Selling and Trading
Although we don’t expect your games to constantly
involve adventures in commerce, nearly every roleplaying
game involves selling items at one point or another
(even if your character is just selling items looted from
the corpses of their foes).
When selling an item, your character needs to make a successful Negotiation check. Use the difficulty set by the item’s rarity (as determined by Table I.5–1: Rarity). Your characters can generally sell an item for one-quarter of its cost if the check is successful, increasing that to one-half with s s and to three-quarters with s s s or more.
In some cases, the PCs might wish to engage in trade, buying multiple items at one location and then selling them at another location where they are rarer. We generally advise that you handle this narratively. However, if your GM wishes to use some mechanical guidelines for this process, we’ve provided some basic rules that cover trading.
Trade works the same whether with black-market items or with legal items. Selling either type of item follows the rules listed previously with the caveat that trading in legal items requires a Negotiation check, while trading in illegal items requires a Streetwise check. However, when determining the sell price based on the success of the Negotiation or Streetwise check, first multiply the cost of the item by the difference between the item’s rarity where it was bought and its rarity where it is to be sold, referring to Table I.5–2: Rarity Modifiers and Table I.5–3: Increased Costs When Trading. Then take the new, increased cost and determine the sell price by the results of the Negotiation or Streetwise check.
Of course, these rules do not account for all sorts of details, such as buying in bulk, marketing and advertising, and myriad other factors that may affect prices. This is why the rules for buying, selling, and trading are all modifiable by the GM and subject to their judgement. It is also important to note that these rules only apply when engaging in commercial trade. So, if your group sells a load of guns in a town, then later your character buys one of those guns in that town, they’re going to have to pay the usual, listed price for the gun. Don’t try to use these guidelines for trading and selling in bulk to cheat the system!
The final thing to remember is that your GM always has the final say on what can be sold, where it can be sold, and how much it can be sold for. Because this isn’t likely to be a major part of the game, we deliberately made a system that is simple and doesn’t account for a lot of the variables that would normally matter when trying to sell an item. If your GM wants to stop your characters from selling cell phones to a village without any cell service, or have an arms dealer decide that turning your characters in to the government for a reward is a better deal than what you’re offering, they are well within their rights to do so.
Black-Market Items
Nearly every setting has its “black market,” an illicit network of merchants and traders who buy and sell whatever happens to be illegal in that setting. Sometimes this commerce happens in an actual market, but more often, such deals happen through a labyrinthine web of contacts, cutouts, and middlemen.
If your characters want to buy something that happens to be illegal, they’re probably going to have to go into the black market to do so. Buying and selling on the black market follows all the same rules as regular buying and selling, except that instead of making a Negotiation check to find items or determine the price your character can sell them at, they need to make a Streetwise check instead.
When selling an item, your character needs to make a successful Negotiation check. Use the difficulty set by the item’s rarity (as determined by Table I.5–1: Rarity). Your characters can generally sell an item for one-quarter of its cost if the check is successful, increasing that to one-half with s s and to three-quarters with s s s or more.
In some cases, the PCs might wish to engage in trade, buying multiple items at one location and then selling them at another location where they are rarer. We generally advise that you handle this narratively. However, if your GM wishes to use some mechanical guidelines for this process, we’ve provided some basic rules that cover trading.
Trade works the same whether with black-market items or with legal items. Selling either type of item follows the rules listed previously with the caveat that trading in legal items requires a Negotiation check, while trading in illegal items requires a Streetwise check. However, when determining the sell price based on the success of the Negotiation or Streetwise check, first multiply the cost of the item by the difference between the item’s rarity where it was bought and its rarity where it is to be sold, referring to Table I.5–2: Rarity Modifiers and Table I.5–3: Increased Costs When Trading. Then take the new, increased cost and determine the sell price by the results of the Negotiation or Streetwise check.
Of course, these rules do not account for all sorts of details, such as buying in bulk, marketing and advertising, and myriad other factors that may affect prices. This is why the rules for buying, selling, and trading are all modifiable by the GM and subject to their judgement. It is also important to note that these rules only apply when engaging in commercial trade. So, if your group sells a load of guns in a town, then later your character buys one of those guns in that town, they’re going to have to pay the usual, listed price for the gun. Don’t try to use these guidelines for trading and selling in bulk to cheat the system!
The final thing to remember is that your GM always has the final say on what can be sold, where it can be sold, and how much it can be sold for. Because this isn’t likely to be a major part of the game, we deliberately made a system that is simple and doesn’t account for a lot of the variables that would normally matter when trying to sell an item. If your GM wants to stop your characters from selling cell phones to a village without any cell service, or have an arms dealer decide that turning your characters in to the government for a reward is a better deal than what you’re offering, they are well within their rights to do so.
Black-Market Items
Nearly every setting has its “black market,” an illicit network of merchants and traders who buy and sell whatever happens to be illegal in that setting. Sometimes this commerce happens in an actual market, but more often, such deals happen through a labyrinthine web of contacts, cutouts, and middlemen.
If your characters want to buy something that happens to be illegal, they’re probably going to have to go into the black market to do so. Buying and selling on the black market follows all the same rules as regular buying and selling, except that instead of making a Negotiation check to find items or determine the price your character can sell them at, they need to make a Streetwise check instead.
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