That’s a pretty vague idea.
I gave you my exact criteria, How much more specific do you want me to be? I’m not going to design an entire gold economy just because you’re being obtuse. I want three things out of an RPG economy:
• Lifestyle expenses that are significant compared to the amount of wealth the players earn
• Mechanical and/or consequences for lifestyles
• Alternative expenses, such as equipment, goods, and services with significant cost and mechanical benefits.
Just seems like it would add a tax on playing the game at higher levels. Pay to do what you used to be able to do for free. Especially for casters.
Well, yes, transitioning from gold not being needed for anything to gold being needed for things is naturally going to mean you have to pay for more things. That’s kind of the point.
At best it’s just add a treadmill to gear.
Maybe for an incredibly broad definition of a treadmill. I’m not talking about the 3e and 4e +X magic item find here, I’m talking about making the fighter have to think about whether she wants to scrape by with a Poor lifestyle so she can afford to upgrade from chainmail to breastplate a few months earlier, or if the benefits of a Comfortable lifestyle are worth the wait. I want the rogue to have to decide between saving up for that sweet stiletto with the secret poison vial compartment in the hilt. or to spend his gold carousing. I want the Cleric to seriously consider if investing in building his own church is really worth it over a diamond that he could need for a resurrection spell if that damn Barbarian keeps getting herself into trouble. These kinds of decisions are never going to need to be made as long as the weapons, armor, and spell components help them on their adventures, and the lifestyle expenses and downtime activities don’t. And as long as you can afford everything on the requirement list by 5th level, these decisions aren’t going to matter for 3/4 of the character’s careers.
Alternative, just stop pretending that limiting gold is some kind of hardship.
If you want less gold… give less gold. It’s ridiculously simple and is actually less work since you’re skipping a step as DM. And at higher levels, you can just continue to use the low level hoards.
Too much gold is only half the problem. The other half is that roleplaying expenses don’t give you any incentive to spend money on them over something with a direct mechanical effect. Doesn’t have to be a combat effect. Just needs to
do something that interacts with the game rules.
Gold does matter. Just not to the combat pillar. It matters more to the roleplaying pillar of a ROLEPLAYING game.
First of all, the pillars that WotC made such a fuss about in the playtest were combat, exploration, and interaction. Roleplaying was not among them, and rightly so because roleplaying is something you should be doing as part of all pillars of the game, not a pillar separate from the others. Second of all, I’m not saying gold should have a bigger impact on combat. I’m saying in order for it to have a mechanical impact on ANY pillar of the game, the things you spend it on need to have mechanical effects. Ideally, you should be able to buy things to help in any and all pillars, and choosing which things to buy should make you think. That’s what roleplaying is, imagining yourself as a character and
making decisions as you imagine that character would.
Plus, tracking gold pieces is a traditional part of game. It’d be hard to get away from.
Yes, which is why an economy that matters is to me a preferable option over removing the economy. But removing the economy is preferable over having a pointless one, because I don’t enjoy resource management that doesn’t have a purpose.
But, hey, other people have already done alternate wealth systems:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/177820/5MWD-Presents-Variant-Rules
If you don’t like gold, there are options.
Yes, I’m well aware that Third party publishing exists, thank you. Just because a thing can be fixed doesn’t mean it isn’t broken. You expressed confusion as to why people feel gold is worthless in 5e. I’m telling you why. The existence of patches that make it worthwhile does not change the fact that it’s woryjl in the base game.
It’s about as good of guidelines as you can manage.
Uh, no. People have put together SIGNIFICANTLY better guidelines by analyzing the DMG treasure tables, and the analysis lined up pretty much perfectly with the official guidelines they did eventually end up printing in XGtE. Those guidelines should have been in the DMG to begin with, but what’s done is done.
Which is worth more, boots of winterlands or slippers of spiderclimb? They’re both uncommon, so they’re the same “price”.
But which is more valuable if your playing Storm King’s Thunder? But how about Tomb of Annihilation? What if the PC is a aarakocra? Would they pay the same for the slippers as the boots?
Price is too variable. It changes from campaign to campaign, and character to character.
That’s fine, but some people like a guideline to deviate from as they see fit, instead of “eh, charge whatever you feel like. 500, I guess? Or maybe 10 times that much. It doesn’t really matter.”
