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Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8507960" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>Interestingly, in a game where there's no retry penalty, I don't see why you wouldn't keep retrying at least until you get a 20 and verify that you are incapable of passing this obstacle as is. Also, if you've ever tried to learn to pick a lock, quite often it's really just a matter of time. Spending 70 seconds on a lock is really not much. This is also exactly why there's a rule in the DMG that says that if the PCs take the time, they get through. Unless this is off the table, I don't really understand why it wouldn't be leveraged in these cases. "Okay, keep a watch, and I'll spend a few minutes working on the lock."</p><p></p><p>As someone that has tripped for no particular reason while walking across an empty floor, I roll to disbelieve! No, we don't ask for checks for these things because we estimate the failure chance is far lower than our check resolution and so default to not asking because asking creates farce. It's not actually 0%, it's just way, way lower than 5%.</p><p></p><p>I managed a hobby shop. You only got a discount if your purchase did us a favor, too. Being charming wouldn't, because bills had to be paid and people like to eat. And by did us a favor usually bulk was sufficient, and I mean number of items, not price. Hobbies are expensive, and I had quite a few things in the store priced out over $1000 individually. You weren't getting a discount there, either, because margin was razor thin on those items. Our typical margin for an R/C car, which sold from $299 to around $700, was about 5%. So on a $400 dollar sale of an R/C car, we'd make about $20. The margin on a $50 dollar charger (for electric R/C) was 40%, so we'd make $20 on that as well. So, if you came in, put a $400 dollar R/C car on the counter with a charger and then asked for a free battery (which sold for around $20), you were asking me to half my profit on the deal. The answer to this was always no.</p><p></p><p>If you called me up and said "hey, I want to get 4 matching R/C cars for my 4 kids, can you do anything for me?" Well, that answer was going to be yes, because I'd be willing to take a loss on those cars (reasonably) because of the other things I'm going to sell with them to make up the difference. If I took $100 bucks off of that sale of 4 cars, then I'd be eating a $20 loss -- no profit. But I'd also be selling 4 chargers and 4 batteries, so I'll make that back, the customer would be pleased they got a deal, and when the kids broke the cars that customer would come back to me to get parts -- at a 40% margin.</p><p></p><p>That store is closed now. The owner (still a good friend) shut it down a few years back because Amazon was selling the majority of his stock for a lower price than he could get it for from the distributors. No amount of service compensates for that. And Amazon is doing that because of bulk purchases and running super thin margins. When you deal in a few cars a week, you have to have a certain margin. When you deal in 100s to 1,000s, you can make a tidy profit on extremely thin margins, especially when you can negotiate for bulk discounts from the manufacturer.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, if I'm a potion peddler, losing 20% of the sale price to any Tom, Dick, or Harry with a winning smile that walks in the door and wants a potion - which you can't get just anywhere. This is what comes from treating the NPCs as having no agendas of their own.</p><p></p><p>I find it interesting the odd ideas people have about jobs they've never done and what expectations they have of other people doing those jobs.</p><p></p><p>No one. You presented it as if it was a problem. If it's not a problem, why present it as one? I already covered the cases where it's not a problem for me because I simply don't care about it in those games.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8507960, member: 16814"] Interestingly, in a game where there's no retry penalty, I don't see why you wouldn't keep retrying at least until you get a 20 and verify that you are incapable of passing this obstacle as is. Also, if you've ever tried to learn to pick a lock, quite often it's really just a matter of time. Spending 70 seconds on a lock is really not much. This is also exactly why there's a rule in the DMG that says that if the PCs take the time, they get through. Unless this is off the table, I don't really understand why it wouldn't be leveraged in these cases. "Okay, keep a watch, and I'll spend a few minutes working on the lock." As someone that has tripped for no particular reason while walking across an empty floor, I roll to disbelieve! No, we don't ask for checks for these things because we estimate the failure chance is far lower than our check resolution and so default to not asking because asking creates farce. It's not actually 0%, it's just way, way lower than 5%. I managed a hobby shop. You only got a discount if your purchase did us a favor, too. Being charming wouldn't, because bills had to be paid and people like to eat. And by did us a favor usually bulk was sufficient, and I mean number of items, not price. Hobbies are expensive, and I had quite a few things in the store priced out over $1000 individually. You weren't getting a discount there, either, because margin was razor thin on those items. Our typical margin for an R/C car, which sold from $299 to around $700, was about 5%. So on a $400 dollar sale of an R/C car, we'd make about $20. The margin on a $50 dollar charger (for electric R/C) was 40%, so we'd make $20 on that as well. So, if you came in, put a $400 dollar R/C car on the counter with a charger and then asked for a free battery (which sold for around $20), you were asking me to half my profit on the deal. The answer to this was always no. If you called me up and said "hey, I want to get 4 matching R/C cars for my 4 kids, can you do anything for me?" Well, that answer was going to be yes, because I'd be willing to take a loss on those cars (reasonably) because of the other things I'm going to sell with them to make up the difference. If I took $100 bucks off of that sale of 4 cars, then I'd be eating a $20 loss -- no profit. But I'd also be selling 4 chargers and 4 batteries, so I'll make that back, the customer would be pleased they got a deal, and when the kids broke the cars that customer would come back to me to get parts -- at a 40% margin. That store is closed now. The owner (still a good friend) shut it down a few years back because Amazon was selling the majority of his stock for a lower price than he could get it for from the distributors. No amount of service compensates for that. And Amazon is doing that because of bulk purchases and running super thin margins. When you deal in a few cars a week, you have to have a certain margin. When you deal in 100s to 1,000s, you can make a tidy profit on extremely thin margins, especially when you can negotiate for bulk discounts from the manufacturer. Meanwhile, if I'm a potion peddler, losing 20% of the sale price to any Tom, Dick, or Harry with a winning smile that walks in the door and wants a potion - which you can't get just anywhere. This is what comes from treating the NPCs as having no agendas of their own. I find it interesting the odd ideas people have about jobs they've never done and what expectations they have of other people doing those jobs. No one. You presented it as if it was a problem. If it's not a problem, why present it as one? I already covered the cases where it's not a problem for me because I simply don't care about it in those games. [/QUOTE]
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