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Old 10-06-2016, 06:14 AM   #1
Erling
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Default [Social Engineering] Haggling and counterproposal

Say, PCs want to buy something which's price is not well-established. They ask merchant about a price. That calls for reaction roll. Die roll indicates Poor reaction: NPC asks 120% of fair price and accepts fair price. PCs want to haggle, NPC doesn't mind.

The question is what prevents PCs from making extremely low counterproposal? If their counterproposal will be, for example, 30% of fair price, they will certainly reduce selling price to 100% of fair price because haggling rules assume gradual variation of buy/sell prices until someone will lose by 10+ or the parties will come to an agreement (a roughly medium price). That makes haggling nearly pointless, which is sad, because I generally like these rules.

As a GM I tend to just say "your counteroffer is ridiculous, merchant won't haggle" unless PC's counteroffer will be equal or higher than the number as different from fair price as merchant's price is. That is, if merchant asks for 120%, he won't haggle unless PCs offer 80% or more.

Is that fair? Or maybe I overlooked something in the rules?
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Old 10-06-2016, 08:39 AM   #2
DouglasCole
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Default Re: [Social Engineering] Haggling and counterproposal

Quote:
Originally Posted by Erling View Post
Say, PCs want to buy something which's price is not well-established. They ask merchant about a price. That calls for reaction roll. Die roll indicates Poor reaction: NPC asks 120% of fair price and accepts fair price. PCs want to haggle, NPC doesn't mind.

The question is what prevents PCs from making extremely low counterproposal? If their counterproposal will be, for example, 30% of fair price, they will certainly reduce selling price to 100% of fair price because haggling rules assume gradual variation of buy/sell prices until someone will lose by 10+ or the parties will come to an agreement (a roughly medium price). That makes haggling nearly pointless, which is sad, because I generally like these rules.

As a GM I tend to just say "your counteroffer is ridiculous, merchant won't haggle" unless PC's counteroffer will be equal or higher than the number as different from fair price as merchant's price is. That is, if merchant asks for 120%, he won't haggle unless PCs offer 80% or more.

Is that fair? Or maybe I overlooked something in the rules?
This seems fair - in fact, it's exactly what I was thinking I'd do, for what that's worth.

One thing you could potentially do is to say "ridiculous counter-offers will cause a re-roll on the reaction table, and the reaction can only get worse."

So ridiculous offers will either stay at price-120% of price or get worse, as you've insulted the guy.
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Old 10-06-2016, 12:13 PM   #3
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Default Re: [Social Engineering] Haggling and counterproposal

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
This seems fair - in fact, it's exactly what I was thinking I'd do, for what that's worth.

One thing you could potentially do is to say "ridiculous counter-offers will cause a re-roll on the reaction table, and the reaction can only get worse."

So ridiculous offers will either stay at price-120% of price or get worse, as you've insulted the guy.
I don't know if this will help, but here's how I teach negotiations. (The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator by Leigh Thompson is a good source. Robert Cialdini is an acclaimed social psychologist in this field as well; his textbook Influence is available in a practitioner format.) We'll use pricing as the example since it's simple. The principles remain the same in multi-issue negotiations and in cases where you have non-economic and non-numerical issues at stake.

First, we establish the microeconomic constraints of the negotiation. In this case, an important concept is the reserve price. That's the worst possible deal that you're willing to accept. Each side has his reserve price (though they might not admit what the real reserve is even to themselves). It's the point at which a party is indifferent between making the agreement and just walking away.

This establishes the zone of agreement, the range of possible outcomes. If the lowest price I'm willing to accept is higher than highest price you're willing to pay, then there's no overlap and therefore no deal possible. Otherwise, we're fighting over where in that zone the final deal ends up. Each side wants to conceal their reserve price, while discovering the other side's.

A lot of the hobnobbing and small talk you see in business and politics is meant to probe for these hidden issues and uncover someone's real positions, not just what they are telling you.

The next step is setting an anchor. Each side makes proposals, attempting to justify them. If a proposal is too ridiculous, or lacks a plausible justification, then the other party won't accept it. If it's too generous, then you're starting the negotiation up having already ceded concessions for free that you might have traded away. Then it's a game to ensure that your anchor sets while the other guy's doesn't.

Within this zone, where the agreement ends up depends on a variety of factors, but this is where you get into all the socially complex interactions that we normally see as the haggling part of negotiation. Bluff, fast-talk, intimidation, even seduction sometimes comes into play. But so do actual shifts in your position. Sides trade concessions bit by bit to edge their positions into the zone of possible agreements (each side feigns a more aggressive reserve price so the perceived zone is much smaller than the actual zone).

This is where a multi-issue negotiation can be interesting, because you can trade apples for oranges. Offers can often be used as probes to gather information and figure out what the other side wants, is willing to accept, and how they weigh the relative values of different issues.

If you have an agent working for you doing your negotiation for you, then things get a little more complicated. The agent will put their own interests above yours, depending on what those interests actually are and how carefully you monitor them. Economists call this a principal-agent conflict. Principals also tend to give their agents false (inflated) reserve prices in the hopes of forcing them to negotiate more aggressively. This can sometimes torpedo negotiations.

If you have negotiating teams, then often each member of each team has their own motivations and priorities. So then everything becomes a two stage negotiation, where the two teams negotiate among themselves before (trying to) present a united front to the other side.

So really every negotiation should have three phases. First, the GM determines each party's walkaway point. Then the two sides each get rolls to do some kind of intelligence gathering (carousing, intelligence analysis, diplomacy, etc depending on context). Then the Influence check to actually do the haggling.
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Old 10-06-2016, 12:30 PM   #4
whswhs
 
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Default Re: [Social Engineering] Haggling and counterproposal

Are we talking about goods of unknown value?
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Old 10-06-2016, 12:42 PM   #5
jason taylor
 
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Default Re: [Social Engineering] Haggling and counterproposal

Quote:
Originally Posted by Erling View Post
Say, PCs want to buy something which's price is not well-established. They ask merchant about a price. That calls for reaction roll. Die roll indicates Poor reaction: NPC asks 120% of fair price and accepts fair price. PCs want to haggle, NPC doesn't mind.

The question is what prevents PCs from making extremely low counterproposal? If their counterproposal will be, for example, 30% of fair price, they will certainly reduce selling price to 100% of fair price because haggling rules assume gradual variation of buy/sell prices until someone will lose by 10+ or the parties will come to an agreement (a roughly medium price). That makes haggling nearly pointless, which is sad, because I generally like these rules.

As a GM I tend to just say "your counteroffer is ridiculous, merchant won't haggle" unless PC's counteroffer will be equal or higher than the number as different from fair price as merchant's price is. That is, if merchant asks for 120%, he won't haggle unless PCs offer 80% or more.

Is that fair? Or maybe I overlooked something in the rules?
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Old 10-06-2016, 02:02 PM   #6
hal
 
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Default Re: [Social Engineering] Haggling and counterproposal

The key part of the rules is in step three on page 27. It states to effect that haggling continues until what the player offers is between what the seller wants and what he will accept. So, let's say an item is worth $100. The seller (NPC) is asked "how much" and he responds $120. The player counters with an offer of $30. So, let's say the contest between the PC vs NPC results in a win by 4 for the merchant. So, as GM, you have the merchant point out those things that makes the item superior to the suggested price of $30 and he might add "I have five chilfren's mouths to feed, I couldn't even dream of letting it go for that price!" At this point, having lost the contest of skills, the player must now bid higher or the haggling ends. So the player bids $31 in triumph saying "ok, new contest!" As GM, you smile saying "your new bid isn't serious enough to warrant a new contest roll until you increase your bid by a percentage equal to what you lost by times 10 percent. Otherwise, the haggling ends there." So in exasperation, the player asks "how much did he win by". If you're smart, just have the NPC ignore the PC until he raises his bid by .4 x $30 or at least $12. So the player offered 31 the first time and the NPC ignores him. Finally, he offers $42. That triggers the next contest of skills. This time, the player wins by 1, so you say "well, you seem willing to rob my children of food from their mouths, maybe $108 would satisfy you?"

At this point, the player can accept the price or counter-offer. He runs the risk that the merchant will win by 10 and say take it or leave it. But, let's be nice and say the merchant rolls bad and player rolls well enough to win by 10 when he counter-offers $43. The merchant has to accept that right? Nope. Per step three, the merchant accepts the price unless it is less than the lowest he is willing to go. If that happens, the merchant will then say "$100. That's my final offer. "
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Old 10-06-2016, 02:02 PM   #7
Anaraxes
 
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Default Re: [Social Engineering] Haggling and counterproposal

Speaking just of the RAW, the situation seems to be covered by SE p27.

Quote:
If the PCs offer a price, roll for the seller’s reaction, and refer to Commercial Transaction Results to see if he’s willing to accept the offer. In this case, the PCs’ offer affects the seller’s reaction: +1 for every 10% over the fair price, or -1 for every 10% under the fair price.

If the seller refuses an offer or counteroffer from the PCs, the transaction doesn’t take place.
While this is part of the "one roll and done" rule to see if an offer is accepted, in the haggling process the initial counterproposal is still offering a price. I don't see any reason not to use those same penalties, with a poor reaction terminating the haggling, while good ones allow the haggling to continue (rather than immediately concluding the transaction at that price).

You might also apply the modifier as a penalty on the Contest of Merchant skills. Taking a high penalty means it's likely that your opposite number refuses to change their price, and so you'd be stuck at that 120%, take it or leave it.

And of course, the merchant never agrees to a price outside his limits (established by that opening reaction roll, complete with penalties for the lowball price).
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Old 10-06-2016, 02:16 PM   #8
hal
 
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Default Re: [Social Engineering] Haggling and counterproposal

Adding to what I wrote above, let's say that the player hadn't asked "how much?" but instead, had offered $30. That is 70% less than fair value, for a -7 reaction roll penalty! Rolling a 10 for a reaction roll, less the 7 for the low bid, commercial transaction results in the merchant will have nothing to do with the player character and reroll on the table for potential conbat at -2.

It is NOT in the player character's best interest to lowball the initial offer, and even a -3 penalty can raise the cost of what the merchant will settle for.
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Old 10-06-2016, 02:32 PM   #9
Erling
 
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Default Re: [Social Engineering] Haggling and counterproposal

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Are we talking about goods of unknown value?
I assume a middle situation when common price of the goods is known but haggling is still common. That is, a basic situation which calls for reaction roll as per SE27.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
Don't forget extra factors. If for instance there is a Crusade or Jihad around Syria the supply of Damaskcene will be short.
And..?
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Old 10-06-2016, 02:47 PM   #10
Erling
 
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Default Re: [Social Engineering] Haggling and counterproposal

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Originally Posted by hal View Post
The key part of the rules is in step three on page 27. It states to effect that haggling continues until what the player offers is between what the seller wants and what he will accept. So, let's say an item is worth $100. The seller (NPC) is asked "how much" and he responds $120. The player counters with an offer of $30. So, let's say the contest between the PC vs NPC results in a win by 4 for the merchant. So, as GM, you have the merchant point out those things that makes the item superior to the suggested price of $30 and he might add "I have five chilfren's mouths to feed, I couldn't even dream of letting it go for that price!" At this point, having lost the contest of skills, the player must now bid higher or the haggling ends. So the player bids $31 in triumph saying "ok, new contest!" As GM, you smile saying "your new bid isn't serious enough to warrant a new contest roll until you increase your bid by a percentage equal to what you lost by times 10 percent. Otherwise, the haggling ends there." So in exasperation, the player asks "how much did he win by". If you're smart, just have the NPC ignore the PC until he raises his bid by .4 x $30 or at least $12. So the player offered 31 the first time and the NPC ignores him. Finally, he offers $42. That triggers the next contest of skills. This time, the player wins by 1, so you say "well, you seem willing to rob my children of food from their mouths, maybe $108 would satisfy you?"

At this point, the player can accept the price or counter-offer. He runs the risk that the merchant will win by 10 and say take it or leave it. But, let's be nice and say the merchant rolls bad and player rolls well enough to win by 10 when he counter-offers $43. The merchant has to accept that right? Nope. Per step three, the merchant accepts the price unless it is less than the lowest he is willing to go. If that happens, the merchant will then say "$100. That's my final offer. "
That's nice, but PCs chances to win the fair price are still higher, aren't they?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
You might also apply the modifier as a penalty on the Contest of Merchant skills. Taking a high penalty means it's likely that your opposite number refuses to change their price, and so you'd be stuck at that 120%, take it or leave it.
Sound reasonable to apply penalties to Merchant rolls until PC's current offer won't reach reasonable number, for example, 80%.
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