Tired of the same old lucre

[Tanuki Tales]

So, I'm throwing my hat back into the ring for GMing, after basically a two year hiatus from serious tabletop gaming in general.

One of the things I remember disliking back when I did sling dice, and one of the factors that always lead to my inevitable burnout, was working my head and the game around the wealth disparity that exists around the PCs on their level curve and the game world (unless it was also high op or had contrived gold sinks).

As such, to ease my woes, I'd like to chuck out the normal wealth system for something more manageable and abstract. I was thinking of taking a look at the one from D20 Modern, since memory serves that players could go do day to day things and general upkeep, with their actual wealth coming into play and potentially diminished when they made expensive/big purchases.

Any suggestions on other wealth systems?

[Morcleon]

Only give PCs a fraction of their WBL in actual physical money, but give them virtual WBL for purchasing magic item effects (anything that's not a consumable) fluffed as blessings from their deity or unlocking inner power or whatever they want.

[MisterKaws]

There's actually no disparity between adventurers and realms, it's just that the D&D worlds have an abundance of rare materials, because of all the obnoxiously powerful spells. Take a look at Cityscape: Kadastrei, the metropolis example has 136,670,000 gold pieces in total assets, this is the average a kingdom capital should have by itself. The real problem is in the campaign writers, who usually have no previous knowledge on D&D economy and just build the standard medieval world.

Eberron is an example of a world built around the proper D&D economics: Where you have a city made entirely of skyscrapers, with flying ships and bridges to navigate in-between them. Though this is not the standard even there, they do have tons of stuff that even surpasses our technology for the most part, and extra-dimensional spaces just to keep all of their gold.

[atemu1234]

There's actually no disparity between adventurers and realms, it's just that the D&D worlds have an abundance of rare materials, because of all the obnoxiously powerful spells. Take a look at Cityscape: Kadastrei, the metropolis example has 136,670,000 gold pieces in total assets, this is the average a kingdom capital should have by itself. The real problem is in the campaign writers, who usually have no previous knowledge on D&D economy and just build the standard medieval world.

Eberron is an example of a world built around the proper D&D economics: Where you have a city made entirely of skyscrapers, with flying ships and bridges to navigate in-between them. Though this is not the standard even there, they do have tons of stuff that even surpasses our technology for the most part, and extra-dimensional spaces just to keep all of their gold.

Either Eberron or the Tippyverse.

[Extra Anchovies]

Either Eberron or the Tippyverse.

Exactly. What makes Eberron work as a magic-aware non-Tippyverse setting is the general rarity of higher-level characters - Teleportation Circle in particular is a spell without which the Tippyverse can't function. A quick skim through my copy of the main ECS book turns up only a few characters over 12th level:

Erandis Vol, Wizard 16 - too concerned with revenge and personal power to link the cities, and one level shy of Teleportation Circle
Jaela Daran, effective Cleric 18 - only a 3rd-level Cleric outside of Flamekeep, and she's eleven years old
Kaius I, Aristocrat 2/Fighter 11 - is a fighter
Oalian, Druid 20 - would almost certainly abhor the industrialization of the Tippyverse

Notably, there's nobody anywhere near capable of Tippyverse-enabling magic in the Dragonmarked Houses, which are the groups that stand to gain the most from linking the cities (except for Lyrandar and Orien, who would likely do everything in their power to maintain the importance of the skyships and lightning rails respectively).

Faerûn is comparatively overflowing with high-level magic. Thay alone is ruled by eight wizards between 19th and 29th level, and given their schemes of conquest and dominion they'd jump at the opportunity to use Teleportation Circle for troop movements. They'd also use the Circles for efficiently moving slaves and other spoils of war back to Thay, and would pretty quickly see the benefits of linking Thay's cities with each other.

[Darth Ultron]

Faerûn is comparatively overflowing with high-level magic. Thay alone is ruled by eight wizards between 19th and 29th level, and given their schemes of conquest and dominion they'd jump at the opportunity to use Teleportation Circle for troop movements. They'd also use the Circles for efficiently moving slaves and other spoils of war back to Thay, and would pretty quickly see the benefits of linking Thay's cities with each other.

Note that the Forgotten Realms takes the other side from Eberron of lots and lots and lots of magic everywhere and lots of high level magic too.

Otherwise I just ignore all the wealth stuff.

[johnbragg]

MAke a lot of the loot in the form of hard-to-market, unique items.

Assuming some things, including all gold, Wired estimated the worth of Smaug's horde at $133 billion dollars. That values the Arkenstone at $9.5 billion--at least to the right buyer.

And perhaps the "right buyer" would be highly offended at recovering his or her or its patrimony in a crass commercial transaction, making a powerful enemy who would not sully the treasure with mere commerce--but somehow paying thieves and assassins to recover it is just fine.

But a magnanimous gift of the return of the Thingy must, in all honor, be met with a gift or gifts of equal magnanimity. Like this cool sword from the armory, and the commissioning of a wonderfully carved Staff of Blowing Stuff Up Good.

[Cosi]

Any suggestions on other wealth systems?

The wish economy (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dungeonomicon_%28DnD_Other%29/Economicon#Wish_and_the_Economy)* and eight item limit/scaling items (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Book_of_Gears_%283.5e_Sourcebook%29/Magic_Items#Ownership_is_a_Privilege.2C_Not_a_Righ t) simplify things nicely. The idea is that your magic sword scales to be level appropriate so you don't have to track gold to replace it, and (past roughly 10th level) you are assumed to have arbitrary amounts of mundane wealth and buy things you track individually (like magic items) with planar currency. You could take it further and divorce magic items and wealth entirely, just dropping items at a rate of 1 - 3/player/level. For non magic wealth, use the triple* the WBL values as a rough estimator of the most expensive non-magic item a PC owns (so you could get a castle at 9th).

*: Or some smaller value, but compared to castles or kingdoms WBL is disappointingly low.


Eberron is an example of a world built around the proper D&D economics: Where you have a city made entirely of skyscrapers, with flying ships and bridges to navigate in-between them. Though this is not the standard even there, they do have tons of stuff that even surpasses our technology for the most part, and extra-dimensional spaces just to keep all of their gold.

Honestly, Eberron is a bad example of what a world with D&D magic would look like, even without high level casters. There's a bunch of stuff that is "magic" there, but it's just arbitrary magic reskins of Industrial Revolution technology. The Lightning Rail isn't a novel application of spells that exist, it's just a train that is powered by lightning instead of coal. Even in the E12 world of Eberron, people should be using planar binding, animate dead, teleport, fabricate, goodberry, and all sorts of other spells to do stuff. Things like Warforged or Airships are interesting, but they aren't really applied magic in a meaningful sense.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Extra Anchovies
Thay alone is ruled by eight wizards between 19th and 29th level, and given their schemes of conquest and dominion they'd jump at the opportunity to use Teleportation Circle for troop movements. They'd also use the Circles for efficiently moving slaves and other spoils of war back to Thay, and would pretty quickly see the benefits of linking Thay's cities with each other.

A variation of this scenario already exists in the Underdark of Faerûn, with the "Segmented City" of Undrek'Thoz. Ten widely separated cities are linked by portals for trade and mutual defense, with the restriction that no metal can pass through any of the portals. This was intended to prevent the passage of weapons and armor, as well as precious metals, which has led to the rise of paper currency and a cadre of monk assassins.

By pure coincidence, the ten cities are dispersed beneath the plateau of Thay.


Originally Posted by johnbragg
Make a lot of the loot in the form of hard-to-market, unique items.

My low-level Pathfinder group is currently carrying tens of thousands of gp in platinum, jewels, silverware, fine weapons and random bling--none of which we can sell or trade, because we're in a pokey little river hamlet at the edge of a massive swamp. A single 100-gp item is enough to overburden the local economy, which is mainly based on fish.

In-game it makes perfect sense, but as a player you still want to buy stuff. :smallsigh:

[Janthkin]

I like to make any large treasure into a plot hook or a role-playing hook.

--You don't recover a fortune in ransoms from the kidnappers you dispatched; they turned their cash into an awkwardly-sized bag of illicit plant material; valuable to the right buyers, but completely illegal here in Boringdom.

--You don't find thousands of gold pieces; you find the tools of a master metalsmith of the last age, which are valuable to the smiths of THIS age, and who are willing to trade services to get them.

That way, each pay out from the last adventure helps fuel the action and/or relationships that motivate the next (while still allowing for WBL progression).

[LTwerewolf]

I rarely ever give my characters any cash. It gets to the point where for rewards of doing people favors, they have to negotiate the reward to cash up front else they get some token or some piece of equipment. Treasures in dungeons aren't giant piles of gold, they're things that the denizens of those dungeons would realistically keep.

[Thurbane]

Not sure if this is exactly what OP is looking for, but MOther of All Treasure Tables is an awesome alternative to finding a pile of coins, gems, and magic items in every loot pile.

Check out the PDF preview here (http://www.kenzerco.com/free_files/moatt_preview.pdf).

[Tanuki Tales]

Not sure if this is exactly what OP is looking for, but MOther of All Treasure Tables is an awesome alternative to finding a pile of coins, gems, and magic items in every loot pile.

Check out the PDF preview here (http://www.kenzerco.com/free_files/moatt_preview.pdf).

It's not Thurbane, but thanks for the link. :smallsmile:

I've decided to go with a mix of D20 Modern's wealth bonus (with 1 gp = $5) and the Wish economy. So they can use conventional wealth to purchase anything up to DC 33ish and beyond that they'll need to use other methods to get the magical things they need.