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6 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 12:28AM
#71
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Date Joined:
Jun 25, 2011
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I like the idea that gold doesn't buy anything "worthwhile."
You spend gold on flavor stuff like castles and arcane laboratories, but it doesn't make your character more powerful. The thing I always hated about 3E/4E is that characters became effectively heavily armed paupers, because every single coin they made went to buying better stuff. Every coin that you spent on not-gear was making you weaker and was just a flat out waste of money. So forget about your cleric donating to his church or your fighter ever owning a stronghold, you need to save up for that +4 cloak!
No thanks. I don't want a Castle. I don't want an Arcane Laboratory. I don't want to play D&D:SIMS. Not saying it shouldn't exist but there should be alternative ways of spending money besides arbitrary things that have little to no intrinsic value. I don't want to be forced into tithing or having to find a "court" and servants for my stronghold.
What do you want to spend your money on, then?
If you want your game worlds to have magic item shops like previous editions, that's fine. It makes figuring out what to spend your gold on much easier. But that's not the default assumption in Next. So since magic items aren't (normally) going to be on your shopping list now, we are trying to figure out what WILL be on our shopping lists.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 1:18AM
#72
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Date Joined:
Apr 15, 2001
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Is it that hard to role play what your PC might do if he is rich? What would you do IRL if you aquired 10 million dollars?
The options are endless. Some DMs might not mind their PCs having a million gold pieces at level 6 others might want them broke at level 10.
WBL guidelines remove this option and PCs are going to want loot simialr to what the WBL guidelines are. Without them that +1 sword might cost 1000gp or it might cost 50 000gp depending on what the DM thinks is right for his game (or even how much wealth the PCs have available).
Its not hard to port over the 3.5 WBL guidelines or the 4th ed equivilent if thats what floats your boat. We basically junked WBL rules in Pathfinder and our game is running fine. If part of the treasure is a magical bath tub and 7 singing mechanical/mechanical canaries they are not going to try and sell it to turn it into a +2 sword as they can't realy buy a +2 sword anyway. Thegame is actually working bettwer without them anyway as you do not really have to sacrifice anything if the the DM (me) decides that they can have a ring of freedom of movment at level. In effect it nerfs the spell casters as the PCs can have access to more defensive items they normally wouldn't be able to afford under normal WBL guidelines.
And they can have a magical bath tub and 100 000 gold pieces as well.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
*pg 30, AD&D 2nd Ed DMG, 1989.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 1:31AM
#73
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Date Joined:
Nov 29, 2009
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Read how Savage Worlds: Beasts and Barbarians deals with money. It is both highly entertaining and an lead to some wonderful RP moments. Basically the PCs "lose" their money between adventures in one or more interesting ways.
I haven't read through the whole list of post yet, but I ran a Sword & Sorcery inspired D&D campaign which used much the same principle. Basically it was a take on the old "money for XP" rule, but instead of getting XP for getting the treasure, the players got XP for spending the treasure. So while you could save up your money to spend it on something useful, it usually just got spent on whores, drinking and gambling, since those were the quickest ways of spending the gold. Not useful for all campaigns, but it set quite a nice tone for a band of rowdy adventurers who somehow never seemed to get rich no matter the dangers they faced.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 2:03AM
#74
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Date Joined:
Nov 29, 2009
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I like the idea that gold doesn't buy anything "worthwhile."
You spend gold on flavor stuff like castles and arcane laboratories, but it doesn't make your character more powerful. The thing I always hated about 3E/4E is that characters became effectively heavily armed paupers, because every single coin they made went to buying better stuff. Every coin that you spent on not-gear was making you weaker and was just a flat out waste of money. So forget about your cleric donating to his church or your fighter ever owning a stronghold, you need to save up for that +4 cloak!
No thanks. I don't want a Castle. I don't want an Arcane Laboratory. I don't want to play D&D:SIMS. Not saying it shouldn't exist but there should be alternative ways of spending money besides arbitrary things that have little to no intrinsic value. I don't want to be forced into tithing or having to find a "court" and servants for my stronghold.
What do you want to spend your money on, then?
If you want your game worlds to have magic item shops like previous editions, that's fine. It makes figuring out what to spend your gold on much easier. But that's not the default assumption in Next. So since magic items aren't (normally) going to be on your shopping list now, we are trying to figure out what WILL be on our shopping lists.
Or simply go on adventures where you don't get loads of money? If money can't get you something you realy value, why strive to get them as a reward? Quite a lot of adventures could be done simply for the thrill or as pro-bono work for poor peasants or whatever.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 2:25AM
#75
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Date Joined:
Jun 25, 2011
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I like the idea that gold doesn't buy anything "worthwhile."
You spend gold on flavor stuff like castles and arcane laboratories, but it doesn't make your character more powerful. The thing I always hated about 3E/4E is that characters became effectively heavily armed paupers, because every single coin they made went to buying better stuff. Every coin that you spent on not-gear was making you weaker and was just a flat out waste of money. So forget about your cleric donating to his church or your fighter ever owning a stronghold, you need to save up for that +4 cloak!
No thanks. I don't want a Castle. I don't want an Arcane Laboratory. I don't want to play D&D:SIMS. Not saying it shouldn't exist but there should be alternative ways of spending money besides arbitrary things that have little to no intrinsic value. I don't want to be forced into tithing or having to find a "court" and servants for my stronghold.
What do you want to spend your money on, then?
If you want your game worlds to have magic item shops like previous editions, that's fine. It makes figuring out what to spend your gold on much easier. But that's not the default assumption in Next. So since magic items aren't (normally) going to be on your shopping list now, we are trying to figure out what WILL be on our shopping lists.
Or simply go on adventures where you don't get loads of money? If money can't get you something you realy value, why strive to get them as a reward? Quite a lot of adventures could be done simply for the thrill or as pro-bono work for poor peasants or whatever.
First of all, you are confusing the roles of players and DMs. The DM gives out rewards, whether it's xp, gold, items, gems, or a story-based reward. The players don't decide to go on adventures where you gets loads of money and then suddenly have lots of money. They can TRY to seek out adventures with high gold-yield, but it doesn't mean they will succeed. The DM decides that.
But all that aside, I currently see 2 issues with the D&D rewards system.
1) since you aren't saving gold for magic items anymore, what other options exist to spend your gold on? These options can be anywhere from mechanical (gear, spells, henchmen, training) to story-based (favors, influence, castles, really nice hats).
2) to avoid the problem of only getting gold as a quest reward in the first place, what other reward options are there?
I know all this stuff can be brainstormed on your own, but that's not the point. I'd like to see the DMG have a couple sections dedicated to rewards that are not magic items and gold. Give us ideas. Random tables of non-gold rewards an NPC might give out.
Having options like this would allow for both styles of play and everywhere in between. As a DM, I want to have the tools I need to customize my game. The DMG should have those tools.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 2:59AM
#76
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Date Joined:
Oct 27, 2007
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I still like the idea of GP for XP or "carousing". PC's spending their money on other things than gear, hirelings or other adventure-related stuff get xp for every gp they spend. This will cause an increase in level advancement speed unless you cut xp rewards elsewhere (cutting monster xp bij 80% for instance). Granted, this works for sandbox/exploration type campaign and less well for adventure path campaigns. Also wizards might need the money to buy/research their new spells instead of automatically getting them when they level up.
I would support having stuff like prices for opulent lifestyles, sailing ships, real estates and the costs and durations for having castles build in the same chapter as equipment in the players handbook. Players seeing these things might strat wanting them for their character and thereby breeding player motivation. Which is always a plus, even in adventure paths, the "in-it-for-the-money"-hero is a well-known trope.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 3:25AM
#77
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It saddens me when people say that in 4e you needed to spend all your money on gear or you'd fall behind, because it meant that the designers failed. They were obviously trying to make sure that only 3 items had strong relevance to combat, and make the economy exponential to encourage "wasting money".
I don't buy this; then why did they make so many awesome ring/waist/arm/head slot items?
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6 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 3:56AM
#78
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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I've been dipping in and out of this thread 'cause the topic interests me, and there are a number of points I think are valid which I'd like to highlight:
- The shift of attention from magic items as an extenion of currency represents an attempt at a major paradigm shift - one that requires explanation and guidance for us all to acclimatise to.
- The shift requires DMs to pay attention to what their players want and facilitate a rewards strategy that works for the group. If that means magic items are brought back into play as gold sinks, then that's what it means. Again, guidance on possible reward strategies will be an essential part of the DMG.
- The shift requires players to work together to establish what kind of game they want to play and what kinds of rewards are appropriate. This is all about compromise: if a player is so unhappy that they insist that rewards work like they used to but everyone else is reasonably happy to try the new way then the unhappy player has to either give in and try or choose not to play. It's their right, either way and we should respect that right, but this system cannot work with half the party using castles as a gold sink and the other half using magic items.
The strategies I see available for those who want to keep the magic item as the gold sink is that they either don't have magic items with numerical effects attached to them or they tweak the encounter elements to reflect the incrased power due to magic items. To be fair, that's not so great a hardship.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 7:59AM
#79
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Date Joined:
Jun 25, 2011
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well said, Kadim.
Just like with any major change through the editions, new things are always going to ruffle feathers. The great thing about the D&D Next design philosophy, though, is THIS IS OKAY! There's more than one way to play the game and D&D Next is going to be robust enough to handle all types of play styles.
I think 85% of the arguments on this forum can be resolved by saying: PosterX, you play your way over there...and PosterY, you play your way over there.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 06, 2012 - 12:00PM
#80
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First of all, you are confusing the roles of players and DMs. The DM gives out rewards, whether it's xp, gold, items, gems, or a story-based reward. The players don't decide to go on adventures where you gets loads of money and then suddenly have lots of money. They can TRY to seek out adventures with high gold-yield, but it doesn't mean they will succeed. The DM decides that.
But all that aside, I currently see 2 issues with the D&D rewards system.
1) since you aren't saving gold for magic items anymore, what other options exist to spend your gold on? These options can be anywhere from mechanical (gear, spells, henchmen, training) to story-based (favors, influence, castles, really nice hats).
To preface, I agree with virtually the entirety of your post. However, what is in the range that you described between mechanical and stoy-based? Everything that I can think of falls into either one of those two categories or falls partially in both of them.
2) to avoid the problem of only getting gold as a quest reward in the first place, what other reward options are there?
I know all this stuff can be brainstormed on your own, but that's not the point. I'd like to see the DMG have a couple sections dedicated to rewards that are not magic items and gold. Give us ideas. Random tables of non-gold rewards an NPC might give out.
Having options like this would allow for both styles of play and everywhere in between. As a DM, I want to have the tools I need to customize my game. The DMG should have those tools.
I definitely want to see a section for non-gold rewards. I'd also like to see 4e's boons come back, that way magic item rewards don't have to be actual items. For instance, instead of a +1 armor, the +1 to AC might be some kind of divine favor or outrageous luck bestowed upon a character.
Why Mechanics-Alignment Integration is Bad
Show
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin."
NPC: "Really?"
Fighter: "Yes."
NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?"
Fighter: "I do."
NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?"
Fighter: "What?"
NPC: "I don't know what it means either."
Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do."
NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics."
Fighter: "These what?"
NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
D20 Modern Toon PC Race.
Mecha Pilot's Skill Challenge Emporium.
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