I remember one game where the party decided that they were in need of a crossbow but didn't have 35 gold pieces(gp) between them. In this case, one of the PCs took the money the party was able to produce and went to the local blacksmiths shop. Once there, the blacksmith revealed that he only had one crossbow left. He also told the PC that he had made several crossbows but they had sold off quickly and then went on to talk about how proud he was of his work on them.
The PC then tried to convince the dwarven blacksmith that the crossbow was of poor quality and that he should sell it to the PC for 20gp. Needless to say, this did not go over very well. As the game master had made exceedingly clear to the players, the dwarf was proud of his work and the crossbows had been selling off rather quickly. Because the crossbows had been already selling off quickly, the blacksmith had little reason to drop his price to make a fast deal. Furthermore, the PC had just insulted the blacksmith by suggesting that the crossbows were of poor quality. Negotiations went down hill from there, and before long, the blacksmith shouted the PC out of his shop. Watching this from across the table*, I was face palming. At times, it sounded like the PC was actually trying to negotiate the price upward.
A couple things that might have worked better in this situation: Since the dwarf was clearly proud of his work, the PC might have done well to spend some time complementing the dwarf's craftsmanship. Every craftsman likes to be appreciated, so what this accomplishes is it makes the blacksmith want to sell the crossbow to the PC, who will value it. Then, the PC can say with regret that they only have 20gp to spend on such a weapon.
“What elegant craftsmanship! I've seen designs like this in the cities, but they're usually more complicated and prone to jamming. Also, they have all these small parts that tend to break during the strain of battle. This looks much more reliable and I bet it would pack a punch. I would like to buy it but I can only afford to spend 20gp, which I know isn't very much.”
Bear in mind, according to D&D rules, the cost of making a 35gp crossbow is 17.5gp, so at that price the dwarf would turn a profit, though a very small one. Probably too small, seeing that we learned later that the dwarf had a son infected with lycanthropy. On the other hand, it might be a few weeks before the next customer comes by (selling fast is relative in a medieval setting). Say that the blacksmith says that, for the player, he'll drop the price to 30gp. The player then puts on a show of counting out every last copper that he has in his purse (at least the purse that's visible to the dwarf) and then asks if the blacksmith will settle for the amount he has put on the table between them. This goes to convince the dwarf that he's not going to get any more money out of the PC and that the PC really, really likes his work.
In haggling, each side has a minimum or maximum price which they are willing to settle for. If there is no overlap, no deal is possible. If there is an overlap, then the two participants try to settle on a price in that range while not letting on what their range actually is. Each side may have several sorts of advantages. For the buyer, an advantage might be being able to buy something similar elsewhere or being able to make do without the item. Advantages for the seller might be a lack of similar products available in the area or high demand meaning that their will be other customers that might pay a higher price. If the seller has the only copy of an item and knows that the buyer absolutely needs it, the seller can basically dictate the price. In some circumstances knowledge of the items might come into play. For instance, if the seller is a pawnshop owner and doesn't necessarily know that much about what he is selling or if the seller is trying to pretend something is worth more than it actually is, knowledge, or just plain skepticism on the part of the buyer could result in significantly lower prices. (In these cases, the tactics the PC above used might have worked.)
Here's another example of an RPG haggling fail. In this one I was game master. A PC was trying to sell off some loot that the party had come across in their adventures. One of the items was a damaged suit of plate mail, which an orc chief had been wearing. The armor was worth 1,500gp new. According to the rules of this particular game, it cost half the price of the armor to repair it. The rules also said that if you do something yourself, it cost half of what getting a craftsman to do it would. Now the player was looking at the rules for all this along with me and was a mathematics major to boot. He could have done the math on what the armor was worth just as easily as I could.
The PC went to an armor smith to try to sell the beat up armor. The armor smith complained that it smelled like an orc had died in it (one had) but also admitted that it had once been good steal. The armor smith offered the PC 200gp for it straight away.
Now, this armor is never going to be anything but second hand, so lets figure, fixed up, it could sell for 1,200gp. It takes 750gp to fix the armor but, since the smith will be doing it himself, it will actually only cost him 375gp. That gives the smith a margin of profit of 825gp minus whatever the PC charges him. Bear in mind, in D&D an unskilled laborer usually makes about 2-3gp a month. I figure that a skillful haggler could probably have gotten 700gp out of the smith. However, the player, having the same information I had, made a counter offer of 250gp. That was one happy smith.
In fairness, and I forget if I did this, I should have called for a wisdom or intelligence check right there to see if the character realized he was getting a terrible deal. If I didn't, sorry, but it's hard to think of everything while running a game. However, that particular character had a impressive tendency to fail wisdom checks, so it might not have made a difference. The character was described as a very old halfling, so we blamed it on senileness and failing eye sight.
So, why do I care about this? In addition to wanting to encourage better roleplaying and wanting players to be able to get a good deal on goods, consistently bad RPG haggling puts the game master in a difficult position. The game master can either give up and let the PCs succeed just to move things forward or just have the PCs constantly fail. In the former case, the game master rewards bad game play. In the latter case, the game master risks seeming like/feeling like an ass and it may hinder the process of a game if the PCs can't get the stuff they need, or get regularly kicked out of shops.
In summery, tips for improving your RPG haggling:
When buying:
Make the seller think you have little money and they are really working you over for a deal.Make the seller want to sell to you.
Think about how much the seller knows about the item in question. If you know more, you've got an advantage.
Make the seller think you can get a better deal than he/she is offering elsewhere.
Make the seller think that you could go without the item.
When selling:
Make the buyer think that you're really coming down on the price to give them a deal.
Make the buyer want this item and only this item. Tell them why it's the best or why they should buy it from you. Maybe you can bad mouth other sellers.
Think about how much the buyer knows about the item. If you know more, you might be able to sell the item for more than it's worth. (This may not be precisely moral, but it's an RPG; you are allowed and sometimes encouraged to be evil.)
Make the buyer think you can sell to someone else if they don't want it at the offered price.
Make the buyer think that you're reluctant to sell the item at all and might keep it for yourself.
Anyone else have a good RPG haggling story, either about success or comical failure? I know the same guy who did the elderly halfling mentioned above once sold someone an invisible magic book using mage hand. Feel free to leave a comment if you do.
* Or rather Internet connection, since that game was over Ventrilo.
I was playing a tricksy gnome, he was playing a druid. I decided that he needed to be a better druid, and helping him connect with the earth would be a great way to do that. Read: I stole his shoes when he was passed out and blamed it on the zombies in the dungeon.
ReplyDeleteAnytime he bought a new pair of shoes, they'd be *mysteriously* gone within a fortnight. Finally he went on a hunt for shoes that would stay on his feet. One shopkeeper *assured* him that the shoes he had were enchanted to never come off. I was there, and bid the price to just under his max gold pool. He spent all of his gold, bought the shoes, and of course I stole them in the night.
Lucky shopkeeper!
It is also important to actually know and understand the pricing rules. As the PC in the second example, I counter-offered 250gp because I thought the cost of repair was half the purchase cost, regardless of who does it. As in, I thought the smith was going to have to spend 750gp to repair the armor, not 375gp. As second-hand armor, this would have made his profit margin about what he was paying me.
ReplyDeleteIf that were the case, the smith would not make any money off of repairing adventures' armor. Hence, no smith would be willing to do repairs. :)
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