A character can use his/her Influence skill to bargain with another character (i.e. offering someone something in exchange for something else). This is used, for example, for:
When a character wants to buy or sell an item, he/she can use his/her Influence skill to bargain with the other party to the transaction.
If both buyer and seller know the fair price of the item being sold, both characters make a dice roll using their Influence (including relevant Bargaining specialisms) + IQ. The price on which the buyer and seller will agree is then equal to:
If the seller does not know the fair price of the item being sold (i.e. has failed his/her Valuation dice roll), the buyer adds 2 points to his/her bargaining dice roll result for every point by which the seller failed his/her valuation dice roll.
Similarly, if the buyer does not know the fair price of the item being sold (i.e. has failed his/her Valuation dice roll), the seller adds 2 points to his/her bargaining dice roll result for every point by which the buyer failed his/her valuation dice roll.
Once the agreed price has been determined, the buyer can decide whether or not to proceed with the purchase. In some cases, backing out at the last minute could irritate the seller.
When a character wants to bribe someone, the referee should work out the fair price for the bribe. The fair price will depend on how significant the situation is (and the penalty that the the person being bribed will suffer if found out) and the corruptibility of the person being bribed. Some people will be unbribable in a situation in which case the fair price will be infinite.
The person being bribed will always know this fair price. The briber makes a dice roll using his/her Regional knowledge (including local culture specialisms) + PE to judge the fair price of the bribe, with the difficulty depending on how rare the situation is. If a person is unbribable, a successful dice roll will tell the briber it is not worth bothering; an unsuccessful dice roll will lead the briber to believe that bribery is possible, and is likely to then result in a hostile reception from the person being bribed.
If the person being bribed is bribable (i.e. fair price is not infinite), the normal rules for buying/selling can then be used to calculate how much the eventual bribe is made for. Backing out at the last minute once a bribe has been agreed is very likely to anger the person being bribed.
A character may be involved in a negotiation involving non-monetary concessions (e.g. a seller offers to provide additional services, offers credit, etc.). For each such concession, the referee should decide how much the fair value of that concession is to the buyer.
The buyer and seller can judge this if they succeed in dice rolls using their Administration (including relevant business specialisms) + PE to judge the fair price of the concession. The difficulty will vary from about 2 for a relatively common concession (e.g. credit) to about 12 for a very rare, one-off concession.
The normal rules for buying/selling can then be used to calculate how much buyer and seller eventually agree the concession is worth. Backing out of a particular concession will not normally cause offence.