PDA

View Full Version : Advancement, Currency, and the Magic Item Problem (Help Design an RPG System!)



ElFi
2018-10-17, 09:04 PM
Hi, Playground! I've got a lot of ground to cover with this post, so bear with me here.

These past few months I've been tinkering around with trying to make my own d20 RPG system, pulling on my favorite points of a lot of different game systems and editions to try and make the ideal system that I'd want to play. I went into starting the project with a lot of more-or-less clear ideas of what I wanted to change about games like D&D and Pathfinder (probably the closest systems to my own ideas) and how I could use those changes to make my own game. One aspect of the game that I was less certain on (well, two aspects I guess) was wealth and magic items. I hate grappling with managing gold in a campaign, whether I'm GMing and trying to keep everyone's WBL on par, or playing as a PC and making sure I have enough to buy that item I wanted the next time we visit a big city. And that's not even getting into the realism problems with a gold economy system, particularly how it's generated and how much more of it the average adventuring party will have compared to normal people (though that's probably a forum thread for another day, so I digress). A simplified currency system seemed like a good idea; I've seen it used in a few game systems and it seemed to work well enough there. But, of course, that brought me to my next problem:

Magic items. Hoo boy, magic items. I think tabletop RPGs that have magic items tend to approach them in one of three ways: common to the point that they're basically required to play the game (D&D 3E amd PF), common and useful but tightly regulated by the system (Legend RPG), and uncommon to the point that you can play without using them at all (D&D 5E). My IRL gaming group mostly plays Pathfinder, which as I've just mentioned has a lot of magic items. I like magic items a lot. I hate the way Pathfinder handles them with a passion. For one concern, there's optimization- I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks a party that all runs around wearing the same stat-boosting belts, amulets of natural armor, and cloaks of resistance is not making use of PF's stupidly broad wondrous item selection in a fun way, but you need those items at higher level just to remain competitive with monster scaling more times than not.

For another, there's the fiddlyness of the system as a whole- even aside from the limitless +x bonuses running around, which are useful but painfully boring in my opinion, PF stocks adventurers with way too many items of the one-and-done or limited-use variety, to the point that the average high-level party can be running around with dozens if not hundreds of potions, wands, and scrolls. Pathfinder 2E's devs dubbed this the "wand of cure light wounds problem", and while I think that's a somewhat reductionist way of looking at it, I also don't entirely disagree. I can't think of a single quality work of fantasy fiction (that isn't in itself a retroactive take on RPG settings) where magic items are as ubiquitous and as inconsequential as they are in most of D&D's editions and their various clones.

In my eyes, magic items should be fun and something the PC's should have access to, but they should also mean something. Player characters shouldn't be able to just stroll into the local equipment shop and walk back out with enchanted gear worth more than the rest of the town the shop's in. Acquiring magic items should be an integral part of advancement, and if at all possible it should directly factor into roleplaying and the PCs' individual character arcs, if such exists. That way, players can have their flaming swords and enchanted spyglasses and automaton pegasi, but they can also feel like they earned them. The driving question, then, was how to approach such an idea when currency and magic items are normally so inexorably tied together.

So, what's the solution? I decided to try and take a two-pronged approach here:

Improve characters from the ground up: That is, make PCs stronger without the need for magic items to do the growing for them. I haven't hashed out all the particulars on character advancement thus far, but I do know that saving throw bonuses from class levels scale higher and faster, your Base Attack Bonus periodically grants extra damage dice to all attacks as you level, and also provides improvements to your AC (that last part I'm a little fuzzy on, but it's definitely in the cards). Feats are more powerful and grant scaling benefits as you level, rather than static bonuses. Pathfinder tried for something similar with its Automatic Bonus Progression alternate rules, and there's also Grod_The_Giant's excellent Chopping Down The Christmas Tree (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?357810-Chopping-Down-the-Christmas-Tree-Low-Magic-Item-Rules) houserule set for low-magic item campaigns, but both of those feel like band-aids on bullet wounds to me- that is, retroactively applying fixes to systems that are in some way inherently broken. I'd rather make fixes from the foundation and without preexisting design space in my way, if it's within my power.

Divorcing magic items from the economy: This is the bigger and more substantial change, and the one I'm most hungry for the Playground's opinions on. I was discussing this problem with a friend who's more experienced with RPGs than I am, and he suggested, rather than paying for them, making acquiring each magic item feel like its own mini-quest. But that feels like a lot of work to me for a GM to ad-hoc on the fly, especially since I'd probably the one GMing this system off the bat. So I decided to try and find a middle ground between buying magic items and questing for them, and came upon what I hope is a pretty nifty solution: dividing character wealth of the PC's into two separate pools, Currency and Wealth.

Currency is the GP equivalent, and provides for mundane services, gear, stays in the inn, that sort of thing. PCs would acquire it by selling treasure, as bounty from quests, looted off the corpses of their victims, etc. Not much depth there, but it allows players to have a meaningful handle on their cash reserves without needing to resort to something as simple as the wealth level concept used in systems like Open Legend and Mutants and Masterminds. Favor, the second resource, is the more important one to be considered- think of it as "narrative points" that you expend to gain benefits for your character both mechanically and plotwise. Burn a couple favor points, and your character could acquire or advance a place in the noble court, connect with a point of eldritch power out in the far reaches of reality, or yes, acquire a magic item or two. Maybe the orphaned warrior finds that his family sword is now empowered by the spirits of his ancestors, or the wizardly scholar has made so many notes in his spellbook that it comes to possess arcane power in and of itself. Favor would be primarily acquired by level-up, but I'd also plan on including guidelines for GMs to reward players with extra points for following plot hooks or resolving events in their characters' personal narrative arcs (and adjoining rules to scale up monster encounters accordingly). You can also tweak what Favor can or can't be spent on, depending on the tone and intent of your campaign (so maybe the PCs are in a desolate land with no time for such things, or it's a no-magic campaign with no enchanted gear at all, and so on).

Phew, that was a lot of writing. So, it comes down to this, Playground: what do you think about the nature of currency and magic items in the games you play? And how do you think my fixes measure up against the problems you may or may not agree with? I'm all yours.

(TL;DR, I ramble on a lot about gold and magic items and my issues with them, then propose a couple connected fixes. Read from the paragraph with a bolded first sentence onwards if you want to skip my thoughts and just read the part I want people to talk about.)

NichG
2018-10-17, 10:36 PM
I think the concept of 'orthogonality' is very useful in maintaining diversity in the set of possibilities that still constitute viable strategies. Basically, if you take all of the things that a group of PCs will be expected to be able to do, you're looking for axes along which you can divide those things such that they can be made approximately independent while still having the result make sense and be workable. What I mean by independent here is something like: try to imagine an adventure where a team strong in one axis but weak in all the others could still succeed, but such that if the team were weak in that one axis and strong in all the others they would likely fail. So for example 'attack' and 'defense' are not independent even if they're conceptually different, because they are both necessary elements in order to succeed in combat.

Then you assign each of those axes to a different advancement path in the game system.

One very common decomposition is social vs martial. There's also decomposition by scale - skirmish-level interactions versus grand strategy. Excessive currency in older editions of D&D was dealt with by having that resource primarily only be useful for obtaining power at the grand strategy level (obtaining hirelings, upgrading one's base, managing a realm) while not really being effective for changing individual-level power. One thing to watch out for is that you don't want whatever decompositions you use to end up favoring the concentration of one or the other kind of power onto different characters in the group, because then you end up with gameplay where most of the time only one of the players can participate meaningfully. You can also resolve this if the exercise of that power is fairly fast to resolve (e.g. things like sensory abilities, where you're not going to spin off a side-game to resolve their usage).

As an example:

Use character level for personal power, so it's probably fine just keeping the system as is for that aspect. Remove 'numerical' magic items and integrate them into level-ups, or just adjust the CR of encounters by 2 or 3. Alternately, make that kind of item part of the character leveling process explicitly as additional class abilities or feat-like objects. Decouple it from wealth. Metaphysically, that sort of 'standard magical item' is just a focus that helps the user channel their own strength of spirit more effectively (e.g. their experience level), and doesn't require anything particularly expensive or rare to make. A particular tattoo drawn on the skin, or a childhood memento, or an alchemically treated semi-precious stone are all it takes. Adventures that 'lean' on this pillar are ones taking place far away from society, in contexts that tend to be more fixed (e.g. 'we're exploring this tomb' rather than 'we're brokering peace between two lizard tribes').

Use 'wealth' as primarily a vehicle of social influence, allowing the purchase of land, property, even legal considerations or influence over the actions of kingdoms. Maybe even divide 'wealth' up into categories, so that you could have a game entirely just about Lv1 characters who are each 'wealthy' in different ways - one character has a lot of gold on hand, another character has blackmail material on everyone in the local government, another character actually has a noble title, another character has been appointed to a high position in the army, etc. Rare or precious items that have plot powers could be acquired by wielding wealth - lets call these types of items 'artifacts' - but it should always come with the caveat that for each such item, there were also other people who wanted it who won't just go away and who will be aware of who acquired it. Less 'go to the store and buy a laptop', more 'go to Sotheby's and buy a Rembrandt'. Since the resource used to acquire these has a social scale, the types of uses for those items should have a similar scale - not something that makes you stronger in battle, but maybe something that allows you to read the intentions of any who enter your home and dominate those who wish you harm, or something that allows you to establish a permanent gateway between planes, or ... Even the lower scale of thing should be seen as things which change the situation as a whole for the party by virtue of the party owning it - something that provides indefinite food and water, something that rapidly heals those who sleep where it has been installed, etc.

Finally, for magic items which are weird, quirky, situationally useful, etc, these things are basically a character's wild cards. I'm thinking of something like Numenera for inspiration here, but intending it to be a bit less random. The way I'd do this metaphysically is that I'd say characters who become adventurers are in some sense people in the world who have slipped the bonds of their Fate - they had some role or position or story that had been written out, but because that system is degrading or imperfect then occasionally people escape it. In its place, there are sort of metaphysical anchors that identified a person's role but which are unbound for 'adventurers', and which can essentially be voluntarily attached to circumstances which a particular adventurer decides are formative or significant. So lets say this is three 'slots' per character. When the party arrives at any sort of place of power, on the eve of any momentous occasion, etc, you should essentially offer a list of 'bindings' that are available, which are somehow thematically related to the event in question. Characters can choose to bind the situation to one of their slots, displacing whatever was in that slot. In my mind, these things should generally be 'weird' abilities that are not in of themselves always applicable, but which expand the space of possibilities for the character who binds them. So 'I can breath underwater' or 'I can always find my way home' is fine, but 'I can fly constantly' or 'I can teleport at will' are the wrong direction. Similarly, I'd favor things like 'I can exist within natural fire and flame without harm' over 'I have Fire Resistance 10'. It'd also be okay to have one-off abilities that burn themselves out after being used but have a big effect - 'I can return from the dead once', for example.

Knaight
2018-10-18, 12:34 AM
These favor points sound like a pretty standard metagame currency, here used for advancement by luck. There's no particular reason that wouldn't work overall - but a common failure point in these systems is that characters who use these resources on benefits of varying permanency can be an issue.

Be careful when using this for magic items. They tend to be impermanent, whether because they get broken or lost in setting or, more frequently, because they can get later replaced. Take this into account for pricing, possibly getting some sort of discount when making replacements. Items existing outside of the economy can also be a bit weird; nothing prevents someone from just selling these and with a currency economy right there you'd expect it to crop up.

I'm also seeing some worrying signs that this might develop into a fantasy heartbreaker, so I'd recommend looking into how some other systems handle magic items and advancement. Specifically it would be worth looking at Numenera's magic item rules (mostly as a source for some variety, they're not amazing) and some of the quirks of the advancement system in Legends of the Wulin (where the sort of things bought with favor are largely there, handled differently).

Pleh
2018-10-18, 05:11 AM
I'm a little confused. You say what you want to talk about is separating Currency from Wealth, but then you describe Wealth as Favor points. Is it Wealth or Influence? Cosmic Destiny? I think the first thing needed is to nail down your foundation, which is whatever variable quantity you are making available to players.

But the idea of an orphaned soldier finding a new ancestral power in their weapon sounds similar to the Weapons of Legacy rules. Maybe have a look at those rules and consider if you'd like replacing magic items entirely with Legacy Items.

My solution for chopping down the xmas tree was banning all permanently magical items. In fact, the ruleset is an E6 variant, so the only magic items ever to exist are scrolls, potions, and wands. With no handy haversacks or bags of holding, you're limited to what you can actually carry, so no hundreds of cure light wounds wands. At best you might have 12 per character (on a couple bandoleers).

Instead of magic gear, everyone gets soulmelds, essentia, and chakras as if they were a totemist of their level (but no other benefits of being totemist unless they take the class) (OR they can choose from the Incarnate soulmelds if their character is alignment based and matches the soulmeld's alignment).

Now you've got a few backup spells from scrolls and wands and you don't pay for magic weapons and armor, it's just a manifestation of your own heroic soul energy that you can swap out free of charge (rather you pay with downtime rather than gold).

The Jack
2018-10-18, 09:01 AM
Just throwing it out there;

I think magic items are a bad thing to work with if you're just giving +bonuses and the like. Good magic items fall in one or more of the following categories

Limited use.

Utility, like immovable rods and fire starters.

Gimicky, like the Cloak of billowing or a the Dread helmet or the gleaming armour... Players love this kind of stuff, and they don't affect ballance outside of a few creative uses. Guns that fire cantrips are one of my own, because they're just exotic alternatives to crossbows.

An investment, which doesn't really work with DnD's system, but I'll give you an example.
In Vampire the masquerade, a sorcerer could make a big investment into the path of spirit manipulation and thaumaturgy in general in order to make powerful magic melee weapons.
However, that's a really unconventional way to do it. Most players would rather spend that XP on making their character powerful in other ways.

ElFi
2018-10-18, 02:44 PM
Thanks for the detailed responses, everybody! I'll try to answer everything I can.

NichG: Your ideas seem to run along a lot of the same lines as mine do. Favor is sort of a dual-processing idea, because you can spend it to advance your character's social status or to get magical equipment (how much you have to spend depends on the scope of the campaign, from low-fantasy to epic-fantasy). I'm still trying to figure out which resource you'd spend on the gray areas in between like estates and businesses and such. Maybe buy them with Currency and improve them with Favor? I dunno, it's new territory for me and I've still trying to iron out the kinks.

Knaight: Thanks for your thoughts. I don't think the impermanent nature of magic items is a bug in the system, since I don't see anything wrong with replacing something that's broken or lost at no monetary cost, provided the PCs expend the effort to regain it. I think trading in your old enchanted weapons and armors for new ones could also work as a form of pseudo-price reduction. Item-crafting will still exist at some level, as alchemists in the vein of Pathfinder's potion-crafters are a viable playstyle, and you can buy elixirs and flasks and whatnot with regular currency. But other types of magic items will definitely be more tightly regulated. I'm unclear on what you mean by "advancement by luck" and "fantasy heartbreaker", never seen either of those terms before and your post doesn't really clarify. I'll look into Numenera and Legends of the Wulin to see how they handle it- do you have any advice on gaining access to the rules?

Pleh: I define "wealth" in my system and in RPGs in general by the sum total of everything your character has, both in terms of possessions and money. Didn't mention it in the post above, but I tend to define Favor as a "narrative currency", that is, you spend it to both advance the story in some way and provide mechanical benefits for your character. The exact definition of what Favor is can fluctuate from game to game and GM to GM; it's intended to be flexible based on what the rules of the particular campaign allow you to spend it on. If you're still confused, I can elaborate more.

Weapons of Legacy isn't how I specifically want to handle magic items, though that's definitely one way to define the in-story ramifications of spending Favor. As for your fixes... my goal with this system is, partially, to produce a more uniform power floor for PCs without needing to resort to an E6 format or the flatten-across-the-board approach that 5E went with for D&D. E6 is a very specific type of campaign intended for grounded and serious campaigns, and I want to make this system feel adaptable. Also, I don't plan on including anything like the incarnum (or Akasha, for PF players) system right off the bat, as it's pretty complex and not something I'd want to arbitrarily force on all my players for the sake of balance.

The Jack: Definitely agree that gimmicky, limited items are a lot of fun. I'll try to include them when I'm writing up magic items- maybe give some feat options for collecting trinkets that don't do much but don't require currency/favor to acquire?

Keep up the comments, guys! I want your opinions and advice. Thanks again!

Knaight
2018-10-18, 03:00 PM
Knaight: Thanks for your thoughts. I don't think the impermanent nature of magic items is a bug in the system, since I don't see anything wrong with replacing something that's broken or lost at no monetary cost, provided the PCs expend the effort to regain it. I think trading in your old enchanted weapons and armors for new ones could also work as a form of pseudo-price reduction. Item-crafting will still exist at some level, as alchemists in the vein of Pathfinder's potion-crafters are a viable playstyle, and you can buy elixirs and flasks and whatnot with regular currency. But other types of magic items will definitely be more tightly regulated. I'm unclear on what you mean by "advancement by luck" and "fantasy heartbreaker", never seen either of those terms before and your post doesn't really clarify. I'll look into Numenera and Legends of the Wulin to see how they handle it- do you have any advice on gaining access to the rules?

It's definitely not a bug - there are a lot of ways of handling potential issues before they arise. It's just good to be aware of them and nip them in the bud early rather than have them show up at the 11th hour and necessitate bigger changes.

"Advancement by luck" in this case would be the character gaining powers due to good fortune. Happening to find the right magic item, sudden change in political station due to random circumstance, your example of inadvertent cosmic attention, that sort of thing. Your favor points, essentially.

Fantasy heartbreakers meanwhile are descriptions of a particular class of RPGs. They're all D&D knockoffs that are mostly boring due to basically being D&D, though they also often have an interesting concept or two (cough, favor points, cough). Basically all of them would have been better given some cursory research elsewhere, had that small amount of time been spent - but the "heartbreakers" part of the description comes in when you look at the rest, and realize that the designers put a great deal of effort into these games only to come up with something nobody wants because they already basically have it. Creating a new system like D&D specifically to fix flaws in D&D? That's the sort of thing that's concerning in terms of ending up on the fantasy heartbreaker design path. It's better to do the research.

As for gaining access to the two games cited neither are legally free, both have relatively cheap .pdfs. For Numenera at least there is some free side material floating around, at least some of which will have items. That's the main draw there; the system is build around the idea of a fluctuating set of item granted powers, and to facilitate that it has both a set of item rules that works pretty well and a pretty sizeable list of example items, leaning towards quirky, limited use things. I'll have to poke around for Legends of the Wulin; it wouldn't surprise me if some of the relevant content was around.

Vegan Squirrel
2018-10-18, 07:30 PM
Your Currency/Wealth dichotomy is in some ways similar to the Wealth system I put into the game system I've been putting together over the last couple of years, so I'll share that in case it inspires anyone. Magic items can still be bought with this system, but to me, that's less of a system issue and more of a campaign/GM issue—with the very important caveat that the game system doesn't require the items to be available regularly (as in 3.PF).

I use a single Wealth score with two meanings. You can spend up to your Wealth score in silver pieces during any shopping spree, without changing the score. And if you need to spend more than that, you deduct the gold pieces spent from your Wealth score. So this is quite different from your proposal, and it's goals were different as well. I wanted to reduce bookkeeping for basic expenses (inn stays, restocking basic supplies, etc.) while still giving characters a way to save up and spend on something bigger (preferably something like a ship or a castle). I just won't make it easy for them to go out and buy any magic item they want, but that's more me as a GM than as a designer. As a designer, I just want to provide a system that allows magic items to be rare and hard to purchase, depending on the campaign.

@Knaight: thanks for pointing out those systems for their rules variety; I'll also make a note to check them out.