Buying, Selling, & Rarity

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Buying Items

Buying most items is simple; find the item and pay a seller's asking price.

Selling Items

Player Characters can generally sell an item for one quarter of its cost on a successful Negotiation check, increasing that to one-half with and three-quarters with or more.

About Rarity

Rarity is a simple way of measuring how difficult an item can be to find on a scale of 0-10, with 0 being the easiest to track down and 10 being the hardest.

Finding an item on a world requires a Negotiate check (although the GM may allow the character to use an appropriate Knowledge skill check instead).

Example Rarities

Rarity Modifiers

Some worlds may impose individual modifiers as well. Modifiers can bring an item's rarity above 10. At this point, the difficulty of the check remains at Formidable, but the GM may upgrade the difficulty once for every rarity beyond 10.

The Black Market

Exactly what is illegal on each world is up to the Game Master or may be specified in that world's description. Finding an illegal item typically requires a Streetwise check. The difficulty generally depends on the rarity of the item, but the difficulty can increase based on the world's law enforcement capabilities (as determined by the GM).

Buying Illegal Items

Black market items always require a Streetwise check to find, and may cost far more than the list price depending on their scarcity on a particular world. This varies from place to place, so the Game Master must determine if an item is restricted or not, to what degree, and what the difficulty is to track it down. Some items are marked with an (R) in their price, which means they are restricted and always count as black market items.

Selling Illegal Items

Selling illegal goods also requires a Streetwise check with the same difficulty as above. If three or more or a are rolled, something has gone wrong; the buyer tries to rob the characters or the local police arrive to arrest these brazen criminals, for example.

Most black marketeers have established patterns, customers, and habits that allow them to stay in business. The Player Characters might not have these connections, and may even be selling to a criminal who plans on turning around and reselling the goods again. For that reason, PCs selling illegal items net one-quarter of the listed price with a successful Streetwise check, one-half with and three-quarters with or higher.

Truly exotic and illegal items, like rare animals or exotic pets, can be sold for higher values, but these are set based on the story and the difficulty it took to find them.

Commercial Trading

There are some cases in which the PCs might wish to engage in trade; buying multiple items at one location, then selling them at another location where they are rarer. These actions can be handled narratively, but if the GM wishes to use some mechanical guidelines for this process, here are some basic rules covering trading.

Selling the items follows the rules for selling items listed above; whether the items are black market (Restricted) or legal. However, when determining the sell price, first multiply the cost of the item based on the difference in the item's rarity between where the item was bought and where it's sold, referring to Rarity Modifiers and Increased Costs When Trading. Then take the new, increased cost and determine the sell price by the results of the Negotiation 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 and costs. This is why the rules for buying, selling, and trading are all modifiable by the GM, and subject to their judgment. It is also important to note that these rules only apply when engaging in commercial trade.

Increased Costs When Trading