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View Full Version : DM Help Uses for treasures as something other than money



Yora
2016-05-29, 05:37 AM
In my campaigns I don't use money. There's just not really much that a PC would be able to buy. Things are either so cheap that their cost is negible or not something money could buy.

But not having any treasure at all is somewhat disappointing. Fancy gold idols or crates full of silver are just so fun to find and drag back home. But if there's nothing you can do with it, having treasure would be rather pointless. What could you do with valuable treasure objects with a value of 100 or 1000 gold pieces instead of buying weapons and armor?

goto124
2016-05-29, 06:35 AM
Things are either so cheap that their cost is negible or not something money could buy.

How about this? A minor magic item, such as a mug that pours your character's favorite drink. Little things that mean a lot.

hymer
2016-05-29, 07:32 AM
You could give it to people who would appreciate it, and thereby increase your good standing, your influence and prestige.

Thrawn4
2016-05-29, 08:07 AM
Buying a nice estate, a donation to your favourite deity, bribing the local lords to further your agenda, showing off, purchasing artefacts.


So I take it in your campaigns, there is little incentive to have a crafting / art skill to earn some money?
And how do you manage good in the mid-price range, like horses or potions?

BWR
2016-05-29, 08:08 AM
I've found that describing how something valuable looks makes people more inclined to keep it than simply listing a price.
Saying objets d'art worth 500 gp is boring. Saying "a statue in obsidian of a dwarf fighter, clad in plate wielding a pick, face twisted in a grimace, probably meant to represent the ancient hero Dougan Ironfist" is far more interesting. After one adventure I had several pages of stuff like this and the players spent hours going over the list and arguing about who got what.

But PCs need a place they live to keep stuff like that. So first you spend money on a big fancy house, then you start decorating it, then furnishing it. That will take a ton of money to get it to the point you want and you need to pay for upkeep as well.
The aforementioned gift-giving is an important and often overlooked aspect of social interaction, at least overlooked in D&D - in AM or L5R it's far more central.

Yora
2016-05-29, 08:43 AM
So I take it in your campaigns, there is little incentive to have a crafting / art skill to earn some money?
And how do you manage good in the mid-price range, like horses or potions?

So far not at all. You get a horse either as a gift or as loot. But I think when using wealth at all, having "one unit of treasure" being about the value of a horse or suit of heavy armor would be a good baseline.
I could also make sample description for a 1tr hourse, a 10tr house, and a 100tr house, so players have an idea what kind of house they could buy.
Hiring mercenaries could also work. 1tr can get you 10 regular guards for a month, 4 veteran guards, or one commander, for example.

But I think in a campaign where you get things done through favors and reputation instead of throwing cash at it, bribes are probably the most prominent way to show and use your wealth. You don't have to outright give someone a sack of gold or a ruby necklace. You could instead buy a horse and present that as a gift, or pay for a fancy banquet. And best of it, you can keep doing that forever. There are only so many houses and horses a PC could ever need, but you never run out of requests you can make.

However, to make that work, there probably needs to be some kind of negotiation mechanic in place. I'll have to think more about that.

Speaking of valuable items, I think a better idea than handing the players a list of treasures would be to make index cards with a simple image of the treasure and a short discription, and the value in treasure units in a corner. That way it would be very easy to keep track of what treasures exactly the players find and have with them, and when it's time to make a gift they can just flip through their treasure stack and pick one that seems appropriate for the situation. That would be a lot more interesting then just "I give him a treasure as a gift".

NRSASD
2016-05-29, 10:50 AM
Don't forget about the Celtic gift giving tradition. They could be granted magical equipment or divine boons for making suitably impressive gifts to the right people.

Honest Tiefling
2016-05-29, 10:54 AM
Grabbing great artifacts to give to scholars/mages in exchange for knowledge/gifts.

And it's not bribery, you are supporting the town! A hero who is helping out! Generous donations to the church of choice. Now, use me as a model for the next time you make a statue of the god triumphant on his horse...

Through speaking of gods, perhaps ensuring one's revival or afterlife might be a thought. Maybe if you donate enough to the gods of booze, you get to enter their holy party when your time comes! Great investment.

hymer
2016-05-29, 10:55 AM
Through speaking of gods, perhaps ensuring one's revival or afterlife might be a thought. Maybe if you donate enough to the gods of booze, you get to enter their holy party when your time comes! Great investment.

Be careful you don't come across the oh god of hangovers instead! :smallbiggrin:

Honest Tiefling
2016-05-29, 10:56 AM
Be careful you don't come across the oh god of hangovers instead! :smallbiggrin:

Aiieeeee! Toss money at it until it goes away!

Fri
2016-05-29, 11:07 AM
I prefer to use "wealth check" as well.

Don't take it wrong, tracking actual money and expenditure is fun when that's the premise of the game. I once play a sci-fi game where we play as freelancers moving from planet to planet, and we have to track everything. Dates, daily fuel expenditure, daily supplies expenditure, ammunition usage, our mortgage for the ship that must be paid monthly, etc. I once joked that we have to get an accountant for all of those. But it's really fun.

But when nitty-gritty of money isn't important, I'd rather use something like abstract wealth check. A successful dungeon raid give you +1 wealth, if you have enough wealth you don't need to roll anything to eat in fancy restaurant, buying a fancy house net you -1 wealth, things like that.

Slipperychicken
2016-05-29, 11:36 AM
What could you do with valuable treasure objects with a value of 100 or 1000 gold pieces instead of buying weapons and armor?
Pay wages for others to bear arms at your side.


Do you want to be a wandering hobo forever? Then yeah, you can't do much more with cash than upgrade your stuff. If you have a little ambition, however, then there's plenty of ways to spend that gold.

Yora
2016-05-29, 11:41 AM
What I really want to keep out of my campaigns is accounting. Going to a higher unit of currency only decreases the amount of additions and substractions as more things are ignored as negible costs, but it's still accounting.
If characters are not doing something narratively important with the treasure, I want it out of everyone's hair.

Kalmageddon
2016-05-29, 12:10 PM
In my campaigns I don't use money. There's just not really much that a PC would be able to buy. Things are either so cheap that their cost is negible or not something money could buy.

But not having any treasure at all is somewhat disappointing. Fancy gold idols or crates full of silver are just so fun to find and drag back home. But if there's nothing you can do with it, having treasure would be rather pointless. What could you do with valuable treasure objects with a value of 100 or 1000 gold pieces instead of buying weapons and armor?

Out of curiosity, what would happen if my character wanted to be rich and buy stuff that costs a lot of money? Like a manson, servants, his personal guard and so on?

Yora
2016-05-29, 12:21 PM
He couldn't, because it's not that kind of campaign. That's part of the restrictions of the campaign that players have to buy into.

Honest Tiefling
2016-05-29, 12:23 PM
Could he hire bards and artists to immortalize him? Or are they just not in one place for that long and don't often return to places?

Thrawn4
2016-05-29, 12:30 PM
What I really want to keep out of my campaigns is accounting. Going to a higher unit of currency only decreases the amount of additions and substractions as more things are ignored as negible costs, but it's still accounting.
If characters are not doing something narratively important with the treasure, I want it out of everyone's hair.
I tried to achieve that as well, but I always struggle with the implementation. I would love to hear more about your approach.

I understand that some systems use a wealth rating. Everything below the rating is easily affordable, everything equal to the rating can be bought once, everything above requires a good haggle skill or decreases the wealth rating. Or something like that.

Slipperychicken
2016-05-29, 12:36 PM
Maybe instead of mercenaries, you could get some low-level adventurer interns or apprentices. They handle menial tasks like driving your pack animals in exchange for occasionally fighting by your side, getting gobs of XP (a lot for their level), and a tiny share of the treasure which is still pretty impressive for their level.

TheThan
2016-05-29, 01:08 PM
Make the treasure part of an adventure. Or an adventure hook.

Sure that dragon’s hoard is huge and worth a lot of gold, but it’s all in copper pieces. Now they have to figure out how to transport it.

Cursed gold- whomever touches my gold shall be turned to gold himself. Now the players are on a time limit to remove the curse before they all get turned to gold statues.

The treasure is valuable, but it’s something worthless to adventurers. How are they going to handle it when that hoard of loot turns out to be rice?

Honest Tiefling
2016-05-29, 01:13 PM
Cursed gold- whomever touches my gold shall be turned to gold himself. Now the players are on a time limit to remove the curse before they all get turned to gold statues.

I'd be careful with that curse. Nothing says it is touched willingly, so what is preventing the party from tossing that at people they don't like once they have figured out how to remove the curse from themselves? Or even before to force people to find a solution.

comk59
2016-05-29, 01:31 PM
Ale and whores.

Slipperychicken
2016-05-29, 01:34 PM
Make the treasure part of an adventure. Or an adventure hook.

Sure that dragon’s hoard is huge and worth a lot of gold, but it’s all in copper pieces. Now they have to figure out how to transport it.

Cursed gold- whomever touches my gold shall be turned to gold himself. Now the players are on a time limit to remove the curse before they all get turned to gold statues.

The treasure is valuable, but it’s something worthless to adventurers. How are they going to handle it when that hoard of loot turns out to be rice?

This is why smart adventurers have pack animals, wagons, and (ideally) strong loyal men ready when they expect such a haul. The pros also know better than to physically touch any part of the loot before it's been detect-magic'd and identified. And whoever is qualified to undo curses and possession should not be handling the treasure, in case it screws that person up.

I've begun to see curse-removal, loot logistics, and magic item identification as essential party roles. Any group in a dnd-like setting that can have access to those should be packing them.


Most adventurers, however, are not smart, well-prepared, or professional, so most of those should work pretty well.

goto124
2016-05-29, 11:32 PM
I'd be careful with that curse. Nothing says it is touched willingly, so what is preventing the party from tossing that at people they don't like once they have figured out how to remove the curse from themselves? Or even before to force people to find a solution.

For starters, it'll take quite come time for the curse to take effect...

Thrudd
2016-05-29, 11:53 PM
What's the economy of this world and culture like? What value do the people place on gold and silver and treasure in general, what are they used for? If it is not a marketplace economy using coinage, then why would they want to drag a box full of silver coins anywhere? Maybe they will melt the silver down to make ornaments?

This is a world building issue more than a game or narrative issue. Decide on what makes sense for the world, then decide how it should be treated mechanically for the game. Do the characters gain prestige for bringing strange treasures back to the clan, even though they have no functional use? Does a neighboring culture use the gold and silver as currency, so the clan can use it to trade for goods beyond their ability to craft? Are precious metals and stones significant for ritual or religious purposes, like gold in the Mesoamerican and Andean cultures? A big haul of gold might be melted down and turned into religious items used in rituals that should keep the gods happy for a long time.