Excerpt: Economies [merged]

[Primal]

...?

I think you forgot to close your sarcasm tag or something.

Sarcasm? I thought that was a fact in 4E... there are no high-level NPCs in the game to "steal" the spotlight from your PCs. That *was* one of the design themes, right?

 

[Spatula]

a)Who the hell EVER used random treasure tables? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? All treasure in my games is hand-placed and by strange coincidence fits the player's needs...

And the players don't think it odd that they just happen to find loot perfectly tailored to their needs? That sort of DM ham-handedness always grates on my suspension of disbelief. I'm a big fan of random treasure, at least as far as treasure hoards go. Where did the dragon get his hoard? He killed lots of different people and took their stuff, which is ably & easily represented with some random items. Plus, rolling dice is fun.

 

[Lacyon]

I agree with Derren in this case; while what I've seen of the book editing has been quite good, I'm less impressed by error-checking from the web team. The web entires may need more eyes on them before they go live.

It'd be nice if they were perfect when they went up, but I know that's not going to happen 100% of the time anyway, so I'm pleased to see them correct errors same-day (it's unlikely I'll ever be copying material for use in a game the day it goes live, so that's fast enough for my purposes).

I'd rather know that errors will be fixed in a timely fashion than have the expectation that errors won't occur.

 

[Rechan]

Sarcasm? I thought that was a fact in 4E... there are no high-level NPCs in the game to "steal" the spotlight from your PCs. That *was* one of the design themes, right?

NPCs of higher level than your party? Yes.

NPCs of lower level than your party? No.

When your party is 15th level, it's easy to assume that there are 1st-5th level adventuring parties out there killing orcs sot he 15th level party doesn't have to interrupt their mission to the Elemental Chaos to protect Happytown.

 

[Rechan]

And the players don't think it odd that they just happen to find loot perfectly tailored to their needs? That sort of DM ham-handedness always grates on my suspension of disbelief. I'm a big fan of random treasure, at least as far as treasure hordes go. Where did the dragon get his hoard? He killed lots of different people and took their stuff, which is ably & easily represented with some random items. Plus, rolling dice is fun.

As a DM who doesn't make their players count arrows, I haven't found my PCs disliking the situation.

My DM motto is "For the sake of Convenience."

 

[Serensius]

And the players don't think it odd that they just happen to find loot perfectly tailored to their needs? That sort of DM ham-handedness always grates on my suspension of disbelief. I'm a big fan of random treasure, at least as far as treasure hordes go. Where did the dragon get his hoard? He killed lots of different people and took their stuff, which is ably & easily represented with some random items. Plus, rolling dice is fun.

Signed. "A +3 flaming halberd? Sweet! Just as I get Greater Weapon Spec: Halberd, that's convenient. I guess this +2 shock halberd was getting rather old.. I'll store it with the others"

I certainly hope they haven't eliminated random tables altogether.

 

[Henry]

I really think the idea of selling an item at 20% to someone who is going to mark it up to 140% reeks of "Let's not use common sense with our game mechanics" :\

Forget the espressos -- look at a pawn shop, where a 10 to 1 purchase to markup is not unheard of... And frankly, that's the idea of "magic item vendors" they're basically pawn brokers to powerful people. Don't have two weeks to make that wand of fiery doom, but the pawn broker can get it for you at a premium? Pony up the cash! (Or astral diamonds or what have you...)

 

[Lacyon]

Sarcasm? I thought that was a fact in 4E... there are no high-level NPCs in the game to "steal" the spotlight from your PCs. That *was* one of the design themes, right?

This doesn't mesh with various statements by the designers that NPCs of whatever level the DM desires exist whenever the DM desires them to in the place that the DM desires them to be.

It is true that the default setting assumes that adventurers of PC calibre are rare enough that they don't steal the spotlight from the actual PCs. It is also true that those which do exist on-screen don't typically need to be fully statted out unless they are going to fight (either against or alongside the PCs), and even then they don't need the full suite of powers spelled out unless they are going to be in enough fights that they need to use more than a few such powers.

That is vastly different from assuming that they don't exist at all, or are only villains, especially as it pertains to trading magic items among them.

 

[Cadfan]

a)Who the hell EVER used random treasure tables? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? All treasure in my games is hand-placed and by strange coincidence fits the player's needs...

Wait, Lizard wrote this? Lizard? You're fired. We need a new person to be Lizard. You've spent countless pages expounding a D&D philosophy that has made it very clear that you'd rather stab yourself in the eye with a pen than accept a gameworld which changes based on the story needs of the player characters. You don't get to admit that you've been playing that way all along. Not if you don't want to give up your Lizard title to someone else.

 

[Scribble]

Forget the espressos -- look at a pawn shop, where a 10 to 1 purchase to markup is not unheard of... And frankly, that's the idea of "magic item vendors" they're basically pawn brokers to powerful people. Don't have two weeks to make that wand of fiery doom, but the pawn broker can get it for you at a premium? Pony up the cash! (Or astral diamonds or what have you...)

Seriously... I think things like Ebay and Amazon Marketplace have changed the way people see commerce. It's easy for we internet having people to market our used stuff and sell it for what the Pawn hop guys would sell it for.