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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wolv0rine" data-source="post: 2527916" data-attributes="member: 9045">Who says anyone's paying him to cast spells?  Who says he wants anyone to pay him to cast spells?  Maybe those prices are to keep all buy the richest people from asking him to cast spells for them.  I an't think of many examples off-hand, but I have the impression that it used to be assumed that the wizard living near town wanted to be left alone, not open a market stall. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Maybe he has a handsome nest egg set aside from his adventuring days, maybe he makes a decent living from the fees he charges to apprentice someone, maybe he patrons/mentors/finances an adventuring group or four with minor magics (spells, items), information, whatnot in exchange for a percentage of their take?I know the larger point is D&D economics, but every time the topic comes up people seem to always want to view it the way WE view economics and mercantilism in the moden day, with supply and demand counterbalancing each other (in theory) and set prices and all that.  I think the wizard example is a good one, because maybe the wizard doesn't care about making 'mad dinars' or whatever, maybe he has other goals.  Maybe the nearby hamlet leaves baskets of food and jugs of milk near his tower in the hopes that the mysterious wizard won't blast the town to ash, or make their cows birth four-headed club footed calves, or whatever they think wizards do.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Personally it seems to me that prices (and we must admit that the very structure of the game requires set listed prices for us as gamers to have something to work with) should be mutable.  List prices should be a base recommendation in a good-sized town or city - lower in smaller communities, higher in bigger communities - as adjusted for mitigating factors.  Do I know you?  No?  Then my prices rise by..oh...  10% today.  Are you Enrique the radish farmer's wife bringing in radishes like you do everyday?  Then we have an understanding that if you slide me a small basket of radishes, my prices drop by say 35%, both because I like radishes and because I know you.  Did you just ride into town with eight large chests dripping with huge gold doubloons bearing markings I've never seen before, AND flub your diplomacy check to barter?  Hehehe..  my prices just jumped 250%.  Hey, don't point that sword at me mister, I'm the only merchant in town that stocks his stuff, and if you don't like my prices maybe you'd like to know how hard it is to get a supply of this stuff to this po-dunk little village, eh?  Wanna hire on to guard my caravan shipments?  No?  Then pay my price.(Okay sorry, got carried away there with the merchant-point-of-view text)</blockquote>

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