Barter and trade
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Well, i study economy at the university, and my books all state, the value of any goods is the amount another individual will pay for it. Its that simple
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Indeed.
and, since no one really wants gems for any reason, their value is very low.The price for them a a "store" is so high because the shopkeeper stocks them for such a long time between sales, that on those rare occasions when someone wants to wander in and buy one, the profit from that -one- has to make up for all those gems he's been sitting on for so long.
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@O'louth:
Well, i study economy at the university, and my books all state, the value of any goods is the amount another individual will pay for it. Its that simple
This.
People are prepared to pay proportionaly to how much they need the item.
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There has actually been a few times where certain characters outright refused gold because they had too much of it. In order to get whatever it was they were selling I'd have to trade an equally interesting and unique item.
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There has actually been a few times where certain characters outright refused gold because they had too much of it. In order to get whatever it was they were selling I'd have to trade an equally interesting and unique item.
One day, one day, I'll figure out how to create that much gold
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Simple example of how trading really works.
Full plate, for example. You can buy one for 2000, sell one for 600 (NPCs)
On the other hand, a PC who is about to buy a full plate, will be glad to pay, say 1200 for it (double what you would have gained from selling it to an NPC) and on the other hand, someone who wants to get rid of the full plate might only ask for 800, since they want to get rid of it.PC merchants mainly exploit this for their own profit. Buy from those who -do not want- the item, sell to those who -need it-.
The more wanted an item is, the more closer to the NPC price it's price will be. On the other hand, if nobody wants it, the closer it is to what you get from an NPC.Gems are problematic, because nearly nobody -needs- them, and very rare people -want to get rid- of them, since they weight nothing. I used to buy in valuable gems with slightly more gold than what an NPC would give for them, mearly beacuse they made a nice back-up emergency funds. Unlike your fat pouch of gold, they don't jump to the front page of your loot bag once you hit the fugue (and thus lesser chance of getting looted. Also, I don't think that gold gives the "you see so-and-so take such-and-such from his belongings).
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I think the trouble with gems is that MOST gems are mechanically useless, although they can be used for purely RP things like offerings or swindling low-int characters.
The mechanically useful ones are very rarely found. In addition, the tedium of sorting out which are useful and which are not means