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

[Evenglare]

It doesn't run counter intuitive, because as a DM you either implement those items or you don't, that's the beauty of it. You as the DM can have as simplistic or hard core realism as you and your players like

RIght, but the baseline of the game is simplistic. If you play by the base then gold is worthless because there's nothing to spend it on. When you start to add the modules of upkeep blah blah. Then the game becomes extremely bookkeepy which is fine, but to me it's counter intuitive to that simple nature. So gold use is either non existent in a simple game, or the game becomes overtly complex with book keeping which requires the gold. By default the gold has very little value, but I guess it's not a bug it's a feature, right?

 

[Jester David]

RIght, but the baseline of the game is simplistic. If you play by the base then gold is worthless because there's nothing to spend it on. When you start to add the modules of upkeep blah blah. Then the game becomes extremely bookkeepy which is fine, but to me it's counter intuitive to that simple nature. So gold use is either non existent in a simple game, or the game becomes overtly complex with book keeping which requires the gold. By default the gold has very little value, but I guess it's not a bug it's a feature, right?

Lifestyle expenses/ upkeep isn't a module. It's in the Basic rules. And paying a per/day fee for food/lodging/clothing is as minor as bookkeeping gets. It's far easier than tracking rations and deducting the cost of an inn. And it's super easy to just reduce it to a weekly or monthly expense.

But, yes, if you remove buying food, needing a place to sleep, buying ammunition, upgrading armour, refreshing healer's kits, replacing weapons, buying potions, and the like then, yes, there is nothing you need to spend gold on.

 

[Evenglare]

Lifestyle expenses/ upkeep isn't a module. It's in the Basic rules. And paying a per/day fee for food/lodging/clothing is as minor as bookkeeping gets. It's far easier than tracking rations and deducting the cost of an inn. And it's super easy to just reduce it to a weekly or monthly expense.

But, yes, if you remove buying food, needing a place to sleep, buying ammunition, upgrading armour, refreshing healer's kits, replacing weapons, buying potions, and the like then, yes, there is nothing you need to spend gold on.

Exactly! Most people I know skip all of that and prefer to get into the action quicker. Paying 2 gold for this and 5 silver for that and blah blah. It's not worth the headache. Bigger things like potions sure, but replacing weapons? Never happens in my experience. Upgrading armor? Will only happen once maybe to get the best armor of it's type. Food? Usually glossed over and if it's not its assumed to be in the "upkeep" of your character. So yeah, most of that stuff is skipped in my experience. Thanks for articulating the hassles of spending the gold!

 

[Jester David]

Exactly! Most people I know skip all of that and prefer to get into the action quicker. Paying 2 gold for this and 5 silver for that and blah blah. It's not worth the headache. Bigger things like potions sure, but replacing weapons? Never happens in my experience. Upgrading armor? Will only happen once maybe to get the best armor of it's type. Food? Usually glossed over and if it's not its assumed to be in the "upkeep" of your character. So yeah, most of that stuff is skipped in my experience. Thanks for articulating the hassles of spending the gold!

Just having to track gold is a pain. Having to write and rewrite and change the numbers. Such an annoyance.
You should just skip it and say the players always just find enough gold to pay for all that stuff and only worry about the "real" treasure.

 

[mlund]

The other thing to keep in mind about the "price" of magic items is that price has to do with what someone is willing to pay. An adamantine +1 longsword (as opposed to a non-magic longsword) is phenomenally valuable to a fighter-type in some editions of D&D, but if you think of its worth to your typical men-at-arms or even to a petty baron with a half-dozen knights and a few hundred levies to do his fighting for him is much less. Items like that have more value to nobility as objects de art than weapons. The value of the magic sword, outside of an art piece or status symbol, is determined by the worth of the hero wielding it.

On the other hand, a Necklace of Fireballs is basically multi-use, concealed WMD that could let a single slack-jawed oaf peasant wipe out a whole village, let a spy start an uncontrollable inferno that wipes out half a major city, or let a hedge-knight obliterate on-rushing enemy heavy cavalry in a battle between nobles - not only winning the battle outright but potentially pruning out entire families in a rival feudal chain in a single toss. It's completely bananas. The idea of such an item being trafficked among the lower classes and sold to a random bidder is enough to keep the local lord's executioner busy for a long time. It's market in a D&D setting would be roughly analogous to that or enriched uranium in the modern world.

So, provided there are no WMDs or super-swords lying around to buy, I recommend investing your hard-earned capital into land and/or people. Maybe you do both and get some tenants / serfs on a nice manor somewhere. Maybe you buy "favors" to be named later from merchants, clergy, nobility, or organized criminals. Maybe you found the charter for a mercenary company or some other form of self-sustaining business that could come in handy later. Capital allows you to farm influence in the game world. Sure, it isn't much if everything's a cardboard set-piece but that's less a fault of the game system than the setting.

And let me gripe one more time about lifestyle expenses. Seriously, how many adult dragons does a man have to slay in his lifetime before he can reasonably expect to hang up his sword-belt, take a wife, and live the good life without ever worrying about running out of money in retirement? The answer really should be "one," but in this wacky D&D economy I think its more like a dozen. That's just messed up.

Marty Lund

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Seriously, how many adult dragons does a man have to slay in his lifetime before he can reasonably expect to hang up his sword-belt, take a wife, and live the good life without ever worrying about running out of money in retirement?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

 

[Li Shenron]

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?

You can have a game of D&D with everything between gold being irrelevant, and being the main source of PC power through buying magic equipment.

Note that some people actually like counting gold as "points" even if irrelevant. Millions of people used to enjoy pinballs and early video games where the whole point was to last longer and score higher.

My current favourite for D&D is gold being irrelevant during adventures action, and relevant only in downtime activities.

 

[CapnZapp]

I hardly call it sane that the default assumption is that all knowledge about magic item crafting has been lost and that is absolutely impossible to create them.

I have no problem whatsoever with telling the characters (and the players!) this.

Just as long as I the DM have a working solution to use whenever I feel like making an exception to the rule.

5E has succeed in the first part, but (so far) failed in the second.

 

[Riley37]

What if gunpowder had been declared religious anathema? An affront to the gods?

Down Styphon!
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23425/down-styphon

 

[Ahrimon]

I have no problem whatsoever with telling the characters (and the players!) this.

Just as long as I the DM have a working solution to use whenever I feel like making an exception to the rule.

5E has succeed in the first part, but (so far) failed in the second.

Agree or not, I won't begrudge you your opinion, but I did have to call this out. On one hand you freely say that it's ok as long as you, as the DM, have a solution but then you say it's 5e's fault that you don't. I mean, I guess I can see where you'd be upset if you expected everything to be given to you in a nice single package. But, even if they did provide rules for that what's to say that it would work for you? And what about the tens of thousands of other DMs out there? Is one rule going to fit every game? I don't think it's a stretch to say that we would need several DMG's just to cover ever conceivable want for this one aspect of the game.

That's why I applaud them for what they did with the DMG. It's a bold step that the hobby needed in my opinion. They gave us the basics to build a working game and left the more detailed world building aspects to the DM. Even the few simple guidelines they gave us for a creative spark has the interwebs in flames. I can't imagine what detailed rules would do.

No, it's better that they left it up to us. I understand why anyone would be upset about having to make up their own rules, but I think it's a bit selfish (not in the bad way) to think that should have provided rules for any particular one of us. The way it is now supports way more games than any world-building rule they could have given us.

my 2cp