How do wandering merchants survive?

[Wolfwood2]

Because RL just wasn't as dark as a D&D world, never.

A D&D world is as dark as you want to make it. If you think it's too dark to work, then don't make it that dark!

 

[Jer]

"Should be" because it makes a better game or because it satisfies a narrative itch deep in your soul? I understand where you're coming from, I really do, but I also understand the frustration of players who simply want to convert their treasure to cash and get on with things they find more interesting. Taken too far, your method leads to PCs tossing magic daggers into trash heaps as a gesture of contempt. It's no longer worth the real player time effort for a small in game benefit.

"Should be" because, at my table, it makes a better game. YMMV, of course, but my campaigns tend towards the "super-collaborative" with my players - I don't tend to put magic items in their hands that they don't want, and I tend to try to tailor things to their own personal vision for the game and their characters (without making it easy on them, of course). So they don't tend to randomly get weird magic items they can't use. Selling a magic item only tends to come up when the item in question has actually outlived its usefulness for the group - which doesn't tend to happen until they've reached the point where traveling to the big city to find a buyer is a day trip instead of a major quest.

But you're right - I probably should have added an extra "in my game" or "at my table" in that sentence.

 

[Intense_Interest]

Merchants survive because 90% of the time their goods in no way are worth stealing by any super-powerful and/or organized group.

Merchants are usually shipping in Commodities or Products. Wheat for Iron Work, for example, or Cotton for Cloth.

Assuming that the Teleportation Ritual is limited in some way by weight or size AND has a flat fee for a use, most high-value low-weight items like Art, Gems, and Magic Items would be shipped via these means and would push out any of the bulk profit Commodities. 50lbs of diamonds is worth more than 50lb of grain.

Therefore for most merchants, they will never really have the magic items that would be worth stealing for a level 15 Dragon to add to his hoard, especially if there is a chance that a group of level 15 PCs might be in the caravan.

So for these merchants, magic items are a side-business at best. If Stupid Peasant #5 finds the Lost Sword of Sable the Strong in a field somewhere, you could buy it for what would be to him a tremendous cost (enough to buy better house and more land) but would only be not only 1% of what the actual worth is. Its likely that no one would know that he is shipping it so it is worth the risk of investment.

Now when you add PCs with their sale of magic items, why should he give even a realistic price for that sword? He already got an Artifact-level item for a pittance, why would he purchase at market price something like a +3 Poison dagger?

The major question isn't why Merchants survive. Its why they have items for sale in the wilderness for the PCs in question. A merchant would probably want to bring the items to a city where he could get a better price for it on average because of more demand, so if you want to end-around the competition you have to pay a major markup for it.

Now if they want a specific item, they will probably have to go to a city where items could be teleported back and forth, and then they would still pay a major markup because of the increased demand.

 

[JohnSnow]

The travel of merchants is governed by risk vs profit. Going into a risky area demands convoys and guards. Along with high prices for their goods! Lower risk promotes more merchants getting into the act and lower prices as they compete for business.

This.

In pre-modern times, merchants aren't fat, lazy bastards who sit around and count up their gold. Well, some of them might be, but they employ ship captains, or caravan commanders that are seasoned "adventurers."

In "the real world," the very word "adventurer" was coined by merchants. They were "merchant adventurers" like the Muscovy Trading Company, the Turkey/Levant Company, and even the East India Trading Company. Merchants funded exploration. They financed voyages of discovery. And they did all of this in search of goods that they could sell for a profit.

And what they did was perilous. People often died. But the rewards were worth the risk. Like the vikings who raided settlements in search of goods, merchants engaged in a hazardous activity for the promise of financial gain.

Your average travelling merchant is probably someone like Francis Drake or Indiana Jones. He's an adventurer himself, like the PCs. He just braves a totally different kind of danger than the PCs who go scratching through old dungeons.

People today generally have the "safe man's conception" of what constitutes "acceptable risk." In earlier times, striking out against long odds in the hopes of a big payoff was something people did. Some of those people died horrible deaths. The others became ridiculously successful.

If you don't think the risk is worth it - congratulations, you don't have the mindset of an adventurer or a merchant. You're more like the average town peasant, who thinks that sensible people should just "stay home and farm turnips, rather than go galivanting off to get yourself killed." In other words, you're Owen Lars, rather than Luke Skywalker or Han Solo.

And now you know why not every peasant is an adventurer. Most of them take one look at the risks involved and go "No thanks! I'd rather live a nice, long, quiet life." They don't die prematurely, but they never get rich and powerful either.

Fortune favors the bold.

 

[Vempyre]

The glaring ommission I see here is that in a PoL setting heroes are a rare commodity are are usually the players, therefore the objects they find or trade are an even rarer commodity.

If only 10 persons in a large area (a large country, say) have the strenght and gutso to go gather magical items, that wont support no magic shops or potion shops, and even less traveling merchants with magic items to sell.

 

[The Little Raven]

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?

The answer to both is one and the same, but comes in two parts: I don't know and I don't care.

Ignorance is bliss when the alternative is tedium.

 

[Intense_Interest]

The glaring ommission I see here is that in a PoL setting heroes are a rare commodity are are usually the players, therefore the objects they find or trade are an even rarer commodity.

If only 10 persons in a large area (a large country, say) have the strenght and gutso to go gather magical items, that wont support no magic shops or potion shops, and even less traveling merchants with magic items to sell.

However another assumption of the given PoL setting is that there was a major Empire that recently fell. The Empire would have created a surplus of magical items that are lost and hoarded away from the PoLs, therefore they are more easily found by the low-level adventures that could constitute items that are for trade within the setting.

Magic Items don't grow on trees, they are a Boom and Bust economy crafted by Empires to maintain their power. The fall of an empire and dimming into PoLs means that there is a surplus of Magic Items to be found and traded for people who would pay for them.

 

[Scribble]

And now you know why not every peasant is an adventurer. Most of them take one look at the risks involved and go "No thanks! I'd rather live a nice, long, quiet life." They don't die prematurely, but they never get rich and powerful either.

Fortune favors the bold.

AKA they ain't got Moxie. They're minions.

 

[Wormwood]

The answer to both is one and the same, but comes in two parts: I don't know and I don't care.

Ignorance is bliss when the alternative is tedium.

I just wanted to see that in bold.

 

[Serendipity]

I couldn't agree more. Mind you, I'm now idly considering a campaign model based on the PCs either running their own caravan or supporting one, thus getting them to travel. Hmmmmmmmmmm