D&D (2024) Gold & Other Treasure (Can we get off the treadmill?)

[Shiroiken]

Oh I see, sadly I never played with gold to xp, even when I played 1e, so I wasn't aware of this nuance. So owning a valuable item isn't worth xp, but converting it to gold pieces is?

There were two numbers for each magic item: xp and gp. The xp amount is what you got if you kept the item, while the gp is the amount you can sell the item for. The gp value was usually about double the xp amount, IIRC, so selling useless items for gp & xp was a pretty common tactic. I don't know what the original intent was, but the DMs I gamed with didn't allow any trade discussion if you wanted the xp for selling the item... you had to decide as soon as loot was divided.

As a reminder, this style of play assumed a large rotating cast of players & characters each session. This prevented a lot of item optimization, since you might not have any given class during a session. Class specific items were almost always sold unless someone could immediately use it. If you had a set group of players & characters, this style of play can become problematic.

 

[James Gasik]

There were two numbers for each magic item: xp and gp. The xp amount is what you got if you kept the item, while the gp is the amount you can sell the item for. The gp value was usually about double the xp amount, IIRC, so selling useless items for gp & xp was a pretty common tactic. I don't know what the original intent was, but the DMs I gamed with didn't allow any trade discussion if you wanted the xp for selling the item... you had to decide as soon as loot was divided.

As a reminder, this style of play assumed a large rotating cast of players & characters each session. This prevented a lot of item optimization, since you might not have any given class during a session. Class specific items were almost always sold unless someone could immediately use it. If you had a set group of players & characters, this style of play can become problematic.

That seems so strange especially when Gary talks about how the prevalence of Fighter only items, and the existence of intelligent magic swords as being "rules patches" for the Fighter to remain relevant in a world of dirty, dirty spellcasters.

In typical fashion, however, Gary says both things literally on the same page.

"Magic items are for Fighters, but you should sell them to get xp, lol".

Ironically, my sample item, Baba Yaga's Hut, only has a gp cost. So apparently if one finds an artifact, they should divest themselves of it at first opportunity!

 

[Vaalingrade]

Class specific items were almost always sold unless someone could immediately use it.

And people say modern D&D is like WoW...

 

[James Gasik]

And people say modern D&D is like WoW...

Where do you think the inspiration for MMO's came from?

 

[tetrasodium]

Where do you think the inspiration for MMO's came from?

Spoiler: DIKU

It has been proposed by Raph Koster (lead designer of Ultima Online and chief creative officer of EverQuest II) that Diku has resulted in the greatest proliferation of gameworlds due to being the easiest to set up and use.[14][15] He further pointed out that "Diku codebases did eventually popularize many of the major developments in muds",[16] and that the Diku gameplay provided inspiration for numerous MMORPGs, including EverQuest, World of Warcraft and Ultima Online.[17]

There was a minor controversy in late 1999 and early 2000 regarding whether the commercial MMORPG EverQuest, developed by Verant Interactive, had derived its code from DikuMUD.[18] It began at the Re:Game gaming conference in 1999, where the Director of Product Development for EverQuest, Bernard Yee, allegedly stated that EverQuest was "based on Dikumud". He did not specify whether he meant the code itself was derived from DikuMUD, or if it just had a similar feeling. Some attendees had understood it to mean the former, given that the chief designer, Brad McQuaid was an avid player of SojournMUD and TorilMUD that was based on the Sequent DikuMUD derivative, and reported to that effect on Usenet.[19] After the Diku group requested clarification, Verant issued a sworn statement on March 17, 2000 that EverQuest was not based on DikuMUD source code, and was built from the ground up.[20][21] In response, the DikuMUD team publicly stated that they find no reason whatsoever to believe any of the rumors that EverQuest was derived from DikuMUD code.[22][23]

DikuMUD - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

D&d had some influence sure but their proof of concept was elsewhere

 

[Li Shenron]

It's been oft lamented that treasure becomes essentially meaningless very quickly in 5th edition D&D. At least it's oft lamented by me. I ran my first 5th edition campaign in 2014 or 2015, and just accumulating treasure off of monsters and foes, even at lower levels, kept the party hip deep in more gold than they really knew what to do with. There were no magic shops, they weren't spending gold to advance in level, they were itinerant adventurers so real estate wasn't an option, and we were really more focused on old school style adventuring. Even when I ran Acquisitions Inc., a few years later, gold was essentially meaningless as it was trivially easy to make enough of it to keep the business afloat and to make improvements.

How important is treasure in a campaign really?

It is as important as you want it be.

If your DM keeps giving you treasure but no way to spend it, it's their fault. Who says there are no magic shops? The DM decides if there are any, not the books. Who makes real estate not an option?

In this regard 5e is a very good edition because it does not require to spend treasure into equipment, but it certainly doesn't prevent you from doing that, if that's your group's thing. There are price ranges in the DMG, so the DM can choose to default to the minimum/average/maximum, or randomize them a bit.

Other groups might not like having to keep track of treasure at all, and for story purposes a simple "you found a giant treasure hove to take home!" is satisfying enough, then what the PCs are going to do with it may also be left to their own narrative, without affecting equipment. If anything, the only implied budget is at very low level, when you can't even afford the best mundane weapon/armor. I don't think it's uncommon to stop keeping track of GP after a certain level, and then just let the PCs buy anything from the PHB tables.

 

[tetrasodium]

It is as important as you want it be.

If your DM keeps giving you treasure but no way to spend it, it's their fault. Who says there are no magic shops? The DM decides if there are any, not the books. Who makes real estate not an option?

In this regard 5e is a very good edition because it does not require to spend treasure into equipment, but it certainly doesn't prevent you from doing that, if that's your group's thing. There are price ranges in the DMG, so the DM can choose to default to the minimum/average/maximum, or randomize them a bit.

Other groups might not like having to keep track of treasure at all, and for story purposes a simple "you found a giant treasure hove to take home!" is satisfying enough, then what the PCs are going to do with it may also be left to their own narrative, without affecting equipment. If anything, the only implied budget is at very low level, when you can't even afford the best mundane weapon/armor. I don't think it's uncommon to stop keeping track of GP after a certain level, and then just let the PCs buy anything from the PHB tables.

No 5e is terrible in that way because it robs the GM of any need for the players to do that. The absurd price ranges & seemingly random rarities on items in the 5e DMG are actually harmful for the GM because they hobble the GM's ability to rebuild what was torn out for motivational purposes.

 

[James Gasik]

Spoiler: DIKU

It has been proposed by Raph Koster (lead designer of Ultima Online and chief creative officer of EverQuest II) that Diku has resulted in the greatest proliferation of gameworlds due to being the easiest to set up and use.[14][15] He further pointed out that "Diku codebases did eventually popularize many of the major developments in muds",[16] and that the Diku gameplay provided inspiration for numerous MMORPGs, including EverQuest, World of Warcraft and Ultima Online.[17]

There was a minor controversy in late 1999 and early 2000 regarding whether the commercial MMORPG EverQuest, developed by Verant Interactive, had derived its code from DikuMUD.[18] It began at the Re:Game gaming conference in 1999, where the Director of Product Development for EverQuest, Bernard Yee, allegedly stated that EverQuest was "based on Dikumud". He did not specify whether he meant the code itself was derived from DikuMUD, or if it just had a similar feeling. Some attendees had understood it to mean the former, given that the chief designer, Brad McQuaid was an avid player of SojournMUD and TorilMUD that was based on the Sequent DikuMUD derivative, and reported to that effect on Usenet.[19] After the Diku group requested clarification, Verant issued a sworn statement on March 17, 2000 that EverQuest was not based on DikuMUD source code, and was built from the ground up.[20][21] In response, the DikuMUD team publicly stated that they find no reason whatsoever to believe any of the rumors that EverQuest was derived from DikuMUD code.[22][23]

DikuMUD - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

D&d had some influence sure but their proof of concept was elsewhere

But would Diku have existed without D&D?

 

[edosan]

Obviously I'm a weirdo but I like 5e's backing away from the Magic Shop mentality, it makes the items my players come across more meaningful but yes, it does throw the economy off (I can't help but remember to Waterdeep: Dragon Heist's "well, now your players have half a million gold, what do you do now? We're not really sure either" final page). Even going back to XP=GP feels like an arbitrary fix.

I'd like to think the new version will fix it but that assumes Chris Perkins et al even realize it's an issue.

 

[tetrasodium]

But would Diku have existed without D&D?

Almost certainly I think. Diku MUDs trace back to things like MUCKs MUSHs & so forth till you start getting to zork. Then before private network access was really a thing for people not inventing the internet you had various single player floppy based text games. At some point you start bleeding into what was probably some level of parallel development & cross pollination in both directions (ttrpg/compter games) pulling from Tolkien & the other appendix N books. Heck didn't hit points come from a civil war era wargame called ironsides or something with war games for a very niche hobby going back centuries prior?