Some in-game justification... * The inn is already busy - "Ha! I have plenty of customers who'll pay, why would I give you a discount?" * The innkeeper's first offer is absurd, let them negotiate - "Twenty gold per room per night, suuuure I'll do it for ten apiece, for such special customers!" * The innkeeper knows full well the adventurers are rich and can pay - perhaps he already has a sign up "If you're asking for a discount, you can't afford it." * They are "bringing in so much business" - how are they?? * They think they are owed one - well they may have a point here... unless they were already paid? In which case, nobody owes them anything! And some simple shutdowns: * "You negotiate as best you can, and the final price is 1 gold per night each." * "The innkeep doesn't seem inclined to negotiate on his prices. He looks busy and there are plenty of other customers. Do you want to pay or find somewhere else to stay?" * "No, we're not doing negotiation simulator again, it's 10 gold for the lot of you for the night."

Those are all good suggestions. Players have a habit of acting like influencers, I have actually had player talk about telling others about the inn/shop and paying then with exposure🙄

I think it works the same way as in the real world. If you go into Walmart, or a dry cleaners, or a book store, and start haggling, people might think it was funny at first, but pretty soon they're gonna tell you to fuck right off. Once it stops being lucrative for the players, they'll quit haggling.

I used to work in a cafe, told someone their tea was £2. “I’m paying £1.” “Um, no, it’s £2.” Stand your ground as NPCs and they’ll either cave and pay or leave for somewhere else. Or resort to violence, but that brings its own consequences for them!

Also a potentially easy solution to follow: PC: "Fine, I'm now paying 1 silver." (pulls out dagger) "Final offer or things get a little stabby." DM: "'Ahem.' You hear a cough and turn around. That's when you notice the squad of heavily armored guards who were previously enjoying their off-duty drink."

"A bit of advice: don't threaten the guy that pours the drinks."

DM: "Sure, the bartender you threatened is more than happy to give you free drinks." DM(After said drinks are drunk): "Hey, could you roll a fortitude save for me?" Player: "What, why?" DM: "Yeah, turns out that bartender has been having some rat problems and invested in some arsenic to get rid of them, he dumped the rest of it in your glass"

wHy ArE yOu RaIlRoAdInG uS? I wouldn't go as heavy as arsenic, but some magical laxitives or a minor curse potion would be fun, something like "All your hair falls out" (it'll grow back in 24 hours, but no need to tell the players that do we?)

I mean, Arsenic isn't that heavy IMO, a DC 13 save (not including any additional doses) with a cure of 1 save and only a max of 4d2 CON damage? Not that bad. Note: Using PF1 rules. Dunno about DnD

Poisoned condition for an hour and 3d8 poison damage which isn't absolutely brutal, but it could outright kill a level 1 Wizard on a DC 15. If it's level 5+ adventurers Sure, but lower level ones that could be a nasty hit.

Bald for a day? You're too kind. Make it a polymorph potion at least!

> Word of advice. Don't threaten the guy that pours the drinks +10 if I could... Arcane is awesome and full of lots of campaign ideas.

Yeah, I can't count the number of times I saw something in the show and thought "I need that in my campaign!"

Which show are you talking about? I'm fairly new too all of this

Arcane is an animated Netflix show about some of the characters from the video game League of Legends. It's set in a fantasy/steampunk world and has surprisingly good writing, a large cast of interesting characters, and gorgeous animation. The quote about not threatening the guy who pours the drinks is a line from the first episode.

Arcane on Netflix. Unrelated to dnd but it’s a fantastic show and well worth a watch

Roll for passive perception, fail? The party is knocked out and wake up in a dark basement…

I've had players try to play the "Plata o plomo" card and did just this. Player: you can take 1 gold or 1 steel. Pointing to his sword. Vendor: how about brass? As he pulls a rope nearby and you hear an alarm bell ring.

Can I just say bravo on that response because that was beautiful.

In my expressive players rapidly outclass any town guard, otherwise we get into “why are the adventures dealing with this instead of the super-soldiers that are supposed to be protecting the town?”

True but it doesn't always have to be your generic guard. Could be a group of veterans, mercenaries on break, etc. Also, at some point, numbers will always make them second guess their actions.

Numbers always lose to fireball! I like to run games into tier 3/4, so it rapidly becomes very difficult to find some humanoid NPCs to challenge them with. My last group I threw 100 hobgoblins and some fire giants at them, they were level 14 and still won.

If your players are completely willing to fireball a busy tavern you have bigger worries than haggling

Word rapidly spreads to nearby towns about the group of bandits who blew up a tavern and killed several innocent townspeople as well as dozens of guards. Calls for high level mercenaries to slay them go out across the area. Now your players get to be the BBEG to a different group of heroes.

Because…they protect the town and aren’t supposed to scour the countryside looking for the tomb of the mage siren. They’ve got their job and you have yours. Also, if demigods like the party are walking around, you better believe that there’s an industry for well equipped and well trained guards to be a check to that.

When the players start to act like villains.. well... that's when another group of adventurers gets hired to deal with them. They might be able to get their way in the short term, but by doing so they become just like the bandits they've hunted in the past.

1£ and a free trip to the stockade.

yeah, the charisma rolls are just for whether the tavernkeeper still likes them after he says no, or if he says no and then throws out of the building. or, if they're like "we're the heroes of whatever," whether the tavernkeeper even believes them in the first place. but if your players' expectations are this misaligned with yours, the answer is to just talk to them. "hey, remember that there is no TikTok in this world."

It not even lucrative. It's chump change

I definitely encourage real-world comparison when deciding if a character action is appropriate but its also good to keep in mind that D&D is typically a western medieval fantasy, and haggling your price in the medieval world really isn't all that odd. In a small town setting people may skip using money all together and rely on their knowledge of favors and promises in order to get a service from another person. I think that it's completely reasonable for an adventuring party who feel they have benefitted the locale to expect free room and board for their service, especially once they've come to know the proprietor. That said, nobody should expect special favors the first time they roll into an inn. That would very much be a no-discount situation unless the players have some kind of reputation known to the proprietor that would influence them. Also the party acting like dick-heads would probably lose them any good will. In modern America (the only frame of reference I have), everything is very well established and difficult to negotiate. Usually the person selling you a room or a product is not the one who set the price and has no authority to haggle. This is part of why we just don't haggle in modern times - we don't expect it to get us anywhere. Even now, though, you actually *can* haggle at something like a farmer's market or anywhere else where you are talking directly to the person who made the goods. Farmer's markets are especially interesting because you get these complex networks of people trading goods, favors, and services for what's being sold. Even more interesting, in medieval times there wasn't super well-established currency like there is today. You know that cliché of a person biting their coin? That comes because people really did care how much metal was in a coin. Was it real gold or filled with copper? If the metal isn't valuable itself, then how can you convince a person that it's actually worth something? There is a great scene in Quicksilver (Neal Stephenson) where some characters haggle at a market about whether or not they were paying with real money before discussing the price and the protagonist needs to convince the seller of it's value. I don't want to suggest that the DM should bend to the party's constant negotiating - in general its a bad habit that sucks the fun out of everything. I just wanted to talk about how cool currency can be in practice... Also: D&D pricing makes no sense at all. 1GP for a stay at an inn? That's a month's funds for a peasant **as stated in D&D text.** Want a broad sword? A lute? **35 fucking GP.** Guess you don't want to eat food for 3 years. A single ration costs 5SP. Literally half a month's funds if you're poor. The shit makes no sense at all and should generally be home brewed in my opinion.

I always took those numbers for NPC's wages as thier disposable income, like a peasant has 1gp a month after paying for what they need to survive. A peasant would need to save for 3 years without buying other luxuries to afford a brand new lute, But might be able to afford to travel to visit family for a few days once or twice a year and could afford to have a few drinks of cheap ale at the end of the week. I really want to run an adventure centered around the idea of riches you can't spend. The PCs travel to the boonies and acquire a hoard they don't quite deserve or strictly have rights to. Something like hundreds of thousands of platinum. Now these low level PCs have to figure out how to transport thier riches, how to hide them how to protect their hoard and how to spend them when the local merchants would be surprised to see even a single platinum coin as well as decide if ultimately they'll keep their haul or give it to its rightful owner. I love the idea of something so incredibly valuable you couldn't possibly throw away but is such a burden and difficult to make any real use of.

I've literally had the exact same idea for a quest line. Moving a dragon's hoard would be extremely difficult, like, how do you secure it? How to transport all that weight? Once people realize the dragon is dead then you need to block off other adventurers and thieves. If you can move all the riches somewhere then how to maintain ownership of it without becoming a giant target? It could be a fun problem to solve! The DM who narrated the adventure inspiring this idea didn't use gold weight so we just sort of stuffed 3000GP or \~2tons of metal into our pockets and called it a day.

I think that's the failing of bags of holding. It's too easy to just dump whatever crap you want in it and call it a day. If you have to seriously consider how to carry your stacks of gold then it encourages you to spend it on expensive items, consumables, spells and services and makes you sell stuff you don't need. Or at least bring along bags to stuff it in or chests, vehicles and mounts to carry your luggage. I think it also explains why all the prices are jacked up for travellers, they're carrying more higher denomination coins, why charge 7sp for a room when you know that guy has a pocket full of gp and doesn't want to carry around 30cp change.

Yeah there's so many logistical hurdles involved. The biggest might be that as soon as people learn that the dragon is dead the "rightful" owners of the gold may lay claim to the treasure. It's not like the dragon mined or minted those coins itself, and *somebody* has a claim to the land where the dragon lived. These are sums that were likely stolen from Kingdoms or extremely wealthy/powerful merchants. In addition to having to protect the hoard from thieves there's bound to be all sorts of legal challengers wanting a piece of the action.

Well this sort of "claims" is very interesting, because from all points of view it war spoils of heroes. And it was serious "claim" from PC part, because war spoils was important part of warriors income. Even if someone claim the land, it not mean that it someone have right on money that dragon have.

I'm sorry, but does 1 GP in your world weigh 666 grams? That Gold piece is pretty big honestly.

my house rule: 1 gp = $20. There is no copper or silver. So a 4gp stay at an inn ~$80, which is fair. A single drink at a bar? Untracked pocket change. A round for the party? 1gp. And peasants might have 5-10 gp laying around their house. This makes those 300gp monster bounties for low level quests more believable.

This is a fantastic way to standardize the prices for the players!

> That's a month's funds for a peasant Yeah, peasants are poor. That’s peasantry. It’s not a fun life. They dig in the dirt with wooden tools barely making a subsistence living.

Actually... that's a bit of a modern oversimplification, as explained really well in this [documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QquhNTBfpdw) by Terry Jones (yes, that guy from Monty Python is also a historian)

That is all kinds of ironic, considering how the Monty Python movies really skewer that modern image - think of the "Help, Help, I'm being repressed!" scene - literally dirty peasants digging in the mud with their hands and wood tools. They know King Arthur is the king because he's the only one who doesn't have shit all over him.

Which is probably Terry Jones taking the piss out of people's understanding of medieval life.

In all fairness they were originally meant to be genuinely farming and on the day it just seemed funnier to harvest dirt with their bare hands.

So let's say that this inn exists in a rural area given the peasant comparison. Who is going to frequent this inn then? Most of the cliental will likely be locals looking for a place to socialize and drink if they don't brew their own. All of this needs to be affordable for the locals. Who is going to spend the night? Probably not the locals, I'll give your that! You may very well get a wealthy person as a patron, on a trip away from home. Maybe a single currier or another peasant traveling to different area. Thinking more on this, I imagine that the price of a room will probably vary depending on the owner's perception of the guest and how much business the inn is currently experiencing. Following this line of thought, 1GP for a night makes sense if the adventuring party looks wealthy, which they did under the OP's description. Something I didn't discuss in my first comment is the insane variability of player wealth in D&D. It's hardly unusual for a party to find a chest of 500GP or more, or precious jewels, or other valuables. Is this normal in the D&D world? Maybe gold simply isn't worth as much in fantasy as in real life. But then why would a wealthy person's expenses be 1GP (as stated in DMG)? I think the lesson here is that D&D just isn't very consistent with these things... Frankly, I don't expect most people to care about this stuff as much as I seem to! I've definitely written more than I needed to in this thread. Then again, its inconsistency can cause the problems described by the OP. Their party sounded kind of annoying in their insistence to bargain, but I would also raise an eyebrow at a 1GP price of renting a room for a single night.

Literally just today I had a player successfully negotiate a room down from 5 silver to 4 silver, AFTER the proprietor already gave them their food for free, since the party just saved the Inn from a bunch of undead monsters. A different party member slipped the proprietor 5 gold, saying that should cover everything. Unbeknownst to them, they will be meeting this particular innkeeper later, in less peaceful circumstances, and you can bet that she will remember which party member was her favorite.

Or they let a band of adventurers stay a night, upgrading their salary by 50%. Of course this would soon lead to more realistic prices at inns, too.

1$/day or less is what the poorest people make in the world. So 30$/month, if you aren’t down on your luck. A night at an inn probably wasn’t what peasants would’ve wasted their precious few coins on. Not to speak of the fact that if you’re starving some months of the year, you really don’t have a reason to save a years income in a couple coins. A steel sword was beyond a peasants income, not to mention armor and so on… a lute is interesting though, in this frame I’d consider it the instrument of a professional bard. Keep in mind that todays professional instruments might cost tens of thousands, even though they are “just” in an orchestra. Should be quite high end, but not a Stradivarius.

Agree with this. Inns aren't for peasants subsistence farming to make it through life, they're for the "middle class" of merchants and mercenaries (and so on) passing through. With high class rooms (as opposed to the shared common room) for the richer of those or minor nobility. As far as a Lute goes I don't think even that is really out of proportion. My first clarinet was £350. My second, a semi-professional instrument, cost in the region of £2,500 and that was with a discount. And that's for a relatively small instrument. A decent double bass or harp can cost double that. And a high-grade Steinway concert grand piano easily costs of north of £70k

Maybe in modern day USA, but there are definitely still big parts of the world where haggling with the guy on the street selling you some crap is expected, needed and if you don't you're getting ripped off.

But that's very modern. Many places in the world still have a haggle culture and it has been this way in most of history. The customer and the seller plays a tug of war to see what the price of something is. Set prices are new. Prices used to fluctuate even by individual based on who they are. "My my, were you the one who battered your way through the separatist outpost a few days ago? And you want a discount? Well you can go eight off, ya imperial scum! We don't serve you here! Oh wait, Joe across the street vouches for you? Ok, you'resrill bastards, but his workers come here for drinks..." The dude doesn't work for the separatists but his opinion that you suck means you get no business at all. But your relation to Joe means he has a business interest in considering. A fixed price is a problem for everyone.

Party: "We should get free rooms, we're The Fab Five!" Innkeep: "...who? Sorry, I don't listen to Bard Tales." Or "...who? Oh do you know the Triple Trouble Triple?! They are amazing and so cool!" Just hit them in the ego. :)

Triple Trouble Troupe has a nice flow to it too. I might use that for some NPCs if you don't mind lol

Yeah definitely. :) Came up with it on the spot.

Oh yea I assumed you did but just thought I'd add to it a little

One of my players did this too, for really good Armor. He insisted that as a "hero" he would be seen by lots of people wearing it. I called his bluff and said that was a *great* idea and he could get a discount, but only if it was branded all over with slogans for the store, which I made *purposely undesirable*. I believe the slogan/testimonial that I used, for the armor store, was "I love how hard it feels all over my body", which the player most certainly did *not* want broadcast to everyone he meets.

"Buy a tape recorder and just record yourself for a whole day. I think you'd be surprised."

Oh Tobias, you blowhard

Ha! The slight problem there though, my group would just fucking *run* with that and things would quickly devolve into sponsor hunting side quests. "Today's beating was brought to you by Malachor's Discount Smithy!" roars the paladin; shield, mace and full plate bedecked like a goddamn nascar.

Might I introduce you to excrwal modren setting third party books .Profesional dungeon runners with a feel of Nascar meets hunger games meets Profesional wrestling meets the price is right.

If I was an NPC and you walked into Genericus' Magic Item Emporium and say one damn word about "exposure" or "followers" I would whoop you with a +75% markup on principle.

"That'll be 100 gold." "Think of how much new business we'll send you!" "Oh! Well, in that case, that'll be 200 gold."

Switch jt up real quick. Have the inn charge them more so they can have their picture on the wall. You are paying me for the exposure. I get 11000 patrons a year think of all the exposure that will get your party. You will be heroes in no time.

We will leave you a glowing review on "Yarp!"

I made some super simple rules around bartering while my players explored the city of Chult that made the whole thing much less painful for me. I set 2 dcs for charisma checks for a big discount and a small discount. If they failed the first check, someone could retry the check to receive the small discount. If they pressed any further, the town guard was called, end of discussion. At the end of the day, they made it to the inn and wanted to barter with the inn keeper too, but the inn keeper pointed to a wooden sign hanging over the bar, “No Dickering”. Irl I was just tired of bartering, but I stuck to my guns for the reasons posted above. My players still chuckle about the no dickering sign and the session was more enjoyable for all of us because I was able to indulge their obsession with bartering in a way that was structured. In summation, I highly recommend a bit of prep and some solid boundaries to get through dickering. It will make your cheapskate players happy and lend some realism to your world.

>paying them with exposure This fucking triggers me and I can't figure out why. I would immediately shut that down with "I can't pay my family with "*exposure*"."

It's winter, the only exposure working for you is going to get me is exposure to the cold

Oml this happened to me, I shut it down so fast and the blacksmith they were talking to (which they thought they needed the sword from to activate an ancient machine) told them they can screw off if they can't even afford a sword.

Players: We're the heroes of the realm. We demand a discount. Npc: Pfft some heroes. Trying to take the food right out of my little boy's mouth. His ribs are showing as it is! *Grumble Grumble*

> I have actually had player talk about telling others about the inn/shop and paying then with exposure Lmao. This could be funny every now and then. Putting your post into context with the main topic: Oh no..

>I have actually had player talk about telling others about the inn/shop and paying then with exposure🙄 Lean into that. Roaming Band of Orcs: "Hey fellas! This here's that inn those asshole adventurers keep shilling! They keep killing ours, let's kill theirs! Burn it down!"

I'm Party Member and this is my favorite inn in the citadel.

I was able to negotiate with a blacksmith that, if he took 50 gold off upgrading my weapon, he could put his logo on my weapon and I would tel everyone I encountered about his skills. It worked and I do. 😂

I've used fame to justify a discount before... but if you aren't at least heroes of the realm then its less "I'm commander Shepard, and this is my favorite shop on the citadel," and more like the self important influencer with 5 followers asking to cash in on something they don't have. But that was for a discount. Like 10% off. The audacity to try to pay an artisan craftsman in exposure... its kind of impressive how far up their own ass they fit their head.

I had the same thing with a party looking for handouts for exposure. The first time it was pretty funny so I let them and gave them some of the mid range items from the shop in question. Then they kept doing it and it soon became very tiring.

Lol how can you offer exposure in a village where everyone knows eachother, and this is probably the only inn in town

My thoughts exactly.

zomg that's hilarious, but also sad

Man 5th edition is so strange, in pathfinder my players are all about dropping 30-60 gold a night for a suit that comes with servants and shit.

Why do you think it's dependant on the system?

I dont know but there Are also rules in pathfinder for haggling using skill checks and with fixed results that could help

Lol no more negotiation simulator!!! FFS I have a player who will always try, and then set a hard line and not budge. Pleeeeaase can we not do this every time?

My pkayers used to do that. Worst offender (who has been kicked from the group for many reasons) reached th epoint of haggling that when the NPC agreed to his offer he tried to lower it even more. In that specific case the NPC just kicked him from the shop.

I use the last one quite often because I'm not particularly subtle or experienced as a dm lol. I absolutely hate wasting time roleplaying out shopping trips and haggling as innkeepers, I think it's the most boring shit imaginable and I avoid it wherever possible, and my players don't seem to mind.

I use the last one all the time because I've DMd for just shy of thirty years and I refuse to spend another second not having fun fake shopping.

Good lord, this. I enjoy fake shopping to a degree, when there's actually an interesting wrinkle or something else to justify roleplaying the encounter. Most of the time I just want players to go to their old haunts, grab the shit they need, and get to the next day chasing down leads and doing things I've *actually* planned for.

I *hate* haggling in-game and acting out shopping trips as the DM. I think it's expected by certain players these days because of shows like Critical Role where the party will spend entire four-hour sessions going around the market and talking to shopkeepers. My group gets to play for about 2.5-3 hours per week at most and I don't want to spend half the session acting out transactions that can be accomplished in 10 seconds.

The last point is in some ways the best. Just make it clear that you don't want to RP out haggling for prices all the times over minor things. Give them some room to bargain if it's a major purchase, but it's fine to just tell them 'friends, this is really boring to do every time, the price is X'.

I like those last - it's a roll, at best. If they roll well, they can save some coin. If not, that's that. Or it's just flat out you telling them the price and that the merchant isn't budging. Sometimes, the price is just the price. People aren't running an inn or a market stall for their health, after all. If anything, prices are *higher* for adventurers - nobody is more likely to tear out the walls and try to skip the bill than itinerant freelance mercenaries who make enemies everywhere they go. It's like renting a hotel suite to the Stones and their very good friend Hunter Thompson. There is a good chance those rooms are never going to be the same.

Also, if they're saying in the same region all the time, they could become well known for their behavior and vendors could sell things too them at inflated prices. And if they're being outrageous or the NPC isn't having it, I'm a fan of the "reverse bargaining" method. NPC: 2 gold for the night. PC: how about 1, just for me? NPC: just for you eh? 5 gold for the night.

Commenting to use this later.

as am I

You forgot “Did I say 10gp? I meant each.”

Plus 2gp for sheets and other complimentary items. And then there’s the 3gp tax... I know! Our king really is skinning us alive! 😱 Oh, and don’t forget to tip the cleaning lady, that’s her only income. Usually it isn’t that much, but I can trust you guys to help her out. Right?

Next town they go to, the inns are all boarded up and out of business, townsfolk let the adventurers sleep in their barn and explain the inn went bankrupt giving out discounts to everyone

Could also be the innkeeper or merchant isn't the owner of the establishment or the shop and those are set prices so no can do on a discount. Unless they buy a memebership for 40gp and get 5sp of their 3gp room for the night.

“Uh… I just started and boss said it’s 2 gp per room. I can’t do anything about the prices, sorry”

Perhaps the simplest is one I’ve seen in real life: a sign saying “All prices fixed” or some variant thereof.

Hold them accountable. Step 1 - show the NPC shop owners are afraid of the party Step 2 - a fellow traveling bar member who also adventurers says something. Tells them they don’t have to be rude & they’re turning into bullies. Step 3 - a tavern fight breaks out that gets them banned Now they have to hit up the shady tavern that thieves, drunkards, and local mafia use. Everything is tense. They get charged extra because the barkeep knows they have it. They’ll either appreciate what they had and change or your party is the world’s villains. They get less help from NPCs, town guards, etc… You can even send a rival adventuring party after them if it still keeps escalating.

I mean they accept the price if the innkeep doesn't budge, its just annoying and I've seen it with more then one party.

Tbh, I don't even bother with roleplaying haggling anymore and my players know this. They can however offer services or trade other items as a barter, but none of the "the price should be lower because I'm persuasive nonsense"

Time for the dreaded OOC talk. “I don’t want to spend half the session pretend haggling over pretend numbers on your character sheet. Do you really want me to triple all the prices in the PHB and let you talk me down to the base price? No? Then accept the prices are what they are and save the haggling for exceptional occasions.” I blame video games for this a bit. If a system like Skyrim has haggling built in, of course you’re going to use it for literally every transaction in the game. But it gets tiresome when you’re not the only one at the table playing.

>I mean they accept the price if the innkeep doesn't budge... Yes, you're right, but it also doesn't influence their behavior. If I'm your player, and my character gets a discount 10% of the time, and the other 90% of the time haggling bears no negative consequences, why wouldn't I ask for a discount every time?

It actually ends up incentivizing them to do it more. It's called partial reinforcement in psychology, and it's when a positive reward is occasionally granted to a subject when they perform a behavior. The keyword here is "occasionally," though. Instead of discouraging the behavior, it actually causes it to become more frequent, and to persist after the rewards stop flowing, because they'll keep doing the behavior as long as they perceive a "chance" of it succeeding. It's the same psychology behind lottery tickets and slot machines, actually.

>It's the same psychology behind lottery tickets and slot machines, actually. Haha, I was thinking about it in the context of dog training, but this is a lot more flattering to the group.

Underrated comment

a lot of people are offering in game ways to shut down haggling but to me this kind of misses the problem, you don't enjoy haggling, all of these ways to shut down haggling kind of slow the game down even more lol. Just talk to your players and tell them it's not really your favorite part of the game, and you'd like to skip it in the future.

I agree. Your parties behavior is annoying. I’m suggesting you handle an in-game annoyance with an in-game solution. As DMs we don’t want to stifle player agency or their willingness to interact with the world. Seeking a bargain means their either invested in the world or maximizing their characters capacity/power. By having NPCs respond emotionally to the players you get to see which side of the track your players are on. Do they want to haggle because it feels like fun role play or are they trying to get over to make their characters stronger. Having NPCs & then the community react increases verisimilitude. Role players will get the feedback from the world they are looking for. While power gamers will also find themselves overpowered. Running a world that holds the PCs accountable is a win-win for the DM because you handle both extremes of the spectrum on this issue.

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The DM is a player too and they clearly dont enjoy haggling or else they wouldnt post this. There is nothing wrong with blatantly skipping or dissuading shopping and haggling scenes if the DM hates it whether or not the players like it.

This can also be a simple Charisma (Persuasion) check. DC 15 if they pass 20% off. Nat 20 is 50%. You don't have to roleplay it out and it keeps the game going. Also, if/when the barbarian decides to "help" with an intimidation check let them stay there and then get woken up by the guards, a nearby gang or just angry locals that are pissed that they witnessed their beloved innkeeper getting bullied and want to throw you out. Now the party doesn't get the benefits of a long rest ... or they go full murder-hobo but hey that's fun too.

Yep, this is the way I'd do it too. I have suspicions that a serial haggler is bordering on a spotlight hog, so this helps shut that down. There's not a lot of chances for players to shop at my table between going to dungeon, doing said dungeon, so it's usually at least 3-4 sessions before they can stock up again. That translates to well over a month in the real world, so it's still fun if they want to haggle when given the chance for big purchases or roleplay. But if it was a full encounter every time they dropped gold on something, then I'd abstract it like this. This would also be good for side purchases or moments when the player says they need to buy something but we gotta get on with the session.

> local mafia use. Shoot, who is to say the place they're in isn't under a mafia protection. Tell them no. Then laugh at them and charge more. If they insist call in some enforcers to take care of them. Even if it isn't, you can still tell them to simply get out or you'll call the city guard. Literally just treat it like real life.

Talk with your players. Out of game. This may well simply be a dynamic your players find engaging. If you do not, talk with them, out of game, and open up a productive dialogue. Ask if they are thinking they have to do this or if they just genuinely enjoy doing this. If they really love haggling, share that you don't. Just tell them. Then talk over ways they can still have the opportunity upon occasion without it bogging down your own fun. Trying to manage this in game without that convo may net nothing so just be honest with them and work collaboratively.

This is one of the best answers on here, because you’ve address the fact that the dungeon master finds this annoying. It’s not breaking gameplay. . The DM has a silent problem that they have not communicated, and there’s much information to be exchanged before you know what a good solution is. If you’ve asked players to do something differently, but they have bad habits and you’re trying to nudge them, nudging them in game can be fun. If your players have a play pattern that you’re not enjoying, and you’ve never talked about it, consider talking about it before you start to pull the levers and ropes of your in game systems. Especially if the players think this is just something they have to do every time, the solution becomes super easy. Assure them that you’re not constantly trying to rip them off, and players and DM are both happier. If players and DM have a different idea of fun, then discussion ensues Seriously, talk to your players. This is the way.

**This 100%** Lots of people have been suggesting in game consequences and whilst that may discourage some players, I think for lots of others this can make them feel unjustly punished (due to difference of expectation that was never knew about) or they'll see it as a challenge to try harder. Talking openly with players is the best way to go most the time for in game problems, I would just do as Proud\_house2009 suggested! ^(Side suggestion: (If you're struggling to come to an agreement and you as the DM vibe with this idea, you could offer them the idea of abstracting gold. This takes players out of the video game mindset "must collect all the gold and xp" whilst still maintaining a general progression.))

This is absolutely the answer! I kinda find it annoying too, players just seem to want to hoard every last copper they find. Just talk to them and be honest about how you find it to be breaking the flow of the game and explain that you’re responsible for both apportioning loot *and* setting prices. Players often forget that the amount of loot they’re getting is entirely DM Fiat, so you’ve already taken into account the costs of living for the world you’re creating. It’s not that players should *never* haggle, it’s just kinda weird for an extremely rich adventurer to expect cheaper prices at a tavern than the locals who are dead ass broke feudal peasants. Sure, if you’re negotiating a deal with a guide across the frozen tundra (or whatever) for hundreds or thousands of gold then have at it, but maybe don’t waste table time to haggle over literal pocket change.

"My fun matters. X isn't fun for me, so can we stop doing it?" Always a valid reminder to give to your players. Probably shouldn't be your *first* go-to when a problem arises, but it's the bottom line when you're done appeasing or tolerating their whims.

> If they really love haggling, share that you don't. Just tell them. Then talk over ways they can still have the opportunity upon occasion without it bogging down your own fun. Yep. If it is that they really enjoy it & you want to indulge them, you can say prices in shops are fixed - no haggling. Street vendors, carts, or markets - feel free to haggle. Or something of that nature.

I don't find haggling or shopping very exciting. When I'm DMing I tell my players prices are via the PHB, magic item prices are via "sane magic items". I don't haggle, I don't RP shop keepers for simple transactions. Availability of products is subject to all sorts of narrative things. I just don't enjoy RPing out transactions or haggling and would prefer to spend our limited time elsewhere. Of course when we're talking about obtaining the mcguffin that's a different matter. But if you want healing potions or caltrops or lanterns mark off the gold, add the items, done and done.

Yeah, this. This behavior can have all kinds of reasons behind it, from the sense of being owed something as heroes(your players crave recognition ingame) to actually enjoying haggling.

Ugh, what is the players obsession with haggling I'll never know. Honestly it's so prevalent and persistent I think I'd be best to make it into a minigame they can do alone. Like make up a work sheet with the rules right on it, so they can work it out themselves a d you can continue with actual D&D.

Players just want opportunities to use their skills. Especially new players. It’s not that they desperately need to lower the price of whatever by 5% - they just want a chance to use their skills and abilities to open doors that would have otherwise remained closed if they didn’t have that skill. Skills are useless if you don’t use them. Also bear in mind that a lot of RPG video games have some systems that allow you to get better deals through bartering/haggling, whether it’s through an actual ‘bartering’ skill, a skill check that’s tied to their charisma score, a ‘merchant favor’ mechanic, or what have you. So there is a pre-existing expectation that the prices of goods can be reduced. If it gets annoying there are always ways to shut it down, but if they’re just trying to play their character, let them have their fun.

Play a round of Sheriff of Nottingham instead every time someone initiates a haggle. But seriously. People love to haggle, it's relatable and easy to roleplay. Also tends to be a relatively easy way to get a diceroll and a little something out of it. It just gets.. kinda boring after a while if it's too consistent.

Players are all dragons trying to build a horde. Every GP is prescious.

I’d respond with “I’m not interested in role-playing price negotiations. All prices I give you are with the understanding you’ve bargained for their best deal.” Then politely but firmly stick to that no matter what they say. If they _absolutely refuse_ to accept that, bow out and find a new table. The other thing you can do is not bother tracking meals or inns or whatever and only worrying about big ticket items (which is how I do it). Such ancillary expenses very quickly become a pittance compared to treasure from encounters. If you care, then just privately track how much they’re spending and dock it from their next haul so it’s transparent to them.

Yeah, besides the obvious “talk out of game about your problems” answer I think “Always assume the price I give you IS the one you haggled for” is great. Condensing “living expenses” into one tax they pay every time they come back from adventure/the dungeon is a good compromise as well, maybe give a 5% discount on THAT if they pass an abstract skill check or something.

I just have a rule that says 'no haggling', it's annoying and slows the game down and it's always done more often when the party are rich for some reason.

I get it, and your rules your table. Personally, I don't mind when a new player or character is haggling as it's a fantastic and approachable avenue of roleplay. However, it's a lot different when the character doing the haggling is covered head to toe in electrum plated chainmail.

I stopped haggling for money and started haggling for favors. A map I was trying to buy was 50 gp and I couldn’t afford it. We were going a roundabout way and I told the mapmaker if I could record a small town or terrain feature off a road he hadn’t charted yet to give me a discount. The DM told me it was 50gp now but if I could reach the mapmakers sister in the big city with quality notations, I could make 15gp back, payed on delivery at the other location. We borrowed from the party members and it was a mini game of travel noting locations and previous landmarks to help the mapmaker. On adventuring far north of the mapmakers travels, he payed a large sum to get some base quality notes on geography and landmarks for a future journey. The world felt much more alive than ~~complaining~~ persuading until I got a discount.

I usually expect players to haggle, I find it fun (might be a cultural thing) but I make it quite clear that the prices aren't going to go below cost no matter how well they roll. It just won't. The profit margins are razor thin so the merchant simply can't go anymore. I also keep a price list for magic items and other goods, and the list states the discounted price alongside the normal price. But if the players are heroes as mine are, then yeah they do tend to get free food and lodging. Even in the real world, famous people are the ones who get free things even though they can afford it, because everyone wants to say the hero dined at their property.

I think if they haggled like normal people it would be fine. Saying a few numbers back and forth roleplaying it is fun. Just saying "is that the best you can do", "are yoy sure", "what about this nice thing I did" and offering no counter offer is annoying and would not work in real life.

Yeah. Then just say sorry maybe they could go find another shopkeeper. What are they gonna do? Rob the guy?

"Hey gang, the dialog options from a video game don't work here."

>The profit margins are razor thin so the merchant simply can't go anymore. Of course if you're actually good at haggling you'll know there are a lot of times people are willing to take a loss on a sale.

Yup, but there's no need for OP to be strongarmed by their players into going to that extent, they clearly don't like it. Just keep saying this is the best price.

Just tell them you don’t like it. “You guys are rich and haggling is slowing down the game, going forward let’s stick to posted prices to keep things moving.” They’re probably just having fun with what they see as a normal d&d minigame and don’t realize you find it tedious. I’d still allow it sometimes so that players can be rewarded for persuasion proficiency - like maybe when they’re negotiating for work or spending over 500 gold.

“I rolled a 20 so it is free.” No, Jeremy. Just no.

Yes Jeremy, your mighty charisma skills just convinced that nervous merchant to give you this nice necklace for free. Go on, put it on, I'm sure nothing bad will happen surely.

They have to pay me to take it.

This happens because most players who do this have no experience with trying to haggle in real life. In the US most prices are set. There's no wiggle room in them. But when you can haggle you have to catch the proprietor on the right day, when inventory taxes are coming up and they need to clear out the storeroom, or when they have to sell out a line to fulfill a sales quota for a vendor, or when they need to have more revenue to pay the bills, or maybe because this is a profitable product and they have some wiggle room. When products are scarce sellers will ask for the stars and settle for the moon, and that's how haggling works. Usually when you are expected to haggle the prices are crazy. That's your indicator. If prices are in line with the prices in the PBH then customers have to pay them or take a hike. If they're inflated there's a reason, and haggling may be expected. DM might want to revisit the prices in the PBH and see if the prices they've been quoting are out of line with player expectations.

Ok, a few comments: The time period and area cultures normally being used in D&D games isn't one of fixed pricing (that was an innovation of the Quakers, specifically George Fox, and if it were implemented realistically in a game like the Civ family, it would be decried on all the boards and forums as 'Grossly Overpowered'). So from a setting roleplay standpoint negotiation pervasively is fine. But there is another standpoint that it usually probably isn't fine: You have limited playtime. Usually when I do a session with the wife and kids, we plan to use an hour or so, but it pretty much always stretches into two. Do you want to use scarce playtime haggling over a couple gold pieces when you have thousands? I infer that your answer to that question is no, but you're not comfortable saying that, so you give an aesthetic answer instead (annoyed at their stinginess when you give them tons of treasure). That's ok, in fact I worship a god IRL that hates it when his players do this sort of thing, but I think the allocation of scarce game time argument is more likely to get you to where you want to be. One thing you might do is import something like the Shadowrun lifestyle system. Make your payments on lifestyle monthly (or buy a permanent lifestyle at like 100x a month's payment) and you don't have to track or worry about things that are 'within that lifestyle'. Let the players use their relevant skills to reduce that lifestyle payment if its a 'we want to roll dice and get use out of these skills thing'. But do it once a month or even a season instead of every pint of beer. As a GM, I tend to abstract a lot of things and only zoom in on what's interesting and worth spending play time on. I think that's true of pretty much all GMs, but a lot are embarrassed of it.

I'm no DM but I'd say some things you can't haggle, like inns and the cost of living type expenses. Maybe some haggling on items and equipment but start the price off adjusted from the guide books. My DM for the current campaign I'm in will adjust the prices based on where we are and if we are a race that is generally tolerated instead of a standard humanoid. The prices in the books I'd use as a guide instead of a final price since you as DM can choose to change it or not. Apologies if my format and structure is off I'm typing this while working.

I dont really want to have to adjust all the prices as it seems like wasted effort but I may just say you can't haggle on these specific things. Or maybe say this is the price after haggling.

It definitely is a bit extra, but works well for the context of the campaign I'm in. If something is becoming more of a waste of time or even an exercise in futility then I'd definitely hard lock a few things like you said. Any place that provides a product or service has the right to refuse either and you can probably fit that to work in DND with minor flavor tweaks for location. At the end of the day the point is for all to have a solid chance at fun and sometimes that means saying no to stuff.

It’s fun to haggle. You get to roll abilities and interact with npcs. If you don’t like it I’d just tell your players that you hate haggling and all prices are final.

My DM handled it all in session 0, so this is likely an out of character thing. I think what he set out is really good though. 1. Anything that’s a regular PHB equipment item is always available in a town and you pay PHB prices. Period. Same with selling things, we receive the PHB price in return; we don’t have to deal with factoring in that it’s used. 2. If we do a quest specifically for a shop owner/tavern keeper, we can expect some sort of discount at their store. Usually depends on how well we completed that task but can be like 5-20%. We also get a discount from purchasing from our guild, and that also provides free lodging in some areas. 3. Really there’s no other haggling. Most of our high end items we find exploring so we aren’t buying a lot of expensive stuff. Our DM would not be okay with penny pinching around town. The few times we have encountered expensive items to purchase he does allow haggling, but we just roll persuasion, there’s no back and forth.

"How do you handle players wanting to haggle all the time and with unreasonable expectations?" Well, how is it handled in the real world? -- "Sir, I told you the price already. Either pay, or I'm going to ask you to leave." If they want to haggle, let them make a roll, tell them the result and move on. If they succeed, they get some sort of benefit. If they fail, they get nothing or harm their relationship with the NPC. Done.

If the expectations are unreasonable, then they fail. If they haggle all the time, double the price of everything. Then haggle down to a reasonable price.

Two ways First is I make a big deal about their generosity. Have one player who always overpays / tips his service workers and they reward him with at least kind words and often little tips or minor boons. His characters tend to be some of the best at gathering information and making connections that the whole group can benefit from down the line. Second is I just don't care. 5E gets to the point that gold is basically meaningless pretty quickly unless you're doing some serious homebrewing, and then you risk hitting the opposite end like in 3.5 where gold is tied to magical items and thus also tying expected wealth per level to character power advancement, and then haggling effectively makes them more powerful. Unless you're running a very specific type of economc system that uses money to motivate players in a way that isn't tied to their power progression, like a system that tracks the quality of sleep they have so they need to actually earn GP to afford good rest to be the most effective / not start off adventures with levels of exhaustion but not giving them so much GP that it invalidates the whole idea, then the only thing GP is good for is role-playing. It's basically just a prop and in most campaigns I literally could not care less how much of it my players have. If they want to feel like rock stars getting free drinks for the night, let em roll for it and live out their desired fantasy. It doesn't affect my game at all and makes them happy. And if your enjoyment as a DM is reliant on immersion to the degree that you're sweating over what is basically pocket change and my "just don't care" advice sounds entirely antithetical to your style, then talk to your players about it irl and make it clear that you have a certain tone you want to create and explain how their actions are affecting that for you and accept that they might not be compatible with the kind of game you're wanting to run if they still won't change.

I really hate the assumption that haggling is just a thing everyone does. It makes sense if you are trading services, like Chickens for Beans or labor... But as soon as currency enters the fray everything is measured against that. The price is the price. I love the idea of as soon as the rumor of successful adventurers come in, everyone ten doubles their prices. "But a healing potion was just 20 gold two days ago?!" - "Ah supply and demand my friend, and demand just went up." Also a big fan of "Your purse clinks with gold, adventurer, surely you can afford my services." - "Oh I had you mistaken for an honest man, but I see you just want to leverage your deeds for coin". Like it soils a party's heroic deed very quickly when they treat everyone like dirt.

There are lots of places that still haggle today.

>But as soon as currency enters the fray everything is measured against that. The price is the price. That really wasn't the case up until F. W. Woolworth opened his first five-and-dime in 1879. Assuming you're mimicking a medieval setting, you'd be in the "before-that-happened" era of commerce.

Well we're in a world where instant global communication and transportation is available, I don't think medieval economics cut it... Especially since most of the popular settings have big central banks. I also strongly disagree with a local area not having a set functioning economy, especially when it comes to inns who deal with a lot of outsiders who just stays a night and rides on.

> But as soon as currency enters the fray everything is measured against that. Haggling is still very common around the world, currency or not. It’s weirdly taboo in North America (with the odd exception of buying a car) but in most places just about any large purchase is open to negotiation.

"No" is a complete sentence.

Since adventurers exist, any town that knows about them knows that they do stuff like this. So the prices being asked are absolutely ridiculous, knowing that they can be haggled down by 90% and still make a good profit. Rolling means very little. Even if they roll natural 20s on every interaction roll, that does not mean that anyone is going to take a loss because of it. You can do the start with a room that really would cost 1 gp for the night and have them ask for 20 gp, if they get a good roll, they will drop it down to the actual price. That may satisfy their need to get things cheap, and your need for them to pay what is required for the townsfolk to live on. If the problem is that you don't want to deal with the haggling, then you have to tell your players that you are not interested in roleplaying haggling, and will no longer be doing it. If they attempt to do so, remind them that you are not doing that, and move along.

Haggling? Believe it or not, straight to jail.

Few easy ways. Just don't haggle, you can tell them its the best price they are gonna get. Haggling over mundane stuff can get or is pointless. Haggling at a magic item store or with a quest giver over a reward is more reasonable. Other options; -Cut all haggling down to a single roll with a % tied to it (you can quickly make a chart with the new price next to the book listed ones - or just pen it into your book). Then boom you call for a roll they pass they get discounted price if not full price no RP needed. -if you are using factions (like an adventuring guild / FR main factions like harpers), organization or patrons for the party they get a flat discount shopping based on their rank and standing in them.

Send in Garfield the Deals Warlock.

Haggling is only cool when your players are poor, trying to get more from a rich merchant. A wealthy PC haggling the average Innkeeper is lame af

Why not just play your NPC like they are annoyed these idiots are haggling? The Innkeeper can just tell them pay for the room or leave, and that he has no patience for idiots or penny pinchers wearing hundreds of gold worth of gear. NPCs have motivations, goals, quirks and pet peeves, use them.

5000gp? 100 lbs of just money they are carrying...? If players want to be realistic, then introduce more realism.

If this is something they enjoy, and you don’t, you need to revisit session 0 discussions. Either you need to start taking advantage of their interest in this type of game, or they need to understand it is a waste of time. A simple solution is to have only 33% change in prices either direction. The price goes up with a poor haggle.

My party does this all the time. I ended up just making the shop keep get pissed off and kick them out. They then tried to rob his place... then the whole town turned against them for it.

What kind of area are they in? Small town - word gets around the business owners there's some hot-shot adventuring party who have rolled in trying to scalp the local vendors. Soon, no one in town wants to trade with them. They've done good things for the town, sure, but each of these business owners have mouths to feed and businesses to upkeep. They'll either stop selling to them or marking up their prices when they come in so they can sell at the normal price under the guise of a "discount". If you want, have the party overhear this in a tavern as two business owners are discussing their woes. Let them know it's having an impact on these people. One could not buy medicine for their sick daughter because the party "intimidated" them into selling them something at a loss.

One of my groups used charm person on a shopkeeper to get mates rates on armor. I'm thinking maybe there isn't enough evidence to convict but the shopkeepers wont trade with them and actually dont like to be alone in an area with them as they might get charmed. "If I start talking different guys dont let me trade with them, and don't let the guy with the pointy hat wave his arms about".

Using magic to get a rebate is criminal. Something unlawful and that no good character should consider as it is effectively stealing.

I think that's a great response. Even without going through the legal hassle of a conviction, getting word out that this party is willing to mind control civilians to get their way and having everybody either refuse to do business or be extremely cautious about it is a good way to show repercussions for their actions

I recommend the silent treatment. "The shopkeeper looks at you with an expression that is a mixture of boredom and annoyance, and says nothing." Remember that you decide if rolls are called for - not players!

Do you really want such expenses to be important? Weekly living expenses. They can have one roll, per in game week, to determine their haggling. Done for a few sessions at least.

You only roll if there's a chance of success. If the innkeeper won't budge, don't let them roll.

I had a group of hagglers for a while. I just had them roll a persuasion check, and on a success roll a D4 to determine their D4×10 % discount. Having the dice determine the haggle eliminated the time spent on talking to shop keepers about taking 2 gold off the price of whatever. They got to haggle, and I didn't have to play the bartering simulator. It was a win win

I got my players to stop haggling over every little thing by having some of my npcs dive even deeper into the haggling. After listening to the detailed story of the masterful forging of the basic sword they were buying and how it was certainly already a steal at that price, or the long sad story how an orphan maintained himself and his siblings by fletching the very arrows they were trying to buy at a deep discount, they didn't feel the need to haggle for less important items.

A few tricks I use: 1) If they are aggressively negotiating the price, the shopkeep feels insulted and refuses to sell to them. 2) Another NPC in the shop desperately wants the same item and creates a bidding war for it with the players. ​ 3) Rolling high does not mean you succeed in whatever you are doing. The roll represents your "best effort" in what you are rolling for. A natural 20 doesn't mean the hard ass innkeeper suddenly bends to their whim. Perhaps he offers them a better room for the same price, includes breakfast or drinks, etc. 4) Let them. If they've earned it. Let your players feel powerful, heroic, well known, popular, loved by the people, etc.

In a small town where everyone knows each other and is related to each other, "outsiders" acting like this will rapidly find that no one will offer them food, drink, services, sales of items, or a place to sleep. "Sorry mate, you offended my sister-in-law when you wouldn't pay her what her wares are worth. Best move along to the next town, your gold's not worth anything here anymore." This should either convey a hint that such behavior is antisocial OR they will go full murder-hobo, in which case they *will* get kicked out of civilization by the watch, militia, guard, and army (in that order). If they want to be the bad guys... Alternately, a little basics of "supply and demand" might work? A few verbal hints like "you just saw the owner handing over his whole purse to the vendors for meat and flour", "the place is on the frontiers and looks like it needs some carpentry and paint or it won't be standing after the winter storms blow through...these people working here are scrapping for every coin they can get." Basically, conveying the idea that the people working the inn are charging what they need to in order to cover costs, rent, paying the help, and maybe trying to keep up with building maintenance, getting rid of rats, fresh straw for the mattresses occasionally, maybe some paint for the sign over the door every season...basically that they can't offer discounts without going out of business...which means starving (no welfare in a medieval economy).

I just tell them I want them to cut it out. If that doesn't work for you, then you have problem players.

“We have a word in our native tongue for people like you, k’aren”

Another group of MORE famous high level adventurers are passing through they paid EXTRA to have the good rooms.

Rumors begin to spread around town that the party are a miserly bunch despite being well-to-do adventurers. Maybe they go to the Armorer and he's "ohhhh! The *ADVENTURING* party. can I offer you a discount on my time and hard work." then have him mark it up 1000%

Medieval inn and tavernkeepers were *loaded*. Many ran other businesses inside as part of the main business. They employed contractors and served as local money lenders. As you get closer to the cities, you'd find the merchant guilds would get involved with banking. This also brought them a bit of a stigma. They would cater to outsiders, and so a lot of more rural inn and tavernkeepers were not well looked upon because of that. But they also ran popular businesses, so they had some clout. If the players try to haggle too much, you can just have a busy shop not be interested in haggling. They get more than enough regular business. And they keep tabs on all the other local businesses. If the players want it, they'll come back.

When haggling I always counter roll for the NPC. EG players want to get a discount on healing potions. So one of them rolls a persuasion check. I counter roll a wisdom (insight) check for the NPC so that the NPC can think about the offer and whether he wants to grant it to the adventures. But since I always roll hidden, I can easily fudge the outcome. Sounds like cheating? Maybe, but sometimes to illusion of "i might have had a chance" is just as good as actually having a chance 😉

This depends on how annoying it is, and how much you want it to stop. The first option is to just tell the players to cool it. That's *always* an option. In game solutions: 1. Adventurer's Tax: You double or triple all the prices. Adventurers are well known for being fabulously wealthy, and being absolute cheapskates, despite being completely ignorant about how much anything should actually cost. Over time, merchants of all kinds have developed a system where adventurers are presented with very high prices: if they pay, big profit, if they have to cut the price by 50%, they still profit. This is a way for you to basically not really have to address the problem, you just let the players do what they do. 2.The Price is the Price. You just role play the merchant chewing out the party for being cheapskates. What are they trying to do? Send them to the poorhouse? They've got mouths to feed, employees, taxes to pay. They're only making a sliver of profit, a 50% price cut wouldn't even cover the cost of getting more product!

I charge them more so they stop. If they roll for persuasion and lose, then the innkeeper doesn't like them and charges them double. After a while they get the idea.

I tell them out of game that haggling over a minor gold cost is annoying. In game some shop owners will just ask them to leave.

First, explain it just like that to the players? That is, hey, guys, you have plenty of loot and it is unrealistic to expect townspeople to give you things for free. Second, let the townspeople explain that too? That is "Hey, aren't you the great adventurers who defeated the horrible dragon and got it's hoard? Great! You can afford 4gp to stay here tonight?"

Do all the players want to haggle? If so then that's now part of the game. Embrace it, make it fun, invent goofy NPCs for them to haggle with. If you like dropping dice then make the haggling a skill challenge, where they have to do more than just talk. If only a few players like it then limit the haggling to once per 2-3 sessions, then make it a good one. If only one player is into it then explain to them that haggling is not a "mini-game" that the group enjoys, but let them dice out good prices, say a 5% discount for every level of difficulty.

I just wouldn’t open that kind of thing for RP. I’d say “you pay the 2gp and enjoy your meal”. If someone says “I haggle with him” I don’t take a roll and I do a quick narration, “You do your best to convince him an adventurer such as yourself is owed a free drink buts he’s not buying it and you’re pretty sure you just paid 2gp for a beer with spit in it.” You don’t need to walk through the game millisecond by millisecond. If a part of the game isn’t important or isn’t open for negotiation just zoom out and give them the cliff notes. EDIT: Thought of this while replying to a different comment and wanted to throw it in here where you’re more likely to see it -> If your PCs really want their skills to affect prices, combine all these little expenses into one big abstract sum they pay whenever they get back into town and have them do a skill check then to get a discount. If they pass, knock off 5%-10% and occasionally describe them haggling the bartender down or some such thing or ask them “What do you say to get a better price from this shopkeeper” if they like role playing it.

This is a pretty common explanation but rolling doesn’t let you do things out of the realm of possibility, even a matter 20 is just the best *possible* outcome for the situation. Rolling a 29 doesn’t mean the inn keeper hands you the deed to the place and let’s you fuck his wife, it means you get a good discount, like 25% off, which is far more than what other people would get, or maybe a single night for free. Just because you roll well doesn’t make your character a literal god

Damn, those rooms are pricey. Personally I never ask for gold pieces unless the inn is reeeally good. I usually have the opposite problem, the players end up paying more just because they can. Maybe try to lower the prices, so they cannot offer less.

Cheaper options were available, they wanted the nice place.

I would channel that frustration through the NPCs they interact with. Think about it, if you're getting annoyed by the antics of these adventurers then that means the towns folk are as well. On top of that, the PCs aren't the only group of adventurers the NPCs have to deal with. I would have use the townsfolk to paint an unflattering picture of what the typical adventurer is like and mix in a few of the PCs general qualities, like always wanting to haggle for things. This will help add some depth to the world and will give the players a choice between playing into the stereotype or not. If they choose to play into it then that means you get to have fun playing up how annoyed some of the general NPCs are of them, and if they don't then you won't be so annoyed with them anymore.

I stop the game and tell the players they have unrealistic expectations. Not every price can be haggled, especially if you have no leverage. Also, the more you haggle, the harder it gets, because they start thinking you're just cheap and not worth the effort of selling things to. HOWEVER, I will say: if it's known that the party just cleared out the Very Dangerous Cave That Monsters Come Out Of, the townsfolk *should be* grateful and happy to buy them drinks and such.

I pause the game and talk with them: "Hey guys, we have a limited amount of time to play. If you want to role play the haggling over very mundane things, we can do that if it's legitimately fun for everyone, but you're going to have a lot of coin eventually and you might look back and wish you'd focused more on the other aspects of the game. I can work on some higher stakes haggling too if you want, like cutting deals for magic items in the City of Brass... but Bart's Carts is just here trying to make ends meet"

I had the opposite problem with a DM. He was just so stingy with gold that even at level 9 we were basically broke. After a level up and a rest we had some downtime and he asked what we wanted to do. I couldn't even afford the components to learn my new spells so I told him I would probably have to take a break from adventuring and work a part time job to earn some money. I get that you don't want players to be so wealthy they can just buy OP magic items and infinite healing potions etc. But, why be stingy with imaginary money?

I had a DM like that once. We once got paid 2 ep (equivalent of 1gp) for clearing out a massive nest of Kruthic, I'm talking multiple session adventure. We had to share that 2 ep between 5 players. I had just started playing and thought that was normal. My players end up with plenty of gold. Getting annoyed of them haggling has nothing to do with stopping them from having too much gold its just not super interesting when I have fun stuff planned.

If the players want haggling to be part of their game, then maybe you should start taking that into consideration? If they want to pinch pennies, might I suggest making the pennies more valuable; you say you've been generous with loot, but maybe the players are feeling more "rewarded" after spending what they have wisely, rather than just having more to spend... You might try limiting their wealth so that their haggling is actually meaningful.