Discount Card

An item, ability, or situation where a character can purchase items at a discount at shops.

In some older Video Games inspired by (or based on) Dungeons and Dragons, having a high Charisma score would cause merchants to charge you less for items. Alternately, some RPGs allow you to negotiate the price on goods, and having a higher skill in the bargaining department may be able to get you the goods at a lower price than usual.

Also, this tends to be one of the perks of a 100% Heroism Rating.

Examples of Discount Card include:

Video Games

• Advance Wars: Hachi and Colin's abilities involve purchasing units at a discount. Unfortunately for the latter, that also includes a decrease in strength for those units.
  • Inverted with Kanbei, where he has to purchase units an increased price, but in exchange for an increase in strength.
• In Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Jacob gives Shanoa a VIP Card after she has spent 100,000 gold in his shop, it gives a 10% discount on all items in the shop
  • In Castlevania Aria of Sorrow, the Tsuchinoko soul gives a 20% discount on shop purchases. Finding the soul is another business, though...
• In Deadly Premonition, doing sidequests for Lilly will get you increasingly good discount cards for the convenience store she owns.
• Dead Rising 2 has two "Bargaining" magazines each providing 10% discount at pawn shops.
• Diablo II, Act 2. After killing Radament in the sewers beneath Lut Gholein, Atma the tavernkeeper tells the player she's asked the other vendors in town to give you reduced prices on goods.
• In Dragon Quest II, getting the Gold Card with extreme luck in a slot machine will lower the price of items in all shops by 25%.
• In Dragon Quest V, getting a gold ball in a tombola drawing will net you a "Loyalty Card" that lowers the price of items in all shops by 20%.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy VI, having Edgar in your party will allow you to receive 50% discount when buying from the merchants in Figaro Castle.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, Tonberry possess abilities that allow you to receive discounts and sell for a higher price at every shop in the game.
  • O'aka from Final Fantasy X can offer you discounts on the items he sells if you have lend him enough money (his prices are usually higher than other shops).
    • Final Fantasy X-2 made it possible for O'aka to be a source of infinite money, since once you pay off his debt by buying overpriced items, he starts selling certain items at prices lower than what you'd sell them to him for.
• Fire Emblem: the Silver Card halves the prices of items in shops when held by the buyer.
• Kingdom of Loathing has the LARP Membership card, from one of the Halloween events, that gives a 10% discount at stores that sell food and/or drink
• In The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask, the Ghost Hut in Ikana Canyon normally costs you 30 rupees, but if you play the Song of Healing before talking to the proprietor, you will only be charged 10. Also, Tingle will sell you his maps at a discounted rate if you purchase them in the place they're a map of. (i.e. A map of Great Bay will cost less if purchased in Great Bay.)
  • Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks have discount cards to Beedle's shop.
• In the Mario & Luigi games, your mustache stat gets you a discount (as well as increases your chance of a Critical Hit).
• In Mass Effect 2, Shepard can get a discount from stores by convincing the shop keepers. In The Citadel's case, he/she can get discounts there by giving the store an endorsement, saying it's his/her favorite store on The Citadel. Funnily enough, he can do it with ALL the stores on the Citadel.
• In Mega Man Legends 1 and 2, if you do nice things like donating money, repairing cities, kicking trash to the garbage can, Roll will offer discounts on your upgrades/purchases, as well as getting a lighter armor.
• Nazi Zombies: Fire Sale and Bonfire Sale
• Pokémon Black and White: some Pass Powers, include getting discounts at stores at a certain rate for 3 minutes.
• In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Drebin 893 will offer Old Snake a 20% discount if your game clock is currently on Sunday or Wednesday. During Act 5, he cuts all prices in half due to the slump.
• In Red Dead Redemption, you receive discounts and sell for more if your honor level is high enough.
• In the Shadow Hearts series, collecting discount cards lets you try to get goods cheaper, but the discount isn't automatically applied. You have to win a minigame, which gets harder the more you're trying to reduce the price. If you mess up, you have to pay the full amount. The maximum you can try for is normally 10% per card collected.
• Tradewinds Legends has the Hydra Head item, that scares merchants so bad they give you a discount just to make you take it away.
  • Tradewinds Odyssey also has the Frequent Customer card for the shipyard and drydocks.
• Ultima II uses Charisma to make merchants sell their items to you at a discount.
• Persona 3: shops will give a discount on their wares on certain days.

Web Original

• Neopets used to offer in-game discount cards to players who signed up for various advertising offers.

Real Life

• Sales, coupons, membership discounts, etc.