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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 4224917" data-attributes="member: 30001">Since when does anything have to be *exact* in order for one to legitimately question the 500% markup situation?  And since when do DnD characters in the average campaign have any of the social limitations of real life history?  I can arm myself in platemail and sword, go out and kill a bunch of monsters in a cave, and trudge back to town covered in blood with a big sack of coins and gems on my back - but then you're going to question the freedom of buying thing?  Doesn't it seem a little disjointed?  The whole thing strikes me as a meta-game rationalization for wanting to keep PCs from making money off of their magic items.  It would help if the historians on this thread would make an argument based on an appropriate analogy - unfortunately the bulk of trade prices that I've ever seen have been based on local commodities or monopolies where the analogies would be hard to defend.  As best as I can tell, the indignation that the "historians" on this thread are expressing is based on an over-generalization of the "nasty, brutish, and short" standard opinions about the *European* Medieval period.  I think that Islamic social history from the period would be a more accurate fit for the technology, literacy, social structures, etc. of a typical DnD game.  There seems to be plenty of indication that literate traders and "agriculturalists" (ie. overseers/bailiffs of manors) knew what their goods were worth - but somehow adventurers who can read and write are clueless?  Or somehow the victims of some weird solidarity amongst traders (since the DM plays all NPCs) who insist on making 8,000 gp profit on a 10,000 gp item but will turn up their noses at 5,000 gp?  But please explain more this thing about how these arguments get translated into your minds as "he wants DnD to work like the modern period".  AFAICT this is not based on very informative statements about *either* the Medieval or modern periods.</blockquote>

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