D&D General Games Economies

[Clint_L]

I find that the main solution that works well is lowering the amount of money given out, and reducing the prices on magic items, particularly in terms of how prices scale at high levels. When magic items are cheaper, players actually spend more money on items because one single purchase doesn't set them back their entire life savings. For evidence of this model working well, see Baldur's Gate 3

You'd think your point here would have been obvious, but this part of your post has me rethinking my entire approach to the game economy.

 

[Retros_x]

"adventuring is risky, but offers a chance at retirement and generally more income than the average joe. But it doesn't make you rich overnight"

Why would anyone risk their life for 'more income than average joe'? Adventurers life on the premise of "get rich or die trying". You need to give them appropiate amount of money. For longer campaigns offer them big money sinks like expensive magic artifacts, and domain gameplay. If you don't want that they need to have different motivations to go on adventurers aka the classic backstory / narrative driven adventures. But having money as main motivation and than not giving out a lot of money, doesn't make sense. When adventurers slay a dragon they want the hoard and expect it to be a mountain of gold and not 50 gold and a milkshake.

 

[Composer99]

To my mind, money in an RPG is a tool to facilitate any or all three of:

1. Score-keeping behaviour (numbers go up big! Yaaay!)
2. Giving the players interesting decisions to make.
3. Helping the world feel lived-in, alive, like a place that exists independently of the gameplay.

The more you want to emphasise score-keeping, the less you need to worry about how much money the player characters accumulate. One way of score-keeping is the old-school GP-for-XP mechanic.

Emphasising decision-making can involve different proportions/combinations of restricting the amount of money the player characters have or providing suitably large money sinks, and reasons why player characters might sink their money into this money sink instead of that one (or vice-versa).

World-sim is probably the hardest possible use for the idea of in-game money, especially if you're making it a priority, since that's where you start having to try to emulate a functioning economy with game mechanics - and good luck with that! That said, I am sure fans of world-sim play can probably point to games that do so well enough for their tastes, and indeed a few examples were given on the first page of the thread.

D&D de facto settles on score-keeping, but the wildly variable costs of items, as well as systems such as Bastions, give it the veneer of catering to decision-making or world-sim. Since most game designers are not economists - and for most players, there isn't the emotional or gameplay payoff that justifies the effort to create "realistic" or "verisimilitudinous" in-game economies - it doesn't surprise me that most games also emphasise score-keeping or decision-making over world-sim.

 

[MGibster]

I recently read through the 2nd Greyhawk box, and they do a great deal to explain the economy of the city. They discuss the city's role as a central trading hub, what goods go through the city, what raw materials are extracted from nearby mines, banking, and of course taxes.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

To my mind, money in an RPG is a tool to facilitate any or all three of:

1. Score-keeping behaviour (numbers go up big! Yaaay!)
2. Giving the players interesting decisions to make.
3. Helping the world feel lived-in, alive, like a place that exists independently of the gameplay.

The more you want to emphasise score-keeping, the less you need to worry about how much money the player characters accumulate. One way of score-keeping is the old-school GP-for-XP mechanic.

Emphasising decision-making can involve different proportions/combinations of restricting the amount of money the player characters have or providing suitably large money sinks, and reasons why player characters might sink their money into this money sink instead of that one (or vice-versa).

World-sim is probably the hardest possible use for the idea of in-game money, especially if you're making it a priority, since that's where you start having to try to emulate a functioning economy with game mechanics - and good luck with that! That said, I am sure fans of world-sim play can probably point to games that do so well enough for their tastes, and indeed a few examples were given on the first page of the thread.

D&D de facto settles on score-keeping, but the wildly variable costs of items, as well as systems such as Bastions, give it the veneer of catering to decision-making or world-sim. Since most game designers are not economists - and for most players, there isn't the emotional or gameplay payoff that justifies the effort to create "realistic" or "verisimilitudinous" in-game economies - it doesn't surprise me that most games also emphasise score-keeping or decision-making over world-sim.

Mostly 3 for me.

Some of the PCs are just sitting on their accumulating cash, while I'm constantly feeling low from luxury cosmetic expenditures. Well, that and wanting to scribe every spell from every captured spell book, and make scrolls for the rarely cast ones so I don't have to prepare them. Because that's what wizards do.

 

[Distracted DM]

I think the problem with the D&D game economy is that if you have enough money, why would a PC keep adventuring, if indeed money is the objective?

IIRC the reason in some TTRPGs (maybe Torchbearer?) is that.. there's something "wrong" with them, mentally- they're not the typical commoner that values safety and a quiet life. They can't settle down for long, they keep getting into trouble and spending all their money on ephemeral luxury and carousing, and then they need to move on to the next adventure.

 

[AlViking]

IIRC the reason in some TTRPGs (maybe Torchbearer?) is that.. there's something "wrong" with them, mentally- they're not the typical commoner that values safety and a quiet life. They can't settle down for long, they keep getting into trouble and spending all their money on ephemeral luxury and carousing, and then they need to move on to the next adventure.

There are a lot of thrill seekers out there who do dangerous things just for the thrill of it. In my games most characters are doing it because there's some goal other than personal wealth. That could be vengeance, stopping something, trying to recover lost secrets or any number of things.

 

[Stormonu]

The problem at a fundamental level.... is Continual Flame.


Or put another way, the issue is less about the accumulation of coin than it is the accumulation of wealth. In actual medieval societies, the vast majority of things are degradable. The servants...die. Livestock....die. Your crops...die or are consumed. Most things produced require an incredible amount of effort just to maintain year to year and generation to generation.

So the wealth is in the permanent stuff, the land being the principal one (and the buildings on them). When you have land you have wealth, because the land is there generation after generation, the key to production. And land is limited, there is only so much of it, so it you have an innate supply and demand constraint. Everyone wants land, very few people get to have it, and those are the wealthy people for the most part.

Magic use in itself is just another form of labor....skilled labor to be sure...but labor nonetheless. Magic users have to be trained, they have a certain amount of productivity, most of them probably never amount to beyond 1-2nd level spells at most...and then eventually they die. Its an important and powerful resource....but still a limited one at an economy level. Now if magic is easy to learn...then schools and education programs can markedly increase that resource. But dnd suggests that spellcasting is just really hard to do, and it takes a certain person above and beyond the base intellect to really get the hang of it. So again, a limited resource.

But once you get into magic items...its a brand new ballgame, continual flame being the most basic example. Now we take a consumable labor resource and convert their time into generating a permanent magical benefit. That is not just a resource...that is WEALTH. That is a benefit that can be cultivated, stored, and built over time. A community starts with a handful of continual lights. Fast forward a generation....and the entire city is fully illuminated.

Permanent Magic items shatter the feudal economies that dnd would seem to simulate at first glance. Therefore, your first step to making an economy realistic....permanent magic items have to go. Either they are gone gone, or they require expensive recharging periodically, they fade to nothingness after X amount of time...etc.

One of the things in my campaign world is that spells like Continual Light ... only last as long as the caster. Wands & Staves deplete, potions are consumed, scroll burnt up on use. Most minor magic items have some sort of charge that is used up - or they stop functioning when the creator passes away.

Those things you could pass down have a bit of the caster's soul (or someone's*) tied to them - magic swords, armors, that sort of thing. As long as those items you created exist, the tied individual can't move on to the afterlife. The more of them you make, the more of the soul that is eaten away - lifespans shorten, attempts at resurrection are more likely to fail and even your memories or personality can fade as they are absorbed by the item (that's what intelligent swords are, for example - a literal shard, or more, of someone's personality infused into the weapon).

No, it's not D&D standard, but it works to explain why my world isn't drowning in magic items.

* In the case of using someone else's soul, the item is generally keyed to only work for them or those the donor gives permission to use.

 

[bloodtide]

I always liked the old BECMI economy where the PCs are nearly always broke.

So a typical adventure does not have all that much 'hard' coins or jewellery or valuables. Even less when spread between four or more characters.

And, at least half of the "treasure" is more of the vague kind where the PCs would have to put in a good amount of work, and often money, to get anything of value. Like a statue covered in metals and gems of value, but very large and heavy. Or even things like gold mines.

By default, I also keep the focus on most of my games far out in the "Borderlands", "the Rim", or "the Frontier". This keeps the PCs far away from economies and money and all that.

I also make buying magic items rare....no magic marts. And even more, I allow anyone to create magic items. But to create a magic item, you will need to "adventure" to do so.

And finally, in older D&D style....PCs quite often loose times or anything they own. PCs are always loosing items or having them destroyed. Or even stolen.

 

[practicalm]

I was always fond of Medieval Magical Society Western Europe as a guide to economies.

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe

From publisher blurb: This 144-page supplement is for GMs and players who wish to add a touch of realism to their game. It's for the people who'd like to flesh out the background of their gaming world, but don't have the time to dig through scholarly books. A Magical Medieval Society: Western...

rpggeek.com

The problem often is letting treasure be coins. If you make the treasure goods (wines, furs, artwork, preserved foods) there is a cut that middlemen take for converting it into some kind of credit. Even bars of gold and silver would be better than coins.

Character expenses are another issue. Removing training costs I think was not helpful to managing character wealth. Character's status could be improved by spreading the wealth around. Getting players to build manors or estates also keeps them busy and adventuring becomes a seasonal hobby.

Another issue is players not being connected into the local governing structure. What noble would allow armed bands to wander around that are not part of their service or the service of another noble? Integrating characters into the social structure of their environment would help the taxman get some of that treasure spent on bettering the realm.