[Legend][Poll] Would you play a game with no concept of wealth?

[Doc Roc]

We've been batting around the idea of entirely ditching a traditional concept of money for adventurers. How much would that turn you off, if it was a primarily mechanical thing? You could still roll around in coins, fluff-wise.

[Spartacus]

To expand, a possibility that was being kicked around was instead having "Minor" items, or "Major" items, etc. Also, it is in reference to the Legend system, an Alpha of which is in Doc Roc's sig, and another discussion of which is occurring here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10370410#post10370410).

[Eurus]

Would make sense, and help deal with the countless ways to mass-produce money and the magic-currency divide. Even a decanter of endless water is worth a literally infinite amount of gold, essentially. So... sure, why not.

[Jallorn]

Well, there's the D20 wealth system, is that kind of what you're talking about?

[Spartacus]

We are making a homebrew d20 system, compatible with the OGL, and are not satisfied with the current state of economics in the game.

I edited my post above to contain more info, btw.

[Temet Nosce]

This isn't giving us a lot of information, but presuming this means that mundane costs are just hand waved and magic items are no longer something that can be simply purchased, I think I'd actually prefer that to a certain extent.

[Claudius Maximus]

That's what it sounds like to me. Wealth-as-influence could be rolled into the kinds of feats that grant social bonuses. Otherwise it is independent of the combat system.

[Jallorn]

Well, there's the D20 wealth system, is that kind of what you're talking about?

I just realized that this could be misinterpreted. Just in case, I meant the wealth system from D20 Modern, not the DnD 3.5 D20 system. It doesn't involve strict governance of money, but instead has a wealth number against which you roll to see if you can purchase things. Particularly expensive items can reduce your wealth.

[Spartacus]

How we are envisioning it at the moment is mundane items are beneath needing to worry about for an adventurer, barring certain circumstances. Much power is given to the DM, as though you can request items as quest rewards, or let the DM know you would like an item in direction X, it's still up to the DM to let you find it. There will still be a table, where you should have x minor items, y major, etc. at level z, but it saves much math and digging through books.

Also, if the information is currently sparse, it is because myself and others (such as Doc Roc) are currently discussing it and alternatives in a live chat.

[Jarian]

If it meant not having to have a character run around like a christmas tree just to keep up with the neighbors, yeah. It would be a nice departure from the norm.

[Doc Roc]

This is... a shock. I would have thought we all loved Gold, and that I was unique in hating it. My silence has been a mistake.

Gentlefolk.
I hate Gold. I hate fiddly numbers. I want fun. I do math for a living.

[Temotei]

This is... a shock. I would have thought we all loved Gold, and that I was unique in hating it. My silence has been a mistake.

Gentlefolk.
I hate Gold. I hate fiddly numbers. I want fun. I do math for a living.

For shame. Let those feelings out, man.

I'd be up for it, by the way, yes. :smallcool:

[Jarian]

Oh, there's a certain kind of fun that can be had squeezing out every last plus you can get for your gold, but... not in a normal campaign. I would take VoP on most of my characters if it wasn't a terrible option compared to wealth.

Gold is fun if you want to fiddle around a lot, in a pvp environment or something. Not Gold (for lack of a better term) would be more fun in general.

[Spartacus]

Legend contains "tracks", where each character has 3, and they serve as a primary means of advancement. They give abilities, stats, etc. at specific levels, with examples like "Rage" for the barbarian. If we can make the numbers work, how would you gentlefolk feel about sacrificing a portion (Possibly a large portion, like, the majority) for an additional track? Rest assured that we will only implement this if the numbers are balanced, but it would alleviate much of the Christmas Tree effect, while allowing those who like lots of items to keep them.

Also, we have decided (tentatively) on something similar to the Diablo 2 economy, where items are the true currency among players, with gold largely forgotten. Gold does have some use, but it won't be collecting silver diningwear and selling it to someone, but rather a trait of a feat to become "Rich(er)" and gain a bonus to situations where large sums of gold would be useful.

Current question: If we can make the numbers work, how would you gentlefolk feel about sacrificing a portion (Possibly a large portion, like, the majority) for an additional track?

[Jarian]

Like multiclassing, but with money?

Could be interesting. Would have to know more to give a more detailed answer, really.

[Land Outcast]

It'd be great, really... particularly, it would make the focus of adventurers veer towards more compelling (story wise) objectives.
Of course, that'd be as long as wealth is not replaced by "stones of power" or anything else which increases your power directly. The replacement would should rather be by means of a power increase into the normal leveling up.

(Always thinking about shifting the seat of power from Items into something else...
I like what was said about Tracks, but I'm hesitant to put my expectations into it, having items and tracks seems complex. Actually, it seems awfully complicated to balance fixed abilities against a varable stocking of items.)

Note: love the stuff about wealth feats... I'll probably add it into my game.

[Doc Roc]

I think it's worth just glancing at the Legend Alpha. Character classes are vastly more even and much more powerful than in 3.5 at large. Other than Wizard. We don't say the W word. Or Archivist.

[Spartacus]

Much like Multiclassing, actually, but instead of stopping all, say, wizard progression to start rogue progression, you'll keep your wizard progression and gain, say, sneak attack, but not the other abilities or skill points, etc., and you lose much of your wealth.

If you have any questions, ask away, we'll be glad to answer if possible. Due to some poor organization on our part, we do not have a cohesive document at the moment, but the Alpha in Doc Roc's sig is probably the closest thing.



It'd be great, really... particularly, it would make the focus of adventurers veer towards more compelling (story wise) objectives.
Of course, that'd be as long as wealth is not replaced by "stones of power" or anything else which increases your power directly.

While we may disappoint you by keeping magic sword, shields and armour, etc., the possibility of the first part of you post was part of what we wanted. This way, items are rare, and only traded amongst the highest orders of a community. No longer do you go to the bazaar and ask for a +3 sword, you ask your lord or guildmaster if he has heard of any such thing, and go on a quest for it. Or maybe said Lord or Guildmaster has it, but wants some service from you first. Or maybe a lieutenant of the Big Bad has one, giving you extra incentive to hunt him down. We found it added more potential hooks, which is always something nice.

[Hawk7915]

"Gold" is meaningless: Yes. Very yes. While I don't hate gold and WBL, it is annoying once game play begins to have to track vendor trash, and then haggle for the best price for that +1/+1 Two-bladed sword no one wanted, and then spend THAT gold haggling for a potion and a +1 Cloak and 5 Holy Waters and...you get the point. A system where artifacts and major items are the DM's purview and players can just have whatever silly mundane junk they want without sweating the silver coins sounds great :smallsmile:.

Spending wealth to unlock a bonus track: Depends. Having just looked at the track system for the Alpha, it seems to me that an extra track could be worth a lot. If it was giving up my "wealth" (defined as a nebulous amount of gold, property, and art I own that influences the social side of the game or helps fund heists or operations) I'd say it's a bad idea to allow it, as in most campaigns its effectively letting a player take a -5 or -10 penalty on a single skill check to pseudo-gestalt themselves. Unless you need that check every minute of every day (I'm envisiong a Lies of Locke Lamora/ "Ocean's Eleven" style story with lots of expensive and rare stuff being required to pull off a mission, making wealth checks critical), then players would be crazy not to take the fourth track. "A house, servants, fine wine? Meh, I'll unlock ninja defensive powers and sleep in my cloak drinking rain water".

If, on the other hand, its "A 6th level character has 3 minor and 1 medium artifacts; a character may give up the medium and one minor to open a 4th track chosen from another class", that seems much more reasonable and would actually be an interesting trade. Is losing access to my ranger's +1 sword and cloak of resistance worth gaining, say, access to a Barbarian's Mettle ability and fast healing from the "Ancestor" track? I don't know. Maybe. Depends on the character. But at least it feels like a choice.

[Spartacus]

It would most assuredly be the latter. We had long discussions about how to separate non-combat and combat. If something has a combat benefit, it will have a combat cost (even if that cost is simply "I am a Barbarian, so I am not a Skald"), and similar for non-combat bonuses and costs.

Rest assured, no penalty will be meaningless.

EDIT: A huge part of tracks is that we felt conventional classes in 3.5 were restrictive sometimes, and needed large amounts of multiclassing for what you want, and tracks are what we came up with as an idea to at least do better. We think it's much better, of course. :smallcool:

As such, providing choices is a big goal for us.

Also, man, do I sound like a Community Representative for some game company :smalltongue:

[Doc Roc]

Wealth is slain.

[Land Outcast]

I'm right there with Hawk7915, if items aren't common, and people don't go around with five +1 elvencraft longswords to use as pocket change, then things get interesting.

And I could see viable choices if what'd be non-story-tied items were awarded solely on a basis similar to what Hawk7915 exemplified towards the end of his post.

[Spartacus]

One thing I personally like about this item fix is it will make the PCs feel special. Not every mook is going to have a magic item, and when they do kill a notable enemy, check his body and find a major item, they'll realize "Hey, he was special because he had this item. We also have items like this (and now this) so we must also be special!"

[Eurus]

I should hope that, given the sheer amount of power available to many of the Legend classes, magic items will be more interesting than just "a sword that lets me hit things 15% more often for about as much extra damage as it takes to kill a small dog" or "a cloak that makes me 10% better at avoiding most kinds of harm". While I hate the Christmas Tree Effect as much as anyone, I also don't like the idea of magic items being relatively lame and inconsequential in comparison to the baseline level of PC awesomeness. In other words... I don't want +2 swords to be valuable because they're rare and awesome because they're valuable, I want magic swords to be rare and valuable because they're just awesome.

[Eldan]

Eh.

When DMing I prefer more low-level games, and even relatively gritty ones. I'd like to have at least some measure of what they can afford. At least about half of my games were in a stage where characters very much had to worry about mundane items. Rope, arrows, daggers, food, spell components... it all costs money. I've seen people beat up Hive Beggars for a few copper coins so they could buy more rope and nets to build a monster trap in the sewers.

So, while I'd be fine with simplifying the system, I wouldn't like to have it entirely removed.

That said, while as a DM, I'd still like at least a vague wealth system, as a player in a more high level game: sure. Ditch it.

[potatocubed]

Something to bear in mind, related to what Eldan said above, is that by removing any kind of mundane equipment tracking you're removing a subset of stories that your system can be used to tell.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing - some great games are only equipped to tell a tiny fraction of the potential stories possible: Nobilis, Burning Empires, etc. - but you should be aware of the greater effects of the decision that you make.

[Eldan]

Yes, what potatocubed said is pretty much what I meant. The main strength of the d20 system, as it stands now, is versatility. With either a little homebrew or creative re-fluffing, you can play pretty much anything you want, in any kind of world and campaign.
By removing wealth, you also remove a potential sub-set of stories.

^Potatocubed: I'm reading your Fatescape document currently, and I like what I see. I already liked the Fate system before, this makes me want to actually start a game with your rules.

[potatocubed]

Please do! It needs testing. /threadjack

[Eldan]

Ah, well. I'm already running a Skype game currently, and I'm also rather busy finishing my current research project, so, probably not too soon. But sure, as soon as I have the time.

[Unrest]

How we are envisioning it at the moment is mundane items are beneath needing to worry about for an adventurer, barring certain circumstances. Much power is given to the DM, as though you can request items as quest rewards, or let the DM know you would like an item in direction X, it's still up to the DM to let you find it. There will still be a table, where you should have x minor items, y major, etc. at level z, but it saves much math and digging through books.


Requesting items is quite an awkward (verisimilitude-breaking) extension of the GM mechanic of "I have 4 PCs here so I need 4 rewards, or 2 this time and 2 next time for the other pair", which I believe is / should be used regardless of most tables and RAW. It goes much more MMO style this way ("I want the Hat so I go specifically There" rather than "I go There and see What I can get"; and almost sounds like "I want the Hat so I go... forward, pressing <Fire>"). As for the table with inventory numbers - that's 4e, isn't it? I myself am very fond of the "you get N-level, N-1, N-2 items" (or something) mechanic, and not saying it wouldn't be very very nice for 3.5e. Always got lost in the gazillions of gold pieces when something needed buying.

As a side note, after you get rid of all that gold, please send it to my place so I can... awww, you're keeping it for the rolling-in purposes? :smallfrown: Too bad...

[Yora]

In our current campaign, money hasn't really made an appearance yet. The players simply followed the plot and did lots of talking, exploring, and problem solving, but the only looting I can remember was the sorcerer/alchemist stuffing some overgrown centipedes in a bag because he thought they might be interesting to examine in his lab. Since there is usually not much fighting, equipment doesn't play much of a roll. They got a box with potions and talismans as supplies from the village priest who send them on their quest, and all other stuff we had to deal with was ropes, blankets, torches, and stuff, for which I just didn't bother to charge them.
We only got to level 2 though, and then switched to BESM where all equipment counts as part of the characters abilities and no wealth system exist.

So yeah, I really don't want to bother with counting treasure. I think in future D&D games, I just send the PCs on a shopping spree at the end of an adventure and set a gp limit how much stuff they can purchase.

[Mulletmanalive]

I've been using something based on the D20 Modern wealth system in my games for ages. I hate the gold thing and the change was actually brought about because I had to punch a player for bitching about me behind my back and [unsuccessfully] trying to ferment revolt because I'd not been handing out WBL or allowing him to buy magic items.

I've used several systems:

My military games use Diplomacy as a way of requesting gear [suffice to say, it's a class skill for fighters] and they can keep a little of what they kill

My social games assume you can afford your equipment and a couple of items and anything you steal and sell converts to "Favour" which allows you to interfere with the plot later on [also a class feature for some classes]

One game actually measured wealth in acres of land and the food output they could manage because it was a barter system; the players seemed to love the fact that they could actually get more out of a cart of grain than a cart of gold in that frontier environment...

[Doc Roc]

Eldan: we will have a small optional subsystem for low level play, with a simplified cost mechanism and somewhat more direct links to the social system.

A small note: if you have read my guides you know that my specialty is item optimization. This is a pretty familiar topic to me, but I really would not have guessed that everyone hated this thing.

[imperialspectre]

The key is that magic and technological items - things that act as force multipliers in the setting - aren't something you can just buy with gold.

You can definitely spend cash on climbing gear and a crossbow if you're just trying to finance your next heist, and you can also accumulate cash and use it to buy a Batcave. But in general, we feel that that should be largely optional, because a lot of "adventurer" archetypes don't require the stockpiling of cash to achieve their goals.

Edit: Thought I'd throw in a couple examples. Absent serious tweaking (things like beneficial traps, for example), D&D doesn't cover people like caravan guards, magical SWAT teams, or legitimate do-gooder superheroes well at all. Any of those people, per the game mechanics, need to keep whatever they can loot from defeated enemies to preserve their capabilities and be ready to defeat the next challenge - doing things like allowing the loot to be confiscated by proper authorities or donating it to charity is mechanically crippling but almost a requirement from an RP perspective.

We want to ensure that character concepts which either have their living arrangements taken care of (as soldiers, caravaneers, cops, etc) or are ethically bound to sacrifice resources that could be used to feed orphans (holy knights or whatever) are viable.

[Doc Roc]

This is working out well. May post a prototype wednesday!

[Cieyrin]

Color me amused and intrigued, as while I have a strange fascination with crunching numbers, dealing less in coin and more in resources could be interesting, something similar to how Iron Heroes had coin convert into Wealth feats or WoD has a Resources stat for determining what you can or can't buy.

My only caution in pursuing this path is there should be a balance between character ability and item power, as an issue I had with 2nd Ed AD&D is how overshadowed characters were by their items. While it's neat to have kick ass items, that shouldn't be the focus of a character so much as what they do with said items. They should be able to stand on their own feet without having a +whatever weapon of amazing as a crutch to carry them through. While some stories can be told well with items at the forefront, I feel balance between the two systems should be paramount.

[Spartacus]

Color me amused and intrigued, as while I have a strange fascination with crunching numbers, dealing less in coin and more in resources could be interesting, something similar to how Iron Heroes had coin convert into Wealth feats or WoD has a Resources stat for determining what you can or can't buy.

My only caution in pursuing this path is there should be a balance between character ability and item power, as an issue I had with 2nd Ed AD&D is how overshadowed characters were by their items. While it's neat to have kick ass items, that shouldn't be the focus of a character so much as what they do with said items. They should be able to stand on their own feet without having a +whatever weapon of amazing as a crutch to carry them through. While some stories can be told well with items at the forefront, I feel balance between the two systems should be paramount.

Worry not, two key components of Legend are that all tracks are created equal, and switching one track for another should be as easy as possible. With these overarching design goals, we decided to treat items as another track, where you can trade it out for a track of your choice. If you like all sorts of items, you can keep them, but if you don't, trade them for more innate abilities!

EDIT: Now, some may or may not like this, but we did keep some basic, stat boosting items. These are not all the items, not ever all the minor items. They may or may not make it into the final release, but for the moment, +2 Dex is here.

However, don't even begin to think that they are all we have. They are the minority even in the minor items, where they reside. Now other items may, admittedly give stat boosts, but they are never the primary function of a higher level item. It'll be "Teleport to a guy and make a shockwave when you appear, dealing damage to all around you. Oh yeah, and +2 STR." This was pulled off the top of my head, I am not actually creating the items (and for good reason), but I am in contact with those who do.

[imperialspectre]

For the record, the above post was accurate with respect to the teleport-and-shockwave item. However, it gives +2 Dex instead of +2 Strength, is a dagger, and we're fairly certain the first one was crafted by some dude named Kelen.

[Cieyrin]

For the record, the above post was accurate with respect to the teleport-and-shockwave item. However, it gives +2 Dex instead of +2 Strength, is a dagger, and we're fairly certain the first one was crafted by some dude named Kelen.

Kelen makes me think of that elf hero from Battle for Wesnoth...

Yeah, I have nothing useful to contribute at this juncture. :smallfrown:

[Spartacus]

Kelen makes me think of that elf hero from Battle for Wesnoth...

Ever played DotA?

[Cieyrin]

Ever played DotA?

Many, many moons ago

[Josie Whales]

I think the answer depends on what the goals of the characters are, or campaign them etc. I'll use examples from movies. If I was doing a campaign based on Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name movies then acquiring wealth is of utmost importance because it's at the heart of the character's motivation.

On the other hand if I was doing a campaign based on Predator and Rambo then wealth would really just get in the way after initial gear acquisition.

You've alluded to this somewhat in your replies but I think the best thing you could do is just make sure wealth has a purpose and by purpose I mean acts a motivational in story tool for the characters so that it is important to the players and if it's not going to serve that purpose allow it to be dropped entirely without negatively affecting player enjoyment.

In current RPG's (D&D, Pathfinder) gold is pretty lame and serves little purpose beyond point accumulation which can be exchanged for magical items. Which is weird if you think about right? I acquire gold so I can buy more gear which allows me to acquire gold. Where in real life I work to earn money which A) allows me to effectively live (use energy, consume food,have shelter) and also purchase things which create satisfaction and enjoyment. There is an actual purpose to earning wealth. If you can somehow simulate that you'd be doing something wonderful.