D&D General Games Economies

[MGibster]

RPGs don’t have economies. There are no market forces. Supply is unlimited and demand comes exclusively from three to five people. There are no natural resources and no labor being done to turn them into products. Even time isn’t really a resource because a few minutes of game time can be stretched out over weeks of play, and months or years can be skipped past with a sentence or so of narration. It’s impossible to simulate an actual economy under such conditions.

I don't take D&D very seriously at that includes the economy of whatever setting I'm running. My first 5th edition campaign was tongue-in-cheek, player characters went to adventurer school, majoring in Barbarian, Wizard, or maybe Cleric, and I told the players the prices in the PHB were adventurer rates. As adventurers, you're going to be spending a lot more money than anyone else on even the most mundane of items. To be a skinflint would be embarrassing and if you're not making gold hand over fist you're probably dead anyway. Even in a more "serious" D&D game, I don't consider the PCs to be a normal part of the economy. They're like a local version of Mansa Musa coming in with so much gold it ruins the economy of the Kingdom of Keoland.

For most RPGs, I prefer a more abstract system that doesn't require anyone to keep track of every penny, half-penny, or farthing. For modern games, I like Call of Cthulhu where Credit Rating is used to determine how much a character can spend. Depending on their Credit Rating, a PC will have X amount of incidental spending they can do each day and making larger purchases as necessary. It's not perfect, but I'm not in a Cthulhu game to play economics.

 

[MGibster]

I think that lifestyle expenses should be a greater aspect of games. In the old Conan rpg, you basically spent 90% of your wealth between each adventure, because you lived a lavish lifestyle. If you live it up (which most people with coin are going to do), then you need to go back out to get more after a while. Unfortunately, this doesn't mesh with either the listed lifestyle expenses, nor the way most players play, not to mention the higher expenses some characters have (i.e. spell components).

As a player, I don't like doing a lot of unnecessary bookkeeping, so I'll just let the DM know I'm spending 500 GP on accommodations while in this area. I'll live like a rockstar and when the gold runs out I'll spend some more. I do like how Conan handled wealth. You might end the last session with your character sleeping on a big pile of gold with many beautiful consorts, but start the next adventure with an empty belly, a dying horse, and little else besides the clothes on your back.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't take D&D very seriously at that includes the economy of whatever setting I'm running. My first 5th edition campaign was tongue-in-cheek, player characters went to adventurer school, majoring in Barbarian, Wizard, or maybe Cleric, and I told the players the prices in the PHB were adventurer rates. As adventurers, you're going to be spending a lot more money than anyone else on even the most mundane of items. To be a skinflint would be embarrassing and if you're not making gold hand over fist you're probably dead anyway. Even in a more "serious" D&D game, I don't consider the PCs to be a normal part of the economy. They're like a local version of Mansa Musa coming in with so much gold it ruins the economy of the Kingdom of Keoland.

For most RPGs, I prefer a more abstract system that doesn't require anyone to keep track of every penny, half-penny, or farthing. For modern games, I like Call of Cthulhu where Credit Rating is used to determine how much a character can spend. Depending on their Credit Rating, a PC will have X amount of incidental spending they can do each day and making larger purchases as necessary. It's not perfect, but I'm not in a Cthulhu game to play economics.

What I’m getting at though is that regardless of if you “take it seriously” or not, whether you try to create the impression of market forces or not, it’s not really an economy. A pricing system, maybe, but certainly not an economy.

 

[MGibster]

What I’m getting at though is that regardless of if you “take it seriously” or not, whether you try to create the impression of market forces or not, it’s not really an economy. A pricing system, maybe, but certainly not an economy.

 

[Piperken]

What I’m getting at though is that regardless of if you “take it seriously” or not, whether you try to create the impression of market forces or not, it’s not really an economy. A pricing system, maybe, but certainly not an economy.

It would be a different sort of game, maybe with some likeness to The Seven Part Pact ?

 

[Piperken]

When I think about it, it's:

• Making sure that money matters
• Keep a sense of scale between what you earn, what things cost that makes sense
• Avoiding a huge inflationary pattern where we're dealing with hundreds of thousands of gold pieces

I'm not sure what my question is, I'm mostly interested to see what others think about it, if you also have this issue, if you think some games did it well, if maybe you were trying to fix this for years than waved it off, etc.

Referring to the first bullet, I think how money matters in a game... not that it just matters, matters? I also feel you can choose to make money matter more, by lessening its importance through provision of other things that are seen as having value.

e.g. So like in Vaults of Vaarn, there's no money; it's all barter (leverage, debts, components, essences, water, promises, exotica), and in terms of character "advancement:" exotica for XP, Levels, or XP for completing expeditions.

 

[Charlaquin]

View attachment 418392

Sort of, except if instead of a painting of a pipe it was like… a smudge of brown paint that’s maybe a bit thinner on one end.

 

[Charlaquin]

It would be a different sort of game, maybe with some likeness to The Seven Part Pact ?

Never heard of this game, but it does sound interesting!

 

[AlViking]

I think people get way too concerned about money. My solution is fairly simple, gold coins are about the size of a dime not a dubloon and alchemists have devalued gold. Transforming lead to gold isn't free but it still happens.

That along with not giving out gobs of gold, having a limited magic mart and throwing enough difficult combats their way that they spend significant amounts on healing potions seems to take care of the issue for most people.

As fsr as the wider economy? I don't really care because like a bazillion other details it has little impact on the game.

 

[Charlaquin]

Never heard of this game, but it does sound interesting!

@Piperken Strike that, this sounds like one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard of. Thank you for mentioning it!