TNE: Treasure as Social Power

K · Post by K » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:54 pm

Ok, we can all agree that buying powerful magic items with gold is a poor idea; there are balance issues and it causes people to take gold from starving dirt farmers and do cavity searches on zombies.

Bad times.

So, I started thinking back to what made gold fun for me in 2e DnD. Back then, you couldn't buy anthing of real power with your gold, so you often used it for things like bribes, buying castles, and buying awesome capes. In 3e campaigns that didn't allow magic item buying I even subsidized the education of brave orphans caught in my adventures so they could grow up to be bureaucrats.

So here is the idea: loot is a representation of the amount of power you get in the area you do the adventure. You can take it in gold, or in favors granted by the locals.

So it goes like this: Bob and The Band of Extralegal Capitalists have just finished a adventure with kenku and death priests which culminated in an epic battle. This is a 4000 point adventure, so each adventurer get 4000 points.

Bob is outfitting his castle back home, so he takes 2000 of those points and sells off deathpriest wall hangings and gold toilet seats for 2000 gold pieces. He also spends 1000 points on getting Local Hero, and 1000 on King's Notice.

Local Hero lets Bob not need to buy his own drinks, hide out, and raise peasant armies in the Shire of Bonnydunk.

King's Notice gets him an open invitation to the King's Court, and the ability to wave off local sheriffs when he is caught in compromising situations like carrying a manticore corpse through town on a sled, and it can be used anywhere in the Kingdom.

Bob then takes his gold that he traded his points for and uses it to buy several ballista for his castle and calls it a day.

Now, the very nature of this stuff is that it is expendable. One battle at you castle and your ballista get smashed by giants, and you can blow your invitation to the king to set up some other adventure.

Excess treasure beyond your point value is stolen by thieves, taxed, or found to be unsellable in the local economy ("no thanks, we are full up on 30ft obsidian statues of giant frogs").

The benefits of this system is that losing and gaining treasure will be less of a big deal so that people are extracting gold fillings from orc grandmothers since your loot can be non-monetary, and you get a huge amount of immersion into the setting. In adventures where gaining local influence makes little sense like Planescape, you can exchange your points for money and buy things where you do care to have local influence (buying your local Temple of Orcus a new sacrifice stone means they let you use their library and poison lab).

Any comments?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:55 pm

K, I'm just so glad to see you again that I can't even dissect your post.

What's up, dawg?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:11 pm

You're going to want to put some teeth behind the proposition that people don't want you to run around looting corpses for gold teeth and wedding bands. When your basic currency is regional prestige, going out and defeating a squad of Thralg's River Bandits is worth prestige. But putting on gloves to see if any of Thralg's troops swallowed anything valuable before you put them to the sword is a way to lose prestige.

In that manner, it encourages people to loot battlefields if and only if they have reason to believe that Soulcutter the Sword of Despair is somewhere on it or when they are about to leave town and never ever come back. That's a good start. Personally, I want to never have to stick my hand up the gullet of a giant lizard again in my life. If I kill a wyvern, it shouldn't have a bunch of gems in its stomach. Killing a wyvern should be all the payment I get. That and being able to go back to town and flash winning smiles at the gnomish girls and tell them that I helped kill the wyvern and it's safe to have gnome babies starting this evening at 7ish. Possibly at my place.

-Username17

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:20 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: In that manner, it encourages people to loot battlefields if and only if they have reason to believe that Soulcutter the Sword of Despair is somewhere on it or when they are about to leave town and never ever come back. That's a good start. Personally, I want to never have to stick my hand up the gullet of a giant lizard again in my life. If I kill a wyvern, it shouldn't have a bunch of gems in its stomach. Killing a wyvern should be all the payment I get. That and being able to go back to town and flash winning smiles at the gnomish girls and tell them that I helped kill the wyvern and it's safe to have gnome babies starting this evening at 7ish. Possibly at my place.

-Username17

I'm gonna shorten this and make it a signature...

I like it. I like it a lot. If this is the start of a brainstorm I can't wait to see the finished product.

sake · Post by **sake** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:34 pm

It's a rather abstract system, which would tick off people who prefer a more simulation bent. It reminds me of resource points in various board games really.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:48 pm

For those who want a more concrete version of it, couldn't the points be written up as writs, land, etc given by the powers that be for services rendered?

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:57 pm

It's K!

Do you know about d20 Modern wealth checks?
It abstracted material resource to the point of ignoring pocket change in favor of income.

Buying a sandwich or finding a pouch of gold is a drop in the bucket. Inconsequential.
Getting a promotion or finding an unattended vault actually matters.

The part that I especially like about such an abstraction is that it's easy to put to numbers and scale.
Tie in bonuses to wealth checks from social influence, and you have an interesting crossover.

That, and I don't enjoy counting to the thousands very much.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:18 pm

sigma999 wrote:Do you know about d20 Modern wealth checks?

Do you?

D20 Modern wealth was broken five ways sideways.

It basically required you to go around stealing cars and running a chop shop in order to keep paying for rocket launcher ammo.

Which was handy because running a chop shop for cars or even used guns was also the way to get insanely stupid wealth scores so you could go around buying Concords with no greater impact than picking up a shiny new Desert Eagle.

In addition the d20 modern rules encourage not just a party face but a party treasurer as everyone benefits from putting all their cash and sales revenues into a single Wealth Bonus credit account.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:27 pm

Simulation wise isn't it a good thing to require the pcs to get a job to support their habits? I mean leaning more towards realism you gotta ask where does the money come from. As for whether it was broken I don't know. I've seen the modern rules a few times and played once so I don't have an opinion on the "brokenness" of the system.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:39 pm

PhoneLobster wrote: Do you?

I do. Examples you cite seem more of a setting problem than RNG of a wealth check, though.
People with insanely high reserves of cash tend to invest money and get good returns; they are rich because they
Rolls Royce and Thunderbirds are like collecting toys to them. It's a drop in the bucket to do so.
Pocket change.

With resources and cash exchange, it's a matter of scale.
Buying a hamburger for $20 means nothing to a member of the U.S. Senate because they make thousands more every day.
If buying a private jet is as cheap as a new car, that's a matter of scale in the same way (and equally trivial to a billionaire)... but much more distant from a day-to-day basis of purchases.

Groups of rich people can and do pool resources for greater effect. It's called a corporation.
With K's reference in mind, it would be a dynasty, clan, fiefdom, or alliance.
The issue with that is far more social as betrayal of trust becomes much more dangerous.

PhoneLobster wrote: party treasurer

Accountant.
Cooking the books, corrupt investments, etc.

Perhaps the problem lies with use of d20 on wealth checks rather than multiple pass dice, but I may be threatening a thread derail with that...

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:55 pm

sigma999 wrote:I do. Examples you cite seem more of a setting problem than RNG of a wealth check, though.

No. You are mistaking fluff for rules. The wealth rules are rather clear on this.

Pocket change.

Actually anything with a sale/purchase DC of 15+ is +1 Wealth bonus. Which is most certainly not pocket change in a world where a wealth bonus of 50 lets you buy three Black Hawk Helicopters before even having to make a wealth roll (and you will probably have about 10 before failure is a serious issue) and each of those black hawk helicopters, individually cost you a single sold Desert Eagle in wealth bonus to purchase.

With resources and cash exchange, it's a matter of scale.

But d20 modern doesn't work like that.

They set out with a pretense of scale And when it comes to "can I buy it?" that almost works for a small margin.

But it breaks on the permanent wealth increase/decrease rules.

The ham burger IS meaningless, but it is meaningless to EVERYONE with a Wealth score of 1+!

Items up to wealth DC 14 are meaningless to EVERYONE as long as they have an equal or higher wealth score (this is the tiny margin of the system that almost works like the scale you seem to think it creates).

Items of DC 15+ are meaningful to EVERYONE. Because they always add or reduce wealth by a MINIMUM of 1 point when bought or sold. Millionaires count how many Desert Eagles they have because that's how many Concords they can buy!

Poor men count how many Desert Eagles they have because if they collect and sell about 20, they become millionaires

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:58 pm

Isn't that a facet of having a fixed point of income altering purchases, rather than the concept of wealth checks itself?

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:09 am

PhoneLobster wrote: Items up to wealth DC 14 are meaningless to EVERYONE as long as they have an equal or higher wealth score (this is the tiny margin of the system that almost works like the scale you seem to think it creates).

Items of DC 15+ are meaningful to EVERYONE. Because they always add or reduce wealth by a MINIMUM of 1 point when bought or sold. Millionaires count how many Desert Eagles they have because that's how many Concords they can buy!

That is the focus I've held towards abstract wealth, but I'll admit I have overlooked the odd chance that pricing (as by d20 Modern RAW) may have been abstracted with too distant of a detail resolution concerning item worth.

Placing numeric distance between wealth DCs might help, as well as altering the process for scaling wealth bonus.
I agree it is a bit odd in d20 Modern how it goes up and down in rather unwarranted events, but I've been trying to keep discussion of wealth checks in a more general sense.

As for the alternative absolute wealth concerning the cars vs. jets example, can you imagine the numbers associated with such transactions if one were to count it out?
That's not something many RPG gamers would enjoy.
Hell, even CEOs and bankers pay other people to do that shit, there's so much number crunching involved.
You could round to thousands, millions, billions, as some kind of ranking seperation between purchase qualities, but then you're on your way towards an abstract system of a different kind.

I personally don't feel like hiring an accountant just to play high-level RPGs.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:23 am

Buger it.

D20 Modern wealth is so stupid it deserves some more putting to bed.

Imagine a starting party. They call themselves "The Deagle Boys" and all want to buy desert eagles.

PC 1Occupation (Law Enforcement), No profession ranks, No windfall feat, rolls 5 on his 2d4 = Starting Wealth Bonus 6
PC 2Occupation (Rural), No profession ranks, No windfall feat, rolls 2 on his 2d4 = Starting Wealth Bonus 3
PC 3Occupation (Criminal), 4 profession ranks, No Windfall feat, rolls 4 on his 2d4 = Wealth Bonus 6
PC 4Occupation (Dilettante), no profession rank, No Windfall feat, rolls 2 on his 2d4 = Wealth Bonus 8

They walk into the Desert Eagle store.

First they each purchase a license to do all this legally (DC 10). PCs 1-4 all lose 1 wealth point for doing so.

PC 3 with his wealth 5 starts out. He wants a Desert Eagle. That's DC 18 with his license. He can take 20 and buy it, but it will cost him 1d6+1 wealth points. Same with PCs 1 and 2 with their wealth bonuses of 5 and 2. Losing 4.5 points on average everyone of them is wiped out to 0 wealth and the 2 wealth PC laughs at his friends who wasted an extra 3 points of wealth over him.

PC 4 then buys his Desert Eagle. He has 2 wealth points left.

But then he has an Idea.

Each character takes their Desert Eagle and sells it back. Gaining 2d6+1 wealth each ending up around 8 and 10 points of wealth each.

They now each buy a desert eagle back again for only 2 wealth points each or 1 wealth point for the guy with 10 wealth.

So by buying, selling back, and buying the same thing each they have profited by enough wealth points to buy a second Desert eagle each and a big pile of other crap!

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:44 am

So... Don't do it like that?

Emerald · Post by **Emerald** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:11 am

Grek wrote:So... Don't do it like that?

The fact that it can be done is a flaw in the system, whether or not you have a gentlemen's agreement not to do so.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:22 am

I think you misunderstand. By "it", I mean the wealth stat mechanic and by "that", I mean a system which gives more wealth points for selling an object than it costs to purchase it in the first place.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:35 am

Grek wrote:I think you misunderstand. By "it", I mean the wealth stat mechanic and by "that", I mean a system which gives more wealth points for selling an object than it costs to purchase it in the first place.

But it doesn't give you more wealth points to sell it than it does to purchase it.

It gives you more wealth points to sell it when your wealth bonus is lower. So you have to first spend wealth in order to gain it.

edit: I'd also like to add the above "sell back your starting desert eagles" method can get you limitless desert eagles.

Because at wealth 8+ a desert eagle is costing only 1 or 2 wealth points, until that brings you below 8 when one or two desert eagles will wipe your credit account, and then sitting on about 3-4 desert eagles you sell ONE of them to get back to wealth 8 and do it again as many times as you want.

Then when you have 50 desert eagles you sell them all in one go and start buying military helicopters and tanks by the dozen.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:37 am

I'm actually totally OK with a log system where things less than your wealth bracket are "free" and things that are from a higher wealth bracket are "unpurchaseable." That creates a special edge case where people could theoretically buy 1000 free packets of pepper and put them into a pile and have a trade good that increased their net worth. That's the kind of problem which you actually can just handwave away with a page 42 exception or something.

A simple guideline like "Very large numbers of purchases may be better represented as a single purchase for purposes of adjusting a character's resource level." could probably cover that edge case well enough.

But I don't want my character to be sleeping in a trash pile behind the inn to save up for a sword upgrade. And I don't want to sort through the intestines of manticores looking for jewelry. If a wealth system can cover those two points, I'm sold.

-Username17

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:47 am

I have to agree with frank's sentiment. Games just seem to run smoother when you don't have to worry so much over skill checks and character wealth. If PC Wealth can be boiled down to RNG where in a person would actually have to spend time and effort to improve upon (becoming a bit richer than everyone else) and it would be an excellent excuse to make use of those profession skillz. The money has to come from somewhere right and getting it out of monster testicles just doesn't sound epic. Plus there are already models for character wealth/level and item costs (The Magic Item Compendium being the excellent resource it is) So if someone can just fiddle with the numbers here and there an effective system could be made.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:51 am

FrankTrollman wrote:I'm actually totally OK with a log system where things less than your wealth bracket are "free" and things that are from a higher wealth bracket are "unpurchaseable." That creates a special edge case where people could theoretically buy 1000 free packets of pepper and put them into a pile and have a trade good that increased their net worth. That's the kind of problem which you actually can just handwave away with a page 42 exception or something.

D20 modern wealth system bends the moment you sell the number of pistols you pick up from a single mook encounter. It breaks once you do that two or three times.

It isn't the same as buying and selling 1000 tea bags or scraping the lead of the roof of the church of evil to resell for scrap.

Like most things with d20 modern/saga edition star wars, even if it sounds like a good idea in principle the implementation is fundamentally flawed to such a degree it puts the original good idea into question.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:51 am

I like this a idea a lot. It doesn't need the d20 modern wealth mechanics, it needs a bunch of ideas of what you can spend the points on and some work on costs. Oh, and some explanation of what you can do with excess magic items, because with any D&D-related system these will exist unless you only ever fight animals and slimes.

To get some of these excess magic items you could possibly get a patron or a wizard's guild membership or something?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:51 am

For people who really do want to play Scrooge McDuck characters where their planar adventurers will stop to pick copper pieces off of the street or will fight the dogs for a spot at an inn fireplace or recycle potion containers to fill with water from the Ganges... how do you accomodate them?

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:56 am

Wealth score bonuses? Ponz scheme mechanics? Any system you make will probably be as breakable as real world economics. If the PCs wanna break the system with get rich quick scams they can most certainly find a way no matter what system is made for it.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 2:36 am

To return to the original suggestion: it seems like you could end up with the situation where you can defeat all of King Fred's enemies within a 10,000 mile radius and yet he's still not grateful because you spent all of your "loot" on a bitchin' orphanage rather than buying the King's Buddy favour. I'd prefer to have NPCs reacting organically the PCs actions rather than forcing some arbitrary mechanic on top of it.