|
4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 5:13AM
#1
|
Date Joined:
Jun 20, 2010
|
I'm a story teller DM and as my players were taking into a hot meal at an inn they discussed meals past and inns visited, because there have only been a few and they were all for story purposes. This prompted a "hey, why don't we ever pay for food and stuff and eat regularly? We don't even use the rations we start the game with!" Was this an oversight on my part? Then I remembered that these meals cost only a fraction of what the PCs earn in loot. Counting the pennies for food seems pointless...until I realised that they don't spend it on anything...nothing at all.
- The players get most of their equipment during their creation, the odd items they want on top are easy to get by level 2 (not everyone wants plate armour).
- Food and lodging is negligible, not even sure it is in the latest packet.
- Spells are found in dungeons or given free on level-up.
- Magic items are too precious and nonessential to be bought and sold in this version of the game (so far) and are seen as treasure 'gifts'.
- Healing is free courtesy of the Cleric. If no cleric is in the party you could buy healing...except you heal completely every night For free.
I started to devise a system, based loosely on the standard vid game mechanic of better equipment offering higher damage. A new set of weapons would become available every three levels or less with higher costs and fancier names. I accounted for this by simply saying the merchants only offer their better wares to adventurers with both coin and renown, or that they have new stock, just in! Contrived but still something to drive the game forward when the story wasn't so compelling and a mechanical way to increase damage output to keep pace with higher HP monsters at higher levels. Then the Fighter MDD came in the next packet and blew my system out of the water...so what now? What is the loot for? Is there an in-game economy I'm missing? What do you all spend your money on? Does anyone care?
|
|
|
|
4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 5:23AM
#2
|
|
|
Loot is for those occassional times were the PCs are offered a magic item for sale or more importantly when they want to spend it something rediculously big such as building a castle, buying a ship or bribing the guard. Of course, if you actually do want the PCs to at least spend some money on living expenses, just add an upkeep cost to your economy. For example, PCs wanting to live on a low-class status pay 3 gp per month, middle-class 50 gp per month and rich 200 gp (or whatever value you prefer).
Of course, if you know your players do not like about minitae of upkeep, and have little interest in anything beyond the occassional bribe, then you can simply ignore the whole earning gp bit. Sure, the PCs are still hired, but just handwave the reward.
|
|
|
|
4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 5:32AM
#3
|
Date Joined:
Jan 20, 2005
|
Why does one save money in real life? For retirement.
Even in my 3.X games I always put money to the side, so in the end, once the world was safe by my hand, I could open up a tavern, and tell stories there that nobody would believe, because honestly, who would believe the barkeep was the guy that put his sword into the brain of Yoggsimal.
Old school D&D could be summed up with "get rich or die trying."
|
|
|
|
4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 5:44AM
#4
|
- Forum Guide
- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
- Master Dungeon Master
Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2005
|
- Retainers
- Strongholds
- Politics
- Research
- Charity
|
|
|
|
4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 5:47AM
#5
|
Date Joined:
Nov 19, 2007
|
We pay for food, lodging, weapon and armour repair (what can't be done in the field), stabling, buying new horses or mules, transportation via ship, new clothes, training, etc. I don't mind giving them the rare amazing treasure haul because I know they'll go through it in a reasonable amount of time. Of course, all of them are "saving for retirement," but it's not thousands of gold at a time. But at their current level in my campaign (2nd Ed, roughly 13th level), they have enough pocket money that they can be generous with tips and bribes when appropriate.
In memory of wrecan and his Unearthed Wrecana.5e should strongly stay away from "I don't like it, so you can't have it either."
|
|
|
|
4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 6:07AM
#6
|
Date Joined:
May 14, 2010
|
- Retainers
- Strongholds
- Politics
- Research
- Charity
1. I retrain myself.
2. I'll just take one.
3. *walks into castle* Hey old man, you sitting in my chair.
4. I leave that to the wizard.
5. Charity? With all these quests I am doing, I did enough charity.
But 5e should have a system to spend our gold since we don't need to spend it on magic items
to get powerful like the other editions. In 3e and 4e, you always spending money on magic items.
|
|
|
|
4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 6:22AM
#7
|
|
|
1. Debt
2. Family
3. Taxes
4. Revenge
5. Greed
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? join the Old Guard of 4th EditionReality Refracted: Social ContractsD & D: A Documentary Kickstarter ( http://kck.st/SyKNzf) 
Dreaming the Impossible Dream
Show
Imagine a world where the first-time D&D player rolls stats, picks a race, picks a class, picks an alignment, and buys gear to create a character. Imagine if an experienced player, maybe the person helping our theoretical player learn the ropes, could also make a character by rolling ability scores and picking a race, class, feat, skills, class features, spells or powers, and so on. Those two players used different paths to build characters, but the system design allows them to play at the same table. -Mearl
|
|
|
|
4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 6:30AM
#8
|
- Forum Guide
- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
- Master Dungeon Master
Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2005
|
- Retainers
- Strongholds
- Politics
- Research
- Charity
1. I retrain myself.
2. I'll just take one.
3. *walks into castle* Hey old man, you sitting in my chair.
4. I leave that to the wizard.
5. Charity? With all these quests I am doing, I did enough charity.
But 5e should have a system to spend our gold since we don't need to spend it on magic items
to get powerful like the other editions. In 3e and 4e, you always spending money on magic items.
1. I said Retainers, not retrainers.
2. Is it a hovel or are you planning to have a finished basement, maybe a game room, indoor pool (see below), etc.?
3. Politics isn't for everyone.
4. Research isnt' for everyone.
5. And being a decent person isn't for everyone.
There's always...
6. Scrooge McDuck swimming pool of your hoard.
You don't need a "system" for spendign your money. All you need are campaign-specific suggestions. Not everyone will like every suggestion. Given that it costs maybe 1 gp/day to live in luxury, once an adventurer gathers 400 gp for each year he can expect to live (for a 20 year-old human, that's probably about 30,000 gp), he can retire comfortably. If your PC adventures for cash, you'll need to come up with another reason for adventuring at that point.
|
|
|
|
4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 6:50AM
#9
|
Date Joined:
Jun 20, 2010
|
Crow is cutting to the chase here. I get tables to hand out a carefully metered-out cache of jewels and coins per encounter level but there is no economy driving a need for this empty reward. My players are like, yeah, coins, cool...shall we decorate our armour with these? A few of you have volunteered great and imaginative ideas for spending cash but they are all on the whim of the DM and no such costs actually exist in the game, though most have in past editions (strongholds, retainers and bribes are all story items now, as is, er, retirement...not so exciting that one). In editions since 3.0 the economy has been largely based on magic items and my players enjoyed saving for their next big magic item but that doesn't exist in 5th ed. So what will replace it? I can make stuff up but then why give the loot tables? I can make those up too. I can just give them 1000 gold for every quest and charge 200 gold for a beer  So I'm still at a loss as to why this reward game mechanic, which can be very effectively used to drive both narrative and sticky gameplay, is completely missing. All video game RPGs have an economy that helps to keep the plot moving and feeds a supply and demand ratio to reinforce valuable resources. It doesn't need to be an essential part of everyone's game, Im not even a fan of resource management in games, truth be told, but can you look into the rules for a moment and tell me why anything has a cost right now or why the DM has rules to portion out loot?
|
|
|
|
4 months ago ::
Feb 11, 2013 - 6:55AM
#10
|
- Forum Guide
- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
- Master Dungeon Master
Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2005
|
So I'm still at a loss as to why this reward game mechanic, which can be very effectively used to drive both narrative and sticky gameplay, is completely missing.
Because different tables prefer different levels of wealth. In 3e and 4e, wealth was not a reward -- it was a necessity for game balance. And you were expected to spend it to keep your bonuses commensurate with your enemies's attacks and defenses.
But the playtest is making wealth optional. So some campaigns can have a game where you never get more than a few thousand gold, and others may make adventurers millionaires.
So any reward system will likewise be completely optional. Which is why suggestions for the DM is likely all you'll ever see.
And the reason why it isn't in the game yet is that this is a playtest. We're not going to playtest the fiddly camapign-specific stuff (at least not until the very end of the playtest cycle).
The stuff I listed is the stuff we used to spend GP on in the TSR-era games when wealth was not mandatory. If wealth will be used to "drive both narrative and sticky gameplay" it ceased to be a reward and becomes mandatory. That's not what this edition is about.
|
|
|
