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Bargaining is binding
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Dredwulf60
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PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 9:12 am    Post subject: Bargaining is binding Reply with quote

I've seen that some GMs have bargaining rolls to determine a price for something and then allow either party to walk away without the transaction if they don't like the final value.

I used to do this. I don't anymore.

The way I currently think about it is that the skill represents the ability to present a price in a way that convinces the other party that they are getting a good deal (whether they are or not; the ability to realize this is why the skill is with Perception.)

The one who rolls lower technically doesn't realize they are getting the poor end. They might not like the price, but the other party has made it seem REASONABLE.

Having characters or NPCs walk away after the bargaining process diminishes the point of the exchange.

PCs will usually walk away from a poor bargain roll in an attempt to find another vendor and get another roll, until they 'win' or until the GM tells them...no one else has one.

On the other hand, the players will get upset if every NPC walks away whenever the PC gets a great bargain roll.

So the only transactions actually completed will be those at more or less the base price.


My solution is too make the results of the bargain roll binding.

First there is a bit of roleplay between the PC and NPC, to stake out the base price and the primary angle of approach;

PC: "your hyperdrive is old and is getting taken out of a junker..."
NPC: "Yeah, but it was a show model that never left the system. It was sold at auction when the dealer went bankrupt."

Based on the interaction, I may adjust the base price.


(if interested the PC can make a perception roll, if successful I'll let him know the NPC's bargain skill.)


Now at this point the base price can be paid or walk away.

If the PCs want to take advantage of their Bargain skill, they can go ahead, knowing they may be able to talk themselves a great deal. However, they also realize that they might get swindled.

Player last game rolled abysmally when trying to buy a hyperdrive. The vendor raised the price by throwing in fine-print warranty, complimentary undercoating, charged for ecologically sound disposal, service charges...etc.


If by some reason the character lacks the funds of the final inflated price; it's treated as a debt; payment plan option, or with interest, depending on who they are dealing with.

They can't walk away after the bargain roll any more than they can take back an attack that does no damage to a foe when they were counting on a killing blow, and hope to avoid the fight altogether.

How do you handle bargaining?
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jmanski
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PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 4:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree, it must be binding. If not the PCs would use it (abuse it) to only get good prices. If you wish to bargain, it is a risk.
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PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 4:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

For me the bargaining process goes something like this:

Determine the price: Players roll value and planetary knowledge checks to determine the base price of the items they wish to buy or sell where they currently are.

Locate the best buyer / seller: This is done with either a bureaucracy, streetwise, investigation, or cultures check determined by who they want to try to sell to (Government, Black Market, Private Company, or Private Citizen.)

Bargain with buyer / seller: The above rolls set the base price and the players can take it or leave it. If they want to try for a better deal they can take a risk and try to bargain. If they succeed they can now get the better deal. If they fail they get a worse price, if they roll one on the wild die and fail the person they are bargaining with retracts their offer to buy / sell. They can leave, but they know that they have already found the best person in their area for the goods they were buy / selling so anyone else they go to will set a lower base price.

The above process usually takes twelve hours though they can reduce the time by taking a higher difficultly. The base difficulty is set by how much demand there is for the item. If they fail in their bargain check they can wait a week and try again in the same population area. Most of the time my players don't like waiting because that is time where enemies catch up with them, or complications occur especially if they are the ones with the cargo that needs to be sold.

I like this system because for the players to really get the best price, they need a variety of skills which usually means getting the whole group involved in the price hunting process, as well as creating role playing opportunities for the group. Do they sell to Imperials or a vicious crime family because they have the best price or do they sell to a private group knowing they need it more but will get a lower price. With some groups it is an issue and with others it isn't but it often it causes the group to have discussions about where their morals and priorities lay.


Last edited by Rusharn on Sat May 07, 2016 5:53 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Dredwulf60
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PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 4:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rusharn wrote:
For me the bargaining process goes something like this:...


I like this.

My players do use streetwise to find buyers, but normally it turns up *A* buyer, as opposed to the best buyer. I may start going with your approach though.
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PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 5:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree, that its borked in that they can just walk away since they know they got a poor bargaining roll.

As to how i do it..
Know- Business, Cultures, Investigations and maybe Bureaucracy to find a good seller
Tech - Comp prog to hack info on said seller
Know - value to know if you're getting a good deal or not

Then a mix of RP and bargaining rolls..
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PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 2:08 am    Post subject: Re: Bargaining is binding Reply with quote

Dredwulf60 wrote:
I've seen that some GMs have bargaining rolls to determine a price for something and then allow either party to walk away without the transaction if they don't like the final value.

So you've seen RAW. The way you describe it, it's some weird unusual house rule.

Dredwulf60 wrote:
The way I currently think about it is that the skill represents the ability to present a price in a way that convinces the other party that they are getting a good deal (whether they are or not; the ability to realize this is why the skill is with Perception.)

In RAW, Bargain is a Perception skill simply because Perception includes social interaction/influence skills.

Dredwulf60 wrote:
How do you handle bargaining?

Pretty much as in RAW.

Dredwulf60 wrote:
PCs will usually walk away from a poor bargain roll in an attempt to find another vendor and get another roll, until they 'win' or until the GM tells them...no one else has one.

On the other hand, the players will get upset if every NPC walks away whenever the PC gets a great bargain roll.

So the only transactions actually completed will be those at more or less the base price.

None of this has been my general experience with the Bargain skill. When a PC bargains with an NPC, the transaction almost always goes through at whatever price it ends up being, good or bad for the PC. One problem with PCs just walking away from transactions is that there is usually a clock ticking in the adventure in some respect. The PCs are usually not at their leisure to just keep trying to find more sellers to get a better price.

And I usually don't have NPCs walk away from transactions. If they agree to enter into a negotiation, they are looking to sell the item. Of course they will try to get the best possible price, but I would be a real a-hole of GM if I always played NPCs like eBay sellers with a secret reserve price and just walk away if the opposed roll result is below that price. The story is not about NPCs. The story is about the PCs. NPCs with items for sale generally serve that purpose in the adventure, to sell stuff, not to screw PCs. If the NPC seller has some other purpose in the adventure (even secretly), then the bargain skill isn't what the encounter is all about.

And I wouldn't have a big problem if most transactions ended up close to the base price anyway. In RAW Bargain already represents that sellers and buyers will both try to get the best deal possible. I wouldn't be surprised if the final price averages out to be the base price, but I've never kept track because I don't see the Bargain skill as that important to the game overall. Even in a Tramp Freighter campaign, the buying, selling and business aspect is really just a vehicle for the story, and the purpose of the game is adventure.

Dredwulf60 wrote:
The one who rolls lower technically doesn't realize they are getting the poor end. They might not like the price, but the other party has made it seem REASONABLE...

(if interested the PC can make a perception roll, if successful I'll let him know the NPC's bargain skill.)...

If by some reason the character lacks the funds of the final inflated price; it's treated as a debt; payment plan option, or with interest, depending on who they are dealing with.

If all that works for you and your group, great.

Dredwulf60 wrote:
My solution is too make the results of the bargain roll binding.

In my game, the final price is what's fairly binding. Usually the only way the a PC-rejected price might later change is if the circumstances significantly changed since the previous negotiation, like yesterday was business as usual but today the Empire is invading so the seller's priorities are different now.

Dredwulf60 wrote:
Having characters or NPCs walk away after the bargaining process diminishes the point of the exchange.

I must disagree with this as a general statement. In real life, sellers usually have a minimum price they will sell something for but of course they will try to get as much money as they can. In real life, buyers usually have a max price they are willing to pay or can pay, but they will still try to get the best price possible. The Bargain skill is a simulation of real life price negotiation, with the ability of either side to reject the price being the built-in fail safe for when the price isn't acceptable. When an NPC seller doesn't reject the PC buyer's offer, it is almost always because I haven't bothered to even decide a minimum price and I'm just letting the dice decide the outcome. PCs not being absolutely bound to the final price allows them to keep the player's free will about the transaction. If they just can't go that high they can't go that high. I've had plenty of cases where PCs go into a negotiation having a very good idea of the base price and that they don't have enough money to even cover that (so they know have to out-bargain the NPC by a certain amount to even be able to buy it at all). And debts and payment plans aren't often going to be available for the item, so I want to keep the RAW possibility open where desperate PCs try to beat the odds but just don't end up with the item they need. I don't feel the point of the negotiation is at all diminished.

Rusharn wrote:
Determine the price: Players roll value and planetary knowledge checks to determine the base price of the items they wish to buy or sell where they currently are.

Locate the best buyer / seller: This is done with either a bureaucracy, streetwise, investigation, or cultures check determined by who they want to try to sell to (Government, Black Market, Private Company, or Private Citizen.)
garhkal wrote:
Know- Business, Cultures, Investigations and maybe Bureaucracy to find a good seller
Tech - Comp prog to hack info on said seller
Know - value to know if you're getting a good deal or not

Yep, all of that. There are a lot of different skills and roleplaying that can possibly get a PC and an NPC to the point of price negotiation and help determine the base price for that negotiation.

And just to be complete, not all prices are negotiable. If a PC walks into a retail store for a legal item, there will probably just be a price and that's it, take it or leave it. But even not retail and not legal, in some cases there could still just be a flat price. For Bargain to be used, a seller and potential buyer have to come together and the seller has to agree that the price is negotiable in the first place.

garhkal wrote:
Then a mix of RP and bargaining rolls.

I actually don't bother with roleplaying much at all for the actual price negotiation itself. The Bargain skill determines the best price the seller can do for the buyer, and the player decides if the PC will pay it or not.
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Rusharn
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PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 2:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I normally only allow bargain rolls for large purchases of several items. Like a seller will not haggle over the price for ten blasters, but when you buy a crate of fifty blasters that opens up some room to negotiate, especially if the players seem like they will be making repeat purchases. Like wise when you start talking tons of cargo that is another place where bargain can come in. Also expensive items, usually starting around 25,000 credits or higher usually have room to start negotiating price.

The other place where bargain can come into play is on backwater worlds where the sporting blaster you see for sale maybe the only blaster for sale on the entire planet or when bartering is the only why to make exchanges. Just a few sessions back the players needed parts to repair their star ship but couldn't make it to a real landing field. They ran into some pirates. Fortunately they had an empty cargo hold, the pirate already had a full cargo bay, and the old shot to pieces tramp freighter didn't seem worth the trouble attacking. But the players made a deal using persuasion and bargain where the pirates would give them the parts they needed, and the players would take the pirates stolen goods and sell them in systems where the pirates were wanted, for well piracy, to get the best price and return with cash, materials, and a few star fighters the pirates needed.

It worked out and the players became the gofers for a pirate group for a few sessions. They made friends that will probably be useful later on in the campaign if they choose to use them. They are kind of a moralistic group so working for pirates didn't sit well with them, but they had worked themselves into a corner so they were willing to make an exception.
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PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 2:29 pm    Post subject: Re: Bargaining is binding Reply with quote

Whill wrote:

None of this has been my general experience with the Bargain skill. When a PC bargains with an NPC, the transaction almost always goes through at whatever price it ends up being, good or bad for the PC. One problem with PCs just walking away from transactions is that there is usually a clock ticking in the adventure in some respect. The PCs are usually not at their leisure to just keep trying to find more sellers to get a better price.


Strange, rarely have i seen them in that much of a time constraint they can't shift to some other seller, or just forgo selling the item now, and wait..

Whill wrote:
Yep, all of that. There are a lot of different skills and roleplaying that can possibly get a PC and an NPC to the point of price negotiation and help determine the base price for that negotiation.


Most of what i was listing was to Find a business/seller, though some COULD help in negotiations..

Whill wrote:

And just to be complete, not all prices are negotiable.


Good point, though it's been rare i have seen DM's have those types of businesses...
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PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 4:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Bargaining is binding Reply with quote

Whill wrote:

So you've seen RAW. The way you describe it, it's some weird unusual house rule.


haha.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that. Chalk it up to the fact that I've been playing a heavily house-ruled version for so long that I don't even recognize RAW when I see it anymore. When I say I've seen it...It was when perusing back threads on this forum.

And this is not just a Star Wars issue; obviously this is a Star Wars D6 forum, but lots of games have got bargaining skill and mechanics....and I've made the process binding in all of them for the reasons given.

Whill wrote:


The story is not about NPCs. The story is about the PCs. NPCs with items for sale generally serve that purpose in the adventure, to sell stuff, not to screw PCs. If the NPC seller has some other purpose in the adventure (even secretly), then the bargain skill isn't what the encounter is all about.


Agreed, regarding something that has some purpose in the adventure. But much of my game is more aligned with a sandbox style 'simulation'. The PCs are getting by however they can. They dictate the course of the adventures. As such, I personally don't care whether they buy and sell for various prices. What I do care about is giving them as much of an even playing field as possible.

My players know that their success in bargaining can be directly tied to the CPs they have accumulated and spent to improve their bargaining skill.

What good is developing a high bargain skill if you know that A) the GM is going to let you have what you need in the end. B) that if you roll poorly, there's no problem...unless you are under some time constraint?

Imagine if one were to treat other skills the same way; A character comes to a chasm and is considering jumping it. They roll the jump skill...don't roll high enough. But --wait! they haven't really committed to the jump. They just instinctively know that they wouldn't have made it. So they decide to look for another way across.

Unless time IS a factor...maybe they are being chased, then there will not be a risk associated with a risky activity...and little incentive to increase the skill.

Take away the risk to life and limb. Think about astrogation. What about allowing an astrogation roll to determine what the pilot thinks is the BEST course. After learning how long the transit is actually going to take, they decide that's not the best course don't actually enter it into the computer and instead make another astrogation roll.

Again, it's been a long time away from RAW for me, so forgive me if I'm mistaken,...but Astrogation rolls are binding aren't they? Once you've astrogated a course...that's the course you are on?


Quote:

If all that works for you and your group, great.


Yes. And for the record, there's no argument here. I enjoy discussions like this. And I am curious about other points of view, those who think the way I do and the ones who have points in defense of the RAW....just as long as they are okay with me explaining my counter-point to illustrate WHY I think what I do, not in an attempt to invalidate the point; and fully aware of a potential counter-counter-point. Smile

Whill wrote:

In my game, the final price is what's fairly binding. Usually the only way the a PC-rejected price might later change is if the circumstances significantly changed since the previous negotiation, like yesterday was business as usual but today the Empire is invading so the seller's priorities are different now.


I've had some pretty egregious incidents with players in the past. On major metropolitan planets it's realistically inconceivable that they can't just go to another vendor or buyer for something that is a pretty common commodity. It's this daily mundane use of bargaining that can nickle and dime the game into a farce....if much of the game is about making a living buying and selling common commodities...like a game centered around tramp freighters.

And it's a bonus to characters who put in the time and effort to raise a bargaining skill. Since they know it's binding...they can get a lot of really good deals. It makes the time and effort worthwhile.

It's a form of 'combat' of a social variety. If you don't get good at it, you can expect to get 'beaten up' if you try it.

Quote:

Having characters or NPCs walk away after the bargaining process diminishes the point of the exchange.

Whill wrote:

I must disagree with this as a general statement. In real life, sellers usually have a minimum price they will sell something for but of course they will try to get as much money as they can. In real life, buyers usually have a max price they are willing to pay or can pay, but they will still try to get the best price possible. The Bargain skill is a simulation of real life price negotiation, with the ability of either side to reject the price being the built-in fail safe for when the price isn't acceptable.


When an NPC seller doesn't reject the PC buyer's offer, it is almost always because I haven't bothered to even decide a minimum price and I'm just letting the dice decide the outcome. PCs not being absolutely bound to the final price allows them to keep the player's free will about the transaction. If they just can't go that high they can't go that high. I've had plenty of cases where PCs go into a negotiation having a very good idea of the base price and that they don't have enough money to even cover that (so they know have to out-bargain the NPC by a certain amount to even be able to buy it at all). And debts and payment plans aren't often going to be available for the item, so I want to keep the RAW possibility open where desperate PCs try to beat the odds but just don't end up with the item they need. I don't feel the point of the negotiation is at all diminished.


This has given me something to think about. I'm now considering allowing the PC's to declare an upper or lower limit (to the GM, not the NPC) before making the bargaining roll. This would provide a penalty to the roll, but would act as insurance that the price never leaves the zone in which it might require the selling-off of their first born.


Whill wrote:

And just to be complete, not all prices are negotiable.


Naturally.
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2016 2:31 am    Post subject: Re: Bargaining is binding Reply with quote

Dredwulf60 wrote:
Whill wrote:
If all that works for you and your group, great.

Yes. And for the record, there's no argument here. I enjoy discussions like this. And I am curious about other points of view, those who think the way I do and the ones who have points in defense of the RAW....just as long as they are okay with me explaining my counter-point to illustrate WHY I think what I do, not in an attempt to invalidate the point; and fully aware of a potential counter-counter-point. Smile

That's part of what we do here.

Dredwulf60 wrote:
Imagine if one were to treat other skills the same way; A character comes to a chasm and is considering jumping it. They roll the jump skill...don't roll high enough. But --wait! they haven't really committed to the jump. They just instinctively know that they wouldn't have made it. So they decide to look for another way across.

Unless time IS a factor...maybe they are being chased, then there will not be a risk associated with a risky activity...and little incentive to increase the skill.

Take away the risk to life and limb. Think about astrogation. What about allowing an astrogation roll to determine what the pilot thinks is the BEST course. After learning how long the transit is actually going to take, they decide that's not the best course don't actually enter it into the computer and instead make another astrogation roll.

Again, it's been a long time away from RAW for me, so forgive me if I'm mistaken,...but Astrogation rolls are binding aren't they? Once you've astrogated a course...that's the course you are on?

All skills were not designed to work exactly the same way. An unstated argument you seem to be making is that they do or should (and of course if you feel that way that's fine), but from a RAW perspective, by bringing up Jumping and Astrogation to compare to your version of Bargain, you are comparing apples to oranges.

As far as RAW astrogation, the player has an idea of the difficulty from how well known the course is and other factors, and determines if he wants to rush the trip or slow it down which increases or decreases the difficulty accordingly. If the roll is 1-9 less than the difficulty number, the GM doesn't tell the player, the ship enters hyperspace and the GM rolls on the astrogation mishap table. Players usually aren't going to immediately know about mishaps. Things may seem fine to a point, possibly even until you reach the destination and come out of hyperspace, and then you find out it was bad. If the astrogator suspects that he was 1-9 points lower than the difficulty number, it is true that he could just abort and revert to realspace. The problem with that is, traveling a few seconds in hyperspace is enough to put you out of the star system you were just in, so you would probably just be creating a worse problem by being stuck in between systems and have to calculate a safe course to a system from scratch which is much higher difficulty. So while players do have the free will to drop out of hyperspace, it is almost never going to make sense to do that. So you likely are going to be stuck with whatever the mishap is. If the astrogator misses the difficulty number by 10 or more, the ship can't even enter hyperspace in the first place and a new astrogation has to be done. The standard time to calculate the jump is one minute, but if you are being chased and shot at by enemy starships, then you may want to consider a hasty entry which only takes one round but doubles the difficulty.

What gives the the player the basis for consideration of whether to jump a chasm or not is the GM's description of it and possibly giving the player the difficulty range. The player looks at his skill, considers CPs, etc. and decides. RAW doesn't have you make a roll to determine if you can for sure make the jump before you do. Yes, once the player rolls and sees his roll, he has jumped, and the result of the roll happens. But jumping chasms, plotting courses through hyperspace and negotiating a price are three completely different things with completely different skills that work in different ways.

And yes, the a PC will not normally do something risky like jump a dangerous chasm unless time if a factor as when being chased. Otherwise you'll take the long safe way around. Being chased and otherwise needing to jump is something that happens often in adventure games so players do have every incentive to increase the skill. I don't disagree with you here, but that has little to do with Bargaining.

As far I can tell, the main basis of your position on bargaining seems to be based on the end result of using the bargain skill in your game is that a transaction has occurred. That's fine for your game if you want to do it that way, and you are clearly not alone in this. But that is not the way the skill ever worked in RAW.

The purpose of the Bargain skill in RAW, from 1e through R&E, has always been just to determine the price of a transaction when price is negotiable. The outcome of the skill as designed to just give you the price only, and then the game mechanics are done and the roleplaying kicks back in, in that both parties (GM and player as their characters) have to agree to that price for the transaction to be completed. And like I said, in my game it almost always is. If a players wants his PC to get better prices, he is motivated to improve his bargain skill. For my type of game, the Bargain skill's mechanics was never lacking so I never thought of adding the outcome of the whole transaction to the skill. Bargain has served its intended purpose well in my game as-is. There are all kinds of possible skill uses and roleplaying that can get a PC and NPC to the point of negotiating over a price of a potential transaction, but the actual haggling over prices part itself is boring to me so I'm glad to have a mechanic that substitutes for that.

Your position comes across to me as rather circular logic: 'I do it my way because I do it my way.' Now we don't really need point, counter-point, and counter-counter-point for that, do we? I freely admit there are plenty of things I do my way simply because I like it that way, and that's good enough for me. If you just like Bargain to go beyond RAW and include the outcome of the transaction in your game, then that's good enough for me too.

Dredwulf60 wrote:
But much of my game is more aligned with a sandbox style 'simulation'. The PCs are getting by however they can. They dictate the course of the adventures. As such, I personally don't care whether they buy and sell for various prices. What I do care about is giving them as much of an even playing field as possible...

What good is developing a high bargain skill if you know that A) the GM is going to let you have what you need in the end. B) that if you roll poorly, there's no problem...unless you are under some time constraint?

...On major metropolitan planets it's realistically inconceivable that they can't just go to another vendor or buyer for something that is a pretty common commodity. It's this daily mundane use of bargaining that can nickle and dime the game into a farce....if much of the game is about making a living buying and selling common commodities...like a game centered around tramp freighters.

I agree with you 100% that it's unrealistic that a player that botches a RAW bargain roll for a common commodity in a large city couldn't just find another seller to haggle with and try to do better, if the PC is under no time constraints. Isn't that more realistic? Does your game not already include the mundane and minutia of everyday living already? A chef rolling dice to determine how good the meal he prepared tastes? Game mechanics for "stress release"? I admit it is difficult for me to grasp what constitutes nickel and diming for you.

I have no doubt that you are a good GM for your preferred type of game and that players are largely (if not completely) satisfied, but honestly I think I would find a sandbox campaign quite boring. I've had a handful of single adventures like that over the years where the players and I just bounced off each other and made up adventures as we went along. It can be fun for occasional adventures, and I'm pretty good at winging it when I have to. But a whole "campaign" being completely open-ended and player-driven? Oh, the horror. Don't get me wrong - I'm not the railroad conductor. I include players in general campaign planning, what types of things they would like to see in the campaign, what types of adventures they would like to have, what planets they would like to travel to, etc. We discuss character arcs, rivals, arch nemeses and how they would like their character to develop. I let the players design some of their PCs' own NPC character contacts. Character creation is a group effort and we also design the PC group's ship as a whole. It's very collaborative, and it has always worked well for me over the yeas. There is a happy medium between the sandbox and the railroad, and that's where I thrive.

Dredwulf, you posted this thread about using Bargain should include the outcome of the transaction in general, but I think the key to this discussion is the style of game being ran. I can see that the Bargain mechanics including the outcome of the transaction makes more sense in a sandbox campaign where you don't want to have to do a large series of Bargain rolls against various sellers until the player gets the best price and the Bargain skill being largely meaningless, but can't you see that those of us GMs who have Bargain just determine the negotiated price only as in RAW don't necessarily have the problems you are describing?

I mainly do Rebel SpecOps who get assigned time-sensitive missions or at least missions with target completion times, and tramp/smuggler campaigns. Even with the self-employed tramps who travel around looking for work, the clock is still usually ticking in some respect because there are bills to pay and loan sharks to keep off your back, so you can't spend too much time bargaining with multiple buyers or sellers to get the best possible price because that time that cuts into the next job which is also needed to stay afloat. In those campaigns I still don't run all the minutia of running a business, and the adventures we play just cover the more exciting jobs where the PCs earn CPs and we all assume that more mundane jobs happen in between adventures. Like I said in my previous post above, the tramp business is a mean to an end.

In my game Bargain can be a valuable skill as it works in RAW where the player still has the free will to reject the price and cancel the transaction if the negotiated price isn't acceptable. And in the cases where the PCs do have the time to keep looking for another seller to possibly roll better, they get to try that. Its not so common in my game so it isn't bogged down like a sandbox game would be.

So my conclusions are, the Bargain skill was always intended to only determine the negotiated price, and it works fine that way in general. In general the skill is valuable and players are still typically incented to improve the skill to get the best possible price the first time they try. There is no need to remove free will from Bargain in general, but I concede that would make more sense for a sandbox type of game.

Dredwulf60 wrote:
Whill wrote:
I must disagree with this as a general statement. In real life, sellers usually have a minimum price they will sell something for but of course they will try to get as much money as they can. In real life, buyers usually have a max price they are willing to pay or can pay, but they will still try to get the best price possible. The Bargain skill is a simulation of real life price negotiation, with the ability of either side to reject the price being the built-in fail safe for when the price isn't acceptable.

When an NPC seller doesn't reject the PC buyer's offer, it is almost always because I haven't bothered to even decide a minimum price and I'm just letting the dice decide the outcome. PCs not being absolutely bound to the final price allows them to keep the player's free will about the transaction. If they just can't go that high they can't go that high. I've had plenty of cases where PCs go into a negotiation having a very good idea of the base price and that they don't have enough money to even cover that (so they know have to out-bargain the NPC by a certain amount to even be able to buy it at all). And debts and payment plans aren't often going to be available for the item, so I want to keep the RAW possibility open where desperate PCs try to beat the odds but just don't end up with the item they need. I don't feel the point of the negotiation is at all diminished.

This has given me something to think about. I'm now considering allowing the PC's to declare an upper or lower limit (to the GM, not the NPC) before making the bargaining roll. This would provide a penalty to the roll, but would act as insurance that the price never leaves the zone in which it might require the selling-off of their first born.

I think that would be a reasonable addition to the Bargain mechanic of your extremely crunchy quasi-D6 game. If you adopt that revision then I'm glad I could help in a small way.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2016 3:02 am    Post subject: Re: Bargaining is binding Reply with quote

Dredwulf60 wrote:

Take away the risk to life and limb. Think about astrogation. What about allowing an astrogation roll to determine what the pilot thinks is the BEST course. After learning how long the transit is actually going to take, they decide that's not the best course don't actually enter it into the computer and instead make another astrogation roll.

Again, it's been a long time away from RAW for me, so forgive me if I'm mistaken,...but Astrogation rolls are binding aren't they? Once you've astrogated a course...that's the course you are on?


Technically yes. Once you have astrogated, you are supposed to be stuck with it...
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2016 5:50 am    Post subject: Re: Bargaining is binding Reply with quote

Whill wrote:


As far I can tell, the main basis of your position on bargaining seems to be based on the end result of using the bargain skill in your game is that a transaction has occurred.



You have it exactly right.


Whill wrote:


Your position comes across to me as rather circular logic: 'I do it my way because I do it my way.' Now we don't really need point, counter-point, and counter-counter-point for that, do we?


Really? I thought I was going pretty deep to try to explain why I feel the way I do. I brought in other skills to serve as metaphorical illustrations to assist in explaining, but you seem to take them them as direct comparisons.

It's very difficult to explain otherwise.

But I think you do understand, judging by the whole of your response, so I'm a little puzzled by the above comment.

I don't do it my way, just because I do it my way. I do it my way because I USED to do it your way, and it didn't work for me for the reasons cited; to recap:

I had players with a low bargain skill, bargain for a price hoping for a high roll...fail to get said high-roll and then try again at another shop...rinse and repeat until they got a '6' on the wild die.

Had I been a more resourceful GM I suppose I could arbitrarily light a fire under their arses every time they wanted to sell their cargo or make a purchase. But that would get pretty old, pretty quickly if the game has a lot of buying and selling.

Time is money, so I could decide that it takes a whole day to find each vendor so that if they shop around it could take several days.

I could have 'enemies' always on their trail. Every time they try to conduct business.

But the best solution for me turned out to be: If you want to pit your bargain skill against the vendor's bargain skill then it's a gamble; you'd be best served to be good at it.

Whill wrote:


I freely admit there are plenty of things I do my way simply because I like it that way, and that's good enough for me. If you just like Bargain to go beyond RAW and include the outcome of the transaction in your game, then that's good enough for me too.


Oh. Ok. Cool.

Whill wrote:

Does your game not already include the mundane and minutia of everyday living already? A chef rolling dice to determine how good the meal he prepared tastes? Game mechanics for "stress release"? I admit it is difficult for me to grasp what constitutes nickel and diming for you.



I mean nickel and diming the system for personal, unrealistic advantage.
This goes back to the point about NPCs not behaving like the players and walking away from bad bargain rolls. If the PCs can do it, the NPCs should be able to as well. But they don't, because they're NPCs. So some players can take advantage of this. If it were a video game it'd be called an 'exploit'.

Whill wrote:


I have no doubt that you are a good GM for your preferred type of game and that players are largely (if not completely) satisfied, but honestly I think I would find a sandbox campaign quite boring.


It's not my only style of play. It's my current campaign style. But the bargaining system I use in every game style.

Whill wrote:

I've had a handful of single adventures like that over the years where the players and I just bounced off each other and made up adventures as we went along. It can be fun for occasional adventures, and I'm pretty good at winging it when I have to. But a whole "campaign" being completely open-ended and player-driven? Oh, the horror.



I won't say that I'd be able to convert you. But I'm not the only game in town and my players stick with me. Sometimes it's just style. Some times you want to play SimCity...sometimes you want to play Super Mario Brothers.

Whill wrote:

I mainly do Rebel SpecOps who get assigned time-sensitive missions or at least missions with target completion times, and tramp/smuggler campaigns. Even with the self-employed tramps who travel around looking for work, the clock is still usually ticking in some respect because there are bills to pay and loan sharks to keep off your back, so you can't spend too much time bargaining with multiple buyers or sellers to get the best possible price because that time that cuts into the next job which is also needed to stay afloat.



Really? How much time does it take to make a bargain roll in your game? How many bargain attempts can be done in a single day? In a single hour?
These would have to be artificially restricted...IF your players didn't generally go by the results of their bargain roll.


Whill wrote:


So my conclusions are, the Bargain skill was always intended to only determine the negotiated price, and it works fine that way in general. In general the skill is valuable and players are still typically incented to improve the skill to get the best possible price the first time they try. There is no need to remove free will from Bargain in general, but I concede that would make more sense for a sandbox type of game.



Duly noted.
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2016 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So, to the original post, what do you do if the bargain turns out to be unaffordable?

Say, the characters have 1000 Credits, but need an item that would normally costs 1200 credits. If they bargain REALLY WELL, they can just afford it. If they bargain less well, they won't be able to. What happens when the bargaining drives the cost down to 1100 credits, and they don't have that?
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2016 2:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

They are SoL.. Or they can borrow that 100 credits from someone, or sell an item THEY have off for it..
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2016 4:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
So, to the original post, what do you do if the bargain turns out to be unaffordable?

Say, the characters have 1000 Credits, but need an item that would normally costs 1200 credits. If they bargain REALLY WELL, they can just afford it. If they bargain less well, they won't be able to. What happens when the bargaining drives the cost down to 1100 credits, and they don't have that?




I think you missed this, near the bottom of the initial post:
Quote:

If by some reason the character lacks the funds of the final inflated price; it's treated as a debt; payment plan option, or with interest, depending on who they are dealing with.


Garhkal has it right though. "S-O-L." They will owe, and that itself will have been part of the completed bargain.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf0HkhUcIUU

Though after reading Whill's position, I'm thinking about allowing PCs to put in a caveat prior to bargaining; telling the GM: "I'm bargaining conservatively"

And because this hampers the bargaining process somewhat, then they'll get a penalty to the roll, but we would then ignore any result that is more than 10 difference between the rolls.

If this still results in more than they could afford, IMHO they really should have kept shopping.
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