Step 1: Profit, Step 2: ???

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:23 pm

Gold and treasure is its own incentive in many a story. But in an RPG, if you can't do anything with it other than arbitrarily say you bought a hundred hookers and 10 gallons of ale, it's not much incentive.

What can you do with the reward of treasure that makes players want to get it beyond the basic hoarding instinct? Wealth = power in the manner of 3E is a provably bad idea, but there needs to be a carrot somewhere.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:48 pm

Well, if your group is down with it, you could go through why someone would need ten hookers and ten gallons of ale. I can see that being an interesting story.

Otherwise, go the wish economy route and make gold exclusively for buying bitchen swag. Yeah that flying galleon is impractical and doesn't particularly help you in a fight. But it looks awesome.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:31 pm

virgil wrote:What can you do with the reward of treasure that makes players want to get it beyond the basic hoarding instinct?

Play more one-shot games. Then you can have all of the "you win!" monetary prizes you want.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 6:01 pm

Either have them use the swag to start playing Logistics and Dragons or keep it around as a dick measure and nothing more.

Like you said, the acquisition of gold and treasure is its own incentive; there just has to be the opportunity to show off just how much you've got. When you're a murder hobo, these opportunities are few and far between.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 6:21 pm

Buy status, prestige (not the classes, although you can 'have class' too), property, people, real-estate, small moons, miniplanes, etc.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:16 am

Buy political power.
give it away to help others (like to beggars or buy your entire enslaved village free or something, or defences for a town)
Buy knot cutting (like getting information fast, access to certain places, just a villager who will do mundane stuff for you),
buy real life stuff (500 gp for one m&m

).
Buy cool but useless stuff, like paintings, an entire factory to make the perfect cup of coffee etc.
Buy wardrobes, diamond rings etc.
Buy those magic items that are flavourful but aren't worth their price, like apparatus of the crab etc.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:50 pm

XP, but only for actual treasure and recovered loot, not for taking a crowbar to the scenery or setting up a business breeding trolls. Earn the XP for the crystal palace by taking over and living in the crystal palace.

Probably abstract though, because people have an irrational hate-on for treasure XP. Just advise the DM to give out 1 XP for every gp recovered and call it a "story reward", and give it to PCs who give it all to charity or whatever too.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:12 pm

Don't try to generalize between different players, focus on each's individual goals.

A castle may be very rewarding for one person, but a glowing description of how she fed all the orphans may be more rewarding for another.

echoVanguard · Post by **echoVanguard** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 4:46 pm

Ideally, material wealth should have exactly three uses in a TTRPG:

1. The purchase of mundane equipment, for you or your minions, ranging from swords and armor to *cough* specialized services.
2. The financing of large undertakings, such as fielding an army or building an edifice.
3. Bribery at various scales ranging from paying off a guard to negotiating a treaty.

It should not linearly advance personal character power in any field (ex: purchasable RNG breakers). It is best used as a combination of hygiene requirements ("you need 100 gold this month or you will lose your castle") and gating mechanisms ("you must acquire 10,000 gold to mount your invasion of Badland").

echo

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:29 pm

The ability to buy fortresses, vehicles, loyalty, exotic beasts, or whatever is a big enough reason to collect wealth among any player that I've gamed with that actually care about it.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 8:36 pm

MGuy wrote:The ability to buy fortresses, vehicles, loyalty, exotic beasts, or whatever is a big enough reason to collect wealth among any player that I've gamed with that actually care about it.

Are you saying that you actually changed from playing Dungeons & Dragons to playing Fortresses & Flunkies, or are you saying all of that stuff was in the background as fluff?

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 8:39 pm

Convert that wealth to a "soul economy".

Once you're trading with angels and devils you know you've hit big time.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 11:00 am

virgil wrote:What can you do with the reward of treasure that makes players want to get it beyond the basic hoarding instinct?

what was your initial reason for adventuring? does the wealth you have accomplish that goal? has your goal changed? if you accomplished that goal, then why do you still adventure if not for another goal?

HalcyonUmbra · Post by **HalcyonUmbra** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 11:32 pm

Wealth can be used to gain power so long as the power is consumable. The problem with buying a +6 Belt of Giant Strength is that it's always on, so its cost to benefit ratio is basically infinite (kinda (not really)).

So the only thing gold can buy is consumable and/or worthless (that is, no mechanical bonus) items, and you institute some sort of standardized "expenses by level" or "expenses by encounter CR" system, so that a level 5 party doing a level appropriate dungeon crawl would need to spend, say, a thousand gold on the requisite equipment. You'd obviously need to make sure that it's impossible, or at least tremendously expensive, to buy items above your power level. The ideal would be that all items provide an horizontal increase (to a party's staying power), rather than a vertical one (to their combat power). Wands of healing let the Cleric keep spells for combat, a rope lets the Wizard save that Fly spell for an in-combat tactical advantage, ummmm... a ten-foot pole lets you check for traps, thus saving hit points? I dunno, most mundane items are kinda crap; you'd probably have to overhaul the whole system for something like this.

So a party with lots of money can spend it on the Wands of Healing and the flasks of acid and the Potions of Barkskin, and can theoretically clear the dungeon without needing to take an extended rest; whereas the poorer party needs to choose just one, and it takes them three or four days.

tl;dr

The only way I can think of to make a player feel rewarded for being able to spend gold on hookers and blow is to create a situation where he can't spend gold on hookers and blow. And the only decent way I can think to do that is to give him something he wants or needs to spend his gold on more. The only thing guaranteed to do this in an RPG is something that provides a concrete, in-game, rules-based effect.[/i]

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:16 am

HalcyonUmbra wrote:The only way I can think of to make a player feel rewarded for being able to spend gold on hookers and blow is to create a situation where he can't spend gold on hookers and blow.

But if you can't spend it on hookers than you can't spend it on hookers and feel rewarded

Throwing out belts of giant strength and then telling your players to only stock up on bull's strength potions doesn't change anything. It still means they need to spend the same amount of money on gear.

- Edit: I believe the aim of this thread is more that you can't get any gear (well gear that makes your char stronger) for money. But that having only the option of booze becomes boring quickly, thus thinking of more options to spend your money on.

HalcyonUmbra · Post by **HalcyonUmbra** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:58 am

ishy wrote:
HalcyonUmbra wrote:The only way I can think of to make a player feel rewarded for being able to spend gold on hookers and blow is to create a situation where he can't spend gold on hookers and blow.
But if you can't spend it on hookers than you can't spend it on hookers and feel rewarded

My bad. That was a terribly constructed sentence. I meant "create a situation where they can't and then let them move past it; let them earn enough money so that now they can afford to "waste" some of it.

Throwing out belts of giant strength and then telling your players to only stock up on bull's strength potions doesn't change anything. It still means they need to spend the same amount of money on gear.

- Edit: I believe the aim of this thread is more that you can't get any gear (well gear that makes your char stronger) for money. But that having only the option of booze becomes boring quickly, thus thinking of more options to spend your money on.

In the specific case of enhancing ability scores, yeah, this is true. But that's what I was talking about with Horizontal vs. Vertical improvement. I picked a Belt of Giant Strength without really thinking, it was a bad example. A better one might be a Pearl of Power vs Scrolls.

All the Pearl does is increase the length of your day (yeah, in practice it's more versatile, but giving dudes more spells per day is its main purpose). Scrolls do largely the same thing (ignoring the fact that they can give you new spells, for simplicity's sake). A 1st level Pearl of Power costs 1,000 gold, and the average first level scroll costs 25. So after 40 days of using the Pearl it's more cost effective than the scrolls, but in neither case is it ever necessary.

But usually you won't be comparing permanent items to consumables. You'll be comparing consumables to character abilities. If the player wants to extend his day at all, he has to buy scrolls. And then he has less money for booze. And if he wants booze, he can't buy scrolls, and adventuring takes longer. So then, as he levels up, eventually he has enough gold to buy both. You could implement this by having Wealth by Level increase faster than Expenses by level, but I'd do it by giving the player a Pearl of Power at the end of a dungeon. Then he gets to save whatever money he doesn't spend on scrolls and put it in his Ale and Wenches fund.

The biggest problems I see are the challenges of coming up with level appropriate consumables aaalllll the way up the power tiers. I mean, what the hell does a person who is fighting the gods even need to buy. Another one would be making sure the game doesn't turn into Accountants and Dragons. You'd need to keep a close eye on the amount of iterative mathematics this involves.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:33 am

Being happy recharges your fate/hero/action points

hookers today, vital interrupt to defeat the necrolich in the future.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 3:09 am

I think a fair number of people on this board have gotten a little confused about all the old Wealth By Level and Wish Economy discussions.

You really need to realize a couple of simple things.

1) Wealth DOES equal Power
After all the messing about in Wish Economy discussions, half finished book of gears proposals and various other discussions this board has almost NEVER produced any viable or interesting proposal that does NOT in some way couple character wealth to SOME form of character power.

This is important because people like magical swords and stuff. And EVEN if you make magical swords completely non-tradable for ANYTHING then you will have a wealth measured in "magical swords" that IS a form of power, and if you have a character level system then it WILL require wealth by level guidelines that tell us WHAT amount of "magical swords" is appropriate.

About the ONLY ways to eliminate that is to either eliminate magical swords, eliminate the level system, or make magical swords ubiquitous and available basically free to fill all available magic swording positions at the same amount from level 1 to forever. And those are ALL massively undesirable.

2) The Wish Economy IS a Wealth By Level System
People get confused because back in the day we used to talk about how terrible the d20 wealth by level system was, and it was, and then we talked about various other things, like the Wish Economy and various book of gears proposals and other junk.

And since those things are in various ways different to the d20 3.x edition Wealth By Level system people mistakenly think they AREN'T wealth by level systems.

But they actually TOTALLY ARE Wealth By Level Systems. The Wish Economy is ALL ABOUT Wealth by level. It just includes a mechanism that makes wealth of a sufficiently lower level than your Wealth By Level allocated standard to be of limited to no particular value after a point, indeed Level, specifically outlined by the Wish Economy's Wealth By Level System.

Indeed EVEN if you use the, in many ways VERY problematic, option of tying character power related items directly to personal character advancement and say "Sword Fighter's get 1 Magic Sword as a class feature at level 6, and another one at level 9" and that is the ONLY magic sword acquisition mechanic in the game, THAT is STILL a primitive and simplistic Wealth By Level system.

SO going and saying "Wealth = Power is provable bad!" is sort of crazy. We have very strong driving motivations to make wealth equal power, because magic swords and cool loot are, well, cool. We have a number of relatively manageable Wealth By Level systems that permit us to appropriately allocate that wealth in a relatively Level Appropriate manner, and basically every attempt to do otherwise has varied from crashing and burning before even getting off the ground, to being an only moderately workable and somewhat flawed implementation where Wonderwoman cannot even borrow Batman's motor bike without breaking the universe.

What is provably bad is a Wealth By Level system that is used to balance character power but which is broken in numerous and many practically and accidentally exploitable ways such that characters will rapidly NOT actually match the Wealth By Level allocations they are SUPPOSED to balanced against. Making a Wealth By Level system that IS more sturdy and resistant to such minor exploits and accidents IS hard but it is pretty much a necessity, and in the form of many of the Wish Economy, book of gears and other materials around here (hey, even my Barby Mansions) we have a NUMBER of tools already that can be used to dramatically improve on Wealth By Level systems. But they ARE still Wealth by Level, Wealth STILL is SOME form of character Power, as character power it IS in some way a function of character Level in any actual functional level based system, and we want and need that.

Another thing that IS provably bad is wanting to motivate characters to spend a form of wealth on some things which don't grant power when the same wealth COULD be spent on power. But THAT is more of a problem of wealth potentially NOT equaling power, rather than of the actual bit where it equals power. And for this too there are solutions, like making luxury equal power, or making your luxury wealth resource a different wealth resource to the power one.

But in the end there are magic swords they are wealth, your system therefore has Wealth = Power in SOME form or it sucks monkeys.

Stubbazubba · Post by **Stubbazubba** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 3:59 am

I concur with OgreBattle; allow High Living to recharge some basically metagame mechanic, i.e. re-rolls, temp save bonus, etc. Nicely, it also brings the idea in line with PL's Wealth = Power criterion, while encouraging your character to trade tangible benefits for non-tangible benefits like happiness, prestige, etc.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:43 am

hogarth wrote:
MGuy wrote:The ability to buy fortresses, vehicles, loyalty, exotic beasts, or whatever is a big enough reason to collect wealth among any player that I've gamed with that actually care about it.
Are you saying that you actually changed from playing Dungeons & Dragons to playing Fortresses & Flunkies, or are you saying all of that stuff was in the background as fluff?

Your question confuses me. I'm saying if you decouple wealth from being the defacto route to power there are enough things to do with wealth that will make a significant amount of players care about it. I'm the kind of person who does not like the tie in between wealth and power so I'm all for making wealth a background thing.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:02 am

I don't see how fortresses and flunkies AREN'T wealth for power. ESPECIALLY if you have, apparently, removed magic swords and magic hats from the universe or whatever this mysterious "decoupling" thing is.

And I want to know how you stop people being negatively motivated into buying power battle flunkies instead of luxury harem flunkies without using something like my Barby Mansion Wealth=Luxury=Power dynamic which is the direct REVERSE of decoupling wealth and luxury purchases from power.

If you isolate a wealth resource and tell people you only get cocaine and concubines OR armies and castles with that resource, if the armies represent power, and they seem to, and the concubines don't, and they seem not to, you have created a bit of a problem.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:29 am

PhoneLobster wrote:I don't see how fortresses and flunkies AREN'T wealth for power. ESPECIALLY if you have, apparently, removed magic swords and magic hats from the universe or whatever this mysterious "decoupling" thing is.

And I want to know how you stop people being negatively motivated into buying power battle flunkies instead of luxury harem flunkies without using something like my Barby Mansion Wealth=Luxury=Power dynamic which is the direct REVERSE of decoupling wealth and luxury purchases from power.

If you isolate a wealth resource and tell people you only get cocaine and concubines OR armies and castles with that resource, if the armies represent power, and they seem to, and the concubines don't, and they seem not to, you have created a bit of a problem.

Power as in things that allow the PCs to continue being PCs. Abilities, levels, skills, the shit a given PC uses on an adventure. I don't mean power as in the PCs ability to have someone else do shit for'em. Having a fortress is like having a big, better defended house. I don't really see that as anything a PC advances the plot with. An army is nice if you've stopped playing the adventure game and started playing the kingdom game, but most people will stick to the adventuring.

I say this because the paradigm DnD sets for us is that higher level people are > everyone else. PCs fight dragons. Dragons do not care about armies of nobodies. Likewise significant NPCs fight PCs. So nothing your army of mooks can do is going to be able to match what a PC can do. Especially if you make it so that a rich nobody can't just buy their way to being better than everyone else. An army of nobodies is great for beating up and policing other nobodies but in the frame of the game most people should be playing an army is just a background set piece.

I have no idea what you're suggesting by saying there's a disparity if you have wealth cover concubines AND armies as if a well off PC has to get one OR the other. I mean you can use an army of concubines to generate enough wealth to buy a real army or use an army to get concubines. Hell you can just beat up a bunch of people and get both for FREE.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:57 am

MGuy wrote:Power as in things that allow the PCs to continue being PCs.

Er. What? That's awfully abstract and meaningless. Power is the effectiveness of the PCs against level appropriate challenges.

Armies and castles tend to help with that. And are as such, obviously, power.

I don't mean power as in the PCs ability to have someone else do shit for'em.

Like, say, come along and help defeat a level appropriate challenge? My pet dragon ("exotic beast") and my elite ninja attack squad ("flunkies") and my same level elf princess wizardess from two provinces over ("loyalty"), they would NEVER do that...

Having a fortress is like having a big, better defended house.

...Which reduces the power of ninja assassins attacking you in the bath tub. Which is to say, increases your power against a level appropriate challenge.

An army is nice if you've stopped playing the adventure game and started playing the kingdom game, but most people will stick to the adventuring.

Wait what? But you just told us most players will buy castles and armies. This doesn't seem to be consistent at all!

Dragons do not care about armies of nobodies. Likewise significant NPCs fight PCs.

But you can buy "exotic beasts" such as, presumably, dragons who will prove their not caring by not ever helping with attacking challenges that are potentially level appropriate to you OR them.

So nothing your army of mooks can do is going to be able to match what a PC can do.

So an ARMY of mooks. Doesn't contribute or interact with ANYTHING a PC does. At a level where PCs buy armies? And COULD have a kingdom game, but never do, even though they always buy armies and kingdoms if they can?

And every flunky you can ever hire is ALWAYS so far below the curve they won't be meaningful as a power boost to you ever.

That is INSANE. And stupid. And bad.

I have no idea what you're suggesting by saying there's a disparity if you have wealth cover concubines AND armies as if a well off PC has to get one OR the other.

Oh I see everything you buy with your magical non wealth not only never does anything useful it ALSO makes itself even more boring by being the same thing "I'm buying 200 units of concubine/exotic-beasts/drug/castle/ninja/guard/nerf-bats/gold-bricks/gardens thank you very much!"

Your suggestion earlier that you SHOP with your wealth resource tells us you MAKE CHOICES. Those choices specifically according to you include ...

"vehicles" which are things that effect character power by mobility.

"Fortresses" that increase character defensive power.

"Exotic Beasts" Which are things you ride around on for mobility power and make bite your enemies for combat power.

Even god damn "Loyalty" which is presumably other kingdoms, factions and similar level characters helping you, which is TOTALLY power.

And "Flunkies" that increase offensive power and command and control of your kingdom power, and give you "kingdom mini game no one plays but everyone invest in for some reason" power.

Presumably you also include all the other luxuries being talked about on this thread. Like concubines and coccaine. Which presumably mostly just sap your time and make you vulnerable, and as such are, without some additional mechanic, bad for character power.

And presumably your funds AREN'T limited at EVERY level and you DO choose between things at SOME level and presumably these things in some way do SOMETHING related to their clear intuitive functions which unfortunately almost ALL god damn interact direclty with character power. If not you ENTIRE rule set in regards to this is retarded self nullifying slime wank that actually sucks out ANY interest ANY actual player would EVER have in buying these things and interacting with your rule set covering buying these things.

Why the HELL should I buy a chariot to ride around in if it literally does not contribute to my character? WHAT. THE. HELL?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:19 pm

You know what. MGuys claims are so bad let me just... wait a second...

Bob The Great : I Ride into battle on my shiny new battle chariot!
GM : No. You can't. You have to stop and get off first.
Bob The Great : What?
GM : It doesn't DO anything, and hasn't even got rules that interact with your encounters. Anyway, it's like... dangerous or something.
Bob The Great : Dangerous? I'm about to lead my golden troops into battle against the dreaded necro hordes!
GM : Yeah about that. Your general informs you they can't.
Bob The Great : Can't What?
GM : Can't follow you into battle. They cannot be allowed to meaningfully contribute to any of your level appropriate challenges, so... the moment you treat this army as a level appropriate challenge rather than something I pull out of my ass and don't let you interact with they are legally obliged not to fight.
Bob The Great : Never fear after countless gifts to woo her loyalty my great loyal ally the Wizardess Princess With The Boobs from 2 provinces over will SURELY appear and assist me as she promised when I speak the word ALAKAZOO!
GM : FTOOM she appears, says hi, flicks her hair in slow motion, and says she has to go, and er... wash her hair... because... helping you against a level appropriate challenge would be impossible...
Bob The Great : Impossible? She said she was level 18!
GM : Well she's too busy doing her own things then.
Bob The Great : What things? She lives in a peaceful forest invisible to normal mortals full of sexy elf maidens who do nothing all day but wear see through dresses and train in the ancient lost mighty elven battle magic! You said so!
GM : Well she has to go do that. She can't stay and help you against YOUR level appropriate challenge!
Bob The Great : Well at least my trusty Exotic Beast Randolfo the Dragon Bear Cat will stick by my side in battle!
GM : Well he might, but he won't DO anything.
Bob The Great : WHAT? But the just 1 level ago one of those fucking Bear Dragon Cats literally tore Terry The Theif clean in half, the only reason we even defeated it was because Andy was babysitting his little sister and we had an extra party member! That awesome power was the only reason I spent ALL MY REMAINING WEALTH on the damn thing in the first place!
GM: Well the Cat Bear Dragons you fight and the ones you purchase are completely the same from an exotic beast fluff perspective, but utterly different mechanically because he cannot in fact contribute ANYTHING measurable in your level appropriate challenge.
Bob The Great : NOOOOO! My Invulnerable Castle Mega Dude 3 will surely fall!
GM: I wouldn't worry about that too much, for all practical and defensive purposes the Invulnerable Castle Mega Dude 3 was objectively identical to camping outdoors without a tent or bed roll and bathing in a duck pond easily accessible by all your enemies.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 4:16 pm

MGuy wrote:
hogarth wrote:
MGuy wrote:The ability to buy fortresses, vehicles, loyalty, exotic beasts, or whatever is a big enough reason to collect wealth among any player that I've gamed with that actually care about it.
Are you saying that you actually changed from playing Dungeons & Dragons to playing Fortresses & Flunkies, or are you saying all of that stuff was in the background as fluff?
Your question confuses me. I'm saying if you decouple wealth from being the defacto route to power there are enough things to do with wealth that will make a significant amount of players care about it. I'm the kind of person who does not like the tie in between wealth and power so I'm all for making wealth a background thing.

I'm just saying that if you buy fortresses and loyal armies, then you're playing a different game than "classic" D&D -- not necessarily better or worse, just different. So in the games you've played where players enjoyed collecting dungeon-delving wealth in order to get fortresses, armies, vehicles, etc., did you actually start pushing armies around instead of dungeon-delving?

The Gaming Den

Step 1: Profit, Step 2: ???

Step 1: Profit, Step 2: ???

Re: Step 1: Profit, Step 2: ???

Re: Step 1: Profit, Step 2: ???