I'm very new to RB but have been a long time RPGer and enjoy adding/mixing in small variants to my games as long as the playability increase outweighs the complexity added. I think this variant is pretty nice and thought I would share my "black market" variant for anyone who might be interested. This is good for people who are low on gold and are desperate for items/allies.

When entering a town BEFORE drawing a card you may choose to make a black market purchase. You declare how much gold you are going to spend and put it out front. Draw the card and you MUST purchase whatever the card is but at half it's value; rounded up (same as sell price but rounded up rather then down.) If the amount you declared is not enough to purchase that item/allie then it is discarded to the bottom of the pile. Sent's this is a black market item and considered "hot" (aka stolen) this item/allie can never be sold but can be discarded any time starting on your next turn. If this item/allie causes you to exceed your max size limitations then you must sell/discard one you currently own to make room for the black market item.

I know this variant option may not be used often but it's good for someone who gets a slow start with no items/allies with very little cash and desperate for an item/allie. I like this variant because it really isn't complex and it's balanced to where you may be forced to buy a crap item and equip it but you may get a great item at a great deal.

Interesting idea. Not sure how practical it is.

In your playtesting, how often have you used that system to actually get something useful to you? I just think the odds of putting up enough money and drawing a useful item aren't great. It adds a little option to the game, but you might be better off spending turns gather extra gold or cycling the market stacks rather than gambling with the black market. Guess I'll have to playtest it to find out...

Honestly I've only played this added variant twice and it hasn't been used often but seemed to be used most when heroes were close to a city and down to one (or no) allies or now weapons with 3 to 5 gold in their pocket. Usually fairly happy results in that regard, sometimes they will pull a lvl4 allie but still only cost them 2 gold and they have some decent cannon fodder to go fight with and still have money in their pocket.

The variant came about from a game where one of the players hindered another's movement along with horrible terrain rolls which really slowed him down compared to everyone else. So he was low on gold from lack of fighting and basically no item/allie support so when he finally made it to the city he was really happy to take anything he could get just to help catch up. It opened up a discussion and got our minds thinking which created the variant. I know it probably is incredibly practical and not used often but I find it to be a nice rule in place for an emergency.

I do appreciate any comments and/or critisism anyone might have regarding to maybe tweak it, keep it, or can it. If you DO end up play testing it let me know what you find if you don't mind. THANKS