Wish Economy

[Bobikus]

When you say "Greyhawking", does that refer to plundering every last bit of wealth? That's what I'm gathering from context.

Yeah. Plunder everything that isn't nailed down, then take everything nailed down, then take the nails out of the walls, then take the walls.

[Lago PARANOIA]

PS. I play a MMO where I make about a million a month.

PS. I play a MMO where I make about a million a month.

I PLAY A MMO

K, I am so disappoint you have no idea.

[hogarth]

So instead of using different currencies that make previous tiers irrelevant, we should be using different orders of magnitude of one currency to make previous tiers irrelevant AND expect people to shlep around 4 million tons of gold?

K, your objections would probably sound a lot more intelligent if they weren't about issues that have exact analogues in real life.

(For instance: In real life, if I want to buy a million dollar house, I don't cart around a million Canadian one dollar coins.)

[darkmaster]

Yeah, but in D&D people have no choice but to use big heavy coins if you're just using orders of magnitude. And since all currency is the same (specific settings notwithstanding) your analog fails to be relevant twice.

[RadiantPhoenix]

You don't carry around 4 million tons of gold, you carry around the equivalent value in lesser items; you trade an amount of gold large enough to fill your bag of holding for a small magic item of equivalent value, then repeat the process until you have a bag of holding full of small magic items; if you need more than that, you do the same thing again, but with small magic items instead of gold.

[fectin]

You don't carry around 4 million tons of gold, you carry around the equivalent value in lesser items; you trade an amount of gold large enough to fill your bag of holding for a small magic item of equivalent value, then repeat the process until you have a bag of holding full of small magic items; if you need more than that, you do the same thing again, but with small magic items instead of gold.

Magic items aren't fungible.

[darkmaster]

Not sure what fungible is, but you can also only sell items for half price. So you'd actually have MORE money by just carrying around tons of gold.

[Grek]

Stuff like CLW potions are totally fungible while weighing less than their value in gold. So are gemstones, piles of rare herbs and +2 swords.

[fectin]

Not sure what fungible is, but you can also only sell items for half price. So you'd actually have MORE money by just carrying around tons of gold.

Well, hmm. Wikipedia draws a distinction between fungibility and liquidity. I've always heard "fungible" used to mean both. Either way, I meant the thing that you said.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Not sure what fungible is, but you can also only sell items for half price. So you'd actually have MORE money by just carrying around tons of gold.

If you can actually carry that much gold, sure; if you can't, you need some denser form of trade good.

[K]

You don't carry around 4 million tons of gold, you carry around the equivalent value in lesser items; you trade an amount of gold large enough to fill your bag of holding for a small magic item of equivalent value, then repeat the process until you have a bag of holding full of small magic items; if you need more than that, you do the same thing again, but with small magic items instead of gold.

I can see it now:

Player: Oh crap, I only have a Mirror of Life Trapping. Can you give me change in Wands of Wonder? How about Bronze Griffons and a Cloak of Arachania? What, you only have a Ring of Protection +2? How do you even do business?

Replacing an unworkable form of currency with an equally unworkable one is not a solution. Making every player a Magic Mart is worse than the 4 million tons of gold because at least the math and personal character sheet record-keeping is kept to one notation.

FYI..... you should not need Quicken or Excel to play DnD.

[Prak]

You don't carry around 4 million tons of gold, you carry around the equivalent value in lesser items; you trade an amount of gold large enough to fill your bag of holding for a small magic item of equivalent value, then repeat the process until you have a bag of holding full of small magic items; if you need more than that, you do the same thing again, but with small magic items instead of gold.

I can see it now:

Player: Oh crap, I only have a Mirror of Life Trapping. Can you give me change in Wands of Wonder? How about Bronze Griffons and a Cloak of Arachania? What, you only have a Ring of Protection +2? How do you even do business?

Replacing an unworkable form of currency with an equally unworkable one is not a solution. Making every player a Magic Mart is worse than the 4 million tons of gold because at least the math and personal character sheet record-keeping it kept to one little notation.

It is, however, hilarious.

[Swordslinger]

DM: "OK, you Greyhawk the castle and get some tapestries and furniture that looked really expensive, but on closer examination is moth-eaten and moldy. It might fetch a few coppers a piece in this condition."

Player: Oh, good thing I have Make Whole. We're rich!

A good reason why make whole should require the cost of the thing you're repairing in components.

4E had it right in the sense that a lot of your spells should be draining your resources. Magic can be powerful like 3E, but it shouldn't be cheap like 3E where it creates gold from nothing.

Magic should obey some kind of FMA style Equivalent Exchange to prevent it from breaking the economy. So yeah, you can restore the expensive couch, but it costs you the value of the couch in components to do so, resulting in no actual gain of wealth. If you actually wanted a couch, that might be a good deal, but it's not worth anything to the merchant. Problem solved.

[DSMatticus]

(For instance: In real life, if I want to buy a million dollar house, I don't cart around a million Canadian one dollar coins.)

In real life, you have a bank account and slips of paper, something invented relatively recently compared to D&D land. So no, in D&D land people do haul around tons of gold because people don't take 'bank notes,' because banks don't exist. When you're buying expensive things in an economy based on precious metals and trade goods, you are going to be carrying ridiculously huge weights of wealth (even if it's in gems), not to mention the effort you will expend acquiring large enough sums of generally accepted trade goods (no, thousand GP diamonds are not that common, and are not a reliable means of carrying around wealth, and they are probably pretty damn big themselves).

A good reason why make whole should require the cost of the thing you're repairing in components.

The solution to this is never going to be to spot-fix every clever way the PC's come up with to make money. That is seriously one example using one spell. As a designer, you are going to encounter shit tons of those if your game is anywhere near as complex as D&D is.

Again, you are depending on every writer who ever works for your company in the rules design process or the adventure design process to be intimately familiar with WBL, and consider every possibility on things they add to the game and consider the economic ramifications.

And then you are counting on DM's at the table to be intimately familiar with WBL, and sit down and run the math on what they add. Because seriously, the second some DM thinks it would be cool to describe a diamond-studded chandelier for coolness factor, it will get fucking looted the second no one's looking and turned into better stabbing sticks.

This just does not work. This is one of the things we should take away from 3.5, and not repeat its mistakes. This is an impossible task, because it is an infinitely complicated task. Seriously, this is a simulationist RPG - there is a fantasy world there that contains wealth, and when you incentivize players to get wealth and convert it into power, they will do their best to come up with clever ways to do so. And your defense against that is: "well, the designers and DM's just have to outsmart them all." Not only does that sound impossible, it sounds unfun, because it's dangerously close to requiring "no, you can't, rocks fall."

[hogarth]

I can see it now:

Player: Oh crap, I only have a Mirror of Life Trapping. Can you give me change in Wands of Wonder? How about Bronze Griffons and a Cloak of Arachania? What, you only have a Ring of Protection +2? How do you even do business?

Why do you have magic shops in your game?

Replacing an unworkable form of currency with an equally unworkable one is not a solution. Making every player a Magic Mart is worse than the 4 million tons of gold because at least the math and personal character sheet record-keeping is kept to one notation.

I don't give a shit whether you keep your pocket change in Wands of Wonder or giant fucking rubies or Angel Tears/Souls/whatever (as you yourself have suggested for the Wish economy). But the point is that Wands and Tears are not worth infinite gold (if you want to buy one) and zero gold (if you want to sell one) at the same time, which is just stupid.

[tzor]

It goes like this:

DM: "OK, you Greyhawk the castle and get some tapestries and furniture that looked really expensive, but on closer examination is moth-eaten and moldy. It might fetch a few coppers a piece in this condition."

Player: Oh, good thing I have Make Whole. We're rich!

DM: Ummm, Ok. Rocks fall and your moneybags explode. No treasure!"

Player: Fuck you, dude. Just FUCK YOU."

I have to agree. This is what happens when you get nice guys as the DM.

OK, let's get to economics 101, for every transaction you need a buyer and a seller. You go to this old castle and you greyhawk the furniture.

You realize that you need to expend a whole lot more effort (even if it is magical) than it's worth.

Magical assistance aside, you also have old, of date crap.

The number of people interested in old, out of date crap (unless you can really throw in a collector's angle to the whole thing) is highly limited and generally not enough for the location you are currently in.

So unless you are going to set up an antique store, it's going to be hard to get your full value back. Magic items and liquid assets are easier to sell.

(And to be even meaner, always have the DM send you to giant's castles ... it's harder to grab the furniture and no one wants to buy the shit.)

[RadiantPhoenix]

So, basically, your idea seems to be "turn the Greyhawking itself into an adventure." I kinda like this idea.

[sabs]

Additionally,

So you have 600 year old furniture that you "make whole"

Who are you selling it to? It's completely out of style, AND it looks so new, it looks like a knock off.

Why would I buy this shit, other than at bargain basement IKEA prices?

[Kaelik]

Because you know make whole exists.

[sabs]

But then the value of antique furniture in good repair is approaching 0. It has no intrinsic value save for it's historical/emotional content. Which can vary wildly. If it's the Furniture of Ivan the Terrible, well.. maybe that's interesting. Someone might pay extra for that. If it's furniture for Franklyn Pierce.. why do I care? It's not worth to me anymore than basic furniture. Which you have just proven is fairly cheap.

[tzor]

(For instance: In real life, if I want to buy a million dollar house, I don't cart around a million Canadian one dollar coins.)

In real life, you have a bank account and slips of paper, something invented relatively recently compared to D&D land.

Not true, the promissory note dates back to the early 10th century. Depending on your flavor of D&D that puts it one or more centuries in terms of what would be generally possible and still preserve flavor text.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. In the year of the Incarnation 1199, on the fifteenth day of February. Let it be clear to all reading or hearing these presents that we, Bartholomew Mazellier, of Marseilles, and Peter Vital, by common consent, have jointly accepted in the city of Messina from you, Stephen de Manduel and William Benlivenga 1,600 tarins of gold (Messina weight) weighing fifty-three and a third ounces, at the risk of God and the sea; for which, by a secure contract, we agree to give you in Provence fifty-five solidi in royal crowns of Marseilles for each ounce, i.e., the sum of ,146.13s.3d. We owe this money and we are bound to return it to you, peacefully and without molestation, up to one month after the ship in which we sail shall have arrived at Marseilles, or other port of safety in Provence, for discharging its cargo; and for your greater security we have pledged to you 141 pigs which we jointly own on that same ship. Moreover, I, Peter Vital, put in pledge with you four sacci of gall-nuts of my own, being two quintaria of Acre less twenty-seven rotae, and six bundles of licorice wood, being three quintaria of Acre less one third. I, Bartholomew, add as my own pledge five bundles of soft leather, namely 324 skins, and nine bundles of licorice wood, being six quintaria of Acre less eighteen rotae; but if those pledges are worth more than the debt to you, it will be to our credit, the rest to yours. At that time, I, the said Bartholomew, have taken by agreement from you, Stephen de Manduel, eight ounces of gold, half of which belongs to Hugh Vivaldi, for which I ought to pay to you in Provence twenty-two pounds of the said money, for which I put twenty-five pigs in pledge with you and one quintarium of licorice wood and eighteen rotae by the weight of Acre. If the money is in small coins or debased lawfully in weight, we ought to pay you a mark of fine silver for fifty-seven solidi until the whole debt is paid. We expect those things of you, just as they have been written, without fraud or trickery, on the safe arrival of the ship or of the greater part of the goods of the ship. This was done at Messina, in the month and year stated, in the presence of these witnesses: Hugh Aldoard, etc.

Banknotes of course appear in China in the 10th century as well, but they also appeared in Europe in the 14th century, a general sweet spot for fantasy genres.

The term comes from the notes of the bank ("nota di banco"), and dates from fourteenth century, it originally recognized the right of the holder of the note to collect the precious metal (usually gold or silver) deposited with a banker (that is, it was representative of paper currency). In fourteenth century, it was used in every part of Europe, and in Italian city-state merchants colonies outside of Europe. For international payments was used more often the most efficient and sophisticated bill of exchange ("lettera di cambio") that is a promissory note based on virtual currency account (usually a coin no longer physically existing). All physical currencies were physically related to this virtual currency, this instrument also served as credit.

In medieval Italy and Flanders, because of the insecurity and impracticality of transporting large sums of money over long distances, money traders started using promissory notes. In the beginning these were personally registered, but they soon became a written order to pay the amount to whoever had it in their possession. These notes can be seen as a predecessor to regular bank notes.

You see, they too had the same problem and they solved it with Bank Notes. The D&D economy (and basically the merchant boom from the post crusade medieval economy - just replace magic items with silks and spices) practically demands the creation of banks and bank notes.

[violence in the media]

Right. Because PCs would never forge a promissory note, or rob a bank or treasure caravan, or use skills or magic to convince someone to buy their newly-liberated antique furniture.

edited to add: Why do you insist on punishing players in some soup nazi-esque "No adventure for you!" manner just because they're trying to take rational advantage of something that appeared in their path? Seriously, I've sat through enough Gygaxian "find the buyer!" frustration sessions to be willing to punch the next MC that pulls that bullshit.

[tzor]

So, basically, your idea seems to be "turn the Greyhawking itself into an adventure." I kinda like this idea.

Well people tend to forget about the non combat parts of 1E. First, you had to get to the dungeon. That was an adventure in and of itself. Then you had to explore the dungeon. Again, that was another adventure. Then you had to defeat the monsters. Finally, you had to find the treasure (the treasure lair was not always in the same location as the monster) then you had to get that treasure back to the town/city.

Also note that this type of treasure (tapestires and furniture) was actually a part of the 1E random treasure generation system. It was also the kinds of things that later editions deliberatly tended to ignore because the later designers were more into the combat part.

[tzor]

Right. Because PCs would never forge a promissory note, or rob a bank or treasure caravan, or use skills or magic to convince someone to buy their newly-liberated antique furniture.

The laws of magic demand (no really they pound on the desk and say "we will bury you") that for every attempt at forgery there must exist a near equal method to foil that attempt (much as in the 1E spell "fools gold" being foiled by striking the gold with cold iron).

[hogarth]

Right. Because PCs would never forge a promissory note, or rob a bank or treasure caravan, or use skills or magic to convince someone to buy their newly-liberated antique furniture.

How is that different from a modern genre game (other than the use of the words "magic" and "treasure") or real life in general?