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

[MGibster]

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?

Is it the DM's fault? There are rules for what kind of treasure you might find after defeating a creature but there are no rules for magic shops or purchasing land. How much is an inn? How much are Boots of Elvenkind? I'm not going to fault D&D too much for not having a lot of support for property purchases because the game focuses on adventuring rather than becoming a landlord. But magic items are used to help PCs better navigate the vissisitudes of adventuring life. I can also see why the designers decided against magic shops so I'm not going to fault them for that either.

But why bother having rules for accumulating so much treasure and have very little to spend it on? Look at it from the perspective of someone who hasn't been a DM for very long. You're following the rules as best you understand it, it doesn't take long for PCs to acquire more money than they know what to do with, and you're left wondering what they're supposed to use all that gold on.

 

[Li Shenron]

Is it the DM's fault?

In my opinion, yes it is the DM's fault if they don't understand that the core 5e game is more like a toolset than a strict prescription of how to run the game. The publishers are at fault for not making it clear enough in the written books, but with almost 9 years into the edition, it should be evident to everyone that nearly all presumed "problems" of the edition are born from the idea that the RAW is all you need and the game plays by itself. And for someone who hasn't been a DM for very long... well that's who we're for, so I'll make it clear for them: the DM has to do some work to make the game play in the style they want.

About treasure and purchases, the designers could have also chosen not to provide rules for accumulating treasure, or not to provide equipment prices or magic items price ranges. Very likely a lot of people would have complained. They could have chosen to provide strict magic item prices, magic items economy and built-in character equipment levels (like 3ed), and a lot of people would have complained. They decided to provide guidelines that can be either used, adapted or ignored, and people still complain. That's because in this damn hobby there is just too many people who live to complain. But the current middle ground is possibly the best idea for a game which such a large audience as D&D. Smaller RPGs can afford to be very specific and provide strict rules, but D&D has to allocate a wide variety of gaming styles, and strict rules work against that. I think 5e is a pretty good compromise: you get fixed prices for non-magic stuff (to get an idea about possibly realistic costs of living and basic adventuring), but you get price ranges for the fantasy stuff (so that you can kinda easily shift between low-magic and high-magic, choosing for instance the lowest or the highest edge of the range) and leave the availability of that entirely to the DM or the author of a campaign setting book and adventures. And most importantly, no built-in character equipment levels and no monsters designed on the assumption that the PCs must have a specific set of magic items to deal with them.

 

[CreamCloud0]

this might sound facetious, it's not meant to be but, wouldn't a solution just be to give out less money? yes i'm aware there are a ton of 'GM left us scrounging for coppers' RPG horror stories but if you could actually find the sweet spot of expenditure vs earnings that creates actual decisions, is it more worth it to buy those healing potions or skip it so we can save up for silvering our weapons, get good healing at the fancy inn or buy climbing gear for the mountain up next...

 

[tetrasodium]

this might sound facetious, it's not meant to be but, wouldn't a solution just be to give out less money? yes i'm aware there are a ton of 'GM left us scrounging for coppers' RPG horror stories but if you could actually find the sweet spot of expenditure vs earnings that creates actual decisions, is it more worth it to buy those healing potions or skip it so we can save up for silvering our weapons, get good healing at the fancy inn or buy climbing gear for the mountain up next...

No. Giving out "less money" just shifts the problem (at best). The 2e dmg had a great entry talking about both sides of the motivation coin, pretty sure I linked it earlier

 

[MGibster]

In my opinion, yes it is the DM's fault if they don't understand that the core 5e game is more like a toolset than a strict prescription of how to run the game. The publishers are at fault for not making it clear enough in the written books, but with almost 9 years into the edition, it should be evident to everyone that nearly all presumed "problems" of the edition are born from the idea that the RAW is all you need and the game plays by itself. And for someone who hasn't been a DM for very long... well that's who we're for, so I'll make it clear for them: the DM has to do some work to make the game play in the style they want.

Given the frequency that I've heard complaints about the amount of treasure characters accumulate and the lack of guidance on what they can spend it on, I think it's a flaw with the game itself not just the DM. While I can't reasonably expect the rules to cover literally ever situation the PCs might find themselves in, for decades the game has been built around accumulating treasure, spending said treasure to make PCs better adventurers (either through equipment or training), and then heading out to handle bigger threats for even bigger rewards. D&D still has PCs on the treasure treadmill but buying magic items is no longer supported and they don't need to spend gold for training which results in the accumulation of a dragon's hoard of treasure as there's little else to spend all that gold on. That is a flaw in game design not the fault of the DM.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Probably an unpopular opinion…

But in the exp for gold days, we were treasure mad. We loved it. We sought it out, we took risks for it…

In 5e, which I love in most ways, I don’t even care to claim my portion at times. In some cases, since my characters have so many powers and abilities, many magic items are kind of meh!

The pleasure is to play. But that is the reward. Treasure means little now and I think that was a mistake.

Look at video games and how people still clamor to get loot dropped by foes!

Then again, getting rid of casters losing spells if interrupted mid casting was also somewhat regrettable…

 

[Micah Sweet]

Treasure is the most important thing in the game.

It's a big failing of 5e design that it gives no good places or reasons to spend it.

Yup. I play D&D derivatives that have plenty of uses for treasure.

 

[Micah Sweet]

running a campaign without magic items is booring.

What, you have same naughty word sword you got from boot camp?

Only as a heavy armor user can you hope for some advancement in form of full plate or if you manage to macgyver some cool things for your weapons(if allowed) as poison dispensers or similar.

Even the most basic, boring, inimaginitive +1 weapon is still advancement, you got something better, even if plain, bare minimum.

While I would never not use magic items, I also use a robust crafting system that includes a substantial list of modifications to gear and item qualities that allow for greater variety of equipment and create another area where gold is helpful.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Money is a plot device. That's all. Whether or not the players have too much or too little cash depends entirely on what they wish their D&D adventures to include and where they want to go.

If players want to spend gold on something to further their story and adventure... they will. If they as a group want to buy a keep and run it? Then they will collect all the money they can, make all the connections to the nobility they can, and actually play their story to acquire / build / renovate their keep and lands. And thus all the gold you gave them as DM will see use.

But if the players don't care about that... if their reason for playing D&D is to just go out and explore the lands, find tombs, or interact with interesting people for example... then money will serve no purpose. Money doesn't give them that which they want and why they play. So there's no reason to consider that "reward" and little reason to give it to them. To them... new places to go and new locations to explore is the reward. That's why they are playing the game.

The age of nickle-and-diming your way through equipment tables is over. It's been done hundreds of times by every player for decades. So few players at your table probably care about going through that same exact "mini-game" again and again and again of "going out to acquire treasure and then coming home to spend it." That novelty is gone. So don't try and recapture that genie and stuff it back into the bottle. Instead... merely see what the players enjoy most about D&D and angle the stories of the campaign such that they get more of what they want.

I feel that is a poor assumption, perhaps grounded in a "modern" worldview that doesn't universally apply. My players are absolutely interested in interacting with the equipment list, seeing what best fits their goals, what's available and what can be modified to do what they want.

Note that I don't object to the second part of your statement (giving players what they want), just the first (no one cares about equipment anymore).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've been working on a "better equipment list" to make things for my players to buy. I've found that there are a LOT of magic items whose effects don't seem all that magical to me (I noticed it first in 4e, when my character got a "magic" axe that gave me a 1/encounter power that allowed me to trip a target prone on a successful hit. Isn't that just a "bearded" axe?)

My point being: I'm working on a list of "soft" magic-item like effects that I plan to introduce to the game at lower levels in the form of "quality" or "masterwork" items that simply cost more money than level 1 characters have, but can easily be bought (or found in place of coins) at levels 2-6. THEN I'll start introducing actual magic items that do magical things.

I get what @DEFCON 1 is saying against the mini-game of treasure tracking, but two things: 1) In the 9 years that 5e has been out, I've had a LOT of players that want to go shopping, but they never find anything worth buying (Except for Studded Leather & Plate) I find that disappointing. And 2) It's been even longer since I've played that mini-game. If the mini-game was ANY GOOD, it might be fun to do. So I'm going to try it.

I'd wait for 2024, but I really doubt that they'll do much to improve it (I suspect that they'll do a little, but that it won't be enough to make my time wasted).

In terms of stuff to buy, this is one of the reasons why Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog is among the greatest RPG supplements of all time.