Need help with raw materials for trade.

[Lizard Lips]

My players just got ahold of a merchant ship, and rather than use it simply as transport to the next dungeon as I expected, they've decided to get into the merchant business. They want to purchase surplus items in one port and sell them in another where there is a demand for a higher price. Fine by me... but what "stuff" can they trade? What sorts of raw materials ere traded by ship during the Rennaissance/Age of Exploration?

 

[Leopold]

My players just got ahold of a merchant ship, and rather than use it simply as transport to the next dungeon as I expected, they've decided to get into the merchant business. They want to purchase surplus items in one port and sell them in another where there is a demand for a higher price. Fine by me... but what "stuff" can they trade? What sorts of raw materials ere traded by ship during the Rennaissance/Age of Exploration?

salt..the biggest commodity in the world was salt..it preserves meat and foods and there for sustains life in general making it a demanding product.

clothes, gold, jewels, herbs, spices, magic items, horses, etc. Anything one site wants that it doesn't have access to it locally.

Unless the pc's know another port and what they want and don't want they are going blind into this and could lose their shirt!

 

[Crothian]

First off do they havea liscense? Many cities and places require liscenses to keep track of honest merchants and to easily charge tariffs and other taxes. Without having proper conections set up and little knowledge of what to buy and where to sell they are baasically in a craps shot. Sure, there might be a rumor that a city two weeks from here needs a shipment of buttered toast (or other such odd item), but there could very well be a shipment already on its way from a different port.

However, my suggestion is get a hold of Aura's Realm Catalog from second edition. It has all sorts of items and costs for them.

 

[Buttercup]

Black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla beans, semi precious stones, fancy cloth such as silk, velvet and brocade, exotic animals, sugar cane or processed sugar, cocoa, coffee, tea, and indigo. Lots of other things, such as common foodstuffs would work as well, but probably wouldn't be as profitable.

 

[Lizard Lips]

How does trading gold even work? I understand explorers in our own world going off to South America and basically stealing gold from the natives. But how do you 'trade' gold and jewels? Aren't the only people likely to make money off precious stones and metals the owners of the mines?

 

[alsih2o]

slaves baby! port to port transport of manual labor can be very profittable AND lead to very interesting rebellions, alignment dillemas and human interest stories

 

[LostSoul]

Cool. I love it when Players take the reins of adventure, instead of waiting around in the bar for the DM to drop a hook that will lead them to the next dungeon.

There's a chart in the PHB, page 96, labelled Trade Goods. Use that as a base.

There's also Old One's economic system for D&D out there somewhere... here's the link:

trade system

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

How does trading gold even work? I understand explorers in our own world going off to South America and basically stealing gold from the natives. But how do you 'trade' gold and jewels? Aren't the only people likely to make money off precious stones and metals the owners of the mines?

Diamonds don't have 100gp printed on them. Someone offers to pay you in diamonds. You appraise and it looks to you like they are worth 90gp each. You go to the next port try to sell the diamonds. First person offers you 80gp each (you don't take that offer). The second person offers you 110gp each. you take that offer and have a 30gp profit on each diamond.