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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 9325395" data-attributes="member: 6779196">It would absolutely be simpler, but it would also be less dynamic. The possibility of evaluating 5 Uncommon gems and getting “20 to 30” for one of them, “50 to 80” for another, “about 40” for another, “60 to 70” for another, and “you can’t tell” for another helps maintain the sense that there’s a broad range of potential values. If I just said “between 20 and 80” every time, it would be more transparent that they’re all just abstract units of value worth an average of 50gp instead of Jaspers, Moonstones, Quartzes, Zircons, and Carneleans. Plus, it creates more potential for discrepancy between the player’s initial appraisal and the actual offer they get for it, which in turn creates more potential for those feelings of “we got a great deal on that one” or “what a cheapskate” I brought up in the other post. All that is well worth rolling 2d4 a handful of times to me. That said, if another DM wanted to use a similar system but didn’t want to roll as many dice, they certainly could just name any price range within the 20-80gp bounds without rolling for it and it would still work fine.Well, personally, I don’t see rolling dice as particularly laborious. It takes a pretty minuscule amount of effort, really. Also, I should probably clarify that I don’t have like, a roster of potential buyers and roll a separate price for each of them or anything like that. When the players go into town and try to sell something, I’ll abstract the process of shopping it around and roll once to determine they highest offer the PCs were able to find in that particular town on that particular day. If they want to try to haggle with the buyer and succeed in a Charisma check, I’ll roll again and if the result is higher, they’re willing to go up to the new price; otherwise they either can’t or won’t pay more than their initial offer (essentially like advantage on the price roll). If the PC fails the check, the initial offer stands, or if they fail by 5 or more, the buyer will take offense and refuse to deal with the PCs further, so I roll a new price and decrease the new highest offer to the result if it’s lower, or keep the same highest offer otherwise (essentially disadvantage on the price roll).Yeah, this method definitely wouldn’t be for everyone.</blockquote>

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