What do you gain out of that process which is worth the extra steps?
D&D General How Do You Feel About Randomness?
Exactly. Just like taking the people to the end of the pier for beer and no fish would have been at the lower end.
Hopefully the DM talks to the players before deciding to make all the things minimal hassle or strenuous work.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I mean, first off, it’s not really that much in the way of extra steps. It takes more effort to explain the system than to actually execute it at the table. What is gained out of it is grounding such valuables in the fictional world.
When you get a narrative description of the item instead of just “it’s a 50gp gemstone” it has more character, more life. When you need to roll to appraise it and get a range for its value instead of a fixed number, it reinforces the idea that what you’ve found is a real item in the world that might have factors affecting its value, rather than an abstract game object that only exists to be exchanged for imaginary currency. It implies dynamic quality of gems, and an active gemstone market. And it creates a sense of anticipation; “wow, we could get between 30 and 70 gold for this? I’d better look for someone willing to pay on the higher end…”
When you go to actually sell it, you might even get an offer that’s actually higher than the upper bound of the range you got on initial appraisal, which is exciting; “Ha! This sucker offered 80 for a gem that’s only worth 70 at most!” Or you might get a lower offer, which might create a feeling of indignation; “What kind of stunt are you trying to pull, offering me 20 when I know damn well this Jasper is worth at least 30?! If you’re not going to take this seriously, I’ll take my business elsewhere.” It also demonstrates that other treasure items might fetch higher or lower prices than you initially get on appraisal, which increases the possibility space such items represent, and encourages players to try to haggle for that higher price.
All of this helps drive investment in the shared fiction. It makes treasure feel like a real part of the game world, instead of just a fanciful way to describe what are ultimately just inconsequential numbers on paper.
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Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Verisimilitude. Sounds cool to me.
Very cool.
These days, I generally prefer my RPGing heavier on the G, and immersion and verisimilitude and realism/simulation all take a back seat to what's fun (for me and my players, obv). But I totally get why one would find value in what you describe.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I’m in agreement with you about prioritizing the G part of RPG, and I wouldn’t say that verisimilitude or realism/simulation are what I’m looking for out of a system like my treasure appraisal and trading system. Rather, I would describe what I’m trying to get out of it as “investment.” Which I suppose in this context is pretty synonymous with “immersion,” but… I don’t know, I feel like my interests are not generally well-aligned with those of folks I typically see talking about the importance of immersion. Maybe that’s just me being pretentious, but I think there’s a subtle difference between the desire to be immersed in a world, vs a desire to get an emotional reaction from a roleplaying game.
Vaalingrade
Legend
I'm not sure I see the difference in immersion from 'The DM said X and it was easy' or 'The dice said X and it took more time'.
Also, if it rolls low, it's clear the dice cheated you because we are all superstitious dice goblins and now we're thinking about the dice that control the world.
Also, if it rolls low, it's clear the dice cheated you because we are all superstitious dice goblins and now we're thinking about the dice that control the world.
ichabod
Legned
I need to add a religion to my homebrew world that the gods are a lie, and reality is actually controlled by otherworldly Platonic solids inscribed with arcane runes.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
That's just it: it's all luck, and stats don't make that much difference IME. I intentionally put the 7 in Wisdom so I could play her as an airhead, with no expectations that she'd last very long at all...and yet she did.
And this was a 3e character, so hack and slash was a frequent occurrence.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
“The dice said X” isn’t really what’s happening. Valuables have specific value ranges depending on their type and rarity, so a Jasper is worth 50gp on average, in a very real sense. That’s something a very analytical player who played with me for long enough might even be able to deduce. But, for most players, when their character attempts to appraise it, they might determine some value range between 20 and 80, which is ultimately an approximation of its actual value. Then, when the PCs decide to sell or trade it, an NPC might offer anywhere within the 20 to 80 range, and the PCs might be able to argue higher. Dice are involved in making these determinations, but so is my judgment as the architect of the subsystem, the rules for gems in the DMG as they determined the true average values of these items, and so are the players’ build choices, as their ability modifiers and proficiencies affect their odds of success when trying to haggle.
I mean, the players don’t see the dice I’m rolling when they appraise and trade valuables. They might notice that I am rolling something behind the screen, and a superstitious player might make the assumption that a price they think is low was the result of a low roll. If such a player feels cheated in that instance, I expect that player probably feels cheated a lot when playing D&D. They might enjoy a diceless RPG more.
