Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

First of all let me say that I'm not sure I've got the rules understood correctly.

I've got a player who's playing a merchant, so I sat down to wrap my head around the haggling rules in Social Engineering. As far as I can tell, a player can always haggle the merchant to their best possible price, provided the player's initial offer is sufficiently extreme, regardless of their character's skill. This is very metagamey, but it's going to be impossible to avoid to some degree, as far as I can tell.

Social Engineering, pg27
It seems to me that the idea is this: If the PCs lose the quick contests of skill by a lot/a lot of times, then the merchant will compromise less, and the point where the PCs counter-offers and the merchant's counter-offers meet will be closer to the merchant's desired price. That sounds great as far as it goes, but what's to stop the PCs from starting out at an extreme initial offer, so that the merchant always ends up at his best possible price? (Obviously the GM can stop stupid offers, of say $0 as a start point when buying, but where do you draw the line?)

Here's an example, following the rules as best I understand them:
-After influence/reaction rolls, the GM determines that the NPC merchant will make an initial offer of $1100 and be prepared to go as low as $1000 (the NPC is selling).
-The PCs respond to the initial offer of $1100 with a counter of $500.
-The NPC lowers his asking price by %10 of the difference - new price $1040.
-The PCs counter by increasing to $600.
-A Quick Contest is rolled, and the PCs lose by 5. The NPC would lower his price by $100 (the amount the PCs adjusted by), minus 10% times the NPCs margin of victory (so 50%). This takes the NPCs adjustment to $50, except that that would take him below his minimum price, so he says "$1000, that's my final offer".

In that example, the PC still got the optimum price out of the haggle, despite losing the Quick Contest by 5.

So, am I doing it wrong? Anyone have any thoughts?

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Depends on the merchants target margin, if the merchant believes he needs a margin of 80-99% relative to the cost of production then he'll remove the "nice to have" margin out of his price calculation.

Margins you Believe you NEED to make ends meet is different from margins one belieces he needs to afford that nice hous in the better part of town. It all depends on what the other person needs. Anyone who knows their finances will always give an unexpected cost to the buyer, unless the buyer is intrically aware of tthe merchants entire operarional costs and risks.

That sword goes $600 in basic set, but in the economy of the setting rife with uncertainty prices are x2-x10 of that. And shrewed merchants who inted to be in business in the long run may believe This is the REAL price of the good.

Note there are factors of anchoring effect and market going rate that affect supply and demand.

BTW in times of trouble and violence, prices realistically should x2-x10. And people are not inclined to buy, giving up liquidity, except if they are getting a x10-x100 deal factor and the good is easy to sell or pass on.

Basically, despite how awesome the player may be in making a deal if the margin will end up risking him and loved ones then he wont go bellow a certain amount. And merchants are a better judge of what amounts they will need in the future and factor that in their pricing. A reguoar person will look at their direct costs and sometimes overlook risks, a mercha twill look at all indirect costs and risks, also know the current supply of the market.

Being able to convince someone to mispriorities their priorities needs deception and not bargaining.

Prices in basic set has about 20-50% margin which is low for medieval and low tech settings and normal in modern times

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

I'm aware that the base prices, and the rules for determining the initial offer and limit price for a merchant involve a lot of abstractions, but this is not what I'm getting at.
Once you have these prices determined, whether they be from the book, or GM fiat, I still want the players to be able to haggle. My point was that as far as I can tell, the haggling rules in Social Engineering are broken for the reasons I gave above. Can anyone confirm my interpretation of these haggling rules?

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

If I'm trying to sell you a new mercedes and your initial offer is one penny, I'm going to be insulted. That's not haggling, that's mockery.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

I agree with this. Maybe the rule ought to be something like "if the PCs offer is less than the minimum he will take, minus the difference between the minimum and the initial price, he will take this as an insult, or call the PCs 'unserious'"

So, in your example. Initial price $1100, bottom price $1000, unserious price <$900.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Are you still angry about that? Look, I told you I was short on cash.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

That's true. But depending on context, an initial counteroffer of 50% would not be out of the question.

The question, of course, is context. Run the same negotiation where the merchant's initial offer in $1500, and you get something more reasonable. So where do you draw the line of where the merchant simply refuses to negotiate?

Define the difference between the initial asking price and the final price as the spread. You'd have to play around with the numbers to figure out what a good place would be, but I'd probably say if the difference between their initial counteroffer and the merchant's final price is more than twice the spread, it's an inappropriate offer.

If the merchant receives an inappropriate offer, they won't change their asking price at all. The PCs can make a second counter-offer. This requires a Merchant roll at -1 per inappropriate offer and -1 for each multiple of the spread their new offer is below the final asking price. If they make the Merchant roll and the new offer is within the right range, haggling begins with the new offer counting as the PC's first offer. If the new counter-offer is still inappropriate, repeat the process (with accumulating penalties to the merchant roll) until the PC makes an appropriate offer or fails a roll. If the PC fails a Merchant roll, the NPC is done negotiating: the PC can take the asking price or leave.

You should give the PCs some ability to determine approximately what the spread is in an initial encounter, so they can avoid insulting merchants this way if they're careful. This might be external to the negotiation, like looking up the invoice price to help in a car negotiation. It might be culturally determined, so that most spreads, say, 10-25% percent of the asking price in a given campaign (and anyone with Merchant knows this). You might allow a successful Merchant roll to sound out an unfamiliar negotiation, and get the spread (approximately; say add 1d-3 x 25%).

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

From your replies it seems, that I'm reading the rules correctly.

Indeed. This is what I meant earlier when I said the GM can stop obviously stupid/insulting offers. The issue then becomes where to draw the line.

My first thought about that is that the PCs won't know exactly what these prices are. I can of course roleplay it out so they learn from the NPCs responses, roughly where things are at. It starts to get into RL negotiating skill then though.

Another thought I've had since I first posted is to adjust the rules slightly, to make the NPCs offers sort of proportional to the ratio between the difference between the NPCs initial offer and the minimum price, and the PCs initial offer and the minimum price. I didn't explain that very well. I'll just use an example

To revisit my earlier example, the NPC's initial offer is $1100 the minimum is $1000 (which the PC's will only be able to guess at), and the PC's initial counter-offer is $500. Lets say that the NPC isn't offended, and is prepared to haggle from this point.

-The NPC lowers his asking price by %10 of the way to his minimum - new price $1090.
-The PCs counter by increasing to $600.
-A Quick Contest is rolled, and the PCs lose by 5. The PC has moved 1/5 of the way to the minimum, so the base adjustment for the NPC is $18 (1090-1000 = 90, 90/5 = 18). The NPC then offers a price adjustment of $9 (-50%), making the new price $1081, but I'd round it to $1080 in this case.

Things then proceed from there, repeating steps 2-4 as per the book. This isn't perfect, because for one thing, the result of drawing every quick contest will be to arrive exactly at the minimum amount. It'll also take me as the GM longer to work out (but not much longer with a spreadsheet). But the general idea is there: Starting significantly lower has no effect on the outcome, only the outcome of the Quick Contests.

I do like the idea of having the NPC not take offers seriously unless they're in the ballpark, and d_ns's suggestion definately would be the simplest solution. I just like to be able to fall back on the crunch where possible. Note that I wouldn't expose any of this to the players, it's just how I'd make the PCs skill rolls affect the NPCs responses during haggling.

Does anyone else have any thoughts?

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Determining the spread and a lot of the other stuff you covered is either:
a) explicitly covered in Social Engineering, or,
b) I agree and already do it, e.g. merchant roll to determine approximate price.

The problem for any scheme where you draw a line and say: Here is where I start haggling, is that the ratio of minimum-PC_offer to NPC_offer-minimum has the effect of directly affecting how successful the PCs will be for a given set of skill rolls, and that doesn't seem right to me.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Well, if you don't like that, it's your game. IMO, if the PC's initial offer doesn't matter to result of the skill rolls that's a disadvantage, by removing player choice. If you wanted that, you could simply resolve the result according to a single quick contest of Merchant, consulting a chart to see where a given margin of success/failure puts you relative to initial asking and final prices.

The intent of my system is to allow the PCs to choose the level of risk they're going to take in the negotiation. They do want their offer to be as close to the minimum acceptable offer as possible, since they'll get a better price that way, but if the offer is too low, they risk insulting the merchant and losing the ability to make any negotiation at all.

Edit:ninja'd, tried to edit to better respond to Snoman's post.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Ahh, I see. That is a cool idea. I didn't read your post carefully enough, as my first thought was that it doesn't really mesh with the existing rules. You have given me something to think about.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

That is done by the Connoisseur skill and related defaults or Researching the price to get a feel for the 'real price' to get a feel the difference between the that and the initial offer to get a feel for their initial counter.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

That doesn't really come into the haggling. According the RAW, every 10% gives +/-1 to the initial reaction roll, which is used to determine the NPC's counteroffer and minimum price (or potentially the NPC won't want to trade at all, and cause a roll on the Potential Combat table). For the actual haggling, you can already have the NPC fix their price by failing the quick contest by 10 or more during step 3 of the haggling process.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Firstly, the haggling rules are only for when the GM rules that extensive haggling is acceptable in the situation.

Now this I like, I'd have to test the numbers to see if it needs tweaking for balance, but I think that the core of your idea addresses my problem nicely. The problem is that setting your counter-offer much lower makes it easier to haggle to optimum price for a given skill level, and your idea targets exactly that. I'll have a play around and see how it looks.

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)

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.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Not all goods have equally obvious market values.

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.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

All right, let's play it out by the RAW.

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

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

To elaborate a bit on my previous post, if an item is very standardized, it should perhaps sometimes be dropped one Haggleability Class. That's mostly to do with guild standards, e.g. a bolt of "guild standard linen cloth", and since there are no guilds in my Ärth setting, at least not in pagan or Catholic lands, it's not something I've thought much about. If this causes an item to drop below Class A then you cannot haggle. Trying to do so will be futile, as the outcome of the process is always 100% no matter how well or badly either haggler rolls.

Standards have to be very strong for a Class shift to be warranted, though. Apart from guilds, the seller can sometimes get away with pleading "known quality". Barliman Butterbur may say to a frequent visitor that "you know my beer is always good. Stop trying to haggle!" thus accomplishing a Haggleability Class downshift (to Class 0). That's a "local" or "location-based" shift, though, and if there is a bad harvest (or rumours of one), it's reasonable to expect Butterbur to start skimping on beer quality, so at that point he can no longer claim "known quality".

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Ahh, I had been looking at the two parts in isolation. You're right. Put them together and the problem pretty much evaporates. I guess that's why you're writing books and I'm asking stupid questions. Thanks for enlightening me.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

I like the idea behind your system. Without consciously thinking it through, I realise after reading your posts that I've been subconsciously restricting the 'haggleability' as you put it, on certain goods. I think I'll continue in the same vein for now (ie handwaving) but will be taking another look at what you wrote if I do a full blown trading game in future.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

I believe firmly in the old theory that there are no stupid questions. If you don't understand something, the stupid thing is to endure your lack of understanding in silence. (I used to be a math tutor.)

And really, those rules are complex. I had to reread them and go through step by stop; I don't have them memorized. That's why they're an alternative system, and not the primary system. It's perfectly fair to use a single roll to decide the outcome, and just handwave the haggling part; or even to say that this is a non-haggling culture. Haggling is for campaigns where the players want to haggle.

I was fairly sure that I had managed to avoid disastrous booby traps, but I wanted to go back and check. I think in this case at least the rules are doing what they're meant to.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

On the reactions table on pg 75, it has the results of a very good reaction being the merchant sells at 50% or buys at 200% of the fair price. I didn't see any RAW way to convince the merchant to go outside of this range other than using blackmail/mind control/etc.... Does that mean that the only point in making offers below 50% is to try and haggle to the 50% mark.

In DF, this would allow a nymph with the standard +10 to Reaction Rolls to haggle to 50% usually (and should have to buy an appropriate level of wealth).

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

From what I was able to get from reading the material, I have to agree with Bill that the rules are deceptively simple, but are in fact, complex.

For instance? Step #3 of the haggling process has the money quote overall in my opinion. It states on page 27 in the upper right of the page the following:

If the merchant wins by 10 or more, he won’t change his price any further. If the PCs win by 10 or more, the merchant agrees to their proposed price,
unless it’s outside his limits; if so, he’ll go right to his best asking price or offer. Either way, haggling ends. Otherwise, continue to step 4.

Now, how to keep this explanation pithy...

The second money quote in all of this is:

The merchant will never go above his initially determined best offer, or below his initially determined best price; at that point his position is, “Take it or leave it.”

And finally, we have to go to page 75 to determine something known as asking price and selling price.

So, let us follow the steps listed on page 27, and list everything involved in the example (as I understand the rules to mean. Note: My understanding of the rules is not always in accordance with the authors intent, as witnessed by my thread involving sniper rules and various powered scopes elsewhere!)

First, the Player Character is a Knight from England trying to haggle prices with a merchant in Italy for needed supplies for the Crusade. He knows Latin at a broken level, and finds his good nature (Charisma) will stand him in good stead as he attempts to get money for his ring. Unfortunately for Sir Geof, he doesn't understand the Italian culture, so he suffers a -3 to his haggling skill rolls due to cultural unfamiliarity.
His ring is worth $3,000 and his desire to find a jeweler finds him searching the city high and low until finally, a citizen suggests Del Sarto's, just down the street. Since the knight already knows the value of the ring, but is working off a default of haggling (what, a Knight haggle?!!!), our erstwhile hero has haggling at a default of his IQ-5, or skill 7. Del Sarto on the other hand, has Merchant at 14. Del Sarto also has a bit of a problem with foreigners, and is somewhat intolerant of them. However, Del Sarto's social status within his community is a mere 1 versus the Knight's status 3 as a landed knight.

"I am Sir Geoff of Wynworth" says the Knight as he introduces himself to Antonio Del Sarto. "I have a ring I'd like to offer for sale, that was given to me by my sainted and departed mother. Where I not in need of various things, I would not part with this voluntarily. I am on a mission for God, and seek to battle the heathens who hold the Holy land, can you assist me in this?" The Mercant takes the pro-offered ring, and attaches a jewelers loupe to his eye as he examines the work.

GM rolls the reaction of the NPC and notes the following:

Status of Seller: 3
Status of Buyer: 1 (for a +2 bonus for the Knight's sales attempt)
Charisma of the seller: 2
Dislike of Foreigners: -3
True market value of the ring: $3,000

Net result: +3-1+2-3 or +1 overall.

GM rolls a 13 for his initial roll, modifed to a 14. Looking at page 561, a 14 result is "GOOD". Looking at page 75, a GOOD result means that the buyer will offer fair prices, and will volunteer extra information. Fair prices in this case per page 75 are:

* In a society where haggling is routine, a merchant will ask 110% of the fair price, accept 90%, offer 90%, or agree to pay 110%.

So, in this case, a fair price for a ring worth $3000 (expensive) is 50% of the value, or $1,500. The Jeweler will offer as his initial bid, .5 x .9 x $3,000 (or a total of $1,350 and will pay at most, .5 x 1.1 x $3,000 (or $1,650).

So, the Player character offered the Ring up for consideration, the Jeweler after examination, will offer $1,350.

"Surely, such a ring is worth more than that!" says the knight in an injured tone.

The Gm smiles at the player saying "Ok, roll against Sir Geof's haggling skill, I'll be rolling against Del Sarto's skill." The player rolls a 9 versus Sir Geof's default skill of 7, with a -3 penalty due to cultural unfamiliarty. As a consequence of this, Sir Geof's roll fails by 5. The Jeweler on the other hand, has a roll of a 6, which means that his skill succeeded by 8. Total overall result is a win by 13. So, despite his protestations of "Surely it is worth more than this", the Jeweler's heart is not moved by the plea. Since the contest was won by 10+, the haggling is officially over, and the Jeweler's response is...

"The ring is made of a gold of doubtful purity, and the gemstone's seating is less than it should be. I am sorry, but, I can not offer more than this."

Geof's broken latin isn't sufficient to grasp all this in the rapid fire Italian, so he asks the Jeweler to speak more slowly and more simply. Even the protestation that this is God's work, and of his unfortunate circumstances, fails to move the Jeweler's stance, and finally, in exasperation, the Jeweler tells the knight bluntly "Take it or leave it." Sir Geof considers his options, and decides that he'd rather find another person to sell his ring to and heads out to find someone else.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Sir Geof manages to find a merchant who would offer $1,500 for the ring, and even be willing to pay $2,250 for it had Sir Geoff been a better haggler, but alas, Sir Geof isn't much of a haggler, and gains the $1,500 he was hoping for. In his journey, Sir Geof meets up with an english Yeoman, named Jack, who is conversant with the Italian culture, and also happens to have become somewhat capable of haggling. With a skill of 12, Jack's ability to haggle is on par with many merchants. As luck would have it, a foreign merchant with a consignment of swords for sale, is approached in the port city that both Jack and Sir Geof are spending time at, and Jack's approach to the sword merchant finds himself a touch happy. As Jack examines the wares, his skill with swords permits him to evaluate the values of each (The GM deciding that an IQ based sword skill is sufficient for that). Jack spies two swords that might meet the Knight's needs, and asks "How much for this plain sword, and for the adorned sword?"

Rolling dice, the GM determines that the sword merchant's reaction to Jack is VERY GOOD, and he begins his haggling with an offered price of $600 for the one sword (and is willing to accept .8 x $600 or $480), and $2,400 for the adorned sword. Jack realizes that the Knight's funds won't accept the $2,400 price, so he tries for the $600 one instead. He offers the Merchant $240 for the blade as if it were a cheap blade. The merchant looks offended, saying "I have many mouths to feed, and the blade, while not the best ever made, is surely not so poorly made as to warrant a cheap blade appraisal. Swing the blade and see how well it handles!" The GM rolls versus the merchant's 12 skill, while Jack's player rolls versus his merchant skill of 12 as well. Rolling an 8, Jack's skill succeeds by 4, while the Merchant's roll of a 10 only succeeds by 2. Winning by 2, Jack's counter offer of $300 is met by the merchant's counter offer of $576.

Jack swings the blade saying "Well, while this isn't for my hand, but a knight's hand, its balance seems ordinary, I suppose I could offer $300 for it." The Merchant responds "Surely you can tell that this blade is serviceable for the needs of a knight, but despite taking food from the mouths of my children, I could accept a price more akin to that a poor knight might pay - say, $576?" The merchant's hopeful look is met by Jack's appraising stare as he points out the blade's less than perfect polish will require extra work.

The Gm rolls a 12 for the merchant's skill while Jack's player rolls a 9 for his skill. Making his haggling skill by 3, Jack further manages to talk the merchant's asking price down by another $36 to $540. The GM says "Ouch my fine fellow, the polish of that blade is as good as a silvered mirror, but, my wife's needs are such that I must make as many sales today as I can, but I couldn't let this blade go for any less than $540. Surely you can see that the blade is worth more than that!"

Jack's player rolls against his skill and gets a 14, while the Gm rolls a 9, resulting in the merchant winning by 5.

Jack's player says "The blade isn't as sharp as it could be, and I can see that while the craftsmanship is reasonably good, it still needs to be improved. The blade is a tad point heavy." The merchant responds saying "Point heavy? Point heavy! I'll tell you sir, that the blade's forte is rather strongly built, and the crossguard is sufficient to withstand heavy blows handily. In fact, such workmanship deserves praise rather than scorn. I thought I was doing you a favor in offering such a low low price of $540, but there is a limit to my generousity! I've a mind to accept your assessment that its polish is less than it could be, so I will polish the blade for you, but only if you agree to the price of $600!"

Jack's player realizes that the merchant has managed to undo all of his progress in haggling to this point, and decides the next time he's ahead of the game, he will accept the price, providing that it is back down to the $540 price he got earlier. So he says "No no no, I wouldn't want to take up your valuable time for the blade by having to polish it so much, besides, you're selling these outside of your shop, and it would inconvience the knight to have to wait so for the blade to be polished. What say you, that you throw in a thicker belt for the scabbord of the blade in addition to the sheath, and we'll call it even at $540? Rolling a 12 against his haggling, Jack's player thinks that he's not going to win this round of haggling, but watches with happiness as the GM rolls a 17. Making his roll exactly for Jack verus failing a roll by 5 for the merchant - the price gets adjusted right back to $540 again. The merchant counters with "I'll tell you what, since you're pressed for time, I'm pressed for time, why don't we just agree to selling the blade at $540 without the belt being added, without extra polish, and I'll accept that God never intended my children to be well fed - hmmm?"

Jack agrees to the bargain, and heads back to Sir Geof with his prize in hand, and a savings of $60 off the normal value of the transaction. Sir Geof, realizing the service that Jack has provided, offers him a couple of ales in reward for his endeavors.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

I'm pretty sure the rules don't intend for the merchant's offers to go backwards, only to adjust by an amount smaller or larger than the the amount the PC adjusted by, depending on the outcome of the quick contest.

Social Engineering, pg27
Emphasis mine.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

If that were the case, then a PC can never lose the haggling contest, as each contest will result in the cost being haggled always going towards the point where the lowest acceptable cost to the seller will eventually be reached.

On the other hand, I noted that the "results" in the section on page 27 never seemed to take into account whether the haggling involved is for the seller, or for the buyer - whereas the original slant on the rules indicated that the haggling rules were to be used for both buying and selling. So, my interpretation was based on the fact that the haggling can in fact, go both upwards and downwards, but that the seller will never go HIGHER than his initial offer.

Last but not least? Why was the rule "the seller may never go higher than his initial offer" included - unless it was possible to adjust the cost via haggling, to the benefit of the seller (assuming the NPC was the seller in this case)?

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Lol, did you read my original post? That was the very point I made at the start. Note however, that if the PC's price is closer to the NPC's limit price than the NPCs initial offer, the PCs can in fact arrive at a non-optimal result. It's only when the PCs start price is extreme that it starts to look like there's a problem (more on that in a minute)

You're right, the haggling can go up or down, but never past the NPC's limit price, which is determined in the reaction roll. Note that the rules on p27 do explicitly include haggling the price up and down for selling and buying respectively.

Because this is one of the examples where the rules are explicitly covering both buying and selling. The NPC won't go above his maximum price when they're buying something from you, or below their minimum when selling to you.

As for the problem I pointed out at the start, Bill Stoddard pointed out to me that when combined with the reaction roll for PC price offers significantly high or low compared to the fair price, the problem goes away. Read his post.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

"The seller" is not what the RAW say. I quote:

The merchant will never go above his initially determined best offer, or below his initially determined best price; at that point his position is, “Take it or leave it.”

If the merchant is making an offer, he's not acting as a seller, but as a buyer. That is,

The merchant will never go above his initially determined best offer [when buying a good], or below his initially determined best price [when selling one]; at that point his position is, “Take it or leave it.”

Does that make it clearer?

Bill Stoddard

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Well, in the first place, the merchant's least favorable terms may be less favorable than the "fair price." It does take a Very Bad reaction roll, but that results in selling for not less than 150% or buying for not more than 2/3.

But in the second place, and more important, The merchant will lower his price or raise his offer in response. If the Quick Contest was a tie, the amount of his adjustment will be identical to the PCs’. That is, to get the merchant to come down, the PCs have to go up, and vice versa. If there's a series of rolls, all ties, the price will move to the midpoint between the merchant's and the PCs' initial proposals. That may be higher than the merchant's minimum selling price, or lower than his maximum offer.

The PCs can start out by proposing a price extremely favorable to them, but that gives the merchant a more negative reaction modifier, which makes his price extremely unfavorable. So there's some complicated game theory about what to propose at the outset. That's the strategy of haggling as opposed to the tactics.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Part of the problem (in response to William) is this:

Those modifiers for reactions to low prices offered by a buyer, are in fact, non-germane to the rules for haggling. Those modifiers only pertain (or so it seems to me) to the rules where you have ONE contest of skill rolls, and are doing it the "easy way". The Haggling rules seem to have been geared towards the prospect that the players and/or GM want to do more role playing (as perhaps opposed to roll-playing?) to where there is more interaction.

In all? The rules themselves are supposed to be for when the player character is up against a non-player character, and that the Haggling rules are all intended for when the player character is either the selller, or is the buyer. However, the rules don't seem to reflect the fact that the player character is trying to haggle the price UPWARDS when he's the seller, and downwards when he's the buyer. <shrug>

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

I am just at a loss as to how you can get that from what I wrote. Here are some quotations:

Use the following rules for a sale by the merchant. (The rules are similar when the PCs are selling to the merchant, but the merchant is buying, not selling.)

. . . the merchant will make the first move, by lowering his asking price or raising his offer by 10% of the difference between the two initial prices, or by 20% of his initial price, whichever is less drastic.

The PCs may respond by increasing what they’ll pay, or lowering what they’ll sell for. . . .

The merchant will lower his price or raise his offer in response.

The merchant will never go above his initially determined best offer, or below his initially determined best price. . . .

Bill Stoddard

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Bill - I'm going to be blunt, as it has been a rough day at work and I'm too tired to be diplomatic.

The simple way to roleplay a commercial transaction uses a
single roll for each sale or purchase.

This is in the section where the rules are discussed about reaction roll modifiers dependent upon the fair value of the item in question, and what is being offered by the PC versus the NPC merchant.

Later in the Haggling section, the ONLY modifiers listed for that transaction, is listed here:

Modifiers: -1 to -4 for Compulsive Spending (p. B129). Complementary skill use (p. 21) for perceiving the other party’s emotional state (Motives, p. 28). In addition to the above, which modify every haggling roll, either side may use other complementary skills; e.g., Diplomacy to couch an offer attractively, or a Connoisseur or Hobby skill to point out the desirability of the merchandise. Alternatively, the riskier rules under Manipulation (p. 37) may be used.

Now for the fun part. As the original poster noted, there is nothing to keep the Player character from constantly rolling against his skill versus the Merchant's skill, to bring about moving the price change in the player character's favor.

Your statement that the merchant winning the contest does not bring the price back to favor HIM, is troubling in that he must always move the price in favor of the player character, not the merchant.

So here's the deal.

Write the same kind of example that I did, only use the rules as you, the author intended for them to be, versus you the author SEES in print, and prove your point that the rules as written do not result in the PC always being able to bring the price to where he desires.

For instance? If the initial reaction of the merchant is such that he will offer at 110% of the fair market value of the good, but accept 80%, describe how a merchant with a skill 14 haggles with a player character who happens to have merchant at, say, 10.

Basically? I'm seeing a disturbing trend in GURPS PDF products where the ruels are NOT clear cut, and they do not spell things out, but instead, rely upon written examples to prove a rule by inference, rather than explicitely stating them. Case in point are the sniper rules that were discussed around New Year's this year. Rules should not be MADE in examples. Examples should clarify existing rules.

So, prove with an actual written example, where a merchant actively avoids having to lower his price to the 80% of fair market price even though he started at intially, a 110% offering rate.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Okay, sure, let's do a worked example.

I'll assume that the fair price of the item is $1000.

You say "offer," which sounds like he's buying, but "accept," which sounds like he's selling. The terms on p. 75 are ask/accept for a seller, and offer/agree to pay for a buyer. You have the merchant preferring 110% but tolerating 80%, which sounds like he'd rather have a higher price, which sounds like he's selling and not buying, so I'll assume that.

You don't specify whether the initial price was suggested by the merchant, or by the customer. I'll assume that the merchant spoke first. Per your specification, he asks for $1100 and will take $800. (This isn't actually one of the outcomes of a commercial transactions reaction roll—it would be $1100/$900 or $1000/$800—but your numbers will illustrate the process.)

Per your specification, the merchant has Merchant-14, and the customer has Merchant-10. I'll ignore other modifiers, as all they would do is adjust the relative skill levels.

Bargaining starts with the initial prices proposed by the buyer and seller. That's in the haggling rules, but it's a reference back to the simple rules, which determine the starting proposal. So the merchant's roll had him asking for $1100. Now, the PCs make a counterproposal: $500.

Step 1: The difference between the two prices is $600. The merchant will cut his price by 10% of $600, which is $60, or by 20% of $1100, which is $220, whichever is less drastic; $60 is less drastic than $220. So the merchant lowers his price from $1100 to $1040.

Step 2: Now the PCs have a free choice. They can raise their offer by any amount they want. They go from $600 up to $700.

Step 3: Quick Contest of Merchant skill. The merchant rolls 12, succeeding by 2; the PCs roll 16, failing by 6. The margin in the merchant's favor is 8 points. This is not sufficient for the merchant to refuse to change his price.

Step 4: The merchant's base adjustment is equal to the PCs' base adjustment.* This is reduced by 10% x the margin of victory, or 80% in this case; the merchant lowers his price by 20% of $100, or $20, which takes it from $1040 to $1020. (The merchant is making a big show of how he appreciates the PCs need for the item and as a special favor he will cut his margin to the bone.)

Step 5: Repeat.

The PCs decide not to raise their price as much, because the merchant didn't offer much of a deal; they go to $750. The quick contest is 15 (fail by 1) and 8 (succeed by 2), a 3-point difference; the merchant cuts his price by 30% more than the PCs raised theirs, or 130% of $50, or $65, to $955.

Now we're getting somewhere, say the PCs, and go to $800, another $50 raise. The rolls are 10 (succeed by 4) and 9 (succeed by 1), a 3-point margin in the merchant's favor. This time he cuts his price by 70% of $50, or $35, which takes him down to $920.

To get any further cuts from the merchant, the PCs have to go higher than $800. They go to $850. The rolls are 11 (succeed by 3) and 10 (just succeed), margin of victory 3, so the merchant cuts to $885.

The PCs go to $875. The rolls are 11 (succeed by 3) and 6 (succeed by 4); the PCs have a margin of victory of 1. The merchant is willing to cut by 110% of the PCs' $25, which is $27.50. But that would be $857.50, less than the $875 the PCs offered. So instead the merchant gets in one last speech about his starving children, and accepts the PCs' offer.

You protest that nothing allows the merchant to raise his price again. That's true. But you're missing the converse point, marked above by *: To get the merchant to lower his price, the PCs are required to raise their price. So you get a series of steps: The merchant comes down, the PCs go up, the merchant comes down, the PCs go up. They meet in the middle.

I don't know what sort of bargaining scenes you're used to, but the ones I've seen always have both sides moving closer together, step by step. The rules simulate that sort of movement. And as this example shows, the PCs cannot simply force the price down by repeated offering the same bid; if they don't come up, the merchant won't come down either—and presumably he'll eventually get tired and turn away. The price has to meet somewhere in the middle.

Statistically, I would predict that the PCs would end up raising their price by 1.4x the amount by which the merchant lowers his price. The total price difference is $600. $600/(1 + 1.4) = $600/2.4 = $250; I would expect the merchant to lower his price by $250, to $850, while the PCs raise theirs by $250 x1.4 = $250, to $850. That's actually fairly close to the outcome determined by my random rolls.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Perhaps they were hoping that the rules also covered where the seller has the buyer over a barrel where the sell keeps raising their price until the buyer final breaks/clues in the trying to bargain will make thing worse and accept the current price

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

I wouldn't use haggling rules for that. That sounds like using Intimidation as a complementary skill to Merchant, if anything.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

I know , it makes an interesting scene occasionally in fiction precisely because it takes the other side some moments to click simply because it not how haggling is meant to work.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

You seem to be missing the point that the PCs don't just get to force a roll repeatedly for free. The only way to induce a roll is for the PCs to move toward the merchant's price. Only then will the merchant move by some amount toward the PC's price.

And perhaps it's not stated, but it should be clear that the merchant isn't ever going to overshoot the PC's price. Once the PCs move up even once, they can never get back to their starting point. Like the merchant, they can only move above their current offer, and closer to the merchant's price. So, the system will always result in a price somewhere between the two starting points.

(Even if you treat the rules in a mindlessly mathematical fashion, a move away by the PCs changes the sign of the operation and the merchant would then move away as well; he would in fact move his price in his favor if the PCs did so. But that's being silly.)

You can't keep rolling until the price gets arbitrarily close to the PC's starting point, because the PCs can't remain at their starting point, but have to move up. And if they move by a tiny amount, then so does the merchant. If I ran into players that wanted to turn it into an exercise in calculus, I'd add a rule for a minimum increment by which the PCs must move, probably with a negative reaction for the merchant if they waste his time by offering to switch by ridiculously tiny amounts compared to the amount under discussion. This rule just speeds up convergence, however; it doesn't change the convergence point other than the lower resolution.

The OP's original objection was that the PCs could select a starting point so low that the converge point was always at the merchant's best price, even though the PCs were always moving up. That's where the negative reaction for insultingly bad offers comes into play.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

I'm not saying that any given rule is or isn't in need of clarification, but . . . Please do not attribute to the medium what is, if it's an issue at all, an issue with the message. The rules of late are mostly in PDF because that's how we publish of late. Were we publishing on paper, the exact same rules would be there on the page, staring you in the face. Our PDF production values are as high as our paper production values – any difference is in your head. The only meaningful difference is that when we find errata in a PDF, we can submit them at once and get an updated PDF in weeks to months, which will then be free for all buyers to download. Whereas when we find errata in a printed book, the wait on a reprint is years to forever, and the reprint will cost you money.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

We have seen FAQs and Errata and lots of posts questioning various rules for both printed and PDF. Just from the last few days on the forums we have confusion over slams, grappling and concentration, diffuse and restraint or being grappled and those are from the Basic Set.

Sometimes the rule is complex or just the wording seems clear to the author but winds up being read differently by various people. Examples help by clarifying and showing the intent of the rule.
I often benefit from the examples and appreciate them.
GURPS is very complex and rules often have to take into account a wide variety of possibilities. I wish more things would make it into the official FAQ and there have been times when many of us have wished we were in a playtest to call someone to explain a rule more clearly before it is printed.
But having been in one playtest and written documents for users I can see the conflict between word count and different readers and styles of understanding.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

First, I agree that the way the haggling rules work, you move toward a middle between the two offers; one's offer must go up for the other's offer to go down (or vice-versa). That part of the rules is fine.

However, even your example used reasonable values in the offers. An item of $1,000, the merchant asking $1,100, accepting $900 (well $800, but it should have been $900 for a reaction table result), and the PC buyer offering $500. The problem comes when the NPC makes the first offer, then the PC make a "ridiculous" counter-offer, regardless of which way they want to go.

Say that, instead of starting their offer at $500, they started with $0 ("why not just give it to us because we need it really badly.") That's a $1,100 difference between the offers. Using your stats in the quote, that means that the merchant is likely to reduce his offer by ($1,100/2.4 =) $458, which means that he'll lower his offer down to ($1,100 - $458 =) $642... which goes below his "maximum" offer (or in this case minimum, as he's selling), so the merchant will most likely sell at $900. It's therefore easy for the PC to get the optimal selling price according to the merchant's initial reaction roll.

It would be even weirder going the other way with the merchant buying, offering $900 and not willing to go over $1,100. The PC counter his initial offer with a $5,000 ask.. a difference of ($5,000 - $900 =) $4,100. The merchant's next counter-offer, without even making a roll, is 10% of that ($410) or 20% of the fair value ($200). Either way, he's now reached his maximum value of $1,100... without a single roll required.

From what I can tell, the rules work more or less fine when the PC make the first offer, as then the +/-1 edit: to the reaction roll per +/-10% of fair price kicks in, and the PC risk getting a disastrous result in which the merchant refuses to deal with them if they go overboard. But when they let the merchant give the first offer, and then the PC make a counter-offer, there is no new reaction roll, so any ridiculous offer can be brought to bear, and this will give the PC all the maneuvering room they could possibly need to get the best result according to the initial reaction roll.

At least, that's how it appears to me, unless I'm missing something... For example, there are some lines on p.27 I'm not to sure as to what they mean:

"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."

and

"If the seller refuses an offer or counteroffer from the PCs, the transaction doesn’t take place.

Does this mean that the PC's first offer must fall within the merchant's acceptable margin of his initial reaction roll? If so, that seems odd, as then they'll never be able to negotiate him his maximum limit through haggling. And Step 3 of the haggling process indicates you can go outside the limit with your offers, but the merchant just won't accept them and draw the line at his minimum/maximum value.

Thus, we fall back to a statement made by someone else earlier in the thread: how do you determine where the merchant draws the line for a ludicrous counter-offer?

EDIT: My proposed solution: Determine what modifier the PC's offer would have using +/-1 per +/-10% of fair price and add that modifier to the initial reaction roll solely for the purpose of seeing if that would modify the reaction to disastrous where the merchant would no longer deal with them. If it does, the dealings stop. If not, continue with haggling as per normal, still using the original reaction roll without the modifier. And perhaps add the modifier for each new counteroffer to the PC's skill roll for haggling as well, making the merchant more likely to lock in his price.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Um isn't every merchant's manner of calculating margins unique? I understand that systems abstract such interactions to simplicity, but If it gets too complex it might take up too much time relative to the amount of interactions over the course of a session.

To the GM the number of Haggling instances should be put in perspective, relative to the overall activity of the game. if the calculation of the Haggling (the opportunity to One-up someone without combat) is a great source of influence of satisfaction over time of the game, then it would be best to use a simpler system thus creating more opportunities and greater overall utility for the game.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Actually, no. It's 20% of his initial price. His initial price was $900, and 20% of that is $180. So he goes to $1,080, not $1,100.

That does seem to be a lacuna in the transition between the initial rolls and the haggling phase.

I agree that a criterion is needed, but I think that one may be too generous, and perhaps a little too complex to figure in play.

Reviewing the commercial transactions reaction rolls, I see that the very best reaction roll possible results in the merchant being willing to sell for a minimum of 50% of the fair price, or to buy for 200% of the fair price. That might be a reasonable place to draw the line of "you're not serious."

Bill Stoddard

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Then let me clarify...

I don't consider that the PDF's are substandard because they are PDF's in and of themselves. I used the terminology that I did, because I consider it as an "era" boundary if you will. A description of a point in time relative to the whole existence of GURPS production.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

Your memory of the past is creating a golden age that never existed. I had to deal in a small way with previous art, and 3/e books were written with much less care for consistency. If you look at Compendium 1, you will see a lot of close duplication of traits, such as the multiple "resist fear" traits, and you will see overly narrow traits, such as the two different skills for starting fires (both of which are folded into Survival in 4/e). And there were entire domains with no standardization, such as earnings, prices, and costs of living for Status levels. Beyond that, there was no shortage of overcomplex and poorly tested game mechanics introduced in individual supplements. All that was part of the reason that 4/e went through.

With 4/e, SJ Games went to trying for a much higher level of internal consistency. As a result, the shortfalls are more apparent. Nonetheless, a lot of effort is made, as I can tell you from many exchanges with Kromm and PK during the writing of my books.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

We still hire good writers, mostly experienced ones (mostly the same ones); we still run playtests, often longer ones alongside peer reviews, thanks to the absence of a printer deadline; and we still use experienced editors (ask RPK how long he had to do lesser tasks until I assigned him a full edit). There has been no turn for the worse in content quality. The real change is that we're now in the "web forums era," when what would have been a private errata report in 1992 or 2002 is posted for lengthy open dissection. This increases the perception that more rules aren't "cear cut," but the reality is that our standards for rules writing have remained level or even improved.

I've played GURPS since 1986, and I recall plenty of confusing rules before we had web forums or even Pyramid forums . . . so I was confused in private, and my only option was to write to Roleplayer and hope that my letter got picked. Today I'd come here and discuss it, which allows dozens of times more rules issues to enter public view. It doesn't follow that there are dozens of times more rules issues. If anything, I'd assert that discussion here puts pressure on us to commit fewer gaffes.

It's similar to the difference between murder rate and reported murders: The rate is down, but you hear about the crime more often thanks to modern media and reporting styles. Ergo, the situation might seem worse even though it's better. This is a well-known paradox of digital media in general (and by this I mean "web forums" more so than "PDFs").

Speaking as a rules writer and developer, I can only agree with this. I spent a boatload of time condensing GURPS Third Edition to the original GURPS Lite, distilling GURPS Third Edition content for GURPS Compendium I and II, and ultimately revamping GURPS Third Edition to GURPS Fourth Edition. Coming from the background I have – an academic one in the physical sciences – I have significant training in organizing information and making systems mathematically consistent. It's my opinion, after all my GURPS work, that the "golden age" wasn't . . . it was simply perceived as such because there were more printed books for people who like such things. In absolute terms, GURPS has without a doubt become more organized and consistent with time.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

A glance at the errata suggests an overall improvement over time. The 4e Basic Set volumes have a handful of errata items per printing, typically less than a screen-full on my monitor (yes, scientific measurement, isn't it?). The 3rd edition Basic Set doesn't get to that level until the third printing of the revised edition, which is essentially the 8th incarnation of that book. The Compendia also took multiple printings to get to the same level of errata that 4e's Basic started out with, if they ever got there at all. Now, this doesn't directly address Hal's specific concern about rules clarity (a book can be errata-free but still badly written), but it does tend to confirm that whatever QA processes are in place have been tightening up over time. I agree that the immediacy of the web and the communities it enables magnifies the appearance of issues rather than the issues themselves.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

That is simpler, but does give a very good margin for leeway for more neutral reactions (i.e., you start at 50% or 200% and have all that room to haggle to the best offer of 90%/110%), and leaves no room to capitalize for the best reactions as you start at the merchant's best possible offer and must go down from there when haggling.

Perhaps doubling the merchant's limit for his offer based on current reaction might work:

EDIT: Bold text below edited in after initial post for clarification

- With a Neutral Reaction, the merchant will go to +/-10% as his best offer values, so he's not in the mood to entertain any haggling offer more than (2 x +/-10% =) +/-20% of fair price since you're just another customer.

- With a Very Good Reaction, he's willing to go for 80% (i.e., -20%) so he won't entertain any offer less than 60% (i.e., (2 x -20% =) -40%), or, when buying, he's willing to go to 150% (i.e., +50%) so he won't entertain any offer more than 200% (i.e., +100%). He's willing to entertain such offers because he likes you.

- With a Bad Reaction, he's willing to go fair price, or 100% (i.e., +/-0% to fair price); you need to start your offer at (2 x +/-0% = +/-0%, or) fair price to even get his attention to haggle. Seems unfair, but then again, you got an initial Bad Reaction from the merchant.

This proposed method allows you to negotiate to the merchant's limit, and varies the acceptable amounts based on the initial Reaction, which seemed to be implied in Social Engineering.

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

I don't think I'm understanding how you figure the range for Bad reaction. Can you explain where those limits come from?

I'm not sure that system quite works. Suppose the merchant has Merchant-12, but the customer has Merchant-16 and several high complementary skills? Shouldn't the customer be able to get to the merchant's limit price pretty quickly and pretty assuredly?

Bill Stoddard

Re: Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?
 

p.75 Social Engineering

Bad: When selling: The merchant asks twice the fair price, accepts the fair price. When buying: he offers half the fair price, agrees to pay the fair price.

By the bolded lines, he's willing to accept fair price, which is 100% (or, a modifier of +/-0% to fair price). Therefore, with my proposal, the player can at worse offer fair price if he wants the merchant to be willing to haggle, as double the modifier of +/-0% is still +/-0%.

I also edited my original post to hopefully clarify, with edits in bold.

He would.

Let's assume an initial Neutral Reaction. Merchant offers fair price, but willing to go to +/- 10% (it's a haggling community). With my proposal, the PC can counter-offer with up to +/- 20% if he wants the merchant to take him seriously and haggle. Let's assume the PC maxes out for +20%.

If both have equal skills, they should roughly meet in the middle after a few haggling contests. That is, between the merchant's offer of fair price, and the PC offer of +20%. This middle is therefore 10%, therefore, on roughly equal skills, the PC should come close to getting the best deal, maybe getting it about half the time, and coming close the other half.

If the Merchant has a better skill, he's more likely to end up closer to his offer, and will probably get somewhere between fair price and +10%.

If the PC has a better skill, he's more likely to wind up closer to his offer of +20%, therefore between +10% and +20%... but the merchant won't go over his best offer of +10%. So, with a better skill, the PC will almost always reach the best offer when haggling, which in this case is +10%. (Or -10% if reversing the selling/buying)

So, by using an acceptable offer of doubling the amount the merchant is willing to go to, with roughly equal skill, you should wind up about halfway which is effectively the maximum amount the merchant is willing to accept (after all, you doubled it). Most merchants, however, would presumably have a better skill than most PC, therefore the merchants should win more often, and have a final offer closer to his own initial offer rather than his best offer. But, if the party does have a really good PC merchant, he'll often get the best deals for them, as he's most likely to win more than lose the contests, and easily reach the best offer.

Granted, it varies a bit by each reaction, as doubling the best offer allowable and comparing it to the merchant's initial offer won't always have the middle ground - where equal skills should arrive - at the best offer. But then, I find that it will with the most initial Neutral-ish reactions, thus favoring in the middle, be in the PC's favor with most positive initial reactions, and be in the merchant's favor wit most negative initial reactions. I believe that variability goes well with the intentions of the initial Reaction value anyway; if someone starts out not liking you, it will take much more than equal skill to get him to budge to his best offer.

You can tweak the system by changing the "doubling the best offer" value to something else (say, x1.5 best offer), or whatever, depending on how you believe that roughly equal skills should result in final offers. By using x1.5 best offer, for example, the middle ground would be roughly x0.75 of best offer, so more in the merchant's favor, but best offer is still within easy reach of a skilled PC merchant/haggler.


Looking at the alternative, with your suggestion of 50% (assuming merchant is selling) regardless of Reaction, assuming a Neutral initial reaction, even an unskilled PC merchant has room enough to budge the merchant by 10%... he can sacrifice 4/5 of the difference to get the merchant to move 1/5 of the difference, and get that maximum of 10% discount. Personally, I'd rather see an unskilled PC not have that wiggle room, and thus limit him to a value much closer to the best offer so that he's unlikely to reach it.

Not sure if I made that explanation clear.. let me know, and I'll write up several more concrete examples if needed.