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Discount Card

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An item, ability, or situation where a character can purchase items at a discount at shops. Sometimes, a store owner will give you one after you save the store from bandits, or for buying enough items, or there might be a monster inexplicably carrying one. (Maybe the monster saved the store from bandits earlier?)

In some older Video Games inspired by (or based on) Dungeons & 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 or a local favor in your Alliance Meter.

Compare Money Multiplier, which makes purchasing easier from the other side, and Reduced Resource Cost, which makes crafting or upgrading easier with less requirements.


Examples:

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    Comic Books 
  • According to She-Hulk, the Avengers ID Card does get you 10% off at Starbucks.

    Radio 
  • Our Miss Brooks: The episode "Christmas Gift Mixup" features a Running Gag where Mrs. Davis, Walter Denton, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin give Miss Brooks "hints" as to what they'd like for Christmas. They helpfully relay the costs of their gifts, and lend Miss Brooks their "exclusive" savings card that gives sale prices at a local discount store.

    Video Games 
  • Advance Wars:
    • Hachi gets a 10% day-to-day discount for producing units, which is raised to 50% on the turn his CO Power or Super CO Power. The latter also lets him build land units at cities instead of bases, basically letting him instantly raise a whole army on the cheap.
    • Colin always gets 20% off, but has a 10% penalty to attack. Which excellently compliments his CO Power (which multiplies his possessed funds by one-and-a-half) and Super CO Power (which gives a damage boost proportional to funds you're carrying).
    • Kanbei is the inverse of Colin: his units cost 20% more than standard, but have 20% or 30% increased attack and defense (depending on the game). As the defensive boost alone makes Kanbei's units almost absurdly durable, he's definitely getting his money's worth.
  • BattleTech (2018) assesses your store prices based on your reputation with the local faction. Normally there's a 10% markup on new equipment, but if you are on good terms with the planet's ruling faction, you can receive items at-cost or even down to a 10% discount if you're on really good terms. This can be significant when your purchases measure in the millions. Conversely, piss off the ruling faction and you can expect markups of up to 50% instead. This is one reason that many players try to remain at least neutral with the resident pirates, as said pirates control the Black Market where all the nicest gear is, particularly the rare bits of Lost Technology such as advanced weapons and occasionally Star League-era 'Mechs.
  • The Binding of Isaac
    • The valuable Steam Sale item reduces the prices of all items in shops for the rest of that playthrough. Strangely, the Steam Sale itself can appear in shops.
    • Rebirth adds a variation in the form of the consumable Credit Card: using this item in a shop (or Devil Room!) allows you to grab every item in the room for free.
  • In Brood Star, the Cunning Linguist module gives the player a discount on purchases from shops for the rest of the run.
  • Castlevania
  • In Clash at Demonhead, on your 30th visit to the shop, all of the normally-rotating items are available for purchase, and you only have to pay half-price for them.
  • In Crying Suns, the Pirate Transponder auxiliary system gives you a 20% discount at all shops.
  • Crypt of the NecroDancer: The Coupon item causes the next shop item touched to be purchased for free. This is especially useful for the hidden heart container shops, or for buying Plate Mail.
  • 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, a mummy that has been preying on the citizens of Lut Gholein, Atma the tavernkeeper tells the player she's asked the other vendors in town to give you reduced prices on goods as a gesture of thanks.
  • Disgaea 2: Having at least one character with an active Felony count will incur a discount when making purchases at the shop, at the rate of 1% per felony (capping at 33%). However, this also grants the same increase in sale price, meaning you can sell items for more than what you purchased them for.
  • Divinity: Original Sin and Original Sin II: Each vendor's prices are reduced by the player character's Bartering score and Relationship Value with the vendor.
  • Dragon Quest
    • 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%.
  • In The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, what fits most closely with this are the first benefits for joining the Fighters Guild and the Order of Arkay — cheaper weapon/armor-repair and disease-healing, respectively. Many of the joinable factions make something free (at least eventually), but only those give a non-100% discount.
  • Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City has Coupons, which slash one item's price in half - it's up to you whether you use it to purchase the Infinity +1 Sword or a basic Medica. Also, you will only find eight of them. Ever. New Game Plus does not restock them, so choose wisely.
  • Fallout:
    • The Barter skill allows you to buy from vendors at closer to cost as well as sell items to them at closer to their true worth. It can also be used in speech challenges when bribing an NPC or getting them to part with information for less than they'd normally charge you. Fallout 4 lacks skill scores, and so bases both directly off the Charisma stat and your rank in the Cap Collector perk.
    • Merchants occasionally offer discounts for helping them out or having a favorable reputation with their affiliated area. In Goodsprings, the starting town in Fallout: New Vegas, you can get a discount from the bartender for fixing her radio.
  • 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 possesses 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.
  • In Fire Emblem, the Silver Card halves the prices of items in shops when held by the buyer.
  • One event in FTL: Faster Than Light lets you turn your scrap into a random weapon, augmentation or a drone schematic, but if you bring along a Lanius crewmember, you can use them to reduce the price.
  • Scoring medals in all Ammu-Nation Shooting Range missions in Grand Theft Auto V as one character will grant a permanent discount on all weapons at Ammu-Nation - 10% for just clearing all missions, 15% for clearing all missions with Silver or higher, and a permanent 25% discount for getting every Gold medal. You can do this with Michael, Trevor, and Franklin, giving you a discount for all three characters.
  • In Hades, winning a Superboss battle against Charon will give you his Loyalty Card for that run, reducing the cost of items in his shops by 20%.
  • Into Space: Each Expensive achievement in the first game lowers prices of upgrades by 5%.
  • 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. Accordion Thieves can get a 5% discount from nearly every store in the game (except those that don't use Meat) with the passive skill Five Finger Discount.
  • The Legend of Zelda
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's 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.)
    • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks have discount cards to Beedle's shop.
    • Mocked hilariously and ruthlessly in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker with the "Complimentary ID" and the equivalent "Compliment Card" in Phantom Hourglass you are given if you purchase enough items from Beedle's Shop. You would expect it to be some manner of discount card, but it literally makes him just shower you in compliments, healing you to full health, and finish with remarking that praise is rather nice sometimes.
  • LunarLux: Bella can interact with citizens and perform sidequests to raise the affinity of an colony, which grants discounts at the colony's shops.
  • In the Mario & Luigi games, your 'Stache (Horn for Bowser in Bowser's Inside Story) stat gets you a discount (as well as increases your chance of a Critical Hit).
  • Mass Effect
    • In Mass Effect, putting enough points into charm skill gets you a tiny discount in shops. Likewise putting points in intimidation skill gives extra credits when selling items.
    • In Mass Effect 2, Shepard can get a discount from stores by convincing the shop keepers. In The Citadel's case, they can get discounts there by giving the store an endorsement, saying it's their favorite store on The Citadel. Funnily enough, this can be done with ALL the stores on the Citadel.
  • Find Auto's bolt in Mega Man 7 and everything will sell for half off.
  • 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.
  • In Mega Man X8, there's a Metal Discount Rare Metal hidden in Earthrock Trilobyte's stage, and it costs 5,000 Metals to make when it's found, but it will provide a 10% discount on all chips in the R&D Lab.
  • 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.
  • No Umbrellas Allowed: When appraising items, some cards lower their base prices, making them cheaper to buy. However, items still get tagged with them after being purchased, so their lowered base prices affect how much higher you can resell them for your secondhand store.
  • Octopath Traveler II: Partitio's Nighttime Path Action "Hire" allows him to hire various NPCs. Besides being able to participate in battles, NPCs that are hired by him can also provide discounts at shops (although you first buy the items for full price and then the discount would be refunded to you) or inns.
  • Paper Mario: The Origami King: Spend enough coins at a shop and you'll get the Membership Card accessory, which you can equip before shopping for discounted prices on everything. Spending even more upgrades it to the Silver and Gold Membership Cards, with the Gold one giving a 50% discount on everything.
  • Persona
    • In Persona 3, shops will give a discount on their wares on certain days.
    • In Persona 4, Shiroku will give discounts on rainy days and Margaret will give discounts depending on how much of the Persona Compendium you have completed. Golden has Daidara giving discounts if you catch him still in his store on rainy nights.
    • Caroline and Justine in Persona 5 will discount you on not only Persona Compendium summoning depending on completion, but also for fusing the highest leveled Personas if you max out their Confidant.
  • Pokémon Black and White: some Pass Powers include getting discounts at stores at a certain rate for 3 minutes.
    • Pokémon X and Y has the similar "Bargain" O-Power, which grants a 10%, 25% or 50% discount on items for 3 minutes depending on the power's level. In addition, there's the event-only Discount Coupon item, which grants a discount when shopping for clothes.
  • Potionomics: leveling up the relationships with characters will eventually lead to them giving you discount coupons.
  • In Red Dead Redemption, you receive discounts and sell for more if your honor level is high enough.
  • Resident Evil 4 (Remake): Played straight and inverted; various charms will reduce repair or upgrade costs or increase the prices of items sold to the Merchant.
  • The RollerCoaster Tycoon series had an inversion as you could give out vouchers for free rides on a certain ride, free food or drink, half-price/free entrance to the park. It costs money to run the marketing campaigns but it entices a lot more guests to visit, useful if the scenario required a certain amount of guests.
  • Rusty's Real Deal Baseball lets you drive down the real-world price of each of its minigames. For the games that are required to buy to advance the plot, you have to give Rusty a donut, give the right responses to his dialog, and possibly give him an item that you earn from playing the games in order to get the lowest possible price. For the other games, you have to use discount coupons that you earn from playing the games or StreetPassing other players.
  • Sandcastle Builder sometimes has a randomly provided boost that gives a 40% discount to all shop purchases. It helps at times when dealing with hard-to-get resources, but gives no benefit for items that cost an infinite amount of a given resource.
  • 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.
  • In A Short Hike two stamina powerups, Golden Feathers, can be purchased for 40 coins each at the Visitor Center. The vendor remarks that "a boy" purchased all the other feathers. Upon reaching the entrance to the final area you find this boy, who talks to you rudely and sells four Golden Feathers for 100 coins each, a 2.5x markup! If you go through one of his dialog trees you discover he's stressed about paying off his college tuition of 400 coins. You can choose to donate 400 coins, and will receive a trading item that later results in a powerful stamina upgrade. If you do this before purchasing any feathers your kindness is rewarded further, as the boy sells all subsequent feathers for the normal 40 coin price thus saving the player up to 240 coins.
  • In the console Skylanders games, every Winged Sapphire you collect gives you a 2% discount on all items and upgrades.
  • Slay the Spire: Membership Card cuts all prices by 50%, The Courier cuts all prices by 20% and automatically restocks anything that is bought with another item, and Smiling Mask sets the cost of deleting cards to 50 gold.
  • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: If you hand the rakghoul serum over to the kindly doctor running the free clinic instead of the crime boss, the doctor gives you a discount at his shop. Now, seeing that you have low hit points at this juncture and can't self-heal, this is more useful than it looks, especially if you can shake down the inexhaustable Pazaak shark in the Lower City.
  • In System Shock 2, one OS upgrade makes items from replicators cost 20% less nanites. Individual replicators can also be hacked to give an extra discount and also replace a junk item with a more useful one.note 
  • Some Tales series games feature consumables that reduce prices next time you shop while others have a "shop rating" score (either universal or individual to each shop) that goes up as you do business. A higher shop rating increases your discount, representing either a "frequent customer" discount or the party getting better at haggling.
  • Team Fortress 2: In Mann vs Machine, Medics can purchase upgrades for their Medigun that would discount the price of Power Up Canteens to a minimum of 5 credits.
  • Terraria has the discount card which, as its name implies, gives you a discount on all shops by 20%. This is a rare drop by Pirates during a pirate invasion and takes up an accessory slot to get the discount. Normally it wouldn't be anything too major, but since some items are completely unique to NPC vendors such as purification powder, yellow pressure plates (a unique variant of pressure plate not found in a game world), and certain crafting tables as well as some items being findable but rare like bullets, this item is actually very helpful for maintaining an inventory.
  • Toontown: Corporate Clash: Completing certain Kudos tasks will grant you a discount on buying gags in that playground: 15% at rank 3, 30% at rank 6, and 50% at rank 9.
  • 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.
  • Warframe
    • One of potential daily tributes is a coupon that gives between 20% and 75% discount on the next platinum purchase.
    • Played straight and inverted with Railjack Crew Members provided by Ticker on Fortuna; depending on your Alliance Meter with Syndicates, certain crew members will either have a discount or increased prices on their costs.
  • Players in World of Warcraft, as their reputation with a given faction goes up, receive increasing discounts on items bought from NPC vendors associated with that faction, up to 20% at Exalted reputation. Goblin players in particular always receive Exalted-level discounts regardless of their reputation, unless the vendor has no affiliations. Further, players in a sufficiently high-leveled guild receive a 10% bonus on all vendor purchases on top of applicable reputation bonuses.

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

    Western Animation 

    Real Life 
  • Sales, coupons, membership discounts, etc. are ways people can get discounts for services.
  • Military ID cards. You would be amazed at the discounts, freebies, and special services you will be offered if you whip one of these out.
  • Student ID cards can provide students discounts at certain stores.

 
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Video Example(s):

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Bowsers Inside Story shop card

Having a sufficiently high Stache stat allows the Mario Bros to receive a scratch card from a shop after buying everything. If they scratch the right symbol, they can get a percentage of their spent coins back.

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