Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
How do you buy and sell magic items?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Herpes Cineplex" data-source="post: 1985643" data-attributes="member: 16936"><p>Well, see, the flip side of that is the assumption that a character who owns an item which is rare and valuable to some people would ever prefer to sell it for less than it's worth...and that this assumption is apparently used by a lot of people to justify <em>always</em> making the sale price of a magic item half of its market value.</p><p></p><p>I can see it if it's a "I need the cash before sundown or Jabba the Kobold will send ten ogres to break my kneecaps" kind of situation. I can see it if it's a "I'm already richer than Croesus and I'm sick of lugging around this stupid Apparatus of Kwalish" thing. But, man, those are the fringe cases, not the default situation. (Unless, of course, the setting has magic stores or magic item bazaars, in which case I can see a healthy "used item" market springing up. Come to Crazy Akbar's New and Used Magic Emporium! We buy and trade!)</p><p></p><p>That's not usually how our games go, so we ignore the half-price rule, like I said. The GM knows what items the PCs are trying to sell. He knows where they're trying to sell it. He knows whether there could be anyone in that area who might be interested in buying that item. He also, perhaps more significantly, knows that he can get PCs to pay more than the market value for some items, knows how much money they're going to walk away with and what they're likely to spend it on, knows how much time the PCs are willing to take looking for buyers, and he knows how much actual game time he wants to spend dealing with selling items. There's no mystery there from the GM's perspective.</p><p></p><p>So if the party has an item they can't use and they're trying to unload it someplace where no one else would actually want it, what usually happens is the GM saying "You can't find anyone willing to pay what it's worth," thereby putting the ball back in the players' court. If <em>they</em> want to say that they slash the asking price in half to just try and get rid of it, it's their call. If they don't, they can keep carrying it around until they get someplace where a reasonable buyer might be found. Simple and easy, and it doesn't make players wonder why they're never finding anyone selling a bunch of barely-used +1 weapons for half-price, since lord knows they end up doing it every fourth game session. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p>--</p><p>but if you're happier the other way, that's your problem and not mine, right? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Herpes Cineplex, post: 1985643, member: 16936"] Well, see, the flip side of that is the assumption that a character who owns an item which is rare and valuable to some people would ever prefer to sell it for less than it's worth...and that this assumption is apparently used by a lot of people to justify [i]always[/i] making the sale price of a magic item half of its market value. I can see it if it's a "I need the cash before sundown or Jabba the Kobold will send ten ogres to break my kneecaps" kind of situation. I can see it if it's a "I'm already richer than Croesus and I'm sick of lugging around this stupid Apparatus of Kwalish" thing. But, man, those are the fringe cases, not the default situation. (Unless, of course, the setting has magic stores or magic item bazaars, in which case I can see a healthy "used item" market springing up. Come to Crazy Akbar's New and Used Magic Emporium! We buy and trade!) That's not usually how our games go, so we ignore the half-price rule, like I said. The GM knows what items the PCs are trying to sell. He knows where they're trying to sell it. He knows whether there could be anyone in that area who might be interested in buying that item. He also, perhaps more significantly, knows that he can get PCs to pay more than the market value for some items, knows how much money they're going to walk away with and what they're likely to spend it on, knows how much time the PCs are willing to take looking for buyers, and he knows how much actual game time he wants to spend dealing with selling items. There's no mystery there from the GM's perspective. So if the party has an item they can't use and they're trying to unload it someplace where no one else would actually want it, what usually happens is the GM saying "You can't find anyone willing to pay what it's worth," thereby putting the ball back in the players' court. If [i]they[/i] want to say that they slash the asking price in half to just try and get rid of it, it's their call. If they don't, they can keep carrying it around until they get someplace where a reasonable buyer might be found. Simple and easy, and it doesn't make players wonder why they're never finding anyone selling a bunch of barely-used +1 weapons for half-price, since lord knows they end up doing it every fourth game session. ;) -- but if you're happier the other way, that's your problem and not mine, right? ;) [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
How do you buy and sell magic items?
Top