How do wandering merchants survive?

[jaer]

Yes, they would go where the money is: cities. I haven't gotten the impression that the default 4e setting has scads of adventurers running around. More like a few. Possibly just the PCs, depending on how you take some of it. That isn't a market. Thats the merchant being an idiot and risking death to find a couple of folks with ready spending money.

Wandering about and hoping that the next group of people you run into are adventurers with phat lewts rather than bandits isn't a business plan.


But honestly this thread probably ought to be merge with the general economy thread, since its the same discussion.

I got the impression that the magic items were the icing on the cake for the wandering merchant. They go to a city, load up on utility items and things that smaller towns might not be able to get readily, and they make their rounds. They plan to hit certain places knowing that Lakeside doesn't have any way to get ore, but has lots of fish; Maiden's Gaze is near a salt mine, but is lacking decent hunting grounds; and Lallis is located in a forest with plenty of wood supplies and great game, but they could are always in need of a good shipment of salt for curing meats and skins (which always sell well in the city whne he returns).

Making this run, the merchant has a variety of common items which could sell in any of the places (copper tea kettles, some books, kitchen utensils, a few weapons or armor) and he'll replenish this stock at any of the villages or citieis in which he can pick up such things, but has specific things he buys and sells to each of the places, which is what makes the route truely profitable. Perhaps he makes this route 3 times a year, and during one of those runs, he hits a fewer smaller, more far out villages who are always in need of what he is selling. So profitable is this run that he is able to afford a small guard. Should he happen to run across some adventures with magical items to sell, that is just the good fortune and a good deal of profit on his part, profit that was unexpected and uncalculated in his route (saving perhaps the occasional sale of potions or something, depending on how those turn out).

In my own game, I would definitely make it so any items (magic or otherwise) a merchant may have would be more expensive then if the same item was found in a city, and likewise make it so the traveling merchant wouldn't pay nearly as much for them as goods taken to the city and sold directly. That is the price of the convenience of having a traveling merchant coming around: he takes the risk, he pays for the guards, he makes the money.

 

[Serensius]

They are probably travelling with many bodyguards and usually only carry the high-demand things as well as less valuable assets with them. The REAL stuff (permanent magic items) are probably in a safehouse - and they usually tell adventures: "On my next trip, I'll bring it. Wait a few weeks."

Cheers, LT.

Quoted for TRUTH. Thank you. Everyone seems to be jumping up and saying "ZOMG! These merchants travel from town to town looking for adventurers, that breaks with the setting!!"
It doesn't! They're not here for the PCs: They make their profit from selling goods to villages that they otherwise can't get hold of. If they happen to run into adventurers who have valuable magic items to sell them, great, maybe they'll fetch a nice price when they go back to the big city. However, they're not travelling banks and can't (and won't) give them as much as much as he intends to sell it for. It really just makes perfect sense.

EDIT: Yeah, I realize the post above me pretty much says exactly the same as me. No, I'm not going to do anything about it.

 

[DeusExMachina]

EDIT: Yeah, I realize the post above me pretty much says exactly the same as me. No, I'm not going to do anything about it.

He, if redundancy was a reason not to post something most of these forums would be empty...

 

[Rykion]

For protection, merchants bribe and trade with the toughest intelligent monsters in the areas they travel. If an orc tribe rules an area, they bribe them with weapons or alcohol for safe passage. The merchants provide the local red dragon with art and buy the dragon's latest acquisitions of slightly charred adventuring gear. It will still be dangerous so they will need guards. Prices will be higher than in big cities, but adventurers who do a lot of business will probably get the best prices.

 

[Fiendish Dire Weasel]

Travelling merchants do so because they are an excellent GM tool.

If the GM want's players to be able to sell off their magic stuff easily, there happens to be a travelling merchant in town.

If the GM wants to give his players a few days of downtime, the travelling merchant should be by any day now.

If the GM doesn't want his players to sell, then the travelling merchant won't be there for weeks or isn't expected.

If the GM wants to push the players into a new adventure, the travelling merchant should have been in town already, but is late. Lets hope he didn't get delayed by those recent [orc/kobold/bandit/goblin/dragon/other country/guinea pig] attacks, the PCs should go check it out.

If the GM wants to move the PCs elsewhere, then the travelling merchant won't be around for some time, but they could go to the city.

If the GM wants a combination or these, the travelling merchant will show up in a few days late, after an attack and will buy and sell from the PCs at a discount if they help escort the travelling merchant to their next stop.

Sounds good to me. We've had to turn a blind eye to massive amounts of stuff in 3.0/3.5 this is not only easy to do, but it actually adds to the game.

 

[Mr Jack]

I imagine that they are maintained roads between important settlements, with reasonably regular patrols guarding them. These roads are fairly safe to travel, and the merchants ply their trade up and down them, occassionally venturing a bit further from the beaten track to smaller settlements.

 

[loseth]

Dangerous travel makes the travel less attractive to merchants, but it also makes the reward for travel much more attractive.

In real PoL settings, like the medieval Baltic, trade continued just as it had in non-PoL areas and times. Volume often went down, but not by nearly as much as the average person supposes. The medieval Baltic, for example, was a heavily forested constant-war-and-banditry zone, but it was also the hub of a thriving commercial region. Dangerous environments will not stop merchants; they will just force a different pattern of trade, i.e. larger, more heavily-armed caravans and higher-margin goods.

Let's put it into a practical example:

--The village of Hommlet produces an average surplus of grain that is worth about 1700gp when sold in the markets of Freeport. In the pre-PoL age, the lord of Hommlet is willing to trade this grain for 1500gp worth of luxuries and craft goods that the village is incapable of producing itself. So, the merchants making the Freeport-to-Hommlet grain run can expect about 200gp in gross trade profit, which is OK, because they only have to pay a few caravan guards.

--As the situation becomes more dangerous, however, fewer merchants are willing to make the Hommlet-Freeport grain run. As a result, the people of Hommlet get more and more desperate for the goods that the merchants bring. The lord of Hommlet offers to sell his grain for less and less in order to encourage the merchants to keep making the run.

--Eventually, the lord of Hommlet is so desperate that he's willing to trade his grain surplus for a measly 200gp worth of absolutely essential craft, building and military goods. Now, merchants making the Hommlet-Freeport grain run can expect a total gross trade profit of 1500gp (1700gp-200gp). Of course, they'll have to hire many more caravan guards than when the kingdom was safe, but since the trade route is now 7.5 times more valuable than it was, they can afford to do so. Instead of maybe 50gp worth of caravan guards (say, 10 guards), they'll hire more like 1000gp worth of guards (200 guards). Instead of many small caravans coming in throughout the summer and fall, Hommlet can now expect one or two very heavily armed caravans to make their way to the village each year. But the caravans will come—the high profits guarantee it.

Obviously, this system breaks down at some point. There will eventually be a point when travel is so dangerous that travel is not worth the risk no matter how good the profits are. But, I would argue that this level of danger is so high that what you will get is not PoL, but total annihilation. Once the danger level is high enough to routinely stop 200 heavily-armed professional soldiers from travelling, it’s high enough to wipe out every settlement in the region. In other words, specifying that a setting is PoL presupposes that the level of danger is high enough to make travel very risky, but not high enough to stop big, heavily-armed caravans.

 

[Starbuck_II]

Im pretty sure merchants IMC will institute a 'no minions as bodyguards' rule.

What they are cheap bodyguards and they can blockl a blow like anyone else. They just have glass jaws (and skeletons).

Jaer:

In my own game, I would definitely make it so any items (magic or otherwise) a merchant may have would be more expensive then if the same item was found in a city, and likewise make it so the traveling merchant wouldn't pay nearly as much for them as goods taken to the city and sold directly. That is the price of the convenience of having a traveling merchant coming around: he takes the risk, he pays for the guards, he makes the money.

They already said that merchants markup the prices (10 to 40%).

 

[Lizard]

First Edition Brain-breaker:What do all the monsters in the dungeon eat, in between adventurers?

Fourth Edition Brain-breaker:Who do wandering merchants buy and sell from, in between adventurers?

We've come so far. (Snif)

 

[roguerouge]

Wait, I haven't been following this 4e business very closely, but wasn't one of the purposes of the game to get rid of the XMas tree effect? Shouldn't the Wandering Merchants of WalMart be infrequent BECAUSE the game mechanics are supposed to make magic items rares again, rather than a necessity? (In short, I'm probably wrong on this, but isn't this supposed to be a 3e concern? Help me out here.)