Selling items : illogical rule ?

[GnomeWorks]

Hm, I think it would require quite a systems overhaul.

Not such a bad thing.

First you would have to determine what the layout of said world was and how dense population is and how good transportation is.

Hmm... that's a bit complex.

Think it would be possible to determine this on a regional basis? Say we have a small city, and we have a vague idea of the geography around it. Could you figure out the economy for that area (handwaving trade and such), then - when the party goes to another region of the world - figure those things out for that part of the world, then map them together somehow?

In other worlds - could you make the system modular enough so that it could support figuring out smaller regions, rather than having to go top-down?

Then how common adventurers are.

I don't really see the relevance of that concern.

Then you would have to determine the relative prices of goods and services so people can actually get what they need to survive at a reasonable price.

Prices would be based off of availability of materials and skill, right?

So something made by an apprentice blacksmith would be of lesser value than something made by a master blacksmith?

Similarly, with materials, if iron is common, iron things will be cheaper, and if its rarer, iron things will be more expensive.

So prices of items should fluctuate based on those two things, right? Think that would decently model an economy, without getting too absurd?

Once you get essential commodities down, then you need to key non-essential luxury goods off those.

Examples?

 

[Grabuto138]

Collectable items are worth money new, or used. And you know what? People collect all sorts of oddball stuff. Go look at eBay. My father spots this crap at garage sales and such all the time. $0.50 can turn into hundreds of dollars.

The 20% rule is based on the cost to make something. So if it costs $0.10 to make some doohickey that retails for $2, than you get 20% of $0.10, not 20% of $2.00. And that is just stupid.

I think the 20% is really an aggragate. Maybe if you role play it out you may get 10% of the value of an item since it is "so last season" or "no one buys Halberds anymore; these days its all about Voulges." Later you may 40% on "particularly fabulous bedazzled magic sweater." Assume it works out to 20%.

Like collectibles, you make alot less if you sell them to a dealer rather than going to a convention or putting them up for auction. If you take the lazy way out you get 20%. If you want to sell it directly it is a SKILL CHALLENGE and you get whatever the DM decides you get.

20% = dump it quick and drive on.
>20% = Skill Challenge

Make sense?

 

[Kraydak]

Collectable items are worth money new, or used. And you know what? People collect all sorts of oddball stuff. Go look at eBay. My father spots this crap at garage sales and such all the time. $0.50 can turn into hundreds of dollars.

Collectibles=luxury items. The value of a collectible is non-obvious: information is important for appraising them.
Magic items=interchangeable tools (one +1 flaming longsword is the same as the next) that are the difference between life and death. The value is fairly obvious (because they are tools).
Slightly different pricing schemes apply.

(for a RW comparison: Ferrari=luxury, low-end sedan=tool)

 

[DLichen]

@Gnomeworks

Right, so in that example, to get the price of a platemail, you have to determine how common iron is in the region, if local iron mines have been taken over by the goblins or not, how many skilled crafters there are competing for the same market, how big said market is, etc. Then you have to think of the effects of competing materials, ie, how common is iron platemail if dwarven smiths are cranking out adamantium platemail at vastly reduced cost.

A rural agri world would be different from a dwarven nation from a Eberron style steampunk from high magic.

The whole thing is very ambitious, and I think a bit beyond the scope of D&D which is already highly abstracted and decidedly not a worldsim.

If a system has rules for economic styles of each world you can think up, I would imagine it to be either pretty bloated or abstracted to absurdity.

 

[darkrose50]

The definition of "supply and demand" is neither the definition for supply nor the definition for demand.

In a feudalistic society finding folks with money would be easy. This is your target audience to sell stuff to. Now you just need to find out who likes your crap, and you are golden. This is not hard to do it you are in the crap industry.

Transactions costs. Do you understand them? "the Marble encrusted toilet" is not an aberration of supply and demand, but a factor of it. It has a low supply because its expensive to create. This low supply means that no one will be willing to sell one unless they get a lot of money for it.

I am saying selling a marble jewel encrusted toilet would be the exception to the rule. Selling a jewel encrusted ring would be the rule. The rule feels like everything is a marble jewel encrusted toilet.

Good. Now figure out what demand is. You stated that "people who have money will demand expensive stuff" and it is not true. Stuff is expensive because either supply is low or demand is high. In the case of magic items its because supply is low and transaction costs high.

I happen to be a person who is in the top 17% of the wealth in America. I also drive a Toyota Corolla, live in a small home, do not own a cell phone, and shop at Aldi. I understand people who do not buy crap exist. I am one of them. However those with money drive demand for high cost items. Those people are easy to spot in a feudalistic economy. Finding out who is buying magical armor and weapons in such a small percentage of the population is not out of the reach of anyone who gives it a try.

A Pawn Shop. The only place to go when you want to sell anything fast.

But one can use eBay, and get the cash fast. I have done it.

A video game store. Used games are often way way way worse than 20%.

But one can use eBay, and get video games cheap and fast. I have done it.

Ever sold a car to a used car salesman? Every seen how they get those cars?

I make salesmen cry, or storm away. Really.

1. There is no presumption of this. There is only the presumption of the presumption because the person making the presumption hasn't a clue what he is talking about.

2. It is. That is why its not assumed. It is simply assumed that the amount of people who want these magic items is very low compared to the amount of cost it takes to produce them.

3. Really? And how do you know other heroic individuals. Isn't that up to your DM?

4. They can, its a skill challenge. And it takes time, you don't just look up a table and get it over with. Which you cannot accept.

It is really clear in black and white that one can only sell goods for 20% of there crafting cost. One could certainly house rule it so that it could be otherwise and use a skill challenge. However, doing so could imbalance the treasure package system by giving one character too much wealth . . . I would be fine with that, but it would break the system none the less. I would be fine with a 1st level character with 10,000 gold.

That you do not know the difference between politics and economics. Political systems are systems by which public decisions are made. Economics is a study of how people make decisions.

Politics is a system to force what decisions can be made. Just like religion.

So what you are saying is that you want it to be a skill challenge and you want to role play it?

I do it all the time. Make a roll, and role-play the result.

No, it ruins it for people who want to break the game to get stuff they would otherwise have by playing the system. But they ruin it for everyone else so frankly i don't care if they get their fun spoiled.

If you care about playing the game to be a crafter or to be a merchant then expect to role play being a crafter and merchant. Its a role playing game that is what you do. Just as you do not start a combat then look up on a table for who has the best combination to win and then skip right to the end (you meet some goblins, lose 2 healing surges, and one encounter power, but you defeat them and gain 100 gold and a +1 dagger) you do not gloss over someone wanting to be a merchant or crafter. If you want to gloss over it then you get your money fast and you get 20% of the market price.

It keeps you from ruining the game.

Don’t tell me how to play.

In my legends of the five rings game I play a hero, who kicks ass with the sword, and has an astronomically high craft sword skill. His swords can sell for a lot of Koku, and he has a lot of Koku. A whole lot. He is no more important to the story, and is no more powerful in the story than the other characters are. He buys his wife, and children expensive things on his travels, and outfits whoever wants to be outfitted in the party.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Right, so in that example, to get the price of a platemail, you have to determine how common iron is in the region, if local iron mines have been taken over by the goblins or not, how many skilled crafters there are competing for the same market, how big said market is, etc. Then you have to think of the effects of competing materials, ie, how common is iron platemail if dwarven smiths are cranking out adamantium platemail at vastly reduced cost.

But I don't know if all those are necessary things to figure out, and even if they were that important, the implications would be easy enough to figure out.

Iron mine got snatched by gobbos? Might as well not even bother using that mine in economic calculations, then.

Competition, though... that sounds like it would be an important one. I imagine that would be relatively easy to figure out, though... figure out population of a city, figure out percentage of that population with the ability and means to sell the item in question...

I can see how this would get complex rather quickly.

A rural agri world would be different from a dwarven nation from a Eberron style steampunk from high magic.

Which is good!

The whole thing is very ambitious, and I think a bit beyond the scope of D&D which is already highly abstracted and decidedly not a worldsim.

I'm done with D&D as it is. Working on a homebrew system, so the whole "this gets out of the realm of what D&D does" thing doesn't bother me one bit.

If a system has rules for economic styles of each world you can think up, I would imagine it to be either pretty bloated or abstracted to absurdity.

Nah. There's got to be a level in there where it's abstract enough to be useful, but still sensical.

 

[Goumindong]

Collectibles=luxury items. The value of a collectible is non-obvious: information is important for appraising them.
Magic items=interchangeable tools (one +1 flaming longsword is the same as the next) that are the difference between life and death. The value is fairly obvious (because they are tools).
Slightly different pricing schemes apply.

(for a RW comparison: Ferrari=luxury, low-end sedan=tool)

Uhhh, you realize that your "comparison" is hurting your argument. There is a limited number of +1 swords out there and you might not get the one you want. Just as there are a limited number of Ferrari.

A Ferrari will get you to the grocery store faster, but its still a car. The +1 sword will hit enemies harder, but its still a sword.

Swords might be commodities, but magic swords are not.

Your entire argument hinges on defining magic items in a way they are not as well as ignoring transaction costs. You can't ignore transaction costs.

 

[Grabuto138]

Collectibles=luxury items. The value of a collectible is non-obvious: information is important for appraising them.
Magic items=interchangeable tools (one +1 flaming longsword is the same as the next) that are the difference between life and death. The value is fairly obvious (because they are tools).
Slightly different pricing schemes apply.

(for a RW comparison: Ferrari=luxury, low-end sedan=tool)

I am sorry but I do not buy this premise. I'd think that adventurers and soldiers who lived long enough to be able to afford magic would be a fraction of an already small market. Most buyers would be collectors or wealthy people making vanity purchases.

Also, to reference your much earlier post, I do not think that people who view magic items as tools would be inclined to purchase them used from shifty, homeless, adventurer types. Since their lives depend on these items they would be more likely to buy them from a reputable merchant who has a reputation at stake. They would buy them at 100% from the person who bought it from your character at 20%.

Were high-end soldiering my trade I would not buy used body armor. And I wouldn’t buy my H&K MP5 from a wandering South African mercenary. I would happily pay full retail since it is so important.

For adventures who consider magic items tools it is unlikely that the specific tool they need to accommodate their specific skills and tactics are available on the secondary market. They would likely have them made by a trusted associate or mage for hire. Even if the item was available, they would probably not trust their lives and a ton of money on the honesty of a bunch of adventurers, who even if well-intentioned may not fully know or understand they item they are selling. They would go to a merchant they trust.

Finally, the value of the item is not interchangeable since the market is so small. The price of the Wand +3 may be astronomical since there are currently two powerful Warlocks looking for a wand. Once these guys get their wands the price would drop dramatically. To reference your earlier machine tool example, a propriety set of machine tools would be worth a fortune if one of a few potential purchasers were looking to buy one. They would be worthless otherwise.

Much of this is moot, however, in the context of the Skill Challenge. You can find the Warlock who wants the wand, or the company looking for the machine tools. You just have to role play it out. Otherwise you dump it for 20%

 

[Goumindong]

In a feudalistic society finding folks with money would be easy. This is your target audience to sell stuff to. Now you just need to find out who likes your crap, and you are golden. This is not hard to do it you are in the crap industry.

And if you don't have the crap that they want? And if there aren't many of them? And if they're unavailable? And if they won't hear random adventurers coming to sell them just because?

I am saying selling a marble jewel encrusted toilet would be the exception to the rule. Selling a jewel encrusted ring would be the rule. The rule feels like everything is a marble jewel encrusted toilet.

And I am saying its not, and anyone who knows anything about economics will tell you its not, and its not for very specific reasons and its cost is high and volume low for very specific reasons.

I happen to be a person who is in the top 17% of the wealth in America. I also drive a Toyota Corolla, live in a small home, do not own a cell phone, and shop at Aldi. I understand people who do not buy crap exist. I am one of them. However those with money drive demand for high cost items. Those people are easy to spot in a feudalistic economy. Finding out who is buying magical armor and weapons in such a small percentage of the population is not out of the reach of anyone who gives it a try.

I don't think you "get" economics. Seriously, go read a text book.

But one can use eBay, and get the cash fast. I have done it.


But one can use eBay, and get video games cheap and fast. I have done it.

How long does Ebay take? And what costs do you incur from using it?

How long does a brick and motar take? And what costs do you incur from using them?

I make salesmen cry, or storm away. Really.

And this is irrelevant.


Ill get to the rest later, i am busy atm.

 

[coldpheasant]

I'm trying to visualize this portal-hopping trade society ^_^.

A wealthy merchant in Latham hires a dozen sturdy porters to carry armfuls of magic item goods up the twisting passages of a wizard's tower to the "portal room". The wizard stops what he was doing, takes the fifty gold for the ritual, does his 10-minute dance to open a linked portal to the temple of Kord in Azazuma and holds the portal open long enough for all of the porters to hurry through it... The group then walks several miles from the temple of Kord to the local market, they dump all the goods off on another merchant and hussle back to the temple of Kord where they flag down a priest and pay another 50g. The priest does his little dance and the group piles through the portal back to Latham.

This really wouldn't work in the default campaign world.

Here's the meat of the issue: It is not possible to create a stable economic system that is realistic, because economics are not stable. Prices fluctuate based on the laws of supply and demand. Availability fluctuates. Demand fluctuates. One region of a world will have extremely different rates for the same goods and services. Look at the world we live in! For the price of a tiny apartment in New York, you could have a mansion and several servants in India. A realistic economic system would be varied and unstable and entirely dependent on the details of the world that it is set in.

In the default environment, components for making magic items are rare, the skill in creating magical items is rare, and already-created magical items are rare. There is no magic-item emporium with a shelf full of "+4 flaming bastard sword- $19.95" But just because supply is low does not mean demand is high! Demand is not high for items of such luxury. Demand is only high in a very small fringe market... wealthy individuals with lots of money and skills that make use of highly specialized tools.

The clergy are not all "clerics" that rampage around killing goblins. Most of them actually work in a temple and have no adventurer class. They spend gold building temples and shrines and upgrading those temples and feeding the poor and whatnot.

The nobles are building walls and fortifications. They have few great fighters to equip with overpriced equipment. The nobles themselves and their high-ranking officers might spend some hard-earned cash on a special weapon with magical properties... but no noble is going to spend tons of gold on magical equipment for his barely-trained scrubs that might get ambushed by goblins during a patrol. That would be a pretty bad investment, seeing how it ultimately results in your enemy walking around with YOUR flaming greatswords.

Most folks don't need constant upgrades to their magic items either. The nobleman doesn't ever need a new magic bow because the one that his father gave him is already magical. It's been in the family for generations, and it never seems to miss. The nobleman isn't constantly gaining new levels, so is not therefore constantly upgrading his tools.

Finding a buyer for a specific magic item is not easy, but if you can find a buyer then you can make a lot of money. Why would a PC sit in a shop all day trying to pawn the lvl 3 magic item he found when he could go explore more ancient ruins and find 20 times as many treasures during the time he would have wasted sitting in shop? The merchant is not capable of exploring that ruin and making that much money. The merchant IS capable of spending the time and effort to capitalize on a purchase. It is therefore much more cost effective for a PC to dump off a magic item for 20% cost if they can't use it. That 20% now is more useful to them then a potential 100% over the course of a year. As far as disenchanting is concerned, it works the same. When an item fails to turn over on the market, a merchant can break even by disenchanting it. The residuum can be easily sold because it has the potential to become anything.

Some items might be in higher demand. If the PCs know an NPC that might especially be able to use a specific item that they find or if they meet such an NPC before they sell the item off, then there is no reason they would be unable to get full price for selling the item or even more than full price or slightly less than full price depending on the circumstances. The rules cover the basic system for selling to merchants. They make as much sense as any economic system, and they are balanced for PC power.