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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AtomicPope" data-source="post: 8386244" data-attributes="member: 64790">Have you ever played Rogue Trader?It has by far the best wealth system I've ever encountered and used.  I ran a campaign for nearly 2 years and it worked surprisingly well, even intuitive, for understanding markets, scarcity, quality, and quantity.  Since the game was designed around trade, it made sense that you could take something that is common from your area and worth practically nothing (clean drinking water) to an area where scarcity is high (desert, poisonous swamp, et al) and increase the market value.  You could then trade for something or try to increase your wealth.  Typically one PC was the Rogue Trader where all of the wealth was concentrated by Writ.  Each of the PCs had unique abilities, skills, powers, and connections that turned the PC group into a joint venture of sorts.  All of this came down to dice rolls and if you failed you could lose wealth (profit loss, sour trade, etc).  Off the top of my head, here's what it might look like:1) Market Value: drinkable water -5 (low value)2) Scarcity: dessert +10 (high value), shire -5 (low value)3) Quality: magically purified or from a spring +5 (tastes delicious), filtered 0,  lwellwater -2 (tastes a little off), muddy river -5 (disgusting)4) Quantity: 1 cup -5, gallon 0, 2 gallons +2, 10 gallons +5, 50 gallons +10So 50 gallons of filtered water from the Shire would be a straight wealth roll DC 10.Trading that same filtered water in a desert would be worth +10 to your wealth roll.The price list would set market values for all of the D&D products, and they would typically be low.  Something like Full Plate might be a +10 roll on a chart like this.  A long sword or axe might be worth +3 or less.  Who knows?  It depends on how much variance you want in the system.In Rogue Trader you would embark on journeys, make investments, and fund explorations in hopes it might pay off.  You spend wealth to make wealth.  And not everything is guaranteed.  D&D has similar aspects to it but it's local towns and nobility that funds the PCs for these quests.  It might translate to something like:"Slay the Hill Giant and I will give each of you a horse and +1 wealth."Classes could have special benefits to illustrate their uniqueness:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fighters get +2 when dealing with armor, weapons, or mercenaries.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rangers get +2 when dealing with or against their favored enemies.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rogues get +2 when dealing with stolen goods or black markets.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Wizards get +2 when dealing with scrolls, material components, or spellbooks.</li> </ul>Maybe tool proficiencies could also add to your wealth roll as you are an expert in that field.  Poisoner, Herbalist, Alchemist, all of these make sense as far as having some expertise in a particular area.The only problem I have with wealth systems is they can steer the game away from it's design.  Games like D20 Modern had a clunky wealth system that made it feel like you could never afford a car.  Oddly enough, D20 Modern was a far more medieval caste system than Dungeons and Dragons.  You couldn't just "win the lottery" without the GM forcing his hand.  Part of what makes Rogue Trader so brilliant is you can literally buy, sell, auction, and trade entire planets.  In my own campaign I started with some standard privateering (the PCs built their space ship and that determines what sort of ventures they will embark on as the ship's capabilities determine their bonuses to particular ventures) to secure some trade routes.  Then it was later discovered that the Rogue Trader inherited an ice world and his brother was hiding it from him while he was away.  The planet was so cold it would snow methane.  On the upside it was resource rich.  Another downside, it was also cursed.  Such things work well on a wealth scale where the PCs are wealthy enough to own a planet.  I just have to assign the correct values (resource rich, inhospitable, deadly, unbreathable atmosphere, no water, "cursed") to justify a small bump in their wealth score if they can secure it.When we talk about wealth systems we need to make sure we're designing something that allows D&D to still work thematically.  To be honest, I think Spelljammer should have a wealth system to differentiate the playstyle and campaign from standard D&D, but maybe that's another thread.</blockquote>

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