The Little Raven
First Post
Celebrim said:
Exceptions are a feature, since the game design is exception-based.
Adventurers making money with profession
- Thread starter Byronic
- Start date
Exceptions are a feature, since the game design is exception-based.
Celebrim
Legend
Mourn said:
You don't see the slightest contridiction between claiming that illogical edge case results are a feature of the game which we should embrace, and also claiming that 4e promotes a rule zero centered mindset by not explicitly writing out the exceptions which handle edge cases?
It seems to me that the 4e mindset is, "Don't ask questions.", or as hong would put it, "Don't think too deeply." The 4e mindset is, "Ok, sure, sometimes these rules produce illogical results. But don't worry about it, it's just a game." I don't see alot of evidence that the 4e mindset is, "When these rules produce illogical results make exceptions to them." The latter stance is inherently simulationist, and seems entirely at odds with the 4e design.
'Magic the Gathering' is also a game with 'exception based design'. It has a general set of rules, and then you play with cards which may make explicit exceptions to those rules. The fact that MtG has exception based design doesn't mean that it is a game that relies on interpretation when deciding what the rules mean (they can afterall be programmed into a computer framework), or that it is a game that promotes overturning the rules because they produce illogical results.
darkrose50
First Post
Get ready for the following assumptions from people who want to tell you how to play:
1. D&D is not about economics. You suck for even thinking about having economics in a D&D game. Go play Monopoly.
2. Economics is a complicated voodoo that adventurers can never hope to understand. Talking to another person, and making a deal is super complex. In a feudalistic setting where chain stores do not exist, and inventory is mostly owned and sold by the merchant, the merchant will not barter. Bartering is non-existent in such settings.
3. Magical items can’t be bought, sold, or traded . . . they are special in that way. Everyone wants them, and no one would ever want to sell one, or buy one. Unless you are an adventurer.
4. Only adventurers use magical items. Guilds, militaries, lords, nobles, gentry, and merchants don’t want magical items.
5. Only adventurers have gold to afford magical items. Guilds, militaries, lords, nobles, gentry, and merchants don’t have enough gold to buy magical items.
6. One cannot approach guilds, militaries, lords, nobles, gentry, and merchants and offer to sell magical items to them because they don’t want them and they can’t afford them. One cannot even find other adventures to sell or trade stuff to.
7. Adventurers don’t care about money. But yet they have more money than guilds, militaries, lords, nobles, gentry, and merchants.
8. Adventurers don’t have downtime, they adventure all year long, even in the winter.
9. In fact adventurers don’t have wives or husbands or families that they spend any time with, unless they are also adventurers.
10. Everything from hotdog buns to holy avengers sells for 20% of there trade value. That is if the GM lets you sell the item for 20%. Some items are special and sell for 100% like gold daggers . . . but magical items are not special.
11. There is no such thing as supply and demand in D&D.
12. Economic rules would be unrealistic, so don’t bother. But we should bother with unrealistic combat rules.
1. D&D is not about economics. You suck for even thinking about having economics in a D&D game. Go play Monopoly.
2. Economics is a complicated voodoo that adventurers can never hope to understand. Talking to another person, and making a deal is super complex. In a feudalistic setting where chain stores do not exist, and inventory is mostly owned and sold by the merchant, the merchant will not barter. Bartering is non-existent in such settings.
3. Magical items can’t be bought, sold, or traded . . . they are special in that way. Everyone wants them, and no one would ever want to sell one, or buy one. Unless you are an adventurer.
4. Only adventurers use magical items. Guilds, militaries, lords, nobles, gentry, and merchants don’t want magical items.
5. Only adventurers have gold to afford magical items. Guilds, militaries, lords, nobles, gentry, and merchants don’t have enough gold to buy magical items.
6. One cannot approach guilds, militaries, lords, nobles, gentry, and merchants and offer to sell magical items to them because they don’t want them and they can’t afford them. One cannot even find other adventures to sell or trade stuff to.
7. Adventurers don’t care about money. But yet they have more money than guilds, militaries, lords, nobles, gentry, and merchants.
8. Adventurers don’t have downtime, they adventure all year long, even in the winter.
9. In fact adventurers don’t have wives or husbands or families that they spend any time with, unless they are also adventurers.
10. Everything from hotdog buns to holy avengers sells for 20% of there trade value. That is if the GM lets you sell the item for 20%. Some items are special and sell for 100% like gold daggers . . . but magical items are not special.
11. There is no such thing as supply and demand in D&D.
12. Economic rules would be unrealistic, so don’t bother. But we should bother with unrealistic combat rules.
Last edited:
Obryn
Hero
Mirtek said:
...and....
darkrose50 said:
Come on, folks... Yes, there are plenty of excellent campaign ideas and character downtime activities that involve merchanting, moneylending, building, and working various trades.
No, there's no specific skill for that under 4e core.
Really, though, if your campaign is based around characters being merchants, would you use the Profession skills as written in 3.x? In the PHB, Profession is a downtime activity - "Take X time, Roll, Add Modifiers, Make Y Gold." The only time you use those skills is to find out how much money your character makes when you're taking a month or two off. It's a d20 slot machine.
Merchant and business campaigns can be a lot of fun, but they're hardly dependent on making Profession: Merchant rolls. You don't need craft and profession skills to center a campaign around trade, business ownership, and the like.
Also, the DM in the second example should be shot. I mean, seriously - along with the wonky economic rules (which are primarily based on a theory that PCs are selling stuff they loot, not stuff they make; and which assume that the PCs aren't important merchants), the DM is encouraged throughout the DMG not to arbitrarily shoot down player suggestions, to improvise, and to try and work with their players to enhance everyone's fun around the table. So long as this player wasn't going to play Bob The Shopkeeper and sit around in his store while everyone else wanted to go adventuring, it's completely workable.
-O
Obryn
Hero
Holy cow! You must have gotten an early draft of the DMG, then! Or do I need special glasses to find the stuff you're talking about in mine?Celebrim said:
My DMG continually empowers the DM through the entire book to creatively adjudicate rules, make exceptions, go with player suggestions, try to make things fun for everyone, and improvise.
-O
darkrose50
First Post
I hope they make economic rules in the future that rock! Let me share a rant I made last week.
1. The assumption that every adventurer is economically imbecilic, does not care about economics, or is too incompetent to engage is economics is preposterous. There is no such portion of any population of sufficient wealth that is excluded from economics. If one has wealth, than one has it in ones best interests to engage in economic activity and use ones resources efficiently. This is human social nature.
2. The assumption that goods and services are some sort of mystical voodoo only understood by full time professional merchants is preposterous. People know how to talk to people, and make deals. People know how to interact with people. Merchants are people. A setting based on our medieval feudalistic society would not have chain stores with set prices as the norm. Such a default setting would have a large portion of individual merchants who own there own inventory. Bartering and haggling would be possible. Bartering and haggling would be the norm.
3. The assumption that only adventurers would buy magical items in a feudalistic society is preposterous. Magical arms and armor would be in demand by knights, and lords (the military). Magical healing, health fortifying, and life extending magical items would be in demand by anyone who had the wealth to afford them.
4. The assumption that adventuring is the only method to become fantastically wealthy is preposterous. The gentry, nobles, merchants, kings, queens, churches and guilds would control vast wealth.
5. The assumption that magical items are too expensive to be sold is preposterous. There is supply, and there is demand. Supply and demand sets prices. It is unrealistic to assume that there is a universal distain for used magical items, especially with the resizing ritual, to the point that five used magical items are worth one new magical item is preposterous.
6. The assumption that the cost to have magical items created is higher than the actual trade value of magical items is preposterous. Magical item creation theory is not lost in the base setting. Players can create magical items. Players can buy magical items for full trade value. Players cannot buy used magical items for 20% of there trade value.
7. The assumption that the military (knights and nobles), organized crime, wizardly guilds, wealthy merchants and other organizations would not buy magical items is preposterous. These would clearly be the target audience, and they would be easy to identify. They would be a large portion of the demand.
8. The assumption that a player character would need to set up shop in a bazaar in order to locate a buyer for a magical item is preposterous. High value goods are in demand. Items in demand have people seeking them out. There would be auction houses, agents, standing orders, and people wanting to buy them.
9. The assumption that an adventurer would not waste his time with economic maters is preposterous. Not all adventurers are busy adventuring all year long. If they are, then people with wealth hire people to do the things they do not have the time or inclination to do: cook, clean, account, appraise items, or look for magical item buyers. Intelligent adventurers would hire experts to handle such matters. Intelligent adventurers, especially treasure hunters, would know or learn the inner workings of the magical item economy.
10. The economic model of craft mundane items for 100% of there trade value, and sell for 20% of there trade value . . . well . . . that’s just stupid any way you cut it.
1. The assumption that every adventurer is economically imbecilic, does not care about economics, or is too incompetent to engage is economics is preposterous. There is no such portion of any population of sufficient wealth that is excluded from economics. If one has wealth, than one has it in ones best interests to engage in economic activity and use ones resources efficiently. This is human social nature.
2. The assumption that goods and services are some sort of mystical voodoo only understood by full time professional merchants is preposterous. People know how to talk to people, and make deals. People know how to interact with people. Merchants are people. A setting based on our medieval feudalistic society would not have chain stores with set prices as the norm. Such a default setting would have a large portion of individual merchants who own there own inventory. Bartering and haggling would be possible. Bartering and haggling would be the norm.
3. The assumption that only adventurers would buy magical items in a feudalistic society is preposterous. Magical arms and armor would be in demand by knights, and lords (the military). Magical healing, health fortifying, and life extending magical items would be in demand by anyone who had the wealth to afford them.
4. The assumption that adventuring is the only method to become fantastically wealthy is preposterous. The gentry, nobles, merchants, kings, queens, churches and guilds would control vast wealth.
5. The assumption that magical items are too expensive to be sold is preposterous. There is supply, and there is demand. Supply and demand sets prices. It is unrealistic to assume that there is a universal distain for used magical items, especially with the resizing ritual, to the point that five used magical items are worth one new magical item is preposterous.
6. The assumption that the cost to have magical items created is higher than the actual trade value of magical items is preposterous. Magical item creation theory is not lost in the base setting. Players can create magical items. Players can buy magical items for full trade value. Players cannot buy used magical items for 20% of there trade value.
7. The assumption that the military (knights and nobles), organized crime, wizardly guilds, wealthy merchants and other organizations would not buy magical items is preposterous. These would clearly be the target audience, and they would be easy to identify. They would be a large portion of the demand.
8. The assumption that a player character would need to set up shop in a bazaar in order to locate a buyer for a magical item is preposterous. High value goods are in demand. Items in demand have people seeking them out. There would be auction houses, agents, standing orders, and people wanting to buy them.
9. The assumption that an adventurer would not waste his time with economic maters is preposterous. Not all adventurers are busy adventuring all year long. If they are, then people with wealth hire people to do the things they do not have the time or inclination to do: cook, clean, account, appraise items, or look for magical item buyers. Intelligent adventurers would hire experts to handle such matters. Intelligent adventurers, especially treasure hunters, would know or learn the inner workings of the magical item economy.
10. The economic model of craft mundane items for 100% of there trade value, and sell for 20% of there trade value . . . well . . . that’s just stupid any way you cut it.
Celebrim said:
Nope!
It's not "when the rules produce illogical results"; it's "when the rules produce undesirable results". Illogical is presumably objective. Undesirable is subjective. Sometimes illogical is undesirable and sometimes it isn't.
....
But seriously here, didn't even you find darkrose50's pretend exchange a bit silly? Just as a human being who has played in real life RPGs, can you tell me seriously that is how a gaming conversation would ever go?
I think there's legitimate criticisms that some of this stuff wasn't made more explicit in the DMG. It would have been very valuable to have a page or two starting off with, "Mundane activities like buying and selling goods for profit or being a blacksmith aren't how we assume you're going to play the game. However, if you and your players want to introduce such elements into your game, here are some suggestions on how to handle it."
That would have been nice, mainly for inexperienced gamers who need some nudging.
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