How do wandering merchants survive?

[Scribble]

The risk is - what happens if a few of the PoL settlements along the road are taken out by the darkness? Your road stops, and you need to send soldiers or adventurers to "repair" the road. Or both. (But remember, soldiers are expensive, and you might prefer to keep them for your own safety...)

Exactly... And besides... if you don't send the soldiers you can use it as a chance to get that heavilly armed band of wandering psychopaths out of your town. They might even do it for the loot they take from the darkness... (also why is a cheesey rock band from a few years ago attacking a settlement in your D&D world??? )

 

[Silvergriffon]

Why is a merchant carrying a sack full of magic items safe to travel through the dangerous wilderness?


Because, he's got a sack full of magic items!

 

[Mirtek]

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. .

Making a profit requires charging the market price + the guards wages + X

How do all the small villages afford these prices?

Prices will be higher than in big cities,

and charged at the places where people have the least money

 

[rkanodia]

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

Not to mention, you can hire four times as many

 

[Harsgault]

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.

One thought I'd been tossing around with respect to PoL and merchants is molded into the storyline of the characters. They start off in a secluded town which almost never gets visits from merchants due to the dangers presented by various monster groups nearby. The adventurers first sessions involve seeking out those monster lairs/dungeons and defeating them and/or their leaders thusly reducing the threats along the old roads locally.

Once the neighboring communities learn of this, commerce sparks between them and our heroes are recognized for their efforts. Not only do new kinds of items become available, but they may even be given gifts as well as high status in the local community.

 

[Lacyon]

Making a profit requires charging the market price + the guards wages + X

How do all the small villages afford these prices?

By selling the merchant the things that they make in this village.

It is very typical for a product fetch a much higher price from the eventual consumer than what the publisher villager charges the distributor merchant.

 

[Scribble]

Making a profit requires charging the market price + the guards wages + X

How do all the small villages afford these prices?

Uhh they don't... The exert mentioned that most common gear can be had at the villages. it probably works the same way the old west worked.

The merchants who wander intoa village in the middle of nowhere dangerville isn't going to be selling multimillion... uhh gold piece works of art... He'll be selling nessesities, and maybe a few small luxury items... Probably in bad shape, or not trhe latest and greatest... Not a huge profit to be made, but anything is betetr then the nothing he'd get in a place that can afford better.

 

[mlund]

Don't underestimate Banditry either.

A "points of Light" setting just means that islands of civilization tend to be isolated. That doesn't mean that the dark places on the map are inhabited only by monsters. Uncivilized humanoid groups such as barbaric tribesmen or fugitive bandits often control the dark areas along trade routes.

The idea that bandits and barbarians are natural enemies of merchant caravans is only a half-truth. While these groups can pose a threat to travelers, they stand to obtain much greater profit through reaching an accord with merchants. Bandits regularly exact "protection money" from merchants that patronize "their" territory. Even xenophobic tribal groups welcome the outsider who trades goods they can not produce themselves. Making these sorts of arrangements can be quite profitable for a merchant and the uncivilized people. Making them exclusive also provides market security that neither rampant pillaging nor complete peace provides. Potential rivals find themselves ruined by the original merchant's uncivilized trading partners in short order, while the merchant returns regularly to let the uncivilized reap the benefits of civilization.

The Traveling Merchant in a Points of Light world is not some fat, helpless fop that needs to be rescued every fifteen seconds by the heroes. To the contrary, he is often the hub of trade on the borderlands and one of the most influential people in the region. A truly unscrupulous merchant might very well turn out to be your Heroic campaign's most memorable villain.

- Marty Lund

 

[Andor]

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

Bwa HA HA ha ha ha! That would be comedy gold.

"So do we have the job?"
"There is a physical exam."
"Really? What do we have to do?"
"Stand there while I punch you in the nose. If you live, the job is yours."
"..."

 

[loseth]

Making a profit requires charging the market price + the guards wages + X

How do all the small villages afford these prices?

and charged at the places where people have the least money

Villages don't pay with money; they pay with grain, and villages are the place where people have the most grain. In fact, grain production is what villages exist for. This grain, in turn, can be sold by the merchants who buy it from the villages for a very good price in towns, where little or no grain is produced. This is the way that civilisation has worked for almost its entire existence.