CapnZapp
Legend
Hello everyone!
I am toying with an idea I got: a campaign heavily inspired by the TV show The Shield, featuring morally compromised heroes as city watch detectives in a corrupt fantasy metropolis.
A big element of such a campaign would/should be temptation: repeatedly putting the player characters in situations where they could or could not choose to enrich themselves, possibly with heavy consequences down the line. Do you make choices that let you buy a nice house for your wife and kids, do you take on an expensive mistress, do you accrue gambling debts or do you need to feed money into a heavy drug addiction?
Now then, I'm assuming a ruleset such as 3rd edition or Pathfinder 1 or Pathfinder 2 where magic items are expected to be an important part of character customization, and where the default game allows you to purchase vital adventuring bonuses using gold.
My problem then is that just having the heroes find a stash of ill-gotten gains during a bust does not work. I can't ask the players to choose to forego purchasing a Striking weapon just to be able to tell the story of having epic (and epically expensive) parties.
Somehow I need to split the item economy from the world economy, or at least the luxuries economy. I have some ideas, but would like outside feedback. (What would be fun? Have I missed something? And so on...)
This also ties into issues like "should the campaign actively encourage heroes to just confiscate loot from their law enforcement activities?" (I am not (re)starting this summer's controversy on Paizo's Agents of Edgewatch here, I just need to flag I am aware of the issues.)
Simplest approach: two separate currencies.
Example: Gold and credits.
Gold = the stuff you purchase chickens with. Or or bribe city officials with. Or purchase non-magical equipment such as plate mail.
Credits = you can requisition Police HQ for magic items such as +1 striking swords. To do so you need to have accomplished stuff during your career, meaning of course that instead of paying gold you have a running tab of credits (you effectively "pay" 100 credits to check out a brand new +1 striking sword if we're playing Pathfinder 2, since a +1 striking weapon costs 100 gold)
There would then be no magic item shoppes. Gold (taken from perps) can only be checked into evidence or be pilfered for personal use.
Crafting could be very useful if Police HQ only let you check out the fundamentals. If every item is available, then less so, of course.
Luxuries (abstract) approach:
Instead of having to deal with hundreds and tens of thousands of gold, maybe use an abstract approach: luxuries points.
That is, instead of describing a stash as 3,000 gold, simply say 10 luxuries points (say) to be divided between the police officers (heroes) that are present.
The idea here is that if you put 5 luxuries point into "drug habit" that could spawn interesting stories involving maybe a level 5 drug dealer. If you put 7 points into "high class escort" that could result in a level 7 adventure involving maybe a heist or extortion scheme. (Is she playing you or are the two of you scamming another client of hers?) Not solo adventures, but ones where the whole group is there to help out, of course.
So if you are level 5, and you have amassed 15 luxury points, you would be able to indicate (to the GM) which kinds of adventures you would like to see: if you put 8 points into "family" you might end up having a level 8 villain kidnap your wife. If you instead put 4 points into "gambling" and 4 points into "drug habit" you might instead see low-level annoyances where you're constantly harassed by low-level thugs trying to get you to pay your gambling debts or force you into drug distribution or whatever.
My rough aim would be for each hero to have the potential for at least twice her level in luxury points, so each player can indicate two story ideas of a level-appropriate nature. But if one level 10 hero has 30 points while another only has 10 or even none doesn't make a significant difference, since the latter hero can still enjoy having the first one's related adventures.
The benefit of the abstract approach is that nobody needs to figure out the exact economy. (A high level adventurer being good for 20,000 gold is fine when the main outlet for all that wealth is a sword that just happens to cost 20,000 gold. It is mostly a headache if you have to explain a city's economy in terms of exponential wealth)
You would still use figures like 20,000 when it comes to purchasing magic items. For example: at level 17, a Pathfinder 2 hero could quite comfortably afford a 15,000 credits purchase such as a Luck Blade.
But would it be compelling to amass "luxuries points"? Do your players react to gold better?
I am toying with an idea I got: a campaign heavily inspired by the TV show The Shield, featuring morally compromised heroes as city watch detectives in a corrupt fantasy metropolis.
A big element of such a campaign would/should be temptation: repeatedly putting the player characters in situations where they could or could not choose to enrich themselves, possibly with heavy consequences down the line. Do you make choices that let you buy a nice house for your wife and kids, do you take on an expensive mistress, do you accrue gambling debts or do you need to feed money into a heavy drug addiction?
Now then, I'm assuming a ruleset such as 3rd edition or Pathfinder 1 or Pathfinder 2 where magic items are expected to be an important part of character customization, and where the default game allows you to purchase vital adventuring bonuses using gold.
My problem then is that just having the heroes find a stash of ill-gotten gains during a bust does not work. I can't ask the players to choose to forego purchasing a Striking weapon just to be able to tell the story of having epic (and epically expensive) parties.
Somehow I need to split the item economy from the world economy, or at least the luxuries economy. I have some ideas, but would like outside feedback. (What would be fun? Have I missed something? And so on...)
This also ties into issues like "should the campaign actively encourage heroes to just confiscate loot from their law enforcement activities?" (I am not (re)starting this summer's controversy on Paizo's Agents of Edgewatch here, I just need to flag I am aware of the issues.)
Simplest approach: two separate currencies.
Example: Gold and credits.
Gold = the stuff you purchase chickens with. Or or bribe city officials with. Or purchase non-magical equipment such as plate mail.
Credits = you can requisition Police HQ for magic items such as +1 striking swords. To do so you need to have accomplished stuff during your career, meaning of course that instead of paying gold you have a running tab of credits (you effectively "pay" 100 credits to check out a brand new +1 striking sword if we're playing Pathfinder 2, since a +1 striking weapon costs 100 gold)
There would then be no magic item shoppes. Gold (taken from perps) can only be checked into evidence or be pilfered for personal use.
Crafting could be very useful if Police HQ only let you check out the fundamentals. If every item is available, then less so, of course.
Luxuries (abstract) approach:
Instead of having to deal with hundreds and tens of thousands of gold, maybe use an abstract approach: luxuries points.
That is, instead of describing a stash as 3,000 gold, simply say 10 luxuries points (say) to be divided between the police officers (heroes) that are present.
The idea here is that if you put 5 luxuries point into "drug habit" that could spawn interesting stories involving maybe a level 5 drug dealer. If you put 7 points into "high class escort" that could result in a level 7 adventure involving maybe a heist or extortion scheme. (Is she playing you or are the two of you scamming another client of hers?) Not solo adventures, but ones where the whole group is there to help out, of course.
So if you are level 5, and you have amassed 15 luxury points, you would be able to indicate (to the GM) which kinds of adventures you would like to see: if you put 8 points into "family" you might end up having a level 8 villain kidnap your wife. If you instead put 4 points into "gambling" and 4 points into "drug habit" you might instead see low-level annoyances where you're constantly harassed by low-level thugs trying to get you to pay your gambling debts or force you into drug distribution or whatever.
My rough aim would be for each hero to have the potential for at least twice her level in luxury points, so each player can indicate two story ideas of a level-appropriate nature. But if one level 10 hero has 30 points while another only has 10 or even none doesn't make a significant difference, since the latter hero can still enjoy having the first one's related adventures.
The benefit of the abstract approach is that nobody needs to figure out the exact economy. (A high level adventurer being good for 20,000 gold is fine when the main outlet for all that wealth is a sword that just happens to cost 20,000 gold. It is mostly a headache if you have to explain a city's economy in terms of exponential wealth)
You would still use figures like 20,000 when it comes to purchasing magic items. For example: at level 17, a Pathfinder 2 hero could quite comfortably afford a 15,000 credits purchase such as a Luck Blade.
But would it be compelling to amass "luxuries points"? Do your players react to gold better?
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- and this campaign is not about completely rootless flawless killer heroes)
