City State of the Invincible Overlord, what even is it?

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

It's a too heavy-handed for me, but the "buy a map or a mystery mansion" bit's quite clever. I could see a softer version where deliberately spending your hard-earned loot on some ludicrous pie-in-the-sky thing like that directly awarded XP or some other perk or metacurrency. Very much fits the "wandering louts" end of the sword & sorcery genre where the heroes are broke half the time an dit's usually their own fault.

"Wanna buy a plot hook?"
"Heck yeah, I wanna buy a plot hook!"

That sort of thinking deserves a reward just for being a good sport about things.

I may not have explained that well:

Money isn't tracking in BoL. The treasure hoard at the end of the adventure is a narrative figment with no numbers attached to it. The rule is really just saying "We all know it's a trope for the heroes to wind up broke by the next adventure, so tell us how that happens and then the GM'll give out XP."

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I may not have explained that well:

Money isn't tracking in BoL. The treasure hoard at the end of the adventure is a narrative figment with no numbers attached to it. The rule is really just saying "We all know it's a trope for the heroes to wind up broke by the next adventure, so tell us how that happens and then the GM'll give out XP."

I wasn't talking about just using the concept for BoL, where it isn't really needed owing to the way it handles cash. Investing in what amounts to a plot hook for a future adventure works for lots of games, from a hot tip on a crime in a Prohibition era gangster game to a title for a slightly-lost starship in Traveller to Ye Olde Treasure Map just about anywhere/anywhen.

 

[Moving Pictures]

Which is the point: you need some way to encourage the PCs to get flat broke again in time for the next stupid search for loot.

Meals. Room rental. Armour repair. Paladins/clerics making suitable donations? Spell components. Pearls .. they damn expensive things in the middle of the desert if you wanna identify something. Arrows, bolts.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Which is the point: you need some way to encourage the PCs to get flat broke again in time for the next stupid search for loot.

Carousing rules work great for this, and players tend to be excited to go broke in Shadowdark and Pirate Borg because of them, which then pushes them out the door to adventure again.

Carrot, not stick.

 

[Distracted DM]

Carousing rules work great for this, and players tend to be excited to go broke in Shadowdark and Pirate Borg because of them, which then pushes them out the door to adventure again.

Carrot, not stick.

Player expectations have to be set, and it really helps if they were already familiar with the Sword & Sorcery trope of "we're rich!" "Oh we spent all our money in a week/month of living it up, now we need to go adventure for more money."
In modern DnD players are expecting to save money to buy those magic items they find on the shelves of Fantasy Costco. Video games don't help with these expectations, even my beloved Baldurs Gate 1+2 had magic items in shops everywhere and the strongholds that you got didn't cost you anything to acquire. So if they can buy items that'll improve their odds, why blow that money on in-game partying?

I do have "carousing" as an option in my games, but I also really tone down the amount of available magic items available for cash. I use the DCC carousing tables, adapting them is pretty easy and results in some fun hijinks and rewards. I also won't have it cost all/most of their coin.. usually a fraction (if the DCC result says ALL, I'll probably say 1/4, if it says half, I'll say 1/6 or 1/8).

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

The rule I'm talking about is carousing, just with more examples than "lots of drinking".

I may not have explained that well:

Money isn't tracking in BoL. The treasure hoard at the end of the adventure is a narrative figment with no numbers attached to it. The rule is really just saying "We all know it's a trope for the heroes to wind up broke by the next adventure, so tell us how that happens and then the GM'll give out XP."

 

[Gus L]

That might be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. Very illogical.

XP for Gold Spent is pretty traditional way to award XP, it encourages player involvement in the setting and provides a ready made way for characters to make an impact on it as well. In an OD&D game I played back in the G+ days (Pahvelorn run by Brendan of Wonder & Wickedness and the Necropraxis blog) we used this rule, and it allowed for a lot of interesting things: fancy equipment and clothes, building monuments, researching spells, carousing, paying scouts, buying patents of nobility, hiring mercenaries, builders, and surveyors to reopen an old road and set up a toll tower. You can use the requirement to start players on the "domain game" very early.

In a Swords & Sorcery game where the PCs are meant to be constantly broke wandering troublemakers, it also makes sense, though with more of a focus on carousing.

 

[Gus L]

That's pretty reasonable. Also like the way it tacitly encourages experienced adventurers who've managed to establish themselves as VIPs in a society to live kind of a double life. Have to kind of sneak into town when returning from your adventures so people don't see you looking like a bunch of battered hobos (murderous or otherwise) until you've had a chance to change into your respectable clothes.

I was also thinking of a rule for "barbarous finery" - that is if you dress in your battered armor and gear but wear thousands of GP worth of tomb gold... basically nobody wants to mess with you, but everyone wants to overcharge you and rob you ... you'll get invited to nice places but charged 3x the regular price.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I was also thinking of a rule for "barbarous finery" - that is if you dress in your battered armor and gear but wear thousands of GP worth of tomb gold... basically nobody wants to mess with you, but everyone wants to overcharge you and rob you ... you'll get invited to nice places but charged 3x the regular price.

Heh. Mix of "nouveau riche" and Beverly Hillbillies there. Everybody rooks the hicks.

Come to think of it, we had a lot of fun with letters of marque in one of our old nautical games. I think at one point we we authorized to attack Country X shipping by three different factions - two if which were from Country X itself and feuding over control of it. Tried it in TSR Spelljammer to but it didn't (ahem) fly for some reason.