NPC Merchants Using Psychology to Make PCs Buy More?

[Inlaa]

I'm planning out new campaign ideas, and as I was designing a few merchants and their goods, I started thinking about sales techniques I've been learning about in my Psychology classes. You know: Foot-in-the-Door, Door-in-the-Face, Lowballing, That's-not-all, and so forth.

What do you think of roleplaying out shopping ventures and having the PCs, as they haggle with the NPCs, actually deal with this psychological stuff?

Example 1: Lowballing:

The PC is a wizard and he's strode into a wizard's tower. He's haggling with the apprentice over a dozen or so scrolls that he wants. They argue over the price for a while, but they finally agree on a fair enough price. Smiling, the apprentice dashes off to inform her master and get his permission to close the sale.

In reality, her intent is to raise the price. She tells her master she got the PC to agree to one price, and after a few moments they decide on how high to raise it. She comes back, looking downcast and apologetic.

"I'm sorry," she says, "but my master says that we cannot afford to sell the scrolls at this price. His membership in the Merchant's Guild does not come without its cost. We'll have to sell these to you for slightly more - five hundred gold coins, to be precise. Is that alright?"

In the real world, this technique is used by car dealers a fair bit. You find the car you want, you agree on a price... and there are complications that arise. Sorry, can we raise the price tag a little? This is a sales technique where the buyer often feels duped or insulted, but they frequently complete the transaction anyway.

Example 2: Compensation:

Another PC goes off to the blacksmith to get his armor fixed. The halfling there cheerfully attends to the hero's armor, and in fact does so for free! He does, however, start chattering away at the PC as he works, and he can't help but mention how business has been slow of late, and how, well, there are enchanted daggers that he's got sitting around that make perfect sidearms...

The PC is more of a two-handed weapons type, but he may very well make a purchase because the blacksmith is doing him a favor. And he's right, after all - perhaps he could use a dagger, and he could always give it to the rogue if nothing else.

Door-to-door salesmen are the masters of this technique. Some dude walks into your house and vacuums a small corner of your floor as he talks about how great it is, and now you HAVE to, absolutely HAVE to buy that crappy vacuum cleaner. This clearly doesn't work on everyone, obviously, but it does work enough that door to door salesmen still make this sort of sales pitch. It's also done by people running charities or the like; give someone a piece of candy or a rose and you can get them to make a donation, even if they didn't WANT candy or a rose to begin with.

Would you, as a player, find this enjoyable? Would you be angry when you realized that the NPCs have been using sales techniques to get you to buy things you normally would not want? Do you think players would fall for this a few times?

[Unassuming Local Guy]

Depends on how much money I had to be honest.

I think one corrupt/fun merchant would be fun if it was plot relevvant but at low level gold is so hard to come by it would be unwise to trick PCs into bad deals

[Bob Bob Bob]

As a player this would not be enjoyable in the slightest. Why the @#$% would I want sleazy selling techniques I don't want used on me in real life used on me in a game?

I think players would fall for it as often as you could pull it off (could be quite a few times, could be never, prices are listed in the book for most things), then you'd find every single NPC murdered, everything they have stolen, and players paying the iron price for everything. Because there's no vengeance like murderhobo vengeance. And I think it would be 100% justified, as you don't nickel and dime a man with a portable flamethrower who fights vicious monsters for a living.

Let me see if I can put this correctly. The entire economy of D&D is based on the gold rush towns of the wild west. Adventurers are already paying exorbitant markups on everything (because some things are just way too expensive for what they are). My personal interpretation is that merchants are selling the more expensive, better made items to adventurers. If the fishhook Joebob the farmer bought from his blacksmith fails he can go complain and get another one. If the fishhook Murderhobo the adventurer bought failed while they were trying to fish an idol off a platform, setting off a catastrophic structural failure and costing them loot, they might come back to the blacksmith with a sword instead of complaints.

[Avatar-1]

I've actually done this before, and it's usually more trouble than its worth, even if they enjoy it.

You get the enjoyment of dealing with a new NPC personality, and it's not a bad idea if you really, really want to limit what PCs can buy (eg. in a small isolated area where magic items need to be crafted), but at the end of the day, you have to decide if that interaction is worth spending real-world time on, rather than just getting on with their real goals.

[Inlaa]

All three of you are making good points. There's only one thing I'd like to point out...

Quote:

Why the @#$% would I want sleazy selling techniques I don't want used on me in real life used on me in a game?

Well, let's see... I don't want to be thrust into a cave full of monsters that want to kill me in real life. Why the @#$% would I enjoy that in a game?

That said, you don't like it - and that's good to know. I'm trying to figure out if this is something I should do "maybe once," "no, never," or "once in a while." I wouldn't want every trip to the merchants to go like this, necessarily, but I'm trying to see how players would feel if this happened to them.

You do make a good point: the chances of the adventurer coming back and chopping someone up are pretty high. Darned murderhobos.

Quote:

but at the end of the day, you have to decide if that interaction is worth spending real-world time on, rather than just getting on with their real goals.

Hmm... I'll keep that in mind. Is it something you did frequently for a time or just a little bit? Are there times when you WOULD want to use it, perhaps to accentuate the sleeziness of a character?

[Harrison]

Inlaa wrote:

Example 2: Compensation

Given how most adventurers act, I don't think that'd work all that often.

I do have to agree a bit with Unassuming Local Guy, though. I think the best way to go about this kind of character is to have it be a fairly unique NPC that was important to the plot,

[Kobold Catgirl]

Players are waaaay too fixated on their WBL to allow this. "Nuh-uh. I have exactly enough budget for a +1 longsword, an amulet of natural armor, and a cloak of resistance. F+~@ off, shopkeep/GM."

Funny how PCs with 7 Wis and 8 Cha are infinitely more responsible and assertive with their spending choices than I am. :P

[Balgin]

In my opinion (and experience) roleplaying out such encounters can be fun. If the gm's doing it to inject a little mischief into the game or make things more fun then that's great. If the gm habitually does it to constantly slowly deprive players of money then it starts to feel mean and personal.

The trick to such encounters is to generally not overdo it.

[countchocula]

for some reason I saw this and thought rent to own armor and a unusually high interest rate on that +1 sword

[Weirdo]

Yeah, in most games players expect that the market values of things are pretty well standardized, know those values, and be unlikely to accept prices above market value for things. Unless you introduce price variation and a good amount of haggling, it's best to keep things like lowballing as characterization for an occasional important merchant.

It might be easier to get PCs to buy upgrades or items they don't really need, depending on the players. But keep in mind that the more significant a chunk of their wealth an item represents, the less likely they are to be talked into buying it. A greatsword specialist whose greatsword is currently +1 isn't going to be talked into a +1 keen dagger as a backup weapon. You also want to tread carefully with this one. You don't want to frustrate the players, so you should either make sure they're getting something legitimately cool out of the exchange (even if it's not something they thought they wanted) OR that they get a chance to get back at the merchant somehow.

For some added fun I suppose you could let the player in on the joke and sell them an item that the player thinks is neat but the character wouldn't necessarily want - like an intelligent item with an attitude.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Funny how PCs with 7 Wis and 8 Cha are infinitely more responsible and assertive with their spending choices than I am. :P

Carry around some swords and an assault rifle (or a flamethrower and grenades) all the time, spend your days fighting animals in the woods, I'm sure your confidence (and/or willingness to commit horrific violence) will go up.

Not all PCs are responsible with their spending though. Some are and track every copper piece. Others throw around large sums of money (because that amount of money is otherwise irrelevant to them). Seriously, at some point you're staying in inns you can afford with your pocket money. Not to stay there, to buy the whole @#$%ing inn. Sometimes even the misers hurl money at things, if it's an item they need. This comic is exactly that and still amuses me.

Now, here's the problem. Nobody likes being scammed, taken advantage of, or otherwise have their trust violated. If you charge PCs more, up-front, they might grumble but that's probably it. If the PCs find out later that they got tricked out of extra money in some way, even a small amount, again, hell hath no fury like murderhobos. And it's a terrible life decision (and probably business too) to piss off people who regularly kill other creatures for a living. Oh, and who (depending on level) are worth the entire economy of several smaller kingdoms.

[wraithstrike]

I personally hate RP'ing shopping. I don't want to haggle. I don't want to have a conversation with shop keeper 9F. Unless he is plot relevant I won't even try to remember his name. Actually I won't even ask. I want to mark X amount of gold off my character sheet, write down item Y, and get back to adventuring.

Now I am aware that everyone does not have that stance, but a factor in how well this goes over depends on how your players feel about shopping, and other game interactions. Even if everyone here said it was a great idea the players may not enjoy it.

[Thanael]

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

This comic is exactly that and still amuses me.

This one is slightly related and might show why too many details during shopping can annoy players...

Though I rather enjoy well built shop encounters and recurring well developed shop keeper NPCs.

[Chengar Qordath]

wraithstrike wrote:

I personally hate RP'ing shopping. I don't want to haggle. I don't want to have a conversation with shop keeper 9F. Unless he is plot relevant I won't even try to remember his name. Actually I won't even ask. I want to mark X amount of gold off my character sheet, write down item Y, and get back to adventuring.

Now I am aware that everyone does not have that stance, but a factor in how well this goes over depends on how your players feel about shopping, and other game interactions. Even if everyone here said it was a great idea the players may not enjoy it.

This is a fair point to bring up. I'm reminded of one 3.5 game where the GM roleplayed all our shopping experiences with very fun, colorful NPCs. It was a lot of fun at first, but as the game progressed and we picked up more gold to play with it got to the point where we would spend an entire session taking care of everyone's shopping. It started to feel less like Dungeons and Dragons, and more like Merchants and Markets.

There's only so much gaming time for your group: time spent RPing out purchases takes away from time adventuring, advancing the plot, etc.

[Inlaa]

Hm... Okay, here's what I'm thinking, then - weigh in your opinions as you like:

I will use these sort of tactics, but ONLY if the NPC is an important and recurring NPC, and not with every visit to that NPC. This will be someone that is perhaps met several times in a campaign, and s/he will try and wheel and deal with the PCs to get them to buy more. This will be in a campaign where you can't find every item in the books; so, there may be a +2 fiery longsword but not a +1 adamantine keen ominous bardiche. The town may sell potions of Invisibility, but not the Summoner's version of Greater Invisibility as potions, etc.

In most sessions I'll just produce a list of magic items available in the town and say "You can buy any of this." This NPC, however, may take special orders and will procure special items for the PCs... but will, at the same time, try to hawk off something not necessarily what they want as well. And, again, he'll be a little rare.

Thoughts?

[Weirdo]

Sounds good, but I'd let your players know up-front that not all items will be available at the listed prices, especially if they're unusual.

[Claxon]

This would not go over well with me.

However, if you wanted to do something why not allow the players a mechanic to do this, and use a usually ignored skill. Appraise. Oh and sense motive too. There are rules for it in Ultimate Campaign.

[Rynjin]

I think most of my PCs reactions to these tactics would involve picking the merchant in question up by his shirtfront and calmly explaining to him that I get most of my goods at sword point, so he should respect the courtesy I'm giving him by offering to pay a fair price for his goods instead of employing my preferred methods.

[SAMAS]

On "paper", this sounds like a good idea: An opponent you may not necessarily be able to simply cleave in twain. Someone who, rather than trying to kill or dominate the PCs, seeks to take their money unfairly?

In practice, however, this could end with both NPC and DM getting lynched.

[Scythia]

Thanael wrote:

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

This comic is exactly that and still amuses me.

This one is slightly related and might show why too many details during shopping can annoy players...

Though I rather enjoy well built shop encounters and recurring well developed shop keeper NPCs.

After reading that comic, I came over all peckish, and decided to curtail my message boarding and negotiate the conveyance of some comestibles.

[wraithstrike]

The only way I am paying more than is in the book is if the GM lets me know he does not always follow the book, and then I know the NPC won't take less that a certain amount. Not even my good characters would over pay. I am likely saving the world or the city so I see no reason to pay more.

The only time I have not played in a game where I was not trying to stop some catastrophic event was when I was playing an evil character.

[Opuk0]

This pretty much sounds likes the perfect recipe to force players into getting ranks in craft and magic item creations feats

Exact same amount of time wasted, none of the frustration

[Malag]

It would depend entirely on your players. If they aren't that much fixed on buying specific items like "a +1 longsword, an amulet of natural armor, and a cloak of resistance" as KC mentioned, it might very well work. I would however use this "shopping tactic" rarely and more on mundane items instead of magical ones. Losing 10 gold pieces more might mean nothing to adventurer, but it means a lot to shopkeeper.

Currently, in my sandbox game, I charge every copper and silver to my player, not because I am trying to annoy them, but because it's realistic. There are tax permits, guild certificates, special permits for traveling through areas, trial and service expenses, etc. Players love it so far, because they never got a chance so far to experience the game this way and money loss is practically insignificant.

[Mitt Ticulous]

Inlaa wrote:

...s/he will try and wheel and deal with the PCs to get them to buy more.

Great, now the image of Mike Brewer and Edd China selling my Inquisitor a refurbished Dwarven Longhammer is stuck in my head and it'll never leave.

[knightnday]

It really depends on the group. I've had and been in groups that think nothing of six hours of game time haggling with shop keepers and finding just the right place to get ready for a ball or event or that right present; other groups were less interested and would rather be knee deep in body parts.

A mix of NPCs is never a bad thing, with some being more out to make a buck off the players and others that will bend over backwards to make them happy. As noted above, let them know that "Book Price" is a starting point rather than written in stone and that will go a long way towards keeping hard feelings down as well.