"A reward beyond your wildest dreams!"

Oryan77 · May 24, 2005

I know technically that even having 1000gps is concidered well off. But let's put this in a player's perspective.

To me, several thousand gp sounds like a pretty good reward. Especially a cool magic item here and there as a reward is awsome. But for a lot of players, when they expect a reward for a "crazy/daring" mission that could mean possible death, they demand a reward equal to owning a small planet!

I can't really blame people for thinking like this though. There's no way to judge your own wealth other than seeing how much magic items cost in the books. You'll always feel poor when you can't afford to get that 100k item created. So when they are offered a reward, they aim high, no matter how unrealistic it is.

In real life, we aim to just get a simple house. But for an adventurer in D&D, he can get a simple house after a couple of adventures. So I guess you have to think of it as if you were a millionaire in RL. Only, I'm not rich in RL, so I don't know what a rich man would want in return for risking his life.

How do you keep players grounded and reasonable when haggling out a reward for a mission? I know about using methods to go on missions without even being rewarded with money...so I don't need to be told "Offer something other than money". But for those times when wealth is involved, how do you deal with players that tell President Bush that he'll only hunt down bin Laden for 100 billion dollars (or an item worth 100 billion dollars)?

HellHound · May 24, 2005

Then you say "no"

Honestly, that's how haggling and buying / selling services works. The market will pay wha thte market can afford - and unless the party is a group of level 40+ characters, then there is someone else around to can be paid less to do the gig.

Varianor Abroad · May 24, 2005

Oryan77 said:
How do you keep players grounded and reasonable when haggling out a reward for a mission? I know about using methods to go on missions without even being rewarded with money...so I don't need to be told "Offer something other than money". But for those times when wealth is involved, how do you deal with players that tell President Bush that he'll only hunt down bin Laden for 100 billion dollars (or an item worth 100 billion dollars)?

President Bush finds a cheaper contractor.

I like to hand out less wealth than standard, customize treasure for my PCs, and allow them to fall into nasty situations that they'll cheerfully pay someone else (or take a reward to get out of) to set the marker.

Players are curious beasts. One might just want the ability to go into the most Lawful of towns wearing his sword. When no one else is permitted to. Another will insist for a simple dungeon mission at 5th level that everyone get 10,000 gp apiece plus whatever they find. The trick there is to think like the NPC. What are their resources? What can they afford? (Best to figure this out before they meet the PCs.) If the PCs go too high in the initial demand, then there's an option called "No Deal." After a couple of those, players start to get a feel for what's reasonable to the DM.

Celebrim · May 24, 2005

My campaign world uses a silver peice standard.

I convey to the characters that each gold peice is worth the equivalent of $1000. Most people never own one. Some people may never have even seen one.

So, if the character's were to find 1000 gold peices, that would be like finding one million dollars. That 100k item is worth 100 million dollars.

One of the big problems of 3rd edition (at least IMO) is that they went ahead and adopted the gold peice standard officially. Not only does this screw up the economy, but this means that each gold peice is only worth about $50. That 100k item is only worth about 5 million dollars. Suddenly a 100k g.p. reward doesn't sound all that unreasonable - no different than hiring a high priced team of attorneys.

Arrgh! Mark! · May 24, 2005

I also tend to make players in long-lasting campaigns deal in the silver piece. And poor.

It actually makes stealing the cutlery make sense. And the risk of raiding dungeons make sense. It's raid or starve; they haven't any other skills but killing or tomb-raiding in some respect.

Adventurers might be different, but they do function inside human societies. It's weird - as if in most standard fantasy the adventurer is a class all to it's own which has a single purpose; treasure redirection expert. People bury rich old people in a big underground tomb, ten years later it's infested with something, adventurers clear it out and take whats inside.

If you want that typical super-high fantasy that D+D is all about, don't think about how economics works. It doesn't. Just play the game.

Quasqueton · May 24, 2005

The PCs in my campaign (6th level) recently were awarded a bowl full of gems for performing a very simple task. When they got the gems home and the PC rogue/wizard appraised them, they discovered they had well over 200,000gp.

Their very first thought: "What the hell did we just set loose in the world."

Sometime, in some campaign, have an NPC give the PCs all they ask for. See what the reaction is.

Quasqueton

Quasqueton · May 24, 2005

In a Shadowrun campaign several years ago, the PCs found a secret "stash" of info in a computer system belonging to a crime syndicate they were running against. The stash was ten seperate nodes protected by some serious ICE. The decker managed to get into 6 of the nodes and withdrew the info -- simply codes to a bank account, each holding 100,000 nuyen.

Imagine what a party of shadowrunners can do with over half a million nuyen. They, of course, didn't retire.

Quasqueton

Bront · May 24, 2005

some of this "I want lots" comes from previous gaming experience. If players are used to monty haul games, they'll tend to gravitate towards that later on when that's not the case.

I enjoy giving out fun items, hopefully ones that aren't earthshtteringly powerful, but fun to play with and give characters something to enjoy.

Warehouse23 · May 24, 2005

Never underestimate the value of giving information as a reward. Any roleplayer worth his salt would rather learn a clue regarding the whereabouts of his lost sibling/mentor/familiar/treasure/whatever than get a +1 longsword.

Saeviomagy · May 24, 2005

Oryan77 said:
In real life, we aim to just get a simple house. But for an adventurer in D&D, he can get a simple house after a couple of adventures. So I guess you have to think of it as if you were a millionaire in RL. Only, I'm not rich in RL, so I don't know what a rich man would want in return for risking his life.

Well, basically if you're asking someone to risk their life, that's risking ending up with truely nothing. Double or nothing tends to be viewed as fairly reasonable for 50/50 odds. That means the reward has to be pretty high if the adventurers are really risking their life.