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Gamebird
2007-03-07, 10:56 AM
I'm in a fairly new table top D&D game. The house rules dictate our characters start off very poor and the DM wants us to keep track of a number of small expenses each game. If we buy something (a new blanket, a hatchet, some paper), we have to pay for it. If we sell something (rabbits, squirrels, scribing services), we're supposed to write it down.

I've played with this DM before and I know that as our characters become richer, he'll quit with the small stuff and only require us to keep track of bigger things, like stuff that costs a gold or more. And at higher levels still, he won't care if we just lump everything under 50 gold into an occasional "living expenses" payment.

One of the other players hasn't played with this DM before and he's simply not writing anything down (except his income - he writes that down). He also says that his character is able to do various things when he hasn't bought tools or supplies for it. For example, he has no alchemy tools and we're travelling along the road all the time. He has no house or shop. But he says he's been making his own ink (he's a scribe and we're traveling letter/parcel carriers). He says that if he can just find the right plants, then he can make herbal medicines. So far the DM hasn't let him find the right plants. This other player also doesn't think that searching for plants, gathering firewood or hunting rabbits and squirrels near the road, as we travel, would slow us down any. I might agree with him if it was any one of those, or if he accepted a low success rate.

The DM asked my advice on what to do about him. I gave him my advice, which the DM didn't seem entirely satisfied with (it boiled down to "tell him NO"). The DM doesn't want to track our expenses for us. I'm not willing to track 'new player's' expenses. The DM had a pick pocket rob new player's character to relieve him of what the DM thought was money he should have already spent. I think that's a lousy solution to something that's an out-of-game issue. The new player doesn't want to track every niggling expense and he seems very frustrated by the constant costs (though to be fair, we get quite a bit more money than we spend).

Your advice?

Amphimir Míriel
2007-03-07, 11:11 AM
I personally don't like to get too much involved in micromanaging the PCs economy in our game... I find that the "living expenses" rules included in the DMG are fine.

Otherwise you run into "Need more Vespene gas!" situations that might distract from the overall story.

Of course, there are sometimes when it's appropiate to the overall story to roleplay a "tough times" episode when the PCs are down on their luck... You know, no adventuring jobs lately, last tomb they raided was empty of loot, had to sell their mounts to afford that last Raise Dead spell...

However forcing PC's to use Quicken just to track down how many blankets they have and how many copper pieces they spent on that time when they had to put on new horseshoes on Ugly-Betty-the-mean-tempered-warhorse... is a bit too much IMHO.

Now, on the other hand, the player who wants to make his own ink just out of the blue is just straining believability... I'd allow it, but the DC would be way highier than if he actually had the correct materials and tools.

Like in any other game, the rules must be followed, including rule 0 and any house rules derived of it.
...and if the player doesnt like to play by the rules, he should be informed that no one likes to play with cheaters.

Jasdoif
2007-03-07, 11:32 AM
If the characters are very poor, then every little expense should be tracked. Someone with a budget of $1 needs to watch where every cent goes, and all that. It might be inconvenient, but being "very poor" doesn't mean anything if costs can be simply ignored, and I have to assume your DM has a reason to start everyone off so poor.


He says that if he can just find the right plants, then he can make herbal medicines.Does he have ranks in Profession (herbalist) or Profession (apothecary), by any chance? If not, I'd say there's nothing to back this particular claim.

Profession (and Craft) represent a character's ability to make money outside of the usual adventuring venues; most attempts to reduce expenses or produce income by "doing it yourself" should be reflected in one of those skills.

Gamebird
2007-03-07, 11:54 AM
If the characters are very poor, then every little expense should be tracked. Someone with a budget of $1 needs to watch where every cent goes, and all that. It might be inconvenient, but being "very poor" doesn't mean anything if costs can be simply ignored, and I have to assume your DM has a reason to start everyone off so poor.

And that's the situation right now. Our characters are very poor by most D&D standards.


Does he have ranks in Profession (herbalist) or Profession (apothecary), by any chance? If not, I'd say there's nothing to back this particular claim.

Profession (and Craft) represent a character's ability to make money outside of the usual adventuring venues; most attempts to reduce expenses or produce income by "doing it yourself" should be reflected in one of those skills.

Yes, he does. When he started his character, he didn't and his claims that he could pick a good campsite (without Survival), cook delicious meals (without any related skills), apply first aid (without Heal), travel long distances without getting lost (without K: Local), recognize heraldic devices (without K: Nobility), etc. were causing a lot of problems. So his character got a complete overhaul and rearranged his skill ranks to match what the player was saying he could do. This included max ranks (4) in Craft: Alchemy. He didn't buy any equipment to go with it. And he's not allocating any time to do these checks either. He's tried claiming that he can do things in the donkey cart (he's a gnome) while we go down the heavily rutted, unpaved roads, but the DM said "No, you can't."

valadil
2007-03-07, 12:02 PM
Sounds like your GM needs to sit down with this player one on one and explain that while it's tedious, he's very deliberately making you guys track all this and it is in fact important to this particular game. If the theme of the game is dealing with your own poverty, you have to actually play out the poverty and not just bypass it like you would in most other games. If the player doesn't like or understand this, he should offer the player a chance to leave with no hard feelings.

silentknight
2007-03-07, 01:30 PM
I'm not familiar with the "living expenses" school of thought.

I have always had my players keep track of the money they spend. They have to have the 2000 gp to enchant that longsword, but they better have the gold to buy the sword in the first place. All of my players are accustomed to managing their real world finances, it isn't that difficult to manage imaginary gold too. Besides, given their current level, a couple gold to stay at an inn or buy dinner is pocket change.

Jasdoif
2007-03-07, 01:51 PM
And he's not allocating any time to do these checks either. He's tried claiming that he can do things in the donkey cart (he's a gnome) while we go down the heavily rutted, unpaved roads, but the DM said "No, you can't."That's perfectly reasonable for your DM to say, since making a Craft or Profession check requires a week of dedicated work.

Hmm...I'm seeing a pattern now. Have you considered showing the player the particular rules on skill use? The part about gathering firewood and hunting for rabbits/squirrels mentioned in the first post sounds like a Survival check to get along in the wild to me, and that use of the skill says "while moving at half speed" and takes several hours or a full day. It's possible he's simply not understanding how the various skills work.

Gamebird
2007-03-07, 01:59 PM
Have you considered showing the player the particular rules on skill use? ... It's possible he's simply not understanding how the various skills work.

I'll suggest that. From playing with him, it seems more that he's misinterpreted the DM's statement about wanting a role-play-heavy and immersion/detail-oriented simulationist game to mean that being able to describe something makes it happen. I think it's mostly a problem of the DM being bowled over by the player's strong personality and not asserting "these are the rules we're all playing by, including you".

One problem with using the RAW as a defense are the really crappy rules for it. If you follow the Profession or Craft rules, then you don't need a town or job or tools or anything like that. Sure, you take a -2 to your roll for using improvised tools, but that's it. You can stand in the wilderness and make a Profession check and earn money. The RAW doesn't require you to get a job, nor does it take into account competition from other businesses, etc.

So I'm very wary of using the RAW to make this argument. Similarly, for Survival rolls that half our movement, we'd get food for several days, fairly easily, but we couldn't sell the rabbit pelts. The roll, RAW, provides "food". It doesn't allow you to specify type, sell it, tan the leather or anything else.

Thanks for the input.

Winterking
2007-03-07, 02:01 PM
One thing that I've done with the PCs in my game (they own a ship, and go on various nautical adventures), is to only tell them the profit that they make. If I tell them that, for a given cargo/passenger/etc, "you've made 500 gp," they know that what I mean is "You've made about 635 gp from this fare; of that, you pay your 20 sailors 4 gp each for the trip, buy new sailcloth for 20 gp, and refill your food/wine stores for 35gp. You take home 500 gp profit."

That way, they don't have to keep track of individual hireling/etc expenses, I don't have to keep track/check their figures on those expenses, and we don't spend an hour each session resupplying the ship. (unless that is a plot point/there's major repairs to be done/etc)

In your case, at least so long as being poor is a major part of the story, I like Valadil's advice. Plus, you should emphasize to the non-accountant player that this isn't a permanent situation--that once you've got more money, the accounting for every copper will go away.

Gamebird
2007-03-07, 02:18 PM
I'll talk to the DM about that too. Right now it sounds like:
-- Talk to the DM about changing the reporting of money to a "profit" stance (though this still doesn't account for individuals buying extra stuff).
-- Reviewing the rules for skill checks, especially Craft and Profession, and how they work in this game.
-- Tell the player that tracking expenses is an important part of this phase of the game and it's required for playing. (This was mainly my suggestion to the DM: tell the player if he doesn't have it written down where he bought it, then he doesn't have it. And if he doesn't record his expenses, then the DM should deduct about 1.5x what he thinks the expenses were.)
-- See if the DM wants to convert to a general "living expenses" system. I dislike that myself, because in the past this DM has assessed expenses that scale with level, so although it's a small amount at low levels, it because absurdly high at high levels, which is when characters have so many valuable abilities that they should be able to cast a few spells in the morning and easily "pay" for the day. Non-casters get a bit shafted though.

Jasdoif
2007-03-07, 02:22 PM
One problem with using the RAW as a defense are the really crappy rules for it. If you follow the Profession or Craft rules, then you don't need a town or job or tools or anything like that. Sure, you take a -2 to your roll for using improvised tools, but that's it. You can stand in the wilderness and make a Profession check and earn money. The RAW doesn't require you to get a job, nor does it take into account competition from other businesses, etc. So I'm very wary of using the RAW to make this argument.The way I see it, the rules are there to show you what you can do when you're allowed to make a check. The text for artisan's tools in equipment says that without them you take a -2 penalty "if you can do the job at all". A DM is certainly permitted to say "you can't make a craft check, there aren't any raw materials or tools available to you". Similarly, I've always thought that a profession check generally involved you working for someone in a related business, and that if there isn't such a business around you can't make a check.

The skill descriptions are primarily aimed towards players (as they come more or less straight out of the Player's Handbook), who really aren't the ones to decide if they can make a check at a given time or not.


Similarly, for Survival rolls that half our movement, we'd get food for several days, fairly easily, but we couldn't sell the rabbit pelts. The roll, RAW, provides "food". It doesn't allow you to specify type, sell it, tan the leather or anything else.That's quite true. However, there aren't any rules for hunting for profit listed; and I feel a Survival check is the closest fit for anything involving looking for stuff in the wild. It makes for a good starting point, if nothing else.

Cobra
2007-03-07, 02:40 PM
What you have at the root here is a conflict of play styles. Different people enjoy different kinds of games.

If the DM and the other players are enjoying the game as is, then simply have a sit down with the player and explain how the game is this time. If the player doesn't think he'll enjoy that, he should just sit this one out and wait till another game starts up.

Gaming is a consensual group activity. Everybody needs to be willing to compromise a bit, but in the end, majority rules and the odd man out needs to either conform or ship out.