Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

Joe the Rat wrote:"It's worth whatever someone will pay for it."

If we get out of the modern mindset of "fixed" value, it's less of an issue. Treat every price as a rough median - art, gem, equipment, or poultry, and go from there. What will be offered for something will rather depend on the market.

Getting a good price for something can be an adventure hook all by itself.

(And they say reality TV rots the brain...)

Modern American mindset, practically every where else you go, you can/are expected to, negotiate a price on services/items.

The great art of bartering is lost upon the western world. Cash now or get out.

Fullmmetal515 wrote: Modern American mindset, practically every where else you go, you can/are expected to, negotiate a price on services/items.

Haggling is part of the fun! Over here though, things can get ugly if you haggle too much or change your mind after the seller agrees to your price.

Over here in lots of places the values are based on the buyer's look (specially how smart or wealthy he looks), and some items are marked with "suggested cost" so a same item can vary greatly in cost with just a few blocks of distance...

I remember watching TV at one point. The show was somewhere in Southern Asia. And this guy was selling the ability to let one bird go from his cage for about 2 dollars a bird. So the host of the show produces something like 200 dollars to let all the birds go. The birds go streaming out of the cage to freedom, leaving the seller with no birds. What does the seller do? Why he casually puts the empty cage away, brings out another cage with just as many birds and changes the sign to 5 dollars a bird. That my friends is capitalism at its finest.

I found a web app that creates towns with NPCs etc and it gives you what each store will buy and sell at compared to the actual value. So depending on where they go, they will get differing prices on the items they are buying and selling.

Would you be able/willing to share said app?

Here ya go...

It basically fleshes out a town..

http://www.mathemagician.net/town.html

Cool. I actually just stumbled across that site the other day. Definitely a keeper.

Blazeguard wrote:Solo, what sort of table/method do you use for your rolls?

I make it up as I go along. Seriously.

I decide how good the appraiser is, then roll to see if he or she correctly appraises the item. If the roll fails, I roll again, with a roll above 50% on the die raising the price an "increment" (whatever I think that is), or lowering it an "increment" otherwise.

So that's what the appraiser thinks it's worth. Next, I drop the price an "increment" (or two, if he's greedy or thinks the player characters are easy marks) and that's his offer. If they negotiate, I fall back on ordinary reaction rolls.