D&D 5E (2024) Ditching the Treasure Treadmill

[Pamphylian]

This is where we have philosophical difference. For me, D&D is a game of high adventure. We're kicking down doors, fighting vicious beasts, battling evil wizards, winning the <ahem> "hearts" of beautiful NPCs, plundering the treasures of lost civilizations, etc., etc. We're not poring over ledgers managing estates, handling payroll for our staff, engaging in tedious research, etc., etc. We might establish shrines and temples, bribe politicians, and certainly live large, but these things are accomplished by adventuring.

I admit to liking a bit of domain play and proper war gaming in D&D sometimes but I think I basically agree with this. But I don't see big ticket items as antithetical to high adventure, but complementary. The intent is not for players to be pouring over spreadsheets, but rather to be thinking large scale about how they can solve problems and affect the world.

Having big things to spend money on provides a language and scale for material constraints, and also a flexible and transparent way to dissolve many of them - there are lots of different ways to acquire treasure and therefore achieve a certain goal. Critically, treasure isn't a universal solvent (many monsters and forces in the world care little for it), but it's a way of gating qualitative changes in gameplay in a more flexible (and satisfying imo) way than plot or level - one that I hope encourages player agency. Once you have a ship, you can go on quite different adventures and achieve quite a bit more than without one - but you got to find a way to get a ship. In general, I want players thinking something like Conan the Barbarian, who comes to lead armies and kingdoms, but still goes on adventures, and I doubt is ever crunching numbers.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Magic items aren't purchased in this campaign, but they find them while adventuring.

Ok yeah then that doesn't sound much different than what I'm used to seeing. Gold just doesn't really matter anymore, for all the reasons you described above. In my experience, DMs still hand out gold occasionally but it's pretty rare. Treasure awards are almost entirely magic items and harvested monster components used to craft magic items, where gold just kind of exists but isn't really tracked, like ammunition, encumbrance, food, water, non-magical equipment, etc

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Magic items aren't purchased in this campaign, but they find them while adventuring.

Magic item shops can server as means to give PCs something to spend their gold on, bur I positively hate those. To my mind, a magic item you buy from a store will never be as exciting and, well, magical as one you earn through daring deeds or craft yourself. Also, it makes no sense in the already iffy D&D economy. Nobles have better, more ostentatious things to spend their wealth on (though I do love the imagine of a noble having a Sphere of Annihilation they just keep on a pedestal and show to guests) and if it's just adventurers that buy them, either you have tons of adventurers to sell to or the magic item shops need some other way to stay in business.

 

[payn]

It may seem odd that PF1 remains my favorite fantasy RPG, but yeah 3E pretty much made me hate gold and magic items. Precisely the need to improve your stats and defenses which meant you often sold immediately interesting items for power ups. Magic items that do more numbers instead of cool things are terrible. One thing 5e got right.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It may seem odd that PF1 remains my favorite fantasy RPG, but yeah 3E pretty much made me hate gold and magic items. Precisely the need to improve your stats and defenses which meant you often sold immediately interesting items for power ups. Magic items that do more numbers instead of cool things are terrible. One thing 5e got right.

I would 100% rather give my PCs an alchemy jug and wait for the shenanigans than give them a +2 sword.

 

[Pamphylian]

Magic item shops can server as means to give PCs something to spend their gold on, bur I positively hate those. To my mind, a magic item you buy from a store will never be as exciting and, well, magical as one you earn through daring deeds or craft yourself. Also, it makes no sense in the already iffy D&D economy. Nobles have better, more ostentatious things to spend their wealth on (though I do love the imagine of a noble having a Sphere of Annihilation they just keep on a pedestal and show to guests) and if it's just adventurers that buy them, either you have tons of adventurers to sell to or the magic item shops need some other way to stay in business.

Yeah a magic shop that you just walk buy downtown is kind of demystifying. A wizard with a particular item that maybe he will part with for a price, or a shady dealer with a few magical artifacts with a negligible chance of being exactly what a player wants might work. But I think there are a lot more mundane or structural things that increase player capability, like the aforementioned ship or building a establishing a teleport gate or a stronghold (edit: ) that can be nice to have "on the market".

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah a magic shop that you just walk buy downtown is kind of demystifying. A wizard with a particular item that maybe he will part with for a price, or a shady dealer with a few magical artifacts with a negligible chance of being exactly what a player wants might work. But I think there are a lot more mundane or structural things that increase player capability, like the aforementioned ship or building a establishing a teleport gate or a stronghold.

If you have to do a magic shop, I think Ptolus -- which has one of them in a major metropolis -- does it right. The items are randomized, based on what other adventurers have brought to the surface and the stock is relatively expensive. So sometimes, you can drop an interesting item for the players there, but it's never like shopping from a catalog.

(There's also a group of mages that might make magic items on commission, but they're jerks, very political, hard to reach and pricy. Very easy to justify them saying no or being unavailable.)

 

[AlViking]

I have no issue with magic shops, when I want a character to have an item designed just for them I'll make it up - it's something I try to do for them at least once or twice per campaign. Meanwhile I don't know what, exactly, the players want for their characters 90% of the time so I'd rather let them buy what they want. I don't hand out a lot of gold, so saving up for the +1 armor or whatever is part of the fun.

 

[GMMichael]

I want PCs spending boatloads on ships . . .

That sounds . . . circular

Having big things to spend money on provides a language and scale for material constraints, and also a flexible and transparent way to dissolve many of them - there are lots of different ways to acquire treasure and therefore achieve a certain goal. Critically, treasure isn't a universal solvent (many monsters and forces in the world care little for it), but it's a way of gating qualitative changes in gameplay in a more flexible (and satisfying imo) way than plot or level - one that I hope encourages player agency. Once you have a ship, you can go on quite different adventures and achieve quite a bit more than without one - but you got to find a way to get a ship.

If OP is glad to not be using gold, great! But I'm agreeing: money is one way you navigate in-game problems. You can't throw XP at a problem to solve it, but GP work pretty well. PCs will easily get too much gold if you follow this weird rule that every creature defeated has treasure (and it's conveniently nearby when you kill the beast). Or if you allow a free market for magic items. (These should be black markets at best). If the PCs can't buy better gear, I image there's a thief or faction that wants that gear as bad or worse than the PCs do. Nevermind gear degradation. By the way, where are the PCs keeping all this gold? Bags of Holding? Aren't there planar moles that can burrow holes into those? If they're keeping it all in a bank, that bank needs hirelings, and the building will need upkeep. Plus if you don't hire a troubleshooter annually, the latest and greatest safecracker technology will come knocking . . .

 

[Distracted DM]

That feels like a modified carousing table. My players love leaving the dungeon to party in town afterwards, both for the XP but also for the shenanigans the table describes.

What carousing table(s) are you using? DCC Knights of the North?