Gold or Silver Standard?

[Lanefan]

I agree completely. I miss the rules for building and maintaining strongholds. I have played in several games over the years where the players were nobility. There was no wargaming at all, but there were great sessions regarding political intrigue, dealing with your vassals, etc.

And best of all, once a PC or a party has a castle or similar stable base of operations, the DM has something for the bad guys to attack!

I'd like to see some sort of nod toward stronghold construction in 4e, whether it's geared toward individual PCs building them or whole parties collaborating on one or two.

Lane-"if you don't like gold pieces, I'll take them"-fan

 

[Relique du Madde]

I love gold, it needs to be keep as the standard. With that said, I do wish that hey had standardized rules on building homes, castles, forts, cities, etc. in the DMG.

After all, part of the points of light concept should involve building a stronghold against the encroaching darkness and then defending it.



Darn you Lanefan for beating me to the post

 

[Aeolius]

In 4e, PCs are supposed to begin as heroes, right? They are larger than life. Thus, I present to you the new standard coin:

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Depends on what you mean by "playstyle." If you mean keeping track of lots of fiddly details, then yeah. It's much easier to play Command & Conquer that handles that for you.

But you can have armies and castles (or other groups, guilds, churches, academies, etc.) in a game without getting a Ph.D. in logistics or being buried in record-keeping. Most of it can be abstracted away with some good game design.

I mean just general interest in being a "warlord". I believe modern gamers aren't particularly interested in building outside of their own characters, be it bars, castles, armies, etc. I dont disagree that it can be a great plot hook. Hell, I basically handed one of my players a couple cantons on a silver platter in Oathbound to get him invested in the world. I'm just saying that the focus has gotten a lot more narrow. People arent interested in leading 200 men to glory, they are interested in their own characters glory. Personal anecdote... I was always less invested in Ars Magica when playing a group of grogs than "my" magus, a sentiment shared by much of the group. Similarly, the time we played Birthright, most of us werent interested in the reagent phase (or whatever its called). Despite it being our characters leading, it didnt feel as personal as the adventure segment.

Now dont get me wrong, I personally think such rules SHOULD be more fleshed out in the core book. I just recognize that for the majority of gamers nowadays, such interests aren't at the forefront, and they need a gold sink that benefits them in a way they enjoy (IE, personal avatar improvement). The benefit doesnt have to, and IMO, should be, as profound as it is in 3rd edition. But I think it needs to be there for Joe Average quasi powergamer.

To tie this back in the OP, Id say something along the lines of moving to a silver standard, while keeping magic item "prices" on the gold standard, might create a decent situation. Actual character improvements are incredibly pricey, but available for the super wealthy, giving those who don't care about hiring men at arms, super hookers or fancy meals a goal to which they can funnel their coinage, while limiting the benefits available.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

I'd almost prefer an "economy" that specifically fails to stand up to scrutiny just to rub it in the nose of anyone who thinks that it should. That's as far as my thinking takes me.

How unfortunate.

 

[JohnSnow]

I agree completely. I miss the rules for building and maintaining strongholds. I have played in several games over the years where the players were nobility. There was no wargaming at all, but there were great sessions regarding political intrigue, dealing with your vassals, etc.



Your wealth point system is a fantastic idea! I'm totally stealing this for my new 4e campaign.

There was a similar system in Mastering Iron Heroes. That system (designed, btw, by 4E developer Mike Mearls), let characters trade their wealth money to gain influence, manors, cohorts, followers, and so on.

Wealth feats are gained by spending wealth points - which you get by putting gp into your wealth pool. 100 gp put in buys 1 wealth point. Wealth points can be cashed in for 50 gp each. And they can be used to invest in the wealth feats. It's a pretty cool system.

 

[Lanefan]

There was a similar system in Mastering Iron Heroes. That system (designed, btw, by 4E developer Mike Mearls), let characters trade their wealth money to gain influence, manors, cohorts, followers, and so on.

Wealth feats are gained by spending wealth points - which you get by putting gp into your wealth pool. 100 gp put in buys 1 wealth point. Wealth points can be cashed in for 50 gp each. And they can be used to invest in the wealth feats. It's a pretty cool system.

Hmmm...put in 100 now, but you can only get out 50 later if you need it. Sounds like some real-life investment schemes to me. That said, what are the wealth feats and are they any good; I ask because there might be some potential here for my game.

Lanefan

 

[S'mon]

Silver for mundane stuff & everyday goods. Gold for magic and high value goods like plate armour. I've gone to a silver standard for my Wilderlands PBEM and it works well.

Edit: I'm fine with full plate costing a thousand pieces of gold. But a thousand pieces of gold should be a *lot* of money. No more 500,000 gp town houses, please.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Given the research put into 3e, isnt it a more logical assumption that interest had waned? 1e grew out of your army's general adventuring in order to finance their "real" goal of playing a wargame. Why not cut out the middleman and just play a wargame, theres tons of them out there.

I don't agree with your premise at all. OD&D onwards was all about the individual RPG experience and since I started D&D in 1975 I've not known anyone who used it as even a slim basis for wargaming (although wargaming still took place amongst my friends and people I knew - there was no overlap).

So I can't see your assertion about 1e as being true at all (and it wasn't supported by any of the gaming magazines of the day either, whether The Dragon, White Dwarf or any of the multitude of amature press offerings).

During 1e there was the assumption that as your PC grew in power he would become more of a political force in the campaign landscape, and he would accumulate personal power in terms of land and followers as well as in ability to hit things, cast spells and avoid being killed through increased hit points.

After doing the research for 3e WotC decided that they wanted to focus on "Back to the dungeon" because that gave the easiest entry for the majority of people. It perhaps isn't a surprise that the sub-level 10 gaming experience is widely considered in online communities some of the most satisfying; It seems certain that less testing in all kinds of ways was done at the higher levels. I very much doubt that their research was detailed enough to say "interest in building strongholds has waned". We know that the research showed that the plethora of settings was bad for business and I'd bet that "Back to the dungeon" was just a simple way of cutting the Gordian knot and helping people to recapture the original ethos of those early games of D&D.

Stronghold rules never took more than a few pages in the DMG and a few column inches in the PHB anyway; I'd guess that excepting Planescape campaigns there were a lot more adventures which ended up using castles than using outer planes, yet quite a few pages got devoted to outer planes in the 3.5e DMG (something that I'm certainly happy WAS included).

So I stand by my assertion - if basic rules are provided, then those people that want to use them find it easy to use them, and people who are not interested will gloss over them and not use them (how much of the DMG really sees regular use anyway?)

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm mostly just surprised that there's 135 posts and counting on this topic now. Wow.

Does it really matter? It's just an arbitrary thing anyway.

And this contributes to the thread in what way?

By all means make a statement of your opinion backed up by your reasoning, but don't indulge in drive by shootings in a thread please.

Thanks