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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The economics of Continual flame
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7605733" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>As far as Gygaxian economics goes, the problem that has plagued D&D since the beginning is Gygax created two separate incompatible economic systems.</p><p></p><p>Gygax the simulationist created a system based on historical research that was based on the living wage of roughly 1 silver coin per day. This is the NPC economy and food and other necessities, wages of unskilled labor, and taxes are valued in the NPC economy in 1e AD&D.</p><p></p><p>Gygax the gamist created a system based on what worked in his games based on a unified gold piece standard. This is the PC economy and adventuring equipment treasure, experience points, magic items, highly skilled labor, and buildings are largely valued according to the PC economy. </p><p></p><p>The two systems however are obviously not compatible. They are based on the assumption that by and large the PC's will interact only in minor ways with the NPC economy and that the game will continue to be primarily about adventuring and delving into dark places. PC income from taxes for example are priced in the NPC economy to keep the game focused on its intended gameplay and not have ruling over a territory replace adventuring as a major source of income.</p><p></p><p>Similarly, spells and magic items in D&D were balanced according to the PC economy and their utility in adventuring. They were not balanced and tend to be wildly unbalanced with respect to the NPC economy.</p><p></p><p>Whenever you try to do a holistic economy, the two things run into problems. As of at least 3.5, the legacy of this was still impacting game economics at least to some extent. I don't know if things have fully been regularized in 5e, but I would be surprised if they were and I'd guess that if 5e has removed the XP cost of spell casting or magic items that in some ways magic may even be worse balanced than 3.X from an economic perspective.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7605733, member: 4937"] As far as Gygaxian economics goes, the problem that has plagued D&D since the beginning is Gygax created two separate incompatible economic systems. Gygax the simulationist created a system based on historical research that was based on the living wage of roughly 1 silver coin per day. This is the NPC economy and food and other necessities, wages of unskilled labor, and taxes are valued in the NPC economy in 1e AD&D. Gygax the gamist created a system based on what worked in his games based on a unified gold piece standard. This is the PC economy and adventuring equipment treasure, experience points, magic items, highly skilled labor, and buildings are largely valued according to the PC economy. The two systems however are obviously not compatible. They are based on the assumption that by and large the PC's will interact only in minor ways with the NPC economy and that the game will continue to be primarily about adventuring and delving into dark places. PC income from taxes for example are priced in the NPC economy to keep the game focused on its intended gameplay and not have ruling over a territory replace adventuring as a major source of income. Similarly, spells and magic items in D&D were balanced according to the PC economy and their utility in adventuring. They were not balanced and tend to be wildly unbalanced with respect to the NPC economy. Whenever you try to do a holistic economy, the two things run into problems. As of at least 3.5, the legacy of this was still impacting game economics at least to some extent. I don't know if things have fully been regularized in 5e, but I would be surprised if they were and I'd guess that if 5e has removed the XP cost of spell casting or magic items that in some ways magic may even be worse balanced than 3.X from an economic perspective. [/QUOTE]
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