Best Take on d20 Modern Wealth System?

[ValhallaGH]

i think the biggest issue is the newness of the system. no other game i can think of have a similar system in use. and as its so new, people have a hard time grasping the concepts and thoughts embedded in the design of the system.

I completely agree. While the system has a few oddities, it is generally very elegant and liberating in its abstractness. Most complaints stem from how unusual the system is.
(What's really ironic is that the wealth system is no more abstract than money is. Money represents work done, favors owed and goods in inventory; money is an artificial, universal barter medium. Talk about an abstract concept!)

As for adventure motivations, the best heroes were never mercenaries; they just collected money because they needed to eat. It's not like cops or special forces do it for the money.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

i think the biggest issue is the newness of the system. no other game i can think of have a similar system in use. and as its so new, people have a hard time grasping the concepts and thoughts embedded in the design of the system.

Many small press games have used more abstract takes on tracking wealth and resources. The most notable one IMO is the Donjon system. Basically, when you buy items you roll a wealth check against the purchase difficulty. The wealth check consists of a character's Charisma (basically) + Wealth points wagered + any relevant skill. If the character wins, he gets the item and loses the wealth points he wagered. If the character loses, he doesn't get the item and can't go back to that seller until his wealth increases (or he does a favor for the shop owner, or other circumstance). However, the character doesn't lose his wagered points.

I think such a system kind of splits the difference between the coin-based economy of D&D and the wealth check system of d20 Modern. It handles character wealth and treasure abstractly, but it has a more easy to see (IMO) useable resource component. I don't know if someone has converted the system from Donjon over to d20/D&D, but if they did it sounds like you would make a Charisma skill check (probably Diplomacy, although I could see making a new skill for this) and wealth point would add ranks to your skill check.

 

[Johnny Angel]

The Wealth System is a good idea in conjunction with the Gadget System in that it provides a nice steep marginal cost curve for adding features to items. The Blood & Circuits line of .pdfs provides a good set of rules for this, and d20 Future Player's Companion has such rules for designing drugs as well.

However, it's a pain in the ass for buying and selling. You're never sure what your wealth level is really worth. The die rolls involved make book-keeping a process that can't be worked backwards. You also have to finagle the order in which you buy items in order to get the best deal, which means that you have to do the math all over again if you later decide you need to take things off of your shopping list. Purchase Time is supposed to keep the system balanced, but it's another number you have to calculate. On top of that is a cost in both Wealth Bonus and Purchase Time in order to buy the licenses -- and that too has to be calculated.

Compare this to a cash system in which you add the set prices of the items you're buying and subtract that from your cash total.

The cash system is simpler.

It's true that the cash system doesn't represent the intricacies of modern personal finance. But the Wealth System doesn't either. It's just an abstraction that stands as a way of not thinking about it. Indeed, thinking about what the Wealth stat actually means will simply give you a headache. I use the cash system and tell my players that it's an abstraction and not to think about the intricacies of modern finance. But if they do decide to think about what their cash totals mean, they can simply picture a big pile of Zorkmids. Saves headaches all around.

Aside from the Gadget System, what is the advantage of using the Wealth system?

 

[hobgoblin]

thanks, ill take the abstraction over the intricacies...

 

[iwatt]

thanks, ill take the abstraction over the intricacies...

Well, if you perfer simplicity, just let me pimp my streamlined Wealth rules here:

http://iwattgaming.pbwiki.com/Equipment

They're based on True20 and Moridin's Star Wars Wealth system, simplified even more. It adresses some of the artifacts that VGH mentioned up thread. My rules for combining Wealth are more complex than simply using Aid Another, but are more consistent considering that somebody with a much lower wealth modifier shouldn't really be able to help out someone else. (i.e some

However, it's a pain in the ass for buying and selling. You're never sure what your wealth level is really worth. The die rolls involved make book-keeping a process that can't be worked backwards.

It also has the advantage of the math been easily reversible. My players all know their own wealth, and one player of the group is in charge of keeping the team's combined wealth at hand at all times.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Mostly I think it comes down personal preference. Those who like it will find lots of reasons that it is better. Those who don't will find all kinds of reasons why it's bad.

I like it. It works for me. Works for the people I play with. That's what really matters to me.

I do have a few house rules for Wealth, just to make it play a little closer to what we like:

Profession: In a job-centric game where the adventures ARE the character's jobs, I tend to nix the Profession rule entirely. For a game where they're the crew of a free-trader starship, for instance, they make money by running jobs, and nobody has "a job". This is the most common type of game I run, really, and works for D&D-type games, as well.

Rewards/Found Money: I tend to work in dollars when handing out rewards or found treasures and the like. And I let the players split up the money how they want and then convert it to a PDC. It's just a fact of life that people playing a game like to feel the acomplishment of having "earned" some finite dollar reward. That it turns into an abstract concept then doesn't bother them.

PDC 15, etc: Instead of a mandatory -1 Wealth at 15 and never again, I do it every 15 ... so 15, 30, 45, 60.

--fje

 

[Committed Hero]

Profession: In a job-centric game where the adventures ARE the character's jobs, I tend to nix the Profession rule entirely. For a game where they're the crew of a free-trader starship, for instance, they make money by running jobs, and nobody has "a job". This is the most common type of game I run, really, and works for D&D-type games, as well.

Yes, Profession is essentially a wasted skill in that case. I've used it when the characters are all government employees as a way to negotiate red tape, but I'd rather players use the ranks elsewhere on things that they can do in game.

Rewards/Found Money: I tend to work in dollars when handing out rewards or found treasures and the like. And I let the players split up the money how they want and then convert it to a PDC. It's just a fact of life that people playing a game like to feel the acomplishment of having "earned" some finite dollar reward. That it turns into an abstract concept then doesn't bother them.

What about a "one-shot" wealth roll at the stated bonus? Do you think that might work?

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Like ... "I found $20, now I can make a single +3 Wealth roll?"

I've never much liked it, personally. I see the money as entering the abstract system when the character gets it. He's got it earmarked for various things we may not think of. He doesn't find a 20 and turn around and buy 20 dollars worth of stuff, usually. I might, if it were a unique situation where they found a box of money and walked into a store directly after, just fall back to a dollars-to-dollars scene for a minute.

Usually it goes like:

"You've delivered the goods and the shady character hands over an envelope of money. Inside is the $4,000 you were promised."

"We decide to split it evenly, 1k apiece."

"Alright. That's a PDC 18, you get PDC 15 out of it, so everybody goes up by at least +1 Wealth from that deal."

Etc, then they compare bonuses and roll as usual.

I've had two people balk at the system at the table in the time I've been using it, and both of them came around rather quickly. One became such a proponent he started trying to get people all through the local gaming community to switch. And most people who play at my table using the rules routinely grouse about games that DON'T use the mechanic they play at other times.

--fje