D&D price lists

[Damon Griffin]

Things tend to break down when you introduce magic. The high prices are set to keep magic exclusive from commoners, experts, and low-level characters, otherwise we'd be playing in Zanth, not Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms.

Take a well-off merchant or craftsman, who makes 3sp per day. Let's assume half his income is spent on food, lodging, and creature comforts. That gives him an extra 4gp per month.
This is not unreasonable.

Magic should be expensive, and I've only been arguing for the reduction in price of mundane items*. The price of an ordinary wagon, or small residential building, doesn't need to be high in order to keep magic out of the hands of the Great Unwashed.

In some cases, magic -- or exotic items like alchemical equipment -- is far more reasonably priced than ordinary mundane items. Check the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. Fully stocked alchemy lab with beakers, reagents, all the basic chemicals in stock and the lab ready for use: 700gp. Basic dining hall with rough, unfinished wooden floors, a long table and rough wooden benches, plus a few mounted deer heads for decoration: 2000gp. The alchemy lab might or might not be reasonably priced, but the dining hall clearly is not: a simply designed, crudely furnished, sparsely decorated room with no magical enhancements of any kind, and it costs the equivalent of 55 years worth of a common laborer's salary to construct it?


*In fact I do have some issues with some aspects of magic item pricing, chiefly the meteoric rise in the value of weapons and armor that have added features, but that's an entirely separate issue and not at all what I've been discussing here.

- Saving for two years, he could afford an Everburning Torch for 90gp, which would save him a fortune and a bunch of back pain in firewood.

The well-off merchant who bought an Everburning Torch would quickly find it didn't save him much money or back pain. That item provides light, but not heat, so the same amount of firewood as always would be needed for heating the house, cooking, etc. It might save him some money in candles, but not firewood.

 

[Shallown]

I think the truth is the system is lopsided top to bottom. I wish sometimes that they redid the system with a lower scale from top to bottom. Instead of a character having 800,000 at 20th level (Sorry I have no idea what the actual amount is) they would have 80,000 or even less. I mean when a dragon has all sorts of coin it screws the whole system and loses realism or at least a level of realism to which we can suspend our belief to.

The cost of supplies up to cost of magic items is horrible inflated. I realize that a level of realism is lost in making it generic and ignoring actual resources and skills but there must be a way to assume an average.

As far as how much things weigh I liked the system in Aftermath and old postapacolyptic game. Tough to understand rules and such but it had a neat and fairly simple encumbrance system. A cross-reference chart of weight to bulk that gave you an encumbrance number. It wasn't perfect but better than D&D's hit and miss system that isn't explained. You would have two numbers one is weight other is encumbrance.

I mean I play and don't pay any of it any mind because I don’t have the time, patience, knowledge etc to change or create a whole new system.

Later

 

[jgbrowning]

This would not a bad way to handle it, so long as the following questions could be satisfactorily answered:

(1) How do the NPCs know how much money I have? I'm a total stranger, just arrived this morning. Do all NPCs have some kind of virtual feat that lets them assess my total net worth on sight? Can I wear a Hat of Disguise in order look like a local and get lower prices?

You're encased by 45 pounds of metal? They've never seen you before? You've multiple weapons which show a lot of use? You have a non-local accent? Magic can change things, that won't win you many friends in the populace. It's not unreasonable to believe that cities will have laws against people using magic while bargaining.

(2) Why are all NPCs, even kindly Lawful Good types, assumed to be horrible price gougers? Apparently everyone I run into not only recognizes me as a fabulously wealthy PC, but agrees that I should be grossly overcharged for everything as a result.

They're not price gougers. They set a price they know you can afford. There is no "set" price, no "right" price. Every transaction is unique and is influenced by who the buyer and seller are, perhaps even more than what is being sold. If the price is too high the buyer leaves, if the price is too low the seller won't sell. Now when you are encased in 45 pounds of metal, it's going to be very very very hard for you to get the same bargain that the seller's regular customers get. Even if you try to go elsewhere.

(3) How was the inflation value set, and why does it never change? I mean, these NPCs have supposedly set higher prices to take advantage of my great wealth -- but I'm going to be expected to pay those same inflated prices whether I'm a 1st level sorcerer with 150gp worth of cash and equipment, or a 20th level fighter/wizard with 100,000gp in cash, equipment and magic items.

You have a DM. He'll have to decide if that's the case. This is an example where were you to get a system, the system would probably be ignored almost immediatly. Your DM could up the purchase DCs to easily mimic this effect if he wants more realism.

(4) What values do the NPCs themselves use? You'd think the DM would be given this information, if not the players. If the DM wants to have the PCs hire themselves out to a local landowner to track down and kill a marauding monster, and the landowner agrees to pay their basic expenses (not spell components, but food, lodging, replacement arrows and such), how much is this going to cost the NPC?

Pick up MMS:WE. Actually you're asking a question that seems simple, but is really impossibly complex. I'll talk more about the general stuff at the end of this post. It may cost the NPC nothing, he simply uses his social standing to influence.. economics and social standing were basically the same thing for most of history and social "coin" is often more reliable.

Again, your DM has to decide based upon circumstances, and again he can modifiy the DCs as he sees fit to simulate what he wants to happen.

(5) What if I, as a PC, want to sell something? In most cases I cannot expect to get the full listed value, since I'm selling a previously owned item, which the buyer may be planning to resell. Let's say I might expect to sell a weapon or set of armor for up to 50% of its standard market value as long as it's in good condition. If I use your system, I don't have any idea what the standard market value is, only what the greatly inflated tourist price is. I can't very well try selling a 100gp composite longbow, expecting to get as much as 50gp for it, and have an NPC merchant respond "Are you crazy? That's at least 5 times what the thing would have been worth NEW!"

There is no "standard market value." There is no value beyond what one individual will pay and what one seller is willing to be paid. Items don't have a price. I view the prices listed in the books are guidelines, if the DM wants a more complex economy, or the prices are hard-and-fast if the DM isn't interested.

What you do know when you use the DC system is how you can manipulate the overinflated tourist price systematically to produce the economic effects you want to simulate.

Hell, you could throw out my idea of it being a "tourist" price and pretend it already is the "market price" or you could create all new prices that you consider the "market price" and then apply the DC system over that and it would perform admirably.

(6) Your tourist explanation doesn't take Crafting into account. If I want to contruct a bow, I'm not some ignorant yahoo who just walked in off the street, I'm a skilled bowyer who knows exactly what it takes in terms of time, effort and material to craft a bow. I have to buy materials equal to one-third of the market value. Is this one-third of the NPC's "true" market value or one third of the inflated "tourist" value? Shouldn't be the tourist price, I'm making it myself and I know how to do that. But it can't be the NPC price because that price isn't given anywhere.

Are you an NPC? Players play PC so all gaming rules are designed upon PC interactions. The DM can easily ignore inconsistancies when dealing with NPC to NPC relationships.


Generally, trying to mimic a real functioning medieval economy is futile. People today...

1. Generally have no idea how hardly anything in the medieval period worked.
2. Assume concepts developed much later to describe modern societies should hold true.
3. We have quite a bit of data to make attempts at description, but that data is probably far from enough to make authoritative statements.
4. Our modern view of economy is utterly dependant upon an ease of product movement and a belief in individual actions that are not teribbley accurate when discussing people outside of the environment in which our view of economy was formed. (Example a villiage can be starving while 20 miles away one villiage has so much grain its having to fight off pests vigorously).

Generally, buying things was a social interaction as opposed to it being a fiscal interaction that it has turned into today.

Your posts make good points, but there is no way to answer them without basically saying, "This is good enough." That point will vary with individuals. For example, do you want to include muliple coinages? Do you want to plot out areas in your kingdom that periodically experience specie shortages due fairs, ships coming it... etc? Do you want to map out the routes of standard communication between smallish rural communities to plot the movement of mostly subsistance-level goods so you can indicate what viliages (and when) have higher level demands for certain products?

The DC system is an attempt to simulate an economy in a game. If it's not to your level of liking, you'll have to find another method of determining economics. It allows DMs to handway such complex issues as...

1. Disparities in price due supply and demand.
2. Disparities in price due inflation.
3. Disparities in price due war.

blah, blah, blah.... basically almost every issue that can possibly effect price can be simulated my altering the DC to make items more or less expensive.

Which is the end result of all economic systems. Which things are more or less expensive and where. The why's involved are so complex and difficult to simulate that they are practically useless to try and explain. At least from a PCs perspective.

In fact, the point of the DC system is to not explain why, merely to simulate the effect allowing the DM to make up the reason why, because there are so may different ways thing can occur.

joe b.

 

[Damon Griffin]

jgbrowning, I think you have misunderstood some of my objections.

The DC system is an attempt to simulate an economy in a game. If it's not to your level of liking, you'll have to find another method of determining economics. It allows DMs to handway such complex issues as...

1. Disparities in price due supply and demand.
2. Disparities in price due inflation.
3. Disparities in price due war.

I have no problem with this at all. Not having tried it out myself, or even taken very much time to think about it yet, I didn't feel qualified to comment on the DC system you'd mentioned, but my first impression was that it might well be a workable system.

If you'll review the quoted portion of my previous response to you, you'll see that what I took issue with was the notion that the price list in the PHB could be used as is, and simply regarded as "tourist prices", which is what I inferred from the first paragraph of your post. My previous message had nothing to say about your suggested DC system.

You're encased by 45 pounds of metal? They've never seen you before? You've multiple weapons which show a lot of use? You have a non-local accent? Magic can change things, that won't win you many friends in the populace. It's not unreasonable to believe that cities will have laws against people using magic while bargaining.

I wasn't being entirely serious when I asked about using the Hat of Disguise to get a lower price, but it seemed a reasonable question given that your NPCs were described as being able to decide I was filthy rich based solely on the fact that I wasn't from around there. I have a hard time following the logic "We're poor, therefore everyone else must be rich."

Only heavy fighters are likely to be encased in 45 pounds of metal, though I agree that would be one indication of wealth. The fact that they've never seen me before or that my accent is different means nothing whatsoever. If my "strangeness" means they aren't inclined to trust me right away, that's fine. But it's no clue to my level of relative poverty or wealth. Weapons that show a lot of use might have belonged to my father, and I could be using them because I've never been able to afford to buy one of my own. In combination with other factors, a well-used weapon might be an indicator, but all by itself, it's not proof of anything. Your NPCs seem ready to take anything out of the ordinary as proof of staggering wealth.

They're not price gougers. They set a price they know you can afford. There is no "set" price, no "right" price. Every transaction is unique and is influenced by who the buyer and seller are, perhaps even more than what is being sold. If the price is too high the buyer leaves, if the price is too low the seller won't sell. Now when you are encased in 45 pounds of metal, it's going to be very very very hard for you to get the same bargain that the seller's regular customers get. Even if you try to go elsewhere.

How else do you define price gouging, if not as dramatically overchanging someone -- 5x, 10x, even 20x the price you'd usually charge -- just because you think you can get away with it? And I still say there's no way for every NPC I run into to "know" what I can afford at any given time. It's very possible for 10th level PCs to be flat broke. Yes, I have the potential to go raid a dungeon somewhere and acquire more wealth. But you can't very well expect me to pay for food and basic equipment based on my future earning potential. I have to pay for it with cash on hand.

The "set" or "right" price is whatever price, given current local conditions, best balances supply and demand in such a way as to provide the merchant with a reasonable profit for his goods and services. As you and others have pointed out, a number of factors can affect just what this price is, and we don't want to take up a lot of D&D time accurately detailing those economics. But if the price of a sack of grain is 2cp at noon, and increases to 2sp at five minutes after noon when I walk through the door wearing a worn set of leather armor, a mace in need of minor repair and a stained travel cloak -- because the merchant sees that I am obviously wealthy enough to pay 10x the normal price for food for my horse -- and then drops to 2cp again as soon as I leave town, that merchant has engaged in price gouging, based on information he could not realistically have had.

Pick up MMS:WE. Actually you're asking a question that seems simple, but is really impossibly complex. I'll talk more about the general stuff at the end of this post. It may cost the NPC nothing, he simply uses his social standing to influence.. economics and social standing were basically the same thing for most of history and social "coin" is often more reliable.

Again, your DM has to decide based upon circumstances, and again he can modifiy the DCs as he sees fit to simulate what he wants to happen.

The six numbered questions could have been answered or taken as rhetorical; either way, their main purpose was to point out that treating the PHB price list as a price list for PCs only was not a good overall solution, in part because it lacks sufficient internal logic.

I have MMS:WE, as a matter of fact, as well as the much earlier non-d20 product, Harn Manor. Both do their jobs well, but both are pretty heavily grounded in the assumption that you will be using a feudal economy, which doesn't always work in D&D campaigns (and works less well in our current campaign than in many, but in this thread I was discussing the general problem.)

There is no "standard market value." There is no value beyond what one individual will pay and what one seller is willing to be paid. Items don't have a price. I view the prices listed in the books are guidelines, if the DM wants a more complex economy, or the prices are hard-and-fast if the DM isn't interested.

See my comments above on price gouging. I believe the listed prices should be used as guidelines as well, and adjusted appropriately in response to a variety of factors. Again, your DC system may be a good mechanic for of doing that, or in some cases the DM may just want to use a "best guess" estimate.

But "it's only a guideline" doesn't justify a huge price discrepancy between goods and services bought by a PC and an NPC, when all other factors are equal. PCs can be extremely poor. NPCs can be extremely rich. Your own preconceptions about 45 pounds of metal aside, my characters do not have "PC" stamped on their foreheads, and should not be charged many times the [current, DM-adjusted, locally supportable] market price for items solely on their PC status.

Are you an NPC? Players play PC so all gaming rules are designed upon PC interactions. The DM can easily ignore inconsistancies when dealing with NPC to NPC relationships.

If I said I was an NPC, would your NPC be able to prove otherwise? Either sort of character can be high level or low level; either sort of character can have loads of money and magic items. The terms "PC" and "NPC" are totally meaningless within the game, and should not be used in a conscious decision making process by either sort of character.

For example, do you want to include muliple coinages? Do you want to plot out areas in your kingdom that periodically experience specie shortages due fairs, ships coming it... etc? Do you want to map out the routes of standard communication between smallish rural communities to plot the movement of mostly subsistance-level goods so you can indicate what viliages (and when) have higher level demands for certain products?

With very few exceptions, and those on a very small scale: No, I do not want to get into that level of detail. Too much work for the DM, given that most of it wouldn't be much fun for the players. But there is middle ground here. It is possible to use a reasonable set of prices in the game, and allow for some variation in those prices, without requiring that complex game mechanics be used to simulate each potential economic influence.

In fact I believe you just said that yourself...

In fact, the point of the DC system is to not explain why, merely to simulate the effect allowing the DM to make up the reason why, because there are so may different ways thing can occur.

 

[Aaron2]

Originally posted by jgbrowning The DC system is an attempt to simulate an economy in a game. If it's not to your level of liking, you'll have to find another method of determining economics. It allows DMs to handway such complex issues as...

What the heck is the "DC System"?

Bushido had a nice system where items were rated as rural-city (for classifications) and their availability and price varied depending on whether your buying them in a village, town, or city.


Aaron

 

[dagger]

You can buy a brand new "...and A 10-Foot Pole "





HERE

 

[MaxKaladin]

How did we go from "The price list is out of whack and ought to be fixed" to "Let's add whole layers of complicated rules to the game to try to simulate a medieval economy down to the last grain of wheat?"

Seriously, I don't think anyone was proposing lots of new rules. All I ever saw was the true statement that the price list is out of whack. The prices are not realistic given the wages paid to NPC laborers nor, in many cases, are they realistic in relation to each other. One big problem is that manufactured goods like swords should be very expensive compared to simple goods like a chicken. All that really needs to be done is to adjust the prices themselves and then you can apply whatever level of economic adjustment you want to the result.

 

[jgbrowning]

I have no problem with this at all. Not having tried it out myself, or even taken very much time to think about it yet, I didn't feel qualified to comment on the DC system you'd mentioned, but my first impression was that it might well be a workable system.

If you'll review the quoted portion of my previous response to you, you'll see that what I took issue with was the notion that the price list in the PHB could be used as is, and simply regarded as "tourist prices", which is what I inferred from the first paragraph of your post. My previous message had nothing to say about your suggested DC system.

If you want to remove that idea because it doesn't jive well with your campaign its pretty easily done. The system should work without that idea. It was an attempt to explain why the prices for items were higher than what would be a decent historical comparison given the time period discussed. Given the history of how the prices were created, I used the "tourist" idea.

I wasn't being entirely serious when I asked about using the Hat of Disguise to get a lower price, but it seemed a reasonable question given that your NPCs were described as being able to decide I was filthy rich based solely on the fact that I wasn't from around there. I have a hard time following the logic "We're poor, therefore everyone else must be rich."

Only heavy fighters are likely to be encased in 45 pounds of metal, though I agree that would be one indication of wealth. The fact that they've never seen me before or that my accent is different means nothing whatsoever.

It does mean quite a lot. You either
1.have enough money to support yourself independant of the land
2. you have enough land elsewhere to be separate from it
or
3. you have a business that you can be absent from.

Strangeness, if not coupled with only itinerant work clothes means you have a lot of fiscal resources.

If my "strangeness" means they aren't inclined to trust me right away, that's fine. But it's no clue to my level of relative poverty or wealth. Weapons that show a lot of use might have belonged to my father, and I could be using them because I've never been able to afford to buy one of my own.

Owning a weapon (more than a club) means you have a reason to have a weapon, especially upon your person. That, again, generally means wealth. Poor people have rarely carried weapons in traditional DnD worlds.

In combination with other factors, a well-used weapon might be an indicator, but all by itself, it's not proof of anything. Your NPCs seem ready to take anything out of the ordinary as proof of staggering wealth.

Everything is in combination with other factors. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

How else do you define price gouging, if not as dramatically overchanging someone -- 5x, 10x, even 20x the price you'd usually charge -- just because you think you can get away with it? And I still say there's no way for every NPC I run into to "know" what I can afford at any given time. It's very possible for 10th level PCs to be flat broke.

price gouging is dependant upon the idea than an item has a "market" price based upon a large sampling of similiar items over a significant physical space independant of social class.

None of those conditions will be found in a pseudo-medieval DnD world. Prices for items will vary depending upon which market you go to in just one city alone.

Its hard to explain to people used to our modern world. So I'll use an example of vegetables.

Market A is close to the gates where the vegetables come into the city. In market A the vegetables cost 10. The vegetables are bough by merchants in market A who then hire laborers to move the vegetables to market B (on the other side of town) where they'll sell the vegetables for 12. To we moderns, that may seem ridicules... a 20% increase for a 1/4 mile distance?

I've seen it happen, even today. You want vegetables you go to the vegetable market unless you want to pay significantly more. When we were in India we'd get bannanas for 2 rupees a bannana at the market, you want a bannana anywhere else in the city however, it'll cost you 4.

Yes, I have the potential to go raid a dungeon somewhere and acquire more wealth. But you can't very well expect me to pay for food and basic equipment based on my future earning potential. I have to pay for it with cash on hand.

Actually, quite a bit of the medieval economy was based upon "future earning potential." The merchant could say, "I know you're broke now.. but no one's going to sell you that for less than 100gp. I'll give it to you for 75gp as long as you swear to give me 100gp more by the end of the month." Almost any arraignment of payment is possible. Again, unlike the modern world, it is a social transaction as well as fiscal.

As modern consumers we expect a CD to cost what's listed on the cover. In a medieval world there are no listed prices. What people pay depends upon how well they bargain, who they are, and how much wealth the seller thinks they have.

Again to use India, they have price tages. But those tags are maximum price tags set by the goverment. Which is very similiar to the maximum prices the guilds would set in the medieval period.

Once I bough a box of crackers for a homeless kid. The max. rupee price was 150 on the box, but when I said that was too much, and that I was buying it for the kid, the shopkeeper sold it to me for 50. That would never had happened even if i bargained my best and went to every shopkeeper in town.

Why? Well they know that I have more. They know that If I want it, i'll pay that much. They also know that if they go too low, all of their neighbors will eventually find out and then they're in a difficult social situation. That's what medieval adventuring PCs are more than likely going to face.

The "set" or "right" price is whatever price, given current local conditions, best balances supply and demand in such a way as to provide the merchant with a reasonable profit for his goods and services.

This accurately discribes what you above called "price gouging." That price is the "right" price because no merchant is going to let you get a "local" price because they know you have no social power within the community while they have social power within the community. Also the concept of "reasonable profit" as your using it there, doesn't exist. Thats utterly modern.

The only reasonable profit is that amount that the buyer is willing to pay while at the same time the seller is willing to sell. This amount varies based upon social standing, wealth, community status, and haggleing skills.

A merchant will name one price to one person and another to another and they'll charge you double price right to your face. If you ask the locals about how much something should cost, they are going to take one look at you and give you the "tourist" amount because they know you'll never get what they will.

As you and others have pointed out, a number of factors can affect just what this price is, and we don't want to take up a lot of D&D time accurately detailing those economics. But if the price of a sack of grain is 2cp at noon, and increases to 2sp at five minutes after noon when I walk through the door wearing a worn set of leather armor, a mace in need of minor repair and a stained travel cloak -- because the merchant sees that I am obviously wealthy enough to pay 10x the normal price for food for my horse -- and then drops to 2cp again as soon as I leave town, that merchant has engaged in price gouging, based on information he could not realistically have had.

If you follow modern economic theory, it shouldn't happen. Unfortunately, that is what's going to happen. (Why do you think we have laws against it now, even with our advanced economic systems?) In fact the price will change right before your eyes. And No one in that society thinks such an action is wrong because they know you aren't "one of them" and you have more money and you have no social power. Once that changes, the price will change

The six numbered questions could have been answered or taken as rhetorical; either way, their main purpose was to point out that treating the PHB price list as a price list for PCs only was not a good overall solution, in part because it lacks sufficient internal logic.

It depends on what you need that internal logic to do. How much do you need it to simulate?

I have MMS:WE, as a matter of fact, as well as the much earlier non-d20 product, Harn Manor. Both do their jobs well, but both are pretty heavily grounded in the assumption that you will be using a feudal economy, which doesn't always work in D&D campaigns (and works less well in our current campaign than in many, but in this thread I was discussing the general problem.)

True. If your not using a medieval economy things will be different. But the "tourist" price idea is nigh universal. Even now, when you travel outside of 1st world countries there is basically a two tier pricing system. (Its actually more complex than that, often there are several tiers.. for example an american may get charged more than an japanese person or vice versa depending on where the exchange takes place.)

See my comments above on price gouging. I believe the listed prices should be used as guidelines as well, and adjusted appropriately in response to a variety of factors. Again, your DC system may be a good mechanic for of doing that, or in some cases the DM may just want to use a "best guess" estimate.

But "it's only a guideline" doesn't justify a huge price discrepancy between goods and services bought by a PC and an NPC, when all other factors are equal. PCs can be extremely poor. NPCs can be extremely rich. Your own preconceptions about 45 pounds of metal aside, my characters do not have "PC" stamped on their foreheads, and should not be charged many times the [current, DM-adjusted, locally supportable] market price for items solely on their PC status.

See above as to why, under many circumstances PCs will be treated differently. Also, if your going to compaire the books price system to RL, what are you comparing it too? Roman, Russian 5th century, Mezo-American, Scots medieval, Southern France Medieval? It's a massively complex idea.

If I said I was an NPC, would your NPC be able to prove otherwise? Either sort of character can be high level or low level; either sort of character can have loads of money and magic items. The terms "PC" and "NPC" are totally meaningless within the game, and should not be used in a conscious decision making process by either sort of character.

I agree to a point. However the game is about PCs, so maintaining NPC relations doesn't require a very complex system.

With very few exceptions, and those on a very small scale: No, I do not want to get into that level of detail. Too much work for the DM, given that most of it wouldn't be much fun for the players. But there is middle ground here. It is possible to use a reasonable set of prices in the game, and allow for some variation in those prices, without requiring that complex game mechanics be used to simulate each potential economic influence.

In fact I believe you just said that yourself...

Yes, I did. I think however that what we're talking about is two different concepts of what "reasonable set of prices" in the game is.

To me, the prices are whack when compared to almost any historical period. Well, that's because their prices a for a fantasy world. In fact, the prices weren't designed to function independant of PC interaction, they were designed to function as a means of PC interaction with the environment in a number of ways.

However, they are the baseline for communication of value within the game system, and a lot of other aspects of the system are designed around those prices (PC expected wealth which translates into PC expect magic which translated into PC expected personal power which translates into Challange ratings).

I'm glad you got MMS:WE, i appreciate it. I'm doubly glad you're just as nerdy as me and I'm enjoying the conversation.

joe b.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

What I want is something like "And a 1- ft. pole" that I can download for free!

There was a list of random extraneous goods, with prices that I once had a link to, but I lost it. I don't think it was an alternative to the PHB prices though. It was more of a supplementary list.

 

[Damon Griffin]

The fact that they've never seen me before or that my accent is different means nothing whatsoever.

It does mean quite a lot. You either
1.have enough money to support yourself independant of the land
2. you have enough land elsewhere to be separate from it
or
3. you have a business that you can be absent from.

Strangeness, if not coupled with only itinerant work clothes means you have a lot of fiscal resources.

Let me flip to television for a moment: Kwai Chang Caine ("Kung Fu"), Dr. David Banner ("The Incredible Hulk"), and Dr. Richard Kimble ("The Fugitive") could all be described as PCs. Those characters were each the stars of their own TV series; they certainly were not background or supporting characters.

On a more or less weekly basis, they moved from town to town or city to city encountering NPCs. These NPCs did not make a habit of saying "Aha! Here's a rich stranger that I can make a lot of money off of!" Anyone who'd tried that would have been disappointed, because Caine, Banner and Kimble never had any significant amount of money. All three itinerants lived below the poverty level most of the time, taking temorpary postitions and doing odd jobs in order to get just enough money for food, lodging and transportation to the next locale.

None of them had a business he could afford to be absent from; none of them owned enough land elsewhere to be separate from it; none of them had enough money to support himself in a very comfortable fashion independent of the land.

Lest you be put off by the fact that all three are modern (even Caine, compared to anything remotely Medieval), consider the ordinary tinker or wandering minstrel (a simple entertainer, as distinct from the Bard class). Tinkers are generally expected to live not far above the subsistence level. Why then would the residents of every town they enter suppose them to be rich? "Oh, aye, it's one o' them rich tinkers come to call. Best raise the price of the stew, mother, and send our Kate to fetch a couple of eggs. Should be worth a couple of gold pieces, easy, wi' a gent like this."

Prices for items will vary depending upon which market you go to in just one city alone.

This much I agree with. The practice of haggling and the absence of enforced price regulation will mean that you and I may not pay the same price for a given item, even if we buy identical goods from the same merchant on the same day. The PHB price list should merely indicate an average or typical price for the goods and services listed, but there is a reasonable limit to how much those prices can vary, and on what factors the variance can be based on.

An itinerant minstrel (NPC Commoner or Expert) may look much like a low-level PC Bard to any casual observer. That observer has no visual basis for charging the minstrel 2cp for grain and charging the Bard 2sp for the same grain. Yes, the minstrel may get a better skill roll when bargaining for the grain, or the Bard may happen to come by during a season when grain is in very short supply and the price has been driven up.

It is even true that if the Bard is foolish enough to go to the market in his finest clothes, jiggling a heavy bag of coins as he shops, the shopkeeper has very little incentive to let the Bard haggle his way down to a decent price. But even this is based on how much money the Bard is revealing himself to have, not simply on his status as a PC or the shopkeeper's mistaken assumption that all strangers have loads of cash.

Regarding vegetables that cost 10 at Market A and 12 at Market B, no problem. The thing I've been going on about all day is the vegetables that cost 12 at Market B if you're a local NPC, and 125 at Market B if you're a visiting PC, no matter how you are dressed, what equipment you have on you, how much cash you actually have on hand, what level you are or how well you haggle.

To we moderns, that may seem ridicules... a 20% increase for a 1/4 mile distance?

Yeah, transportation costs can be shocking. This is from memory, but didn't MMS:WE give the cost of stone as doubling for every 12 miles it was hauled? All the more reason not to charge the PC vastly more than the NPC would have to pay for the same material. If he had to pay merely double the NPC's cost for goods and services (that is, twice the base price for the stone, and quadrupling the price every 12 miles instead of merely doubling it), and the PC and NPC both hauled their stone 60 miles, the NPC would pay 32x (where 'x' is the base cost of the stone) and the PC would pay 2048x!

Also the concept of "reasonable profit" as your using it there, doesn't exist. Thats utterly modern.

The concept of government regulated profit is modern. Modern economics includes analysis and modeling of some very old practices, and 'reasonable profit' may be one of them. I don't base my purchases solely on whether or not I can afford to pay for an item, I also base them on whether or not I think a fair price is being charged by the seller, and this has nothing to do with government regulations, modern economic theory or anything of the sort. It's the purely subjective determination any potential buyer might make.

Do I have enough money to buy this thing? Yes, but it seems high anyway.

Can I buy it elsewhere for less money? Possibly, but right now there is no way to be sure; walk away now and you may not have another chance.

Decision: No, it just costs too much money, I'm going to have to pass unless he brings the price down.

Modern day example: Ebay seller offering a DVD with the unaired pilot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, plus two of the aired episodes, for $25 plus shipping.

Can I pay for it? Sure, I spend that much on game books all the time.

Can I buy it elsewhere for less? Maybe, but all the ones I've seen on Ebay are either from this seller, or at least are going for the same price. The prices may not be dropping any time soon.

Decision: It's obvious this guy is mass producing these things in his basement, and it can't be costing him much to do that. I really think $15 would be a more reasonable price for the effort he's probably putting into this product. Until the price comes down to $15, I'll pass. (But meantime, a few clueless bidders offer $30, $40, even $50 to get a copy.)

The only reasonable profit is that amount that the buyer is willing to pay while at the same time the seller is willing to sell. This amount varies based upon social standing, wealth, community status, and haggleing skills.

Yup, it does. It does not, however, vary based on "PC or NPC", character class, level, alignment, hit points, saving throws or any other game mechanic that should be invisible, transparent or otherwise meaningless to characters within the game.

I agree to a point. However the game is about PCs, so maintaining NPC relations doesn't require a very complex system.

In the musical "1776", there's a bit of dialogue between Rutledge of South Carolina and Jefferson of Virginia, where Rutledge claims their black slaves are not people, they are property; Jefferson responds "No, sir, they are people who are being TREATED as property."

I think I could make the argument that NPCs are characters who are being treated as window dressing, or as game mechanics. Within the game, there should be no way of telling a PC from an NPC. Rules should not be devised to take advantage of a distinction that neither group should be aware of.

If nothing else, your "automatic inflation for PCs" notion should require the inclusion of two separate price lists (or a single list that notes 'multiply all costs by a factor of 10 for the PCs' or some such thing.) I'm not ready to accept all of your arguments on price inflation for PCs, mainly because I am unwilling, as yet, to grant that your NPCs will always have a sufficiently good justification for charging my PCs the listed prices. But even if I did accept that, it remains true that the listed prices cannot apply to everyone, and it will sometimes be useful to know what prices apply to everyone else. If you want to apply a double standard, at least show both ends of that standard.

I'm glad you got MMS:WE, i appreciate it. I'm doubly glad you're just as nerdy as me and I'm enjoying the conversation.

Hey, I don't think your NPC knows enough about me to make that characterization. Do I have 'nerdy' stamped on my forehead? Do I... oh, uh, never mind.