Bartering and apprasial?

[S'mon]

I'm not keen on using Bluff or Diplomacy rolls on PCs - I prefer to look at the NPC's skills & if they're high, I play them as persuasive, but it's up to the PC.

I use Market Price for magic items not as a catalogue price, but more the way Neverwinter Nights does - as a rough mid-point between the easy-sell price (50%) and the easy-buy price (200-400%). Market price reflects the actual difficulty of making an item and is what the selling & buying prices gravitate towards. In a notional perfect economy with 100% availability of all items, everything would be bought & sold at the market price.

As it is, adventurers selling loot get at least 1/2 market price, but can use Gather Information to get closer to the market price. Buying, they pay at most 400% market price but can use gather information, friendly contacts, diplomacy etc to get magic for closer to the market price.

Professional merchants - including wizards making items for sale - get at least market price. A wizard making goods for a Duke will receive market price from his liege. But he can use gather info & other skills to get more, up to around x4, or whatever people will pay.

Some common magic items have actual market competition and can be bought for closer to market price, eg cure potions. Very rare items or needed spells may cost much more than even x4 base to acquire - a resurrection spell or a top-range magic weapon (+5 vorpal sword), for instance.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I use human nature

IF I have a dagger and its price is 300 and the player uses his skills and figures that the price is going to be around 300. He then ask the merchant what the price of the dagger is, the merchant looks at the player and using his skills says 600 (player is dressed nice, has good weapons). The player and rthen comes back and says 'What, you robber, I did not ask the price of a Noble's wife, I will give you 200! This goes on for a little while, the player either buys the dagger or he walks away.

If the player failed is roll I look at how much he failed it. for each number the dagger's price changes by 5% or 15 gp, so the player would think the knife was worth 315 if failed by 1 and would try for that price.

 

[Mark]

I'm not keen on using Bluff or Diplomacy rolls on PCs...

Add in Intimidate and Sense Motive and those would be the skills I allow to be brought to bear in Bartering situations.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Add in Intimidate and Sense Motive and those would be the skills I allow to be brought to bear in Bartering situations.

Yeah, I wonder if I could work that into my computerized system... First, everybody makes some bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, and sense motive checks....

 

[Mark]

Yeah, I wonder if I could work that into my computerized system... First, everybody makes some bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, and sense motive checks....

I'm not big on someone just saying, "I want to make a Bluff skill check" when they want to barter. I prefer they either roleplay the situation (and apply one of the four mentioned skills to their tact) or at least have them describe their approach (and then apply the appropriate Skill check.) I'm also not keen on players rolling their own in these situations since they shouldn't necessarily know how successful they have been. In essense, they should always feel successful if they get what they want for a price they feel comfortable paying (or when selling, the inverse.) If they get to the next place where they get something appraise and find out they have paid too much, they have to make a decision what to do based on that then. But, of course, they might also think the appriaser is off their rocker also. D&D isn't a computer game where you simply sell and buy then and a specific amount is deducted or added to your gold total (even if percentages above and below get added into regional price fluctuations.) D&D is about the interaction and never, ever being absolutely sure of the results, IMO.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Yeah, but Emerald's doing a PbP - Play by Post game. That level of interaction works for In-Person games, where you can just talk back and forth, but it could take weeks on a message board when the players probably only check the boards once or twice a day.

 

[Nail]

Another point, that hasn't been addressed:

How do you, the DM, keep track of all of these "estimates" of value? Should you even bother?

Example: One of my PCs looted a corpse, and came up with a golden braclet with a woven snake design. He appraised it, and estimated its value to be 250 gp. Its actual worth is much higher. Then he takes it to a merchant to sell it.....

If I make a slip up, I might accidentally say (as a DM, not in persona, as an NPC) what it's actual worth might be. Then the player (using meta-game knowledge) would know "not to settle" for anything less. Rolls or no, I'm not going to force a player to take a price "just 'cause yer Diplomacy roll says so".

Should DMs keep track of all of these estimates? Sounds like a big headache to me.

 

[Mark]

Yeah, but Emerald's doing a PbP - Play by Post game. That level of interaction works for In-Person games, where you can just talk back and forth, but it could take weeks on a message board when the players probably only check the boards once or twice a day.

Not at all. Just let people know that they should describe their best approach and live with the results. The DM then checks the sheets to see what best applies and posts the results. It'd be the same thing as saying "I'm using Bluff to get the best price" but without the meta-gaming description. A player can argue over the results no matter which way you handle it, but one way comes closer to roleplaying than the other.

 

[Mark]

Sounds like a big headache to me.

Yup. Meta-gaming leads to big headaches all the time. The DM should just explain that the character simply cannot know all of the factors involved and that the player simply needs to accept that, not agonize over each and every transaction, and trust to the odds that high ranks will usually mean better prices, overall.

 

[Nail]

Yup. Meta-gaming leads to big headaches all the time.

Actually, I was thinking about "keeping track of all of the value estimates" as being the head-ache. Player meta-gaming isn't a problem for me.