How to do commercial transactions with smart players

[GWJ]

Hey, I have a problems with commercial transactions from Social Engineering.

when PC is making offer or counteroffer, he just offer very low price and graduallmak it until he find "lowest price merchant will accept".

Something like this:
(Lowest acceptable price from table is 120):
- 60.
-Don't be riddiculous.
- 70
- still too small price
- 80
- nope
- 90?
- sir, I must eat something
- ok, 100
- no
- 110
- too little still
- 120
- ehh damn, ok give me 120, take your armor and leave me alone.

And this is template for almost all transactions.

Agencja they are selling there is opposite template: asking for very high price and gradually lowering it until reaching highest price buyer iż willing to pay.

Another problem is PC who knows fair price of Item and just calculate reaction roll result, thus know also this lowest/highest prices.

IMO approach like this makes all this mechanics working wrong

[Celjabba]

A few ideas :

-Each proposal should take +- 15 minutes of small talk, a drink of tea or something, ...
The player that want one item will be okay, if he want to purchase a whole inventory, he may speed up the process.

-Lower the reaction roll category (or penalizes the reaction rolls) after too many outrageous / denied requests.

-Raise the lowest price by a small amount for each "No". Twice that for each "now, that's insulting" past the first.

-Slightly Randomize the prices.

[Gnaskar]

Are we reading the same mechanics? Social Engineering p. 26 (with the "table" being a list on page 75)?

In which case, it should actually go more like this:
(Object is worth $120)
Player: I'll buy this object for $60.
GM: Rolls a reaction roll in secret, at -5 for offering half the object's value. Gets a 6 (11-5), for a Bad reaction.
Seller: Absolutely not. I won't sell for a penny less than $240.
Player: No way, it's only worth half that.
Seller: If you're not buying, get out of my store.

Or, if the setting routinely uses Haggling (which is what it sounds like the player is doing):
(Object is worth $120)
Player: I'll buy this object for $60.
GM: Rolls a reaction roll in secret, at -5 for offering half the object's value. Gets a 6 (11-5), for a Bad reaction.
Seller: Absolutely not. I give you it for $240.
Player: $70.
GM: Roll a quick contest of Merchant.
Seller: Succeeds by 4.
Player: Success by 2.
Merchant: $232.
Player (OOC): F*** this. It's going to take forever, and going to end up being more expensive for me anyway.
Player: Fine, $120, then?
GM: Roll a quick contest of Merchant. You're the one who decided to insult the guy by offering half the fair price.
Player: Alright. Success by 3.
Seller: Succeeds by 4.
Seller: $177. *Evil Grin*

With a Bad initial reaction from the ridiculous offer, the best the player can hope for is meeting the merchant halfway (at $150). If the professional merchant is better at the Merchant skill than the player (and that's usually going to be the case), then he's going to have to expect to pay even more than that (on average $9 more per level of difference in effective skill). If he instead had offered $120 from the beginning, the merchant would have accepted the price.

[korbeau]

I like the Gnaskar suggestion.

My contribution to the talk:

If transactions is a good part of your campaign (indeed, you use Social Engineering), I'll go with a "fighting style" rule.
I'll adapt HP with IQ for having a "Bargain Point", incorporate Gullibility, Low Empathy and the like.
Identify some "fighting" skill like Merchant and Fast-Talk.
Dodging argument with skill/2 + 3 (skill like Merchant, Fast-Talk, Accounting..)
Let players Roleplay argument, giving -3 to +3 if good or bad arguments... or repetitive technique (like "Ask High and lower gradually", default Merchant - 3)
Having fun incorporate Streetwise, Accounting or other helpful skill.
If you like grappling technique, maybe using some psychology for doing pressure on the customer (or merchant) by putting a "psychologic grip" on him.

When the merchant or customer reach 0 Bargain Point, the transaction is over. The winner can ask 10% more for the item (of reduce the price to 10%).

[GWJ]

Oh, you're right, I was totally forgot about modifiers for too low/high offer :)

Oh, korbeau, it's very fun method! I'll certsinly use this if I will GMing campaign with event more bargaining :)

[GWJ]

Originally Posted by Gnaskar

Are we reading the same mechanics? Social Engineering p. 26 (with the "table" being a list on page 75)?

In which case, it should actually go more like this:
(Object is worth $120)
Player: I'll buy this object for $60.
GM: Rolls a reaction roll in secret, at -5 for offering half the object's value. Gets a 6 (11-5), for a Bad reaction.
Seller: Absolutely not. I won't sell for a penny less than $240.
Player: No way, it's only worth half that.
Seller: If you're not buying, get out of my store.

.

But what about COUNTEROFFERS?

If they make a counteroffer, refer
to Commercial Transaction Results to find out if it’s acceptable
to the seller, based on the same reaction roll.

In this case player knowing fair price (even approximate, with big prices) can calculate what reaction roll he has from merchant, and he knows lowest/highest price. And there is no another roll, he came just offer this price, and make merchant's offer just cosmetical

[Gnaskar]

Originally Posted by GWJ

But what about COUNTEROFFERS?

If the players ask the storekeeper for an offer, the only information they have is what the book says the item is worth and what the storekeeper says he'll sell it for.

If the reaction roll went badly, the merchant offers a price higher than the item is worth (according to the book), and won't accept any offer lower than the book value of the item. That's fine, since that's exactly why that is the book value of the item in the first place.

If the reaction roll went well, the merchant offers the book value of the item. The players now don't know if they rolled Neutral (in which case the merchant won't go lower at all) or Excellent, in which case they can offer half the price and still get the item.

They can make one counter offer. If the seller refuses it, the commercial transaction is over ("If the seller refuses an offer or counteroffer from the PCs, the transaction doesn’t take place."). If the players make a new offer after that, move on to the Haggling rules. The Merchant drops his offer by 20% or 10% of the difference in the two prices, whichever is less drastic.

Example 1:
Players roll a Neutral Reaction. The Merchant won't go below $120.
Merchant: $120
Player: $60
Merchant: $120, take it or leave it. (The Merchant will never go below his best offer)

Example 2:
Players roll a Very Good Reaction. The Merchant won't go below $96.
Merchant: $120
Player: $60
Merchant: $114 (down 10% of the difference)
Player: $70
And then comes the opposed Merchant rolls. Since the players raised their price by $10 this phase, the merchant will reduce his price by $10+/- the difference between the two Merchant rolls. If the players are good at Merchant, they may well be able to get the item for $96, but a single bad roll can mean paying more for it.

[ericthered]

This is a result of a player trying to leverage his superior merchant skill over the GM's. This is not good role playing. This is meta-gaming. If a player tries to do this, step back and say "No, we're going to resolve this through a roll and take that number. If you want to play it out, we can do so AFTER the roll, and we'll be haggling to that specific number".

This isn't to say that truly original and clever ideas shouldn't be ignored. If the player wants to instead turn the haggling into "Look, there is an army on the frontier, and they are starving. Starving! If we don't get this load of wheat to them in the next 4 days, we won't have an army to protect us from the invasion. So get off your high horse and sacrifice with the rest of us!", or some other tactic, that's fine, and it should give you a bonus. But simply being more stubborn doesn't add to the game, and as a GM it is your right to set the terms of engagement.

[GWJ]

Originally Posted by Gnaskar

If the players ask the storekeeper for an offer, the only information they have is what the book says the item is worth and what the storekeeper says he'll sell it for.

If the reaction roll went badly, the merchant offers a price higher than the item is worth (according to the book), and won't accept any offer lower than the book value of the item. That's fine, since that's exactly why that is the book value of the item in the first place.

If the reaction roll went well, the merchant offers the book value of the item. The players now don't know if they rolled Neutral (in which case the merchant won't go lower at all) or Excellent, in which case they can offer half the price and still get the item.

They can make one counter offer. If the seller refuses it, the commercial transaction is over ("If the seller refuses an offer or counteroffer from the PCs, the transaction doesn’t take place."). If the players make a new offer after that, move on to the Haggling rules. The Merchant drops his offer by 20% or 10% of the difference in the two prices, whichever is less drastic.

Example 1:
Players roll a Neutral Reaction. The Merchant won't go below $120.
Merchant: $120
Player: $60
Merchant: $120, take it or leave it. (The Merchant will never go below his best offer)

Example 2:
Players roll a Very Good Reaction. The Merchant won't go below $96.
Merchant: $120
Player: $60
Merchant: $114 (down 10% of the difference)
Player: $70
And then comes the opposed Merchant rolls. Since the players raised their price by $10 this phase, the merchant will reduce his price by $10+/- the difference between the two Merchant rolls. If the players are good at Merchant, they may well be able to get the item for $96, but a single bad roll can mean paying more for it.

I know that, but what about with something like:
(Item worth 120, Bad reaction roll)
M: 240
P: (hmmm it's more than fair price but not as much as triple fair price. So he'll accept full fair). 120 maybe?
M: ok
GM: you fu**ing munchkin...

Oh, and there is something on the end of example (with pistols) of transactions. PC is offering lower than fair price because fear of don't making transaction at all. It seems to mechanics suggesting aproach like this?:
M: 240
P: 119
M: GTFO from my shop you beggar, I will not sell you this
P: ok ok I'll pay even 500!
M: Guards! Take this man outside!

[A Ladder]

I don't own social engineering, so take this with that in mind.

You could always go the lazy GM route: All list prices are what PCs pay for. If they want to bargain for the price they must roll a QC of their Merchant with your NPC's Merchant skill. If PCs win they get 10% off, if the merchant wins the PCs pay 10% more. Critical failures/successes make these 20% instead.