Capitalism in 5E: Why Adventuring is Always Suboptimal

[MinotaurWarrior]

A lot of discussions recently have focused on the ability of casters (esp. high level) to use downtime to repeatedly cast spells for "narrative" or combat power.

I just want to remind everyone of the much more powerful option that's available to everyone at level 1: capitalism.

A skilled hireling, proficient in any skill, weapon, or tool costs 2gp a day (PHB Chapter 5)
Players can sell art objects and trade goods for their full value (PHB Chapter 5)
Several tools cost 1GP (PHB Chapter 5)
For every proficient crafter you can make 5gp of progress towards an item (PHB chapter 8)
The raw materials cost 2.5gp (PHB chapter 8)

So for every day of operating as a capitalist, your costs are 4.5GP per employee and your revenues are 5GP per employee. 5sp of profit per 45sp spent = a daily operating profit rate of 11%. This requires a 1GP initial investment in tools.

A bard, Cleric, fighter, Paladin, or ranger starts with 125GP on average if using the starting wealth option. Day 1, they can buy 22 Weaver's Tools and employ 22 Weavers (with 4gp left over) to make 11GP profit. Day 2, they reinvest that money back into the business for an extra 3 weavers. So on and so forth until they operate a multi-sextillion-GP business by the end of the year.

And then, if there is a dragon that comes along, what's the best way to handle it? Hirelings with missile weapons. For some flair, you can have them all be skilled, equipped with good weapons and armor, and on an airship. But that's not always necessary. 1/400 times, an unskilled longbowman crits on an ancient red dragon (for ~9 damage) from 600ft away. The dragon closes 160ft / round and frightening presence kicks in at 120ft, so the levees get 3 shots each. 546HP, that's a measly 8,089 levees for even odds. To get it to 95% success rate it's just 11,600 levees. For 99%, 12,900 levees. An inconsequential expenditure for a sextillionaire.

If you are not playing a sextillionaire capitalist army financier, you are being being limited to an immensely sub-optimal playstyle and build. And what is limiting you?

It's either your desire to have more fun playing an adventurer, other player's desires to have more fun playing an adventurer, the DMs desire to have more fun DMing for adventurers, or someone looking at overpowered boring results, saying "well, maybe those rules represent the uncomplicated case, and complications can throw them off" and then introducing factors that make it not so easy to just do the OP thing as it might appear on paper.

Everything exists on a spectrum from 5E Capitalist to "Champion Fighter who heads straight into 6-8 encounters per day and takes the attack action every round".

Simulacrum, for example, is horribly suboptimal compared to a capitalist (1,500 GP!) and much less aeventur-y than the champion, taking essentially 20 hours (rest + 12hr casting) and being vulnerable to complications requiring the snow sculpture not melt while the caster not freeze. But it's probably exactly where the average group draws the line.

Something like a magic mouth network is further towards the 5E Capitalist. It's nowhere near as good, and uses more aeventur-y features. If you're spending time and money on magic mouth shenanigans, it's because you've drawn the line somewhere between magic mouth and the actually most effective option.

And here's the really important point: this RAW optimal strategy is equally available to martials and spellcasters alike. If your group doesn't run capitalists, that's because you are choosing to reign in a nonmagical option. It is precisely as valid to reign in magical options. Not just as a DM, but also as a player, by insisting on adventuring instead of the less fun more powerful Non-adventuring.

[Amnestic]

Day 1, they can buy 22 Weaver's Tools and employ 22 Weavers (with 4gp left over) to make 11GP profit.


No they can't, almost all the skilled weavers are already employed on long term contracts for NPCs because they have a marketable, profitable skill. This level 1 adventurer thought they came up with the concept of "Hiring people to make me money"? Nah fam, you're thousands of years too late on that one.

[Unoriginal]

Setting aside all the situations which can't be solved by an army of hirelings and concerns such as the fact there is no unlimited market growth nor unlimited skilled workers, or how the game doesn't assume you're selling mass-produces art objects every single day, or how the math in the OP assume you don't have to pay for a place for all those employees to work in/a place to stock the material and tools you own/taxes as an established merchant/Guild fees since you're not the only one in the business/etc, here's a question that need answering:

You've become filthy rich, now what do you do with all that money?

[Gtdead]

I still need to finish the business plan, but I really want to create a mercenary company in a game. I have high hopes that I will make it one day.

[Dork_Forge]

This doesn't seem to take living expenses into account, which would wipe out most if not all of your profits, no? Then there's the sales aspect, you're spending all your live long day crafting, when are these things being sold? To whom? How are your prices better than established business that can elverage connections and bulk rates?

You can certainly make money with a business as a side hustle, but this doesn't seem to touch adventuring for profit, or seem particularly profitable period. Note that you're probably earning less than just working as a skilled worker (2GP per day).

[Bunny Commando]

No they can't, almost all the skilled weavers are already employed on long term contracts for NPCs because they have a marketable, profitable skill. This level 1 adventurer thought they came up with the concept of "Hiring people to make me money"? Nah fam, you're thousands of years too late on that one.

Maybe that's why they start adventuring: they want to be high level enough to kill the competition and hire their people; of course there are also former adventurers that sells their talents to protect entrepeneurs - the whole point of adventuring is to either kill or protect capitalist NPCs.

[Warlush]

If I wanted to spend my free time thinking about capitalism I would open a business in real life. Or I would play a game called Spreadsheets & Market Research.

This is Dungeons & Dragons.

[Naanomi]

I thought the goal of adventuring was to get high enough level to cast fabricate and shut these sort of enterprises down with your efficiency

[CharonsHelper]

Easy Answer: This is a game about fighting monsters and punching villains in the face. The economics only has to be enough to support that.

Medium Answer: Because the game designers are neither accounts nor economists, so they don't do it right.

Bigger Answer: Actually realistic economic models are actually impossible. Economists have been trying and failing for decades if not centuries, but it's impossible to take everything into account, such as psychology, technological advancement, and behavioral finance etc. Trying to do so as a sub-system of a TTRPG would be a fool's errand.

[MinotaurWarrior]

I thought the goal of adventuring was to get high enough level to cast fabricate and shut these sort of enterprises down with your efficiency

Fabricate has a higher floor, but a much lower ceiling. You can never become a sextillionaire with fabricate. It only makes one object per casting, and is limited by spell slots.

Growing at 11% a day you quickly blow past that.


This doesn't seem to take living expenses into account, which would wipe out most if not all of your profits, no?

No. Modest living expenses are covered while crafting.

Now, all of the complications you and others introduced in this thread? Absolutely, it is fair to introduce those, as I said in the OP. That's actually the whole point.

[micahaphone]

Because well adjusted cautious people with a mind for long term growth don't become adventurers.

Think of a person who says "hmmm I could work this land and enjoy a steady life where I eat food I grew, sell the extra for a tidy sum and enjoy plenty of leisure in off seasons, or I could go into the goblin cave and probably die but if I don't I'll have an entire season's worth of profit in 1 afternoon" and chooses "probably die in goblin cave" as their career.

[Unoriginal]

Fabricate has a higher floor, but a much lower ceiling. You can never become a sextillionaire with fabricate. It only makes one object per casting, and is limited by spell slots.

Growing at 11% a day you quickly blow past that.



No. Modest living expenses are covered while crafting.

Now, all of the complications you and others introduced in this thread? Absolutely, it is fair to introduce those, as I said in the OP. That's actually the whole point.

Sorry, what is the whole point?

[Skylivedk]

Funnily, actually making that empire is much easier with a caster since there's a limited amount of people per city :D

Loved the post though

[Mellack]

This assumes that what the crafters are making are considered trade goods. That is in no way assured. Typically when crafting, you are making a specific object or piece of equipment. The general rule is equipment, such as that blanket your weavers just made, sell for half price. That means you are actually losing 2 GP per worker per day.

[MaxWilson]

A skilled hireling, proficient in any skill, weapon, or tool costs 2gp a day (PHB Chapter 5)
Players can sell art objects and trade goods for their full value (PHB Chapter 5)
Several tools cost 1GP (PHB Chapter 5)
For every proficient crafter you can make 5gp of progress towards an item (PHB chapter 8)
The raw materials cost 2.5gp (PHB chapter 8)

So for every day of operating as a capitalist, your costs are 4.5GP per employee and your revenues are 5GP per employee. 5sp of profit per 45sp spent = a daily operating profit rate of 11%. This requires a 1GP initial investment in tools.

...

If you are not playing a sextillionaire capitalist army financier, you are being being limited to an immensely sub-optimal playstyle and build. And what is limiting you?

It's either your desire to have more fun playing an adventurer, other player's desires to have more fun playing an adventurer, the DMs desire to have more fun DMing for adventurers, or someone looking at overpowered boring results, saying "well, maybe those rules represent the uncomplicated case, and complications can throw them off" and then introducing factors that make it not so easy to just do the OP thing as it might appear on paper.

Everything exists on a spectrum from 5E Capitalist to "Champion Fighter who heads straight into 6-8 encounters per day and takes the attack action every round".

...

And here's the really important point: this RAW optimal strategy is equally available to martials and spellcasters alike. If your group doesn't run capitalists, that's because you are choosing to reign in a nonmagical option. It is precisely as valid to reign in magical options. Not just as a DM, but also as a player, by insisting on adventuring instead of the less fun more powerful Non-adventuring.

Bravo, sir. Brilliantly illustrated.

Hirelings are commonplace but I had never before considered the compounding angle from hiring them to make trade goods.

It reminds me of an observation from The Rules of Play (MIT Press), that a key component of playing a game is to artificially limit yourself by taking the straightforward solutions off the table. They call this the Lusory Attitude (i.e. playful attitude):

In Defining Games we looked at the definition of games Bernard Suits gives in his book Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia. One of the unique components of Suits’ definition is that he sees games as inherently inefficient. He uses the example of a boxer to explain this concept. If the goal of a boxing match is to make the other fighter stay down for a count of 10, the easiest way to accomplish this goal would be to take a gun and shoot the other boxer in the head. This, of course, is not the way that the game of Boxing is played. Instead, as Suits points out, boxers put on padded gloves and only strike their opponents in very limited and stylized ways. Similarly, Suits discusses the game of Golf:

Suppose I make it my purpose to get a small round object into a hole in the ground as efficiently as possible. Placing it in the hole with my hand would be a natural means to adopt. But surely I would not take a stick with a piece of metal on one end of it, walk three or four hundred yards away from the hole, and then attempt to propel the ball into the hole with the stick. That would not be technically intelligent. But such an undertaking is an extremely popular game, and the foregoing way of describing it evidently shows how games differ from technical activities.

5E isn't inherently a game, but part of making it into one is to voluntarily forego efficient solutions, as the OP brilliantly illustrates.

[Spo]

There is a table either in Dragonheist or in the DMG That players had to roll to see how successful their business was doing for a particular period of time. It was not automatic. It took into account to a limited extent pitfalls a business could run into (like competition starting rumors about your business; guilds needing to be paid off; the local mob wanting their cut for “protection” etc.).

In fact, I have played in games where the PCÂ’s low level quest was to ruin a business by adding salt to the flour or burning down shop.

In reading the OPÂ’s post, I was reminded of the scene in from the movie Back To School where the business is explaining how to set up a business and Rodney DangerfieldÂ’s character, who is a businessman, is interrupting him by pointing out what he forgot (like unionization, the teamsters paying a visit, permitting getting held up, etc).

There is a reason a lot of small businesses fail - everything looks good on paper but when trying to execute it in real life the Xanathar gang takes an interest in you and you just become a front for laundering money and giving “reformed” criminals a job. YouknowwhatImean?

[J-H]

The NPCs may learn enough to set up competing shops also.

This is really something that just goes back to the player-DM social contract. If 2 people are there to build businesses, 2 people are there to have awesome dragon fights, and 2 people are there to take over a kingdom through subtle political maneuvers... it's time for a chat.

[noob]

The NPCs may learn enough to set up competing shops also.

This is really something that just goes back to the player-DM social contract. If 2 people are there to build businesses, 2 people are there to have awesome dragon fights, and 2 people are there to take over a kingdom through subtle political maneuvers... it's time for a chat.

Or make a buisness that kills dragons through subtle political manipulation(to get them to fight you or be dishonoured or something) in order to take over their kingdoms?

[Kurt Kurageous]

Sounds like someone needs to see the "Papers and Paychecks" cartoon from AD&D.

I thought the OP was totally sarcastic and the question rhetorical. Sure, an interesting game could be made out of it in D&D, but 5e DnD doesn't really have "real" economics in the rules, just relative value. There's arguably many things 5e does well, but capitalism isn't one of them.

[Fable Wright]

A lot of discussions recently have focused on the ability of casters (esp. high level) to use downtime to repeatedly cast spells for "narrative" or combat power.

I just want to remind everyone of the much more powerful option that's available to everyone at level 1: capitalism.

A skilled hireling, proficient in any skill, weapon, or tool costs 2gp a day (PHB Chapter 5)
Players can sell art objects and trade goods for their full value (PHB Chapter 5)
Several tools cost 1GP (PHB Chapter 5)
For every proficient crafter you can make 5gp of progress towards an item (PHB chapter 8)
The raw materials cost 2.5gp (PHB chapter 8)


Note: This is, in effect, the putting-out system of Early Modern England. And therein demonstrates some of the key difficulties inherent in the practice.

In towns, of course, this system is already in full effect, with an oligopoly of guilds controlling the labor supply. Attempting to butt in on the 5sp/head/day earnings of the guild patriarchs will get your legs broken by high-level thugs, because that's simply the way of things. They have been doing this longer than you, and have political connections that you don't.

However, in smaller villages, there's plenty of people happy to earn a safe and guaranteed 2gp/day and not have to risk the nasty business of moving around and selling their goods. That extra sp/day doesn't matter as much as the safety and guaranteed nature of the sales.

Of course, given that smaller villages have people doing these tasks all the time, it's fairly difficult to find a market for these finished goods in the selfsame villages. You'll ultimately need to sell abroad, and gathering all this raw material, transporting it across seas and through bandit and monster-infested countryside to fuel your exponential capitalist growth? Well.

Congratulations, you've just reinvented the Merchant Adventurers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_of_Merchant_Adventurers_of_London).

Now get your sword, there's a sea serpent portside and we can't afford damages to the ship if we want this voyage to remain profitable!

[MaxWilson]

Sounds like someone needs to see the "Papers and Paychecks" cartoon from AD&D.

Ask and ye shall receive.

https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/014/245/769/fa594583c6e00ee6f8f024c31f9e8cb0_original.jpg?w=10 24&h=576&fit=fill&bg=000000&v=1477345517&auto=format&q=92&


I thought the OP was totally sarcastic and the question rhetorical. Sure, an interesting game could be made out of it in D&D, but 5e DnD doesn't really have "real" economics in the rules, just relative value. There's arguably many things 5e does well, but capitalism isn't one of them.

I think the OP was making a point about the fact that having fun playing D&D is inherently in tension with "what would my character do to make an easy profit?" To a certain extent we are always trying to set our PCs up to do stuff that is fun for us and not necessarily good for them. It's not a wizard vs. warrior dichotomy, it's true to some extent of all PCs, and that's why we don't play Papers and Paychecks.

[Willie the Duck]

People have been going over this for nearly 50 years (including sometimes inside gaming fictions (https://www.goblinscomic.org/comic/09092006)). The price lists in D&D have always been player-facing, with the assumption that it only makes cursory sense as a reflection of a real economic model (if that). The cost of things were based on how valuable a low level player could use a thing in their efforts to extract additional funds from conveniently accessible dungeons full of risks and rewards, or else as valuable commodities.

There is no question that the prices and costs of the game are based on inflationary economy, one where a sudden influx of silver and gold has driven everything well beyond its normal value. The reasoning behind this is simple. An active campaign will most certainly bring a steady flow of wealth into the base area, as adventurers come from successful trips into dungeon and wilderness. If the economy of the area is one which more accurately reflects that of medieval England, let us say, where coppers and silver coins are usual and a gold piece remarkable, such an influx of new money, even in copper and silver, would cause an inflationary spiral. This would necessitate you adjusting costs accordingly and then upping dungeon treasures somewhat to keep pace. If a near-maximum is assumed, then the economics of the area con remain relatively constant, and the DM will have to adjust costs only for things in demand or short supply -weapons, oil, holy water, men-at-arms, whatever.

The economic systems of areas beyond the more active campaign areas can be viably based on lesser wealth only until the stream of loot begins to pour outwards into them. While it is possible to reduce treasure in these area to some extent so as to prolong the period of lower costs, what kind of a dragon hoard, for example, doesn't have gold and gems? It is simply more heroic for players to have their characters swaggering around with pouches full of gems and tossing out gold pieces than it is for them to have coppers. Heroic fantasy is made of fortunes and king's ransoms in loot gained most cleverly and bravely and lost in a twinkling by various means - thievery, gambling, debauchery, gift-giving, bribes, and so forth. The "reality" AD&D seeks to create through role playing is that of the mythical heroes such as Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Kothar, Elric, and their ilk. When treasure is spoken of, it is more stirring when participants know it to be TREASURE!

You may, of course, adjust any prices and costs as you see fit for your own milieu. Be careful to observe the effects of such changes on both play balance and player involvement. If any adverse effects are noted, it is better to return to the tried and true. It is fantastic and of heroic proportions so as to match its game vehicle.

Of course, players being players, they almost immediately started realizing that the easiest way to make a fortune was to play the game against the expectations of the designers or DMs. I fondly recall a story by Chirine ba Kal (Empire of the Petal Throne archivist) wherein the original campaign playtesters crashed the economy of Tekumel, Greyhawk, and Blackmoor by buying up all the available iron in the later two game worlds and selling it in iron-poor Tekumel for gold and spices which would be exotic in Greyhawk and Blackmoor.

[Clistenes]

A worker can live poorly spending 2 sp/day, so they can save 8 sp/day.

After a few days of working for you they can buy their own tools and raw materials and start producing their own wares at a rate of 5 gp/day, minus raw materials worth 2.5 gp/day, earning 2.5 gp/day.

Now they can live comfortably expending 2 gp/day and they can still save 0.5 gp/day.

Why would they keep working for you?

D&D economics are an abstraction that doesn't take into account many, many factors: Limits in offer and demand, laws favoring local producers and/or wealthy businessmen already entrenched in the market, social networking...etc.

[Sparky McDibben]

While the economic assumptions underpinning this are so hilariously bad I can't engage with them, I think you can do a lot of adventure generation through commerce.

[ThatMoonGuy]

Why would they keep working for you?


Because you've got the town government on your pocket, established a guild that regulates the trade and is under your control, forbid the formation of unions and can, if need be, just send a bunch of mercenaries their way :smallamused:

Worked well for the robber barons.

[Democratus]

Because you've got the town government on your pocket, established a guild that regulates the trade and is under your control, forbid the formation of unions and can, if need be, just send a bunch of mercenaries their way :smallamused:

Worked well for the robber barons.

Sweatshops and Slum Lords (tm): Coming soon from ThatMoonGuy! :smallcool:

[Unoriginal]

Regardless of all the other factors, it doesn't answer the main question that remains, though.


Once you get that much money, what are the PCs going to do with it?



Because you've got the town government on your pocket, established a guild that regulates the trade and is under your control, forbid the formation of unions and can, if need be, just send a bunch of mercenaries their way :smallamused:

Worked well for the robber barons.

And there was no one who thought to do that before the PCs showed up?

[MaxWilson]

Because you've got the town government on your pocket, established a guild that regulates the trade and is under your control, forbid the formation of unions and can, if need be, just send a bunch of mercenaries their way :smallamused:

Worked well for the robber barons.

Translation: because you're the BBEG.

[Unoriginal]

Translation: because you're the BBEG.

Or the quest giver who needs PCs to solve a problem their mooks can't handle, and who will most likely get killed by a Aberration or Fiend sometime during the adventure.



Sweatshops and Slum Lords (tm): Coming soon from ThatMoonGuy! :smallcool:

The other day I thought about the "worldwide city" trope, and wondered how it'd look like if a standard D&D world developed that way.


Didn't go very far, but one thing I did settle on was that the housing buildings would be condo blocks versions of the "elven house in the tree" concept, under the control of Feys known as the Lords and Ladies of the Land.

[noob]

You need to adventure for a while to get tough enough to not be assassinated by an evil murderhobo team that takes the fast way to wealth.
Because trust me: your guards will look a lot less tough when they are hit by 4 castings of meteor swarm at once.

[Greywander]

Others have already brought up a number of issues with doing this, but I thought I'd sum up my thoughts on the matter.

First, you're assuming that the rules accurately model pricing and economics. D&D isn't really very good at that. I think there's some interesting potential for this idea, and I'd be interested in a system that did have a solid economic model and had rules for creating and running a business empire, but D&D is not that system.

Second, you're ignoring supply and demand. How much demand is there for art objects, or whatever trade good you're producing? As supply increases, price decreases. At some point, you find an equilibrium, where hiring another artisan will actually lower your profits thanks to supply exceeding demand. Point is, you can't increase indefinitely along a single line of industry. You can and should diversify, but eventually you'll run out of industries. In order to keep the ball rolling, you either need (a) to invent new industries, (b) to invent new technologies that allow you to produce and distribute goods for cheaper, and/or (c) to wait for the population to increase so that the demand is higher.

Thirdly, this is assuming that the business is running under ideal conditions. What happens if one of your shops burns down? What if product gets stolen? What if a competitor undercuts your prices, reducing your profit margin? What if a competitor or other enemy deliberately sabotages your business? There are any number of complications that could arise and cut into your profit margins.

Fourth, there's a greater question of logistics. Sure, you can pay the actual artisans who craft the products. What about the clerks who run the storefronts? What about the delivery crew that haul goods from where they're produced to where they're sold? Or maintenance staff that keeps your shops clean and functional? Guards that deter thieves? Management to run things when you're not around, or the business gets too big for you to manage yourself?

Fifth, you're not the only player in town. If you start in a small village, you might be able to set up the first organized business they've seen, but once you get to a town of any size there are already going to be established guilds and businesses. You're going to make some powerful enemies if you just try to strongarm your way into their industries. Your best bet at getting your foot in the door is to look for an unmet demand. If a particular guild just can't supply enough of a certain product to sell it to everyone who wants one, then make that product and sell it through that guild. But this will be a rare occurrence, as someone else will likely have stepped in to meet their supply needs first. So there would need to be a reason why no one else has stepped up (possible adventuring hook?).

All that said, obviously there are people who run these kinds of businesses, so it isn't impossible, and can be quite profitable. But businesses can and do fail, and often. Why would someone become an adventurer when they could go into business instead? Well, why do people in real life fall for "get rich quick" schemes? I can see three types of adventurers:

Those who want to "get rich quick", and are averse to working hard over an extended period. It's not that they can't get a job, they just don't want one.
Those who are unable to get an honest job. Perhaps they're a fugitive, or disabled, or just unpleasant. No one wants to hire them, or work for them.
Those who are driven to complete the quest for non-financial reasons. For example, seeking revenge, or protecting loved ones.

Now, keep in mind I'm not an economist, though it's a subject I'd like to learn more about. I actually do enjoy these kinds of games, and would be interested in playing an RPG based around running a business in a fantasy world instead of (or in addition to) being an adventurer.

[Unoriginal]

Would probably be worthwhile to read the Acquisition Inc. book, for business-focused adventurers.

[KorvinStarmast]

Easy Answer: This is a game about fighting monsters and punching villains in the face. The economics only has to be enough to support that.

Medium Answer: Because the game designers are neither accounts nor economists, so they don't do it right.

Bigger Answer: Actually realistic economic models are actually impossible. Economists have been trying and failing for decades if not centuries, but it's impossible to take everything into account, such as psychology, technological advancement, and behavioral finance etc. Trying to do so as a sub-system of a TTRPG would be a fool's errand.Nice summary of the levels of "wrong tool for the job" - thanks.

I fondly recall a story by Chirine ba Kal (Empire of the Petal Throne archivist) wherein the original campaign playtesters crashed the economy of Tekumel, Greyhawk, and Blackmoor by buying up all the available iron in the later two game worlds and selling it in iron-poor Tekumel for gold and spices which would be exotic in Greyhawk and Blackmoor. Yeah, breaking the game was a game in its own right even back then.

For the OP: suggest you look up the NPC assassin. If you get that rich someone will want your money. They'll get a few assassins onto you. And they'll attack when your PC is asleep. Their nova damage is quite substantial. (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/174944/22566)

That's part of the game world too. :smalleek:

[Konradhelt]

OP thank you for a brilliantly written and truly witty post.

A lot of the replies here have made me understand why those boring fighter/wizard threats keep popping up...

[Unoriginal]

OP thank you for a brilliantly written and truly witty post.

A lot of the replies here have made me understand why those boring fighter/wizard threats keep popping up...

Would you mind sharing your understanding?

[patchyman]

Bravo! A really fun read. I think a lot of readers took your post as literal when it was plainly meant to be sarcastic.

[ThatMoonGuy]

And there was no one who thought to do that before the PCs showed up?

Probably. But then you could make a whole campaign about taking on those guys and establishing an enterprise of your own where your goal is not to take down the guys (per se) but to take their place.

[Tvtyrant]

Actually the best way to become rich is to tip the DM a fiver and then write whatever you want down on the sheet. We constantly joke about paying for rerolls with quarters, the DM could make a cool $20 an hour that way.

Money and power accumulation aren't the goal of D&D, playing D&D is the goal of D&D. They are just tallies in game for progression, this is like finding out you can stomp the same goomba billions of times in Super Mario World to get an infinite score.

[Willie the Duck]

Money and power accumulation aren't the goal of D&D, playing D&D is the goal of D&D. They are just tallies in game for progression, this is like finding out you can stomp the same goomba billions of times in Super Mario World to get an infinite score.

Not that I think there is actually a "real question" to be answered, but for me, the real question is, "is a game better if it has an economy that makes sense?" I guess my answer would be, 'in some certain edge cases, sure, but it'd be near last on my list of priorities.' As Max alludes to, 'your job is to get rich being an adventurer' is a goal a game like this assumes when you sit down to play it, to the level where contradictions to this state can reasonably be ignored. Where conflict occurs (such as the OP example), the DM is empowered to intervene (and I don't think even the most vocal, "but RAW...," advocate would rigorously complain). I think a game system where this isn't the case is, at best, a nice theoretical example of a more-perfect system (and again I'd look at near every other part of said system first, before passing judgement on they system as a whole).

[MaxWilson]

Not that I think there is actually a "real question" to be answered, but for me, the real question is, "is a game better if it has an economy that makes sense?" I guess my answer would be, 'in some certain edge cases, sure, but it'd be near last on my list of priorities.' As Max alludes to, 'your job is to get rich being an adventurer' is a goal a game like this assumes when you sit down to play it, to the level where contradictions to this state can reasonably be ignored. Where conflict occurs (such as the OP example), the DM is empowered to intervene (and I don't think even the most vocal, "but RAW...," advocate would rigorously complain). I think a game system where this isn't the case is, at best, a nice theoretical example of a more-perfect system (and again I'd look at near every other part of said system first, before passing judgement on they system as a whole).

To be clear: I don't think 5E is a game, although games can be constructed using it. (Most adventures are at least ostensibly games, even when they are pathologically easy games.) I don't see anything inherently illegitimate about leaning heavily on the exploration pillar to explore the economics of the gameworld, and I can even imagine fun games resulting from that exploration, as you try to defend your merchant empire from poachers and gangsters and cheap imitators and whatnot. From a certain point of view, turning technical activities into fun games (by creating problems and limitations for the players, with the players' active buy-in) is the raison d'etre for a DM-as-adventure writer (as opposed to DM-as-monster-advocate or DM-as-rules-referee), but games are not the only way to play around.

TL;DR I think exploration of an economic system is legitimate play which naturally leads to adventure games if the DM and players wish it to.

[Tvtyrant]

I don't think there is anything wrong with playing an economics based game, I just think 5E has possibly the worst possible framework for it. I also dispute the original premise, because it assumes you adventure to become wealthy while I argue you become wealthy as a kind of metronome keeping advancement for adventuring.

[kingcheesepants]

So one point that OP brought up that hasn't really been addressed is the efficacy of using money to raise an army rather than having a team of adventurers. I think he's correct in that for killing things and some other traditional adventuring jobs like defending an area, an army (or a platoon of archers in an airship as he mentioned) can be more effective than a small high level team. So that leads us to the question why have adventurers at all? Well there are a few reasons. First of all there are a good number of situations where an army can't reach or make use of their numbers advantage and in these situations having a team of pros is a better option. Many D&D adventures take place in old ruins, underground labyrinths, high in the mountains and other such places where an army wouldn't be feasible. Secondly no intelligent enemy would ever let itself be the subject of a platoon of archers unless they had some method of neutralizing such an assault. Be it with spells, fortifications, magic items, special abilities or an army of its own. If the enemy uses the last than we aren't playing D&D anymore but have moved into the realms of a large scale tactical war game. Which can be fun for sure, but armies vs. armies is not really what we're typically looking for in our D&D games. In any case it is interesting to think about where and when it would be more sensible to raise an army instead of leaving things in the hands of adventurers and what sort of back and forth that might entail.

[Cybren]

technically what you’ve demonstrated is industrial scale production, which in modern times is an outgrowth of capitalism but has historically appeared for thousands of years.

In a historical pre-capitalist society all you’ve accomplished is that you will be fined or jailed by a ruler for violating a guild monopoly, or perhaps at best you would teach artisans skilled in certain fields their labor is worth more and, without the support of the state or loyal magnates, be helpless to stop them from opening their own workshops

[diplomancer]

Would you mind sharing your understanding?

Probably like the poster you are responding to, I believe OP's intent is not to convince players to start the Industrial Revolution, but to highlight one of the main mistakes involved in Caster/Martial arguments, i.e, the caster's greater narrative power. Though it IS true that casters have many tricks unavailable to martials which, if abused, "break the game", and the DM would have to take measures not described in the rules to counteract them (which some caster-supremacy players might believe is unfair), the same thing applies to the situation OP pointed out. Doing what he suggests breaks the game, and the DM would start having to improvise things like "well, if you do that, your weavers might strike, or they will try to compete, or someone will try to kill you", which is the same argument of "well, if you try to chain simulacrums, you will attract the attention of the powerful archmage who has infinite simulacrum but only uses them to destroy those who present a threat, i.e, those who try to chain simulacrums".

I.e, like in the caster abuse situations, the DM can (and should) just "nope" this. The fact that this strategy is available to martials shows that "noping" has nothing to do with DM's nerfing casters, it's just the boundaries of the game we've chosen to play.

[Democratus]

This all sounds like an even stronger argument in favor of adventuring.

Let some schmuck do all the work of getting rich through labor & manufacturing.

Then adventurers can "heist" the riches off of them. A life's work gone in a day of looting and pillaging.

[Cicciograna]

I think it's even simpler than that.
The OP showed that IF the goal of the game is becoming ubermillionaire - with the implicit assumption that once you have a non-finite amount of money you can hire/pay/bribe your way out of every problem - a capitalistic approach to the game beats adventuring. It's definitely less risky, and the final effects, in light of the stated goal of the game, are the same.

Another set of assumptions is implicit in his reasoning, namely that:

there is an infinite amount of hirelings available to be hired;
the market reacts perfectly and by the book to his actions - namely the prices will stay constant no matter what happens, there will be no alterations to raw materials prices, no reactions to wars, famines, shortages, etc;
connecting to the previous point, the nondescript earning of, say, a weaver, are disconnected from whatever consideration about prices and costs, apart from initial costs for the tools of the trade, they just "earn" a certain amount of money practicing their trade, no matter how;
the world does not react to the player, with its only interaction with him being buying the stuff his hirelings produce (or not even that, if we assume that the production of the weavers is non-existant and they just "earn" their money, see previous point).

From this point of view, yes, propagating his process ad libitum makes one rich. Zero chance to dying, and it's only a matter of time before owning vast sums.
It's pretty much like playing World of Warcraft and never leaving the starting area, killing non-hostile wolves and boars and selling the trash they drop to the vendors. Sure, eventually you can earn billions of golds, all the while risking zero, and the vendors will be always happy to buy your stuff.

[Amnestic]

Probably like the poster you are responding to, I believe OP's intent is not to convince players to start the Industrial Revolution, but to highlight one of the main mistakes involved in Caster/Martial arguments,

I'm not a fan of the conflation you're making between "abuse" tricks (eg. wish/simulacrum chaining) and just "casters using their spell slots in the intended way at high level play", the latter of which still outstrips martials in interacting with the game world both in-and-out of combat.

If the OP's intent is to point out that martials also have access to a rules abuse trick they can do to break the game world then...cool, I guess, but that's all. It doesn't comment meaningfully on the high level spellcaster vs. martial disparity situation though.

[jjordan]

If the players want to focus on economic aspects that's just fine, my games already incorporate those elements. My current game has two competing polities engaged in a cold (occasionally hot) war which is largely based on economics. The latest iteration has seen the Kingdom of On-Asta send adventurers into the mountains to extinguish a beacon which keeps the undead in a cursed valley from threatening the surrounding area which includes an agricultural valley which feeds a large portion of the mountain settlements. This has made it possible for them to place that entire area under 'siege' by seizing a key transportation junction.

How are the economic-driven players going to react to the loss of raw materials, the influx of foreign merchants who enjoy a favored economic position under the new government, workers fleeing or looking to them for protection, and all the other fallout of the game? Will they hire adventurers to fix the beacon or do it themselves? Sounds like a game to me.

[diplomancer]

I'm not a fan of the conflation you're making between "abuse" tricks (eg. wish/simulacrum chaining) and just "casters using their spell slots in the intended way at high level play", the latter of which still outstrips martials in interacting with the game world both in-and-out of combat.

If the OP's intent is to point out that martials also have access to a rules abuse trick they can do to break the game world then...cool, I guess, but that's all. It doesn't comment meaningfully on the high level spellcaster vs. martial disparity situation though.

This is how OP begins, this is what it's addressing:


A lot of discussions recently have focused on the ability of casters (esp. high level) to use downtime to repeatedly cast spells for "narrative" or combat power.

So, if your argument is that being able to Teleport makes casters better, Maze is fun and Wish is crazy, OP (and myself) has no beef with you. But if your argument is "wizards can make infinite clones, demiplanes full of Arcane Wards for instant concentration-free buffs, True-Polymorph a statue into a CR9 Young Dragon, etc", then OP is pointing out that those tactics are on a spectrum between Champion Fighter and Gazillionaire, and that, for most gaming groups, they might be beyond the point in the spectrum that they prefer playing (and therefore, the fact that casters are theoretically capable of employing such tactics should not have an influence on the argument over whether casters are overpowered).

[MinotaurWarrior]

Diplomancer, MaxWilson, and others in this thread have really done a better job of articulating my PoV than I think I could have done myself. Thank you!

[Warwick]

Probably like the poster you are responding to, I believe OP's intent is not to convince players to start the Industrial Revolution, but to highlight one of the main mistakes involved in Caster/Martial arguments, i.e, the caster's greater narrative power. Though it IS true that casters have many tricks unavailable to martials which, if abused, "break the game", and the DM would have to take measures not described in the rules to counteract them (which some caster-supremacy players might believe is unfair), the same thing applies to the situation OP pointed out. Doing what he suggests breaks the game, and the DM would start having to improvise things like "well, if you do that, your weavers might strike, or they will try to compete, or someone will try to kill you", which is the same argument of "well, if you try to chain simulacrums, you will attract the attention of the powerful archmage who has infinite simulacrum but only uses them to destroy those who present a threat, i.e, those who try to chain simulacrums".

I.e, like in the caster abuse situations, the DM can (and should) just "nope" this. The fact that this strategy is available to martials shows that "noping" has nothing to do with DM's nerfing casters, it's just the boundaries of the game we've chosen to play.

I recognize that the OP is not meant to be taken literally, but I think it misses the point itself. The problem regarding 'narrative power' for spellcasters is not just overtly abusive stuff. Spellcasters (particularly wizards, but not exclusively) are casually game-breaking.

Put aside level 20 nonsense like simulacrum loops or chaining true-polymorph*. Mid-to-high level casters get a variety of tools to let them trivialize common situations, and they're not even super niche. Spells like Fly, Dimension Door, and Etherealness let them circumvent normal obstacles. Divination spells let them gather information better than most mundane means. The right enchantment or illusion spell can auto-win social encounters. I don't want to litigate each individual example, but the point is that these are not extravagant efforts or weird, niche spells exploiting unintended interactions. These are spells adventuring spellcasters are likely to know/prepare, being used as intended. I don't really think they're comparable to an infinite money scheme revolving around abusing D&D's rudimentary economic rules.

*unfortunately, way too much theoretical discussion of D&D in general revolves around level 20, a level nobody plays at, rather than the 5-12ish range where the bulk of successful games are actually played.

[KorvinStarmast]

Diplomancer, MaxWilson, and others in this thread have really done a better job of articulating my PoV than I think I could have done myself. Thank you! You're welcome.

Also, before you go to sleep, make sure that you have a Shield Guardian and are wearing an amulet. We discovered during a couple of play test scenarios that you might be able to avoid getting taken out by the NPC assassin if the Shild Guardian is near the bed ...

[MaxWilson]

So one point that OP brought up that hasn't really been addressed is the efficacy of using money to raise an army rather than having a team of adventurers. I think he's correct in that for killing things and some other traditional adventuring jobs like defending an area, an army (or a platoon of archers in an airship as he mentioned) can be more effective than a small high level team. So that leads us to the question why have adventurers at all? Well there are a few reasons. First of all there are a good number of situations where an army can't reach or make use of their numbers advantage and in these situations having a team of pros is a better option. Many D&D adventures take place in old ruins, underground labyrinths, high in the mountains and other such places where an army wouldn't be feasible. Secondly no intelligent enemy would ever let itself be the subject of a platoon of archers unless they had some method of neutralizing such an assault. Be it with spells, fortifications, magic items, special abilities or an army of its own. If the enemy uses the last than we aren't playing D&D anymore but have moved into the realms of a large scale tactical war game. Which can be fun for sure, but armies vs. armies is not really what we're typically looking for in our D&D games. In any case it is interesting to think about where and when it would be more sensible to raise an army instead of leaving things in the hands of adventurers and what sort of back and forth that might entail.

This dynamic you identify is one of the reasons I am very opposed to "group stealth checks." As in, I want it to be legitimately harder to sneak around with an army of 200 humans than a strike team of 4 humans.

As I understand the history of D&D, D&D originated in the idea of sending in a small strike team of PCs to bypass the defenses of a castler during a siege by traversing its "dungeon," and I think that remains a fantastic and fruitful area of play. I wish 5E had scaled better so that big scenarios didn't have to be handwaved/guesstimated by the DM (and I am still working on my tools for running mass battles efficiently, so that it can scale), but even with guesstimation, I have gotten a lot of mileage out of scenarios such as "your army is besieging the mind flayer stronghold, but it's slow going. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take a small team in the back way, through an underground water cistern, to locate the handful of Mind Flayers who are in charge, and to decapitate enemy leadership without going through hundreds of goblins and ogres first."

Again, I wish "have the PCs lead a frontal assault" were an option I could legitimately offer the players instead of basically forcing them to choose between covert strike and nothing, but I still feel I'm getting value out of the army vs. army angle in creating this scenario in the first place.

Anyway, logistics is a significant limitation on armies, whether it is speed of personal travel (zombies can't keep up with horses), or limited transport (only N Potions of Water Breathing are available; Teleport only carries 9 people including the caster), or hazards (armies of common soldiers can't survive the d4 poison damage-per-hour that you'll take inside the volcanic crater). IME that's one good way to explain why PCs (and/or significant rival NPCs) need to get personally involved.


If the players want to focus on economic aspects that's just fine, my games already incorporate those elements. My current game has two competing polities engaged in a cold (occasionally hot) war which is largely based on economics. The latest iteration has seen the Kingdom of On-Asta send adventurers into the mountains to extinguish a beacon which keeps the undead in a cursed valley from threatening the surrounding area which includes an agricultural valley which feeds a large portion of the mountain settlements. This has made it possible for them to place that entire area under 'siege' by seizing a key transportation junction.

How are the economic-driven players going to react to the loss of raw materials, the influx of foreign merchants who enjoy a favored economic position under the new government, workers fleeing or looking to them for protection, and all the other fallout of the game? Will they hire adventurers to fix the beacon or do it themselves? Sounds like a game to me.

That sounds like a fun campaign!


I recognize that the OP is not meant to be taken literally, but I think it misses the point itself. The problem regarding 'narrative power' for spellcasters is not just overtly abusive stuff. Spellcasters (particularly wizards, but not exclusively) are casually game-breaking.

Put aside level 20 nonsense like simulacrum loops or chaining true-polymorph*. Mid-to-high level casters get a variety of tools to let them trivialize common situations, and they're not even super niche. Spells like Fly, Dimension Door, and Etherealness let them circumvent normal obstacles. Divination spells let them gather information better than most mundane means. The right enchantment or illusion spell can auto-win social encounters. I don't want to litigate each individual example, but the point is that these are not extravagant efforts or weird, niche spells exploiting unintended interactions. These are spells adventuring spellcasters are likely to know/prepare, being used as intended. I don't really think they're comparable to an infinite money scheme revolving around abusing D&D's rudimentary economic rules.

*unfortunately, way too much theoretical discussion of D&D in general revolves around level 20, a level nobody plays at, rather than the 5-12ish range where the bulk of successful games are actually played.

In the above-mentioned Mind Flayer scenario, I think it's totally fine if Etherealness is used to circumvent the Mind Flayer defenses and jump straight to the mind flayer command center. Again, that just explains why PCs are involved instead of the whole army. (Bear in mind that bringing more than one PC requires 8th or 9th level spell slots.) If you want to use your spell slots to jump straight to one big fight, kill four mind flayers and their bodyguards, and hope the rest of the mind flayers panic immediately--that's not much different from blasting your way directly to the control center of an XCOM Battleship to take out the enemy commander immediately. It's a legitimate strategy and not one a team of pure Champion Fighters would be able to pull off, but it's not like Champions wouldn't have options of their own, and if players all choose to play Champion Fighters presumably it's because they want to do things the Champion way.