So question: How do people handle the whole market VS merchant thing? Do you only use merchants when doing Ventures? Can you sell your salt to them and then buy iron spikes in the city or no because there are no metal merchants around?
I agree with this, although because the characters are part of the same party. Presumably, the Venturer picked 10k worth of treasure other than the gems, and (essentially) swapped that for the gems. It would be a way of short-circuiting the risk provision.
However, if multiple campaigns were being run in the same world (similar to what Gygax used to do with Greyhawk), and the Venturer hadn’t been part of the session where the other character gained the gems, I would consider allowing it, since it’s not a swap to get around the rule, but an exchange between characters who may or may not see a separate benefit from the trade.
That’s a circumstance I hadn’t considered; I agree, in the case of entirely separate parties who just happen to both be PCs, I would probably treat it the same as if they were NPCs.
If the PCs are normally members of the same group, but someone just missed a night, I’d stick with my original ‘it doesn’t count’ ruling.
Indeed, if you violate the no-arbitrage condition, who knows what manner of ancient evil you might unseal?
In the specific case that prompted this question, the player obtained it on a solo adventure between sessions.
On a related note, a bunch of the Venturer’s class features give bonuses to places he’s familiar with or has visited before. What would you guys say constitutes a visit?
Right. Merchants are for doing mercantile ventures. Just buying mundane equipment for party use is regular market activity.
Hm. Good question. I’d kind of want it to depend on the Market Class.
This’d be a good chance for some sort of Carousing table on how much you have to spend in a city of X size to be assured you’re “known”; something related to the Cost Of Living table, perhaps.
Quick “house rule” (completely untested) idea:
A Venturer counts as “visiting” any urban area in which s/he spends (7-market size) days, so a Class IV requires 3 days, while a Class I require 6 days. This represents that it takes longer to build a network in a larger city.
A Venturer must also select a home market. They can change their home market each time they gain a level, or if a particular market has clearly become their primary base of operations. They are familiar with any hex within a number of hexes equal to their level from their home market.
I’ve treated it as “has attempted to conduct trade there”. So not just passing through, but actively going out and looking for merchants, which is pretty well established as taking up to 3 weeks to get the full benefits (but note that, in smaller markets, you may meet all available merchants within the first or second week). Actually trading with them isn’t required, just finding out who the local players are and, ideally, meeting a few of them in person to establish relationships which can be the basis of mutually-beneficial future commerce.
The Merchant section seems written under the assumption that adventurers enter a city with the expression intention of selling OR buying.
What if I want to do both? Say I’ve arrived in Meatville with a load of much-needed salt. I’d like to sell the salt, and then buy hams, which I’ll sell up the river in Swordsburg (Who export primarily common woods that I’ll sell to the dwarves for more salt.)
Should I roll twice for each merchant- Once to determine how many loads they’ll buy, once to determine how many they’ll sell? Or should we just, for simplicity’s sake, assume that each merchant wants to buy and sell the same amount? Or should we assume that there are separate merchants for buying and selling, and I need to wait an extra three weeks to find all the SELLING merchants after I’ve bought my goods?
The first sentence under step 3 on ACKS 143 says, “Each merchant will buy and sell only one type of merchandise.” (emphasis mine) My interpretation, then, is that you find a salt merchant who will either buy salt or sell it, so you sell him your salt, then you find a ham merchant, who will either buy or sell hams, and buy from him.
While you could roll “loads they’ll buy” and “loads they’ll sell” independently, I wouldn’t expect there to be many cases where you’d be interested in both buying and selling the same goods to the same person, so you may as well just roll once and treat that as the number of loads they’re willing to handle in whichever direction it is that you actually want, since the quantity they’ll handle in the other direction doesn’t matter.
Well, with a high charisma, you can roll to convince them to transact in another type of merchandise. I’m imagining buying hams from the hams guy, and then asking if he’s interested in buying salt from me.
Looking through things, I feel like Step 3, Para 1 is a completely independent step from Step 3, Para 2 - and if you’re lucky enough to roll up an actual salt or ham merchant in Step 3 Para 1, then you can skip to Step 4 for that particular merchant for that particular merchandise, though you can still convince him to buy/sell the one he doesn’t trade in at the moment.
I say this mainly because there’s no support in the example for Farlaghn finding a specific dye/pigment merchant - he rolls a reaction for all 7 merchants available, with no mention to what they were actually trading in from Step 3 Para 1, and it’s highly unlikely we got a dyes/pigment result for all 7.
I don’t think you’d need to convince with the reaction roll in Step 3 Para 2 a merchant to trade in a merchandise he’s already determined to be actively trading.
So Step 3 Para 1 is the easy route - you found a salt or ham merchant; boom, find out how many loads he’ll deal in.
Step 3 Para 2 is having to talk people into buying your salt or selling some ham based on a reaction roll that includes the local demand modifiers, representing the merchant’s built-in knowledge of if that’d be a good deal for him.
/IANAA
Also, I’m not sure how to establish how the adventurer has a monopoly, unless that means that he’s buying/selling something that no other merchant that exists in this instance of trade from Step 2 and Step 3 Para 1 is working in.
//ISANAA
As far as I can tell, the only Monopolies in game are politically granted; you go to the local lord and ask if you can be the Official Executive Salt Czar. It’s on the favors/duties chart.
Now, as to how a PC grants this to someone else, that’s very unclear. What stops Magnar from granting me a monopoly in every good, and letting me conduct trade on behalf of his entire city?
I’d say: “Nothing. Except for the assassins and saboteurs and smugglers hired by the various Merchants’ Guilds that he angers by granting such an overarching monopoly.”
And pirates. Let’s not forget pirates. Or privateers, if you prefer.
Nothing at all! Enjoy the profits. Try not to get killed.
Just read passengers and shipping.
So, essentially, passengers and shipping contracts are identical, except that passengers always weight 200 stone (er, sort of, for game purposes. Presumably they’re not really elephants) while a shipping contract has a variable number of loads, plus one ‘merchant representative’ who acts like a free passenger (and weighs 200 stone?). But either way, you’re making 1 gp per 10 stone per X distance based on land/sea.
So, if a passenger wants a specific destination, he has to pay as if he filled the cargo hold. Does he actually fill it, or is the ship owner free to take on other goods (Although the passenger still weighs 200 stone, so that much space is out?)
Am I right in thinking the intent of this is to allow adventurers to convert “extra” space in their caravan into safe profit with no downpayment? “Okay, so we only sold about half our furs in this town, which means we have eight free wagons now, let’s pick up some passengers to help pay for walking all the way to Northdwarf.”
Typically he does not actually fill it, no.
Think Luke & Obi-Wan being willing to pay a premium to charter the M.Falcon straight to their destination.