In our campaign we have finally started to test the waters with mercantile ventures, and we have run into a possible contradiction in the rules. In the book it states:
“Each merchant will buy and sell only one type of merchandise. Roll on the Common Merchandise table to see the merchandise each merchant is interested in buying and selling.”
But there is also an example:
“EXAMPLE: Farlaghn’s caravan is carrying 20 loads of dyes and pigments when it arrives in Arganos. Farlaghn wants to see if any of the 7 available merchants will buy this specific merchandise from him. Dyes and pigments are common merchandise, for which Arganos has a demand modifier of +2. For each merchant, he makes a reaction roll of 9+. Since he is trying to find buyers, he will add the demand modifier of +2 to his roll, so he will only need a natural die roll of 7 or more. He rolls 9, 3, 7, 3, 4, 8, and 2; 3 of the 7 merchants are persuaded to buy dyes and pigments. Rolling 3d4 for each merchant, Farlaghn discovers they will buy 8, 8, and 9 loads of dyes and pigments respectively, for a total of 25. Farlaghn will be able to unload all the dyes and pigments in his caravan!”
These seem to contradict each other. If each merchant buys and sells only one type of item, why is there a reaction roll for each merchant rather then rolling to see what kind of item they will buy first?