Anyone importing 4E’s’Used gear sells for 1/5th if at all’ to other RPG systems?

[Treebore]

The fact that it slows the game down is what keeps my players from doing it. They, like me, would rather spend our time at the table adventuring.



By that logic, why didn't they spend time trying to get 100% or more of the value in previous editions? I'll answer from my experience: Because those were the rules. And 50% has become the accepted norm over a long period of time. That's seems to be the crux of why 20% seems unfair. Purely metagame reasons IMO.



Not IME. Just like I told my players 50% in the past, I've told them 20% now and they have no desire to spend any game time haggling for a better price any more than they did in the past. Both are artificial numbers. Both make people ask the question "If I have to pay full, why can't I sell for full" but in the end adventuring is commonly more enjoyable to players than haggling.



Retail? Give me a break! That comment alone smacks of the MagicMart complaint that cropped up since the inception of 3E. 4E's default setting is PoL. Travelling merchants brave the wilds to sell their wares. Buyers are hard to find because only Heroes have the money and they are a rare breed. The "shinier" the stuff a merchant carries, the bigger a target. There is no real great correlary to the real world, except the fences that deal in the dangerous world of the modern day criminal. And fences in the real world don't pay 50%, in fact 20% may be a generous average.



They've played a game of chicken with you then and you've caved. Why would any smart player want to play "Debits and Defecits" instead of adventuring? And why would a PoL economy work like "Debits and Deficits?" Being a travelling merchant band in 4E could be a campaign all in its own.



Yep, just find the neighborhood MagicMart. There's one on every corner!



Modern safe realty. Walmart and mega-malls reality. Not a dangerous PoL world where monsters are everywhere and any MagicMart would be quickly looted by the nearest dragon to stock his hoard. "All these great magic items in one place? How did a Great Red Wyrm such as myself ever grow his hoard without MagicMart?!"



"Stupid" = "Doesn't agree with Treebore?" Call me Stupid. Vyvyan Stupid Basterd at your service.



Then you haven't really changed anything, except to make it easier to decide to seel an item than to find a use for it. Exactly what I came to hate in 3E.



"Art, gold utensils, gold candelabra's, jewelry, fine clothing, fine bedding, fine furniture" = All sellable at full value. Because their value is only, well that they are valuable.

"Armor, weapons" = Sellable at 20% if allowed by the DM. (Which I do, because I agree that it should be sellable. The rules give the option at the DM discretion.)

You don't ever have to give out coinage if you don't desire.

You know, unlike you I have spent 10 years doing business. My business. Buying and selling all the way from the bottom "producer" level up to selling retail. So I actually know how it works at every level. I had to in order to stay competitive.

I also have done most of my gaming in military towns. With large turn overs of players. So after gaming in such towns for over 20 years, in many different games, I have campaign experience with at least 200 different players who played in my games weekly for months or years, plus I usually played in at least one other game ran by others every week.

So I have seen a lot of players, and a lot of DM's, so combine that all together with my real life business experience and I'll take my experienced opinion over yours.

 

[Fifth Element]

Actually, yes. That IS how it is in 4e. I know you're trying to be sarcastic, but amusingly enough, you're (accidentally) completely correct. There basically are invisible, plane hopping merchants that monitor activity through fiber optic cables in the astral sea and, whenever a PC utters "we should sell this" one such merchant instantly gates to their location to buy it. Or at least, that's what the DMG days (though not quite in so man words).

Dude, seriously, you're losing whatever credibility you might have with this argument. That is clearly not what is intended by the passage in the DMG. The context (an important thing when quoting a single sentence out of the book) is a discussion of traveling merchants and how they function in a PoL economy.

A few paragraphs later it discusses how the magic item economy works if you, as DM, decide that players cannot sell magic items. It's all just advice to the DM. Read the whole thing, see the context, and you won't fall into the trap of making ridiculous, unsopportable claims.

But, just for the record, plane hopping merchants that monitor activity through fiber optic cables in the astral sea are awesome!

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

And when was this exact advice ever needed prior to 4th edition with its creation of only being able to sell things at 20% value?

Do you think the two are completely unconnected in their symbiosis within the system?

Game A: You can sell a magic item for 100% of its value, but have to hunt and find someone to sell it to that may or may not be around for the next few weeks/months/years of game time.

Game B: You can sell a magic item for only 20% of its value, but someone is always around willing to take it from you and give you the money.

Do you not see the thought process behind this concept and why the two are specifically intertwined with each other within the system.

Would you prefer:

Game C: You can sell a magic item for only 20% of its value, but have to hunt and find someone to sell it to that may or may not be around for the next few weeks/months/years of game time.

The worst of both worlds....

The lack of advice in previous editions does not prove that the advice in the 4E DMG is an artefact of the 20% rule.

What was the advice for buying and selling magic items in the 3E DMG? I'd look it up if I hadn't sold all my books.

 

[justanobody]

Let's add:

Game D: You can purchase whatever item you wish at the local store. In the unlikely event it's out of stock, you can expend memories of past exploits (i.e., experience points) to fashion said item.

I think you are looking for this thread http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...do-you-like-xp-costs-magic-item-creation.html

There is a subgroup of DMs that have a long-standing tradition of being awkward about such things. They bog the game down for weeks as the party have to traipse around looking first for a sage to identify their hard-won loot, perform some mini-quest to persuade the sage to help them, then get a maddeningly vague answer, so spend yet more time, until they finally ascertain that it is, in fact, a long sword +1. Then they get to go through a whole other set of mini-quests to find a likely buyer, then more quests to find the items they want to buy in turn, and on and on it goes...

Where the hell can I find me one of those DMs! That is exactly the kind of game I am looking for rather than these video game weened new-age D&D players and DMs.

 

[Fifth Element]

So I have seen a lot of players, and a lot of DM's, so combine that all together with my real life business experience and I'll take my experienced opinion over yours.

To be fair, Mr. Stupid Basterd seems to be discussing in-game economics, not real-life economics. I don't think you should be taking it so personally, I don't read it as "you don't know what you're talking about", just "that doesn't apply to a fantasy world."

Anyone with a degree of business knowledge knows that the D&D economy is, and always has been, "unrealistic". Not to mention "not internally consistent". But it's a fantasy world with fantasy economics. Hong has an expression that is useful here, I think.

I don't see how 20% versus 50% encourages players to price-shop. If they're used to 50% being the standard, just tell them that now, 20% is the standard. That should help. It's just a metagamey, averaging, let's-get-back-to-the-adventure number. Just let the players know ahead of time and there shouldn't be any trouble.

These are traveling merchants, for crying out loud. Do you know what their overhead is like? Or underfoot would probably be a better term for them? They spend days, maybe weeks, traveling where they can't even make a single sale. They need to make that up somewhere.

 

[delericho]

What was the advice for buying and selling magic items in the 3E DMG? I'd look it up if I hadn't sold all my books.

There was no special advice for magic items, as such, but these were considered just to be items with a market value.

Each settlement was assigned a GP limit based on the size of the settlement. Anything less than the GP limit was considered to be available for sale, and any item less than the GP limit could be sold (at 50% of the market value, except for some key exceptions such as artwork and commodities). There was also a means provided to calculate how many of a particular item was up for sale in a given community, but I don't think the maths on that one was actually right.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm just trying to imagine what NPC merchants would have more knowledge about acquiring and selling magic artifacts than PCs.

 

[justanobody]

There was no special advice for magic items, as such, but these were considered just to be items with a market value.

Each settlement was assigned a GP limit based on the size of the settlement. Anything less than the GP limit was considered to be available for sale, and any item less than the GP limit could be sold (at 50% of the market value, except for some key exceptions such as artwork and commodities). There was also a means provided to calculate how many of a particular item was up for sale in a given community, but I don't think the maths on that one was actually right.

Thanks for answering that, as I don't own a single 3rd edition books. Like I said in the past I played 3rd under duress and only used the SRD, plus whatever book I was handed to need something from for some special ability/item the DM threw on me.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

You know, unlike you I have spent 10 years doing business. My business. Buying and selling all the way from the bottom "producer" level up to selling retail. So I actually know how it works at every level. I had to in order to stay competitive.

I also have done most of my gaming in military towns. With large turn overs of players. So after gaming in such towns for over 20 years, in many different games, I have campaign experience with at least 200 different players who played in my games weekly for months or years, plus I usually played in at least one other game ran by others every week.

So I have seen a lot of players, and a lot of DM's, so combine that all together with my real life business experience and I'll take my experienced opinion over yours.

You have no idea where my real-world experience lies. Claiming authority over someone without knowing where they come from is ridiculous.

My DMing experience surpasses yours in both time (over 25 years) and number of players (lost count).

And if we were discussing reatil economics in d20 Modern I would cede to your knowledge of the modern retail business. But we are discussing 4E's PoL setting. There is no modern real-world equivalent environment that you have retail experience in.

 

[Loonook]

Ghostbusters?



I think you mean p. 154. It states that PCs can't (usually) sell magical items in villages, but that a traveling merchant could be in town (or soon would be) to take higher end pieces of gear.

This is a nod, my little friends, to 4e's implied PoL setting.

Let me see if I can break this down: There isn't a 3e magical Wal Mart in town. There never will be. If you want to buy and trade magical items (and your DM is OK with that), then you most likely will be handling transactions with traveling merchants that specialize in such services.

Got it? Good. 'Cuz this whole line of absurdity was becoming somewhat boring, which is even worse.

WP

And again, this is the kind of issue we've been having between editions. Flavor as Written should have nothing to do with Rules as Written, and the fact that they are stating that there are merchants traveling about is ridiculous. Same as the magical Walmart nonsense.

When you want to adjust a game, adjust it. Never had magic item shops in 3.X outside of some hedge wizard putting out potions or the occasional 'fell off the wagon' opportunities which would normally appear. Items could be manufactured, but it's going to cost you a pretty penny and a decent amount of travel to get to it.

Oh noes! I solved my own problem, with reason and in-setting logic! Which is what most of the issues with any game like D&D can be solved by... ehh.

Slainte,

-Loonook.