Calm yourself, Treebore. I was being friendly in a jocular manner; don't take it so seriously.
It doesn't bother me in the slightest. I merely find your phrasing humourous. I've no opinion on your posts one way or the other, other than that.
Man, all this having to explain jokes is getting tiring!
Well, these are messageboards and its hard to judge things coming out of left field.
So now I understand, and no =hard feelings.
As for what I meant, I found 50% to be the "fairest" value to use since I decided I would prefer keeping price negotiation in the back ground rather than have my players slow the game down with doing it to get the most profit.
20% would encourage players to want to barter/negotiate for better prices/profits. IF they have any sense of numbers. For example, when they go clear out that evil hidden temple defended by 25 clerics and fighters wearing Full plate mail and heavy steel shields. If they realize the value (1,000 GP each for the plate, and 25 GP for the shields in the game I use/run) that is 25,000 GP in Plate and 500 GP in shields.
So if they have any brains they will realize 20% of that sucks, and 50% of that is much better, and 80 to 100% of that would be even better.
So I tell my players I give them 50% with no time spent role playing the negotiations, setting up a store, etc... Most of the time they accept the 50% just to allow the game to move on. If I offered 20% they will be far more likely to want to role play getting better prices.
Most games I have run usually has at least one person who understood economics/retail well enough to do some smart things to maximize their return.
So to try and avoid all this time role playing "Debits and Deficits" I just assume they do bargain and give them what would be the "average" with such an assumption.
Realistically, once you figure out a few realities of the "business" you will get closer to 100% of retail much more often than they would get as low as 50%, let alone 20%.
So by just going with 50% your giving much closer to what "reality" will give them without role playing it. Hence why I worded things the way I did.
Now if you have a bunch of players who just don't care and don't grok the numbers game, then you can get away with 20%. Still, I feel guilty doing that, because I am in essence counting on them being "stupid", or to put it nicley, not knowing better.
However, if they are playing a thief, or cleric, or wizard, in all liklihood their PC would not be ignorant of such financial realities. So to maintain a sense of verisimilitude that I can accept, I stick with the 50% assumption.
Plus when deciding how much their treasure is, I take the value of such equipment into account, so it isn't like they would get more. In fact I like it when I give them only 300 GP in coin, since they will get 12,500 GP from the plate mail being sold.
Which also makes much more sense to me. Evil Temples, Castles and other fortifications would have most of an NPC's wealth sunk into these structures. Either in beautifying them, equipping the henchmen with the best possible, buying procuring suitable monsters, etc... is where all the wealth will be. Comparatively very little will be in loose coin. IT will be in art, gold utensils, gold candelabra's, jewelry, magic items, armor, weapons, fine clothing, fine bedding, fine furniture, not coinage. Plus, the bigger the item is, the harder it is for someone to come in and steal. Especially a well guarded/patrolled location.
