Buy High, Sell Low is a Dumb Economic Model

[S'mon]

In 4e, on the other hand, the fundamental (magic-item) economy makes no sense (out of the box). It costs no XP to create a magic item, but costs as much to make one as its market price! Of course, it's pretty easy to get around this if you consider the crafting ritual a quick, in-the-field ritual and assume that actual craftsmen use a more economically feasible one. But still, that's an assumption...

I think it's pretty explicit in the fluff text of the magic items that eg dwarven armour is not normally created by a Wizard snapping his fingers over a mundane suit of chain and spending the buy-price in residuum. It's normally laboriously crafted by dwarven master smiths.

Also, in the 4e DMG there's an explicit though optional 10-40% mark up over list price for items. So IMCs if you commission an item from a wizard you pay 10-40% over list. Likewise if a PC makes an item on commission, he can get paid 10-40% over list, which is almost pure profit. List price is used for the occasional existing item sold on the open market, or if you eg visit the dwarves to buy dwarven armour from them, or if a PC casts Enchant Item to make something.

 

[herrozerro]

I think that the 4e model works once you take into account that melting down and item with the disenchant magic item ritual only gives you 20%/50%/100% back for Common, uncommon and rare magic items.

vendors that buy magic items mich just be melting them down for the residum.

 

[gamerprinter]

I think it's pretty explicit in the fluff text of the magic items that eg dwarven armour is not normally created by a Wizard snapping his fingers over a mundane suit of chain and spending the buy-price in residuum. It's normally laboriously crafted by dwarven master smiths.

Also, in the 4e DMG there's an explicit though optional 10-40% mark up over list price for items. So IMCs if you commission an item from a wizard you pay 10-40% over list. Likewise if a PC makes an item on commission, he can get paid 10-40% over list, which is almost pure profit. List price is used for the occasional existing item sold on the open market, or if you eg visit the dwarves to buy dwarven armour from them, or if a PC casts Enchant Item to make something.

This.

I think that the 4e model works once you take into account that melting down and item with the disenchant magic item ritual only gives you 20%/50%/100% back for Common, uncommon and rare magic items.

vendors that buy magic items mich just be melting them down for the residum.

Not this.

The residum is no where near the cost of smithing the metal and enchanting, the raw material is not even 50% of the cost/price.

 

[Desdichado]

It would take players who care more about buying/selling than exploring/slaying. I would guess that a game other than D&D might be better suited to this type of campaign, since so much of D&D is focused on exploring/slaying, but I'm sure a good DM could make it work in D&D too.

You make it sound like its such an unusual thing that it requires an all new game when really the only problem is that there's a handwavy guideline in the rules that suggests that loot be sold for 50% of it's list price as a simplification and abstraction of economic transactions. Why in the world would you need a whole new game for that other than D&D? All it takes is ignoring the abstract shortcut and actually roleplaying economic encounters. It's not even like it has to be a major campaign element to be satisfying to players who find the "you always sell everything at 50% list price" abstraction to be ridiculous. A little lip service to bargaining with a shoo-owner or wizard collector or whatever is all it takes.

The rules of D&D facilitate a lot of things other than exploring/slaying. I've never really understood why folks seem to only see exploring/slaying as valid activiites in a D&D game. It's almost like there are mass blinders on a whole bunch of D&D players that makes them unable to see a bunch of things that are actually right there in the game itself, or at least implicitly possible because there's nothing that precludes them from being in the game if the players want it. D&D players often seem so anxious to put themselves in a small little box about paradigms about the game for no reason. I don't get it.

 

[herrozerro]

Not this.

The residum is no where near the cost of smithing the metal and enchanting, the raw material is not even 50% of the cost/price.

the smithing and base items cant be all that much, maybe 1-10% of the actual cost of the item. The real cost is residum.

I look at the 20/50/100% as the scrap value of magic items, perhaps uncommon and rare items are made with better quality and residum can be retrieved easier from them.

I imagine that the vendor is probably going to be melting down all the +1 daggers adventurer's keep bring him to melt down to make a really powerful item, so he pays scrap cost for items that adventurers are just gonig to throw away in the first place.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't understand the "overhead" cost arguments in a game with bags of holding.

Not only that, but a simple Gather Information (or whatever the 4e equivalent is) check can be used to find a potential buyer, and a Diplomacy skill check or skill challenge can be used to negotiate a price. There doesn't need to be a whole mechanical application for this. It just needs to be something that the PCs care enough about to ask the question. I've yet to see very many groups that didn't.

Of course, there's also the (completely bogus, IMO) argument that the loot PCs have is a necessary component of the game; that without it, they won't be motivate to play. The 50% (or whatever percentage 4e uses) is also based on trying to balance loot with wealth per level and all kinds of other crap that actually isn't very important (in my experience) to running the game successfully. However, it seems to be a hard thing for a lot of players to let go of.

 

[Janx]

You make it sound like its such an unusual thing that it requires an all new game when really the only problem is that there's a handwavy guideline in the rules that suggests that loot be sold for 50% of it's list price as a simplification and abstraction of economic transactions. Why in the world would you need a whole new game for that other than D&D? All it takes is ignoring the abstract shortcut and actually roleplaying economic encounters. It's not even like it has to be a major campaign element to be satisfying to players who find the "you always sell everything at 50% list price" abstraction to be ridiculous. A little lip service to bargaining with a shoo-owner or wizard collector or whatever is all it takes.

I agree. I'd XP but I already liked something you said before...

Are there ANY games out there with more advanced buying/selling economic models?

Most RPGs I've experienced focus on the PCs as people who do cool stuff, and not on PCs who run a business buying/selling merchandise.

As such, not too many rules on the topic.

Battletech is probably the only one I can recall, as players could buy/sell salvaged hardware.

 

[gamerprinter]

the smithing and base items cant be all that much, maybe 1-10% of the actual cost of the item. The real cost is residum.

I look at the 20/50/100% as the scrap value of magic items, perhaps uncommon and rare items are made with better quality and residum can be retrieved easier from them.

I imagine that the vendor is probably going to be melting down all the +1 daggers adventurer's keep bring him to melt down to make a really powerful item, so he pays scrap cost for items that adventurers are just gonig to throw away in the first place.

Well, I don't know the "4e model" but that doesn't make any sense at all.

 

[Nytmare]

I haven't really seen shop keeping creep into any of the games I'm involved in since 3rd edition came out. Prior to that, at least in the groups I circulated, it really only existed as a way for the players to attempt to automate the eking out of funds without having to risk their own hit points, and as a new avenue for DMs to punish said players.

My gut reaction would be that the treasure per level guidelines are really what took the wind out of those sails.

 

[Desdichado]

Right; I'm not talking about reinventing campaigns to be mercantile campaigns. I'm just talking about introducing a level of verisimilitude on economic transactions that's one small step above the abstraction in the books, which assumes it all takes place "off screen."