02-12-2012, 09:17 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Sep 2009
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Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
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02-12-2012, 09:30 AM | #12 | |
Dog of Lysdexics
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Melbourne FL, Formerly Wellington NZ
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Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
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Yes this does mean if the Character is that inexperanced with what he's trying to buy it means he can't risk to make too low of an initial offer. If it's the player who inexperance not the charater then this is just like any other case of the GM having to provide a world detail to the player. |
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02-12-2012, 09:34 AM | #13 |
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
Yes! Exactly what I SHOULD have said. That section was basically an afterthought. Looking up the invoice price probably counts as a (really, really easy) use of Research.
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02-12-2012, 09:49 AM | #14 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Ottawa, Canada
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Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
A simple house-rule to fix that problem is that if the PC both lose the contest and fail their skill roll, the merchant is annoyed/insulted/refuses to further deal with them as they're not serious and locks his price, refusing to budge from his last value. So, when the PC offer ridiculous prices, remember that every 10% off of the fair price gives a -1 penalty to their roll, the PC are more than likely to fail the roll, which will cost them any further negotiations.
For added danger, treat any critical failure on the roll as actually changing the merchant's reaction to hostile, as though the initial reaction roll was a critical failure. |
02-12-2012, 10:22 AM | #15 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
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Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
Try this on for size: for each offer below the base price, the PC is at a cumulative -1 to their contest rolls. The merchant will put up with some haggling, but he won't sit and dicker all day - he has other things to do, with people who won't try to squeeze him for every penny.
On top of that, if you like, for every full negative multiple between the base price and the starting price that the PC starts at, he's at a -1 to his haggling rolls. In your example, if the merchant starts at $1100, and is willing to go to $1000, then the "reasonable" range is $900+. Below that, to $800, is -1. Further down is -1 per full multiple. In your example, with the PC starting at $600, he's starting at -3 to his haggling rolls. Combine either or both with the ruling that if the PC ever loses the contest by 10 or more (number adjustable depending on the friendliness of the merchant) he gets told to go away. (And the merchant probably talks to the others he knows in town...) I don't own Social Engineering, though, so take this with a grain of salt. |
02-12-2012, 10:24 AM | #16 | |
Join Date: Sep 2009
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Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
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02-12-2012, 10:30 AM | #17 | ||
Join Date: Sep 2009
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Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
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As per my last post, the fail-by-10 thing is covered, but great minds think alike I guess (you and the author, not me) |
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02-12-2012, 10:33 AM | #18 |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
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Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
If a character keeps offering absurdly low prices (or demanding absurdly high prices) in public, then he'll eventually begin accumulating points towards a negative Reputation.
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02-12-2012, 10:50 AM | #19 | |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
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Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
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I try to reflect that in Sagatafl by having five different haggleability classes that an item can belong to. A liter mug of beer is an example of the lowest haggleability class. No matter how well you haggle, you cannot haggle it down by more than a very few percent. Likewise, no matter how badly you haggle, and how well the barman haggles, you won't have to pay more than a very few percent overprice. In fact the haggleability is so low that it's almost completely pointless to try to haggle, so you'll look silly trying to do so. Just cough up the asked price. The highest haggleability class represents a very haggleable price. It's not at all clear to anyone what the price should be. That's for very exotic goods, such as a suit of Enchanted mail in my Ärth setting. It's unreasonable to say that there is a "true" or "proper" price, and therefore neither seller nor buyer can in any sense feel certain that they were "cheated". These are rare items, very rarely sold. Increasing the amount of an item increases haggleability class. One liter of beer is class A. Increase to a 20 liter barrel of beer, and it's class B. Increase again to a shipment of 400 liters of beer, and it's class C (no further increase than 2 Classes is possible). A normal Quality broadsword may be class C, but 12 of them becomes class D, and with 144 or 240 of them (or any other nicely round number) we're talking class E. Also, of course, in an industrial setting, items tend to shift towards Class A. A brand new car is not Class E unless it's extreme luxury and fitted with multiple Bond-grade-gadgets and is bullet-resistant (or if we're talking one of the very first cars ever produced, i.e. in the late 19th century). Haggleability class has less to do with how expensive the item is, and more to do with how common it is, how frequently they are sold, how much competetion there is (from buyers and from sellers), and how transparet the market is (the medieval market for beer is very transparent - prices can fluctuate in case of bad harvests, but that usually only acts upon the "true" price of beer, rather than on haggleability class, although in some cases beer may become so rare that it takes on a "veneer of luxury" and temporarily shifts up to class B). It is somewhat cumbersome, and rquires a few square inches of lookup table (unless you want to do percentage calculations during play - I prefer looking up since it's faster), but it is much better simulation of how the real world works, than anything I've seen in any other RPG. It's also important tonote that the process is 100% character skill-driven. At no point is the player or the GM required or even allowed to suggest a price. The price is "known" by the world (so to speak), and the opposed dice rolls tell what final price was arrived at (so any roleplaying will consist of player and GM arguing about the merits and flaws of the item being sold, rather than at them saying numbers at each other) relative to this "known-by-the-world" price. Neither character is supposed to have good knowledge of the "true" price of a high-haggleability Class item. One thing I don't know is how to handle it when a character (PC or NPC) decides to walk away from the haggle result without buying. Obviously Reputation Points towards a location-based Reputation may be accumulated, but that's a very long term consequence, and the whole idea is that the haggling process consists of two characters trying to reach agreement of what the correct price should be, so in a way they should both think and feel at the end that the correct price was arrived at. |
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02-12-2012, 10:59 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
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Here is a Mercedes, fair price $60K. You come in and offer $1. That is effectively 100% under the fair price, so the merchant reacts at -10. With no other reaction modifiers, the average reaction is 0, Disastrous, meaning the merchant wants nothing to do with you, and you have potential combat at -2 (average reaction Poor, threats or insults). The best reaction is 8, Poor, meaning the merchant will ask 120% of fair price, or $72K, and will not accept less than $60K; the PCs can try to haggle him down, but if he listens to them at all, they won't get him below fair price. Bill Stoddard |
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social engineering |
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