"Your die shows 17. Mine shows 12 — and even with my savvy, you beat me by 2. Fine. Ten percent off."
Coming to the Armory
The Shop Plays Back
Sticker prices are for towns without dice.
Three games at Master Brambleforge's counter: haggle the price down, palm something off the shelf, or try to read how good he's gotten. He rolls too — and he's leveling. The dice decide. Failure costs you. And you always know exactly where you stand.
Not yet shipped — track this on the Roadmap.
Three truths at the counter
Everything below hangs on these.
Both sides roll
Every attempt is an opposed check, rolled by the house itself — never by the storyteller. Charisma to talk him down, Dexterity to slip past his eye, Wisdom to read him.
The dice decide
Outcomes land in fixed, bounded tiers — a silver tongue can win a deal but never rewrite the economy. You see both raw dice and the margin. Ties go to the house, and it says so.
Failure has teeth — visibly
Lose a haggle and everything costs more until you make it right. Get caught stealing and the counter closes. Every penalty shows on the shop page with its exit named — felt, never mysterious.
How a scene plays out
Three ways to test your luck — pick your vice.
The Haggle
"That cloak. Surely not full price for a regular?"
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Make your pitch — and see the stakes
Ask for a better price on any item. Before you seal the attempt, the wax seal tells you plainly what losing costs. No blind gambles.
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Two dice hit the counter
Your Charisma against his shopkeeper's savvy. Both raw dice appear with the margin spelled out — his exact bonus stays his secret.
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Win: a locked price
A won discount locks that item's price for you — immune to any later markup — until you buy it. One haggle per item until its outcome is spent.
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Lose: the grudge
Everything in the shop costs you +10% until you buy something — commerce mends grudges. Roll a natural 1 and he won't haggle with you at all until it clears.
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Grinding him trains him
Yes — you can buy a cheap trinket to clear a grudge and try that cloak again. It's allowed. But every coin through his till feeds his experience. Retry enough and you've built the shopkeeper who beats you.
The Five-Finger Discount
He's a lantern with legs. How good can his eyesight be?
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Pick your moment — eyes open
The seal states it straight before you commit: caught means banned until your DM pardons you — and your DM is told.
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Quick hands, watched shelves
Your Dexterity against his perception — which rises with the item's rarity. The legendary cloak is not palmed at rope odds. No lucky-20 lottery here: pure totals, and a tie means caught.
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Slip it: yours, marked forever
The item lands in your pack tagged stolen in its provenance — the record that never washes off, even through a D&D Beyond sync. One attempt per item, ever. No farming the same shelf.
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Caught: the counter closes
Banned. No buying, no haggling, no second try — the shelf stays browsable, but your coin is no good here. Your DM is notified quietly (the table isn't) with the pardon a click away.
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The pardon wipes the slate
Only your DM can reopen the counter — and a pardon is full amnesty: ban, grudges, everything, gone. How you earn it is between you and the table.
The Third Game: Sizing Him Up
His level is never shown. That doesn't mean you can't learn it.
Read the shopkeeper
Your Wisdom against his guile. Succeed and he tells you — in conversation, this once — exactly how seasoned he's become. Nothing is written down; want a fresh read later, roll again.
Get noticed
Fail and he catches you studying him — you're on notice, and your next contest of any kind rolls at a penalty. Even intel has a price. Always available, whatever games the DM has switched on.
The haggle, by the numbers
Four outcomes, bounded at ±20% — the dice bend prices, never break them.
Crits belong to the haggle alone — theft and the size-up are pure totals, no lottery ticket. Prices round up to whole gold, never below 1gp, and a markup always stings by at least a coin.
| Condition | How you earned it | What it does | The way out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grudge | Lost a haggle | All prices +10%; a natural 1 also locks haggling | Buy anything here, or DM clears it |
| On notice | Failed a size-up | Your next contest of any kind rolls at a penalty | That next contest spends it, or DM clears it |
| Banned | Caught stealing | No purchases, haggles, thefts, or size-ups; shelf stays browsable | DM pardon only — and it wipes everything |
Brambleforge grows with the shop
His level is earned, not set — and it's the number you're rolling against.
Every coin and every caught thief makes him sharper
Gold through the till and thieves caught red-handed both feed his experience — including the gold you spend clearing your own grudges. His level sets his haggle savvy and his theft perception. It never falls. DMs see it in the back room; players only ever learn it by sizing him up.
Early campaign
A soft touch fresh at the forge. Deals are there for the taking — and so, frankly, is the stock.
Mid campaign
He's been burned. The easy discounts dry up; his lantern eye lingers on loose fingers.
Late campaign
A veteran of a thousand deals. Out-haggling him is a story you'll tell; robbing him is a legend.
Your side of every contest: d20 + ability modifier + half your level — computed from the sheet you already have, imported or forged here. His side: his earned
level (plus a sharper eye on rarer goods, when you're stealing).
Why the dice can be trusted
Because they never touch the storyteller's hands.
House rules for the house itself
- The server rolls, not the shopkeeper. Brambleforge narrates outcomes — he never invents them. By the time you see the dice, the result has already happened, somewhere no one can charm.
- One attempt, one consequence. The roll and its outcome are a single, indivisible act. There is no re-roll to fish for — not for players, not for sprites, not even for a server hiccup.
- Raw dice and the margin, in the open. You see both d20s and exactly how much you won or lost by — "beats you by 3", "Tie — the house holds". His total stays hidden, so his level remains something you earn by reading him, not by arithmetic.
- The stakes come before the seal. Every attempt tells you what losing costs before you commit. Consequences are never a surprise; only the dice are.
- Bounded outcomes, honest ledger. Even a legendary roll moves a price at most 20%, and the gold ledger records exactly what you paid — discounted, marked up, or stung.
A note for the DM
You hold the keys, as always — with or without the AI.
It's an AI minigame — but you are never required to talk to the AI. Every control the back-room persona has exists as plain buttons on your campaign page: see every character's standing, pardon (a full clean slate), clear any condition, and switch haggling or theft off entirely. Both surfaces read the same live truth — a pardon granted anywhere is true everywhere.
- Both games ship on by default in every campaign, including existing ones — flip either off whenever it doesn't fit your table.
- When a thief is caught, you're notified quietly — the table sees nothing unless you choose to say something — and the notice points straight at the pardon.
- The shop's level is always visible to you in the back room; your players have to work for it.
- Nothing moves gold or items without the same wax-seal honesty as everything else in the Academy.