If 90% of the time each session is spent by the players to shop for gear and barter for better deals is that a case of...

if 90% of the time each session is spent by the players to shop for gear and barter for better deals is that a case of bad players or bad GM?

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is everyone having fun?

because there's no such thing as wrong fun if everyone is having it.

My group used to do shit like this, we'd all start in on the beer and whatever the person who's house we were at made for us, she loved to cook, whoever was GM'ing that week would give us some points to help us recall what was going on and we'd start to get ready, and sometimes it'd just go off the rails for three hours.

Double shots of gin and midori didn't help.

Wasn't a bad group and none of the GM's were bad, just kind of felt like doing other shit that night.

Not enough info. Do the players, after not getting the price they're looking for head else where to bargain again? Do they never stop until they find the best price even for menial things?

Is the DM slow? Are there randomly generated shops that he has to roll for?

What system?

Neither, in my experience it just means you're playing Rogue Trader

Sometimes players just don't know what they want, so the DM should occasionally just tell the players to do shopping out of session. If they really want to get into it, or the matter is delicate (such as buying magical items), then I recommend doing a little solo-session with said players to get that out of the way.

no one is having fun.

I am DM turned player because one of the players wanted to have a shot.

It's kind of a disaster and I suspect that it might be a case of both. The DM clearly only makes a few footnotes on every session and basically kind of bullshits the adventure together as he goes along (I notice that shit immediately because I know what lack of preparation looks like).

The issue however is that we have notorious party splitters and powergamers in our group. They treat tabletop like a glorified version of Diablo-style loot grinders and rarely play characters with any serious flaws or recognizable characteristics.

I have a feeling there is this overarching sentiment of "everyone for themselves" that is absolutely toxic to our sessions.

they are too normie for solo sessions. "Frequent sessions" are basically not a thing for us. The fastest we got one together in quick succession was after two weeks.

If the shops have random loot, are they rolled ahead of time?
If they're looking for something specific do they have it written down pre-session? Perhaps get them to text e-mail you ahead of time so you don't have to roll individually?
Oh, I'm guessing the DM isn't prepping shop inventory then. That's a bit on him and a bit on the players.

>The issue however is that we have notorious party splitters and powergamers in our group. They treat tabletop like a glorified version of Diablo-style loot grinders and rarely play characters with any serious flaws or recognizable characteristics.
Oh look, I discovered the source of your problems. It's not the shopping that's wrong but the people in your group. Drop them if you don't want to play a glorified loot grinder.

One of the issues is that he kind of insists on "simulating" time.

So when you have 3 party splitters and everyone is heading to a different shop he actually takes into consideration how far away the shop is in town. So if the first guy's shop is 1 hour away and the second guy's shop is 5 minutes away and the third guy's shop is 20 minutes away then instead of skipping ahead so everyone reaches their shop and does their fucking business he keeps insisting that the guy that only takes 5 minutes also needs to declare subsequent actions. So he might spend half an hour just speaking to one guy about all the shit he does after his 5 minute shopping trip which means that everyone else has to wait for their own solo adventures.

Oh man, I just bullshit that time.
>Half the day is gone after everyone has gone shopping

Bad GM, you could've used the shopkeeper as a plot hook, they want a better deal? Then do the shopkeeper a favor to do whatever the campaign is about, bam! Everyone gets their gear and the plot moves on.

>how about it? You wanna do this thing for me and I'll give you your weapons for free?
>"lol nah, I'd rather just intimidate that guy and get the gear anyway"

powergamers are the worst.

Come on, who lets that shit happen these days. Make it fun. Make it worth their time. Where are the cops? Where are the gangsters that are pissed that you're pulling this shit on their turf? Where are the pissed shopkeepers and their hired assassins?

Bad system.
Unless it's a game about shopping.

Both

100% bad GM then. You can't blame players for spending their gold on stuff, but you can blame the GM for being a pain in the ass about it.

Bad fiscal responsibility because you're apparently not accounting for opportunity cost. Unless those deals are made at +50 to Diplomacy and come with a sloppy blowjob as a bonus.

Both and literally impossible

See, the problem is, this inevitably derails the whole campaign into same boring "oh no you're on the run" murderhobo shit.

It's lose-lose for GM.

Murderhobos arent on the run, they are on the hunt.

>They treat tabletop like a glorified version of Diablo-style loot grinders and rarely play characters with any serious flaws or recognizable characteristics.

Just drop, that is the best advice for you that I have. I have played with players like this, they aren't in it for the same role playing you are. Once their character they are "role playing" just becomes a stat block it's time to go.

Eventually it just becomes a video game to them, the names of characters stop mattering to them, and if you step out of line with their "fantasy role play adventure" they use their stat block as a threat.

As a DM I have recently started to physically remove players like that from my games. Or putting their excessively narrow "perfect builds" into situations it cannot cope with.

Give them this
drive.google.com/file/d/0B8mF8uNMRN_mX3otSG9vMUpSREE/view
and ask them to do shopping outside of your regular sessions, or just use roll20 and host a shopping session if they need it.

"guys let's do shopping etc individually between sessions, just use the standard prices but animal prices are up 50% in this city, and mineral prices are down 25%. See you next session!"

>shop for gear
>and barter for better deals

>shop for gear
That just happens

>and barter for better deals
That's on the fucking DM holy shit.

I always always always make sure my players are told we're playing Dungeons and Dragons, not Markets and Merchants.

You can
(1) keep it,
(2) sell it at fixed price,
(3) give it away,
(4) throw it away.

In return, I guarantee that the price you buy and sell for in a tiny hamlet is the same as in a metropolis. Certain goods might not be *available,* but the price is the RAW price, always.

>Or putting their excessively narrow "perfect builds" into situations it cannot cope with.
Storytime? Even if it's nothing spectacular I bet it was funny as shit.

I am currently running a campaign of Rogue Trader and this could not be more true. If the PC's spent almost as much time adventuring as they did shopping they'd actually be making money, instead of complaining about how little they have after spending it all on cybernetics and ever-increasingly shiny guns.

Doesn't Rogue Trader have a "One Aquisition per character per Endeavor" rule, unless you're using the Into The Storm rules of "Each additional Aquisition apply a stacking -10 to the check and a chance to attract unwanted attention"?

I have my own rule where, if you make more than one acquisition roll per party member per session you need to roll on the misfortune table, modified by how many extra acquisitions you made.
They haven't yet drawn the connection between "spending all their money on stuff" and "being poor (by Rogue Trader standards)"

>tfw no Reccetear TTRPG where players own a shop and go adventuring to furnish the shop with items to sell to the general public

You could probably use Ryuutama, maybe?

Probably because your house rule is shit.

The rule is literally just the basic rule, but instead of "no you can't make more than one acquisition" it says that you 'can' exceed it, but that there are consequences for doing so.
Explain how that is shit.

>party is asked to hunt down a goblin terrorizing a town
>mr. min max finds goblin among some kobolds and then walks into cave
>decides that that very moment because everything thus far has been trivial despite having the drop on every encounter beforehand
>as a player in any other game his concept of strategy and role playing is just to table talk through whatever is going on
>decides at that point to lead the party into this cave nobody has scouted yet
>two people mention in character that it seems like an obvious ambush and they should scout first
>after a bunch of table talk arguing over how powerful his character is the party gives in saying he is responsible if something bad happens
>I give them 10 minutes to strategize as I walk out of the room
>plan is to run inside and kill everything
>the same two people aren't into the plan
>they run in and surprising only the resident min max it's an ambush
>kobolds everywhere
>min max starts gesticulating at the map telling people where to move to
>I interrupt saying that they had time to strategize and that the table talk wasn't acceptable in addition to players are only in charge of their own character
>at this point the party naysayers decide that the risk wasn't worth their cut of the treasure and run seeing the encroaching mass of kobolds
>2 players "down" min max table talks the other 4 to stick it out
>goblin shows up, seeing that what is left of the party is weak and finished them off
>at that point I explain that his entire build revolves around getting a free round at the start of combat and that he was useless in an ambush

Because Into the Storm already has rules that you can use that say "You can, but the more you buy the harder it is to do so, and there is a chance that something can go wrong because of all the money you're throwing around."

All you're doing is force a Profit Factor Tax on making purchases, which is counter-intuitive to the whole thing. And clearly, your group seems to be in agreement with my sentiment else they wouldn't be complaining.

>90% of a session
I've had those days before. If it's something the players want to do, then it's perfectly fine to have a restocking session from time to time, especially if you can gets your players to show some "slice of life" moments that flesh their personalities out.

>90% of EACH session
Yeah, now THAT means something's wrong. The short answer is whatever you're doing in that last 10% that's giving your players enough loot to want to spend the rest of the day bartering isn't obviously working. A lot of my characters often go 3-5 sessions between purchases, mostly because it devalues the last cool upgrades you bought and doesn't give you time to enjoy/appreciate them.

>Reccetear TTRPG