Shop -Thread

[El Jefe]

I'd expect that there'd be a guard or two assigned to patrol just the Avenue of Merchants every market day from dawn to dusk.

 

[GnomeWorks]

I'd expect that there'd be a guard or two assigned to patrol just the Avenue of Merchants every market day from dawn to dusk.

That's definitely a possibility. However, I imagine most would-be thieves would know that, and wait until nightfall to do their thieving...

 

[Velmont]

Honestly, I would be interested to see the possibility of Stealing. And not even cat burglars, but also pickpockets, so it would make both day and night possible.

 

[Manzanita]

I like how this is developing. I've got a few points.

1. I don't see that purchases need to RPed. If someone wants to buy a wand of CLW, then let them do it. No need to play it all out.

2. Agreed that stealing should be prohibited except as part of an adventure. A theif could, for example, propose to steal from the shop, recruit a DM to supervise, and Velmont to play 'defense' and go for it. If so, we would need stats for guards and employees.

2. What's your vision with this RE: Rinaldo, Velmont? It seems the Trader PrC is largely focused on making money. There's nothing wrong with this, but how will we play it out? If Rinaldo's shop sells 100 gps of items, how much goes to Rinaldo? Do we assume standard 50% overhead for rent, maintenance, payroll, etc? Do you see Rinaldo becoming very rich? How do you plan to play out all his transactions. Potentially, his Trader PrC activities would reap almost unlimited profit. Would we need to recruit a judge specifically for market activites?

 

[azmodean]

1. In some cases (proprietor wants to sell an item for x gp) no RP would be necessary, but in others (haggling, item must be crafted, seller only wants to sell based on need) it would require interaction. Velmont may or may not wish to haggle with PC customers, but I know my crafter character will need to interact since all of the items will be custom-made. Personally, I would prefer to RP all shop interactions involving PCs, since they will be pretty few and far between anyway.

2. Total Agreement.

3. I think it was said that "minor" sales would be handled by the job system proposal. Overhead for the entire concept is met by the 500gp initial cost and perhaps worked into the minor sales profit margin. A salesman won't just be creating wealth in a significant way, since they have to acquire all major items through some other means. (though the trader prestiege class does allow means to widen the profit margins.)

 

[Velmont]

1. See Transaction below.

2. That's how I prefer the idea. It doesn't prevent to do it, so thieves can steal, but it will allow to keep some control over all that.

3. Rinaldo's goal is to become rich and at the head of the largest merchant house of magical items. That's the character's view of his futur. The player tell, sure, I want to be rich, but I don't want to become unbalance either.

If Rinaldo sells 100 gp worth of items, it will all goes into Rinaldo's pockets. The employee pays would be handle with the Job System, Leadership Feat and/or would be paid from Rinaldo's pocket. Now, any items that isn't includes in the usual items list must be bought or created by the player. So, if I want to sell a wand of CLW, I must create it or buy it. In the case of a level 5 Trader, he can buy it at 675 gp. He can, therfore, sell it at 725 gp for a net profit of 50 gp (and the player who bought it saved 25 gp).

Transaction would be done, or by roleplay, and thus, the customer could have a chance to bargain and have a lower price. If the customer doesn't want to roleplay, he can just buy it at the shown price.

I agree when you say I open a door to large and possibly abusive profits, but here two things we must consider. First, even in real world there is some people who does ridiculous profits (exemple: Bill Gates), second, how to delimit what is having a too large fortune. I mean, Rinaldo, at his third level, had the equipement value of a 5th level just because he had a hat of disguise and a extendable rod of immovibility (that worth over 9 500 gp), but I think having those two items, even for a 3rd level, is something unbalancing.

The possible most abusive way I see of all that, it is a Trader that buy stocks from players and sells to NPCs. Traders have a possibility to sell at 90% of the market price instead of 50%. So, the Trader could make up to 40% of the market value in his pocket for every items he buy from other palyers.

But the one last thing we must consider on that, it is that door is ALREADY open. Opening a shop is just a physical place in LEW, owned by a player to trade things. But that player can already do it in the RDI, as we can already trade items there.

So, let's resume myself:

- The shop just create a physical place in LEW where trades are made.
- Usuals items sellings are handle by the Job system (as soon as it is approved).
- Rare items selling are handle just as trading in the RDI, but in a different physical place in LEW.

Now, if abuse are made, a simple suggestion is: rich people are more likely target of thieves. So a judge could say your shop just lose X gold from a successfull break in or something like that.

 

[Bront]

Potential limits to abuse:

Store must have some sort of cash reserve, which is some multiple of the profits recieved per week. This simulates the store's ability to buy the initial stock or create the initial item. Obviously, this value will technicaly vary from day to day, but this is an abstraction, so it won't be perfect. This accomplishes a limiting factor by making sure that a rich merchant is constantly putting money back into his business, so while he may be very rich, he doesn't have access to all of it without sacrificing his profits.

Store profits accumulated while adventuring are inaccessable unless there is a reasonable ability to access them (IE, the adventure is in or very near Orussus or wherever the shop is placed).

Taxes, loss, and other overhead. You can assign a monthly or yearly tax/loss to a shop. This could either be a small percentage of profits made by the shop (Which the owner would have to keep track of), or could be a flat out fee, that may vary depending on the size of the shop. Or simply roll all the other things into one, but I like calling it a "Tax".

Shops may be of variable sizes. The 500 to buy the shop may only give you a shop that can buy/sell up to 2000 GP. It may cost you another 2000 to get a shop that lets you buy/sell up to 10000gp, ect. Again, this forces the player to invest his money, and is somewhat realistic in that the size of your shop limits it. If done with the taxes, this also helps allow for smaller shops to make money from PCs and NPCs and not be out priced by a larger shop, just out sold on pure transactional value.

Theft is an idea, and I like a PC organizing a robery of a PC's store, other than the fact that given the nature of the boards, it's technicaly easy to find out who did it, and does encourage PvP in some way. However, this may be a required risk merchants must run. It should be limited in some way though so that you don't get a shop war going (two competing shops constantly hiring people to rob the other one) and so a shop robery doesn't distroy a PC or make another PC exceedingly wealthy.

We should be carefull when trading. Joe charged 5%, and we don't want to create an atmosphere where Joe is being cercomvented simply because it's cheeper to trade elsewhere. Of course, given that we haven't had a large ammount of gear thrust upon people, it's hard to trade, as well, we also have issues because it is a rarity to have most people in the tavern at the same time, and therefore even able to trade.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Store must have some sort of cash reserve, which is some multiple of the profits recieved per week. This simulates the store's ability to buy the initial stock or create the initial item. Obviously, this value will technicaly vary from day to day, but this is an abstraction, so it won't be perfect. This accomplishes a limiting factor by making sure that a rich merchant is constantly putting money back into his business, so while he may be very rich, he doesn't have access to all of it without sacrificing his profits.

Store profits accumulated while adventuring are inaccessable unless there is a reasonable ability to access them (IE, the adventure is in or very near Orussus or wherever the shop is placed).

Both are good ideas.

Taxes, loss, and other overhead. You can assign a monthly or yearly tax/loss to a shop. This could either be a small percentage of profits made by the shop (Which the owner would have to keep track of), or could be a flat out fee, that may vary depending on the size of the shop. Or simply roll all the other things into one, but I like calling it a "Tax".

I like this idea.

Shops may be of variable sizes. The 500 to buy the shop may only give you a shop that can buy/sell up to 2000 GP. It may cost you another 2000 to get a shop that lets you buy/sell up to 10000gp, ect. Again, this forces the player to invest his money, and is somewhat realistic in that the size of your shop limits it. If done with the taxes, this also helps allow for smaller shops to make money from PCs and NPCs and not be out priced by a larger shop, just out sold on pure transactional value.

Another good idea.

Theft is an idea, and I like a PC organizing a robery of a PC's store, other than the fact that given the nature of the boards, it's technicaly easy to find out who did it, and does encourage PvP in some way. However, this may be a required risk merchants must run. It should be limited in some way though so that you don't get a shop war going (two competing shops constantly hiring people to rob the other one) and so a shop robery doesn't distroy a PC or make another PC exceedingly wealthy.

Hmm... could NPCs steal from a shop? For example, as a DM, if I have an NPC running around in Orussus, could he steal from a PC shop? If so, how would we handle that?

We should be carefull when trading. Joe charged 5%, and we don't want to create an atmosphere where Joe is being cercomvented simply because it's cheeper to trade elsewhere. Of course, given that we haven't had a large ammount of gear thrust upon people, it's hard to trade, as well, we also have issues because it is a rarity to have most people in the tavern at the same time, and therefore even able to trade.

Joe's main thing isn't trading items, though, so someone could undercut him. I don't see an issue with that, really.

 

[Velmont]

Bront suggestions are good, but I just don't want to see things getting to complicated. It must not gives an headache to Judges or players. Adding, some kind of permit, cash reserve or taxes could be a good way to have some control over potential abuse, but not all of these three. I don't know which one would be the best.

 

[azmodean]

Store must have some sort of cash reserve, which is some multiple of the profits recieved per week. This simulates the store's ability to buy the initial stock or create the initial item. Obviously, this value will technicaly vary from day to day, but this is an abstraction, so it won't be perfect. This accomplishes a limiting factor by making sure that a rich merchant is constantly putting money back into his business, so while he may be very rich, he doesn't have access to all of it without sacrificing his profits.

If this is the weekly profits then it sounds ok, but I don't think it should effect the sale or purchase of rare items. We don't want to make a storefront a less attractive option than just selling in the RDI. Also in my character's case this is handled by the item crafting rules.

Store profits accumulated while adventuring are inaccessable unless there is a reasonable ability to access them (IE, the adventure is in or very near Orussus or wherever the shop is placed).

Resonable and somewhat obvious even, but it does need to be explicitly stated.

Taxes, loss, and other overhead. You can assign a monthly or yearly tax/loss to a shop. This could either be a small percentage of profits made by the shop (Which the owner would have to keep track of), or could be a flat out fee, that may vary depending on the size of the shop. Or simply roll all the other things into one, but I like calling it a "Tax".

I was thinking this is already covered by the 500gp startup price. It's quite a bit of money which you aren't going to earn back quickly. (something like 10 weeks for the current job system proposal)

Shops may be of variable sizes. The 500 to buy the shop may only give you a shop that can buy/sell up to 2000 GP. It may cost you another 2000 to get a shop that lets you buy/sell up to 10000gp, ect. Again, this forces the player to invest his money, and is somewhat realistic in that the size of your shop limits it. If done with the taxes, this also helps allow for smaller shops to make money from PCs and NPCs and not be out priced by a larger shop, just out sold on pure transactional value.

Once again this is a limitation that does not exist for someone without a shop, so it would make it harder to do busness with a shop than without one. You can't buy anything worth over Xgp from a NPC, and having a shop doesn't change this. (I've seen 2,000gp and 20,000gp, don't know which is correct, doesn't really matter) Nothing regulates buying/selling between PCs, so there is no need to add it.

Theft is an idea, and I like a PC organizing a robery of a PC's store, other than the fact that given the nature of the boards, it's technicaly easy to find out who did it, and does encourage PvP in some way. However, this may be a required risk merchants must run. It should be limited in some way though so that you don't get a shop war going (two competing shops constantly hiring people to rob the other one) and so a shop robery doesn't distroy a PC or make another PC exceedingly wealthy.

I'm not really happy with the idea of theft from a shop, there are a few ways to run it, and I don't like any of them. It basically comes down to who is running the PCs.
1. Player runs shopkeeper, player runs thief
This is obviously out since it is PvP.
2. DM runs Shopkeeper, Player runs thief.
I personally would not agree to this since it borderline pvp and I lose control of my character and have to live with the consequences.
3. Player runs shopkeeper, DM runs thief.
This is potentially ok, but the player has no incentive to take part in it.
4. DM runs shopkeeper, DM runs thief.
Put this in for completeness, silly.

We should be carefull when trading. Joe charged 5%, and we don't want to create an atmosphere where Joe is being cercomvented simply because it's cheeper to trade elsewhere. Of course, given that we haven't had a large ammount of gear thrust upon people, it's hard to trade, as well, we also have issues because it is a rarity to have most people in the tavern at the same time, and therefore even able to trade.

Why not circumvent Joe? I don't understand how this is an issue. I see the 5% charge as an incentive to go do trading elsewhere, not a global tax on all trading.

I think the primary thing to consider here is that the shop itself doesn't create that much of an opportunity for making profit, it's just something nice from a rp point of view. At the best it saves the 5% fee from trading through Joe's board, which isn't that big of a deal.