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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6990081" data-attributes="member: 6778044">For me, they are for what they have always been for. The same things people throughout history have used money for. Fun, power, life in general.Similar to the original Gygax approach, Ed Greenwood's characters flesh out a world where life exists. In other words, what gold is for isn't a game question, or a question of rules. It's a question of story and world building. The stories in my campaigns are largely written by the characters. Why? Because the story is that of their lives. I think Game of Thrones is a great starting point for thinking of the world as a whole. Compare it to real life, and other fictional worlds. What are the driving forces? Love. Power. Sex. Money. Religion. The good characters or societies practice moderation and consideration for these, and the evil characters and societies do no. But most D&D campaigns ignore the love, sex, and religion, and focus just on the money and power. What's more, there aren't any consequences for the characters wandering around killing monsters and taking their treasure.If the PCs discovered some lost tomb rumored to hold legendary treasures, wouldn't the Lord of the land have something to say about their ownership of said treasure? Other bands, good and evil, attempting to recover the same treasure? What about the local temples or even townsfolk and what they think about tomb robbers? When they return to town, what about thieves? Scam artists? When creating characters, I ask my players to think about what they use their money for in their own lives. This is in part a character question. Most of us spend our money on hobbies, things we like, we often purchase things more for form than function. It also means that treasures in my campaigns are often the same sort of things. If you were to come to my "lair" you'd find very little cash lying around. Lots of things worth some money, at least to the right buyer, but most of it spent on things that have little intrinsic value. Then consider monstrous humanoids. Why do they have a lot of coins? Do they have a coin-based economy? They might like shiny things, and such, but weapons, armor, and things of those nature might have more value when they loot a body. Gems and jewelry might also have some value, although I'm not sure I've really seen anybody mentioning orcs wearing a lot of jewelry. Sure, if they are working for a villain they might be getting treasure for them, but what (multi)human society finds of value doesn't necessarily translate to orcish, ogreish, or whatever.It's not uncommon for most characters to not even have a home, much less a family. The majority of the characters in my campaigns have both, so coins are always in need to pay for regular expenses. When we get a bonus we might go out to an expensive dinner (or do so on our birthday), but in D&D characters always go to the same seedy taverns and pay a few coppers for a meal.What would be a good comparison to the "adventurer" economy? What about the mob? Lottery winners? Or entertainers? Movie stars, musicians, or sports players seem to stereotypically come from nothing and then make lots of money. And often spend it quite readily on parties, meals, houses, cars, and whatever else strikes their fancy. It's also not uncommon for them to end up broke later on because the cash flow stops, and they never considered that they wouldn't always be making lots of money. In a lot of games, the entire existence of the characters is to go to the next dungeon. That's it. They have no existence outside of their "career." Flesh out the characters and the world and you'll find that this sort of question doesn't really exist. They're heading out to the next dungeon because they lost their last haul to gambling, spent it on a vacation home in the mountains (which was promptly occupied by orcs and three ogres as soon as they left), redecorating the living room and the new stallion. Oh, and that investment in the mithril mine that went belly up. And outdoing the rival adventurers with the hunting trip to the Graypeaks for Crag Cats.</blockquote>

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