D&D 5E No Magic Shops!

[Warmaster Horus]

Have you looked at the Starfinder item level system? I'd be curious about your take on that. Bottom of the page over here:

http://www.starfindersrd.com/equipment/

After years of working with Bounded Accuracy I find that more compelling than the gotta-level-my-gear hamster wheel model.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

It always struck me as strange that 5e is designed to be the "power to the DM" edition, but that excising support for the magic item economy implies that it's bad-wrong-fun. I mean, enough people like that style of play that the "Sane Magic Item Prices" homebrew became a thing.

Other than organized play, which has item regulation ostensibly as a method of balancing various tiers of play (with hit-and-miss success IMHO), I don't see any implied bad-wrong-fun implication. The models provided by WotC are suggestions that go along with their idea of bounded accuracy assumptions, ie magic is not essential to characters as they level. That's a base case, which they cater to, but in any home game the sky is the limit and has some level of support, especially with the release of XGtE.

Nothing forces you to use those systems in your home campaign, either, other than the collective echo chamber found on the internet which tends to be conformist so to avoid groupthink criticism (again IMHO).

 

[Mad_Jack]

Personally, I buy all my magic items from Amazing!.com

The adult sex toy company?

 

[ccs]

Please don't give me the "you're the DM you can do what you want if you can't solve the issues arising from lacking support from WotC you're a bad DM" routine.

Ok then, I'll give you a choice:
A) You're an inexperienced DM
B) You're a lazy DM
C) You're a bad DM
D) You're none of the above & don't see whatever others are going about as a problem. So no action needed.

You pick. What type of DM are you?

The entire plot of ToA centers on no downtime at all. When do you build castles and run inns in OotA? When do you open an orphanage in SKT?.

The problem here is not that gold is worthless. Or that there's nothing to spend it on. It's the approach to adventure writing WoTC has adopted. They've taken adventures that should be stand alones, that'd provide a lv or several, and stretched them out into entire lv1-15 campaigns.
I'm no more likely to build a castle or run an inn while running about trying to stop giant clans/demon lords/active lich plots/5-headed dragon gods/etc here in 5e than I ever was back in 1e.
That's the stuff you do BETWEEN such plots.

Look, all I'm saying is that the DMG makes treasure seem very important with tables and the whole shabanbs. But in reality, there's nothing much to spend gold on after plate mail. If WotC really wanted your to do the old "name-level" domain buildng, thay should have provided official support right out the door.

There's as much to spend your gold on as you & especially your DM care for.
Those treasure tables are much more valuable if you're writing your own stuff.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Ok then, I'll give you a choice:
A) You're an inexperienced DM
B) You're a lazy DM
C) You're a bad DM
D) You're none of the above & don't see whatever others are going about as a problem. So no action needed.

You pick. What type of DM are you?
.

You forgot the non-strawman options.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

You forgot the non-strawman options.

One strawman argument is that WotC somehow owes the community a fully balanced economics system that works with gold and magic items in all styles of games. The truth is there ain't no such critter. At least not for the whole or even majority of the community. Different games and groups will have different experiences, amounts of time to develop and expectations. So WotC provides some guiding suggestions but going any further just opens the can of discontent even further.

The only answer out there right now is 'do what you think works'. The complaint that published campaigns don't provide enough 'breathing room' to have such systems in placed has some merit if your intent is to play them as written from level 1 to 15. But this can be worked around by editing those works in a way that allows you to drop in/out of them throughout a group's adventuring lifespan. It's a pretty recent development that a single book covers the entire gamut of a party's adventures.

 

[5ekyu]

That is not in question. The only interesting question is if you want to deny that play style to those that like it.

uhhh... how is that interesting when what you describe is impossible?

At any table, players choose the rules of their game - no one anywhere outside of that can deny them that.

Now, obviously, if some want the spreadsheets and some don't there will need to be some agreement reached as to how things work in that campaign.

based on my previous experience, i would not again play in the spreadsheet type of game (play equals either as Gm or player.) If involved at the pre-game campaign discussion i would do my best to lobby for not using the spreadsheets approach as i described above. No idea how that would turn out but if it went the other way then i would bow out as its not likely going to be a good fit for me. i would simply find another game more suited to my preferences or (most likely) start one.

But i am not in a position to deny anyone else their choice of playstyle. they just have to find a game where that playstyle fits with the other players' expectations and preferences.

But as noted in the original example, i left that game - did not try and "deny them" anything except perhaps the glorious joy of my company for a few hours a week.

 

[5ekyu]

One strawman argument is that WotC somehow owes the community a fully balanced economics system that works with gold and magic items in all styles of games. The truth is there ain't no such critter. At least not for the whole or even majority of the community. Different games and groups will have different experiences, amounts of time to develop and expectations. So WotC provides some guiding suggestions but going any further just opens the can of discontent even further.

The only answer out there right now is 'do what you think works'. The complaint that published campaigns don't provide enough 'breathing room' to have such systems in placed has some merit if your intent is to play them as written from level 1 to 15. But this can be worked around by editing those works in a way that allows you to drop in/out of them throughout a group's adventuring lifespan. It's a pretty recent development that a single book covers the entire gamut of a party's adventures.

i agree absolutely. i think that those campaigns packs can work better as broken into stages that have gaps between them. Shifting the connections between chapters a bit to drop those tie-ins later helps a lot for using them within a campaign IMO. i am glad they off different legs/chapters at different level rnages but i wish the "interludes" were presented with a lot more of a "pick any of these options" kind of thing allowing more easily the "immediate follow" or the "later on this happens" etc.

That could also be used to help with level disparity when it hits.

 

[Tanin Wulf]

After years of working with Bounded Accuracy I find that more compelling than the gotta-level-my-gear hamster wheel model.

It's Hämsterviel! Hämsterviel!!!

 

[ad_hoc]

What the CapN is alluding to but yet not dares mention apparently, is the fact that there's very little to spend gold on if you're not interested in henchmen/keeps/domains/inns/tax collectors/etc. or any of the other money sinks that always gets touted as the solution to the worthlessness of gold. The official adventures from WotC (not AL) allows very littel if any downtime, making gold worthless in the published adventures.

I think it all depends on the campaign goals.

If the goal of the party is to stop the thing from happening or to survive then the gold doesn't really matter.

Take Curse of Strahd. The PCs want to survive. Ultimately that means taking on Strahd (sorry for the spoilers). Gathering gold doesn't matter to them because there are more pressing matters.

The campaign I'm currently running is a sandbox using TftYP as a base. The goal of the PCs is to gather gold and other treasure. There is an economy at work. There is downtime. The party must decide wisely what to spend their gold on.

I am happy that 5e supports different styles of campaigns like this.