An alternate take on Bargaining
by The DarkI was reading through Darokin recently, and was reminded how much I dislike the merchant system for being mechanically rigid on negotiations and wildly varying on base value of products. I was also looking at Al-Qadim's Haggling skill, and wondered if I could modify that system to be broader but mechanically workable with Bargaining. Here's a rough draft that I'd like feedback on.
All negotiations start at 0 on the table below. The buying or selling price is modified by the results of an opposed Bargaining roll and any conditions that apply in the locale where goods are being bought or sold. Modifiers are as follows:
Bargaining roll: 1 shift in character's favor on a success, 2 on a critical success, 0 on a failure, 1 shift in opponent's favor on a critical failure.
Area is at war: -1 shift for both buying and selling due to need to raise funds and lack of free cash flow.
Area is under siege: +2 shifts for food, -2 shifts for everything else.
Import tariffs: -1 shift when selling goods.
Export tariffs: +1 shift when buying goods.
Import subsidy: +1 shift when selling goods.
Export subsidy: -1 shift when buying goods.
Major export of area: -1 shift when buying or selling. More in extreme cases.
Major import of area: +1 shift when buying or selling. More in extreme cases.
-4: -75% standard cost of good.
-3: -50% standard cost of good.
-2: -25% standard cost of good.
-1: -10% standard cost of good.
0: standard cost of good.
+1: +10% standard cost of good.
+2: +25% standard cost of good.
+3: +50% standard cost of good.
+4: +100% standard cost of good.
This will lead to characters looking to trade between major exporters and major importers since those are the most reliable column shifts. Subsidies would tend to arise if leaders either want to stock up on a good (buying up armor before a military campaign, for example, or restocking granaries after a poor harvest), or want to dump goods on a market (trying to undersell a competitor to drive them out of a market). If markets are chosen well and rolls are lucky, a merchant could get so far as buying goods for 25% of their value and selling them for 200%.
Thoughts? Ideas on other events or conditions that could cause shifts?