"I'd Buy That For a Dollar!"

First of all, I would like to extend my sincere apologies to any readers I may have left at this point: I've been away for quite a long while, and it's entirely because of everyday life. Between work, preparing for marriage, and having two insane cats, I've very little time to give over to writing a blog. With that said, let's get to the fun stuff, shall we?

Something that can always add some believability and interest to any RPG is procuring supplies; whether you have to forage/hunt for your own food, find a reputable salesman for a vehicle, or keep your activities hidden from authorities, there's always something to be done in finding what one needs for a mission. Often times, a GM can just simply gloss it over: "you purchased X supplies for Y price, with little haggling." Sometimes, it can become a very involved discussion with the seller, with compliments, threats, haggling, even bribes going back and forth. The question is, when do you do one and not the other?

As an example, if the players have reached a new area and will need to establish new contacts (or be given an idea about how the locals operate, true or not), one is better off to role play the encounter; how much and how long is entirely up to personal styles and the expectations of the players. If the seller the characters are dealing with is an old friend or contact, one could be well justified in role playing an exchange of platitudes and then ending the encounter - after all, these folks know each other, and the players will have it in their minds how it went down.

Trying to get access to a place or item(s) one needs can be very interesting if the possessing party is wary, greedy, or even traitorous. Such encounters are best played to the nines, with accents, speech patterns, and full descriptions. Immerse your characters in the situation; let them feel the burn of the sweat in their eyes, the cold steel of the cheap desk that they're leaning on as they argue. One could gloss it over with "you wait around on the corner for about an hour, and finally find someone who will sell you Z for some amount of A," but it's best done only to expedite a lagging story.

What if your heroes need a fast get-away car, and quick? If they're all over the news, no car lot will sell to them, and fences will most likely want to charge triple their usual prices. Do the characters steal a car? Do they even have the ability? Never forget that in a varied group of people, someone is very likely to have the intelligence and skills to come up with something the characters might need, and without their being involved with some trader.

A great example is food in a fantasy setting: you could find a baker in the next town to sell you a loaf of bread, but if you're well equipped you might make your own, or alternatively be wiley enough to steal someone else's from their larder. Often a woodsman might offer to share his kill in exchange for help carrying back what he's just downed. How you play such scenarios is of course entirely up to you, but don't forget the benefits of having the characters scrambling up and down hillsides after a stag they've wounded in the hunt, or their coming to a town for provisions only to find that famine has raised the prices sky-high.

As a framework, many games often have rules and guidelines for GMs in need of some guidance: D&D has a town-building guideline which provides for how many levels or gold's worth of services are available based on the population; Alternity has full listings of what is available at specific places (in published adventure modules). Don't ever forget that as the GM, you determine what happens; if the group absolutely needs that getaway car, provide it for them - just don't be obvious about it without a good reason.

Nest week on Roy's RPG Tactics Blog: Who knows? It might be good.