Has Anyone Tried a No Cash Game

[DonTadow]

Believe it or not, DonTadow, myself and my five players all want to get rid of the current system. As DM, it is my task to come up with a system and present it to the players. So far, they have liked the idea and I'm asking here for problem before I start.

I'm willing to see that other groups want something out of D&D that is different from what we want. Why is it so hard for you (and others) to see that?

Of course, this is a rhetorical question. I'm done with this thread. I've gotten a little useful information out of it, but mostly I've gotten people telling me we are playing the game wrong, or that I'm screwing my players over. Thanks non-sarcastically to those that did the former. Thanks sarcastically to those that did the latter.

Because my law professor once said that if more than 5 people agree on anything you can rest assured that at least one of them doesnt believe fully in the idea and that another has Alterior motives.

Even the DMG 2 states something similiar in which its nearly .
I just think the system you suggest is too drastic for a normal group to enjoy. YOu're essentially wiping out the main use for towns that have existed since first edition. I am not knocking your reasoning nor will I give further opinions on the system, but you did ask for opinions and alternatives and I did list mine in a previous thread that would be a nice balance between what you want and what a typical player would want.

 

[Cintra]

Maggot, I hope you end up checking back in this thread despite your comments above.

I've been considering introducing similar rules. Our group's main reason for this is that we feel it would let the characters "play the heroes" better if they don't have this constant consciousness of each encounter as "kill things and take their stuff." Instead, they can feel free to give money to the poor, etc., and not worry that they're getting unbalanced from the wealth of the other characters in the party. They also don't have to turn every adventure into a room-clearing drill ("if we don't check all the rooms, we might miss the cool sword that I'm sure might be here somewhere") and can focus on just accomplishing their objectives instead.

We're basically looking at the equipment rules from the Mark of Heroes RPGA stuff that Staffan mentioned, above. I really like their assumption that consumable items should cost more and should refresh every session. I'm just not sure that the "5x cost" for consumables is the right cost. So if anyone else in this thread has experience with that aspect of it, please provide feedback. Is 5x good, or is that too costly?

 

[DonTadow]

Of course, this is a rhetorical question. I'm done with this thread. I've gotten a little useful information out of it, but mostly I've gotten people telling me we are playing the game wrong, or that I'm screwing my players over. Thanks non-sarcastically to those that did the former. Thanks sarcastically to those that did the latter.

I'm sorry, I didnt see the portion of the thread that said we were suppose to slap him on the butt and tell him what a great job the system was ::thumbs up::. If you don't want advice don't post a question. You should have posted thisi s what I"M doing deal with it ::followed by evil dm laugh::. I went back through and reread the short thread (2 days 48 messages) and what you got was reasonable advice about tweaking your system and what the bartering system represents to the game.

I am worried that this is not something some of your players want. Its very drastic and I doubt all of the players are as annoyed as you sound on the forum. I"m all for home rules there and tweaks here but when you start talking about taking away whole portions of the game, I got to think your players would be worried.

It just doesnt make sense if your players didnt like the system. If they didnt like it, you wouldn't be so annoyed because you woudlnt have to deal with it. Its just not a good idea for a DM to push drastic changes because it makes the game easier for him. Perhaps this is a bigger issue. However, all of this is probably rhetorical now anyway.

 

[Thia Halmades]

Hey... I don't fall under either of those groups. What do I get out of this?

 

[JohnSnow]

And this thread reminds me of why I'm throwing over Core D&D to play Iron Heroes instead.

Characters have powers that they gain automatically as they level up - Check.
Characters no longer need to worry about upgrading their gear - Check.
Characters now have an incentive to spend money on things other than weapons - Check.
Character creation is easier - Check.
Character levelling involves less "accounting" - Check.
Characters adventure for reasons other than simply gaining fat loot - Check.
Characters no longer "smelly homeless people with magic weapons" - Check.
Magic items can actually be "special" - Check.
Eliminate cheesy "magic emporiums" - Check.

Of course, some people feel differently, but I, for one, am more than happy to be rid of D&D's "power by gold piece" system. I can hardly conceive a world where disease, injury, and death aren't indifferent to one's station in society.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Characters now have an incentive to spend money on things other than weapons - Check.

That is, admittedly, grating my nerves in my current campaign. I wish they would do things like make towers, manors, and the like. But, that's not practical. They want to live (or afford raise dead).

 

[DonTadow]

And this thread reminds me of why I'm throwing over Core D&D to play Iron Heroes instead.

1 Characters have powers that they gain automatically as they level up - Check.
2 Characters no longer need to worry about upgrading their gear - Check.
3 Characters now have an incentive to spend money on things other than weapons - Check.
4 Character creation is easier - Check.
5 Character levelling involves less "accounting" - Check.
6 Characters adventure for reasons other than simply gaining fat loot - Check.
7 Characters no longer "smelly homeless people with magic weapons" - Check.
8 Magic items can actually be "special" - Check.
9 Eliminate cheesy "magic emporiums" - Check.

1. They don't. Then obviously WOTC has made a greavis mistake because my book is littered with class skills.

2. Characters choose to upgrade their armor 9 times out of 10. Theres rarely a need to do. Now, in my game I require upkeep on armor. It just seems realistic that armor and weaponry no matter how magical will wear regardless.

3. I think theres a big trend recently of letting books DM for people. Players have a host of things to spend money on besides weapons. Come to think of it, I cant think of the last time my players bought a weapon. I don't think they ever have. Items and upkeep take up a big portion of their cost. They also have to eat, clothe themselves and feed families.

4. Character Creation is the same. I don't get this one. Unless you're using a pregen. OH I think I see where you're going. There's no magic so there's no complex magical character pregen. Well play afighter, isn't that all there is in Iron Heroes.

5. Another odd one. Lets see. Still got to increase base attack, still got the saves, still got the skills.. looks like the same leveling to me.

6. AGain, i"m not going to let a book DM for me. My players don't adventure for loot. Heck they don't even adventure for good. They all ahve personal goals they adventure for. That's established inbackground creation and the dm taking an active part in understanding their players character concepts.

7. Characters now smelly homeless people without magic weapons? No I know what you're saying. But again that is book dm'n for people. I havn't played or dm'nd a group that didnt have a home base and eventually own property.

8. Make magic special. This is a playerp refernece thing. I play a high magic campaign. But I do love (and am designing for my next campaign) a low magic campaign based on the grim campaign setting. You can still play high magic campaigns have special magic items. There iws no magic item above +2 limit in my campaign so when you find something else you best hold on to it. But you balance having so many magic items by having so many cursed items. YOu also input lots of COOL mundane items like the 100 mudane items and Another 100 mundane items (PLUG)

9 Oh now this one just isnt fair. Whenever there is a market for something there has to be a store to buy it in. The easy way to make it not cheesy... eliminate he cheesy. 1. There are tons of cheap pdfs online (NO LONGER PLUGGING BECAUSE I DONT THINK ITS RIGHT TO PLUG ANOTHER WEBSITE WHEN THE WEBSITE YOU'RE ON IS IN IN THE SAME BUSINESS) that will help you improve your shop descriptions and make them as back room or as nice as you'd like them.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Iron Heroes is a great subset and some things I've borrowed (skill uses and combat maneuvers).

 

[ThirdWizard]

2. Characters choose to upgrade their armor 9 times out of 10. Theres rarely a need to do. Now, in my game I require upkeep on armor. It just seems realistic that armor and weaponry no matter how magical will wear regardless.

I don't see how that's relevant. He's talking about magical items that increase saving throws, AC, attack, etc. No upgrading necessary. It's built in.

3. I think theres a big trend recently of letting books DM for people. Players have a host of things to spend money on besides weapons. Come to think of it, I cant think of the last time my players bought a weapon. I don't think they ever have. Items and upkeep take up a big portion of their cost. They also have to eat, clothe themselves and feed families.

Book DMing? What are you talking about?

How much does that eating, clothing, and feeding cost? 100 gp a month? That is more than most commoners see in a lifetime after all, and its not even chump change to an adventurer. The rest of their fifty thousand gold, or whatever, goes to magical items. Otherwise the CR system doesn't work. Now, you could have an agreement, that the PCs won't outfit themselves in gear more than their wealth is expected, and all the extra gold goes to luxuries and other things, but I don't play like that. The PCs buy what they want to buy without my interferance.

4. Character Creation is the same. I don't get this one. Unless you're using a pregen. OH I think I see where you're going. There's no magic so there's no complex magical character pregen. Well play afighter, isn't that all there is in Iron Heroes.

Nope, that's not where he's going. Make a 10th level character, and you have X amount of wealth to spend on magical items. In IH, you don't have that step.

5. Another odd one. Lets see. Still got to increase base attack, still got the saves, still got the skills.. looks like the same leveling to me.

Potions, wands, and various other expendables. Magical swords, rings, capes, etc. also have to be accounted for. Magical item accounting is a reality of the game. A lot of people do enjoy it, though.

7. Characters now smelly homeless people without magic weapons? No I know what you're saying. But again that is book dm'n for people. I havn't played or dm'nd a group that didnt have a home base and eventually own property.

Where in the book does it say that adventurers are smelly homeless people?

The problem with owning property is that adventurers are in dangerous situations as a matter of course. Give them 100,000 gp and see if they build a castle or buy some magical equipment that will help keep them alive and nine times out of ten I've seen them buy the armor, or stat increases, or saving throw increasing, or staff of healing, or whatever magical item that they can use to actually stay alive.

 

[JohnSnow]

While I appreciate ThirdWizard's adamant defense of my points, I'd like to clarify what I was saying (since my first post was a quick throwaway, not a well-crafted explanation).

And this thread reminds me of why I'm throwing over Core D&D to play Iron Heroes instead.

1 Characters have powers that they gain automatically as they level up - Check.
2 Characters no longer need to worry about upgrading their gear - Check.
3 Characters now have an incentive to spend money on things other than weapons - Check.
4 Character creation is easier - Check.
5 Character levelling involves less "accounting" - Check.
6 Characters adventure for reasons other than simply gaining fat loot - Check.
7 Characters no longer "smelly homeless people with magic weapons" - Check.
8 Magic items can actually be "special" - Check.
9 Eliminate cheesy "magic emporiums" - Check.

1. They don't. Then obviously WOTC has made a greavis mistake because my book is littered with class skills.

D&D's class system provides a baseline of character ability as you go up in level (skills improve, characters get more feats, etc.). On top of that, the system assumes the characters receive an escalating "pool of points" that the characters use to "buy" additional powers over and above their class abilities. In D&D's case, the "buy" is quite literal (in-game as well as out) using the default GP wealth table in the DMG to provide the "points." Iron Heroes leaves in place the class abilities and eliminates the "point buy" part of class balance in favor of more "class abilities."

2. Characters choose to upgrade their armor 9 times out of 10. Theres rarely a need to do. Now, in my game I require upkeep on armor. It just seems realistic that armor and weaponry no matter how magical will wear regardless.

I'm not talking about replacing gear that wears out. I'm referencing the need to upgrade a sword from +1 to +4 over the course of 18 levels. And your armor. And to swap your wand for a staff, and to pick up gloves of dexterity, a pearl of intellect, and so on, and so on.

"Realistic" is not a word that makes sense to me in regards to magic. For instance, in my conception of things magic swords don't lose their edge from regular use. That may not be realistic but it fits with my idea of how a "magical sword" behaves.

3. I think theres a big trend recently of letting books DM for people. Players have a host of things to spend money on besides weapons. Come to think of it, I cant think of the last time my players bought a weapon. I don't think they ever have. Items and upkeep take up a big portion of their cost. They also have to eat, clothe themselves and feed families.

If a character's power depends on his personal "Gear," he will invest a very small amount of his resources towards things that don't involve increasing his powers. I take it your players find all their weapons?

The initial poster was talking about doing away with handing out loot in exchange for a static "shopping trip." That implies (strongly) that the PCs are buying weapons and magic gear. Compared to the wealth level of a typical PC of Level 7+ (per the DMG), upkeep is meaninglessly small.

4. Character Creation is the same. I don't get this one. Unless you're using a pregen. OH I think I see where you're going. There's no magic so there's no complex magical character pregen. Well play afighter, isn't that all there is in Iron Heroes.

In D&D, I have to stat up a character, pick his feats, his stat boosting items, spend his gear, upgrade his equipment. It's not picking spells that takes time, it's getting the character's abilities in line with what they ought to be at his level.

A high-level Iron Heroes character stats up almost as fast as a low-level one. Any extra time you spend is spent customizing the character to fit a concept, not making sure he's not a pushover because you didn't buy the right gear.

5. Another odd one. Lets see. Still got to increase base attack, still got the saves, still got the skills.. looks like the same leveling to me.

Again, you're ignoring the magic items. There's a huge difference between creating an 8th-level character and a 9th-level character that has nothing to do with his class abilities. This is less relevant for players (who only do it once in a while) than DMs who make several such characters all the time (or always use the same pre-gen ones).

6. AGain, i"m not going to let a book DM for me. My players don't adventure for loot. Heck they don't even adventure for good. They all ahve personal goals they adventure for. That's established inbackground creation and the dm taking an active part in understanding their players character concepts.

In Core D&D, your characters are adventuring for loot. If they don't get loot, they can't keep adventuring against challenges of their level. You can compensate for it, but it's a pain in the neck.

7. Characters now smelly homeless people without magic weapons? No I know what you're saying. But again that is book dm'n for people. I havn't played or dm'nd a group that didnt have a home base and eventually own property.

Firstly, joke. Based on the following:

I've often said about D&D that in a real world you'd never want to associate with Player Characters ... as they're basically homeless people sleeping in the forest spending tens of thousands of dollars on weapons.

If PCs in Iron Heroes get money, they spend it on influence, wealth, ale & wenches, castles, businesses, or whatever. They do NOT spend it acquiring a "+9 Hackblade of Ogre-slaying."

8. Make magic special. This is a playerp refernece thing. I play a high magic campaign. But I do love (and am designing for my next campaign) a low magic campaign based on the grim campaign setting. You can still play high magic campaigns have special magic items. There iws no magic item above +2 limit in my campaign so when you find something else you best hold on to it. But you balance having so many magic items by having so many cursed items. YOu also input lots of COOL mundane items like the 100 mudane items and Another 100 mundane items (PLUG)

True. It is a preference thing. I've been playing D&D for almost 30 years. And my big objection to 3e is that I don't want to play "Go-go Gadget PC." I have a strong objection to "Christmas Tree PCs" who are decked out with dozens of stat boosting items. One magic item is fine. Even a few is fine - but I hate PCs with a dozen. We used to refer to games with that level of magic as "Monty Haul." So my personal preference is to play games where magic is special. Core D&D has to be re-written (and re-balanced) to make that work - Iron Heroes doesn't.

Simply pulling the magic out of Core D&D does work, and any good DM can do it. I know - I have. But the problem is that doing that cuts down on player options and makes the game less fun for players. Iron Heroes fixes that by giving the players more to do now that they're no longer managing their magical powers. So it gives with one hand as it takes away with the other. The side effect (IMO) is that combat is more interesting and more fun. And nobody's forced to play a class they don't want to because that's how the game was written *cough*Cleric*cough*.

9. Oh now this one just isnt fair. Whenever there is a market for something there has to be a store to buy it in. The easy way to make it not cheesy... eliminate he cheesy. 1. There are tons of cheap pdfs online (NO LONGER PLUGGING BECAUSE I DONT THINK ITS RIGHT TO PLUG ANOTHER WEBSITE WHEN THE WEBSITE YOU'RE ON IS IN IN THE SAME BUSINESS) that will help you improve your shop descriptions and make them as back room or as nice as you'd like them.

In the modern world, that's true. That's assuming of course, that there's a sizable enough market for the items and that someone is able to make them cheaply enough that they can be sold for a reasonable price. Pre-industrial revolution, tremendous numbers of things had to be special-ordered from craftsmen who had to be coerced or bribed to do the work. A great swordsmith would probably operate more like Hitori Hanso in Kill Bill. He MIGHT make you one - if he liked you or was sufficiently motivated.

Even today, there are many things you can't buy at any store. Because there isn't a sufficiently large market to support it. At best, I can't imagine a fantasy setting supporting more than one "magic shop" in the whole world. Unless it's ridiculously high-magic. I don't like magic as "technology." It's not.

But like you said, it's a preference thing. I prefer my game system to support my preferences for magic being less ubiquitous. Iron Heroes does. Core D&D doesn't.

 

[arscott]

No, I'm actually looking to get rid of the cycle of looting, selling, and shopping that I find boring and genre inappropriate. Changing to another system of Wealth will not remove the cycle.

But that's exactly what the wealth system does, more or less. It's specifically designed to emulate a system where the characters get rich from their 'day jobs', which may or may not be their adventuring. Like your system, wealth is refreshed when you level up rather than when you defeat a foe and sell his gear, but it still allows the option of in-game rewards or expenses when neccessary. Plus, the wealth system means you don't need to track minutia, like room and board, transportation costs, ammunition, etc.

It's only a 'wealth' system in the most abstract sense. I strongly advise that you look into it further.