their way past the doorman, claiming to have lost their invitation, they can bribe the doorman, or they can try to sneak into the window, which even if they succeed makes things far more difficult for them to pass as a guest once inside.

Trying to bluff your way past the doorman is a solid, and low-risk option (You'll probably just get turned away). But, your character is bad at Bluffing, so you're effectively limited to the two non-bluff options, bribery or sneaking.

Even though no bluff check was rolled, the character being bad at bluff is still relevant to the scene, since it closed off an option.


As for Flaws for skills, I always consider skills split into two groups, "Core" and "non-Core"

Core skills are things that the game assumes you will have to deal with. They are stuff that is commonly called for simply by the circumstances of the story.

Non-Core skills are skills that are generally only relevant if the PC decides to bring them into play.

There's also "Skills everybody wants at least a little" and "Skills you only need one person to have", which can be similar.

When it comes to "Be bad at this skill" flaws, IMO You generally want to limit them to Core Skills that Everybody Wants.

Edit: This is specifically for "Flaws that give you points back in exchange" type stuff. Stuff that makes you worse than simply Not Good.

[Telok]

if you intentionally anti-optimized a character for being bad at business, but in that case I would consider that engaging with the system in bad faith as you are getting extra points for taking flaws but then refusing to interact with the system so that they never come up.

Two things related to this:
1) to anti-optimize vs haggling you have to take the "Honest" trait. Anyone who took a trait called "Honest" and then went around all the time lying to NPCs (wild ass no-data guess about Bob here) would get a hairy eyeball from me at the tale. Nothing mechanical, but a look. Which in all probability would totally bounce right of their unsocial armoring, but what can ya do.
2) every single game that has a "flaws for more build points"... OK, every single decently designed and honest game with it... flat out says that a character flaw that never comes up is worth zero points.

And why the **** doesn't Bob just let someone with better business sense do his shopping for him? Self sabotage?

[tyckspoon]

And why the **** doesn't Bob just let someone with better business sense do his shopping for him? Self sabotage?

He already is convinced that the NPC merchants are 'disappearing with his money', apparently. Probably paranoid that the other player character that would presumably be doing this will lie to him about the check results and skim off his wealth (nevermind that even if the other PC -did- want to charge a service fee/finder's fee/take a percentage of the savings.. there's enough gap between the 'you suck at this' price and the 'you got a good deal' price that Bob would still come out noteably ahead in the deal. Especially if trying to buy an over-tier item - much more room for arbitrage with double or triple digit prices for being in the 'wrong' magnitude of currency!)

[Talakeal]

Two things related to this:
1) to anti-optimize vs haggling you have to take the "Honest" trait. Anyone who took a trait called "Honest" and then went around all the time lying to NPCs (wild ass no-data guess about Bob here) would get a hairy eyeball from me at the tale. Nothing mechanical, but a look. Which in all probability would totally bounce right of their unsocial armoring, but what can ya do.
2) every single game that has a "flaws for more build points"... OK, every single decently designed and honest game with it... flat out says that a character flaw that never comes up is worth zero points.

And why the **** doesn't Bob just let someone with better business sense do his shopping for him? Self sabotage?

Honestly, Bob isn't terribly dishonest either in or out of character, he is much more blunt. Typically lying would involve putting more thought into dialogue than he can usually be arsed to, although he does enjoy playing Pookhas who are cursed to never tell the truth when we play White Wolf games.

The honest thing only happened once; basically the idea was that the entire party would take the same suite of flaws (honest among them) so that they could all claim points, and then complain whenever those flaws actually came up. Those damn griffons...

The majority of the complaints in this thread really only apply to a hypothetical party where nobody has any investment in business, either in or out of character, which is not something that really happens in practice.

Bob normally does have someone else shop for him, it doesn't stop him from complaining when that person bombs a roll.

[Segev]

I agree with you, although you sure get a lot of people IRL who claim the opposite. For example, I payed 20$ for a BLT at Subway this weekend and was told that they had to increase prices by half again overnight because "the minimum wage went up".

That's not actually contradictory nor in opposition to what was said. The reason subway raised the price is, in fact, that minimum wage went up; they need to charge more per sub or they will not be able to make a profit selling the subs and paying the employees to make them at the higher minimum wage. On the other hand, there will be fewer people willing to pay the higher price. This may or may not be noticeable by Subway; it will depend on whether or not the number who were previously willing to pay the price are no longer willing to pay now that it's higher.

If "nobody" is (or at least sufficiently few people are) willing to pay a price that it costs Subway to make and sell a subway sandwich without losing money, then Subway will no longer be able to afford to make sandwiches, and will close.

What a thing will sell for is what people are willing to pay for it. Whether it can be made at all is a factor of how much it costs to make compared to what people are willing to pay for it. Prices will go up when costs to produce go up; they also tend to go up when demand is high enough to make the quantity produced insufficient to buy them all. Few companies are willing to risk angering customers and losing custom by raising prices just because they suspect the market will bear more; if they're wrong, they've upset a good thing and may not be able to recover merely by lowering prices again.

The reason we focus on "the price is what someone is willing to pay" in this thread is because that's the side of it your PCs - as the people buying the thing - actually care about. Just as you don't personally care how much it costs Subway to sell you that sandwich (except that you might be more sympathetic, maybe, if they're raising prices but aren't increasing their profit margin), your players don't care what it allegedly costs the NPC to make and sell the item they want.

[Talakeal]

your players don't care what it allegedly costs the NPC to make and sell the item they want.

The NPCs no, but if they are themselves crafters I imagine they will care quite a bit. If they notice discrepancies too far in the buyer’s favor they will feel screwed over for crafting what they could just buy for-less, and if they notice discrepancies too far in the other direction they will figure out infinite wealth loops.

[Telok]

Bob normally does have someone else shop for him, it doesn't stop him from complaining when that person bombs a roll.

Ok, so the "honest" flaw might be perfectly in character gor Bob and he just whines a bit. I'm going to finally have to come down at "mechanical non-issue, possible presentation improvement, annoying player habit" as my personal /thread conclusion.

[MoiMagnus]

I'd just like to say that the "prices are what peoples are willing to pay for", while maybe more realistic, might not be the best approach for a TTRPG as it is:
(1) Often frustrating for the peoples involved. For example, it's common for the situation to be "the seller has something peoples really want so they can increase the price up until the point where the buyer still buy it but is frustrated by how expensive it is".
(2) Not particularly interesting optimisation-wise due to the high level of unknown you have to deal with if you don't "live in the universe" with all the practical understanding of the society that come with it.
(3) For the same reason as (2), not always intuitive to the players.
(4) Unlikely to be balanced with the remaining of the rules, often forcing the GM to start with a state they want the market to be and engineer reasons for the market to be in that state, with the risks of the whole thing falling apart if the players find an inconsistency.

It's fine to have things like "it's a luxury item so it's more expensive" or "it's rare so it's more expensive", but going into too much realism here can be counterproductive.

[Segev]

I'd just like to say that the "prices are what peoples are willing to pay for", while maybe more realistic, might not be the best approach for a TTRPG as it is:
(1) Often frustrating for the peoples involved. For example, it's common for the situation to be "the seller has something peoples really want so they can increase the price up until the point where the buyer still buy it but is frustrated by how expensive it is".
(2) Not particularly interesting optimisation-wise due to the high level of unknown you have to deal with if you don't "live in the universe" with all the practical understanding of the society that come with it.
(3) For the same reason as (2), not always intuitive to the players.
(4) Unlikely to be balanced with the remaining of the rules, often forcing the GM to start with a state they want the market to be and engineer reasons for the market to be in that state, with the risks of the whole thing falling apart if the players find an inconsistency.

It's fine to have things like "it's a luxury item so it's more expensive" or "it's rare so it's more expensive", but going into too much realism here can be counterproductive.

Sure. The point of bringing it up is more to do with explaining why "oh, you're getting it for cost if you succeed" doesn't mean much to the player. Because, as the buyer, he doesn't care if it's "at cost." He only cares whether he can afford it or not.

[KorvinStarmast]

Bob normally does have someone else shop for him, it doesn't stop him from complaining when that person bombs a roll.

Ok, so the "honest" flaw might be perfectly in character gor Bob and he just whines a bit. I'm going to finally have to come down at "mechanical non-issue, possible presentation improvement, annoying player habit" as my personal /thread conclusion. This was also raised on page 1 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25706623&postcount=11) of the thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25706791&postcount=18). :smallcool: On the bright side, in the intervening seven pages some folks have looked at the system in the link and made a few suggestions, which our OP has then used as inspiration to revise/edit his sub system.

Mission Accomplished! Well done, Playgrounders. :smallsmile: