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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Turanil" data-source="post: 2040681" data-attributes="member: 9646">Reading the thread <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=120948" target="_blank">Let's talk about money</a> incites me to bring this subject on the board.As a DM, I have for years (shame on me!) described treasure typically like this: -- You find a chest with 500 gp. [SARCASM] Note how convenient for the chest to hold exactly this round number, and how easy for the PC to determine it's exactly 500, no more, no less, in just a glance. [/SARCASM]-- You find three gems of 250, 300, and 450 gp. [SARCASM] Note how these gems conveniently transform in said amount of gold pieces at the end of the adventure, just because a player pronounced the magic words: "we sell these gems to a merchant". [/SARCASM]During my last campaign I amended my awful DMing ways: -- You find a chest full of coins, most of them seem to be gold coins. Player: "How many?"; DM "It will take a couple of hours counting them all..." then later: "You counted 78 coppers, 253 silver coins, and 347 gold pieces. Of the latter you find that 138 are ancient dwarven crowns that weigh 1.5 times as much as current standard gold pieces. You believe you better not show them any dwarf, for they may suspect you of having plundered a dwarven tomb, which is indeed the case..." -- The PCs had found several gems. However, since none of them had ranks in Appraise, they couldn't fathom their value, and didn't know that there is only a potential value with me... Nonetheless, they meet with a travelling merchant in an inn (wasn't in a city). The merchant was (conveniently) dealing in jewelry, so was willing to buy them, but only for the amount of gold he was carrying, so he couldn't buy the biggest gem for that reason only. We roleplayed the discussion between the PC and merchant. As a DM I made a few rolls for the merchant: each gem had its own Appraise DC and potential value (he failed one), and also a Sense Motive and Bluff checks. The merchant decided it would be wiser not to lie about the price to those dangerous looking guys, and prefered to be vague (Bluff): "Well, to tell you the truth, I can probably get 600 to 800 gp out of them (true) in the capital where I go (opposite direction from where PC went, hehe...), but this is not sure, as I heard rumors of war (merchant's invention) and it may well dissuade anyone to spend money in jewelry. In any case, I won't be able to sell them as is, and thus will have to have them mounted on some nice platinum bracelet or what not, that will take some time and investment (not entirely true). As such, you may understand that I don't want to pay full price for them, only 300 gp..." Of course merchant was trying to influence the PC to sell him at this low price because how difficult he wanted to persuade him it would be to sell the gems by himself, if he ever wanted to go the capital (unlikely).In the end, the PC was so scared that the merchant was maybe trying to scam him (PC failed Sense Motive), that he declined to sell. Next campaign, I intend to improve (i.e.: make more difficult) selling gems:-- So, the PCs finally learn that two jewellers in this city could be interested in buying gems. However, it happens that the PCs just go together to the first jeweller, and want to enter his shop. Seeing blood-stained big warriors clad in rags (who ever said healing spells work on clothes too?), the merchant nearly dies of a heart attack, believing to be victim of a robbery attempt from dangerous brigands. If the PCs insist to tell him they mean no harm, they need some appropriate Diplomacy checks. Anyway, he directs them to the second jeweller, a tough dwarf that can stand the view of a bloody sword. This one will probably operate like the merchant depicted above, but for the biggest gem he only knows to whom sell it in the next city. Either the PCs accompany him here, or he sells them the information (of the potential customer). In any case, this operates as a plot device to bring the PCs into new adventures.So, how about you?</blockquote>

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