Thoughts on how best to handle trading in a Merchant / Trade Campaign. + Idea pitch

[NihilsticBanana]

Let me just start out by saying I'm not even sure if this is a good place to ask about this- In my opinion Pathfinder by default doesn't really have a great way to handle things like this- But with a campaign I've been working on I want to implement a strong trading element that rewards traveling large amounts of cargo between cities and towns for a bonus amount of profit in addition to whatever they might find adventuring. I sort of have an idea of what I'd like to try- but I'd like to hear other people's feedback on my idea and maybe hear some advice on better ways to handle this and how to balance it. Brace yourself for a bit of a lengthy explanation of what I was thinking.

So basically the idea I had was to create 4 categories of trade goods that come in 4 different tiers of quality that affect the base value of the items.

Categories - General Goods, Weapons & Armor, Magical Goods, and Artisan Goods

Quality Tiers

Low Quality
Default Supply Buy price (5 copper)
Default Buy price (10 copper)
Default Sell price (10 copper)

Normal Quality
Default Supply Buy price (5 silver)
Default Constructed Buy price (10 silver)
Default Sell price (10 silver)

Good Quality
Default Supply Buy price (5 gold)
Default Constructed Buy price (10 gold)
Default Sell price (10 gold)

Legendary Quality
Default Supply Buy price (5 platinum)
Default Constructed Buy price (10 platinum)
Default Sell price (10 platinum)

Supply Buy prices would be for the cost of materials to make the items yourself to make bigger profits which I was just going to reduce to some level of crafting DC per unit and I'd allow for up to 1 trade good to be crafted per hour of unbothered work (If crafting on the road it would take x4 times as long per item)

The idea for actually turning a profit would be that at the start of the campaign and every in-game month following that every city will have a d20 roll made for the demand level of each category of trade goods, affecting their buy and sell prices by a percent level based on the chart below.

1-5 Low Demand (-10% to buy and sell price)
6-14 Normal Demand (Default buy and sell price)
15-19 High Demand (+10% to buy and sell price)
20 Extremely High Demand (+20% to buy and sell price)

My thought to this was maybe they can check with a guild or do some sort of check to get a projection of the value of things in each city to know where to go if they want to buy low or sell high so like for example City A could have

General Goods - Normal Demand
Weapons & Armor - Low Demand
Magical Goods - Normal Demand
Artisan Goods - High Demand

While City B would have

General Goods - Normal demand
Weapons & Armor - High Demand
Magical Goods - Normal Demand
Artisan Goods - High Demand

Promoting the players to buy weapons & armor from City A and transport them to City B. I was also thinking maybe items like this could have a high weight tied to them or something like that to prevent players from just buying a ton of Legendary Quality goods all of the time- But idk. Part of me feels like a lot of lower quality goods wouldn't even ever be bothered with by the party because those don't deal with the highest amount of profit possible- I probably should figure out some sort of adjustment to make different levels worth it but I haven't come up with anything yet.

I feel like if I can make this work it would make room for a unique feeling campaign with encounters like bandits trying to rob the party trade caravan on the road- or maybe a projection of the trade value of goods was wrong and the party now needs to find a way to get their money back on a ton of useless goods or- Just all other sorts of trade shenanigans

What do you guys think? Would you find this fun to play? Is this dumb? Did I make more work than what's necessary and there's just a better way of doing this? Any thoughts, Ideas, Suggestions, Or just pointing out any dumb oversights I might be making would be great. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

[SheepishEidolon]

Given that players don't expect such game elements and probably are not that familar with them, I'd start slowly:

1) An ordinary quest to escort goods from city A to B. Include some roleplay with the trader (or whoever manages the caravan), to make trade more important in the players' minds.

2) In city B, offer them a subcontract: The trader has limited time, but knows of a solid opportunity in C. So the players may buy some goods from him, to sell them in C. Make it worth it for the players - no 20% higher price in C, make it 100%.

3) In C, the local trader is happy and allows them to choose from three jobs, obvious trade-offs between income, travel time and danger.

Expand from there depending on players' tastes. Keep it simple and clear.

Between cities (and within them) there are the usual encounters. When monsters threaten goods, the latter become more important in players' minds. But avoid frustrating events like "the goblins steal all goods in the night".

[Hugo Rune]

May I suggest that you obtain a copy of Expeditious Retreat's Silk Road book. It contains rules for caravans, trade goods and buying abd selling. Their Magical Medieval Society book is also very good, but more focused on settlements. Mongoose Publishing's Strongholds and Dynasties also has good stuff on resources, though their gameplay model is broken.

[Magus Black]

First real important question: "Do you know what 'kind' of Players you have?"

Before dumping a lot on your plate it would be good to now if they are hack-and-slash types that wont like any cerebral gameplay...or enthusiasts that may want something with enough meat to sink their teeth into.