How to Make Players Value Their Gold

[Techcaliber]

We all know that, in most games, once you reach a certain level gold becomes somewhat trivial, just a number you don’t have to worry too much about.

I don’t like this.

I want players to understand the value of good in the world. I want them to understand that the 50 gp healing potion they just bought represents a large amount of labor for the average person to even dream of affording. The problem is, I don’t know how to do this.

So I come to all you, asking what you would do in order to make them understand how valuable gold actually is. Thank you in advance.

[Mellack]

Honestly, I am not sure you can and keep the proper game balance of equipment. PCs are heroes, and not normal people. At high levels, they are travelling the planes. They have required spell components that cost more than a peasant will make in their entire life. Even at low level, a fighter's chain mail armor will be worth more than an unskilled workers wages for a year. If you try to keep them as poor as the common person, they just won't have the supplies to keep up. I suppose it is the same way I don't have a multi-million dollar fighter jet like a military pilot gets to use.

If you want, you could have the commoners act awestruck when the adventurers come into town. Have them whisper about the fine horses and lordly equipment these adventurers have. But then you will have to be careful to keep your world at that level. If 50 gp is considered super valuable, then I doubt the town guards are running around in breastplates or have a stockpile of crossbows laying around.

[Techcaliber]

You can always limit the amount of gold found in the campaign. Have beggars and thieves attempt to steal their loot. Have church officials asks for tithes and show the affects giving the money has on church followers etc. Have the local rulers tax them... after they spend a lot of their loot. Or have the rulers ask for loans or sell them titles and possibly politically screw them over. "Sorry laddies, but since your the Thanes of Winterdown you need to provide the Crown with 20 soldiers for the year. That'll cost you..."

Let the PCs purchase apartments, homes, strongholds, businesses, or employ hirelings and show how it affects the local economy. And maybe their wallets if said place of business does poorly or a home gets destroyed. Lower their standard of living and be descriptive should they loose a ton of gold. Or maybe let them hire tutors for languages, proficiencies, or even a feat depending on downtime. Or hire researchers to make or find magical items or keep an ear out for adventure possibilities. And so on.

How do the players handle their money? Where do they keep it when they get so much they can't possibly carry it all. Are there banks in your world? Must they change it in for gems or jewelry or something more easily carried? Do you make them take care of their equipment, replace stuff and have things like armor repaired etc.?

Was there something specific you were looking for?

First, nothing in specific that I was looking for. Second, this is great! The ideas will be helpful is coming up with what to do, and the list of things to think about will definitely help.

Thanks for responding!

[Zhorn]

A big part I find is to;
Always have something they can be saving up for
Make sure there's a cost associated with things by avoiding handwaving

For things to save up for; creating bases, managing land, running businesses, owning vessels, managing hirelings to run such operation in the party's absence. Idle gold is worthless gold. Always make it clear that the wealth they accumulate should be put to use in something if it's not already being saved up for a planned purpose.

Then there's the cost element for everyday things. Room and board, services in town, carousing, hired services, bribes. Even the dreaded gate fees and bureaucracy of travel papers and documentation. Treasure takes up space, so banking and security should also be taken into account. Much of this gets ignored, but that feeds into the 'gold is worthless' element.

[Techcaliber]

Honestly, I am not sure you can and keep the proper game balance of equipment. PCs are heroes, and not normal people. At high levels, they are travelling the planes. They have required spell components that cost more than a peasant will make in their entire life. Even at low level, a fighter's chain mail armor will be worth more than an unskilled workers wages for a year. If you try to keep them as poor as the common person, they just won't have the supplies to keep up. I suppose it is the same way I don't have a multi-million dollar fighter jet like a military pilot gets to use.

If you want, you could have the commoners act awestruck when the adventurers come into town. Have them whisper about the fine horses and lordly equipment these adventurers have. But then you will have to be careful to keep your world at that level. If 50 gp is considered super valuable, then I doubt the town guards are running around in breastplates or have a stockpile of crossbows laying around.

Yeah, the balance and difference between PCs and NPCs was why I came for help. The rumors are a great idea, assuming I can find the right balance where they don’t feel like the only thing in the world.

Thanks for your response!

[Sorinth]

I mean if all you want is for them to understand that it takes time to make stuff then you just have to limit how much they can buy. If there are 1-2 potions available at any one time and it takes a couple weeks to commission new ones then they should quickly understand that it takes time to make those type of things. Similarly most armour above starting equipment stuff shouldn't be hanging around, you have to commission it and then wait weeks/months for it to be made.

But really there's no way to make gold valuable if they have tons of it, the simple fact is that scarcity has a big impact on value. So the only solution for them to value gold is to keep them poor. The easiest way of doing so is to having a tax collector come along and demand a large sum based off using detect magic and seeing all the magic items the party carries. This can even create some fun RP moments trying to avoid the tax man, while also having alternate rewards like having a royal charter giving tax exemption for defeating a threat to the kingdom, or having a reason to join a guild and get a better tax rate, etc...

[Dork_Forge]

The first step here is to make sure that the players not only have downtime, but that the living costs for that downtime are applied. I make sure that players pay for stabling horses, inn stays in adventure, living costs between adventures and make sure that they have the opportunity to spend the money they earn (this doesn't have to be mechanical, some players love dropping coin on embelishing their characters, buying homes etc.).

The level at which gold ceasing to matter does depend on your party composition though, heavy armor users will be clutching their purse strings until they can afford plate, if there's no one with any real healing then the desire/demand for healing potions skyrockets, casters want to buy costly components and Wizards will want to scribe if they have found spells.

If you're finding that players are getting too careless with their gold you can try some things:

-Limit the overall amount handed out
-I personally don't just let PCs convert gems and art into coin, the listed value is the theoretical maximum and they will need to find a merchant and haggle to get the best price for those items. This delays the availability of the gold and makes them work harder for it, hopefully appreciating it more than just being handed a fat purse
-Once they reach a certain level of status (perhaps tier 2) then maybe the cities begin demanding tax and tithe from them, they don't need to live in the city or maybe not even enter it, but it'll make their lives easier and more comfortable and tax is certainly a realistic money sink
-Hirelings! Butlers, carriage drivers, guards (that don't participate in combat, but guard the horses and other NPCs whilst the PCs delve), hirelings can add RP hooks and connections whilst draining PC coffers quite nicely
-Custom work! PCs will (ime) pay a lot of money and time to achieve things that they want that aren't covered RAW. This might be a particular weapon/armor/item that suits their character/playstyle
-Debt! Oh this one hits home for sure. Maybe they start the campaign indebted to a patron or become such after a patron digs them out of a tight spot or fronts them what they need to embark on an adventure. With a debt owed then the PCs will know that no matter how fat the hoard, it won't all be available for spending (setting payment deadlines can help prevent Animal Crossing style repayment time frames...)

[Greywander]

Part of the problem is that it's hard to really understand how much gold is worth. A good rule of thumb that I've heard is to treat 1 copper piece as approximately equal to 1 US dollar (give or take, more likely closer to between $2 and $5). This helps when you want to know how much something should cost, and you can look up real world prices for such a thing. Now, IRL we have a lot of advanced technology that can help us build things for cheaper, but it can still give you a good estimate. This can also help give them a sense of how much something really costs. 50 gp for a healing potion doesn't sound like much, until you equate 1 gp to $100 and realize that the potion costs about as much as a bleeding edge gaming PC, or a used car. For a consumable, no less. There's definitely a lot of things you can do for just a few gold, if they feel inclined to engage with the world and NPCs. This could be buying gifts for people, providing financial assistance, or having fun.

Maybe something you could try is getting them to visit a carnival, where all the prices are calibrated toward random townsfolk (so super cheap for an adventurer). As the carnies see them throwing a lot of money around, they start trying to really hustle them good. There could be a fun arms race between the carnies trying to find new and efficient ways to part the players from their hard-earned gold and the players either smashing whatever games or challenges are set before them, or losing and not really caring because they have the cash to spend.

Other than that, I definitely recommend looking to letting them buy property, pay taxes, and run businesses or other institutions. Heck, let them start their own town, even. Not everyone will be interested in these kinds of things, but I know I would be. Do be aware that this can potentially distract from whatever story you have going. If they do start a town, try to integrate it into the plot.

[Elysiume]

Honestly, I am not sure you can and keep the proper game balance of equipment. PCs are heroes, and not normal people. At high levels, they are travelling the planes. They have required spell components that cost more than a peasant will make in their entire life. Even at low level, a fighter's chain mail armor will be worth more than an unskilled workers wages for a year. If you try to keep them as poor as the common person, they just won't have the supplies to keep up. I suppose it is the same way I don't have a multi-million dollar fighter jet like a military pilot gets to use.

If you want, you could have the commoners act awestruck when the adventurers come into town. Have them whisper about the fine horses and lordly equipment these adventurers have. But then you will have to be careful to keep your world at that level. If 50 gp is considered super valuable, then I doubt the town guards are running around in breastplates or have a stockpile of crossbows laying around.I don't primarily play 5e, but this is the kind of thing that I actively have to ignore in other settings — so much of it comes down to the optimal application of wealth and the disconnect between player and non-player economies. High level characters are throwing around thousands (or millions) of gold pieces when a few dozen GP are a life-changing amount of wealth to a normal person. Due to forum rules I can't really get into buying jets (and keeping them on standby until they're retired to a plane graveyard after never being used) instead of spending that money on improving the lives of citizens, but it's a constant niggling thought any time I hit high level, or play a cleric/paladin/whatever capable of curing the sick and injured.

I don't really have answer for this thread, and I apologize for that, but whatever value you assign to <item> needs to be lower than the value of just giving that money to the poor if you have good players in the party, if you really want to go for that. As I said, I try to ignore it, because I don't expect my DMs to focus on the fact that 3gp is a year's untrained wage, and I just found a sword that could house a dozen people for a hundred years. If you're focusing on the value of items found, I think you do need to consider the relative value for non-players, and either go with "it's worth five dozen people losing their homes for one year for you to drink that potion of supreme healing because their lives would be forfeit if you let Rovagug rip the planet in half" or some other justification for the consumption of valuable magic items.

[Hopeless]

I have to ask are you tired of running the game?

The impression I'm getting from this and the replies is that maybe you're over thinking this?

The majority of that money is quite probably going to pay for services, gear, training and in the case of the wizard their spellbook.

You start playing silly beggars with that, what kind of game are you left with?

If your players are fine with you doing that, then okay good for them.

But please be careful that kind of behaviour can backfire on you if you go too far!

All the best.

[Unoriginal]

We all know that, in most games, once you reach a certain level gold becomes somewhat trivial, just a number you donÂ’t have to worry too much about.

I donÂ’t like this.

I want players to understand the value of good in the world. I want them to understand that the 50 gp healing potion they just bought represents a large amount of labor for the average person to even dream of affording. The problem is, I donÂ’t know how to do this.

So I come to all you, asking what you would do in order to make them understand how valuable gold actually is. Thank you in advance.

Well, there is three important questions to ask yourself, first:

-Does the group's goal or any of the character's goals require either spending or possessing money?

-How much of the riches the PCs find is in easy-to-spend form?

In my experience, the trully big paydays are rare, which is what make getting a dragon's hoard or similar exceptional. Otherwise while the PCs do get rewards, a good share of it is going to be favors, equipment (magic or not), goods they'd have to sell if they want cash out of it, lands or buildings, etc.

And finally:

-Where in your campaign/setting can the PCs spend their gold and why would they want to do it?

Investing in a gem mine, tes tartine a dying martial art school, organizing a bardic contest, there are tons of things the PCs may be interested in doing that require a lot of money.

[MoiMagnus]

Yeah, the balance and difference between PCs and NPCs was why I came for help.

[Warning, unorthodox suggestion here]

Nothing is more realistic than having an aristocracy that daily spend in luxury a lifetime of the average's worker salary. Just have noble NPCs be as "removed from reality" as the high level PCs, they're at the top of the fantastic part of the medieval-fantastic world while most of the population is stuck in the medieval part of it (mixed with some horror fantasy because those poor souls don't have the tools to deal with the monsters).

With this approach, you now have money sinks for your high level PCs. How to spend the Dragon's treasure hoard? Just buy a 10k gp robe (no effect other than being expensive and pretty), because that's the minimum you need for the elf king to accept to consider talking to you.
(He has better things to do than talking to barbarians in common cloths, like for example bathing in a literal health potions to preserve his skin)

[MrStabby]

I think you should think about what your table enjoys in games and whether any changes will add to or detract from the time they spend doing this.

Some tables are deep into the resource management side and efficient planning of expeditions- working out how much food and how many arrows to take - is a major positive part of the game for them.

Others find this a less fun part of the game and hand wave it away. If this is the case, detailed tracking of costs might not be a good idea.

I would also take a look player expectations for their characters ,at least if its mid game. If you have a player who chose their character on the basis of picking up heavy armour or casting a spell with an expensive component and you stomp on their dreams it can hurt. If its at the start, just give a heads-up before character selection that it will be a low wealth game.

You might want to add or subtract some elements from the game for balance purposes. Wealth does change the balance between classes somewhat - at low levels its equipment for martials, at higher levels scrolls for wizards. I would suggest that you adjust availability/price of some items to keep classes broadly balanced. Ie. If you are tight with gold, you still let fighters pick up plate mail, either through lower cost or a favour or through making it from the hide of a vanquished monster.

Furthermore, I would add some cool mechanical benefit to each class that gold can help with. The marginal value of gold to each PC should also be broadly similar so that it doesnt cause friction in the party around the pursuit of wealth. Let clerics tithe, for example, but give them something in return.

Making gold relevant is about both supply and demand and as you go through the game you should actively be tweaking both of these.

[elyktsorb]

You can always limit the amount of gold found in the campaign. Have beggars and thieves attempt to steal their loot. Have church officials asks for tithes and show the affects giving the money has on church followers etc. Have the local rulers tax them... after they spend a lot of their loot. Or have the rulers ask for loans or sell them titles and possibly politically screw them over. "Sorry laddies, but since your the Thanes of Winterdown you need to provide the Crown with 20 soldiers for the year. That'll cost you..."



Not to be cynical, but the above is the sort of thing that doesn't make me value my gold more, it just makes me wonder why I'm having it taken. It also just makes me not want to interact with those characters. 'Beggars, well the last time we went near beggars they stole X gold from us, let's just avoid them entirely'

My value of currency in game comes from playing previous editions where the good stuff is very expensive, and you'll only have limited opportunities to get said expensive stuff.

[Minice]

An unskilled laborer makes 2sp/day sure. but how many ppl are unskilled for more than a year?

A regular skilled laborer makes 2gp/day. a tutor makes 5gp/day. an alchemist makes 25gp/day. any apprentice spellcaster can make double that. and thats not even the most expensive 1st level npc.

So you can say that most npc's can't afford a healing potion, but for most settings thats just not true. a orphan would on average be able to afford one. the thieves guild looks out for its own.

Then you add the inflation of a planar market. Go hang out in sigil, that'll cost you a bunch.


But i digress, how to make pc's value gold...i don't think this is a pc issue? do you let the pc'd use their money? is there a ye old magic shop somewhere where they can actually spend it? can they hire a band of mercs? Homes in Waterdeep? Can they bribe the dragon to do something? can they pay the tolls of the city of brass and the bribes necessary to even barter with efreet? Can they buy a base in another plane? get a flying fortress?

i always have issues with gold. even when i have millions. Everything is expensive. just buying some consumables is 10k-250k each?

What level range are you having issues with? Until like...actually i never have issues spending all of my money as soon as i get any. or bleeding my players dry. And i go for slightly above the recommended amount of hordes.

[JackPhoenix]

An unskilled laborer makes 2sp/day sure. but how many ppl are unskilled for more than a year?

Most of them. The kind of work covered by unskilled laborers (anything that doesn't require proficiency) won't do itself. Farmers are considered unskilled laborers (there's no proficiency associated with farming), and everyone needs to eat, so there's much more need for farmers than for, say, blacksmiths.


A regular skilled laborer makes 2gp/day. a tutor makes 5gp/day. an alchemist makes 25gp/day. any apprentice spellcaster can make double that. and thats not even the most expensive 1st level npc.

First, "regular skilled laborer" is a specialist, not the majority of working force. Second, there's a difference between the pay you'll get in steady job and for being hired temporarily by a bunch of people with more money than sense: even if you want to go with PC-centric excuse for an economy, "working" simply pays for your lifestyle, it doesn't give you actual gold. And third, no, alchemist does not "make 25 gp/day". As skilled laborer, he gets paid the same as everyone else.

[GloatingSwine]

The first step here is to make sure that the players not only have downtime, but that the living costs for that downtime are applied. I make sure that players pay for stabling horses, inn stays in adventure, living costs between adventures and make sure that they have the opportunity to spend the money they earn (this doesn't have to be mechanical, some players love dropping coin on embelishing their characters, buying homes etc.).


The issue with modelling "living costs" is that the players' basic ass equipment they will have from a couple of levels into the campaign cost more than anyone outside of the nobility will see in their entire lives. Not the magical stuff. Just the decently made basic equipment.

Unless the players intend to live like dukes and earls in between adventures, it is impossible for them to even notice the money they're spending on living costs.


An unskilled laborer makes 2sp/day sure. but how many ppl are unskilled for more than a year?

All of them. In the sort of environment people adventure in, you're either trained as a skilled labourer when you're young as an apprentice or never.

Now, in the late medieval period people imagine as the backdrop for adventures, the difference between skilled and unskilled labour wasn't as high as it became later (after the Black Death), so an unskilled labourer would make 2 pennies a day and a skilled labourer (carpenters, masons, etc) would make 4-6 depending on experience. So a skilled labourer making 2gp whilst an unskilled one makes 2sp implies either a hilarious devaluation of gold* in the setting or an extreme rarity of skilled labour. (The reason wages for skilled labourers went up drastically after the black death)

* And no, it wouldn't be 1gp:100sp, that's a hilariously high value of gold. Gold is usually about 20:1 to silver.



This is, of course, the other issue with "living expenses" in medieval fantasy roleplay systems. The currency mechanics were not designed to deal with them. The currency mechanics were designed to be relatively easy for modern nerds to connect to not to reflect the way the sort of setting being depicted actually dealt with money.

[Unoriginal]

An unskilled laborer makes 2sp/day sure. but how many ppl are unskilled for more than a year?

"Unskilled" here doesn't mean "the person doing it is not skilled", but "the job doesn't require any particular skill". It's the kind of job that the boss goes "there is 20 people I can hire instead of you the moment you're too much of a bother, so take the money and don't complain".


Most of them. The kind of work covered by unskilled laborers (anything that doesn't require proficiency) won't do itself. Farmers are considered unskilled laborers (there's no proficiency associated with farming), and everyone needs to eat, so there's much more need for farmers than for, say, blacksmiths.

The wages section does describe skilled farmer as a among those who get 2gp/day, though. "Unskilled laborer" is the one who does the menial tasks on a farm, probably hired on a day-to-day basis, not the one who has to handle the complexities of farming.


And third, no, alchemist does not "make 25 gp/day". As skilled laborer, he gets paid the same as everyone else.

I think Minice meant "if the alchemist sells what they produce". You're right if the alchemist is an employee, though.

[Warder]

I think for gold to feel satisfying as a reward (and for players to value it), three things are needed:

1) Limited inflow, to make windfalls in wealth feel special. This doesn't mean gold needs to be scarce, just limited.
2) Something exciting to save up for, whether that's a magical item, a home base, a ship or something else that's prestigeful while also having some sort of impact on the game.
3) Conflict - obstacles to get in the way of point 2. For gold to feel valuable, it needs to tick down as well as up. I wouldn't recommend thefts here, necessarily, but rather unexpected expenses. Renting an airship, buying an expensive gift to bribe an official, etc. Just be careful to avoid the one step forward, two steps back feeling, and use this point sparingly.

Gathering wealth is a great story chord if done right, so it's sad that it's so downplayed in 5e. However, I think it can be salvaged! Just keep in mind that the quest for gold is rarely even a part of the main quest, it's just something that happens on the side, so treat it that way. Unless, of course, it IS part of the main quest like in Baldur's Gate 2 when you're tasked by the Shadow Thieves to gather 20,000 gold at the very start. That can create a cool story in itself, especially if there's a perceived time limit.

[Unoriginal]

Gathering wealth is a great story chord if done right, so it's sad that it's so downplayed in 5e.

It's not really downplayed. It's just that the reward for getting rich is living like rich people, and that acquiring money only for money's sake rather than for some other goals is inherently unfulfilling (unless you love money itself).

Can't fault 5e for not providing an answer to the age-old question of "if your goal is to get the money, what do you do once you get the money?".

[Minice]

Most of them. The kind of work covered by unskilled laborers (anything that doesn't require proficiency) won't do itself. Farmers are considered unskilled laborers (there's no proficiency associated with farming), and everyone needs to eat, so there's much more need for farmers than for, say, blacksmiths.



First, "regular skilled laborer" is a specialist, not the majority of working force. Second, there's a difference between the pay you'll get in steady job and for being hired temporarily by a bunch of people with more money than sense: even if you want to go with PC-centric excuse for an economy, "working" simply pays for your lifestyle, it doesn't give you actual gold. And third, no, alchemist does not "make 25 gp/day". As skilled laborer, he gets paid the same as everyone else.

The difference between a farmer and an unskilled laborer is where they work. a laborer is trying to pick up day labor in a city. the farmer owns a house and would live it in the countryside. that alone saves them 2 gp/day according to the phb. so in your example the humble farmer ''makes'' more then a regular skilled laborer. because he is at his job.

Lets go at this from a different point of view then. how much does it cost you the pc. to hire a farmer. depends on the area. but lets say just in general, kinda out in the boonies. thats what 100k just to own land for you the pc. being granted a noble title and domain.(if your in heavy favor with the lord and can even get one) then is construction and land clearing. building the hamlet and defenses. another 10-50k at least. then you need to build the keep. thats 50k if you don't account for being out in the boonies. then it'd be 150-500k gold.

alright so your at like 160k-500k gold, for what 100-200 farmers? i mean sure they don't make much, but thiers more costs involved than what your saying.


and 2. regular skilled laborers are in fact not a specialist. thats why the PHB states that the most basic hirelings are on the table. other common hirelings could be a carpenter or a blacksmith or tailor. Other hirelings could be mercenaries.

A regular blacksmith is more then 2gp/day. a Master blacksmith is much more than 2gp/day. a blacksmith apprentice might be around that much. Just the pc, wandering into town asking around for day work can make 39g/week or 5-6g a day doing blacksmith work. imagine a guy working there normally making less than the day labor.

[Unoriginal]

The difference between a farmer and an unskilled laborer is where they work. a laborer is trying to pick up day labor in a city. the farmer owns a house and would live it in the countryside. that alone saves them 2 gp/day according to the phb. so in your example the humble farmer ''makes'' more then a regular skilled laborer. because he is at his job.

Not really, a laborer is a farm employee.

[GloatingSwine]

The wages section does describe skilled farmer as a among those who get 2gp/day, though. "Unskilled laborer" is the one who does the menial tasks on a farm, probably hired on a day-to-day basis, not the one who has to handle the complexities of farming.


The world doesn't have that sort of floating labour.

Everyone who works on a farm lives either on it or a very short walk away from it (usually the former). Farm labourers would be hired for a year at a time most commonly. Their wage would accomodate for the fact that they get bed and board as part of their job, so it would be lower than a city labourer like a dockhand or builder's labourer (not a mason, the guys who carry stuff around) or a common soldier.

There's no such thing really as a "skilled farmer" who gets wages. The main farm family would probably be good at farming, but nobody pays them to do it. They run the farm, the farm provides them their daily needs, they sell some produce from it to buy anything they can't make or grow themselves, and probably pay rent and taxes in kind (some share of the farm's produce directly) to the landowner.

[Minice]

"Unskilled" here doesn't mean "the person doing it is not skilled", but "the job doesn't require any particular skill". It's the kind of job that the boss goes "there is 20 people I can hire instead of you the moment you're too much of a bother, so take the money and don't complain".



The wages section does describe skilled farmer as a among those who get 2gp/day, though. "Unskilled laborer" is the one who does the menial tasks on a farm, probably hired on a day-to-day basis, not the one who has to handle the complexities of farming.



I think Minice meant "if the alchemist sells what they produce". You're right if the alchemist is an employee, though.

Yes there is lots of unskilled work to do, and lots of poor or untrained. my original comment was more going on that not all work is unskilled and that theirs a large variety above and beyond the things on the table in the phb.

yes i was assuming maximum profit for the alchemist for making healing potions. its not particularly accurate if you go into the details. even if he sold what he makes. but i thought it'd be a good enough guesstimate.

[Unoriginal]

The world doesn't have that sort of floating labour.

Untrue.

Day laborers/peons were a thing for a long time.



Everyone who works on a farm lives either on it or a very short walk away from it (usually the former). Farm labourers would be hired for a year at a time most commonly.

True nowadays, but a medieval or pseudo-medieval village in a rural area would have several farms close to each other and no guarantee there would be work on any of them on a daily basis.

Furthermore, in some places during the middle age, the lord's land had to be worked on too and the local farmers had to work a certain number of days on it as a kind of tax.



Their wage would accomodate for the fact that they get bed and board as part of their job, so it would be lower than a city labourer like a dockhand or builder's labourer (not a mason, the guys who carry stuff around) or a common soldier.

That much is true.



There's no such thing really as a "skilled farmer" who gets wages. The main farm family would probably be good at farming, but nobody pays them to do it. They run the farm, the farm provides them their daily needs, they sell some produce from it to buy anything they can't make or grow themselves, and probably pay rent and taxes in kind (some share of the farm's produce directly) to the landowner.

That's... debatable. Someone in charge of the farming operation is not necessarily living off the farm like a "farm family", they can be someone hired by the owner to manage it. Or it can be a "farm family" with an overseer of the employees who is a skilled farmer getting wages.

[JackPhoenix]

The wages section does describe skilled farmer as a among those who get 2gp/day, though. "

No, it doesn't. "Skilled hirelings include anyone hired to perform a service that involves a proficiency (including weapon, tool, or skill): a mercenary, artisan, scribe, and so on." No mention of farmers, and there's no skill, tool or weapon proficiency associated with farming either.


I think Minice meant "if the alchemist sells what they produce". You're right if the alchemist is an employee, though.

Then they get 25 gp in tenday, not 25 gp/day. Crafting progression is 5 gp/day, assuming you're using PC crafting rules, and you'll pay half of that in material.

[Unoriginal]

Then they get 25 gp in tenday, not 25 gp/day. Crafting progression is 5 gp/day, assuming you're using PC crafting rules, and you'll pay half of that in material.

True.

An healing potion takes a day and costs 25gp to make, sold at 50gp, but it's herbalism, not alchemy, and 25gp is a significant investment.

[Minice]

Then they get 25 gp in tenday, not 25 gp/day. Crafting progression is 5 gp/day, assuming you're using PC crafting rules, and you'll pay half of that in material.

Where are you even getting your numbers? DMG pg 129 is 25g/day. Xanathars pg 130 is 25g/day.

I suppose your using ''normal crafting'' in xanathars. if only xanathars was internally consistent we could use any chart but alas it isn't.

[JackPhoenix]

True.

An healing potion takes a day and costs 25gp to make, sold at 50gp, but it's herbalism, not alchemy, and 25gp is a significant investment.

Not by PHB rules. With them, a healing potions takes 10 days to make. OPTIONAL rules from Tasha shortens that considerably, true, but then the alchemist still has to sell the potion, and I doubt there's much of a demand for those, considering most people aren't supposed to take HP damage, which is all the potion helps with, and even if they do, they propably die (because they are 4-hp commoners) or can wait until they get all their HP back on a long rest, AND the potion costs 50 gp which is a lot. Unless you're an adventurer, there's a little use in them.


Where are you even getting your numbers? DMG pg 129 is 25g/day. Xanathars pg 130 is 25g/day.

I suppose your using ''normal crafting'' in xanathars. if only xanathars was internally consistent we could use any chart but alas it isn't.

That's for magic items in the DMG. Potion of Healing is in PHB, like the crafting rules for making them.

[Minice]

True.

An healing potion takes a day and costs 25gp to make, sold at 50gp, but it's herbalism, not alchemy, and 25gp is a significant investment.

Depends, it costs 25g worth of herbs. How many herbs can the herbalist find in a day/week? Depends on luck and where he goes looking i'd imagine. Or maybe he has a herb garden. or a regular supplier.

And even if it costs the PCs 25g worth of materials thats at store cost. to make a profit the storekeeper prolly gets it at what 10g? gotta account for markup and the DMG keeping the pc's from making wealth from things other than adventuring.

[JackPhoenix]

Depends, it costs 25g worth of herbs. How many herbs can the herbalist find in a day/week? Depends on luck and where he goes looking i'd imagine. Or maybe he has a herb garden. or a regular supplier.

And even if it costs the PCs 25g worth of materials thats at store cost.

[Citation needed] It's not "25 gp worth of materials at store cost". It's 25 gp worth of materials, it doesn't say where do they came from. If that herbalist wants to make a Potion of Healing, he needs to spend 25 gp for *something*, even if he grows the herbs himself. Seeds, fertiliser, whatever.


to make a profit the storekeeper prolly gets it at what 10g? gotta account for markup and the DMG keeping the pc's from making wealth from things other than adventuring.

The storekeeper gets twice the material cost for the final product. The crafting cost still needs to be paid.

[Minice]

Not by PHB rules. With them, a healing potions takes 10 days to make. OPTIONAL rules from Tasha shortens that considerably, true, but then the alchemist still has to sell the potion, and I doubt there's much of a demand for those, considering most people aren't supposed to take HP damage, which is all the potion helps with, and even if they do, they propably die (because they are 4-hp commoners) or can wait until they get all their HP back on a long rest, AND the potion costs 50 gp which is a lot. Unless you're an adventurer, there's a little use in them.



That's for magic items in the DMG. Potion of Healing is in PHB, like the crafting rules for making them.

Man its almost like a potion of healing is a common magic item DMG pg 188. and therefore use the magic item rules. and the chart that specifically states how long and for how much a pc can make a potion of healing for Xanathats pg 130. Specific beats general.

Also if healing potions are so unused and uncommon in your setting. Why are they readily available from pretty much any general store. as indicated by it being on items you can buy chart in the PHB.

Edit - Also why wouldn't a guard want a potion? or even a villager. npc's only die at 0 for convenience. a potion could save someones life from a stray arrow or any number of things.

[Droppeddead]

With this approach, you now have money sinks for your high level PCs. How to spend the Dragon's treasure hoard? Just buy a 10k gp robe (no effect other than being expensive and pretty), because that's the minimum you need for the elf king to accept to consider talking to you.
(He has better things to do than talking to barbarians in common cloths, like for example bathing in a literal health potions to preserve his skin)

I *really* like this approach. Why would any higher ups accept visits from filthy murder hobos when the least the murder hobos can do is dress nice? I'm sooo stealing that idea. :D


Most of them. The kind of work covered by unskilled laborers (anything that doesn't require proficiency) won't do itself. Farmers are considered unskilled laborers (there's no proficiency associated with farming), and everyone needs to eat, so there's much more need for farmers than for, say, blacksmiths.

Anyone who knows anything about farming knows that it is very much skilled labour. Sure, it doesn't translate directly into D&D rules for proficiences (at least if you ignore the animal handling, woodworking, nature and other skill checks (including Ankheg culling, if BG1 hasn't lied to me)) required but it is in no way, shape or form unskilled labour. Also, a farmer wouldn't need to pay for food and material in the same amount as for example a tradesperson would have to. In fact, historically a free, landowning peasant was quite often quite well of.

Anyway, my suggestion to the OP is either to not give as much money to the players and have fun ways of taking the money away from them. For example, in my game everyone. including vagrant "adventurers" have to pay taxes every once in a while. If you don't you lose your rights and privileges, which sucks.

Other ways include everyday expenses or the cost of say, planning a heist (you gotta spend money to make money, the underrated movie Plunkett & Macleane has some good advice on this) or just keeping up appearances. Who's going to hire a bunch of adventurers who can't even keep up with the latest fashion trends?

Another thing to consider is that even a dragon's hoard has to come from somewhere. If a city asks the PC to kill a dragon it is reasonable for them to expect at least some of the stolen goods returned. If all the players do is kill the dragon and steal the treasure, how are they better than the dragon?

Lastly I want to point out the system of being on retainer. Instead of freelancing for huge amounts every now and then, why not have the PCs have a somewhat lower but steady income? Give them a nice place to live and living expenses (and then some) paid but in return they are expected to perform certain duties. They might be free to earn more money but when their patron comes calling, they better answer or everyone will learn what cheap lousy scoundrels they are. :)

[Minice]

[Citation needed] It's not "25 gp worth of materials at store cost". It's 25 gp worth of materials, it doesn't say where do they came from. If that herbalist wants to make a Potion of Healing, he needs to spend 25 gp for *something*, even if he grows the herbs himself. Seeds, fertiliser, whatever.



The storekeeper gets twice the material cost for the final product. The crafting cost still needs to be paid.

Man its almost like 25gp is a variable cost. Can you wander into the woods and collect things? yes you can. can things grown in the wild be sold for money, oh look they can be. its almost like you can make money without spending money!

either way i'm not gonna convince you how economics work. I will not be continuing this, lets go back to the main topic.

[JackPhoenix]

Man its almost like a potion of healing is a common magic item DMG pg 188. and therefore use the magic item rules. and the chart that specifically states how long and for how much a pc can make a potion of healing for Xanathats pg 130. Specific beats general.

It's almost like there are two different Potions of Healing. One is a common magic item in the DMG, and the other is a not a magic item available in the PHB. The difference is that one has a variable price (as all magic items) and use magic item crafting rules (which, in the DMG, require the creator to be a spellcaster), the other has a set price, can be made with herbalism kit proficiency, and uses normal crafting rules from the PHB


Also if healing potions are so unused and uncommon in your setting. Why are they readily available from pretty much any general store. as indicated by it being on items you can buy chart in the PHB.

Says who? Plate armor or an elephant is also in a chart in the PHB, that doesn't mean you can buy one in "pretty much any general store".

And even the DMG notes that "Common items, such as a potion of healing, can be procured from an alchemist, herbalist, or spellcaster. Doing so is rarely as simple as walking into a shop and selecting an item from a shelf. The seller might ask for a service, rather than coin."


Edit - Also why wouldn't a guard want a potion? or even a villager. npc's only die at 0 for convenience. a potion could save someones life from a stray arrow or any number of things.

So can a healer's kit, at the one hundreth of the cost per use. Neither will help you if you're on your own, and both need to be applied in at most 30 seconds.


Man its almost like 25gp is a variable cost. Can you wander into the woods and collect things? yes you can. can things grown in the wild be sold for money, oh look they can be. its almost like you can make money without spending money!

Funny, but... you can't. Alchemist's supplies optional rules from XGtE state that "A character can spend money to collect raw materials, which weigh 1 pound for every 50 gp spent." 'Spend money to *collect* raw materials, not *buy* raw materials. Apparently, those wanderings in the woods get awfully expensive.


either way i'm not gonna convince you how economics work. I will not be continuing this, lets go back to the main topic.

It doesn't matter how economics work. It matters how the GAME RULES concerning economics work (they don't). Which, considering how complex topic real economics is, isn't that surprising.

[Joe the Rat]

Treat every copper piece as a dollar, and don't handwave the tavern spending and inn experience.

three copper cheap beer
house wine is a silver a glass.
Then you can start dropping brands. It's not just sparkling wine, its Fantasy Cristal.
one gold will buy a sizeable table of greasy food. One gold per person is a multi course feast.

If you have the right look, you could try the fancy places.

A handful of copper will get you cab fare to anywhere in town. A few silver will get you the scuttlebutt from the common man. A few gold in the right hands can get you in anywhere.

One gold is a day's wages for labor, a decent pair of boots, or a bottle of well-aged dwarven spirits.

50 gold buys you a potion of healing... or a horse. A draft horse and a cart (plus tack) is the setting equivalent of a small car. 100 gold is a sizeable reward. 100 gold each is the kind of money you expect for specialists on a big job. Dragon Heist represents a $50,000,000 payday.

Yes, your gear is expensive. That's part of why armor and weapons are rare. Your city watch should probably be in leathers or ring - chainmail is for nobles' guards.

[Minice]

It's almost like there are two different Potions of Healing. One is a common magic item in the DMG, and the other is a not a magic item available in the PHB. The difference is that one has a variable price (as all magic items) and use magic item crafting rules (which, in the DMG, require the creator to be a spellcaster), the other has a set price, can be made with herbalism kit proficiency, and uses normal crafting rules from the PHB



Says who? Plate armor or an elephant is also in a chart in the PHB, that doesn't mean you can buy one in "pretty much any general store".

And even the DMG notes that "Common items, such as a potion of healing, can be procured from an alchemist, herbalist, or spellcaster. Doing so is rarely as simple as walking into a shop and selecting an item from a shelf. The seller might ask for a service, rather than coin."



So can a healer's kit, at the one hundreth of the cost per use. Neither will help you if you're on your own, and both need to be applied in at most 30 seconds.



Funny, but... you can't. Alchemist's supplies optional rules from XGtE state that "A character can spend money to collect raw materials, which weigh 1 pound for every 50 gp spent." 'Spend money to *collect* raw materials not *buy* raw materials.



It doesn't matter how economics work. It matters how the GAME RULES concerning economics work (they don't). Which, considering how complex topic real economics is, isn't that surprising.

1. Oh yes, 2 different magical potions of healing, costing the same amount and doing the same thing. look in the PHB pg 153 under the Potion of healing entry you will find.

A character who drinks the magical red fluid in this vial regains 2d4 + 2 hit points.

2. Alchemist supplies....hmm its almost like that isn't a gathering profession. maybe go look at herbalism kit? and see the DC 15 to find plants.

3. Yes a healers kit could stabilize someone. but if you want them to get back up and keep moving/fighting it doesn't do that. and monsters are pretty common in dnd. if i had a choice i'd always have the better version. depends on the person i suppose.

4. Yes in the DMG it states in the general buying magic items section, that even if you restrict magic and not let it be buyable. common magic items such as a potion of healing, should still be purchasable from such people as alchemists, herbalists, or spellcasters.

Normally if you can buy a 50gp chainmail in a town, you could also find a 50gp potion. i can't find the chart for that in this edition, so i guess its up to the gm now as to where things can be bought if at all. gotta love making everything ''optional''.

[Unoriginal]

the other has a set price, can be made with herbalism kit proficiency, and uses normal crafting rules from the PHB

Just saying, the "anyone with Herbalism's Kit proficiency can make a normal healing potion" rule is an optional rule from the Xanathar's, and it uses the special rules for crafting this specific healing potion.

The normal healing potion is still a magic item, however, just the easiest one to make.

Regardless, it doesn't change the fact they're still expensive to make and expensive to buy.


i can't find the chart for that in this edition, so i guess its up to the gm now as to where things can be bought if at all. gotta love making everything ''optional''.

The DM always had complete power over what could and couldn't be bought. Regardless of the edition.

A chart cannot change that, and never changed that.

[Sneak Dog]

If all you have are things the characters want to buy, the characters value gold, but the players don't yet. So get something the players want to spend gold on, let them spend their gold on it and have it. Then get more things they want to spend gold on, now that they've already spent their gold.

[Minice]

Just saying, the "anyone with Herbalism's Kit proficiency can make a normal healing potion" rule is an optional rule from the Xanathar's, and it uses the special rules for crafting this specific healing potion.

The normal healing potion is still a magic item, however, just the easiest one to make.

Regardless, it doesn't change the fact they're still expensive to make and expensive to buy.



The DM always had complete power over what could and couldn't be bought. Regardless of the edition.

A chart cannot change that, and never changed that.

Yes but a gm can use the tools provided. The DMG is supposed to be a tool the gm can use. not just a oh yeah man i know we made a 400 page book but lets just not add a bunch of the useful bits. Everything is and has been optional, them putting optional inside the optional things is just stupid.

Its just a lazy design standpoint that 5e has taken. and i dislike that. i'm fine with the dm doin whatever.

[Democratus]

Give tangible rewards for buying very expensive things. A prime example of this would be in "Strongholds and Followers", where you can spend huge amounts of money buying and upgrading a home base. Each upgrade gives a character extra powers and abilities beyond their normal class abilities.

In my West Marches campaign, characters can spend money to improve their home town. This includes building forts, churches, libraries, stables, etc. I have a dependency chart for all of these facilities that unlock new classes and powers. They can also spend money on improving the size of the home town and, therefore, the kinds of things that the place can provide. A village won't be able to support a lavish lifestyle like a city can. A metropolis may actually have a magic emporium. Guilds only appear once the home base has reached "town" size.

All of these upgrades cost so much money that the party could never afford everything, so they must chose which upgrades they want to purchase and save up for the really important ones.

[JackPhoenix]

1. Oh yes, 2 different magical potions of healing, costing the same amount and doing the same thing.

They don't cost the same amount. PHB has a set price of 50 gp, which is the upper bound of the variant price the DMG recommends for consumable common item. The potion can cost anywhere between 25 and 50 gp per the DMG pricing.


2. Alchemist supplies....hmm its almost like that isn't a gathering profession. maybe go look at herbalism kit? and see the DC 15 to find plants.

There's no "gathering profession". This isn't World of Warcraft. "Find Plants" is not "generate gold out of nothing".


Normally if you can buy a 50gp chainmail in a town, you could also find a 50gp potion. i can't find the chart for that in this edition, so i guess its up to the gm now as to where things can be bought if at all. gotta love making everything ''optional''.

That's not "normal". Just because the town has a smith capable of making an armor doesn't mean it also has a alchemist capable of making potions. That was always the case.

[Droppeddead]

They don't cost the same amount. PHB has a set price of 50 gp, which is the upper bound of the variant price the DMG recommends for consumable common item. The potion can cost anywhere between 25 and 50 gp per the DMG pricing.

There is nothing that says that the price in the PHB can't be changed.


There's no "gathering profession". This isn't World of Warcraft. "Find Plants" is not "generate gold out of nothing".

Lots of professions have the skills needed to gather plants.


That's not "normal". Just because the town has a smith capable of making an armor doesn't mean it also has a alchemist capable of making potions. That was always the case.

And vice versa, of course.

[Unoriginal]

Lots of professions have the skills needed to gather plants.

Indeed, but that has no effect on the amount of gold you have to spend for components and other crafting prerequisites.

[Droppeddead]

Indeed, but that has no effect on the amount of gold you have to spend for components and other crafting prerequisites.

Well, that is up to the DM.

[Minice]

Indeed, but that has no effect on the amount of gold you have to spend for components and other crafting prerequisites.

or does it? Can a pc go up to his gm and say, hey i wanna go collect materials. i would rule that yes they totally could.

[KaussH]

Most the time, pcs look like they have money.

So make the small stuff cheap (beer, stew, ect) and make the pricy stuff more expensive (mark ups for potions or the rare rare magic item) add stuff like cigars, have innkeepers offer "better" goods or offer better food. Have craftspeople talk up "extras" on items like engraving and design. Heck I have a category for items called fine. It's not master work, its just cool and shiny, and costs a lot more. Convince the rogue they need a matched set of fine daggers.


Ask stuff like "did you want a bath with the room, it will be x more. "


I tend to divide a lot of my in game costs to "people without a lot of money=lower prices and basic stuff" and people with money "nobles, adventures, ect = higher prices and add ons and stories. "

[elyktsorb]

Of course it depends entirely on the sort of campaign you're trying to create/run and the respective players' experience. For some tables it's completely fine to handwave keeping track of money spent, resources used, encumbrance and whatnot. Especially if you've been playing for awhile and already have a good concept of your fantasy world's economy and especially if your players don't think it's fun for the table any more. I mean, getting robbed or hassled by beggars shouldn't happen frequently unless players are purposely throwing around money and attracting a bunch of attention. Consequences should still be a given in my opinion. Sometimes though, such as with new players, said example of players throwing around money, or a a table that wants to play the "keep track of resources" minigame, sure, some of those suggestions might be used to help shape and give a snapshot of the world's economy.

I've been playing for 40+ years and agree with you about playing previous editions and it teaching us to value or money. Most of the editions I played or DM'd had plenty of things to do with your wealth though, an area where 5e's core is pretty lacking. I do remember AD&D 1st Edition's DMG having a section on economy and another on all the "Ts;" taxes, tithes, tolls, tariffs, and whatnot. 2nd Edition had an entire DMG chapter on money and I believe introduced the monthly living expenses concept. And also different ways to drain the players' monetary gains. In fact, one example given is a thief robbing a player character's castle and making off with their treasure. It even goes so far as to suggest having an adventure ready to track down the thief, but perhaps the thief has already spent a significant portion of said treasures... thus, maybe you can see many of my suggestions given above are rooted in previous editions. ;) YMMV as always.

I've been playing 5th edition since it started and I've never had so much money (except for like, the yawning portal) to where I was throwing it all over the place so I can't say I know that much in terms of a lack of things to spend on in this edition.

[Dork_Forge]

The issue with modelling "living costs" is that the players' basic ass equipment they will have from a couple of levels into the campaign cost more than anyone outside of the nobility will see in their entire lives. Not the magical stuff. Just the decently made basic equipment.

Unless the players intend to live like dukes and earls in between adventures, it is impossible for them to even notice the money they're spending on living costs.


The players equipment has nothing to do with this, that facilitates adventure unless they decide to gut their own inventory (and if they do, then they should start facing very basic problems as a result.

As for living expenses not putting a dent in player gold unless they live like nobility... what? How much gold are you expecting PCs to have that a pretty near constant drain isn't slowing them down? And that's what this is about, slowing accumulation to increase perceived value. If you properly apply the costs the game expects PCs to be paying from the beginning then it takes a heck of a lot longer for them to get to the point where they just stop caring about gold because they always have more than enough.

A moddest lifestyle is 1GP per day, if players don't feel that in their purse during downtime then chances are you're giving gold too quickly or not enough downtime (even then, there's another two tiers before nobility and the costs spiral quickly).

If your players are choosing to live in modest conditions and money is still racking up too fast, well my post was a lot more than just lifestyle expenses, but you can also just introduce an NOC/faction they need info from or a relationship with, and to get there they'll need to swim in much richer waters (and a month or more at aristocratic levels will dent anyone's purse).

[Waterdeep Merch]

The value of any currency is equivalent to what it can afford. There's a reason cold cash is usually valued over, say, $10 off coupons, even when the cash is less than $10.

If the players are going to want money, they need to have things to spend that money on that is of value to them. If they can only spend it on roleplaying, while they might spend what they get, they won't truly value it.

Not gonna lie, 5e's basic rules are against you here. It's not just the weird magic item prices, nor the insane levels of wealth they want to give players as early as tier 2. The attunement limit means there's a point where they just can't buy anything meaningful even when magic items can be easily bought in the first place.

Try asking your players what sort of things they would like to have, as players. This might require building entire subsystems that are absent from 5e, or repairing ones that are busted (looking at you, business rules). Design your economy and wealth accumulation around that.

[Vogie]

The gold is just as valuable as you make it in your world and in their situations.

For example, in some of the printed adventures:

In Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, the adventure sets up the low-level PCs so they start off in debt. In addition to their normal expenses, they have this lingering debt of thousands of gold, plus the amount of interest that you choose their lenders charge them.
In Rime of the Frostmaiden, each character needs cold weather clothing (that needs to remain undamaged and dry) as well as things like crampons, snowshoes and climbing kits.
These give you, the DM ways to both reward your PCs with gold, but also giving them a series of maintenance issues they need to navigate. Sure, they can avoid paying the debts or hang around in an eternal winter with only a single coat... but that gives you, the DM, more hooks to tweak them with. They miss a payment on the debts, and you can have a series of thugs pop into their lives (either independently or inside another planned encounter). A critical hit or critically failed saving throw may crack a crampon, set cold weather clothing aflame, get the player soaked, et cetera, and then the party has to use other things to take it over.

If you want players to value their gold, give them reasons to. Perhaps their quest requires a ship larger than one available, and they need to not only commission one to be created, but also pay all or a portion of the crew's wages beforehand. Perhaps they are tasked with acquiring funds for the rebuilding of a building, keep, or even small town. Perhaps the party isn't even acquiring gold for themselves, but for their Group Patron - whether that be the monarch, a group such as the Harpers, or some sort of outsider.

[Asisreo1]

Let's say your level 10 Fighter decides he wants to own a Fort and other things during downtime. He wants to do other things in his downtime so it will take 400 days to complete this Fort. Luckily, the DM gives him 2 years of downtime so it'll be done next session.

In the meantime, he wants to craft his own sailing ship. He definitely needs more hands to help him so he hires 1 skilled Hirelings to assist him. He worked hard to look wealthy so he'll live a healthy lifestyle.

The Fort is done first but the Sailing Ship hasn't been completed yet. The overall cost of getting and maintaining the Fort, along with crafting the Ship and living Wealthy is the sum of 31,500gp for the Fort, 2,920 for the lifestyle, and 6,460gp for the Sailing Ship.

This puts your fighter at a grand total of 40,880gp. That should be quite a handsome amount of money for a lifestyle which is actually moderately reserved for someone called a "Master of their Realm."

PC's will be living extravagantly over the course of their campaign but unless they're saving up for something big, they have plenty to spend it on.

[Kylar0990]

We all know that, in most games, once you reach a certain level gold becomes somewhat trivial, just a number you don’t have to worry too much about.

I don’t like this.

I want players to understand the value of good in the world. I want them to understand that the 50 gp healing potion they just bought represents a large amount of labor for the average person to even dream of affording. The problem is, I don’t know how to do this.

So I come to all you, asking what you would do in order to make them understand how valuable gold actually is. Thank you in advance.

You could always have an NPC throwing around money in a way to show them what's possible. Maybe just as someone they encounter in town once or twice.

The money that most player regularly have could be used to buy real power. A magical sword isn't real power. Land and titles are real power; your own church and followers are power. At a certain point most player characters are regularly walking around with enough gold to buy and sell most small towns. They could be funding their own private army, controlling trade routes, or so many other things.

[Unoriginal]

In Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, the adventure sets up the low-level PCs so they start off in debt. In addition to their normal expenses, they have this lingering debt of thousands of gold, plus the amount of interest that you choose their lenders charge them

...not at all, what are you talking about?

In Dragon Heist you start with a quest earning you a building. While it's old and damaged, it only takes 1000gp to put in working order, and you never have to take a single debt to pay said 1000gp.

[Pex]

I have to ask are you tired of running the game?

The impression I'm getting from this and the replies is that maybe you're over thinking this?

The majority of that money is quite probably going to pay for services, gear, training and in the case of the wizard their spellbook.

You start playing silly beggars with that, what kind of game are you left with?

If your players are fine with you doing that, then okay good for them.

But please be careful that kind of behaviour can backfire on you if you go too far!

All the best.

Agreed. Gold is still worthless if you tax/debt/steal it from them. It becomes a burden and makes treasure worthless because you give them 500 gp now you'll take it away from them next game session. If it takes forever to unload art objects and jewelry why bother taking it at all? They're not getting use out of it anyway.

Have players want to spend money on something they value. A business. A mansion. Land ownership. Being a Noble (background and/or earned through player at some character level) and having an estate. A castle. Prestige: Being able to stay at the most fabulous inn. Get into the High Rollers club at the casino. Become a member of an Exclusive Organization.

As the party gains levels achieving great things usually People of Importance take notice and request their services. Likewise achieving great wealth can give them access to people and places separate from the Kings, Duchesses, and desperate calls for help from the Mayor. The Godfather of all Thieves' Guilds requests their help and promises them Untouchable upon completion. The eccentric Wizard of the Tower who sees noone personally seeks the Party for a fun little adventure.

[loki_ragnarock]

Make the money for their normal operations... not their money. Stream of consciousness with me for a minute; it's late, and cogent points are a little beyond me.

Medieval lords tended to own all the equipment that serfs used to farm with. The serf was theirs, the land was theirs, the plow was theirs, the pig was theirs, the pig poo was theirs, and the serf gets the priviledge of using those things.

So your characters might be in possession of extremely valuable things; the iron mail on the fighter's back might be the worth of several years of labor. But while it's on his back, is it actually his? Or does it actually belong to someone else? And if so, does that mean that they are personally poor? Are they the sole beneficiary of their deeds of derring do, or does the person who owns the iron mail on their back get that glory and wealth?
Are they themselves venture capitalists, or are they the cog in an adventuring corporation? Do they need to make a return for their investors, are they beholden to shareholders?

It's a different way to structure things than the idea that characters are fully independent operatives.

Or... in the Expanse, the main characters are running around in an actual warship bedecked with expensive armaments and they don't seem to ever make any actual money. Their total currency seems to be goodwill. It seems to spend pretty well, with repairs and retrofits and the like, but it's very much tied to a faction. It isn't a currency that spends outside of the alliances they've cobbled together.

So. What if you figure out a way to turn your fluid currency into social currency or... something like a gift card? Multiple currencies tied to specific factions, groups, organizations, that let you buy what you need but keep you juggling it. By having it essentially sunk into one of these groups, or multiples of these groups, you would create a more dynamic system where characters might have to care very much about not just money, but preserving the status quo that allows those organizations to keep existing.
Say the thieves guild only deals in art objects? But not quite that simple, because that's too direct a translation, maybe. Eh, I'll go with it; the Thieves Guild only does real business in art objects. Art objects aren't something you can typically produce by just spending your fluid money; you can't commission Van Gogh to make another masterpiece cause that cat is deader than Schrodinger's. You can only... acquire them. Find them. Stumble across them. So immediately, this portrait of a young woman in a sun dress worth (an amount) of gp is something characters tied to the Guild would be interested in; it gets them influence, access to better equipment, and - most importantly - noticed. It's currency, but it's value isn't necessarily in the raw gp value. And how valuable is gp, anyway, when it can't even buy you into the workings of the Guild, yeah? Sure, it's fluid currency, but because it comes without social currency it's... lesser. You go to the Don with a sack of gold, it's insulting; that's not a gift, that's a buyout. But you come to him with the Mona Lisa? You're Guild royalty. You're a made man.

So that painting you find is (GP) but in gift card form; your money loaded on that Target card doesn't spend if Walmart drives them out of business.

So bake some alternative currencies. Gold should *exist*. But it shouldn't be the only meaningful currency; everything should be for sale, but not everything should be bought or sold in gold. Make a half dozen different mechanisms that organizations use to advance things that aren't fluid currency. Make some of them overlap, even. Then make the characters balance them. Does this set of golden gauntlets (worth x gp) get redeemed at the Flaming Fist for Flaming Fist Justice Dollars, or does it seem like a better idea to take them to the Temple of Gond for Gondbucks?
Now they have to take an interest in the "money" because it opens the door to further adventure. It shapes what alliances they build. It shapes the enemies they make. And if they don't want to start back at square one, they have an interest in keeping those organizations that hold all their meaningful wealth solvent.

Spitballing.

[Unoriginal]

While I agree having the PC's gold be stolen just to "teach them to value it" is a kick to the teeth and likely to be perceived as such (not to say thieves can't target the party, they just should do it when it creates something interesting and fun), something with that does show players how valuable money is the old "you start the campaign captured, without equipment, and have to escape", like in Out of the Abyss.

The players are informed from the start they'll start with no gold and no equipment, and will have to acquire those from scratch. That way players know what they're getting into, and will soon realize if they don't already how much money (both in equipment and in actual cash) adventurers usually start with .


Art objects aren't something you can typically produce by just spending your fluid money

...yes you can? Most of medieval and Renaissance art was commissioned by rich people who wanted something specific. Even nowadays a ton if not the majority of art objects are created by people in exchange for money, including but not limited to jewelry, clothes, sculpture and illustrations.



you can't commission Van Gogh to make another masterpiece cause that cat is deader than Schrodinger's.

You could commission him when he was alive, and you can just commission artists who are alive. Also this is D&D so a trip to the afterlife to see if whichever dead artist available wouldn't want to make another artwork isn't outside of the realm of possibilities.

[Sneak Dog]

It's tough. I'm seeing a lot of lifestyle, prestige and fancy items being available as suggestions, but what about the barbarian from the wastes? Or even if the fighter gets the finest robes, food and rooms, will the player care?


The value of any currency is equivalent to what it can afford. There's a reason cold cash is usually valued over, say, $10 off coupons, even when the cash is less than $10.

If the players are going to want money, they need to have things to spend that money on that is of value to them. If they can only spend it on roleplaying, while they might spend what they get, they won't truly value it.

Not gonna lie, 5e's basic rules are against you here. It's not just the weird magic item prices, nor the insane levels of wealth they want to give players as early as tier 2. The attunement limit means there's a point where they just can't buy anything meaningful even when magic items can be easily bought in the first place.

Try asking your players what sort of things they would like to have, as players. This might require building entire subsystems that are absent from 5e, or repairing ones that are busted (looking at you, business rules). Design your economy and wealth accumulation around that.

This is about it, really. 5e only presents experience points and magic items as rewards. Anything more, including gold, you have to figure out yourself. You can experiment with giving them allies to call upon, bonus feats, bonuses to ability scores, weird active abilities, weird passive abilities and whatnot.
Then you can grant gold value by allowing players to buy some of the above rewards with gold.

[JackPhoenix]

Or... in the Expanse, the main characters are running around in an actual warship bedecked with expensive armaments and they don't seem to ever make any actual money. Their total currency seems to be goodwill. It seems to spend pretty well, with repairs and retrofits and the like, but it's very much tied to a faction. It isn't a currency that spends outside of the alliances they've cobbled together.

They absolutely do make money in the books. They run various errands and take contracts (mostly security and transport) to keep Roci in working. IIRC, even in the show, the mission spanning the 4th season was one such paid contract, and they were serving as escort during 3rd season, though mostly off-screen.

[Dork_Forge]

This is about it, really. 5e only presents experience points and magic items as rewards. Anything more, including gold, you have to figure out yourself. You can experiment with giving them allies to call upon, bonus feats, bonuses to ability scores, weird active abilities, weird passive abilities and whatnot.
Then you can grant gold value by allowing players to buy some of the above rewards with gold.

5e does go into rewards outside of those things, listing things ranging from titles and deeds to land to a list of boons.

[loki_ragnarock]

...yes you can? Most of medieval and Renaissance art was commissioned by rich people who wanted something specific. Even nowadays a ton if not the majority of art objects are created by people in exchange for money, including but not limited to jewelry, clothes, sculpture and illustrations.
Sure, if you feel contemporary art carries the same value to the organization, why not? I was running on the idea that scarcity and portability is what provides value to the Guild, but your the Guild could operate differently. Mostly it was from the perspective of "after killing the manticore in its lair you find 2000cp, 500sp, 100gp, 10pp, 100gp of amethysts, and 500gp of art objects" and extrapolating from there. I'd assume the amethysts could also be used for an organization as more valuable social currency, but art seemed easier to metaphorize.

Art wouldn't exist without people commissioning it. But now you've got to commission it; that gold, that process of spending gold turns into an interaction. Finding a promising artist that isn't already the critical darling and committed to various projects already takes a certain talent. Promoting them so that those early works you bought while they were establishing themselves takes effort and more interactions still; bribing art critics and influencers, setting up galleries, preventing his assassination from a rival the Guild member looking to nip this in the bud, etc. Your money buys you adventure.
But somehow convincing Michelangelo that your fluid money commission is somehow more valuable than the social currency and fame he'll get from the Sistine Chapel seems a tall ask. Convincing an artist who is already successful in life to give you the time of day is probably going to require you be interesting enough or wealthy enough to get their attention. These aren't prints; they're all one of a kind life works, and they know it. Thus they're probably booked for well into the future if they already produce meaningful work... or they're no longer the fad and have arthritis in those bee's knees. If they have faded into obscurity but are still alive, and don't produce work that produces meaningful social currency, anymore, then it'd probably be easy to get that commission in, but it won't carry the same impact... unless you're willing to host that gallery, bribe that influencer, prevent that assassination, etc.
The money - even fluid money you want to spend - turns into adventure. Sabotaging the relationships with existing patrons. Wooing away with promises of security. Providing the rare pigments derived from crushed red dragon scales that someone needs for a project so they can finish and move on to yours. Getting them treatment for their crippling mental health problems. Banishing the ghost that haunts their chisel. Lifting the curse put on them by a rival obsessed with the same romantic partner. Stealing back the ring of mind shielding that houses the soul of the great master who has been secretly whispering to them how to paint for the last decade. The money turns into an adventure, and that makes people care about it; it's just the golden seed.

Heck, you can even get a Van Gogh in the modern world; you just have to wait for one to go up for auction (maybe a handful of times in a year) and spend millions of dollars or pounds more than the next guy. Or be a prolific art thief, I suppose.
But if you can't figure out how to turn a high stakes auction into an adventure, then there's probably a movie for that to draw inspiration from.




You could commission him when he was alive, and you can just commission artists who are alive. Also this is D&D so a trip to the afterlife to see if whichever dead artist available wouldn't want to make another artwork isn't outside of the realm of possibilities.

THAT IS SUCH A GREAT IDEA!

You're already getting into the spirit of things! Get that spectral commission, chief! You're gonna go far in the Guild with capers like that!

[loki_ragnarock]

They absolutely do make money in the books. They run various errands and take contracts (mostly security and transport) to keep Roci in working. IIRC, even in the show, the mission spanning the 4th season was one such paid contract, and they were serving as escort during 3rd season, though mostly off-screen.

Fair enough, but season five opens with someone complaining that they aren't paying enough for the work being done, so that's what was on the forefront of my brain. I'll say no more about that as there need be no spoilers on my end.

They don't *not* have money, it's just they don't have enough to do what they do without the currency of goodwill. Or maybe they do, but they don't have too because their mixing fluid currency with goodwill currency. Something to that effect. They could have all kinds of fluid money, but still be fugitives with a stolen ship were it not for that currency of goodwill getting it counted as legitimate salvage. That kind of thing.

[Asisreo1]

It's tough. I'm seeing a lot of lifestyle, prestige and fancy items being available as suggestions, but what about the barbarian from the wastes? Or even if the fighter gets the finest robes, food and rooms, will the player care?

The NPC's the characters interact with will care about them wearing the finest clothes and having the best rooms. Make it apparent that their choice in lifestyle affect the world around them and make it easier or harder to acquire what they want.

For the lonely barbarian, they can trade in goods and use the money or just give it to the party members who do care about money. If it has no value to you, its basically just excess weight and its realistic that a hermit character would see it that way.

[Jeroth]

One idea that's been touched on here and there is the idea that money can serve multiple purposes in a game: elaborating on that is the post "On the Full Plate Threshold and the Nature of Money" on Sir Poley's tumblr (I'd link, but I'm new here; it's easy to find when googled), a very helpful and lucid piece that discusses advantages and disadvantages of money when used as narrative power, character power, etc.

[KorvinStarmast]

Normally if you can buy a 50gp chainmail in a town, you could also find a 50gp potion. i can't find the chart for that in this edition Might want to read the PHB, then. Page 150. Adventuring Gear. Right Hand Column. Potion of Healing - it's in italics. 50 GP.

On the other hand, every so often they might be sold out. That's a concept that the children of the internet age seem to not understand, until a toilet paper shortage arises. :smallyuk:

Most DMs who are starting out, if they read that chart, will most likely have some potions of healing available in any town that has a shop where they just say 'whatever is in the PHB is available.' Granted, they don't have to, but it's right there as a resource.

A way to soak up gold: scrolls.
A way to soak up gold: gems that are consumed by spells.
A way to soak up gold: Hire the NPCs to guard the small stronghold you've come across/purchases.
A way to soak up gold: use your imagination.

[Minice]

Might want to read the PHB, then. Page 150. Adventuring Gear. Right Hand Column. Potion of Healing - it's in italics. 50 GP.

On the other hand, every so often they might be sold out. That's a concept that the children of the internet age seem to not understand, until a toilet paper shortage arises. :smallyuk:

Most DMs who are starting out, if they read that chart, will most likely have some potions of healing available in any town that has a shop where they just say 'whatever is in the PHB is available.' Granted, they don't have to, but it's right there as a resource.

A way to soak up gold: scrolls.
A way to soak up gold: gems that are consumed by spells.
A way to soak up gold: Hire the NPCs to guard the small stronghold you've come across/purchases.
A way to soak up gold: use your imagination.

Read the conversation thread for context. and no the DMG chart for Random town generation, and the GP limit of those towns is not in 5E.

Please don't quote people trying to make them look stupid if you have no idea of what conversation is going on. It then makes me respond to stupidity and i'd rather not.

[Sneak Dog]

5e does go into rewards outside of those things, listing things ranging from titles and deeds to land to a list of boons.

Boons are good. The titles and deeds are about as useful as gold. They only are as useful as your GM lets them be. They might be boring, bland or useless, or they might be the most awesome part of the campaign.

Does the DMG tell a GM how to actually run titles and deeds? How to use them, what use they might be to a player? If not, I suspect it'll lead to a 'how to make players value their deeds/titles' thread.

[Asisreo1]

Boons are good. The titles and deeds are about as useful as gold. They only are as useful as your GM lets them be. They might be boring, bland or useless, or they might be the most awesome part of the campaign.

Does the DMG tell a GM how to actually run titles and deeds? How to use them, what use they might be to a player? If not, I suspect it'll lead to a 'how to make players value their deeds/titles' thread.
Sorta kinda. They briefly explain the uses and how a DK can formulate a good time to reward it but there still isn't any hard rule.



A parcel of land is just that, and usually comes with a royal letter affirming that the land has been granted as a reward for some service. Such land usually remains the property of the local ruler or ruling body, but is leased to a character with the understanding that it can be taken away, especially if his or her loyalty is ever called into question. A parcel of land, if sufficiently large, might have one or more farms or villages on it already, in which case the recipient is pronounced lord or lady of the land and is expected to collect taxes, along with any other duties.

A character who receives a parcel of land is free to build on it and is expected to safeguard it. He or she may yield the land as part of an inheritance, but can't sell or trade it without permission from the local ruler or ruling body.

Parcels of land make fine rewards for adventurers who are looking for a place to settle or who have family or some kind of personal investment in the region where the land is located.

To be more broad, there's even more rewards than magic items and boons that change actual mechanics. For example, you can replace boons with an effective ASI where the players actually can boost their Ability Scores up to 30 rather than remaining only at 20. Theoretically, a character can have all 30's as stats if they play long enough and the DM allows it.

There are also Charms and Blessings which function similarly to magic items but are either more permanent, more consumable, or easier to attune to. In fact, there's no attunement limit with Blessings and Charms so you could give a fighter the blessing of the Archmagi which gives the benefit of the Robe of the Archmagi.

There's various ways you can mix and match rewards for your players and it can always be as effective or ineffective as you desire.

[Segev]

You may also get some ideas just reading the downtime rules in XGE. Have those tutors for proficiencies and languages be hard to find true experts who are wealthy already due to their highly-demanded skills.

But also, consider that pit fighting has almost no downsides as a downtime activity and earns you 50 gold a week pretty easily if you’re decently built for Athletics and physical combat. So consider what it is that sets PC activities apart from the day laborers’ life choices.

In one downtime of several months, my PC was saving up for, hunting down, and buying an uncommon item, and seeking a tutor for a language. He used pit fighting to support this goal. (He is, admittedly, a very strong physical combatant with expertise in athletics. )

[Lyracian]

If the party have a base, such as a house, it may need repairs or maintenance. I like to have a few magic items for sale which are costed in the thousands. Also potions, scrolls and spell components help eat into money.

Eventually though you do just reach the point where money does not matter to characters.

It also depends on the group and game. Is it important enough to track 5 sp for a night at the inn or 2 cp on a beer? Maybe in Tier 1 but once the group start slaying Dragons and buying diamonds a grand at a time probably not.

If the Bracers of Defense cost 3 grand which was one characters share of the monsters hoard they have something of value to spend it on. Maybe they want a particular item and spend a few hundred gold during downtime tracking down someone who has it and then haggling over a sales price. Perhaps the secluded Wizard wants 5000 gp for the ring of Necrotic Resistance. Might be worth it if you are going to be facing a lot of undead.

I had a party pay the town Wizard 1000 gp to Enchant a sword. He cast Continual Flame on it and gave it back 3 weeks later. The Players, but not yet the characters, know it is not doing 'magic' damage.

[Witty Username]

Do you track food, water and ammunition? Do you use the variant encumbrance rules? The cost of travel doesn't erase this problem but it is a good starting point to tackle the issue.

[KorvinStarmast]

Read the conversation thread for context. and no the DMG chart for Random town generation, and the GP limit of those towns is not in 5E. If it was in the PHB, why do you need it in the DMG?

And as a DM - I DM a lot still, and have for years - why do you need that chart? Not getting your complaint, to be honest.

Pro Tip from an experienced DM: I find it faster to generate a town (that which is player facing) without having to resort to a chart. Faster, and only that which the players need to interact with is what I need to come up with.

[JackPhoenix]

If it was in the PHB, why do you need it in the DMG?

And as a DM - I DM a lot still, and have for years - why do you need that chart? Not getting your complaint, to be honest.

Pro Tip from an experienced DM: I find it faster to generate a town (that which is player facing) without having to resort to a chart. Faster, and only that which the players need to interact with is what I need to come up with.

He means the limits on what stuff you can get in a town. In 3.5, there was a table saying that you could get any item up to 100 gp in a hamlet of 81-400 people, or items up to 3000 gp in a large town of 2001-5000 people, etc. There were also other rules to determine total wealth of the community, based on the table and total population (the example is that a hamlet of 90 has a GP limit of 450 gp (half of tie GP value from the table times 1/10 of the total population), so you can only get total 450 gp of value whether you buy or sell items there, with example that you can buy 30 longswords in such settlement (because longsword is 15 gp, and 450/15 is 30), without any explanation why should a place with 90 people have 30 longswords for sale, but nothing else (because you've hit the limit), or why should the people be willing to give you literally every single coin they have in the entire community if you decide to sell them a shriveled hand that allows you to cast Mage Hand at will. It was needlessly complex, pointless, and rather stupid.

[KorvinStarmast]

He means the limits on what stuff you can get in a town. I don't need a book to tell me that - DM chooses what is or isn't there.

I guess this boils down to a DM style thing; maybe that is why I am having difficulty seeing a basis for a complaint.

[Segev]

I don't need a book to tell me that - DM chooses what is or isn't there.

I guess this boils down to a DM style thing; maybe that is why I am having difficulty seeing a basis for a complaint.

As a DM, why do you need any rules or guides at all?

It is both a DM style and skill thing. Not “skill level,” but rather what skills you have. DMing requires a number of them. And eyeballing something and coming up with reasonable DCs, loot amounts, or stats for that random NPC or creature are all different ones. Personally, I find the bits about building a world rather extraneous and actively anti-helpful, but I know others like the guidance. I appreciate the help figuring out the kind of treasure available for purchase, because estimating how much gold something should cost for game balance (let alone verisimilitude) is very hard for me. I have repeatedly complained about the sparsity of guidance in 5e on setting skill check DCs.

So it’s there because not all DMs can nor are comfortable making it up without guidance. To them, you may as well be asking what the point of the Monster Manual is: can’t you just make up the monsters, yourself?

[KorvinStarmast]

To them, you may as well be asking what the point of the Monster Manual is: can’t you just make up the monsters, yourself? Given the iterative nature of the DMG guidance on how to craft a custom monster, and the intention of using CR as a rough guide for game balance, that's not a good comparison.

As to my core frustration with the DMG in general: it's that "here are some play examples for this edition" in chapter 1: missing.

How to run the game for brand new DM's. (Something like what the old Basic Set had with the Search of the Unknown B1 module): missing.

And some of the stuff in Tasha's that they finally put into print. (Grinds teeth). Missing from the original DMG.

Regarding tables: experience with 4+ editions has shown me that random monster tables and random treasure tables are the only tables I'd need, and that is based on using random monsters and random treasure. The longer I DM, the less I like random monsters and the more I build small pockets of monsters and NPC's that exist in a region to fit the narrative. But I still occasionally use them during a travel montage, since: the world is dangerous, and there is a great deal of unknown out there between the very small pockets of civilzation.

World building has some good guidance, but it's not a cookbook style, nor a menu style as we had in the older editions with the "here are 125 tables and a whole lot of work using a thesaurus". :smalltongue: What I discovered over time was that those tables turned into a time sink, and most of the results never got used. The "what are the players interacting with now" approach saves a lot of time.

Which takes us, oddly, back to the OP: how do you make the Gold (which are more or less a game token) valuable to the PC? I already listed the 4 points that I use, but there's another one.

Stop making gold pieces the most discovered treasure. Make them, GP, rare in the first place.

Go back to the old stories where gold cups, plates, altar ornaments (which is why the Vikings hit all of those abbeys, churches, and cathedrals back in the Dark Ages - gold 'things' that they could make into rings or other gold stuff), statuettes, jewelry - that is the form of gold in a lot of cases. Found gold was often not a coin.

Silver was a more common coinage anyway. (And copper). It changes the texture of the game a bit to do that, though, since the players then need to figure out how to carry, lift, drag, and otherwise transport their loot to a place where they can trade if to for something useful to them. That can be part of the fun, or, it can be tedious: it really depends on the table.

[Asisreo1]

Given the iterative nature of the DMG guidance on how to craft a custom monster, and the intention of using CR as a rough guide for game balance, that's not a good comparison.

As to my core frustration with the DMG in general: it's that "here are some play examples for this edition" in chapter 1: missing.

How to run the game for brand new DM's. (Something like what the old Basic Set had with the Search of the Unknown B1 module): missing.

And some of the stuff in Tasha's that they finally put into print. (Grinds teeth). Missing from the original DMG.

Regarding tables: experience with 4+ editions has shown me that random monster tables and random treasure tables are the only tables I'd need, and that is based on using random monsters and random treasure. The longer I DM, the less I like random monsters and the more I build small pockets of monsters and NPC's that exist in a region to fit the narrative. But I still occasionally use them during a travel montage, since: the world is dangerous, and there is a great deal of unknown out there between the very small pockets of civilzation.

World building has some good guidance, but it's not a cookbook style, nor a menu style as we had in the older editions with the "here are 125 tables and a whole lot of work using a thesaurus". :smalltongue: What I discovered over time was that those tables turned into a time sink, and most of the results never got used. The "what are the players interacting with now" approach saves a lot of time.

Which takes us, oddly, back to the OP: how do you make the Gold (which are more or less a game token) valuable to the PC? I already listed the 4 points that I use, but there's another one.

Stop making gold pieces the most discovered treasure. Make them, GP, rare in the first place.

Go back to the old stories where gold cups, plates, altar ornaments (which is why the Vikings hit all of those abbeys, churches, and cathedrals back in the Dark Ages - gold 'things' that they could make into rings or other gold stuff), statuettes, jewelry - that is the form of gold in a lot of cases. Found gold was often not a coin.

Silver was a more common coinage anyway. (And copper). It changes the texture of the game a bit to do that, though, since the players then need to figure out how to carry, lift, drag, and otherwise transport their loot to a place where they can trade if to for something useful to them. That can be part of the fun, or, it can be tedious: it really depends on the table.
The PHB even says that nobody except merchants trade in coins very often. Bandits might have them but what are goblins doing with silver and gold when they hardly interact with other creatures in trading?

Peasants and non-mercantile societies keep things as trade goods.

Instead of the goblins targeting people's gold for some reason in raids, they can instead target their wheat. When the party gets their reward, they get it in the form of, say, 243lbs of wheat which is equivalent to 2gp, 4 sp, and 3cp. But now versamilititude is preserved, the conflicts make more sense, and gold coins are still something to be valued.

[Unoriginal]

Bandits might have them but what are goblins doing with silver and gold when they hardly interact with other creatures in trading?

That's not true, though. In the default lore, goblins do trade, with other goblinoids as well as with humanoids.

[JackPhoenix]

Instead of the goblins targeting people's gold for some reason in raids, they can instead target their wheat. When the party gets their reward, they get it in the form of, say, 243lbs of wheat which is equivalent to 2gp, 4 sp, and 3cp. But now versamilititude is preserved, the conflicts make more sense, and gold coins are still something to be valued.

They stole both, but they ate the wheat. Even goblins can't eat gold, so the gold is all that's left.

[Sol0botmate]

Considering magic in DnD - clever players will always make tons of money. no need to worry about it

[Unoriginal]

Considering magic in DnD - clever players will always make tons of money. no need to worry about it

Magic doesn't mean automatic money, cleverness or not.

[Asisreo1]

That's not true, though. In the default lore, goblins do trade, with other goblinoids as well as with humanoids.
Goblins themselves hardly trade. They're neither smart enough to get good deals nor are they good at labor, meaning they don't create goods and services often either.

But that hardly matters if a DM's lore is different than the default lore anyways.

[Asisreo1]

They stole both, but they ate the wheat. Even goblins can't eat gold, so the gold is all that's left.
Why steal anything that has no value to you. Its extra weight.

Better than excess wheat, though, excess cloth could easily make enough sense.

[Unoriginal]

Goblins themselves hardly trade. They're neither smart enough to get good deals nor are they good at labor, meaning they don't create goods and services often either.

The average goblin is literally as smart as the average human, and just as competent at labor.

One of the published modules literally has a whole goblin market, and they certainly don't mind the PCs being their customers.



Why steal anything that has no value to you. Its extra weight.

Better than excess wheat, though, excess cloth could easily make enough sense.

You're the only one asserting, without anything to back it up, that goblins don't find gold valuable.

It may be the case in your campaign world but it's definitively not the case in most D&D worlds.

[Captain Panda]

That depends. The easiest way is to just let them buy overpriced magic items with their gold. Boom, now they love gold.

Don't want to do that? Give them roleplaying hooks that require gold: sick relatives, cool mansions to buy, maybe they find a hot, gold-digging girlfriend who is secretly a succubus? Honestly, they should be able to come up with reasons on their own to want gold without DM assistance! :smallbiggrin:

[blackjack50]

We all know that, in most games, once you reach a certain level gold becomes somewhat trivial, just a number you don’t have to worry too much about.

I don’t like this.

I want players to understand the value of good in the world. I want them to understand that the 50 gp healing potion they just bought represents a large amount of labor for the average person to even dream of affording. The problem is, I don’t know how to do this.

So I come to all you, asking what you would do in order to make them understand how valuable gold actually is. Thank you in advance.

I will use an example from a couple of days ago in real life. I was sitting at a nice BBQ place. It was "bus your own table" establishment. While sitting there, this table across from me and my girlfriend had a few wealthy people (actually a famous youtuber amongst them) at it. The level of wealth was that they had a driver parked outside the establishment in an area of no parking) while they sat there and ate. You see where I am getting? When they were done with their bottle service and food they left. They did not bus their table. As I am sure you can imagine.

Once you get to a certain level of wealth? It takes a VERY humble person to actually respect cheap labor. I mean? What is a one time 50GP expense to someone who has 5000GP in the bank? Especially when they are likely able to not need that AND EARN way more than that 50GP

[Asisreo1]

The average goblin is literally as smart as the average human, and just as competent at labor.

One of the published modules literally has a whole goblin market, and they certainly don't mind the PCs being their customers.

Goblins share the same intelligence as commoners, who are decidedly not merchants. I'd certainly consider merchants more intelligent than commoners.

And the MM explicitly call them out as poor laborers. Not because they can't but because they're too lazy to try.



You're the only one asserting, without anything to back it up, that goblins don't find gold valuable.

It may be the case in your campaign world but it's definitively not the case in most D&D worlds.
We aren't talking about goblinoids in general. These are the very specifically evil, lazy, undisciplined, power-hungry, malicious goblins. They very well might steal gold and coinage if they feel that inconveniences their target and makes them feel victorious.

But I still assert that goblins themselves are not competent traders and their loot would contain more than only gold coins. In fact, if they're raiding small farming towns, they'd probably have more practical goods like cloth, wheat, and tools since the town itself would hardly have any coinage in it itself outside of rare circumstances.

All of this is tangential to my point, though. My point isn't about goblins or goblinoid behavior. My point is that not all creatures value gold coins and diversifying loot in a more believable way makes for better verisimilitude and gives personality to your world rather than a wolves' den storing weapons and gold like a dragon.

[Unoriginal]

Goblins share the same intelligence as commoners, who are decidedly not merchants. I'd certainly consider merchants more intelligent than commoners.

Most merchants are represented by the Commoner statblock.


And the MM explicitly call them out as poor laborers. Not because they can't but because they're too lazy to try.

Well as you said, it's not because they can't, it's because they won't unless there is something to motivate them stronger than their desire to avoid the effort.



We aren't talking about goblinoids in general. These are the very specifically evil, lazy, undisciplined, power-hungry, malicious goblins. They very well might steal gold and coinage if they feel that inconveniences their target and makes them feel victorious.

But I still assert that goblins themselves are not competent traders


The goblin vendors buy and sell stolen goods, including items listed in chapter 5 of the Player's Handbook—particularly armor, shields, weapons, adventuring gear, tools, trade goods, food, and drink. The goblins buy goods at half the normal price and sell them at three times the normal price. Their food is of poor quality but edible. A character who succeeds on a DC 12 Charisma (Intimidation or Persuasion) check can bargain a goblin down to half its asking price for an item.



and their loot would contain more than only gold coins. In fact, if they're raiding small farming towns, they'd probably have more practical goods like cloth, wheat, and tools since the town itself would hardly have any coinage in it itself outside of rare circumstances.

I am not disputing that, in those circumstances. I am disputing the idea goblins were not interested (or worse, not smart enough to be interested) in coinage.



All of this is tangential to my point, though. My point isn't about goblins or goblinoid behavior. My point is that not all creatures value gold coins and diversifying loot in a more believable way makes for better verisimilitude and gives personality to your world rather than a wolves' den storing weapons and gold like a dragon.

True. Non-sapient beasts should have little to no loot, for example, aside from occasionally something interesting on a corpse near them or the beast's corpse itself having valuable parts.

[KorvinStarmast]

The average goblin is literally as smart as the average human, and just as competent at labor. At size small, I wonder at that last part.
One of the published modules literally has a whole goblin market, and they certainly don't mind the PCs being their customers. Yeah.

[JackPhoenix]

At size small, I wonder at that last part.

It simply means they are good at different things than medium creatures. Reaching things high up may be a problem without something to stand on, but they can squeeze into tiny spaces, so once the industrial revolution kicks in, you don't need to send children to get maimed inside machinery if you have goblins around.

[KorvinStarmast]

... once the industrial revolution kicks in, you don't need to send children to get maimed inside machinery if you have goblins around. And, goblins are smart enough to either organize a guild or some kind of collective bargaining unit. :smallbiggrin:

[CapnWildefyr]

or does it? Can a pc go up to his gm and say, hey i wanna go collect materials. i would rule that yes they totally could.

As long as they know what to collect, and where to collect it. I assume that's what you meant.


Of course it depends entirely on the sort of campaign you're trying to create/run and the respective players' experience. For some tables it's completely fine to handwave keeping track of money spent, resources used, encumbrance and whatnot. Especially if you've been playing for awhile and already have a good concept of your fantasy world's economy and especially if your players don't think it's fun for the table any more. I mean, getting robbed or hassled by beggars shouldn't happen frequently unless players are purposely throwing around money and attracting a bunch of attention. Consequences should still be a given in my opinion. Sometimes though, such as with new players, said example of players throwing around money, or a a table that wants to play the "keep track of resources" minigame, sure, some of those suggestions might be used to help shape and give a snapshot of the world's economy.

I've been playing for 40+ years and agree with you about playing previous editions and it teaching us to value or money. Most of the editions I played or DM'd had plenty of things to do with your wealth though, an area where 5e's core is pretty lacking. I do remember AD&D 1st Edition's DMG having a section on economy and another on all the "Ts;" taxes, tithes, tolls, tariffs, and whatnot. 2nd Edition had an entire DMG chapter on money and I believe introduced the monthly living expenses concept. And also different ways to drain the players' monetary gains. In fact, one example given is a thief robbing a player character's castle and making off with their treasure. It even goes so far as to suggest having an adventure ready to track down the thief, but perhaps the thief has already spent a significant portion of said treasures... thus, maybe you can see many of my suggestions given above are rooted in previous editions. ;) YMMV as always.

Yes, the old DMGs had a lot of good ideas for when you handed out too much cash. Another thing that's forgotten: money changers. Many kingdoms do not like other currency, and you always trade at a loss -- just like IRL. And not all GP are equal. (Technically, EP were often GP that got watered down when a country was strapped for cash. Not in the books, but one historical basis for EP.)


Most the time, pcs look like they have money.

So make the small stuff cheap (beer, stew, ect) and make the pricy stuff more expensive (mark ups for potions or the rare rare magic item) add stuff like cigars, have innkeepers offer "better" goods or offer better food. Have craftspeople talk up "extras" on items like engraving and design. Heck I have a category for items called fine. It's not master work, its just cool and shiny, and costs a lot more. Convince the rogue they need a matched set of fine daggers.


Ask stuff like "did you want a bath with the room, it will be x more. "
"

From Les Mis... Thenardier,,,
.. "Charge 'em for the lice, extra for the mice,
Two percent for looking in the mirror twice
Here a little slice, there a little cut,
Three percent for sleeping with the window shut..."
:smallbiggrin:

-------
Also, give out fewer bags of holding, then you can't carry as much loot with you. It all takes up weight and space. Where do you store it? Do you invest it, or get a letter of credit from a well-known trading house, like they used to do in Europe?

If you fail your save vs. fireball, do you occasionally ask PCs to see if their letters of credit burned, or gold melted into blobs?

I wouldn't want to turn rewards into burdens, but you can gradually trend the PCs into thinking about portability of wealth, taxes, covering against theft and losses, by pushing them on what they can carry, do they really leave a chest full of gold in the hotel why they adventure for a week, etc. And having things to buy, especially things that have reduced resale value but which make your PC cool/recognizable, like the gold gauntlets someone mentioned earlier in the thread.

Finally, some classes have built-in cash sinks, especially any class with religious ties. But also backgrounds could do that as well. You're from a noble family, and your father suddenly needs 10,000 gp. Your fey warlock patron hints that her followers need protection so you have to buy arms and armor for 200 pixies. Thieves Guild runs afoul of someone and needs bribe money to keep its members names secret.

If you can make the cash expenditures part of the adventure, rather than punishment, it's usually better that way.

[KorvinStarmast]

If you fail your save vs. fireball, do you occasionally ask PCs to see if their letters of credit burned, or gold melted into blobs? Fireball won't do that, but the 'letters of credit burned' idea fits with your general theme.


You're from a noble family, and your father suddenly needs 10,000 gp. Your fey warlock patron hints that her followers need protection so you have to buy arms and armor for 200 pixies. Thieves Guild runs afoul of someone and needs bribe money to keep its members names secret. Nice ideas there, consider them added to my list. :smallsmile:

If you can make the cash expenditures part of the adventure, rather than punishment, it's usually better that way. If I could only put flashing lights around this; yeah.

[JoeJ]

or does it? Can a pc go up to his gm and say, hey i wanna go collect materials. i would rule that yes they totally could.

I would too, absolutely. Collecting one specific thing would require a successful Wisdom (Survival) check. For non-specific potion ingredients, I would allow the character to collect about 1gp worth of material per day spent searching (so if they maintain a modest lifestyle, they're breaking even).

Going back to the original question, you might consider borrowing an idea from Traveller and letting the PCs start out owing their own small ship. Ships are incredibly useful for getting the PCs to wherever you want the adventure to be, and they provide a convenient base. They're also money pits, since they require maintenance, supplies, docking fees, and (probably) NPCs as crew.

[Spiritchaser]

I want players to understand the value of good in the world. I want them to understand that the 50 gp healing potion they just bought represents a large amount of labor for the average person to even dream of affording. The problem is, I don’t know how to do this.


Let them have a ship (or airship, or flying castle as their level and your campaign dictate)

Let them improve it with catapults and magical silk sails/elemental magic/solid unobtanium walls as their finances allow.

Make sure you give them reasonably frequent opportunities to use said vessel in creative and effective ways that allow them to appreciate, and capitalize on, their substantial investment.

Don’t take it from them

If you ignore the above, make sure they have an opportunity to get it back.

If you ignore the above, make sure the can get a better one.