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

[Micah Sweet]

Because other people don't think like you do and I wrote my statement for them. People who know you can have part authorship of a story while still playing a game.

Just because you apparently don't see how that's possible doesn't mean everyone else doesn't either.

Sure, but making that assumption about D&D seems unfounded. The base playstyle of the game remains GM makes and interprets the rules. Shared authorship of the sort you're talking about is a growing variant, not the standard.

 

[Micah Sweet]

• dont give out gold - just fine items, art and books which all have adventure hooks or need to be traded via RP
• require Clerics and Paladins to pay Tithes
• impose Gate duties and Adventurer Taxes enforced by dragons
• build strongholds
• use an abstract wealth system

I don't think I could or would want to ignore the existence of currency in any setting I'd want to run. Breaks verisimilitude.

 

[Micah Sweet]

One thing that really needs to be done to deal with this is some stronghold rules, especially costs. Lots of players want a cool castle/wizards tower/temple/etc for their characters, and supplying rules on how to construct and pay for them (and pay for upkeep) would be a good use for all the gold the characters are basically swimming in even after a few levels. Heck, even including normal house/land prices would be helpful - at low levels having a nice, but fairly modest, place for the group as a whole to have as a base is something most groups would want. Dragon Heist did this to a point with the tavern the party could take over and run, with living space upstairs (but, oddly, with no privies or bathrooms) and neighbors who could sell some minor magic items, but it was kind of a one-off and really didn't get into the details of how characters and parties could purchase a place of their own outside of this adventure. Even a small section with some prices in one of the core books would be very helpful here.

I would recommend Level Up for stronghold rules (and a lot of other things). No way is WotC going to improve on what's already out there.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Getting XP for gold worked perfectly if you wanted to play a game of daring treasure-seekers braving extreme danger for the precious precious loot. It fails to work when you want to play Frodo and Aragorn instead of Bilbo and Thorin (or Tanis and Goldmoon instead of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, or pick your own allusions). 2e AD&D didn't do it perfectly (but see Li Shenron's point about nothing not invoking complaints), but the general notion of 'if you want this kind of game, this is how you might want to dole out XP; if you want that kind of game, this is a good idea' is solid and I wish it would be revisited more broadly by the modern game*. If the game had a well-thought-out and codified advancement system for the top 2-3 ways people use the system**, each of which optional and ignorable -- with discreet toggles (like 'cut treasure accumulation by 75% after level 3 if not playing a treasure-hungry game') to switch if they are not being used; I think new DMs would find it much easier to adapt to successfully incentivizing the behavior they intend when gaming outside the default reward structure.
*Yes, they discuss milestone levelling; but if, say, you wanted to do gp=xp in 5e (or anything other than combats-faced or fiat milestone), you're on your own for appropriate metrics.
**Or maybe the hardest for DMs to arbitrate on their own.

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...

Well, it helps address the problem by delaying the point where 'the PCs have nothing upon which to spend their money.' As it stands, you see a little of this effect in existing 5e if you are a wizard* or a heavy-armor-wearing martial (/cleric) -- up through levels 4 to maybe 5, your share of the expected treasure doesn't fill all your needs. Mind you, if the druid and monk and Dex-based fighter all pitch in and help you pay for your spellbook and plate mail (or if you find a magic item version of the later...) this is pretty muted. However, cut that expected treasure in-half (/in-fourth, /in-tenth) and you'll see... well honestly probably more sorcerers and Dex-based warriors. However, you could see players being more engaged with the treasure and worrying over every GP... right until some cutoff where they've gotten everything or the total they have dwarfs any room and board, healing potion, and spell-book-materials costs they still have, and then we're at the same place we are now.
*in a campaign where you semi-frequently find spells to add to your book.

 

[DEFCON 1]

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).

If your players actually enjoy playing the equipment mini-game, then that's great. Of course I recognize there are some players who enjoy it, which is why I made sure to say "few players" rather than "all players" because every game system in D&D has their proponents. Most players though? My personal belief is that because all the editions from 3E and on have placed so many features, abilities, spells and skills into the character classes to give them so many different things to do during combat... the need to acquire lots of different equipment (AND magic items to a certain extent) to be able to do special things has been greatly lessened. Which is why most players nowadays don't need to comb the equipment lists for special stuff, because their class abilities, features, spells, and skills can already accomplish all the things the equipment used to have to do for them.

In the Before Times of AD&D... a Thief would be desperate to acquire a bag of caltrops and a bag of ball bearings because you never knew when you had to make a quick escape and these special pieces of equipment could slow your pursuers down-- and your Magic-User player probably did not have any one of their 5 spell slots prepared with an applicable spell, they were all lined up with Magic Missiles and the like. Thus it was a novelty and a great moment when the Thief player would tell the DM that this piece of equipment that no one probably though much of when they bought it was now going to be used to facilitate their escape.

But nowadays? There are probably 2 to 4 characters in the party who already have special class features and abilities that can slow pursuers down. So needing to buy special equipment (or magic items) that accomplish the same thing has been greatly lessened if not made completely superfluous. Heck... this is why Tools in 5E are like a vestigial appendage that they finally had to amend in Xanathar's to actually make their proficiency worthwhile. Because almost all Tool work got superceded by Skill use.

This is why I say that equipment and other things to buy are more story elements than would-be character abilities... because none of them have really any worthwhile game mechanic use. Instead, it's merely an additional flavor text to help with the narrative of what players wish to accomplish. The party wants to get into the castle in order to confront the Duke? The DM asks how they want to accomplish that... and the players says they "spend their money" buying extravagant clothing and expensive jewelry in order to make themselves look like nobles worthy to gain an audience with the Duke, and then they say they drop a few bribes here and there to get through the castle unimpeded. But all that is purely narrative driven and you don't need a big long list of "things to buy" in order to do that. And even if you did... chances are pretty good that equipment wouldn't have any mechanic connected to it for "bluffing your way into a castle", so it would still be up to the DM to just make a ruling for what all that bought stuff would do.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If your players actually enjoy playing the equipment mini-game, then that's great. Of course I recognize there are some players who enjoy it, which is why I made sure to say "few players" rather than "all players" because every game system in D&D has their proponents. Most players though? My personal belief is that because all the editions from 3E and on have placed so many features, abilities, spells and skills into the character classes to give them so many different things to do during combat... the need to acquire lots of different equipment (AND magic items to a certain extent) to be able to do special things has been greatly lessened. Which is why most players nowadays don't need to comb the equipment lists for special stuff, because their class abilities, features, spells, and skills can already accomplish all the things the equipment used to have to do for them.

In the Before Times of AD&D... a Thief would be desperate to acquire a bag of caltrops and a bag of ball bearings because you never knew when you had to make a quick escape and these special pieces of equipment could slow your pursuers down-- and your Magic-User player probably did not have any one of their 5 spell slots prepared with an applicable spell, they were all lined up with Magic Missiles and the like. Thus it was a novelty and a great moment when the Thief player would tell the DM that this piece of equipment that no one probably though much of when they bought it was now going to be used to facilitate their escape.

But nowadays? There are probably 2 to 4 characters in the party who already have special class features and abilities that can slow pursuers down. So needing to buy special equipment (or magic items) that accomplish the same thing has been greatly lessened if not made completely superfluous. Heck... this is why Tools in 5E are like a vestigial appendage that they finally had to amend in Xanathar's to actually make their proficiency worthwhile. Because almost all Tool work got superceded by Skill use.

This is why I say that equipment and other things to buy are more story elements than would-be character abilities... because none of them have really any worthwhile game mechanic use. Instead, it's merely an additional flavor text to help with the narrative of what players wish to accomplish. The party wants to get into the castle in order to confront the Duke? The DM asks how they want to accomplish that... and the players says they "spend their money" buying extravagant clothing and expensive jewelry in order to make themselves look like nobles worthy to gain an audience with the Duke, and then they say they drop a few bribes here and there to get through the castle unimpeded. But all that is purely narrative driven and you don't need a big long list of "things to buy" in order to do that. And even if you did... chances are pretty good that equipment wouldn't have any mechanic connected to it for "bluffing your way into a castle", so it would still be up to the DM to just make a ruling for what all that bought stuff would do.

This is a popular mode of play, I agree, which is why there are many ways to avoid it through different rules and systems. What you're describing does not appeal to me.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think that wotc also borks their own numbers downward on the importance of treasure. Wotc doesn't ask how important treasure/powerful magic items/etc* are when they ask. They ask somegthing like "how important is getting powerful magic items"& a good chunk of of the players who don't mind an iota getting excited about helping bob get one after the not-Bob player got an awesome magic item a few sessions ago & it still feels new vote towards lower importance because they remember all of the times they as not-Bob shared in the excitement of alice dave cindy & so on being excited about the awesome magic items those players were getting

*whatever the exact wording is

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is a popular mode of play, I agree, which is why there are many ways to avoid it through different rules and systems. What you're describing does not appeal to me.

I don't doubt it. But I think you were right when you said further above that this is a much more modern style of gameplaying-- a style which I think both D&D and most RPGs nowadays are moving to (if not already there.) And thus why modern D&D doesn't go all-in on the old ways.

They throw a bone now and then to older-school players even when probably 99% of the playerbase will never touch it-- like specific Material Components, Handedness, and the Encumbrance system-- and having an Equipment List is just one more thing that most modern players just don't need, but which they'll include a baseline one in the game for the few players that do.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

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.

Thanks for reminding me about this book. I'm sure I had it back in the 2e days. It may have stayed with me in spirit and coloured why I am so dissatisfied with 5e's equipment lists. I mean, I appreciate the attempt at simplicity, but I am desperate for more depth.

Looks like I should pick it up on DMs guild.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't doubt it. But I think you were right when you said further above that this is a much more modern style of gameplaying-- a style which I think both D&D and most RPGs nowadays are moving to (if not already there.) And thus why modern D&D doesn't go all-in on the old ways.

They throw a bone now and then to older-school players even when probably 99% of the playerbase will never touch it-- like specific Material Components, Handedness, and the Encumbrance system-- and having an Equipment List is just one more thing that most modern players just don't need, but which they'll include a baseline one in the game for the few players that do.

Well, I don't think modern playstyles account for 99% of all D&D players, but otherwise I unfortunately have to agree.