The Price of Loot

Sometimes, when I am reading a published adventure, my eyes fall upon entries of things the player characters might loot—and the value in gold pieces of those things—and I can feel the subtle prodding of a headache behind my orbs. One jade bracelet worth 150 gold pieces. Two silver candlesticks worth 25 g.p. each. One sapphire worth 328 g.p. You see, there are two schools of thought on how a player character might discover the value of loot, and neither of them appeal to me. One school of thought insists that a player character cannot know the monetary value of an item until that item is appraised by a professional who works with that particular material, such as a jeweller, goldsmith, or other craftsman. In the absence of such expertise, the player character must take a chance in the marketplace with merchants of questionable honesty. This is all well and good for those gaming groups who enjoy the art of haggling and have time for it, but even so, the referee still has to record the true value of each item found by each player and devise a way to reference that information in the event the player character a) remembers having the item, and b) decides to sell it or have it evaluated. This might be a job for spreadsheets, and that never inspires me.

Another school of thought is happy to rattle off the value of loot as soon as it comes into the player characters' possession. Somehow, every adventurer has an immediate, almost supernatural awareness of the true value of every item found, as if they were characters in a video game instantly gaining points for every item and power-up they touch.

I admit it: I have been guilty of following both schools, but I have never approved of either. Somewhere, there must be sane middleground wherein realism and playability can meet amicably. Here is my proposal...

• Characters who are thieves, rogues, traders, or merchants instantly know the estimated value of common nonmagical loot.
• Characters who are dwarves, goblins, or members of other mining cultures instantly know the estimated value of gems, jewelry, and metal objects, both magical and nonmagical.
• Characters who are elves, faeries, or other sorts of fairy folk instantly know the value of art, scholarly works, and ancient artifacts.
• All characters know the estimated value of items related to their class/profession/occupation. (For example, warriors know the value of weapons, armor, and steeds; clerics know the value of religous relics and accoutrements; wizards know the value of occult books and alchemical ingredients, etc.)
• Outside of the above, characters who need items appraised must seek a specialist or try haggling.

By "estimated value" I mean the actual listed value. What you can get for an item varies depending on the skill of the seller, the desire of the buyer, the scarcity of the item in the region where it is being sold, and other factors.

As usual, results may vary. This rule awaits playtesting.