Excerpt: Economies [merged]

[Intense_Interest]

Soda is manufactured from raw ingredients and marked up. We are talking about buying and selling things which are virtually always acquired used. An archmage can charge a markup on his efforts when he makes a magic sword, but everyone else, it seems to me, is roughly in the same game when it comes to buying and selling magic swords that are acquired by adventurers.

Your initial assertion is wrong. Bottlers take the pre-manufactured products that are shipped in and then bottle it. They are completely different companies than the actual recipe Manufactures. However you can purchase a $1.25 for $.50 from the Bottler and they would still make a 100% profit.

Secondly, the game is not at all in favor of the adventurers because they have a significant disadvantage of Timing Cost to the traveling merchant in the market microstructure. A PC that fails to turn over the non-helpful item nigh-immediately is more likely to be killed. A merchant does not have this problem and therefore can sit on a magic item surplus until the demand for the exchange gives them the advantage.

Observe the Diamond and Health Care systems if you disagree about this scientific analogy.

It is simply impossible to mark up a magic sword x5 because that suggests a magic sword is not worth a magic sword. If I were doing a "trade in" and I discovered the residual cost accounted for a x5 markup, I would be affronted. Unless you honestly believe PCs would trade five magic longswords for one magic axe of similar properties, the concept is unworkable.

Magic items are like sugar. I don't care who it came from, I care how well it cuts.

You used an incorrect analogy again. Sugar is a renewable resource, rather than a manufactured product as a Magic Item is. Sugarcane is growing out of the ground every year- there is zero issues with economy of scale. You have to invest considerably more into a magic item, both in GP and in using the crafter's precious time.

Secondly, you are complaining about the markup again which I've already stated is a economic truth in the market presented. Commodity Brokers can commonly turn a profit just by holding ownership for a specific amount of time (buy low sell high etc). Diamond Markets are famous for this.

 

[Spatula]

Does anyone else notice that the tables only go up to 6 member s in the party? WotC - WAKE UP!!! There are parties larger than that out there. Make the tables non-dependent like the good ole' days and gold/encounters to make level - pshaw. There should be no set number of encounters for leveling, set goals yes, set rewards, no.

Stop playing WoW and get a grip on gaming the old fashioned way. It may appeal to younger players with no sense of social, historical or real-world sensibilities, but it looks more and more like I'm pulling my 1E/2E AD&D books out of the closet.

The table is a pointless waste of space.... the xp value for the party of size 4, 5, or 6 is just the xp for a monster of the same level as the quest, multiplied by 4, 5, or 6. That number is then divided by 4, 5, or 6 when handing out the reward...

 

[Hussar]

Point of order, commodities are items where there's little differentiation in the supply. Sugar from Dominos sugar really isn't different from store sugar. Soda products have variation across the providers (ie coke is different from pepsi from mr pib). Commodities typically have low mark-ups because you have many suppliers and you really don't care from whom you buy. Certainly bespoke items like a +1 flaming warpick are not commodities.

I stand corrected. I was misusing the term to mean "something for sale". My bad.

Experience tells me that a middle school football game concession stand can get the same buck fifty for a Coke that McDonald's gets.

Yup. And they both get their 500% profit margin. What's your point?

Soda is manufactured from raw ingredients and marked up. We are talking about buying and selling things which are virtually always acquired used. An archmage can charge a markup on his efforts when he makes a magic sword, but everyone else, it seems to me, is roughly in the same game when it comes to buying and selling magic swords that are acquired by adventurers.

It is simply impossible to mark up a magic sword x5 because that suggests a magic sword is not worth a magic sword. If I were doing a "trade in" and I discovered the residual cost accounted for a x5 markup, I would be affronted. Unless you honestly believe PCs would trade five magic longswords for one magic axe of similar properties, the concept is unworkable.

Magic items are like sugar. I don't care who it came from, I care how well it cuts.

Wow, that's just wrong in so many ways. The only reason sugar is cheap is because you have massive competition trying to sell the same product that is fairly easy to produce.

If you have thousands and thousands of wizards mass producing magic weapons, then yes, magic items are like sugar.

If, OTOH, your campaign resembles anything like about 99% of D&D campaigns out there, then magic items are not mass produced. Thus, the selling price of the item is whatever people are willing to pay. Small supply plus large demand = high price. This is pretty basic economics. We're not talking some stamped out sword banged out by the local blacksmith. We're talking a well crafted, Damascus steel style weapons crafted by masters.

Thus, the mark-up is measurably higher.

Tell you what, head down to your local used bookstore and see how much you get for a used book. Sell it, and then try to buy it back and see how much the mark-up is.

 

[malraux]

Tell you what, head down to your local used bookstore and see how much you get for a used book. Sell it, and then try to buy it back and see how much the mark-up is.

Really you can just change that to any sort of used item store. Antiques, CDs, video games, books, jewelry, memorabilia, electronics, clothing, etc. Heck even stocks have a spread between the buy and sell price, and those are about as close to a purely indistinguishable item as you can imagine.

edit: For example, if you want to sell on share of Hasbro, you'll only get $36.20, but buying a share costs $37.64. And that ignores broker fees. That's a 4% difference in price in products literally indistinguishable in one of the most efficient markets ever devised. I have no problem with the idea that in a medieval-esque society, magic items will have broad differentials in the buy and sell price.

 

[Orius]

Doesn't look too bad.

Only glanced over the XP tables. They change every edition anyway. And I'd already moved past by the book XP rewards in 3e, since the "level x 1000 XP to level up" formula in 3e was very easy to work with. I'd give something 250 or 500 x level XP if the party did something significant and 50-100 x level XP for smaller stuff. There were no individual XP rewards for defeating enemies, since that's the thing that threw 3e XP balance totally out of whack for me in the first place.

The treasure parcels seem a bit like some things I was doing in my games, sometimes add just add up all the encounters and then distribute the total around the dungeon where I saw fit. Usually that meant the lion's share with a "boss" or some other major monster, withh the rest hidden in the floors or wall, or in chests and the like. The real problem with 3e treasure was the assumption that random tables would always equal a certain average amount in the long run, and that PCs would always have a certain amount of wealth, particularly in magic items to balance things out. I never went entirely by the book with 3e treasure anyway, so it didn't really matter to me.

I also hope the rules for the DM include guidelines on how to set up custom parcels. I wouldn't want to be tied into using the same parcels for every single adventure I run. Partially this is because they include fixed gp amounts, that just feels too predictable, and I'd rather something more random. But then just looking at the parcels it shouldn't be too hard to set up, just stick in 4 magic items 1-4 levels higher than the party, then divide the total gp amount among 6 other parcels. And my games have been moving past sacks and piles of coins as well and using trade goods instead, so I could just go in and replace some of that with say bolts of exotic fabric, rare spices, ingots of precious metals, and so on rather easily.

The section on commerce doesn't sound much different than what we already have in the game. It's just simply reiterating that you can find the basic stuff you need in villages, but need a big city for the more off the wall stuff.

The magic item economy sounds pretty good. Character can make items of their own level or lower, no problem there. They need to buy or find items that are higher level, and higher level items should be out of their means most of the time, or possibly can't even be bought, depending on how thhe DM wants things. The disenchantment process sounds like a good way to get rid of items if buying and selling is out of the question. It also looks like it could make an effective method for the party paladin to destroy evil artifacts in a way that benefits the party as well. Random markups aren't a bad idea either, if the DM and players want to go through the trouble of playing that stuff out.

 

[Orius]

Sort of. The problem is, nation building is a very solo activity. If John wants to build a keep, fine, but, what do the other 4 players do in the meantime. Building a castle without magic takes years. So, does John retire his character in the meantime? After all, it would be a pretty strange thing for John to go off and adventure while his castle is being built.

All that kind of stuff is extremely campaign specific and I'm not sure if the DMG is the best place to deal with it initially.

To be fair though, I'd LOVE to see some rules and ideas for how to make this work in a campaign.

For one, involve the whole party in it. Assume the traditional D&D party of the fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue. Let them run their barony, kingdom, or whatever together. Naturally, only one of them will be the lord of this domain unless two of them are married or something, but they can still cooperate with each other.

They can work together on the castle -- the fighter oversees the construction to make sure the defenses are adequate, the wizard and cleric can provide magic to assist in construction, and the cleric can also treat construction injuries or bless something, and finally the rogue can takes care of security features (not just traps, but things like murder holes and the like).

Then they run things together. The fighter is in charge of the army, training, and other martial aspects. The cleric takes care of spiritual matters, whether running the chapel in the keep, or becoming the high priest of the kingdom. The wizard handles arcane matters, and the rogue acts as a spymaster.

This can be adjusted to other classes by taking into account the general role each class plays in an overall campaign. But in the end, it shouldn't just be one PC trying to carve out his own kingdom while the others sit around twiddling their thumbs, if they're going to do it, they should do it in a way that involves the whole party.

 

[Lurker37]

Let's see if i have this straight:

1) The assumed POL setting assumes that travel from the villager to the local city is hazardous, let alone between major cities.

2) Unless there is a major improvement over the corresponding real-world period of history, voyages by sea can result in loss of cargo, crew and even entire ships often enough for it to be factored into the expected cost of the voyage. In fact, it could be argued that it's even more hazardous since the rumoured sea serpents etc are often real in most campaigns. Because of this, exotic and imported products would already have high levels or markup to compensate for lost stock, so the markup on magic items would not be unprecedented.

3) There is no internet, telephone system or even telegraph network in the average gameworld. Messengers are commonly used. This greatly increases the time required to find prospective buyers, or for intermediaries to find items they know their clients are interested in. Because of this, deals that can be quickly struck in the modern world will take much, much longer in most campaigns.

4) Adventurers will no longer walk out of conquered enemy strongholds with wheelbarrows of low-level items, implying that such items are not readily available in 4E, even if the group conquered clearly had the funds to afford such items at market prices.

5) Items can get broken down to create the components required for more powerful items, so there is a sink to prevent the excess of low-level items that previously plagued some campaigns. This possibly explains 4 - that wheelbarrow of +1 swords was used to make a single +5 sword.

6) Judging by the prices given, Magic items are expensive enough that only the rich can afford to buy them, and even then not necessarily in large numbers, unless they're buying items inappropriate to their importance in the game. (The local lord may be interested in as +2 frost bow, but could not afford a hundred of them. On the other hand, such a bow would probably not even worth a mention in the City of Brass - it's just beneath the interest of the merchants and the clientèle there except possibly as something to disenchant.)

7) Merchants are willing to buy the items from PCs at 1/5th of market price, and sell them for seven times that. (We have no indication yet of exactly how much haggling can change those prices.) These merchants are not the buyers for the item - they are the people who make their living by finding buyers for such items. That's a significant difference that some posters seem to have overlooked. The only value the item has is for the merchant the potential for them to sell it for a profit.

8) There are no specialty magic shops, so anyone wanting to sell a magic item to someone other than a merchant needs to find an end user, or authorised representative thereof, directly.

9) Since the setting is POL, potential customers with the liquid funds to purchase items are unlikely to be all clustered in one convenient location. Travel between points of light will be required.

If these assumptions hold, then the only commodities market I can imagine is for the residue from disenchanting items, and even that would be limited. Anything else is a high-risk proposition. A merchant buying a magic item from a PC is taking a gamble that (s)he will ever be able to find a buyer, or be able to strike a bargain with an intermediary who makes a living brokering these sorts of deals. Closing the deal will likely require contacts that the merchant has either spent years building relations with, services exclusive to members of the Merchants guild in good standing, or months of discreet inquiries and negotiations.

Furthermore, 4) implies to me that there may be a limited supply of residue to make new magical items - perhaps the secret of how the very first magic items were made was lost several empires ago, and now only the technique of making an item by cannibalising one or more others survives? Maybe some still know how to make 'new' residue, or make items without it, but the process is slow, taking multiple participants weeks if not months? Perhaps magic items can decay over time - so a magic sword of less than artifact status might rust like any other piece of metal, although perhaps more slowly? Any of these would keep the supply of magic items very low.

I'm having a great deal of difficulty seeing this as a commodities market. The antiques comparison seems better to me.

If the PCs wish to try their own luck, then it should either be an adventure as they turn their full efforts to the task, or else they find themselves still carrying the weapon, unsold, ten levels later.

The DM might even hint at this by having the merchant they buy an item from mention (after the deal is closed!) that (s)he just won a bet they made with another merchant ten years ago when they first bought the item.

Anyway, that's what I infer from what we know so far. Based on that, the convenience of offloading the item for 1/5th value doesn't seem so bad for the party, and is not a guaranteed profit for the merchant - at least not in the short term.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

This can be adjusted to other classes by taking into account the general role each class plays in an overall campaign. But in the end, it shouldn't just be one PC trying to carve out his own kingdom while the others sit around twiddling their thumbs, if they're going to do it, they should do it in a way that involves the whole party.

Except when you have the one person in the party who doesn't want to do any of those things.

Fighter: "Right, when are we going to kill some things and take their stuff?"
Wizard: "Whoa, I'd like to build a castle first..."
Fighter: "Wow...that sounds boring...I want to kill things."
Wizard: "No, really...you can have a position on my building team making my castle for me."
Fighter: "Building team? Umm, you realize I'm a Hero! Remember, we saved the entire country from that rampaging dragon and I'm the one who got in the killing blow. I stood up to its attacks for 8 rounds before it died. I don't want to reduce myself to building your castle."
Wizard: "Of course I remember. That's why I got the land given to me, remember? Since I told the King I was the leader of the party. But, I'll make you the HEAD of building my castle."
Fighter: "So, what does that entail exactly?"
Wizard: "You tell the DM that you are supervising the construction and he'll tell you if anything interesting happens."
Fighter: "So, I don't get to roll any dice? When is this castle going to be done? I heard someone in town say their daughter was kidnapped. I want to go save her."
Wizard: "No time, I'm meeting with the Mayor of the nearby town to negotiate taxes. It should only be an hour or 2 of role playing. You can come, though and help."
Fighter: "That's the point...I don't WANT to help...I want to play D&D where we kill things and take their stuff."

 

[A'koss]

Except when you have the one person in the party who doesn't want to do any of those things.

And this is why we have DMs.

If someone wants to build a castle - great! Another wants to adventure - run a couple of adventures during the time the castle is being built. Perhaps tie the two together... eg. During the adventure the PCs a group of giants become indebted to the PCs and are willing to assist in the building of the castle and helping defend it's borders. Perhaps the PCs rescue some fey of noble birth, sewing the seeds of an important alliance. The point is you find a way to accomodate...

 

[Thasmodious]

...convenient numbered list comprising a valid summary of the issue...'

A merchant buying a magic item from a PC is taking a gamble that (s)he will ever be able to find a buyer, or be able to strike a bargain with an intermediary who makes a living brokering these sorts of deals. Closing the deal will likely require contacts that the merchant has either spent years building relations with, services exclusive to members of the Merchants guild in good standing, or months of discreet inquiries and negotiations.

Nice post, and I agree.

I like the idea of shadowy intermediaries. It reminds me of Depp's character in Ninth Gate. Introducing the PCs to a whole shadowy, quasi legal, underworld would make for some interesting encounters.

Someone else pointed out another problem earlier. That local, regional, and national rulers would not generally be happy about the open trade of powerful magic items over which they exerted no control. What ruler would want to allow people, potential rivals and enemies, to be able to easily acquire powerful items that could be used against them or endanger their rule right under their noses? Hence the shadowy.

Enter the "broker" (a skilled character in his own right, rogue likely). He makes a living connecting power magic items with new owners, sometimes by rather unscrupulous means. One or two deals a year gets him by comfortably. Maybe he meets the PCs because a merchant or fence puts them in contact with him, maybe he just shows up representing an anonymous "interested party". Maybe he steals an item from the PCs. Maybe the PCs sell him a powerful flaming greatsword and three levels later learn of an evil warlord armed with a flaming greatsword, wreaking havoc across an impoverished region. I like this guy already, he's got to go in the new campaign NPC file...

Anyway, rambling aside, you make a solid case for the validity of the 25%-140% magic item trade guideline.