Spending gold on non-adventure resources

[LostSoul]

Well, no. I still don't quite think I've hit the balance with it right... And there's still no solution in sight for "what happens if the DM ganks your story point source"...

Brainstorming something...

Quest XP.

If the oni mage steals your wife... then you get a Major Quest to go get her back. I'm not sure what the level of that Quest should be.

Gnolls burn down your hunting lodge. Quest to exact revenge.

What happens to the resources spent if the oni kills your wife or the gnolls burn down your lodge? I guess mechanically they are turning into XP, or a chance for more XP.

That seems to suggest that the level of the quest should be based on how much you spend on the story thing, though... you'd want that 1st level story item to be worth more since it's been around forever, you've spent more game time on it. The easiest thing to do would be to make the level of the quest equal to your level and consider the GP spent an investment.

You'd have the "Story" slot open again. I think you might want to let people swap out what goes in their story slot, maybe as the retraining option (though you'd still have to spend the GP on it).

Hmm. That might work.

 

[DanmarLOK]

Story/Plot/Purple etc points are a good idea. It gets the players involved with the world in ways other than passive. I would divest them to some extent from combat though personally.

Here are some thoughts that I've gone through -

Hand out story points or plot points on quest completion, level up, whatever you feel it's worth. These can be used to buy character development, alter the story based on player ideas etc. But aren't mechanical advancements. Harm/involvement/interaction with such plot points should be story driven or additional plot point driven. i.e. the player spends a story point to insert a 'high point' in his character's development to get a residence. Perhaps it's a minor quest for a merchant that could even be story'd out rather than tactical and the merchant gives him one of his empty houses. Maybe a relative dies (starting another quest in case of foul play?) and leaves him a house. Maybe during their questing they uncover a councilor of the city working in league with the evils besieging the city and they're tasked with making sure all the evil taint is gone and guard against further incursions through the portals in the basement by staying there. (my current campaign).

Disassociate gold with magic. Gold is spent on consumables and story. Magic is spent on magic items. When you award treasure you hand out mundane valuables (gold, jewelery, bolts of silk etc) and hand out magic items or residium for enchantments. It makes no 'real' sense for a world economy but works well enough at a micro level of an adventuring group's economy.

Remove the need for magic items by using innate bonuses which delegates magic items to nifty toys rather than a critical game mechanic. (this works pretty well for me, the players never have any of the gear race, most of them are still in the same armour at level 8 they were wearing at level 1 for instance)

Award big ticket items as story points, i.e. the players express a desire for something and you work it into the story somehow.

Make the players wait till they hit a high enough level. By RAW a mid to high single digit character should be able to afford any typical housing in any typical medevial based economy as pocket change. When the average peasant makes 5 gold a month, a middle class home probably sells for a few hundred and rents for less than they spend on ale.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Disassociate gold with magic. Gold is spent on consumables and story. Magic is spent on magic items. When you award treasure you hand out mundane valuables (gold, jewelery, bolts of silk etc) and hand out magic items or residium for enchantments. It makes no 'real' sense for a world economy but works well enough at a micro level of an adventuring group's economy.

That is a really good idea too: and as for "it doesn't work in a real economy": as long as you choose "rare dangerous monster parts" as the consumable for magic items, then you're going to have a very limited group of people who might get rare dangerous monster parts (ie - adventurers) who also happen to be the target market: ie - trade becomes very limited because the only people who want them are the same people who get them. You might find that some adventurers will trade their dragon spleen for your ettin's brainstem, you're not likely to do cash trading though.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

The solution I use for my games is this:

I hand out the magic items people want for their characters (if any preference is indicated) as early as possible along with some vanilla-available +X items. I tell the players that their magic item scale with them. (As in, when it says you are Level 6, that sword becomes +2; Although, if you want to make a magic item, you have to make the highest "+" you could at your level) Then I give out gold and magic items freely, and because the players no longer need to spend 80% of their gold on upgrades, their gold goes directly to party resources / character resources.

In this manner, the game stays balanced between the players who care about owning land/running a business/ruling a realm, and those who just want to smash face and loot the room. The face-smasher has just as many resources as the land-owner, so he can spend his gold on extra-unnecessary face-smashing gear, and the land owner still can afford all the equipment, and not just the basic stuff.

 

[Storminator]

My PC has been blowing his money pretty freely. I spend a lot of tithes to the church, parties after successful adventures (after one memorable adventure, we literally drank the town dry). I donate to rebuild the inns we're always managing to burn down (not our fault, really, except for the once) and to the widows and orphans of caravan guards, town guards, soldiers - basically all the minions that die on our side. I've set up charities.

I always seem pinched for cash at the time. But with the escalating scale of treasure at each level, last level's generous donation is this level's pocket change. I end up 1 item behind in upgrades, so I have +1 armor, instead of the +2 that's growing common in the party (weapon, holy symbol and cloak are all top of the line tho).

I like it. It feels like I'm sacrificing to make a difference in the campaign world, but so far I'm not too put out.

PS