TOPIC: The commodity board.

I think the Commodity board is a great idea.
It would be helpful to have a comment on the board somewhere:

Remember if you are selling an item for Gold you are likely to get 15%-25% less than the listed price and if you are buying you are likely to pay 15% - 25% more.

George

George,

Your comment is OK - but why put it in writing on the board? I mean - this is a free-trade society with many different trading personalities.

Besides it just may turn out that gold trading hands is rare...personally I have quite a bit of gold and I can tell you - I am interested in item for item trades first; then trading items for gold/gems, and at the present time I have no need or desire to trade/buy anything with my hoarded gold/gems. This could mean, if I am in the majority of players, that gold given in trades will actualy be a rare occurance and thus gold/gems will be sought after and perhaps traded at a better value than the current gp cost of any item. (This could hold very true considering that new players buying tokens for the first time will have limited gold in pouches...)

As far as the overall trade situation goes it is my opinion that there is just as likely to be a person willing to trade straight up as there is a person looking to get more for his stuff. Trades are going to happen all over the spectrum as far as Good Deal (for both) to Bad Deal (for one). I think the only strategy to take that into consideration should be - let the numbers speak for themselves and let the buyer/seller use the numbers as they see fit. (also the big CB assumption is that we get pretty good feedback from all the players doing trades...it only works if people fill out the slips and put them in the collection box.)

The big assistance the board will serve is if players tend to de-value or over-value a certain token - say for example a Sling is at 8gp on the board and a person could buy one for 4gp from the blacksmith...well you get the idea. It's like having eBay and the retail store all in the same area - where it gets tricky is if NPCs start to notice the board and adapt their pricing.

Gary,
It is very interesting to see how you and I view things differently. I am going to keep 1 set of the V rare gems, 2 sets of the rare gems and perhaps 3 sets of each common gems. Otherwise I am going trading my gold and gems for weapons and armor as fast as I can. And if I can find anyone willing to sell half-plate armor for gold I will be buying all I can get.

It is a good thing that we value things differently, that way we can do a trade and both think we took advantage of the other person.

I do agree that item for item barter is the way to go. I am hoping to get enough useful rares that I can trade 2 or 3 rares for some of the V rares.

George

George,

I have half plate for sale...not sure how many - I will accept the going price of the revised price guide on Friday...the larger the gem/gold denomination the better. (Not sure what I am saving for, but if the only way I can ever get my hands on a Vorpal mace or something is to drop 1000 GP on someone - then I have that option.)

It is good to have different personalities - and you just confirmed my earlier point - the market will be a gathering spot of these personalities where (if the bell shape curve has anything to say) we should see a nice average of everything and learn to better value what is out there.

Take care

Even this dialogue confirmed some of the changes that are taking place in the Price Guide. Thank you!

Gems seem to be worth more than their GP quivalent. Raven confirmed this with what she saw at GenCon Indy last year and it makes sense. Very Rare gems will probably have an even wider gap.

Thanks.

I think any token that takes the place of 25 tokens could have a bigger intrinsic value...I know my 200 poker chip holder if full of gold and I don't really want to go out and buy another...kidding I already did - but you get the idea.

Higher denominations should carry an added value on the after-market - this has been around a long time and very evident in 1.0 ed. D&D rules.

Now I admittedly know nothing, so I may be horribly off base.

But I've seen different ones talking about the gold tokens and gem tokens. Some seem upset that the rare tokens of gold are not as great as gems. But to me that seems logical.
Metal based coins for payment were based on weight. So a 200GP token would be like carrying around gold bars. And no one travels with those. A traveler would carry golden coins, not bars.
Were as gems could be small but still highly valuable and a small precious gem could have significant more value than a golden coin.
I guess I perceive the two forms of currency as the coin and bill.
The gems represent the larger sum, highly valuable and compact so it is easy to travel, barter and buy with. As well as its horde factor of bling bling.
Just my thought, but I thought the difference in the rares of gp vs. gems made sense to me.
But then again I also admittedly know nothing.

The more I think about this, one of the problems I fear with this Commodity Board is the inability to capture trade data. In otherwords, as I understand it, Gary, you are asking people to report their trades. I am not sure you will get too many people to report this and "commodities" are defined by a highly fluid market with many trades for any given item.

Some things to consider, if you get one person and only one person reporting that they sold a +1 Great Sword for 10gp; is this the value? How would the commodity board capture this transaction? In other words, you need to have not only many buy/sells of each item, but if you want this to be accurate, you need people to report that sale.

Another thing to consider is false reports. If a person has four +1 Great Swords, what is to prevent them from saying, "Yeah, I sold one for 500gp". How would the CB capture this?

Anyway, just some things to think about.

Still, I think capturing approximate values for items is a good thing and adjusting accordingly based on reality is the way to go.

Also, one more note (I am spending far too much time on this)
the best way to find the value of something is to have an auction.

Food for thought,

DD,

I'm not addressing what you posted (I think you are spot on - oops addressed it)

What I wanted to add was that some of the VR tokens, 50gp Gem for example, may be considered a poor VR pull - when you could get a Wand of CLWs instead...

Any worse than keen edge?

But again are you taking into consideration the stone aspect of it?
Didn't you read in the guide that gems are specific in nature and should not rule out the possibility that a particular gem might have a special use inside the dungeon or in the tavern area?
Perhaps they great value is not in what they possess, but what they could unlock?

Would you so quickly dismiss a old key in a dungeon? Or might you hold onto that to see what later it might open.
I would think one would be wise to not so quickly dismiss it. Don't you think?

But then again, maybe I read too much into manuals.

The more I think about this, one of the problems I fear with this Commodity Board is the inability to capture trade data. In otherwords, as I understand it, Gary, you are asking people to report their trades. I am not sure you will get too many people to report this and "commodities" are defined by a highly fluid market with many trades for any given item.

The goal of the CB will be to take the best numbers we have on hand and see if they represent what is happening in the market. This could all be for nothing if everyone uses the guide to trade from and everyone trades at exactly the prices in the guide. Hence the mission, to see if the guide is taken to drive trades or if traders put their own value on items and we see a shift in the guide price. (The REAL trade data collected COULD also measure the Bling factor a bit better than the feedback you are getting and adjusting the prices for in the guide.)

Using your price guide numbers as a base the plan is to adjust them up or down based on what gets reported by the trading public.

Are we going to get 100% of the trades reported? NO - not realistic. Are we going to get spoof results or inflated trades - YES, but are these to be taken lightly or are they something that should be watched? If we get 0 trade slips turned in the CB numbers will not change...that simple.

If you have concerns PM me...there should be an easy answer - I haven't designed this thing yet - but I think I see a papal vote tally system where I can throw out anything that looks too crazy or I can hold that until a trend starts to appear. It's not rocket science - but it could change the price guide if you are open to that. If not, it is all for fun to see what trends and data can be gleaned from what we receive.

Any worse than keen edge?

But again are you taking into consideration the stone aspect of it?
Didn't you read in the guide that gems are specific in nature and should not rule out the possibility that a particular gem might have a special use inside the dungeon or in the tavern area?
Perhaps they great value is not in what they possess, but what they could unlock?

Would you so quickly dismiss a old key in a dungeon? Or might you hold onto that to see what later it might open.
I would think one would be wise to not so quickly dismiss it. Don't you think?

But then again, maybe I read too much into manuals.

You have a good point. That is why I am keeping at least one of each gem. On the other hand, I have 12 Quartz and 12 Geos. There is no way we are going to need that many of any specific gem. So my 4th Geo is worth exactly 5GP to me. If I can trade 10 of them for a set of half plate then I am very happy with that trade..

Marginal utility is the name of the game. The first +1 amulet is wonderful. The second is trade bait.

I am wondering how much Token trading is going to be like Magic: The Gathering card trading. In M:TG trading is was very unlikely to find anyone would would give you a rare card for any number of uncommon cards. You just couldn't "trade uphill".

George