Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Bruno

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.

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

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

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

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.

[Peter Knutsen]

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".

[Snoman314]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

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".

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.