Excerpt: Economies [merged]

Andor said:

I believe he's suggesting that if you took a used +1 flaming longsword to Ye Olde Killamajig Shoppe and tried to trade it in for a used +1 flaming battle axe you might get offended by the suggestion that the axe is worth 7 times the value of the sword. And when your buddy took that same axe in the next day and tried to swap it back for his sword that you borrowed he would not be pleased to learn that the sword is now worth 7 times what the axe is worth.

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This is sort of how I look at it. Sure we can try to rationalize reasons for such a huge discrepancy and they may be totally valid. But it is a game and when you penalize the selling of items to such a large degree, its basically just saying people do not sell magic items. And if that is what you want to say, just say it, don't come up with rules that amount to a flogging for trying to do the act.

Orius said:

For one, involve the whole party in it. Assume the traditional D&D party of the fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue. Let them run their barony, kingdom, or whatever together. Naturally, only one of them will be the lord of this domain unless two of them are married or something, but they can still cooperate with each other.

They can work together on the castle -- the fighter oversees the construction to make sure the defenses are adequate, the wizard and cleric can provide magic to assist in construction, and the cleric can also treat construction injuries or bless something, and finally the rogue can takes care of security features (not just traps, but things like murder holes and the like).

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See, the problem with this is, while everyone has a job, none of these jobs work with any of the other jobs. Instead of a group activity, like an adventure, you have four concurrent activities, none of which actually require any interaction with each other.

Then they run things together. The fighter is in charge of the army, training, and other martial aspects. The cleric takes care of spiritual matters, whether running the chapel in the keep, or becoming the high priest of the kingdom. The wizard handles arcane matters, and the rogue acts as a spymaster.

This can be adjusted to other classes by taking into account the general role each class plays in an overall campaign. But in the end, it shouldn't just be one PC trying to carve out his own kingdom while the others sit around twiddling their thumbs, if they're going to do it, they should do it in a way that involves the whole party.

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Instead, you have four characters, all doing separate jobs, none of which need to talk to each other, and all of which operate on separate time lines. This is not what I sit down at the table to do.

Look, I'm not saying it can't be done, it's just that it's extremely difficult to do and even more difficult to try to include into the baseline mechanics. We KNOW that everyone wants to go on adventures. You wouldn't be playing D&D if you didn't. But, we also know that building a castle is something that only appeals to a subset of the group. Trying to make that subset a baseline in the game is going to frustrate a LOT of gamers.

The way I look at it is the 20% value the PC's get when selling an item represents the amount of money they require to spend in order to prove that the item is magical, there are too many instances of shifty salesmen claiming their items are +X when really they are just masterwork

The 140% is just the merchants mark up from the base which he bought the new item

The 20% could also represent the Residuum value of an item

It depends on how you want to represent it

Fallen Seraph said:

To add to the list: Have a Wolf Goddess join your group. (Hopefully someone will know the reference).

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Thanks. You know, I just got the ED for that out of my head.

Looks like I'll be whistling to myself all day TOMORROW, too.

Lacyon said:

This doesn't mesh with various statements by the designers that NPCs of whatever level the DM desires exist whenever the DM desires them to in the place that the DM desires them to be.

It is true that the default setting assumes that adventurers of PC calibre are rare enough that they don't steal the spotlight from the actual PCs. It is also true that those which do exist on-screen don't typically need to be fully statted out unless they are going to fight (either against or alongside the PCs), and even then they don't need the full suite of powers spelled out unless they are going to be in enough fights that they need to use more than a few such powers.

That is vastly different from assuming that they don't exist at all, or are only villains, especially as it pertains to trading magic items among them.

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Well, just take a look at what they did in FR -- no high-level NPCs to steal the "spotlight" and ruin the DM's adventure. Apparently a lot of players whined that it's illogical that they *have* to go on adventuring if there are, say, resident NPCs of level 5+ who could also tackle the job. Likewise, DMs felt they couldn't run an adventure, *unless* they had logical reasons for every NPC not wanting to interfere/help in the adventure. Based on what I've soon of those Dungeoncraft articles, this also seems to apply in a typical 'PoL'-setting, too.

A merchant, agent, or fence buys items from the character at one-fifth the items’ value, in the hope of selling them at significant profit (usually, above the items’ value). Buyers are hard to find, but the profit to be made makes it worth the merchant’s risk.

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Eh? one FIFTH?? That's just dumb. So a 50,000 GP greatsword +3 of KoboldCrunchiness, you sell it for 10,000 gp, no WAY are my players gonna accept that rubbish, nor should I expect them too (unless they blow a skill check and get fleeced ).

Silverblade The Ench said:

Eh? one FIFTH?? That's just dumb. So a 50,000 GP greatsword +3 of KoboldCrunchiness, you sell it for 10,000 gp, no WAY are my players gonna accept that rubbish, nor should I expect them too (unless they blow a skill check and get fleeced ).

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I suppose the alternative is wandering from house to house asking "Do YOU have 50,000 gp and want a greatsword +3? No? Oh....Next house then.."

Or knocking on castle doors yelling out "Please, open up and let me see the King...I have a greatsword +3 I just KNOW he'll love!"

I'd assert that kings, especially powerful rich ones, would only buy magic weapons from trusted merchants. Assuming cursed items of any kind still exist, there's no way a king would dare risk picking up an item from random people. And what better way to hide a magical assassination device than inside an apparently magic weapon. Powerful persons would be very very cautious around unknown magical items.

Sure, the king MAY be interested in purchasing the +5 Sword of UberKewlness but there is no way strangers would be allowed to see the king with a weapon (which is kind of required in this situation). In a world with high magic (as evidenced by the fact the +5 Sword of UberKewlness exists) it is highly unlikely the strangers would be allowed in the same room as the king and the sword even if the sword is only held by the captain of the king's personal guard (who knows what that sword is capable of).

More likely, the PCs announce they have the sword and ask if the king would be interested. The PCs are then met by the someone from the royal guard (for security reasons), a royal advisor (to speak for the king's interests), a castle blacksmith (to examine the sword) and a castle wizard (to examine the magic of the sword). Then of course, with an item that expensive, there will be an investigation to make sure that the PCs didn't murder anyone local (or anyone important to friends of the kingdom) to get their hands on the weapon.

Who knows how long all of that will take, and then the King may eventually decide to not buy the sword.

They can go through all of that (and maybe even get nothing in the end) or get 20% right now.

To be honest, I rarely look at D&D's economy and how it functions. I just assume that it does. And why not just assume? I mean, I playing Dungeons & Dragons, not Economies & Economists (though an Economist would be a fearsome Solo foe, no doubt. ).

Anyways, I don't understand why understanding the Economy of D&D is such a big deal to people. Is it really necessary to know how much money the farmer brings in each year, or how much land it takes to sustain a certain population, or the ins-and-outs of magic item trade, inflation, the king's demand for them, value degradation?

I know that to a DM, his/her world means alot to him/her, and that they wish to make it as immersive as possible for the players, but why is it necessary to "recreate" everything that's in our world and explain in detail how it works. Most people just play D&D to have fun (and I don't mean to be "munchkins") and adventure with their friends. To escape the realism of this world and all of its problems, and imagine a place where you can bash an obvious villain (or someone you just don't like) over their heads and be praised for it.

Am I wrong?

If the farmer has a bad year, just increase the price of farm goods a little. If war plagues a nation, increase the price of war goods a little to signify scarcity and inflation. It's not really necessary to know the exact formula as to how this occured or how it is going to affect the world (not to mention cluttering your game with "%'s" and "ratio's" and "Zzzz's"), only how is it going to affect the players directly.

Idk, this whole economic debate seems rather pointless in my eyes.

Just my $0.02.

-As a side note, the new treasure system looks pretty cool, though I will reserve judgment until I actually see it in play.