D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by beaushinkle

Is the idea here that wealth is for the good of the group, darkvision is for the good of the group, invisibility is for the good of the group, a big beefy knight that hacks apart enemies is for the good of the group, and so all points spent in any of these ways are all just contributing to the common collective, and everyone should be equally happy that they're fulfilling their role? Nonsense.

Some of the stuff that contributes to common success is more fun than others. I'm not going to be able to give you a definition here, and it's 100% subjective.

Yes, it is.

If you have a player that wants to trade not-merchant-effectiveness for merchant-effectiveness, then I'm happy that DFRPG supports that for you. What I'm saying is that by including it in the game, a table full of not-merchants now feels like they have to draw short-sticks for who gets shoe-horned into spending points on merchant-stuff because it's absurdly rewarding.

I thought it was 100% subjective. Where does this prediction come from?

Obviously if you want to give out Wealth to all of the PCs, you can. If you want to reserve it for those who think it would be fun to have more wealth, you can stick to the rules in Adventurers. If you think you're qualified to predict what "100% subjective" judgments people you've never even met will arrive at...

Originally Posted by beaushinkle

In any case

• Module authors not providing misidentified item prices creates legwork for the GM
• The reddit thread I linked about buying/selling applies to DFRPG

#1 is not true in my experience. "You're not sure" is a valid answer.

#2 is not true in my judgment. DFRPG commerce has more structure and more decision-making opportunities than the interactions described in that thread.

[beaushinkle]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

I thought it was 100% subjective. Where does this prediction come from?

Feel free to apply your choice of bayesian or frequentist statistics

If you think you're qualified to predict what "100% subjective" judgments people you've never even met will arrive at...

Fun is 100% subjective, yes? And yet we have games of all kinds every year attempting to predict what folks will find fun. They attempt to create them by adding or removing mechanics based on subjective fun. I feel like this isn't a crazy concept. Yes, we're doing subjective stuff. Yes, we can try to do it "better" and discuss what that means. This conversation is wild.

#1 is not true in my experience. "You're not sure" is a valid answer.

This isn't RAW; you can't sell an item for $"you're not sure" to a shopkeeper. DFE73-74 says that when they misidentify an item you lie about the price. You can ignore that, of course, but that doesn't seem material to the discussion. When they take their $"you're not sure" item to the shopkeeper to sell it anyway, what does it sell for? Legwork.

#2 is not true in my judgment. DFRPG commerce has more structure and more decision-making opportunities than the interactions described in that thread.

Just to be clear, you're specifically referring to "for you a special price", wealth, and haggling? As in, the character spends character points to be able to get better prices on items, and thus the thread doesn't apply?

Out of curiosity, have you ever sold off a big batch of dungeon items in one go using RAW? Go to the store, roll reaction to see if your wealth level increases, roll haggling on every item (on 30+ items), keep a running tally somewhere of the wealth accumulated, then buy supplies, haggling on every item? I have. It was awful.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by beaushinkle

Feel free to apply your choice of bayesian or frequentist statistics

Okay, my Bayesian prior is that your estimate is probably (80% likely) wrong as a generalization, and probably (80% likely) right about your own table.

Just to be clear, you're specifically referring to "for you a special price", wealth, and haggling? As in, the character spends character points to be able to get better prices on items, and thus the thread doesn't apply?

I'm referring to a reddit thread which says that

For a part of the game that happens so frequently, I've found that every "shopping encounter" goes like this:

1. PCs arrive in a town with things to buy or sell.

2. Sometimes, the shop to sell a specific item isn't there, and it has to be done at another town, otherwise,

3. PCs go into a shop. Sometimes, there's a bit of roleplay as the DM describes the store and the quirky shopkeep, but usually this is just skipped as everyone wants to get it over with. Sometimes there will be a Charisma check to haggle for a specific item, but usually not.

4. Money is added or subtracted and said item is exchanged.

and observing that that's not a good description of commerce in DFRPG, which has more uncertainty, more opportunities for player choices to make a difference, an implication of a larger merchant ecosystem (abstracted into Wealth but still clearly implied), more bottlenecks on production, and more opportunities to customize the goods purchased.

Wealth, haggling, and "for you, a special price" are part of this additional richness but not all of it. E.g. armor customization rules on Adventurers pg 109-110 are a part of it; the implied network of contacts a Wealthy delver has is another part; Connoisseur/Hidden Lore/etc. rolls are part of it; the Special Orders rules on Adventurers page 112 are part of it; etc.

Compared to D&D 5E, DFRPG's commerce system is an order of magnitude more interesting.

Out of curiosity, have you ever sold off a big batch of dungeon items in one go using RAW? Go to the store, roll reaction to see if your wealth level increases, roll haggling on every item (on 30+ items), keep a running tally somewhere of the wealth accumulated, then buy supplies, haggling on every item? I have. It was awful.

Why would I stick to RAW if RAW is awful? Also, why would players haggle on every item if it's awful? Haggling is optional. Something is wrong with your players if they deliberately choose to do things they find awful.

It's equally RAW (for whatever "RAW" is worth) to get to the end of an adventure, tell the players they're back in town, roll a reaction, tell the player what it is, and have them cross off all the items they're selling, then tell them to compute their profits and email you a list of supplies they want to buy before the next session. If there's anything they want to haggle for, they can do that over email too, unless it's something valuable enough to drill down into the details (e.g. something that they want to haggle with Merchants for, decline a bad price if they roll poorly, and then try selling it on the black market) in which case it might be worth doing immediately or at the start of next session.

If you're spending table time doing things the awful way, stop it.

[beaushinkle]

and observing that that's not a good description of commerce in DFRPG, which has more uncertainty, more opportunities for player choices to make a difference, an implication of a larger merchant ecosystem (abstracted into Wealth but still clearly implied), more bottlenecks on production, and more opportunities to customize the goods purchased.

Wealth, haggling, and "for you, a special price" are part of this additional richness but not all of it. E.g. armor customization rules on Adventurers pg 109-110 are a part of it; the implied network of contacts a Wealthy delve has are another part; Connoisseur/Hidden Lore/etc. rolls are part of it; the Special Orders rules on Adventurers page 112 are part of it; etc.

Compared to D&D 5E, DFRPG's commerce system is an order of magnitude more interesting.

That reddit thread has 193 comments, spanning how dozens of systems handle shopping. If you read just the header, saw that the OP was bored with boring shopping, and then said "none of this is at all relevant, I won't read the comments, DFRPG's shopping is more interesting than what was described", then I don't know how to help.

Regardless, DFRPG shopping is still dry: at shopping time they're still buying stuff and selling stuff subject to additional mechanical complexity which may or may not be a value-add in terms of fun.

Note: shopping. Not creating shopping lists, or discovering stuff to sell, but the actual mechanical process of exchanging goods, services, and money for goods, services, and money once you've figured out what those are.

Pathfinder 2e, for example, has Common, Uncommon, and Rare items, and every town has a level, and every item has a level. For example Alchemist's Goggles. The 4th level version of Alchemist's goggles are commonly available in any town 4th level and above, wheras the 11th level version of the goggles would only be available in 11th level towns (almost nowhere). You can play that RAW and the system works.

They players know that if they want to find something Uncommon, they need venture out, or if they want to find something high level, they need to go to a Big City.

Armor customization puts constraints on what players can buy (if you care to specify that a shop has armor for a dwarf but not for a human) or wear (ah, this doesn't fit you, it was for a dwarf; so sell it).

The Connoisseur/Hidden Lore/etc rolls aren't really player facing: players ask how much things are worth and sometimes receive numbers that are smaller than they truly are.

Special Orders places constrains on buying things: some stuff isn't ready now, which makes the puzzle of "what do we want to buy first" more interesting, but not the actual act of buying more interesting.

I'm not trying to claim that DFRPG's overall economy isn't better than 5e's. It definitely is. PF2e's is also much, much better than 5e's.

Why would I stick to RAW if RAW is awful? Also, why would players haggle on every item if it's awful? Haggling is optional. Something is wrong with your players if they deliberately choose to do things they find awful.

It's equally RAW (for whatever "RAW" is worth) to get to the end of an adventure, tell the players they're back in town, roll a reaction, tell the player what it is, and have them cross off all the items they're selling, then tell them to compute their profits and email you a list of supplies they want to buy before the next session. If there's anything they want to haggle for, they can do that over email too.

If you're spending table time doing things the awful way, stop it.

You didn't answer my question. Have you ever sold off a big batch of dungeon items in one go using RAW?

Also, why would players haggle on every item if it's awful? Haggling is optional.

Because haggling is effective. Haggling earns them more money, and the money is spent on keeping them alive. Their characters would haggle, given how effective haggling is in the mechanics of the world, and so the players do it. Folks presumably don't enjoy cleaning toilets, but they do enjoy having a clean house, and so they clean the toilet. Likewise, the players don't enjoy haggling, but they do enjoy having more money and so they haggle.

If haggling simply wasn't an option, then they would not have to make the choice between doing something they hate but being financially rewarded, or avoiding something they hate but being relatively financially punished.

I understand that I can go in, remove wealth, remove haggling, and remove all of the relevant skills, but now I'm designing a system.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by beaushinkle

You didn't answer my question. Have you ever sold off a big batch of dungeon items in one go using RAW?

No. 3-5 valuable items is the norm for my players, not dozens.

Nor do I agree that mandatory haggling is RAW.

Because haggling is effective. Haggling earns them more money, and the money is spent on keeping them alive. Their characters would haggle, given how effective haggling is in the mechanics of the world, and so the players do it.

I know you read the Alexandrian so I know you're familiar with the need to design both what the characters do and how the players do it. If you insist on beating your head against a brick wall that's on you.

Folks presumably don't enjoy cleaning toilets, but they do enjoy having a clean house, and so they clean the toilet. Likewise, the players don't enjoy haggling, but they do enjoy having more money and so they haggle.

I know you know how to handle this without inflicting pain on yourself or the players and without loss of fidelity, so I'm not going to repeat the obvious.

If haggling simply wasn't an option, then they would not have to make the choice between doing something they hate but being financially rewarded, or avoiding something they hate but being relatively financially punished.

I understand that I can go in, remove wealth, remove haggling, and remove all of the relevant skills, but now I'm designing a system.

I know you know that's a false dichotomy.

[beaushinkle]

No. 3-5 valuable items is the norm for my players, not dozens.

Nor do I agree that mandatory haggling is RAW.

Thanks for answering - though I note that you've moved to goal post from "items" to "valuable items", and now you're somehow interpreting that I'm saying that haggling is mandatory.

I Smell A Rat p21-22 lists out the stuff they could find while clearing the dungeon. That list contains 31 items that you can feasibly sell, excluding 12 torches that sell for $3 each, since inflating the count to 43 to include those seems like bad faith.

Haggling isn't mandatory, you choose on each individual item whether or not to haggle. If you get 6 peshkali swords, then RAW you can choose to haggle over each one. It makes sense to me to haggle over the batch, but that isn't what the book says (the swords might be in different conditions, after all).

I know you read the Alexandrian so I know you're familiar with the need to design both what the characters do and how the players do it. If you insist on beating your head against a brick wall that's on you.

Are we talking about the same thing then? As in, if you're implying that the "how the players do it" of selling stuff is bad in DFRPG, that's also what I'm saying. I advocated, at the beginning when I originally linked the reddit post:

You can go shopping if be you want. The equipment list is on page 60 of the book. You can sell items up to 20gp value in this town. You have 5 mins. I'm going to the bathroom.

As in, we concede that the system math, magic system, genre tropes, etc all would imply the existence of stores selling items, potions, scrolls, and enchantments. So we have them in the game. But we also concede that the process of buying and selling at these shops, especially after decades of gaming is one of the most boring parts at-the-table, so we minimize it. The economy can be interesting even if buying and selling is dull. We can still use the shops for role-play scenes, plot hooks, etc.

I know you know how to handle this without inflicting pain on yourself or the players and without loss of fidelity, so I'm not going to repeat the obvious.

You asked me "why would you players do this" and I answered. They do this because it's perfectly reasonable for them to do so, in the same way that it's perfectly reasonable for people to clean toilets in real life.

Do you concede that under the situation I presented (my players don't want to haggle, but do so because haggling is an effective option) that it's not that "something is wrong with my players", it's that something is wrong with the situation they're in?

And yes, there are a number of ways to fix it; the simplest is to just say "hey I'm removing haggling as an option, feel free to re-allocate any points you spent on merchant if you'd like". This is me fixing the situation.

Similarly, I could just always auto-haggle for the players using a spreadsheet if they precommit to some sort of "when do I want to haggle" decision tree.

Auto-haggle with pre-commits now turns haggling into something that happens passively in the background akin to wealth. Spend X character points to sell items for Y% increased money with Z standard deviation. What are we gaining here?

This loops back to one player having to spend character points for the benefit of the party's wealth and my points about loot equity. If that player attempts to claim "well, we wouldn't have had this much wealth if I hadn't had been around to haggle, so I deserve a bigger cut", someone else can claim "well, we wouldn't have earned the wealth in the first place, if I didn't spot it in the alcove", and then "well, we wouldn't have made it to the alcove if I wasn't around to destroy that peshkali", and round and round we go.

If they decide that the person with merchant really does deserve a bigger cut, do the other players start buying points in merchant too and then jockeying to be the one who gets to sell the item? Yuck.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by beaushinkle

Do you concede that under the situation I presented (my players don't want to haggle, but do so because haggling is an effective option) that it's not that "something is wrong with my players", it's that something is wrong with the situation they're in?

I know you know perfectly well how to give the players results faithful to the DFRPG rules without making it an excruciating experience.

If you include "GM deliberately making your life miserable" as a situational aspect then yes, I concede that you are wrong to make your players miserable. Otherwise I do not. I know that I have handled similar situations (aggregate actions) many times before without making anyone unhappy or taking up lots of table time.

Originally Posted by beaushinkle

Auto-haggle with pre-commits now turns haggling into something that happens passively in the background akin to wealth. Spend X character points to sell items for Y% increased money with Z standard deviation. What are we gaining here?

We're gaining opportunities for players to make interesting decisions. For example: are you going to take the $6000 you've been offered for the jar of ointment (theoretically worth up to $10,000 to the right buyer), or sell it on the black market for $8000 to $10,000 (depending on if you try to haggle), or save the ointment to sell legally for a higher price later?

There's no obvious best answer.

Originally Posted by beaushinkle

If they decide that the person with merchant really does deserve a bigger cut, do the other players start buying points in merchant too and then jockeying to be the one who gets to sell the item? Yuck.

I assume you know the game theory answer to this problem. I won't say I know you know in this case, but I can't see how you could miss it if you think about what you just wrote for thirty seconds because the solution is in widespread use.

[beaushinkle]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

I know you know perfectly well how to give the players results faithful to the DFRPG rules without making it an excruciating experience.

If you include "GM deliberately making your life miserable" as a situational aspect then yes, I concede that you are wrong to make your players miserable. Otherwise I do not. I know that I have handled similar situations (aggregate actions) many times before without making anyone unhappy or taking up lots of table time.

Oh hey, you've managed to move the goalposts from "do you concede that my players are not doing anything wrong?" to "I concede you are wrong to make your players miserable if the GM is deliberately making their life miserable". That maybe the original claim was overstepping?

I get that sometimes we all make claims that go too far, and admitting that can be tough. So again. Here's the situation: I used the RAW rules for haggling after a dungeon haul, and my players haggled for all of the items, even though they didn't enjoy it. This is a situation I imposed on them, not because I wanted to make them miserable, but because I was following RAW and hadn't thought through the implications. My players, given this situation, haggled because they get more money for it than not, even though playing through the haggling wasn't fun. Do you concede this isn't a case where "there's something wrong with my players", and that it's probably the situation they were in?

We're gaining opportunities for players to make interesting decisions. For example: are you going to take the $6000 you've been offered for the jar of ointment (theoretically worth up to $10,000 to the right buyer), or sell it on the black market for $8000 to $10,000 (depending on if you try to haggle), or save the ointment to sell for a higher price later?

I'm getting a little lost now; I thought we were discussing haggling 30+ items from a big dungeon haul. Have the goalposts moved to a big-ticket item that has multiple selling prices to different sorts of buyers?

I'm having trouble seeing how this is relevant: the players auto-haggle decision tree either handles big-ticket items like this or doesn't, and the ointment is either on the "for sale list" or it isn't. If it isn't on the list and they want a scene where they sell that separately, we can do that.

I assume you know the game theory answer to this problem. I won't say I know you know, but I can't see how you could miss it if you think about what you just wrote for thirty seconds.

Holy christ this is getting condescending. Yes, I know the game theory answer. Feel free to post yours so I can correct it.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by beaushinkle

I see you didn't answer the question!

Do you concede that under the situation I presented (my players don't want to haggle, but do so because haggling is an effective option) that it's not that "something is wrong with my players", it's that something is wrong with the situation they're in?

Already answered above.

... this is getting condescending. Yes, I know the game theory answer. Feel free to post yours so I can correct it.

If you know the answer already, why are you wasting my time? I'm not your tutor.

I'm not getting any insight out of this conversation and I have better things to do. Answer your own questions.

[beaushinkle]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

Already answered above.

Where? I see an answer to a strawman you invented, but not to what I asked.

IE: "Do you concede that under the situation I presented (my players don't want to haggle, but do so because haggling is an effective option) that it's not that "something is wrong with my players", it's that something is wrong with the situation they're in?" would logically be followed by an answer like "under that situation (your players don't want to haggle, but do so because haggling is effective), then something is wrong with your players" or "under that situation, it's not your players afterall". Instead, we got:

If you include "GM deliberately making your life miserable" as a situational aspect then yes, I concede that you are wrong to make your players miserable.

This doesn't answer anything about whether or not something is wrong with the players, only whether or not something is wrong with the GM, ie, you've moved the answer to a thinly veiled personal attack.