Selling items : illogical rule ?

[bardolph]

4e is three times less efficient from the PC's POV. Yes, that makes a huge difference. It takes NPC profit margins from acceptable to blatantly unfair, which causes RL social friction if enforced.

Just assume that not very many people actually WANT the things that the PCs are selling. I'm a simple village merchant: why do I want to buy 15 suits of kobold-sized leather armor, 25 short swords, 15 spears, bone masks, and an entire dungeon's worth of doors, hinges, tables, chairs, rugs, and whatnot?

The PCs are supposed to be making their cash from adventuring, not from playing merchant.

 

[Celebrim]

Keep in mind, though, that PCs are going to get filthy rich if you allow them [to act as merchants]...

That said, I like the rules as written. They encourage players to stick to their adventuring career, and not to become after-market merchants instead.

You failed your saving throw versus irony.

 

[Kraydak]

Just assume that not very many people actually WANT the things that the PCs are selling. I'm a simple village merchant: why do I want to buy 15 suits of kobold-sized leather armor, 25 short swords, 15 spears, bone masks, and an entire dungeon's worth of doors, hinges, tables, chairs, rugs, and whatnot?

The PCs are supposed to be making their cash from adventuring, not from playing merchant.

So you use the 3e community wealth limit rules (perhaps somewhat tweaked to avoid infinite chickens). Remember: adventurers are mobile, so for the above rationalization to work, there can't be any non-simple-villages.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Now along comes 4e, which very nearly destroys any desire to play the system as written.

This is where I disagree to a point. For me 4E destroys any desire to play it other than as written. I can accept the whole system just as it is, including the awesome economy. What I can't do is bring myself to waste time trying to tinker with the rules. To make 4E resemble anything that makes any common sense isn't worth the work. As long as you don't think too much about the actual game world it works just fine.

 

[The Little Raven]

To make 4E resemble anything that makes any common sense isn't worth the work. As long as you don't think too much about the actual game world it works just fine.

Rules for a game, not rules for a world simulation.

 

[James McMurray]

So you use the 3e community wealth limit rules (perhaps somewhat tweaked to avoid infinite chickens). Remember: adventurers are mobile, so for the above rationalization to work, there can't be any non-simple-villages.

Infinite chickens?

 

[Celebrim]

Rules for a game, not rules for a world simulation.

Yes, exactly.

For those of us that thought a role-playing game was intrisicly tied to world simulation, making 4e into a game which is a world simulation is too much effort to be worth it.

 

[DM_Blake]

It works for WoW. Why shouldn't it work for D&D?

I think these rules assume that the PCs are in the adventuring business and not the merchant business. The PCs simply don't have time to study markets and find appropriate buyers for their stuff, but virtually anyone with enough cash on hand will buy something for 20% of its retail value.

This may be true, but it opens the door for a niche market.

All it takes is for one NPC entrepreneur to realize that he can buy an item from PCs for 50% or 60% or maybe even 80% of its value, then march off to a metropolis and scout around for buyers, eventually sell the item for 100% of it's value and keep the profit.

This NPC becomes a broker of magic items, existing in the margins.

It's the exact same idea that stock brokerss, foreign exchange brokers, and even bankers earn their living in the real world.

With the economy being what it is, a few small, portable magic items could be worth a fortune. If this broker can earn even 25% of a few items' value (paid the PCs 75% of value, sold to the right buyer for 100%) every year, he can live like a king.

Even a game world where there are very few adventurers, there would likely be some enterprising NPC who will see this niche market as a vast potential to get rich.

Expand on that, and every Tom, Dick, or Harry who makes a living buying and selling anything - weapons, rugs, grain, gems, whatever - would be likely to expand into this niche market. What a great investment. Besides, investing a footlocker full of silver to buy a single +1 dagger that you can easily conceal under your robes until you find a buyer and earn your fat 25% return on investment, that right there might be incentive enough to give it a whirl.

Which all boils down to the impossibility of sustaining an extended market where anythign routinely sells for 1/5 of ifs real value.

Someone will fill that niche every time.

And that someone will be sniffing out the PCs. The players won't have to advertise or go looking for this guy; he'll be tracking them down like his very livelihood depends on it.

 

[FadedC]

Yes, exactly.

For those of us that thought a role-playing game was intrisicly tied to world simulation, making 4e into a game which is a world simulation is too much effort to be worth it.

Those of you who thought that RPGs are "intrisicly tied" to world simulation are now in fact learning that you are wrong because 4e is a RPG and it is not.

With that being said, plenty of people have come up with good reasons for why you would get so little gold trying to unload your excess items to a broker. There's nothing to prevent the DM from throwing in a buyer who is actually willing to pay market value on rare occasion, as long as the DM counts that against the treasure the party finds.

 

[Lareth]

Yes, exactly.

For those of us that thought a role-playing game was intrisicly tied to world simulation, making 4e into a game which is a world simulation is too much effort to be worth it.

Indeed. Moreover, the "Just Say Yes" rule requires that DMs think about things logically and use real-world examples and common sense when deciding what effects the PCs actions should have. When these common sense adjudications run crashing headlong into the rules you have a problem with your game system.

All game systems have problems of this nature, including every edition of D&D. I've always house-ruled the stuff I didn't like and I'll do the same here.

The difference is that this time we were explicitly promised a system that addressed those old issues, and we got one that works only if you re-define "role-playing game" to mean "a cross between Risk and Monopoly".

The game is a victim of its own marketing.