D&D 5E Do We Really Need a Lot of Gold? (D&D 5th Edition)

[Maxperson]

One of our table stories was our friend Kenny who made a ranger with that motivation and after his first adventure, getting his share of a few hundred gold and a long sword +1, plus hitting second level, decided to retire to the woods, since he was now hardier, had a good weapon, and had more than enough money for his chosen lifestyle. The player just then happily made a different character (though some people in the group groused that that magic sword was "wasted").

That sounds like something Kenny would do.

 

[Nefermandias]

No pretending. It is a real thing.

D&D is a role playing game. If you're only there for the fights, you're not playing the full game available to you. You can have fun doing so, but I have never seen any player actually at a table where I left the table believing that they would not have fun with a good game that covers the breadth of D&D available, and I've managed to hook almost all of my players into storylines that they really wanted to be involved in and resolve.

Being a role playing game is not an excuse for bad design. The game does indeed give you a lot of currency you ultimately have no use for unless you make a conscious effort to come up with made up excuses for it.
I really believe gold should be a parallel avenue for character progression. Yes, I'm aware people are averse to the idea of magic shops being a common thing, but hear me out: Gear doesn't necessarily have to be magic. A lot of "magic" weapons and armor in the DMG could easily be presented as high quality mundane gear.

 

[Reynard]

Nah. Tired with saving the world. Been there done, that. Super fine with playing greedy mercenaries. (Probably with a heart of some alloy containing at least traces of gold, but still.)


But you suggestion was about making even more money with the money we had no use for in the first place! If my mercenary can comfortably retire to run a shipping business there's no adventure!

Your mercenary isn't greedy if all they want is a nice house in the burbs.

Give your mercenary a gambling problem, or a "fairie dust" problem, or a string of ex-spouses and kids to support, etc... Drain away that cash. Or give them a debt to pay off. Make that mercenary have a reason to get back out there. .

 

[Maxperson]

Being a role playing game is not an excuse for bad design. The game does indeed give you a lot of currency you ultimately have no use for unless you make a conscious effort to come up with made up excuses for it.

They aren't excuses. They are goals you set for your character.

I really believe gold should be a parallel avenue for character progression. Yes, I'm aware people are averse to the idea of magic shops being a common thing, but hear me out: Gear doesn't necessarily have to be magic. A lot of "magic" weapons and armor in the DMG could easily be presented as high quality mundane gear.

This is a distinction without a difference. I mean, it's just magic item shops without the magic tag.

 

[NotAYakk]

Admittedly, there are some players who aren't interested in this sort of thing (though I've been pleasantly surprised by how many are). For them I have a magic item broker who has a few randomly rolled items at any given time. It's rare that he has the exact item that someone wants, but it has happened. Usually, though, they have to make due with what he has or wait for the inventory to turn over.

Additionally, they might occasionally come across an NPC with a (usually unique) magic item that they are looking to part with for an exorbitant sum.

Yes, treating "magic item shop" as a randomly rolled treasure.

This also solves 99% of the magic item pricing problem. Comparing the price of item A to B doesn't matter if you aren't able to pick between A and B. It also covers "this item is way too cheap", by having it only able to be purchased randomly.

 

[Nefermandias]

They aren't excuses. They are goals you set for your character.

This is a distinction without a difference. I mean, it's just magic item shops without the magic tag.

As I understand that, it's real the "magic tag" that makes people reject the idea. I'm sure most people wouldn't mind a system where you are able to buy increasingly stronger itens as long as it doesn't make magic too common in your world.

 

[Umbran]

Unlike adventuring, social and exploration are more reactive to what the players introduce.

Chicken, meet egg.

Players don't really need to explore if they will be told where the next adventure is going to be anyway. And if the GM isn't providing a social background, the player doesn't know where to engage.

For any pillar the GM wants to see engagement on, they'll need to do prep of roughly the same scope. If you want dungeoneering, you need a dungeon. If you want social interaction, you need to put a lot of effort into providing a complex and dynamic social world that has stuff going on that matters.

 

[Thunder Brother]

In regards to finding a use for gold beyond the usual plate armor and potions of healing, one idea for a sandbox campaign that I've been brainstorming is having the player's be explorers responsible for the establishment of a settlement in a frontier region. So during sessions they're going out on adventurers, "pacifying" the region as they see fit, and any treasure or gold they acquire during these adventures will be invested back into the settlement. In return, the players slowly get access to better resources and services. And if they do well enough after a set amount of time (I imagine long stretches of downtime be a key feature of this campaign) they would be knighted/declared as lords of the area.

Keeping the management-side of things light and restricted mostly to out-of-session downtime is the goal here.

Phandalin Advanced, if you will.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Being a role playing game is not an excuse for bad design. The game does indeed give you a lot of currency you ultimately have no use for unless you make a conscious effort to come up with made up excuses for it.
I really believe gold should be a parallel avenue for character progression. Yes, I'm aware people are averse to the idea of magic shops being a common thing, but hear me out: Gear doesn't necessarily have to be magic. A lot of "magic" weapons and armor in the DMG could easily be presented as high quality mundane gear.

I understand the desire for this approach, but the problem is that if you do this then it pretty much excludes the option for using money for interesting endeavors (investing it). Unless you have two separate currencies; one that's for progression and one that's for mundane uses, anyway.

 

[MerricB]

And this has been a part of D&D since before AD&D existed. Hirelings and followers were a huge part of the original editions of the game, with the assumption that the heroes, around 10th level, would become the leaders of large groups.

One of the reasons D&D moved away from henchmen is that individual player characters became a lot more complicated.

The design moved more towards a player controlling one character that had a lot of options. Which also takes more time to resolve at the table (choosing actions, resolving those actions). When you add in a NPC that player controls, it is "too much" headspace to control both, and it also significantly slows play (and takes time away from other players).

If I'm running OD&D, then many rounds are simple melee attacks - everyone rolls simultaneously (one d20, one d6) and I go around the table finding out how they went. In games like 3E and 4E, the individual round is a lot more involved and slower.

The trouble with saying followers were a major thing about old editions is that we don't really have the evidence of much such play. The adventures, even the higher-level ones, focus on solo adventuring with a few notable exceptions. The original D&D players of Arneson's group quickly discovered that playing in the dungeons was more fun - and they had enough players that henchmen were a bit unnecessary.

And while AD&D says "you gain followers", there's not a lot of things for them to do in the rules!

But I may be going too far with my dismissal of AD&D's use of followers - I just don't know how much they affected the campaigns of that time!