Keeping the PCs Poor

[Kadzar]

Hello GitP. Currently I am in the planning stage of a PbP space opera game. Over the course of the game, I want players to be able to buy nice things occasionally, but I don't want them to be steadily increasing in monetary power; in fact I would like it if they would occasionally experience a decline in funds and assets. If it's also possible that they could be encouraged to seek out things other than which will increase their power somehow (i.e. luxuries), all the better. I'm not looking for advice specific to any system in particular (in fact I have none in mind and might cobble one together for the purpose), so examples of how such things might be handled in various systems are more than welcome.

[Dr.Epic]

Just have every foe they fight have next to no cash or monetary possessions. And if they try to rob or steal, set the DC very high.

[Elvenoutrider]

Make it a Plot point that someone hacked their bank accounts. Maybe if they are outlaws the authorities freeze their assets. Have them owe money to an obese crime lord with a rancor. There are lots of options in sci fi settings for keeping pcs poor

[Skyrunner]

Make some big thing to sink their money into that isn't actually very valuable O_O

[Shpadoinkle]

I'd inform the players of this, myself. I know that I, as a player, would become incredibly frustrated if every time I felt like I was getting somewhere the DM pulled some "Haha your bank account got hacked and there's nothing you can do about it!" BS. If you start them out working for someone or trying to pay of some huge debt, that's a lot more forgivable, but cutting their legs out from under them with no explanation for why every time they start to feel like they're getting somewhere is just going to breed contempt.

[kalkyrie]

Give them ongoing costs (fuel, food, ship repair etc).
It'll be a drain on their resources, which is what you need for bouts of poverty.

[Need_A_Life]

Over the course of the game, I want players to be able to buy nice things occasionally, but I don't want them to be steadily increasing in monetary power; in fact I would like it if they would occasionally experience a decline in funds and assets.
Most important thing: Make it a natural part of the flow.

Ship gets damaged? Repair costs.
Person gets arrested? Bail money.
Upgrading the ship? That ain't free.
You need to rent a space on a station that has the proper facilities, negotiate costs of materials, work and any "rush"-fees you feel are appropriate.

Of course, loan sharks and other shady individuals can give them a boost, but it's going to cost them a lot more money, time and effort in the long run. Any deal with this kind of person should provoke profuse swearing somewhere along the line.

[Daer]

And when you do want give them chance to buy something nice let them have some sort temporary access to some bad guys bank account that will be closed when bad guy has been found dead or something like that. And of course they can't move the money to their own account without leaving traces and getting in huge problems.

[Coidzor]

I'd inform the players of this, myself. I know that I, as a player, would become incredibly frustrated if every time I felt like I was getting somewhere the DM pulled some "Haha your bank account got hacked and there's nothing you can do about it!" BS. If you start them out working for someone or trying to pay of some huge debt, that's a lot more forgivable, but cutting their legs out from under them with no explanation for why every time they start to feel like they're getting someone is just going to breed contempt.

Yeah, the first thing you have to do is be upfront about what kind of game you're running. If you lie to the players as people too much it tends to breed bad blood between you and them. As people.

[Belril Duskwalk]

I find treacherous quest givers to be good at this sort of thing. Keep the promises of rewards vague, offer them something that sounds valuable (but is never specified as such) then when it comes time to pay up, it turns out to be less so. Going further have the quest giver completely fail to pay up, either because they are actually dirt poor and really desperate so they can't afford to pay or because they are grade A ***holes who think they can get away with it. And as a third variation: Have the quest givers apply strict limits, like the pay being reduced if they're late, then set the time limit too short for it to be possible to be on time. Offer them a large sum of money if they get you a complete set of X, failing to mention that you've got more people looking for X, meaning the players are highly unlikely to bring you the full set by themselves

Note: All of these will contribute to making your players poor. None of them are particularly likely to make the players happy. And they might make players seriously paranoid about getting all the details of their contracts up front.

[bloodtide]

In a general sense, you don't have to worry too much about characters getting too much treasure and loot. Even if they get tons of loot they will spend it. And no matter how much they get it will never be enough.

It's not so hard to dangle a new and flashy thing in front of the players. You can always add things.

Players often take risks too, and it's easy to have the risks be costly.

[Kadzar]

I'd inform the players of this, myself. I know that I, as a player, would become incredibly frustrated if every time I felt like I was getting somewhere the DM pulled some "Haha your bank account got hacked and there's nothing you can do about it!" BS. If you start them out working for someone or trying to pay of some huge debt, that's a lot more forgivable, but cutting their legs out from under them with no explanation for why every time they start to feel like they're getting someone is just going to breed contempt. Don't worry. I'd planned to inform players about the nature of this game from the first post.

Also, I want players going into debt to be something they chose to do; it would just be an option that they would be heavily incentivized to take.

Upkeep costs and various fees are definitely something I want to include, yes.

Various mentions of bank accounts got me thinking about how the economy would work in this setting. The only thing like a strong galactic government is a sort of evil empire, and I don't think they'd allow non-citizens or non-conquered (which the PCs are) to open bank accounts with them, nor would they want to be in the empire's system anyway. However, I suspect the empire would have at least occasional need to trade with non-members, so there might be some some imperial currency in circulation. Of course, there would also be money-changers to convert between the various currencies of different systems, at various exorbitant rates depending on how remote the systems are. In certain extreme cases the PCs might be forced to simply barter for goods and services.

In addition, I've thought about how loan sharks would enforce repayments on itinerant borrowers. I'm thinking some of them might work together with other such organizations in other systems, others might make extensive use of bounty hunters, and still others might be transient themselves.


I find treacherous quest givers to be good at this sort of thing. Keep the promises of rewards vague, offer them something that sounds valuable (but is never specified as such) then when it comes time to pay up, it turns out to be less so. Going further have the quest giver completely fail to pay up, either because they are actually dirt poor and really desperate so they can't afford to pay or because they are grade A ***holes who think they can get away with it. And as a third variation: Have the quest givers apply strict limits, like the pay being reduced if they're late, then set the time limit too short for it to be possible to be on time. Offer them a large sum of money if they get you a complete set of X, failing to mention that you've got more people looking for X, meaning the players are highly unlikely to bring you the full set by themselves

Note: All of these will contribute to making your players poor. None of them are particularly likely to make the players happy. And they might make players seriously paranoid about getting all the details of their contracts up front. Yeah, this is something I'm really worried about. I'd really like to be able to do this in a way that doesn't make people angry.


In a general sense, you don't have to worry too much about characters getting too much treasure and loot. Even if they get tons of loot they will spend it. And no matter how much they get it will never be enough.

It's not so hard to dangle a new and flashy thing in front of the players. You can always add things.

Players often take risks too, and it's easy to have the risks be costly.Well, I'm mostly worried about what their spending that money on. If they are routinely buying tactical nukes, that's a problem.

[graymagiker]

Several systems have a "lifestyle" rating/subsystem. Basiclly you pay a set fee every unit time and are considered to be living at a certian lifestyle. See SR4 for an example.

This lets players spend money for unspecified "goods", which encourages them to spend money. If you are upfront about the type of game, you could encourage players to have their characters get the highest lifestyle they can afford.

[Reluctance]

Like Skyrunner and Kalkyrie pointed out, ongoing costs can gobble up a lot of your pay. Give the PCs personal goals (trying to take down a personal nemesis in the Evil Empire is a classic for a reason, especially if he's a huge wad of toilet paper to them personally early in the game), and they'll be happy to spend money towards it. Allowing them to have plot rewards while money is a means towards an end.

One of the nice thing about civilized society being evil is that it undermines the economic certainty required for proper PC moneygrubbing. The scrap metal from an exploded spaceship isn't worth much in barter. What helps are things you already value, such as food/fuel/ammo/upgrades. When galaxybucks are only useful with people who want to throw you in prison, many forms of riches become valueless.

[bloodtide]

Well, I'm mostly worried about what their spending that money on. If they are routinely buying tactical nukes, that's a problem.

Ah. Well, step one...never use the by-the-book prices. You should always have the prices of things in flux based on dozens of factors. But in general things are more expensive(use our modern gas prices as an example).

Plus it's very, very, very easy to add extras to the buy the book stuff. Adding something that makes the items interesting or flashy or unique can increase the cost. And in most cases you don't need to make the super powerful, just add a small tweak that the players like and will pay for.

But even if they do buy up 100 nukes, let them. They could blow up a couple planets, sure...but that's it. It won't have all that much effect on the game. But even better is it adds a huge opening for drama and role-playing development. For example, say the players nuke Coruscant(from Star Wars, of course), well suddenlty they find the prices of everything go up by 100% and in fact they can't even find some things. Why...well all the big manufactures were on Coruscant, of course.

[Mando Knight]

space opera game.

This is actually the solution to all your problems, right there.

If the players aren't part of an organization that pays for the ship maintenance, almost everything will go into the ship, with a small stipend for everything else. If they're part of an organization, they're probably going to have requisition and looting rules (i.e. anything you get using organization equipment belongs to the organization), which will keep them down to a smaller sum for their own salaries.

[Bastian Weaver]

Give them an opportunity to buy cool stuff. Not "tactical nuke" cool - something not really useful, but fun. Like painting their ship pink. Or buying a collection of singing diamonds.

[paddyfool]

What level of space opera poverty are we talking about here?

- Even a cash-strapped Rogue Trader in 40k would still have thousands of people at his beck and call. (He'd need them to keep the ship running). But he'd also have very limited options for upgrades etc.

- On the other hand, in another setting, you could have a struggling small business on a much smaller ship (Firefly-sized, for instance).

- Or they could have no ship at all, and insufficient resources to be even close to buying a ship. For instance if they were a small group of hired mercs or something who go where the next contract they land takes them, or a private agency on board a large space station, or... well, take your pick.

[Kadzar]

Several systems have a "lifestyle" rating/subsystem. Basiclly you pay a set fee every unit time and are considered to be living at a certian lifestyle. See SR4 for an example.

This lets players spend money for unspecified "goods", which encourages them to spend money. If you are upfront about the type of game, you could encourage players to have their characters get the highest lifestyle they can afford.
I don't want to force the players to buy things. I just want to have a system in place so that, if they come into a lot of money, they'll want to buy a nice meal before they start shopping for a new gun.



One of the nice thing about civilized society being evil is that it undermines the economic certainty required for proper PC moneygrubbing. The scrap metal from an exploded spaceship isn't worth much in barter. What helps are things you already value, such as food/fuel/ammo/upgrades. When galaxybucks are only useful with people who want to throw you in prison, many forms of riches become valueless. Well, as I said, they are a sort-of-evil empire. They aren't going to imprison people for absolutely no reason because it hurts trade for that exact reason, which causes the member-world whose trade has been impacted to get quite angry, which causes an uprising, so it's best to just nip that problem in the bud by only arresting people who break laws around their member-worlds.

As for scrap and such, I suspect there'd be at least some demand for it, though the thought of trying to create a simulation for economic demand fills me with no small amount of trepidation.


What level of space opera poverty are we talking about here?

- Even a cash-strapped Rogue Trader in 40k would still have thousands of people at his beck and call. (He'd need them to keep the ship running). But he'd also have very limited options for upgrades etc.

- On the other hand, in another setting, you could have a struggling small business on a much smaller ship (Firefly-sized, for instance).

- Or they could have no ship at all, and insufficient resources to be even close to buying a ship. For instance if they were a small group of hired mercs or something who go where the next contract they land takes them, or a private agency on board a large space station, or... well, take your pick.I'd say it's definitely a Firefly-level situation, though, to be more specific, I'm aiming for a setting more like Outlaw Star, especially in world configuration and space travel.

[Jerthanis]

Cowboy Bebop is the quintessential "We're always ridiculously poor" Space opera, and the reason is that the plots of the episodes always result in either their target deserving their freedom/protection or otherwise being off the hook, dying messily and so not being a collectable bounty, or a combination of the two.

If you just make it so the majority of quests go south in entertaining ways, the PCs can fail to take in as much money as they'd like.

They have to be okay with failure though.

[NichG]

If you want to incentivize it mechanically, make buying a nice meal the mechanically wise option. For instance, lets steal the Call of Cthulhu Sanity system here and modify it a bit:

Each character has a 'Morale' score. Bad events, people screwing you over, etc cause you to lose Morale. Living the high life causes it to increase over time - the more ritzy, the faster it increases. Also, big successes, joyous moments, etc cause it to increase.

Morale of 50 is your average individual. For every 10 points of morale above 50, you get a +1 (assuming a d20) to various rolls. For every 10 points of morale below 50, its a -1. Morale is capped at a level determined by a combination of factors, including your lifestyle and personal development. What you could do there is say that lifestyle can set the base cap somewhere from 40 (no money spent on luxury at all) to 70 (millionaire lifestyle), with permanent increases of +10 to the cap for fulfilling 'personal goals' that you set at character creation (perhaps max 3 at a time?) and can replace whenever any such goal either succeeds or is completely failed. For instance, if you want to avenge your brother's death and do so, you get +10 to cap and can set a new goal.

Now, if its a choice between buying that gun that gives you a +1 accuracy bonus or getting +10 morale cap and +2 morale/game, its actually more sensible OOC to blow the money on parties than on a super-gun. By making the personal goals thing broad enough (and perhaps giving temporary Morale for partial success towards them), you can also support the stern, driven character who cares about nothing other than achieving their goals, and they're both mechanically reasonable options.

[ericgrau]

I'd inform the players of this, myself. I know that I, as a player, would become incredibly frustrated if every time I felt like I was getting somewhere the DM pulled some "Haha your bank account got hacked and there's nothing you can do about it!" BS. If you start them out working for someone or trying to pay of some huge debt, that's a lot more forgivable, but cutting their legs out from under them with no explanation for why every time they start to feel like they're getting someone is just going to breed contempt.

I agree with this, but think instead that villains should try to take the PC's money. Fighting to keep it could be part of the fun, and the players should succeed half the time or so depending on their actions.

[Analytica]

If you want to incentivize it mechanically, make buying a nice meal the mechanically wise option. For instance, lets steal the Call of Cthulhu Sanity system here and modify it a bit:

Each character has a 'Morale' score. Bad events, people screwing you over, etc cause you to lose Morale. Living the high life causes it to increase over time - the more ritzy, the faster it increases. Also, big successes, joyous moments, etc cause it to increase.

Morale of 50 is your average individual. For every 10 points of morale above 50, you get a +1 (assuming a d20) to various rolls. For every 10 points of morale below 50, its a -1. Morale is capped at a level determined by a combination of factors, including your lifestyle and personal development. What you could do there is say that lifestyle can set the base cap somewhere from 40 (no money spent on luxury at all) to 70 (millionaire lifestyle), with permanent increases of +10 to the cap for fulfilling 'personal goals' that you set at character creation (perhaps max 3 at a time?) and can replace whenever any such goal either succeeds or is completely failed. For instance, if you want to avenge your brother's death and do so, you get +10 to cap and can set a new goal.

Now, if its a choice between buying that gun that gives you a +1 accuracy bonus or getting +10 morale cap and +2 morale/game, its actually more sensible OOC to blow the money on parties than on a super-gun. By making the personal goals thing broad enough (and perhaps giving temporary Morale for partial success towards them), you can also support the stern, driven character who cares about nothing other than achieving their goals, and they're both mechanically reasonable options.

This is awesome. I approve.

[Bagelson]

Many games (like Storyteller, FATE, et al) treat "resources" or "wealth" as a character stat rather than hard cash. If you have two points of Wealth you can afford a somewhat comfortable lifestyle as long as you don't buy a bunch of expensive stuff. If the players don't spend experience on increasing their Wealth stat, they can't afford more expensive stuff either.

That approach is quite narrativistic and require that your players are OK with metagaming away to some extent all their hard-earned cash for the sake of the narrative. This alone is not as much fun in a setting where "getting money" is the first and foremost goal.

I'd modify that with a big windfall giving players a temporary boost to their wealth stat - until they spend it all on something prohibitively expensive. This means the players can live the high-life until that particular gun they custom ordered gets in and they have to pay the bill - causing the wealth stat to drop again. This could be given either has a hard stat boost (you have +3 wealth temporarily) or it could be given as temporary experience (you temporarily have 10 experience into Wealth).

Another thing you can do is play with what's actually available on the market. In a post apocalyptic game I was in I ended up becoming a business leader over the years. That meant I had more wealth to spend than I'd ever dreamed of, but apart from fuel for our vehicles, ammo for our guns and some trinkets, there was little adventuring-related to splurge on since the really useful stuff wasn't for sale. So I built a luxurious villa (with secret lair), bought a wardrobe of finely cut suits, employed servants and arranged dinner parties. Of course, it was a game where having some respect was important from an in-game perspective; now the secret police had to make an appointment instead of kicking down our door.

[Endarire]

Why is it so important to keep the party poor? One major reason to adventure is to attain wealth and power. (Fame usually comes with these.)

So, if I'm richer staying at home, I'm very likely to do so!

[Cieyrin]

If you want to incentivize it mechanically, make buying a nice meal the mechanically wise option. For instance, lets steal the Call of Cthulhu Sanity system here and modify it a bit:

Each character has a 'Morale' score. Bad events, people screwing you over, etc cause you to lose Morale. Living the high life causes it to increase over time - the more ritzy, the faster it increases. Also, big successes, joyous moments, etc cause it to increase.

Morale of 50 is your average individual. For every 10 points of morale above 50, you get a +1 (assuming a d20) to various rolls. For every 10 points of morale below 50, its a -1. Morale is capped at a level determined by a combination of factors, including your lifestyle and personal development. What you could do there is say that lifestyle can set the base cap somewhere from 40 (no money spent on luxury at all) to 70 (millionaire lifestyle), with permanent increases of +10 to the cap for fulfilling 'personal goals' that you set at character creation (perhaps max 3 at a time?) and can replace whenever any such goal either succeeds or is completely failed. For instance, if you want to avenge your brother's death and do so, you get +10 to cap and can set a new goal.

Now, if its a choice between buying that gun that gives you a +1 accuracy bonus or getting +10 morale cap and +2 morale/game, its actually more sensible OOC to blow the money on parties than on a super-gun. By making the personal goals thing broad enough (and perhaps giving temporary Morale for partial success towards them), you can also support the stern, driven character who cares about nothing other than achieving their goals, and they're both mechanically reasonable options.

Iron Heroes has a very similar thing in place, given it's a Low Magic game, so you're not spending money on magic items for the most part. So what do you do with it? You party to live it up till you have to go on another mission or you invest it into influence and other such things. By itself, though, this is definitely slick and I approve.

[Slipperychicken]

Down time with "passive" expenses will bleed them pretty well. Maybe gas/food prices are higher in a certain regions (a war-torn/dangerous region is going to have higher prices, due to poor supply), and companies are always trying to bleed them dry. I agree with the morale system, as it ensures they spend to live at least decently. They have to pay for docking (have them pay for a whole day even when it's a few hours, pay more if they're not back in time. Company policy.), fuel, food, water, communication, transportation, rooms (maybe it's a holiday or crisis, so there's not as much space), and taxes on literally everything. Firms have records on the party, know they can shell out the big bucks, and will have no mercy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination).


Remember: the whole galaxy wants your cash, and they've had millennia, the brightest minds, and the highest tech to extract it. Nothing's free in space.

[Mewtarthio]

Many games (like Storyteller, FATE, et al) treat "resources" or "wealth" as a character stat rather than hard cash. If you have two points of Wealth you can afford a somewhat comfortable lifestyle as long as you don't buy a bunch of expensive stuff. If the players don't spend experience on increasing their Wealth stat, they can't afford more expensive stuff either.

The nice thing about FATE (and FATE-derived systems) is that you can just slap an appropriate aspect--let's call it "Perpetual Poverty"--on all your players in addition to whatever other aspects they have. That way, when they do get that windfall stolen by the capricious winds of fortune, you can say you're compelling that aspect, and they get Fate Points out of the deal.

[Autolykos]

Getting them to spend lots of cash in high-tech settings is pretty easy since the PCs will depend on their equipment for everything. Make it unreliable, so it needs to be repaired/replaced quite often. Also, making single use items way more powerful than reusable stuff (like drastically reducing the number of shots and/or the damage they do if they want to use rechargeable batteries in their energy weapons, or making ablative armor lighter and more cost effective than the reusable kind - if they can even get that at all) will get them to spend more cash on equipment without actually getting more powerful in the long run. Power will not be determined by the total amount of money you have spent on gear, but by what you are spending *right now*. Hoarding becomes a lot less appealing that way.

[Mike_G]

There are always places to spend money.

Ship repairs are a great money sink, as anyone who's ever owned a home or car or boat can tell you. A ship is all those things. Ammo costs money, repairing body armor costs money.

And information costs money. Have a web of contacts and informants who will feed the PCs info or patch up their wounds or locate hard to find objects they need--for a steep markup. If the PC start seeing money as capital to burn during the campaign, rather than as a bank to buy cool stuff with between adventures, they'll use up their dough, and it won't seem like "Ha, ha! Somebody wiped out your bank account."

That never goes well, even when the players agree they have a big tower of unused, redundant magic items, they will move heaven and earth to hunt down the guy who looted it.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

i like how the conan rpg did it, if you had over 50 silver you spend half your wealth each week until you get under 50 silver.

[jackattack]

If your campaign is episodic and doesn't account for times between adventure arcs, then you can simply inform them that business hasn't been good lately, or that the dock authority on some planet fined them blind for having a burnt-out running light, or whatever you like.