Fotget about the treasure and pricing system of 5E!

[lkwpeter]

Hey there,

we are currently at the very end of the campaign "Princes of the Apocalypse". Our characters are level 13 and we have dozens of thousands of gold, but we don't know on what to spend our money. The treasure system is broken. Prices are even more broken. Gold is worth nothing, if you can't by anything useful for that. The only way to get rid of gold is, if your DM finds a way to "burn it all for some hypocritical reason" like offering you a Castle for an insane, unplausible amount of gold. If you don't believe me, read Angry GM's article.

In our case, we decided to give gold at least a tiny bit of usage and offer only magic consumables in a very limited amount for purchase. Therefore, the first problem we had to deal with was that there is A LOT of inconsistency between prices. We started using Sane Magic Item Prices to have more realistic prices that depend on the item's power, not its rarity. Though this system is far away from being perfect, it is much more consistent than RAW. Furthermore, I created Faerûn's Vendors - A flexible vendor system for magic consumables to provide a transparent ruling system that can easily be adjusted to fit for the DM's purpose.

But that's only one side of the coin. The other problem is that players accumulate hundrets of thousands of gold. During a 20 level campaign they are supposed to earn over 3.2 million(!!) GP. You don't believe me? Have a look at this article about game math. So, if you want to make buying items not only available, but also interesting, you need to force players to make decisions on what to spend their money. This is the other side of the coin: preventing characters from swimming within an insane amount of money, that allows them to buy anything they want to - regardless of the price. If you lower their treasure, they will buy items with care. And even if they have less coins, they will be satisfied, because their so hard earned money is worth more than ever before!

The questions is, how to distribute a reasonable amount of money to players. The DMG provides dozens of treasure tables for gems, art, items, consumables and, of course, gold. But as I said, the system is broken and therefore useless, because there is no reasonable relation between the millions of income adventurers are supposed to earn by RAW and those trivial lifestyle costs. Concerning this, I want to quote a passage from the Angry GM's article, I already mentioned:

Where D&D does f$&% up is in presenting money treasure as important. Because that’s an outright f$&%ing lie. And it confuses the hell out of poor GMs. And, worse, it forces GMs to do unnecessary work. The thing is, many GMs crack open that DMG and find the chapter on treasure and they try to hand out treasure according to the rules and keep everything balanced because the game seems to suggest they have to. But that’s wasted work because the treasure itself has no value. It isn’t important. It’s paperwork for the sake of paperwork.

Applying rules for treasure distribution that are obviously broken is even worse than applying no rules at all. @Vonklaude posted a treasure table that estimated the average amount of treasure handed to the players while applying the rules of the DMG. I already mentioned that the amount earmed by a party during their 20 level career is 3.2 million GP by RAW. Within this thread we talked about adjusting this insane amount by applyng lower multiplicators between the differet tier levels. That would allow the DM to lower the outcome to an amount that better fits his idea of treasure distribution (e.g. the default multiplicator is 10. If you lower it to 5 the characters would only earn ~500.000 GP in their career).

It felt good for a moment, but after I thought about it for a while I asked myself: Why on earth should I ever fix a broken system for treasure distribution that is related to a pricing system that is also broken? The answer was: It makes no sense at all. A pricing system that sells Glue for 50.000+ GP, but a Sentinal Shield for only 100-500 GP is ridiculous. So, fixing the treasure distribution won't solve the problem, because it is related to the pricing system that is also broken.

After all that, I agree to Angry GM that the whole treasure distribution system is a lie and not worth the work. Firstly, if I need to spend so much work to adjust a system, only to match my personal idea of treasure ditribution, I can easily give away treasure by my own system. Secondly, if I already know how much I want to give away to my players, there is no reason to start calculating this amount to solely fit into a table of a broken system.

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In conclusion: If you also have problems with treasure distribution, I suggest to do the following:

1.) Become aware of how much treasure you want to distribute for each level. This depends on what you want your players to be able to afford. You also want to ask yourself, if there are some elements to "burn money" like building Strongholds, etc. Don't panic, now that you are using your own distribution, you will always be able to adjust the wealth of your group. In my case, I allow my party to buy a very limited amount of magic consumables. I looked up Sane Magic Item Prices and found out an amount that suits my purpose.

2.) Delete all gemstones and art objects from treasure. If you and your group care as less about that as my group does, don't think about it. Just do it. Gemstones and art objects are only useful to be converted into cash (except reviving diamonds). So, I suggest to make your DM life easier and don't care for it. Of course, if your players have fun in collecting art for their home base, you might want to go on with it - otherwise don't.

3.) Divide treasure up to several parcels and determine where you want them to be found in the advanture. Consider that you can always add potions and scrolls to your parcels as you want to. If you are running a official WotC campaign, you could also consider only to replace the amount of gold (including gems and art objects) and leave the rest of the treasure as it is. Just do it, as you wish to.

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Doing so is much easier than trying to hand out treasure according to the rules, only because you fear to break the game balance. There is no balance. Accept it. You will see that your DM life will become less complicated, because you can forget about those dozens tables that have made your life so hard.

Kind regards!

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Postscript:

If you read this thread, please keep the following in mind:

My intention: My post was some kind of personal summary from another forum, where we discussed the problem of treasure distribution over several pages and there seemed to be a lot of agreement. My aim was to share this with you. I realized that doing so without the background of the previous discussion was negligent, because a lot of people don't seem to understand the problem I am talking about - either because they didn't look up the sources I linked for proving my thesis or because they didn't understand what's exactly the point.

Understanding the problem: I was quite surprised reading replies that stated that there wasn't a problem because "There is no problem of having too much money, because I like wealthy lifestyles" or "there are homebrew systems that could give money a purpose" (buying magic items is not intended by RAW). In both cases, people told me how they dealt with the problem and sold it as if there were no problem. It's like denying that there is a lack of infracstructure for blind people in urban areas with the answer that "blind people could buy themselves a guide dog". The problem is NOT not to have a guide dog. The problem is the lack of infrastructure. Unfortunately, this is something some people don't get.

My thesis was that there is a huge mismatch between the income of adventurers (3.2 million gold) and the possibilities to spend it (trivial costs, etc.). Therefore, it's unnecessary that 5E provides dozens of tables to make the DM believe, he needs to be careful giving away treasure to the adventurers, although there is nothing to spend it on. To point this out: A DM could also reward his party with 10 million gold per encounter without spending a minute on thinking about it. It would have the same effect. The party wouldn't be able to spend most of it (besides those trivial adventuring costs). Of course, a DM can always implement some mechanics for "burning money" like Strongholds, Castles, etc. But this is already intervention and misses the point. And that leads me to the supposition that the system is broken, because it shouldn't rely on such intervention.

To whom I am talking: If you interpret my posting as being unpolite or so, just keep in mind that I am not talking to you personally. I don't intend any offense. I am just blaming the rules for being inconsistent. That's it. Furthermore, English is not my mother language (as you already might have noticed reading my posts). So, this also might be a reason. I will try my best to avoid the rough edge.

[Malifice]

So your characters only adveture to get money to buy stuff to adventure better?

How implausable.

Why arent they spending money on what real people would?

Wine, women, affluence and so forth?

Does your PC (for some inexplicable reason) not want to be wealthy, with all the perks that brings?

[Goosefarble]

People in my campaigns seem to like money and having money, and spend a lot of it on things that they need - potions, scrolls, food, drink, etc. Granted they're not as high level as 13, but they seem to be fine with it. And they also like gemstones and art objects and often collect them, including worthless trinkets that don't have any monetary value but seem interesting.

[Dudu]

My friend DMed a campaign that had a gamble system, diablo style.

500gp you had a shot at an uncommon item.

5000gp for rare, 50000 for very rare. Legendary wasn't on sale.

Basically, you would roll a d100. It was a magical merchant guild and you got membership of it.
Depending on how much you spent on the guild, or if you did quests to it, you would get benefits, like rolling multiple times and choosing which number.

It work, was fun, very fun.

[Malifice]

Would you want to be a multi millionare in real life? Win the lottery etc?

What would you do with that money?

Now start playing real people with real ambitions, and do that in game.

[JellyPooga]

As others have mentioned, wealth is security. The whole point is to have enough that you don't care about it any more; the maxim "if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it" applies here. Having tens of thousands of gold is not in that wealth bracket. Having 3 million gold is not in that bracket either. When your PC's are in the tens or hundreds of millions (i.e. starting to rival the collected wealth of mid-sized towns), then you're hitting the level of "I spent some pocket change on buying a palace" wealthy and have cause for complaint.

Consider; over the course of a 20 level career, an adventurer will be spending thousands on food and lodgings merely for sustenance. Add ten times that for luxuries. Now add, let's say, 5 times that amount for consumables; healing potions, alchemists fire, poison, spell components etc. Now add money spent on various fees, fines and other miscellaneous expenses. Note that consumables aside, we haven't even considered our adventuring gear. Buy a magic sword. Now buy a better one. And again. And again. How many magic weapons do you find/sell/buy over 20 levels again? Now buy a magic bow. Another and another. Now buy a magic dagger or two for good measure. Now buy three or four sets of magic armour. Now buy a whole miscellany of rings, amulets, robes, wands and so forth, from low to high-end. In one big lump 3 million sounds like a lot, but it isn't because that 3 million isn't just being spent on the final product; it's being spent on everything from 1st level all the way through to 20th. If you're super frugal and an expert merchant, you'll be lucky to have a quarter of that value as personal wealth at 20th level. Most adventurers probably won't even have that.

The wealth system isn't broken; it's just that you're either not looking at the bigger picture or you're not playing your characters as if they were actually people who, you know, spend at least 70% of their income on living expenses and luxuries, just because they can.

[lkwpeter]

Ahm...has anybody that replied until here even read the article I linked? At least, read the paragraph "Value of Gold" and you will understand what I tralking about.

Lifestyle costs are so trivial compared to the wealth the PCs are expected to gain that they are utterly meaningless after some levels. Of course, you can always say "Hm...I like being rich. But if "there’s really nothing to do with treasure other than pile it up and sleep on it", you aren't rich. Instead, you could also collect stones and tell yourself you would be rich.

Read the article, because it's hardly possible to explain it in a better way than Angry GM does. Read it. It's worth it!

[mephnick]

Would you want to be a multi millionare in real life? Win the lottery etc?

What would you do with that money?

Retire in wealth and be an NPC at level 12. Oops, time to roll a new character.

You're supposed to be an adventurer, not a noble holed up in his keep watching the price of trade goods, so "do what real people do" is a pretty bad idea for a game.

I like to spend my money on things that help me adventure.

[pwykersotz]

Ahm...has anybody that replied until here even read the article I linked? At least, read the paragraph "Value of Gold" and you will understand what I tralking about.

Lifestyle costs are so trivial compared to the wealth the PCs are expected to gain that they are utterly meaningless after some levels. Of course, you can always say "Hm...I like being rich. But if "there’s really nothing to do with treasure other than pile it up and sleep on it", you aren't rich. Instead, you could also collect stones and tell yourself you would be rich.

Read the article, because it's hardly possible to explain it in a better way than Angry GM does. Read it. It's worth it!

There’s nothing wrong with NOT having that. Seriously. I don’t want to sound down on it. It’s perfectly fine that D&D doesn’t really care what you do with your money. It’s okay if the game doesn’t want to have an upgrade path that turns currency into a resource for growth and enhancement. A money system that adds depth to the game is perfectly fine, but the game isn’t bad for not having it.
Where D&D does f$&% up is in presenting money treasure as important. Because that’s an outright f$&%ing lie. And it confuses the hell out of poor GMs. And, worse, it forces GMs to do unnecessary work. The thing is, many GMs crack open that DMG and find the chapter on treasure and they try to hand out treasure according to the rules and keep everything balanced because the game seems to suggest they have to. But that’s wasted work because the treasure itself has no value. It isn’t important. It’s paperwork for the sake of paperwork.
Worse yet, it also confuses the players. The players keep finding all of this gold and all of these gems and things. They sell the gems and things and track the gold and divide the treasure up. They write down every last coin they have. They mark off every silver they spend on drinks at the inn. Because, again, it seems like they have to. Everything has a price, after all. And there’s a space on the character sheet for money. And the GM sure seems to make a big deal about it. So it must be important. But when the time comes to spend that money, the players can’t find anything to actually do with it.
Tracking wealth is a lot of work and, in D&D, it has no payoff.

My players are under no such illusions, and neither am I. The D&D money system adds depth to the world, and there is no expectation at my tables of its inflated importance for character upgrades. I'm perfectly happy with it. It's way better than being on the eternal upgrade churn.

[ZorroGames]

Would you want to be a multi millionare in real life? Win the lottery etc?

What would you do with that money?

Now start playing real people with real ambitions, and do that in game.

This “Real Person” grew up around old and new money (my madre was a maid) and watching how foolish people could be with windfall money especially is exactly why I do not, never have, and never plan to “play the lottery” or gamble.

[ZorroGames]

Ahm...has anybody that replied until here even read the article I linked? At least, read the paragraph "Value of Gold" and you will understand what I tralking about.

Lifestyle costs are so trivial compared to the wealth the PCs are expected to gain that they are utterly meaningless after some levels. Of course, you can always say "Hm...I like being rich. But if "there’s really nothing to do with treasure other than pile it up and sleep on it", you aren't rich. Instead, you could also collect stones and tell yourself you would be rich.

Read the article, because it's hardly possible to explain it in a better way than Angry GM does. Read it. It's worth it!

Read a while aho and was not impressed. As requested I will re-read it but not xpecting to change my evaluation of the article.

[Knaight]

My players are under no such illusions, and neither am I. The D&D money system adds depth to the world, and there is no expectation at my tables of its inflated importance for character upgrades. I'm perfectly happy with it. It's way better than being on the eternal upgrade churn.[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR]

Adding depth to the world doesn't necessitate characters making enormous amounts of money (and is better done with an economic system that isn't a total mess), and is thus tangential to the problem presented.

With that said, what Malifice put forward does have some relevance - dollar to GP conversions are a mess, but a high level character has a good fifty million dollars even by a conservative estimate. Personally, there's no way I could spend fifty million dollars on myself. Even living in what I'd consider pretty lavish conditions would drain that pretty slowly (call it a million a decade, for a yearly income of $100,000), leaving a great deal.

That suggests funneling it into other people, both in the sense of friends and family and charities. The adventurer equivalent would be something along the lines of institutional support of friends and allies, if building up armies and castles personally would get in the way of the adventuring people want to do. A bit more mechanical support for that would be nice given the amount of accounting that D&D has you do, but that's par for the course (the amount of tedious XP calculations that go into a simple leveling system comes to mind).

[PhoenixPhyre]

My players are under no such illusions, and neither am I. The D&D money system adds depth to the world, and there is no expectation at my tables of its inflated importance for character upgrades. I'm perfectly happy with it. It's way better than being on the eternal upgrade churn.

Right. I dislike the upgrade churn in games in general.

My current game (I'm the DM)--

* The PCs (level 15) were already rich and powerful. They just found and defeated (but not destroyed yet) a lich who was a collector of ancient valuable things--artwork, gems, etc. They dumped out a whole bag of holding full of gold and replaced it with 15 paintings. Each one was a priceless masterpiece when it was painted, and that was ~800+ years ago. Now they're almost literally priceless just from historical value. They're still adventuring because their goals don't revolve around money. They'll likely end up using a few of them as bribes in the next areas they're going to, but they have a mission. Stop Far Realms creatures from corrupting a major artifact and using it to end the existence of the world. If they survive that, they'll probably retire. Only one (a high elf rogue) is interested in the money--he wants to found a high elven House the good old-fashioned way--by being filthy rich. The others are a personal-magic-power-obsessed (and a little crazy) warlock, a sensible and not-worldly monk, and a tree-hugging druid.

Before this quest-line began they were already famous--now they're legendary. Their adventure will probably end either with facing a Demon Prince (of mutations and disease) or facing a dragon that's been eating souls and is now the power-equivalent of a Demon Prince. At this point, money is an abstract counter. They can't buy magical items--no one's producing them anymore since that's nearly impossible. They already have a house. But since their goals don't care about cash, it's not important. This, to me, is much better than an upgrade treadmill. High level characters shouldn't be pinching pennies. The valuable currencies shift from gold and platinum to time and attention.

[Slipperychicken]

Why arent they spending money on what real people would?

Because the game rules of 5th edition D&D offer next to zero support for this idea.

Some game systems are good about providing the players with money-sinks like organizations, minions, caravans, businesses, property, donations, politics, and partying, complete with prices and rules so that they can understand and appreciate their extravagance. Adventurer Conqueror King springs to mind as an example of a game that does this well.

D&D 5e however does not do this. At best you can say "you have a castle of unspecified dimensions now" before screwing off to the next unspecified adventure and forgetting about your castle because it will never come up, and its contents have no rules, prices, game statistics, benefits, or even guidelines to speak of. There's no sense that you're doing anything other than throwing your gold away for a house you will never use. There isn't a comprehensive set of rules for hirelings or even entertainment. If I wanted to waste my character's hard-earned money on women and song, the rules immediately leave me in the cold and I must rely on my GM to improvise prices for such merriment without any kind of guidance or baseline.

Ahm...has anybody that replied until here even read the article I linked? At least, read the paragraph "Value of Gold" and you will understand what I tralking about.

You have 4 links buried in a multi-page post. Just getting through the post was enough work. I wasn't trying to read three articles just to give myself context for a single forum post.

[Malifice]

Retire in wealth and be an NPC at level 12. Oops, time to roll a new character.

You're supposed to be an adventurer, not a noble holed up in his keep watching the price of trade goods, so "do what real people do" is a pretty bad idea for a game.

How about purchasing 20 years of a luxurious lifestyle? Or are your PCs still squabbling over inn prices and trail rations at 12th level?

Aristocratic is 10gp per day and up. Pre purchase 10 years worth for 40,000. Live it up and look down on those 1st level plebs, as you kick back in exclusive taverns, with sexy women (or men), nice clothes, hot baths, the finest foods, and servants to cater to your every desire.

Like what a real person would likely do.

Alternatively if you're a good aligned cleric or paladin, donate it to the needy and your church. Priests in the real world are expected to be mendicants in pretty much all religions historically, not owning any personal wealth at all.

In fact, I would want to know why a cleric in my games isn't giving substantial money to his church.

I like to spend my money on things that help me adventure.

Fair enough. Real life adventurers use a chunk of their money to buy stuff to adventure more (better boats, sonar, cameras, support crew etc).

But they also live good lives.

When a PC hoards his wealth, and only cares about 'buying better gear' I cringe. Very few (read: no) real person would do this. I could get on board for a very specific character concept I guess, but those should be few and far between.

We worry about setting up our children, buying property, living comfortably (when not sleeping in filth and fighting monsters) and so forth.

Lawyers dont practice law purely to get enough money to buy better law books. I mean, there is an element of that for sure, but the money actually goes elsewhere as well.

You're not talking about what the character wants here (some combination of wealth, fame, family, comfort, happiness, security, legacy etc). You're talking about what the player wants (better bonuses).

[PhoenixPhyre]

Because the game rules of 5th edition D&D offer next to zero support for this idea.

Some game systems are good about providing the players with money-sinks like organizations, minions, caravans, businesses, property, donations, politics, and partying, complete with prices and rules so that they can understand and appreciate their extravagance. Adventurer Conqueror King springs to mind as an example of a game that does this well.

D&D 5e however does not do this. At best you can say "you have a castle of unspecified dimensions now" before screwing off to the next unspecified adventure and forgetting about your castle because it will never come up, and its contents have no rules, prices, game statistics, benefits, or even guidelines to speak of. There's no sense that you're doing anything other than throwing your gold away for a house you will never use. There isn't a comprehensive set of rules for hirelings or even entertainment. If I wanted to waste my character's hard-earned money on women and song, the rules immediately leave me in the cold and I must rely on my GM to improvise prices for such merriment without any kind of guidance or baseline.

I feel like having a fixed baseline of prices becomes unwieldy very fast. It presumes that all nations (even within the same setting) have fixed and similar prices for things. Thus, it doesn't help those of us who use custom settings--I'd have to house-rule it away completely. It doesn't help those who run adventure paths (because those don't have scope for such things anyway). It doesn't help anyone who doesn't run in one particular area of FR--in fact, it sets expectations that cannot be met. You're always going to have to rely on DM adjustments (at minimum, more likely full-on invention) because there are too many variables even discounting setting differences. And including setting differences blows it way out of the water.

The rules of 5e are built around the idea that you're going on adventures, not sitting at home in a castle. The castles, manors, and other things are supposed to happen off-screen. That's by design and is done at least in part to allow focus. D&D is not, and has never succeeded at being, an economy simulator or stronghold-maintenance game. Even in early editions (where such things were perks of high levels), attaining those levels usually involved retiring the PC--the active, on-screen characters were lower levels with occasional focus shifts to the big boys.

[Mikal]

Would you want to be a multi millionare in real life? Win the lottery etc?

What would you do with that money?

Now start playing real people with real ambitions, and do that in game.

I'd put a lawyer on retainer as well as a wealth management counselor, as well as people to watch over them.
Lawyers in relation to estate taxes and other money management as well as wealth managers in general don't exist in base D&D.

I would put the maximum FDIC covered amount in 5-10 banks to generate base interest and to have a cushion should disaster falls.
The FDIC, and banks in general don't exist in base D&D.

I would put 20% of the gross amount into government treasury bonds and short-mid term T-Bills.
Government treasury bonds and T-Bills don't exist in base D&D.

I would put another 60% in the stock market, with a diversification that should protect me from being wiped out, based on the advice of my money manager.
The stock market doesn't exist in base D&D.

See the problem with using the real world as an example and "real" ambitions? They don't translate.

And the items in the base DMG and PHB are laughingly cheap for the riches you do get. And getting above those items requires outside intervention. Yes, you could bribe the local noble to give you a title, but if you have several tens of thousands of gp you can do so without taking an appreciable dent in your resources, especially if the group pools together.

I'm hoping Xanathar's expanded downtime and other rules will help with this.

[Willie the Duck]

Ahm...has anybody that replied until here even read the article I linked? At least, read the paragraph "Value of Gold" and you will understand what I tralking about.

Lifestyle costs are so trivial compared to the wealth the PCs are expected to gain that they are utterly meaningless after some levels. Of course, you can always say "Hm...I like being rich. But if "there’s really nothing to do with treasure other than pile it up and sleep on it", you aren't rich. Instead, you could also collect stones and tell yourself you would be rich.

Read the article, because it's hardly possible to explain it in a better way than Angry GM does. Read it. It's worth it!

First and foremost, take some time and think about what you can do to make anyone who decides to click on this thread bother with your premise. Angry DM's rantiness is a schtick -- a literary device used for effect. Even he uses it at best middlingly and receives plenty of very valid criticism for being a lot more style than substance. You are starting out of the gate seeming angry at your audience, that's not a good start. Just from the jump, you need to sell why anyone should care. No, you can't defer back to Angry DM and let him do the selling for you, you need to.

Now, to your premise. It is certainly not wrong. There is absolutely not a lot to do with gold between the points of buying plate armor and some healing potions... and grandiose things like merchant ships or castles. That is clearly intentional, and I believe a reaction to the foibles of 3e (or possibly back to oD&D-1e).

oD&D-BECMI had gold which didn't do much once you got it back to town (except for buying that castle and army, which by the rules at least was still a big part of the game), but it was getting the gold out of the dungeon that gave you your primary xp. So that was a single advancement path, simply with a physical representation (gp) of the primary advancement mechanism (xp), which provided an additional logistical challenge (one had to not only liberate the gold from the monsters and traps guarding it, but had to be able to haul it back to the surface). Sure, the gp=xp paradigm creates some challenges (if you wanted to create a shipwrecked-on-island scenario, or recreate LotR instead of the Hobbit, you need to create an alternate reward structure), but that was fine because that wasn't the type of adventure the game was designed for (and if you are changing the premise of the game, then you should be fine with designing your own rewards*).
*The only real flaw in this logic is that they kept that structure going long past the point where the gaming audience had pretty clearly carried the game past the 'enter nameless dungeon and try to get out with the loot' as the exclusive adventure structure

AD&D:1e had a similar premise, but you also had to train to gain your lower levels. This gave you something to do with your gold before you started buying castles. It also created an additional logistics problem -- if you got your xp at the standard rate (approximately 10% from defeating monsters, and 90% from liberating them of their gold), you ended up just slightly cash poor for that training. What do you do: delay leveling up, and lose out on the mechanical benefits thereof, or sell that magic item you found (losing the benefit of that, but getting your level)?

D&D 3e/PF had what I think a lot of people thought they wanted, until they saw the consequences. Gold was just another avenue towards the magic items you wanted to get to make yourself better at going and getting gold to make yourself better at.... (and so on and so forth). So it became a genuine second reward/advancement structure, complementary to (and only indirectly tied to) xp for defeating enemies. The problem with that, however, is that then the game, the challenge rating system, and all your gaming assumptions have to be built around a specific rate of gp accumulation, and what you will expect the PCs to have done with their wealth. Your Xth level wizard will have accumulated Y gold, and thus will have approximately bracers of armor +Z -- but then he better, because the CR X monsters he is up against is designed around that power level. Suddenly, treasure, and the need for it, has become straightjacketed. You must now spend it to keep your head above water, and god forbid you spend it on bribing guards, pleasure barges, or castles full of objects d'arte. Gold, in the process of becoming an alternative advancement path, has stopped functioning like money, because you can't spend it like money.

D&D 5e thoughtfully took the best of both worlds. Xp was not directly tied to money acquisition, allowing all kinds of non-treasure-hunter-style adventures without rewriting the reward structure. GP was not tied to magic item acquisition, allowing you to actually use it for money. This does, of course, create the issue that there isn't a huge number of things that you have to spend money on, and that's the point. You get to spend it on frivolities, RP, or plot coupons because you are not required to spend it on mechanical effects (and, as corollary, the DM gets to alter how much of it you get without downstream consequences on mechanical structures). Gold not being tied to direct mechanical benefit is a feature, not a bug. Now money can be that thing that is used and important in the game, when and only when it makes sense that money would be important. Characters need to worry about having a roof over their heads? They need money. Need to buy their dad out of imprisonment? Money? They are Robin Hood and need to give to the poor? Money. Need to upgrade their sword +1 into a sword +2? Not money.

I understand that TAGM has stated, "Shut Up About Economies, Shut Up About Money Sinks, Just Shut Up." Unfortunately, he seems to think he actually made a good point about them, and he did not. It seems more that he completely misses the point. He states "The things I discussed above, upgrades, utility items, and living expenses? Those things have value in the game. They represent increased abilities or options." That's fine. But we already have those. Magic items and leveling are crystal clear, obvious forms of increased abilities and options. There is no need to turn money into another avenue for doing this, and more to the point, the instant you do so, you stop being able to use money as money.

Obviously you rather like this AngryGM article (enough that you wanted to make a thread about how you agree with it). So I hope you aren't too offended that I'm basically saying that TAGM basically profoundly misses the point of a very deliberate game design decision. But that's where I stand.

[Malifice]

Because the game rules of 5th edition D&D offer next to zero support for this idea.

Why do you need rules for it? If you really want some kind of mechanical benefit for spending money go nuts.

I just had two PCs just threw 20,000 each trying to outdo each other with the greatest party the town had ever seen (both now have advantage on charisma based checks in town... but disadvantage with them when opposed to the town giard who had to clean up the mess). Ive got another that loves pre-purchasing an aristocratic lifestyle (he's up to just over 10 years now) and living it up. I had several PCs donate large sums to a local orphanage after a dragon attacked the town.

The Swashbuckler in the party refused to help out, and was last seen lugging 20,000 gp and several art objects out of town towards a magic item shop.

When I awarded 1xp for every 10gp spent to the PCs that helped out, he was jelly.

What do mercenaries cost? Buy 100 of them for a few months, and enjoy bounded accuracy, making your party necromancer drool (and with far less RP consequences). Have an assassin on permanent retainer. Hire a bunch of concubines to fan you and rub your feet and back while feeding you grapes when you get back from adventuring. Buy yourself noble titles and make yourself above the law.

Buy a tower for your undead minions, and wait for adventurers to storm it and kill you.

[Mikal]

Why do you need rules for it? If you really want some kind of mechanical benefit for spending money go nuts.

Because not everyone has 10+ hours a week to theorycraft stuff that could easily have been in the books and reasonably should have been?

[Meta]

I feel like there are a lot of good reasons to spend gold on better magic items. Even in a story heavier game I play in, PCs make enemies that need dealt with via violence.

It just changes it from "I can better kill this lich and loot his better stuff"

to:

"I'd like my children's safety to no longer be threatened so I need to acquire at least a Fey-Slaughter Longsword to stop the Chimeric Wizard, Mortressus from teleporting around while our Barbarian beats the snot out of him."

[Malifice]

See the problem with using the real world as an example and "real" ambitions? They don't translate.
.

They do translate. Presuming your DM is running a realistic world.

Buy yourself a Noble title (and land) and live off the rent from the land (or collect taxes). Plus (as a noble) you're now above the law. No longer a masterless vagabond (and thus under the status of a Serf) you're now a Noble. Killing Serfs is a property crime for you now. Go nuts.

Erect a tower on your land. Staff it with men at arms, assassin or two, and a court wizard and cleric. Supplement the tax/ rent income via adventuring to expand rapidly.

Heck its like you people never played AD&D or BECMI. In each of them, once you hit 'name' level you would head out and construct a tower/ keep/ dominion and rule. You went from hobo to king. Most of your money would be tied up in your keep and upkeep. Magic shops didnt exist.

Ever since 3E it's all about adventuring for the sake of adventuring. You only adventure to earn money, and you only earn money so you can buy stuff that helps you adventure better. Its all retch and no vomit.

What are your characters goals? Spend your money achieving them, setting up your family and so forth. Play a real character instead of a 2 dimensional 'orphan with no ties to the world, who wanders from place to place, and only adventures to get money to buy things that make him better at adventuring'.

[Malifice]

I'd like my children's safety to no longer be threatened so I need to acquire at least a Fey-Slaughter Longsword to stop the Chimeric Wizard, Mortressus from teleporting around while our Barbarian beats the snot out of him."

Yet by the time those PCs reach high level, they've almost certainly spent zero money on said children. Sending them to Wizard college, hiring bodyguards to look after them, investing in land so (when you die - which could happen at any time) they are looked after financially afterwards. Daily upkeep (granting a better standard of health and education).

Etc etc.

Seriously. If I had kids, I would devote a sizeable chunk of my money ensuring they are looked after when I die.

[Malifice]

Because not everyone has 10+ hours a week to theorycraft stuff that could easily have been in the books and reasonably should have been?

What are you theorycrafting?

Do you need rules for how awesome it is to be wealthy, and how much advantages it brings, and why most people desire it?

Isnt that kind of self evident?

[Willie the Duck]

Because the game rules of 5th edition D&D offer next to zero support for this idea.

Some game systems are good about providing the players with money-sinks like organizations, minions, caravans, businesses, property, donations, politics, and partying, complete with prices and rules so that they can understand and appreciate their extravagance. Adventurer Conqueror King springs to mind as an example of a game that does this well.

D&D 5e however does not do this. At best you can say "you have a castle of unspecified dimensions now" before screwing off to the next unspecified adventure and forgetting about your castle because it will never come up, and its contents have no rules, prices, game statistics, benefits, or even guidelines to speak of. There's no sense that you're doing anything other than throwing your gold away for a house you will never use. There isn't a comprehensive set of rules for hirelings or even entertainment. If I wanted to waste my character's hard-earned money on women and song, the rules immediately leave me in the cold and I must rely on my GM to improvise prices for such merriment without any kind of guidance or baseline.

Agreed, and my only response is that various TSR edition games did have price lists for luxury goods, commodities, "dancing girls," and so forth, and at least 51% of the gaming audience seemed to have considered it fill material one flipped past to get to the crunch part of the game.

D&D is burdened by having multiple audiences (whom often have directly contradictory expectations), whereas no one picks up Adventurer Conqueror King unless that is specifically the type of gaming they want to play.

I thoroughly hope that eventually there is an official 5e "Castlebuilders Guide" or somesuch. And I hope it includes a bunch of the goodies like rumor tables and woman and song expenditure guides and maybe even some ACKS (or at least BECM Companion dominion rules) level 'what to do as a high-level semi-noble' advice. But it will always be niche audience material compared to new races/feats/archetypes, modules/adventures, or campaign world guides.

[Meta]

Yet by the time those PCs reach high level, they've almost certainly spent zero money on said children. Sending them to Wizard college, hiring bodyguards to look after them, investing in land so (when you die - which could happen at any time) they are looked after financially afterwards. Daily upkeep (granting a better standard of health and education).

Etc etc.

Seriously. If I had kids, I would devote a sizeable chunk of my money ensuring they are looked after when I die.

Bodyguards, at least not the ones you can buy with some gold, are not a lot of help (nor is land, titles, or much else) against epic level casters. Maybe if I had a couple of Solars or Gold Dragons on retainer, but at level 13, I do not, and don't imagine many that do.

You're making a lot of assumption about people's game worlds and seem to not be addressing the existence of BBEGs. What good is health insurance or concubines if the world is ending?

[Dimers]

You know what I would do if I were a high-level character with gobs of money and no guarantee of being able to buy utilitarian magic items? I'd fund research into how to make utilitarian magic items. (Mind you, I don't mean dragonslaying swords and such, I mean lights, farming improvements, information preservation, anti-agathics, water supply, that kind of thing. Quality-of-life for millions of people.)

Ahm...has anybody that replied until here even read the article I linked? At least, read the paragraph "Value of Gold" and you will understand what I tralking about.

Lifestyle costs are so trivial compared to the wealth the PCs are expected to gain that they are utterly meaningless after some levels. Of course, you can always say "Hm...I like being rich. But if "there’s really nothing to do with treasure other than pile it up and sleep on it", you aren't rich. Instead, you could also collect stones and tell yourself you would be rich.

Read the article, because it's hardly possible to explain it in a better way than Angry GM does. Read it. It's worth it!

Your message is somewhat lessened by your repeated 'shouting', your claims that no one has read what you linked, your English-language errors easily avoided with a spell-checker ('fotget', 'tralking'), and your failure to engage opposing ideas as if they were meaningful.

[Mikal]

They do translate. Presuming your DM is running a realistic world.

Buy yourself a Noble title (and land) and live off the rent from the land (or collect taxes). Plus (as a noble) you're now above the law. No longer a masterless vagabond (and thus under the status of a Serf) you're now a Noble. Killing Serfs is a property crime for you now. Go nuts.

If there is land physically available in the kingdom.
If that land is actually available for purchase if freed.
If you can actually purchase a noble title in the kingdom.
If once all that is done, you can somehow attract people to live in land which has previously been unclaimed for whatever reason.

And if you want to essentially become a npc noble, whose full time is now needed to maintain or break even on that land, since the rules for ownership and businesses are nearly pure money sinks. (invest lots of money just to break even, ignoring the up front costs! Man, that sounds like a smart investment)

Heck its like you people never played AD&D or BECMI. In each of them, once you hit 'name' level you would head out and construct a tower/ keep/ dominion and rule. You went from hobo to king. Most of your money would be tied up in your keep and upkeep. Magic shops didnt exist.

Yeah, you mean AD&D and BECMI, where they had rules and mechanical benefits from doing so, and not just a small set of downtime rules that on average cause you to either break even or lose money, with at best a small profit.

Can I expand on that? Yes? But that's the time I don't really have for theory crafting.

Ever since 3E it's all about adventuring for the sake of adventuring. You only adventure to earn money, and you only earn money so you can buy stuff that helps you adventure better. Its all retch and no vomit.

Actually one of most favorite 3e supplements was Stronghold Builders Guide and the landlord feat. That, plus leadership, plus undead leadership, plus classes that could boost leadership gave me a lot of mechanical support for not only having followers, i.e. an army to lead and people to staff my stuff, but lots of mechanical support for actually building said stronghold, taxing it, etc.

So the whole "lol 3e was magic item mart only" is patently false. Sorry.

What are your characters goals? Spend your money achieving them, setting up your family and so forth. Play a real character instead of a 2 dimensional 'orphan with no ties to the world, who wanders from place to place, and only adventures to get money to buy things that make him better at adventuring'.

The problem is that I want to play a fully fleshed out character, but the rules break down as soon as I want to do so. That's the issue I have with it.

What are you theorycrafting?

Do you need rules for how awesome it is to be wealthy, and how much advantages it brings, and why most people desire it?

Isnt that kind of self evident?

Yes, actually. If I want to actually show both the benefits and drawbacks of it, or I want someone to build a castle with their hard earned cash, or become a noble, etc. I want mechanical support for it, a baseline to work from. Not just blindly reaching into the dark. Right now any such support is extremely anemic, and as a DM or player I don't have time to flesh such a system out further or balance it, and to a degree... I shouldn't have to.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Actually one of most favorite 3e supplements was Stronghold Builders Guide and the landlord feat. That, plus leadership, plus undead leadership, plus classes that could boost leadership gave me a lot of mechanical support for not only having followers, i.e. an army to lead and people to staff my stuff, but lots of mechanical support for actually building said stronghold, taxing it, etc.

So the whole "lol 3e was magic item mart only" is patently false. Sorry.

The problem is that I want to play a fully fleshed out character, but the rules break down as soon as I want to do so. That's the issue I have with it.

Yes, actually. If I want to actually show both the benefits and drawbacks of it, or I want someone to build a castle with their hard earned cash, or become a noble, etc. I want mechanical support for it, a baseline to work from. Not just blindly reaching into the dark. Right now any such support is extremely anemic, and as a DM or player I don't have time to flesh such a system out further or balance it, and to a degree... I shouldn't have to.

But those rules (those mechanical benefits) come at a severe cost (at least to me). They either shatter the world's believability or they have to be translated (and thus serve no benefit) to fit different campaigns in the same world, let alone different worlds. 3.5e made the pretense of standardizing things that are not standard. Consistency is a false ideal when applied against things that have strong natural variation.

A Stronghold-builder's Guide would only work for one portion of one world, in one type of campaign. For the rest of the game-playing group it's useless and a distraction from the point of the game. 5e is explicitly not a fantasy world simulator. It's not designed to do that. And that's a good thing. 3.5e tried, and failed miserably. I probably should sig this, but here's the quote from how 5e is sold and marketed (from the back of the PHB):

Dungeons and Dragons immerses you in a world of adventure. Explore ancient ruins and deadly dungeons. Battle monsters while searching for legendary treasures. Gain experience and power as you trek across uncharted lands with your companions.

The world needs heroes. Will you answer the call?

What you're asking is for the system to do something it was expressly designed not to do. You're blaming a shovel for not being a good hammer. There are other games to play if you want to do pseudo-medieval Sims. Don't shove a bunch of unrelated material in that cuts across the design, bloating it and allowing breakage of the rest of the game, just to fill that niche that was never promised.

[Mikal]

But those rules (those mechanical benefits) come at a severe cost (at least to me). They either shatter the world's believably or they have to be translated (and thus serve no benefit) to fit different campaigns in the same world, let alone different worlds. 3.5e made the pretense of standardizing things that are not standard. Consistency is a false ideal when applied against things that have strong natural variation.

A foundation on which to base something on which you may need to modify is better than no foundation or support at all though.

A Stronghold-builder's Guide would only work for one portion of one world, in one type of campaign. For the rest of the game-playing group it's useless and a distraction from the point of the game. 5e is explicitly not a fantasy world simulator. It's not designed to do that. And that's a good thing. 3.5e tried, and failed miserably. I probably should sig this, but here's the quote from how 5e is sold and marketed (from the back of the PHB):

What you're asking is for the system to do something it was expressly designed not to do. You're blaming a shovel for not being a good hammer. There are other games to play if you want to do pseudo-medieval Sims. Don't shove a bunch of unrelated material in that cuts across the design, bloating it and allowing breakage of the rest of the game, just to fill that niche that was never promised.

And by following this blindly you go back to the OPs issue: That gold is worthless, and this credo actually creates the issue that Malifice stated adventuring for the sake of adventuring, with nothing to do with the spoils. So it sounds more like a 5e issue, not a 3e. So are you saying an ideal 5e campaign for you is nothing but a pack of murder hobos, moving from one slaughter site to another?

And I disagree that Stronghold builders was a distraction from the point of the game. The point of the game is to enjoy yourselves, and some people like building the world they live in, making a lasting contribution to it, not just raiding dungeons, killing stuff, and amassing a horde of coin as if we were dragons and having nothing to do with it. After all, you're seeking "legendary treasure" in 5e... but you have almost nothing you can do with it, unless you can use it to kill or protect yourself from being killed.