From time to time, your players will probably want to negotiate a sale, whether it’s for a single huge gem, a magic item, or a ship full of delicious giant tortoises. Smaller gems can be sold directly to a jeweler.

Via Broker

If the heroes engage a broker to find a buyer, the broker can report back periodically, like once a week between adventures. Roll on the table below. A natural 1 is always someone trying claim it without paying.

1d20	Result
1 or less	Someone attempts to claim it–by lawsuit, sending thieves to steal it, or sending champions to seize it.
2-8	No buyers this week. If this is week 5, the broker gives up for now.
9-13	Interested buyer. Add +1 to subsequent rolls.
14-16	Buyers lose interest. Remove any bonuses to rolls for interested buyers.
17-19	Buyer offers 10% less than standard price. If rejected, add +1 to subsequent rolls.
20-21	Buyer offers full price. If rejected, -1 to subsequent rolls.
22+	Buyers bid the price up 10% over the standard price. If rejected, a subsequent roll of 22+ bids it up a further 10%, but any other roll results in all buyers giving up.

Face-to-face

When handling negotiations face-to-face, you’ll need to establish what a good deal is for the NPC buyer. If it’s a business deal, it should be in the ballpark of the original quote or rumor. By knowing what the NPC regards as a fair deal, you can negotiate with the players realistically. Here’s the key: If you don’t know what the players expect, the negotiation will be livelier.

You should give the heroes an appraisal skill that (with a bit of asking around) allows them to likewise know what is a good or bad deal. Their price should probably start with the cost of the goods, of course–if they had a cost. But the cost of shipping (use of the ship, paying sailors, etc.) doubles the cost of the goods, creating a bottom-line price below which the heroes are losing money.

Let’s say you’re running a sea-trade adventure, and you want the four heroes to gain a thousand gold pieces each; they need a 4,000 gp profit. You arrange for them to get a shipment of almonds for 3,000 gp. (A cartload of mundane goods might be worth a a couple hundred gold pieces; a shipload would be worth several hundred–or, if it’s spices or silks or other luxury goods, even thousands.)

You decide they need to add a cost of 1000 gp for the use of the ship and sailors, bringing their cost to 4,000 gp. Adding their 4,000 gp profit, so they must hope to sell the shipment for 8,000 gp. The rumor or other discussions that got the whole thing started should give them hope for between 8 and 12 thousand.

Create a set of cards that represents the rumor’s spread: 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Without looking, the player selects a card and looks at it. This is what the hero believes would be a “good” price, but a “fair” price is a step lower (rumors tend to be optimistic). They put it in an envelope for you to hold but not look at. Any price they get over their “good” number should give them a bonus to their experience points, perhaps 1 xp per 1 gp.

1d10	Fair
1	7k
2	7.5k
3	8k
4	8.5k
5	9k
6	9.5k
7	10k
8	10.5k
9	11k
10	11.5k

Then you roll 1d10 for merchants in the destination city. A 5 means the middle price from the rumor (9k, in the example above) is considered “fair” by the merchants. The buyers will want to pay a bit less if they roll lower but be willing to pay one step more, if necessary. You might formally break down the rumor into 10 increments on a table, as at right–notice how the low end dips below the rumored 8k price, indicating a disappointing deal for the heroes because the rumor was too optimistic.

So, if you roll a 4 for the merchants, they will be willing to pay 8,500 gp for the shipment and feel they’ve made a fair deal. Any less and they’ll think they’ve gotten a good deal; any more and they’ll feel it was barely acceptable. Note that you don’t have to stick to the 500 gp increments of the table when negotiating.

As mentioned, the rumor of 8-12k doesn’t have to be accurate. But the merchants’ scale can be in larger or smaller increments as well. The players should not know how much overlap is even possible. And, if the players try to demand too much, the merchant should shoo them away as ridiculous; that amount should be perhaps three steps above their “fair” price.

Of course, it could be the other way around. The heroes might regard 10,000 as good, while Domus regards 8,000 as fair, and they both come away feeling they got a middling deal at 9,000.

And there might not be any overlap at all; the heroes may have to find another merchant willing to pay more. After all, even if almonds are in demand in Dwye, Domus may not normally deal in them and only make a deal if he gets a bargain.

Buying vs Selling

Of course, the above scenario is with the heroes selling. But they could easily be the buyers instead. In that case, the cards represent what the heroes believe they should be able to buy the goods for, and the roll represents what the merchants are willing to sell it to them for. And the price the heroes can sell the goods for is fixed (just as the acquisition cost was fixed for a sell-side deal). If you try to negotiate both sides of the deal, it could lead to overly good or bad deals, because there are no real market forces behind the mechanics.

In reality, merchants usually negotiated prices beforehand, so they knew whether the voyage would be worth it or not, and their risk was mainly in the ship sinking in a storm or being captured by pirates. But unless you’re playing out a years’-long relationship between merchants, individual negotiations are realistic enough as well as more fun.