(d&d) spending the loot

[subrosas]

How do characters in your d&d campaign spend their loot? There's the traditional: setting up a stronghold or mystical experimentation. But what other ideas have you seen in practice? Anything especially cool or offbeat?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Magic items.

Magic items.

And magic items.

Wealth is used as a balance technique, so no one dares spend money on anything else. Even if the DM hands out extra cash, it'll just go towards magic items and hurt game balance.

You could buy strongholds and stuff in 2e, since magic items either didn't have gp costs or no one cared, and there were no organized wealth by level guidelines anyway.

 

[Badwe]

it's usually better to use methods besides money as a way of letting the players know they can do such things. For example they might take OVER an old stronghold, or build up a group of loyal followers willing to work for them to build one, rather than having the money to purchase it. Often times, if you can seamlessly pepper in these kind of rewards, you'll find some of your players do actually want to buy things related to non-magic items, in which case you should let them do so now, and make the next batches of treasure MUCH bigger.

Also, depending on how stringently you pursue it, 4e has a built in control on magic item production. Technically, players will find gold but need residuum to craft magic items themselves. If residuum becomes difficult to buy in large enough quantities, the PCs may find themselves with a large amount of gold they can't spend on magic items right that moment and thus start thinking of other ways to spend their gold.

 

[Dyson Logos]

Ale & Whores for our pre-3e games, magic item creation in the post 3e world.

 

[ggroy]

Back in the day when I was DM'ing a 1E AD&D game, I would require all players to undergo training as a part of leveling up at lower levels. The training would cost some money and require time being taken off from adventuring. One common tactic was to get particular players classes to join a guild of some sort, which required paying membership fees and/or regular dues.

Essentially this was done to lessen the character party's likelihood of creating a huge "war chest" of gold. I also didn't have any "magic shops" in any of the large cities.

Despite all this, I usually asked the players for a wish list of possible magic items they were interested in. If their requests looked reasonable, I would typically leave such magic items in various spots in a dungeon for them to possibly find. (Frequently they were hidden somewhere). The more powerful a particular magic item is at a particular level, the harder it was for them to find it.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I look back at my old character sheets from back in the day when you had to go on quests to find magic items, not buy them at your local 7-11... and every last one of them had piles and piles and piles of gold gems, art and other "stuff" that was worth somthing. I had characters buy houses just to stash their (mostly unspendable) loot in them.

I haven't played 4e at all, though I do DM it, and my players keep begging for more magic shops and more gold so they can update their stuff. Sometimes I give it to em, and sometimes I don't.

I guess its a sign of just how long I've been playing...

 

[Fallen Seraph]

In my campaigns there isn't normal gold/loot but rather "Resources", that include money, information, letters/punch card of recommendation, letters/punch card from so-and-so, etc. So there is somewhat more creativity used besides just buying stuff.

Some common ones:

• Bribery (most common)
• Making Deals
• Exchanging Information
• Gaining access to areas and equipment (either real of forged letters/punch cards work great hear
• Hiring someone specially trained
• The occasional bolthole

 

[ggroy]

I look back at my old character sheets from back in the day when you had to go on quests to find magic items, not buy them at your local 7-11... and every last one of them had piles and piles and piles of gold gems, art and other "stuff" that was worth somthing. I had characters buy houses just to stash their (mostly unspendable) loot in them.

Did the DM charge any property taxes on these houses?

If these houses were located within in a city (ie. such as Greyhawk City), were the characters also charged an income tax for being citizens of the city?

I haven't played 4e at all, though I do DM it, and my players keep begging for more magic shops and more gold so they can update their stuff. Sometimes I give it to em, and sometimes I don't.

I guess its a sign of just how long I've been playing...

In my experience so far in DM'ing 4E, it tends to be the younger players (ie. under age 25 or 26) who demand things like magic shops, tons of gold, leveling up automatically without any training, no taxes, etc ...

The older and more experienced players (ie. over age 29 or 30) tend to be fine with things like mandatory training for leveling up, only finding magic items in dungeons, paying taxes, paying guild membership fees and dues, no magic shops, etc ...

Though these days, I have more or less entirely dropped the requirement of mandatory training for leveling up at lower levels. The game moves a lot faster without it, with less complaining.

 

[Dyson Logos]

Back in the day when I was DM'ing a 1E AD&D game, I would require all players to undergo training as a part of leveling up at lower levels.

The 1e game I'm playing in right now uses *all* the rules in the core books, so that includes weapons vs AC, segments, and of course, training to level.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Did the DM charge any property taxes on these houses?

If these houses were located within in a city (ie. such as Greyhawk City), were the characters also charged an income tax for being citizens of the city?

FWIW, income taxes are mostly (although not exclusively) a modern phenomenon (i.e. 18th century and later or so). They only really make sense when you have a well-established money economy. Typical bases of taxation in the Middle Ages included fees as parts of tenancies in land (often paid in kind), scutage and other fees paid by vassals, labor obligations (i.e. serfs being required to work their lord's lands as well as their own), capitation taxes, and tariffs. Property taxes are perfectly plausible; depending on how you define things, that was often a major source of tax revenue. But the idea that buying a house in town should put characters on the hook for large continuous payments is not at all obvious.

While D&D worlds obviously aren't representations of the actual Middle Ages, etc., I find the assumption of modern tax policy to be quite disconcerting.