D&D 5E What's the point of gold?

[jgsugden]

And you also play a game with mechanics.

Note that D&D is not called a Mechanics Playing Game. It is an RPG. If you're not interested in the story, you're likely going to be better off playing board games that are designed to focus on giving you mechanical staisfaction rather than games where the ability to tell a great story is put before the pure strategic and tactical balance of the game.

In theory, but that only matters if the DM actually decides to run a scene where an NPC shows that they want my money. And frankly, I would find that much less interesting than a scene where I’m... you know, going on adventures.

Yeah, I suppose it is impossible to have HEIST adventure.

If the rest of the group is interested in playing a game where we save the world through philanthropy, sure. That’s not generally what I play D&D for though.

Your party is 4 to 7 beings in a world. There are a near infinite supply of others that can also want to have a say in what you could do with the funds.

Sounds like the start of an adventure. That’s far more interesting than anything I could have spent the money on. Thank you, mysterious thief, for giving me something to do. That’s more than the gold ever did for me.

One of many options for the gold....

Again, if that’s the story the group wants to play out. I’d really rather be investigating mysteries, exploring ancient ruins, and fighting evil monsters than overseeing construction projects, personally. To each their own, I guess.

I'll agree that having the PCs argue over variances and change orders on the pantry door frame is not likely to be great RPG fodder, but it doesn't need to be a micromanaging freak show. PCs hire someone to run the construction - just like the real world - and then they only need to worry about the big story worthy issues, like the results of building on haunted lands,

If the complaint is that there is nothing to do with gold in 5E because you don't want to tell a story realistic enough for money to be a concern... well, I'd suggest that there is a lot more to D&D for you to explore. There are sections of the PHB and DMG that are worth a nice long and slow read.

And if your DM doesn't 'run that type of game'... the DM is not the only one telling the story. Try inserting the most interesting ideas suggested in this thread into the game yourself by having your PC decide to put the money to use and doing something with it. The DM creates the world, but the heroes of the story - the PCs - decide what to do with that creation.

For more ideas about how to make all of this type of thing run and interesting, try listening to the Critical Role podcast. they handle money and magic items differently than I would but it is one example of a great way to go as a player and as a DM.

 

[Maxperson]

That’s just not true. Most of these things have a direct impact on your available actions and/or the probability of success/failure at certain actions. That matters to gameplay with or without effort on the player’s or DM’s parts.

It absolutely is true. I've played with people who couldn't care less about experience points. Level was meaningless to them as they only cared about exploring character and interacting with the world in ways that helped them explore their character, and roleplay. Level 1 was the same as level 5, which was the same as level 20 to them. Level is only has meaning if players give it meaning. Same with race and class. There is no race and class that has meaning unless players give them meaning. I don't play small races or bards. They have no relevance or meaning to me. I give meaning to humans, elves and half-elves. The only difference between those and gold, is that it's even easier give those things meaning than it is to give gold meaning.

I disagree, for the reasons we have been discussing.

You haven't given me any reason other than "It's on the players instead of the DM." That doesn't mean squat as to whether it's trivially easy or not. I don't even have to make an effort to spend gold. I know what my PCs want and I use gold to get me there. It's trivial. I suppose if you're a reactive player and not a proactive one, and you need the DM to prod you in order to do anything in the game, it would be more difficult, but even then not by much.

 

[Damon_Tor]

I have only DM'ed one session, but at the end of that session, people asked me what the point of gold is, I point them to the purchasable items, but they said that the items seem pretty cheap and they're likely to fill out their gear sooner or later.

Since I haven't ran a game for long, I want to ask about gold use in the later levels, what do you use it for?

There are a number of spells that consume expensive material components when you cast them, spells that, when used in combination, can be extremely powerful. For example, the spells "Symbol" and "Simulacrum" can be used to bypass spell slot limitations and concentration. Symbol in particular is quite powerful: a wizard can set up a "buffing parlor" demiplane, and when faced with a very challenging boss monster he can simply enter the buffing parlor, speak whatever code word he's set for all of his symbols to fire on him, then return to the battle as a Planetar with Haste, a 7th level Shadowblade, Tenser's Transformation, Enlarge and basically whatever other self-buffs he feels like (because by level 18 wizards can replicate almost any spell via Wish).

 

[Charlaquin]

Note that D&D is not called a Mechanics Playing Game.

It also is not called a Role Playing Conversation.

It is an RPG.

Yes. A role playing game. Role playing is the act of imagining yourself as someone else and making decisions as you imagine that person would. Games have mechanics. Role playing games have mechanics that revolve around imagining yourself as someone else and making decisions as you imagine that person would.

If you're not interested in the story, you're likely going to be better off playing board games that are designed to focus on giving you mechanical staisfaction rather than games where the ability to tell a great story is put before the pure strategic and tactical balance of the game.

I have never said I’m not interested in the story. Because it isn’t true. Don’t assume things about my taste in games.

Yeah, I suppose it is impossible to have HEIST adventure.Your party is 4 to 7 beings in a world. There are a near infinite supply of others that can also want to have a say in what you could do with the funds.One of many options for the gold...

Sure, gold can be a catalyst for adventures. But you don’t need to count gold pieces for it to do that. You’d get exactly the same value out of abstract quantities of gold than specific ones. If there’s no gamification to the gold economy, that’s fine, but then just leave it as a story element and save on bookkeeping.

.I'll agree that having the PCs argue over variances and change orders on the pantry door frame is not likely to be great RPG fodder, but it doesn't need to be a micromanaging freak show. PCs hire someone to run the construction - just like the real world - and then they only need to worry about the big story worthy issues, like the results of building on haunted lands,

In which case, the purchase and construction of these buildings doesn’t really matter to the game, does it? If it doesn’t affect the players while they’re adventuring, it’s just background fluff. You don’t need to bean count your copper pieces to say you use the treasure you found in the last adventure to pay some people to build you a house.

If the complaint is that there is nothing to do with gold in 5E because you don't want to tell a story realistic enough for money to be a concern... well, I'd suggest that there is a lot more to D&D for you to explore. There are sections of the PHB and DMG that are worth a nice long and slow read.

That’s not the complaint. Again, stop assuming things about my argument that I don’t actually say.

And if your DM doesn't 'run that type of game'... the DM is not the only one telling the story. Try inserting the most interesting ideas suggested in this thread into the game yourself by having your PC decide to put the money to use and doing something with it. The DM creates the world, but the heroes of the story - the PCs - decide what to do with that creation.

But why bother when the things I spend the gold on are not directly relevant to the adventures?

For more ideas about how to make all of this type of thing run and interesting, try listening to the Critical Role podcast. they handle money and magic items differently than I would but it is one example of a great way to go as a player and as a DM.

Matt includes magic items for sale in the game. If he didn’t do that, they would have significantly less opportunity to spend their gold on things that had an impact on the adventures Critical Role focuses on. I’m not a big fan of magic item shops personally, but it is one way to make gold matter. That’s Matt doing the work of deciding what items to make available and how much to charge for them though.

 

[Charlaquin]

It absolutely is true. I've played with people who couldn't care less about experience points. Level was meaningless to them as they only cared about exploring character and interacting with the world in ways that helped them explore their character, and roleplay. Level 1 was the same as level 5, which was the same as level 20 to them. Level is only has meaning if players give it meaning.

They may not have cared about their level, but that’s not the same thing as level not mattering. Whether they cared or not, at level 5 they had more spells and abilities at their disposal and a higher probability of succeeding on rolls to which their proficiencies applied than at level 1. That makes the level objectively significant, even if they don’t care about its significance.

Same with race and class. There is no race and class that has meaning unless players give them meaning.

The simple fact that some classes can cast spells and others can’t proves you wrong. You may not care whether or not your character can cast spells, but the difference between being able to cast spells and not being able to is significant, whether you care about its significance or not.

I don't play small races or bards.

Sounds like the size of races has meaning to you then, if you’re using it as a determining factor of whether or not you’ll consider playing a race. And there’s something about bards that makes you dislike them and not want to play th. That something is significant.

They have no relevance or meaning to me. I give meaning to humans, elves and half-elves

You like humans, elves, and half-elves. That doesn’t mean other races aren’t significant. Quite the opposite in fact, if the differences between races didn’t matter to you, you wouldn’t have preferences for some over others.

The only difference between those and gold, is that it's even easier give those things meaning than it is to give gold meaning.

But, see, gold, unlike level, race, and class, does not directly impact what your character can do or how good they are at doing it.

You haven't given me any reason other than "It's on the players instead of the DM." That doesn't mean squat as to whether it's trivially easy or not. I don't even have to make an effort to spend gold. I know what my PCs want and I use gold to get me there. It's trivial. I suppose if you're a reactive player and not a proactive one, and you need the DM to prod you in order to do anything in the game, it would be more difficult, but even then not by much.

It’s plenty easy to find things to spend gold on, but since none of those things have any mechanical impact, it doesn’t make a difference what you spend it on, any more than it makes a difference what color you wrote that your character’s eyes are. Unless the DM takes it upon themselves to make up ways for your purchases to affect the mechanics, such as giving you advantage on a persuasion roll for having fancy clothes or whatever. And that’s not necessarily a problem. Not everything in the game needs to have mechanical impact. If the stuff I spend my gold on is just for role playing purposes and doesn’t affect the game rules, that’s fine. But then stop acting like it’s important enough to warrant tracking every last copper.

 

[Jester David]

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

Which works currently with less gold and if the pace of adventuring slows. If the characters take zero downtime and lurch from adventure to adventure they pay no downtime. If they have a few months off between major adventures, then downtime expenses accumulate.

• Mechanical and/or consequences for lifestyles

Such as....

• Alternative expenses, such as equipment, goods, and services with significant cost and mechanical benefits.

Such as....

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.

For the fighter, that is a goddamn treadmill. Chainmail then breastplate then plate then full plate. Etc.

And the problem with that is it's an easy system to game. Combat heavy campaign? Go with option A. Every time. More roleplay heavy campaign? Go with option B that gives the social bonuses.
And even if there were mechanical diplomacy bonuses for owning a church or carousing.
This is a known problem. It existed in Living Greyhawk where you had to pay one of four lifestyle options, which gave you bonuses to social skills. Or could live off the wild. It became advantageous to dump skill ranks into Survival to live off the land and save that 10 gold, unless you were a party face at which point you focused on lifestyle as quickly as possible. It's just another avenue to min-max.

And even if you did add side bonuses for spending gold elsewhere... there's still a finite number of options. How many armour upgrades can you justify for the fighter? Three? Four? And given gold tends to increase, that still means by level 8 or 9 they'll have everything. All it does is just add another way to stack bonuses on your character.

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.

The rules can't make you care about your character. They can't make you have a goal.

One of my players is spending all their gold to rebuild his town that was destroyed by an undead attack. Another started a business. They didn't need to have their hand held or be bribed with a +2 to Persuasion to decide on that as a personal goal. They just decided to make that a personal quest and spend their money.

Because that's the game. You get to decide what's important to you character. But if the game TELLS YOU how to spend your money and where, it's also penalising you for not picking one of their checkbox options. For not having the system mastery to realise that "owning a business" was a goal the designers didn't care about and wasn't one of the finite choices that gave you a mechanical boon.

I love that about 5e. I love that I can give them a rare, cool magic item that has limited combat power knowing they won't dump it for better +# gear. I love that they can be invested in fixing up their hometown because that's what they want to do. I love that I can have the party stripped naked and largely broke at level 10 and doing odd jobs for cash to eat and it doesn't affect the balance of the game.

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.

Do you mean the random tables of prices?
Or the table that just breaks down the math of the random tables but don't actually change the rate or number awarded?

The advice there is super limited, and doesn't really go into setting the price of magic item and how valuable it is.

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.”

So pick a number. 500? Split the min and max and go for 2,500? Whatever.
It does not matter. It will be super arbitrary either way. And the effect is the same: you have a guideline to deviate from.

The difference is, the rules give you the range of deviation. "Probably no less than X and no more than Y".

 

[jgsugden]

...
I have never said I’m not interested in the story. Because it isn’t true. Don’t assume things about my taste in games.

Dude. Why would anyone need to assume anything when you write everything you believe in these lengthy posts? You are clearly not getting my point because your arguments contradict the underlying concept. You ask why bother to spend gold on stuff when the things you're spending the gold on are not directly related to the adventure. I've answered that question. Other people have answered that question. You're not interested in listening - and I have no interest in repeating the same answers over and over. Good luck.

I miss the days where the block function was more easily accessible.

 

[Maxperson]

They may not have cared about their level, but that’s not the same thing as level not mattering. Whether they cared or not, at level 5 they had more spells and abilities at their disposal and a higher probability of succeeding on rolls to which their proficiencies applied than at level 1. That makes the level objectively significant, even if they don’t care about its significance.

There is no such thing as "objective significance." Significance is a subjective term. For example, $1000 is an insignificant amount of money to Bill Gates, but is a very significant amount of money to the homeless guy on the corner. The same goes for any given rule in the game. What you find to be significant, is insignificant to some others.

To the people I described, level 5 is meaningless. While it may be objectively more powerful, it's insignificant to people who want to explore character and roleplaying aspects of the game and don't give a rat's behind about mechanics.

The simple fact that some classes can cast spells and others can’t proves you wrong. You may not care whether or not your character can cast spells, but the difference between being able to cast spells and not being able to is significant, whether you care about its significance or not.

No. No it's not. It's utterly insignificant to someone who doesn't care about spellcasters. It may be significant to you, but you don't get to say what is significant to anyone else.

Sounds like the size of races has meaning to you then, if you’re using it as a determining factor of whether or not you’ll consider playing a race. And there’s something about bards that makes you dislike them and not want to play th. That something is significant.

You like humans, elves, and half-elves. That doesn’t mean other races aren’t significant. Quite the opposite in fact, if the differences between races didn’t matter to you, you wouldn’t have preferences for some over others.

No. Humans, elves and half-elves have significance to me. The rest of the races are as insignificant as bugs outside my house.

But, see, gold, unlike level, race, and class, does not directly impact what your character can do or how good they are at doing it.

Gold does directly impact what your character can do. You may not be able to get into the castle at all with your mechanical abilities, but gold can grease the way and directly impact what you can do by getting you inside. It doesn't translate into mechanical goodies, but it doesn't take mechanics to directly impact what you can do and how well you might be able to do something.

Not everything in the game needs to have mechanical impact. If the stuff I spend my gold on is just for role playing purposes and doesn’t affect the game rules, that’s fine. But then stop acting like it’s important enough to warrant tracking every last copper.

Not only does it warrant tracking copper, it's more important than any mechanic out there!! At least to some people it is, because again, significance is subjective. Where you are going very, very wrong, is in assuming that your way is the One True Way and that just because YOU prefer mechanics over roleplaying to a tremendous degree, that everyone else does as well. Many of us don't.

Personally, when it comes to the mechanics/roleplay split, it's about 40%/60% for me. Mechanics take a backseat, so gold is more valuable to me than +1 or +2 to a stat or a new magic item. For you mechanics are more important. The thing is, this game is a ROLEPLAYING game, so roleplay is a large part of what the game assumes to be present. If you devalue roleplay to the point where gold doesn't have relevance, that's not the fault of the game. You are the one who made gold irrelevant.

 

[Charlaquin]

Which works currently with less gold and if the pace of adventuring slows. If the characters take zero downtime and lurch from adventure to adventure they pay no downtime. If they have a few months off between major adventures, then downtime expenses accumulate.


Such as....

Again, I’m not going to design a system for you just because you stubbornly insist on “nu-uh”img everything I say. But if you want a basic example, maybe a table you roll on after each month of downtime with a modifier based on the lifestyle you maintained during that month (or the lowest one you had at any point during the month, if you paid daily or weekly instead of monthly). Low results cause mishaps like diseases, long-term injuries, or loss of resources or equipment, such as getting robbed. Medium results have neutral effects. High results have positive benefits like gaining new NPC contacts, earning discounts on equipment purchases, etc. That way you have an incentive to spend your money on better lifestyles instead of saving it all for weapon and armor upgrades.

Such as....

Such as goddamn equipment, goods, and services. There are plenty of examples in the book, the f*** more you want from me?

For the fighter, that is a goddamn treadmill. Chainmail then breastplate then plate then full plate. Etc.

I suppose if you consider any form of upgrade path a treadmill, then yes. I would only consider it a treadmill if you need to upgrade to keep up with the escalating challenges. Fortunately, we have bounded accuracy making uogrades actual upgrades instead of taxes to keep up with the expected progression.

And the problem with that is it's an easy system to game. Combat heavy campaign? Go with option A. Every time. More roleplay heavy campaign? Go with option B that gives the social bonuses.
And even if there were mechanical diplomacy bonuses for owning a church or carousing.

*gasp* you mean players making decisions based on the needs of their character in a given campaign? How DARE they!

This is a known problem. It existed in Living Greyhawk where you had to pay one of four lifestyle options, which gave you bonuses to social skills. Or could live off the wild. It became advantageous to dump skill ranks into Survival to live off the land and save that 10 gold, unless you were a party face at which point you focused on lifestyle as quickly as possible. It's just another avenue to min-max.

Oh, so you were aware of a system like the one I was suggesting, but decided to insist on me making one up to prove it was possible. Thanks for that.

And even if you did add side bonuses for spending gold elsewhere... there's still a finite number of options. How many armour upgrades can you justify for the fighter? Three? Four? And given gold tends to increase, that still means by level 8 or 9 they'll have everything.

Here’s a novel idea, provide guidelines for roughly how much wealth characters can earn by what level without breaking the economy system?

All it does is just add another way to stack bonuses on your character.

No, it’s a system for giving players decisions to make regarding how they imagine their character would allocate their resources given the demands that their economic situation places on them (i.e. roleplaying). The bonuses and penalties are just to make sure there are practical consequences for the decisions you make, (i.e. gamifying them).

Now, to be fair, not everyone would find that particular sort of economy minigame interesting, and that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with taking the game out of the D&D economy and making it a purely roleplay thing, no mechanical consequences for choosing to play a wealthy character or a poor character, just keep it all in the narrative. That’s 100% a valid way to play. But, if that’s the case, why bother counting coins?

The rules can't make you care about your character. They can't make you have a goal.

Very true. What the rules can do, however, is give consequences to the decisions you make as your character. Pursuing your goals (which are your own) should have benefits, and come with costs. That’s what makes it a game instead of just a story. If you want to tell stories with your friends, be my guest. Personally, I pay money for RPG books because they offer me something I can’t get out of simply telling stories (which I could do for free). It adds an element of consequence and challenge to the story. They gamify it.

One of my players is spending all their gold to rebuild his town that was destroyed by an undead attack. Another started a business. They didn't need to have their hand held or be bribed with a +2 to Persuasion to decide on that as a personal goal. They just decided to make that a personal quest and spend their money.

Because that's the game. You get to decide what's important to you character. But if the game TELLS YOU how to spend your money and where, it's also penalising you for not picking one of their checkbox options. For not having the system mastery to realise that "owning a business" was a goal the designers didn't care about and wasn't one of the finite choices that gave you a mechanical boon.

Owning a business could be a way to make more gold, which if there was a meaningful economy in the game, would be reward enough on its own. Funding a project to renovate a town could give you allies that offer you free food and lodging, discounts on your equipment, or might lend you their services in aid of your other pursuits. If the game has a functioning economy, you don’t need to provide +2 to persuasion on the town’s citizens for renovating the town to be rewarding.

I love that about 5e. I love that I can give them a rare, cool magic item that has limited combat power knowing they won't dump it for better +# gear. I love that they can be invested in fixing up their hometown because that's what they want to do. I love that I can have the party stripped naked and largely broke at level 10 and doing odd jobs for cash to eat and it doesn't affect the balance of the game.

I’m not suggesting a system where you can just sell magic items and buy better +# gear with the money. I’m not suggesting a system where Xth level characters are screwed if they don’t have Y gold worth of gear. All I’m suggesting is an economy where there are many things you might want to spend money on that affect the game, and that these expenses come at the opportunity cost of other game-affecting things you might want to purchase.

Do you mean the random tables of prices?
Or the table that just breaks down the math of the random tables but don't actually change the rate or number awarded?

I’m talking about the section that describes how to distribute magic items by level in an adventure you’re writing, and the buying magic items activity in the downtime section.

The advice there is super limited, and doesn't really go into setting the price of magic item and how valuable it is.

It’s considerably better advice than what’s in the DMG because it actually gives me a not unreasonably broad price range for items of each rarity, a formula for setting a price (even if randomized, I can figure out the probability distribution and find an average and standard deviation). And the other section gives me a concrete example of a method of distributing magic items of certain rarities by certain levels.

So pick a number. 500? Split the min and max and go for 2,500? Whatever.
It does not matter. It will be super arbitrary either way. And the effect is the same: you have a guideline to deviate from.

It doesn’t have to be arbitrary, though. It could be based on a specific set of assumptions about how much the players can expect to afford at what point in their careers. You could even create different sets of guidelines for different assumptions to suit different campaigns. Here’s how much to hand out and how much to charge for things of this rarity if you want a super low-wealth, scraping by campaign. Here’s a set of numbers for a Monty haul campaign. Here’s an average between the two.

The difference is, the rules give you the range of deviation. "Probably no less than X and no more than Y".

It gives you a minimum and a maximum, but no advice on a baseline or a standard deviation. At least with a dice formula, I can work out what the mean cost would be, and get an idea of how frequently outlying prices should be expected to come up.

 

[Charlaquin]

There is no such thing as "objective significance."

Lol. You must not be very familiar with statistics.

Significance is a subjective term. For example, $1000 is an insignificant amount of money to Bill Gates, but is a very significant amount of money to the homeless guy on the corner. The same goes for any given rule in the game. What you find to be significant, is insignificant to some others.

We’re working from different definitions of the word here. You’re talking about the quality of being worthy of attention. That’s subjective. I’m talking about the objective impact something has. Bill Gates may not consider $1,000 worthy of his attention, but it has exactly the same purchasing power in is hands as it does in mine. Your friends may not care that at 5th level their martial characters gain an extra attack and their casters get access to 3rd level spells. But their characters are capable of more whether they care or not.

To the people I described, level 5 is meaningless. While it may be objectively more powerful, it's insignificant to people who want to explore character and roleplaying aspects of the game and don't give a rat's behind about mechanics.

No. No it's not. It's utterly insignificant to someone who doesn't care about spellcasters. It may be significant to you, but you don't get to say what is significant to anyone else.

No. Humans, elves and half-elves have significance to me. The rest of the races are as insignificant as bugs outside my house.

Your friends may not care that their character’s can take more damage, deal more damage, cast different spells, and succeed 5% more often at trained checks, but they can. You may not be interested in playing races other than humans, elves, and half-elves, but something about the races you do want to play is appealing to you in a way that those other races are not.

Gold does directly impact what your character can do. You may not be able to get into the castle at all with your mechanical abilities, but gold can grease the way and directly impact what you can do by getting you inside. It doesn't translate into mechanical goodies, but it doesn't take mechanics to directly impact what you can do and how well you might be able to do something.

So how do you determine how much gold it’s going to take to successfully bribe the guards into letting you in? If there’s a specific minimum amount that the guards will accept, that’s a game mechanic. If you allow the players to adjust that minimum amount by their actions, that’s a game mechanic. You’ve actually created a situation here where it is mechanically beneficial to save all of your wealth for bribes instead of spending it on things like building castles or fixing hometowns or whatever. Unless you allow characters with better lifestyles to be able to bribe guards more easily. Rhar’s Be another mechanic, and would you look at that, you’ve got the beginnings of a (very rudimentary) economy subsystem. And, as I’ve been saying all along, it was you who did that work, instead of the designer’s at WotC.

Not only does it warrant tracking copper, it's more important than any mechanic out there!! At least to some people it is, because again, significance is subjective.

No, ifbthe stuff you spend your money on is only used for narrative purposes, there’s no need to track every copper, just like there’s no need to track your character’s gebeology and alleles is eye color only matters for descriptive purposes. You certainly can, if you want to, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If counting coppers that you can’t spend on anything with mechanical impact is so important to you, knock yourself out, no one is stopping you. But it’s not neeeded to play the game. To say otherwise is to “One True Way” the people who don’t care about tracking coinage. People are perfectly free to play the game with or without coin tracking, but if individual coins don’t matter to the rules, then please don’t waste wordcount in the rulebook on coin values and exchange rates.

Where you are going very, very wrong, is in assuming that your way is the One True Way and that just because YOU prefer mechanics over roleplaying to a tremendous degree, that everyone else does as well. Many of us don't.

Stop. Just f***ing stop. I am sick and tired of you making assumptions about my play style preferences. I absolutely do not prefer mechanics over roleplay and I strongly resent being misrepresented in this way.

Personally, when it comes to the mechanics/roleplay split, it's about 40%/60% for me.

Mechanics and roleplaying are not dichotomous. Treating them as zero sum values like this is nonsense, because game mechanics do not prevent roleplaying and roleplaying does not diminish game mechanics.

Mechanics take a backseat, so gold is more valuable to me than +1 or +2 to a stat or a new magic item.

See, when I say “game mechanics,” you seem to hear “combat-related stat boosts.” That is not what the term means and it is not what I am using the term to mean.

For you mechanics are more important. The thing is, this game is a ROLEPLAYING game, so roleplay is a large part of what the game assumes to be present. If you devalue roleplay to the point where gold doesn't have relevance, that's not the fault of the game. You are the one who made gold irrelevant.

I do not devalue roleplaying. Roleplaying is the most important part of the game to me. But I like roleplaying choices to have weight. Mechanics can and do enhance roleplaying, by assigning risk and reward to your choices. Making it a game, as opposed to just a story. I enjoy telling stories, but I enjoy it more when there is an element of challenge. When there are rules that guide the storytelling rather than leaving it freeform. When it’s a roleplaying GAME as opposed to just roleplaying.