Do you let them search the bodies, and sell the loot?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by TheCrispyBit

will be running a sci-fi campaign with tightly control spaceports so,

Note that it is this control that is the deciding factor and not the genre so much.

For example, when meteor mimner Wild Bill Williams was ambushed by soem claimjumpers he not only shot both of them through the faceplate with his Mk 27 DeLameters he also took al of their portable valubales (including slightly used faceplates) and sold them at the lawless asteroid port Miner's Rest.

Even if the Patrol had shown up while he was loading the gear, after they determined it was legitimate shooting they might well have ruled it legal salvage (except for illegal materials). Shifting universes I'm not sure the Starship Enterprise would have really done things differently though there are no doubt more sorts of contraband in that universe.

[Kalzazz]

Back when I worked for a pawn shop, we did not compete with Ebay or Amazon, because most of our customers did not have net access

My job at the pawn shop was to run our in house ISP and sell those poor unfortunate souls net access

For purchase prices our prices tended to be within 1/3 to 2/3 of what we expected to sell said items for, which varied from 'a tiny fraction of new retail price' to 'nearly new retail price or above', almost always with a healthy cushion on top we were willing to negotiate on

Note, this is for us buying items and making loans on items. If you wanted to trade an item we would usually be happy to give 80% or so on it

Remember though that the 'shop' part of pawnshops is a Necessary Evil in the glorious process of taking money acquired from a bank at business line of credit rates and turning it into 240% or better interest (plus fees!), the pawn shop would of course like to make money selling stuff, but its a definitely secondary function

A pawnshop also goes and buys 'Cool' things that are new as well that they think people will find shiny and attract customers, not just the stuff that is sold to them or comes out of pawn

Another interesting thing a pawnshop can do is be attached to another company. Where I worked the pawnshops were only part of our larger corporate amoeba and at times were referred to by the lofty title of 'Corporate Acquisitions', and when tools or computers or whatnot were needed we saw what the pawnshops had and bought from within, and when we needed to get rid of stuff it was often sold through the pawnshops

Pawnshops also can perform other useful functions for people (especially people with no credit and no credit cards and such), for instance, the place I worked not only sold internet access (a decidedly mixed success), they had roaring success with selling cellphones and cellphone service. No contracts, you pay we turn your phone on, pay runs out we turn it out, give us more money (or goods) and we turn it on again no hassles. People loved this, no contracts, no penalties for late or missed payment (just phone turned off until got money, which people found fair). We also (for a fee of course) paid utilities and such and we cashed paychecks (for a fee). Super convenient, people could pawn something or cash a paycheck, and in the same place pay their phone and utility bills!

[Godogma]

Cameras honestly don't hold value well - especially digital cameras. Since it seems like every other week a newer better camera gets shot down the pipe.

Cameras are honestly worse than cars and people will try and tell you a car drops 25% in value as soon as you drive it off the lot.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Godogma

Cameras honestly don't hold value well - especially digital cameras.

Electronics in general don't hold value well. I suspect that pawn shops are either relatively ignorant about the resale value of electronics, or expect to make adequate profits for reasons other than direct sales of pawned electronics.

[Lamech]

It really depends on the setting. The PCs of course should be allowed to try even if its a bad idea. There can be all sorts of legal issues around selling stuff from dead bodies. In America, it wouldn't be your stuff to sell. If you get attacked by bandits the loot they drop isn't yours AND its evidence the police want. If you take it you'll probably charge with something relating to evidence tampering* and theft. The bandits committed a crime in attacking you and the stuff they dropped belongs to their heirs.

OTOH in a high TL setting it might be perfectly acceptable to sell the stuff off claiming it was "legitimate salvage from dead space pirates". The inspectors might look at you funny and investigate your story, but if it checks out your good.

*Yes, even if you are innocent the bandits are not.

[simply Nathan]

I think the Basic Set's guidelines were to divide the value of armor looted off enemies by three before selling, partly because they're used, partly because they'll be slightly damaged from the party hitting the enemy to get them in the first place.

[Kalzazz]

A few things

Pawn shops do not expect to make their profits off of direct sale of used electronics, direct sales are not their means of making money, their means of making money is making loans at huge interest rates while getting money loaned to them at business friendly rates

Pawn shop customers are often not to educated and do not have the best sense of money

Pawn shop employees usually get a good sense of the value of a product from working at the pawn shop and also from the trusty modern methods of 'lets throw this thing into google and see what it tells us'

Now, also, this also happens to relate to one of my term papers for my micro class, so

'Kal's Idea on Why Pawn Shops May Charge Crazy High Prices'
Lets consider a pawn shop, WalMart, and a guy on Amazon/Ebay
As a pawnshop, in a certain period I may have 20 different cameras I want to sell
As WalMart, I may have 20 cameras also, but I want to sell 100 each of them
As a guy on Ebay, I may have some number of cameras and want to sell some number of each of them

A common assumption in microeconomics is that people vary in how much they like a certain good. For a given camera, some people will love love it, and think its worth a ton to have it. Others will hate the thing

As WalMart, you want to sell 100 of a given model of camera, so you have to price it so not only will the guy who love loves it will buy it, but also so the people who think 'this is pretty decent' will buy it to.

As a guy on Ebay, theres a million other people selling that camera on Ebay, so if your charging more than the other guys, you won't be selling your camera, no matter how much people love love it

At a pawnshop, you only need to move 1 or 2 of a particular camera. So you don't care about appealing to the 'guy who thinks its okay', no, your willing to try rolling the dice that 'guy who loves this camera and will pay a premium for it' walks in the door. You know your target customer may not really grasp this internet thing to well or may not exactly have good impulse control, so your not so worried about him buying it off Ebay instead

[Kalzazz]

As a side effect of this, pawn shops would quite reasonably pay less for a lot of '25 identical goblin swords' than they would '25 distinct goblin swords'

[Anthony]

As a side note, in most settings where self-employed* adventurers generating dead bodies doesn't cause legal problems, those adventurers looting the bodies also won't cause too much fuss.

*If you're working for someone, disposition of the loot is your employer's business, not yours.