Excerpt: Economies [merged]

[SpiderMonkey]

What I find most entertaining is that in the DMG they provide options for:

-Running a High Magic Game
-Running a Low Magic Game
-Running a game with Magic shops
-Running a game without magic shops
-Giving you an idea of what treasure to hand out and telling you, that you can do it differently

Yet people are complaing that Option A exists or Option B exists. Even though their option C exists as well. I guess people just like to hear themselves bit@h.

Yup. Prior to all this edition hubbub, I never even bothered with an ignore list. Now due to this thread, it's almost doubled.

"OH NOES! THEREZ CHARTZ FOR STUFFZ I DONT' LIEK!!!! I DONT' CAREZ IF THEREZ ALTERNATIVEZ!!!"

Anyway to address what you've outlined in a more constructive way: Yeah. I'm excited to try out different magic levels within different campaigns. I'm not a firm believer in the "one true way" when it comes to acceptable magic levels, so I'm really digging the flexibility.

Kudos, WotC!

 

[Cadfan]

I am continually amazed at people who believe that D&D should offer an actual model economy. I am even more amazed at how convinced they are that I need an actual model economy.

"What will you do when the PCs decide to travel to the city, find buyers, and sell items at full price?" they ask me. Well, I'll probably roleplay that, and we'll all have a good time. I'll also have some encounters during which they don't get full treasure until things are back in line. These encounters will probably be related to their efforts at becoming merchants, such as bandits, or disasters befalling the caravan they're traveling with, or whatever. And I might have their home town eaten by zombies while they're gone. That happens, you know. It conveniently gives them something to go do after they've run out of used magic items to sell.

Personally, I like campaigns where the players aren't rolling in cash. I keep the economy even more simplified than regular D&D- I run things on barter. The PCs don't carry much more than pocket change in gold coins. They do have a smattering of small gems, used items, and owed debts. They then trade these for what they want.

An uncommon transaction in one of my games would be a PC buying something for 5000 gp. Where did he get 5000 gp? How has he been carrying it? Instead, he might trade a small emerald, a finely carved +1 dagger, and a promise to "handle" the man who was casing the merchant's shop earlier that morning.

Now of course my system doesn't handle a player who intentionally goes out of his way to acquire a hoard of gold coins. Its not supposed to. But by not pointing out to the players that I'm doing what I'm doing, I draw their attention away from it and towards more immediate concerns, like those lousy zombies who keep trying to eat their town.

 

[Evilhalfling]

In 3e, it was convenent to just sell of items at 1/2 price with no questions asked, yes the PCs can roleplay out the shopping trips, but for me this contributes to the 20 min of fun 3 hours of gaming that some sessions develoved into.

I try to run a reasonably simulationist world, but would rather spend gaming time on quests and mysteries than shopping.

One of my favoriate ideas was The sale of Iutan, (god of trade) "everything 15% off!"
Once a year players could pay a (handwaved) fee and set up a stall at in a major city, and buy and sell items for 85% of book value. This relaxing of pricing was a fun session, and limited by its rarity, after several campaigns/years in my world this date was always looked forward too.

I advocate keeping the rules as written in 4e, but creating special events where they are relaxed. It allows the players to "beat the system" without every session turning into a haggling session over loot.

 

[Voss]

If they're going to put in it a system, it should be consistent and workable with the assumptions they're making. This feels like a clumsy stab in the dark by people who didn't feel like putting the effort it. Internally, it works with the way the want to hand out treasure, but it doesn't work with the setting, or much with the role-playing. You just find a merchant, hit the 'vend' button and call it a day.

 

[DM_Blake]

Why do you think magic is so expensive, its because of protection against piracy... expect merchants having secured their goods with rituals much higher then the best stuff they sell to adventurers, and expect him to be a elite monster way above your level (+an elite guard captain and some minions...)

So, adventurers are heroic because normal people don't have destiny, or special powers, or other adventurer coolness.

Except merchants, who for some anamolous reason, far exceed anything the adventurers can do?

Does this apply to epic level adventures? When my PCs are 30th level, will they still be unable to plunder merchant caravans, due to merchants are all "elite monster way above your level"?

Is there any hope of injecting a little verisimilitude into a campaign where this is how merchants exist? Or, will it be like WoW, where NPCs in the town are simply not attackable?

 

[SpydersWebbing]

Remember that bandits are a CR 1. As long as the merchants stay on the road all they're dealing with is bandits. I think we can allow a shrewd merchant ways of repelling them.


As they mentioned merchants have guards for their trains as well. Heck, your guys might be hired by them!

This isn't hard to imagine at all. And besides, the LACK of those merchants could be a quest in and of itself.

Imagination...please...

 

[drjones]

People are assuming that it is a question of X cash now vs. XXX cash in little while. A dm can perfectly reasonably say 'you might get XXX someday, but noone has offered it yet.' And keep saying that till the campaign is over. The players can sleep soundly knowing that they did not get 'ripped off' on that +1 dagger they have been schlepping around for a year and never got a dime for.

 

[DM_Blake]

"What will you do when the PCs decide to travel to the city, find buyers, and sell items at full price?" they ask me. Well, I'll probably roleplay that, and we'll all have a good time. I'll also have some encounters during which they don't get full treasure until things are back in line. These encounters will probably be related to their efforts at becoming merchants, such as bandits, or disasters befalling the caravan they're traveling with, or whatever. And I might have their home town eaten by zombies while they're gone. That happens, you know. It conveniently gives them something to go do after they've run out of used magic items to sell.

Ouch.

So, if players find a creative way to get some roleplaying, have some fun, and make a profit while they're at it, their reward is to know that their future will be less profitable to balance out the profit they just made?

Why bother?

If I were a player in that campaign, it would be very hard to avoid metagaming myself and my fellow players out of even bothering to go to the big city to sell magic items. I would see it as an exercise in futility. Why should I go through all this trouble to earn extra profit, if the cosmic gods will punish me by reducing my future adventuring profit to balance out? Especially if I know the cosmic gods will also make it difficult for me to simply spend that cash on something else I value, like a new magic weapon?

Much easier to just dump the item on the local wandering merchant for a fraction of its worth and get on with my adventuring. Oh boy, cue up the next monster for me to kill and take its stuff.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So, adventurers are heroic because normal people don't have destiny, or special powers, or other adventurer coolness.

Except merchants, who for some anamolous reason, far exceed anything the adventurers can do?

Does this apply to epic level adventures? When my PCs are 30th level, will they still be unable to plunder merchant caravans, due to merchants are all "elite monster way above your level"?

Is there any hope of injecting a little verisimilitude into a campaign where this is how merchants exist? Or, will it be like WoW, where NPCs in the town are simply not attackable?

sorry, but if i am not able to defend myself properly, i would not run through the wilderness with items more worth than a whole kingdom...
...when you reach epic Levels, you don´t need merchants to bring items to you... you visit the city of brass where you get professionally ripped off...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Ouch.

So, if players find a creative way to get some roleplaying, have some fun, and make a profit while they're at it, their reward is to know that their future will be less profitable to balance out the profit they just made?

Why bother?

If I were a player in that campaign, it would be very hard to avoid metagaming myself and my fellow players out of even bothering to go to the big city to sell magic items. I would see it as an exercise in futility. Why should I go through all this trouble to earn extra profit, if the cosmic gods will punish me by reducing my future adventuring profit to balance out? Especially if I know the cosmic gods will also make it difficult for me to simply spend that cash on something else I value, like a new magic weapon?

Much easier to just dump the item on the local wandering merchant for a fraction of its worth and get on with my adventuring. Oh boy, cue up the next monster for me to kill and take its stuff.

thats the game... its some kind of adventure to sell your goods for proper profit... you could call it a quest, and your players not only get gold, but also XP... so whats your problem?