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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herpes Cineplex" data-source="post: 1641052" data-attributes="member: 16936">Interesting.What I've always wondered is why rules on selling things always seems to assume that it's difficult to get full market value for a magic item.Because honestly, I think it's really weird; unless your gameworld has magic item shops, where merchants are looking to buy items at wholesale prices and make their money off a retail markup (up to the standard market price, one would assume), how is it that PCs can only easily sell items for less than they're worth but never seem to be able to find any bargains when they're looking to buy an item?  Aren't there other adventurers out there boning their own Gather Information rolls and only finding buyers (like the PCs) who'd be willing to meet the minimum asking price?I guess it might just make more sense to me to look at an item's market value and think of it as, you know, its actual market value.  What someone would be willing to pay for it on the average open market.  Supply and demand fluctuations, resource issues, those are the kinds of things that I can see tweaking the market price up or down in particular cities...but I'm not sure I can get behind the idea that the player characters just generate a "this item is less valuable" field any time they're looking to unload an item onto an NPC and make a little cash, and then suddenly radiate a "this item is valuable beyond belief" aura when they're looking to buy something.Maybe it's just because none of the games I've played in have had magic item shops, complete with racks of +1 weapons.  If you wanted to buy an item in the games I've been in, you looked around in-character for a wizard or a cleric who could craft it and you tried to commission them to make one just for you (never for less than market price, and in some settings for quite a bit more), or you looked around even harder to find an NPC who owns one but was willing to sell it (almost always for market price or higher, since our GMs typically frown on giving discounts; if you wanted to trade your character's cash for an item which is worth 1000gp, you'd better believe it would take at least 1000gp worth of cash to get it).  Either way, it was always handled by looking around in-character; often with the kind of Gather Information checks that haiiro's system calls for, just without the built-in price adjustments.  Pricing was entirely up to the GM, and if you didn't like the price you were offered, you were free to say "no" and try again some other time or place, where conditions might be more favorable.  The further above market value you set your desired price, the longer that process might take, but selling at straight market value usually got you a buyer in a reasonable period of time.--but this is still an interesting system, with some nifty ideasryan</blockquote>

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