D&D 5E Do you actually use "Lifestyle Expenses?"

[beancounter]

We only play with life style expenses for the first few levels. By the time the PCs reach 3rd or 4th level, lifestyle expenses become completely immaterial relative to the PCs wealth. Heck, at a certain point, we don't even bother with copper or silver or electrum pieces. Everything is paid with either gp or pp.

 

[aco175]

Similar to what @beancounter just posted. The players tend to not even write down copper and just write it off to expenses like repairs and drinks. When in town they will cross off several gold to pay for room and general carousing. My games tend to not have large amounts of downtime that are more than a couple days or at most a week.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

Heck, at a certain point, we don't even bother with copper or silver or electrum pieces. Everything is paid with either gp or pp.

Haha, that's an excellent quote from someone called @beancounter !

(We play the same way, btw).

 

[beancounter]

Haha, that's an excellent quote from someone called @beancounter !

(We play the same way, btw).

In RL, I round everything to the dollar, so it makes sense to ignore cp and sp in D&D.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Well to be fair the Lifestyle Expenses are in gold coins not in CP or SP.
So if someone like me is using the Lifestyle Expenses, the lesser valued coins are pretty much ignored.

 

[Oofta]

I tried it for a while, it just wasn't worth the overhead. I occasionally use it if people are focusing on something like training, but that's about it.

 

[payn]

Never in D&D but I have in Cyberpunk and Traveller. Those games seem to make the paying the rent part and parcel of the settings and game. D&D is more about the adventures and not worrying about the little things, for me of course.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

In RL, I round everything to the dollar, so it makes sense to ignore cp and sp in D&D.

From a laziness point of view, that makes sense. I round to whole € too.

But in game 1 gp is probably closer to real-life $100 than 1$ (in 2022) *

* Making this post future-proof.

 

[beancounter]

From a laziness point of view, that makes sense. I round to whole € too.

But in game 1 gp is probably closer to real-life $100 than 1$ (in 2022) *

* Making this post future-proof.

True, but the PCs in my game are big spenders.

 

[iserith]

Yes, I use Lifestyle Expenses in most campaigns I run, but only when the PCs are in town.

Towns in general tend to be pretty expensive places to be in my games so as to incentivize the players to stay there only as long as needed to get their business or safe resting done before heading back out into the wilds to adventure.

In some games, I will tie useful benefits to what you spend on it so that there's a specific reason to pay for the higher lifestyle tiers. In other games, I tie the lifestyle expense to the type of downtime activity or even to differentiate the same downtime activity at different locations in town (the more you pay, the more upside there is if you succeed).