What should artifacts cost?

[smarttman]

There aren't really any hard guidelines on what artifacts should cost, ether for selling or buying purposes. I'm working on a setting that allows artifacts to be purchased, but I don't really know where to begin on that front. Anyone tried doing something like this before?

[Blood axe]

Depends what it is......
Some things are rare and highly prized, like magic items in fantasy. A shotgun and a bunch of shells is a fabulous treasure.
A flashlight might be sold. A talking doll could be sold as a novelty, still valuable. But I don't have players just walk in and buy a laser pistol.

[Gregorius21778]

Hi Smarttman,

let´s see...these are ARTEFACTS. They can be found, but not "made" anymore. I would thereby basically assume a price close to the 600 GP found for a suit of plate armour in the core rules.

But, two things can heighten and/or lower that price DRASTICALLY.

1) It is a consumable
If it something that will be used up, the price should be reduced drastic. If the buyer is aware of that fact!

2) It is just "fancy"
Mutant Future is a world, where most people still see their very survival threatend as part of their daily life. Perhaps not on a day-to-day basis, but farmers in a village don´t know if they will survive the next winter and those who dare to travell can be confronted by horrors they would not have even known the day before. If the item is "just neat" but not a weapon, a tool for a daily task or something that will help to survive in another, direct way (like, cleaning water) the price might drop to 50GP or 100GP. A wonderous box playing music is fine, but nobody would pay as much of it as fine suit of armour.

3) The seller needs something in exchange, and the buyer knows it
Even a (now powerless) Las Pistol might change possession for as a little as 30 GP if the one who owns it looks run down and starving and is in no position to really threaten anybody with it.

Please, tell us more about your game world. Is there a large city with a market, where adventures offer goods they found in the nearby ruins? Are finds of certain types (used weapons, canned food) so common that they are traded more losely?

One of the main factors for determining the price of something that isn´t really "produced" is the demand and the number of goods generally available on the open market...and in this case, the risk / frequency of acquiring them substitutes the time/resources normally invovled in making the good.

[Malcadon]

With (1e) Gamma World, I base the gold piece value of artifacts on the EXP value awarded for figuring-out their basic use. They are not set values and prices are almost always negotiable. I use "gp" values in the abstract, do to a general lack of coinage in my GW/MF settings -- trade goods and sorted, usable junk are the mediums of barter.

With Mutant Future, I use the same rule and values form GW, and I improvised for items with no solid GW equivalent. Of course, this only works on people and creators who understand the power and utility of artifacts. Superstitious savages and simpleminded creators would ether be ignorant about the usefulness of artifacts in general, fear it as dark magic to be destroyed, or revere as a token of the gods. For bartering, I use the Monster Reaction Table as a guideline, with %5-30 (1d6x5) adjustments for mild results, and %30-80 (2d6+4x5) for high results, with Bartering Affinity applying to the final adjusted value. Reaction adjustments can fly all over the place, but for the most part, I try the keep the players at in disadvantage, especially with crafty merchants and tradesmen. The goal of the PCs is to convince a buyer that an artifact is more useful than what is seems, or to convince a seller that an artifact is more mundane or worthless than what it seems. Also, a mental combat roll is needed to hide ones true thoughts and feelings when dealing with telepathic dealer, or suffer a significant (+4) reaction penalty.

[MythAdvocate]

Some relic items could be created by NPCs or player characters, with only a little forethought and planning, and so I dont see why a price value would be impossible. Some such items would be:

Advanced Metal Armor: Made from metal scavenged from robots and such.
Molotov Cocktail: If they can brew hooch and forge metal, they can make these things.
Black Powder Pistols and Rifles: These types of guns are not really game changers.

Cobbed and rebuilt relics are fun to play around with as well. A vehicle made from robot bits and parts of other types of vehicles etc.