D&D 5E Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game

[Maxperson]

Yeah, and all those numbers are nonsensical rubbish, too. So, lets imagine the market for potions, there are none because it is unprofitable to sell them at 'current prices'. So what exactly ARE these current prices, and how are they set? They sure aren't MARKET prices, because those are set by the law of supply and demand... We can imagine some 'overlord' who enforces certain prices, but then why do adventurers exist at all if he can just impose his will on them? He can obviously quite easily just take care of monsters, etc. without needing to put up with murder-hobos.

Yeah. The numbers are hokey. However, if the skilled hirelings only make 30g a month, and they have to pay expenses, they aren't going to be buying many potions, if any at all. Nobles probably aren't buying many potions. No need. So if all the 3rd level casters(majority of adventuring classes/subclasses) are retiring to make potions, the supply is going to far outweigh the demand.

If a pleasantly secure income is 10gp per month, then 100gp per month is a 10x multiple on that. Clearly you can afford to employ several of these 10gp/month guys (or even less well-paid ones like peasants that might live on 5gp). This means you can enjoy the fruits of several people's labor at the 100gp/month level, which by any definition is certainly well-off!

As for any of the other expenses you posit, why are they mandatory? Sure, some super rich guy might ACTUALLY spend that kind of money, it isn't a law of nature! So it seems to me the original "money doesn't make sense as a motive for adventurers" kind of holds water pretty well!

In my experience, PCs like to donate, build churches, orphanages, castles, keeps, towers, buy property in various towns and cities that are frequent places to visit, try to find a magic item, purchase the freedom of slaves, and on and on and on. Money is hugely important as a motive for most adventurers. It's used for far more than just how much per month to live at X level.

 

[clearstream]

See how this goes? The "character sheet" isn't about the character. Maybe - maybe - it refers to details of the character, if that's what our resolution rules care about. But either way, even if so, the "character sheet" is really a record of the player's resources. "Character creation" similarly isn't how you create a character, but rather how you the player establish your resources to start.

It struck me to think about a player with two characters - two character sheets. I can readily picture the characters separated in the game world, in circumstances normally expected to forestall them availing themselves of one another's resources. 'These' resources belong to this character, 'those' resources to that one. There seems to me in this case something beyond only resources the player controls. We might add further parameters: the location of those resources, which... character (?!) they are available to? At some point I find it easier to call character sheet a record of the character's resources.

Building up the picture further, I can think of limits associated with each character, that ensure what I say must be different depending on which character I am speaking through. An aarakocra allows me to say "I fly there." A dwarf allows me to say "What can I see in this lightless place?"

Thinking of Miguel Sicart's observation that "The player is a reflective subjectivity who comes into the game with her own cultural history as player, together with her cultural and embodied presence. Becoming a player is the act of creating balance between fidelity to the game situation and the fact that the player as subject is only a subset of a cultural and moral being who voluntarily plays, bringing to the game a presence of culture and values that also affect the experience." In some sense player must become subject to game (this is consistent with the concept of authority or governance - "To perform a rule-constituted action at some time is to perform the antecedent action while enacting/accepting the constituting rule (or rules) at the time.") They typically accept terms or limits that form in their character, also gaining pre-agreement to what they can add to the fiction or make more likely added, stores of tempo and such like. Terms and limits are not solely player resources. The possibility of two characters to me suggests a more natural alternative.

I will be interested in your thoughts here

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah. I much prefer a small amount of pay and you keep what you find as incentives. Minus any particular item the party is being sent for anyway.

Well, yeah, the kind of bargain that makes sense is something like "Hey, if you agree to give me the Sword of Light when you recover it, I'll tell you where to find it!" I'd also expect any wise bargainer/authority would send someone along with the ability to at least report back truthfully whether or not said item was found. Assuming trust and ongoing relationships have any meaning at all, the PCs will probably make good on their end of the bargain.

In general I can also imagine various levels of subsidization of adventurers by rulers. Heck, if they get free monster-hunting and such out of it, why not give a tax break? THAT sort of logic doesn't really have to imagine the ruler being powerful enough to enforce anything, just disinterested enough in looting some maze someplace to leave it to others.

Things like dictated potion values though... Its fine to have rules like that, just don't expect them to hold up to any sort of examination. Or else they will provoke something like PCs driving out any other suppliers and demanding realistic payments, etc. Heck, why would PCs behave any better than Bill Gates or Elon Musk? They certainly don't undercharge for their goods! Nor put up with anyone who insists on such if they can help it. Surely Question of All Things ain't putting up with it either, and with a 19 INT (in 1e) there's nothing in this situation he's not figured out, lol.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, yeah, the kind of bargain that makes sense is something like "Hey, if you agree to give me the Sword of Light when you recover it, I'll tell you where to find it!" I'd also expect any wise bargainer/authority would send someone along with the ability to at least report back truthfully whether or not said item was found. Assuming trust and ongoing relationships have any meaning at all, the PCs will probably make good on their end of the bargain.

Well, by the time the party is being sent to recover the Sword of Light, they'll have developed a reputation for delivering on their promises. They'll have found the Pottery of Importance Only to the Princess, the Cure for the Diseased Water and completed other such quests.

Someone may be sent with them, but it's also likely that they'll have a well deserved reputation of trustworthiness and no one will be sent.

In general I can also imagine various levels of subsidization of adventurers by rulers. Heck, if they get free monster-hunting and such out of it, why not give a tax break? THAT sort of logic doesn't really have to imagine the ruler being powerful enough to enforce anything, just disinterested enough in looting some maze someplace to leave it to others.

Agreed.

Things like dictated potion values though... Its fine to have rules like that, just don't expect them to hold up to any sort of examination. Or else they will provoke something like PCs driving out any other suppliers and demanding realistic payments, etc. Heck, why would PCs behave any better than Bill Gates or Elon Musk? They certainly don't undercharge for their goods! Nor put up with anyone who insists on such if they can help it. Surely Question of All Things ain't putting up with it either, and with a 19 INT (in 1e) there's nothing in this situation he's not figured out, lol.

I agree and don't personally use the book for pricing. I use my own prices and magic items, when they can even be found, cost significantly more than the book suggests. Creation of items is also more time consuming and difficult.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah. The numbers are hokey. However, if the skilled hirelings only make 30g a month, and they have to pay expenses, they aren't going to be buying many potions, if any at all. Nobles probably aren't buying many potions. No need. So if all the 3rd level casters(majority of adventuring classes/subclasses) are retiring to make potions, the supply is going to far outweigh the demand.

Maybe, but markets generally tend to adjust to a balance. The main reason that would NOT happen is bad or unbalanced availability of information, etc.

So, for instance, a PC might be forced to sell his goods at 50% of what it would cost to make them, when he's not a true participant in the market and has restricted access/information. That is, some circumstance could create this situation. OTOH if there's really 'not much market for potions', then they really aren't valuable. Yet we KNOW they have a constituency who DOES value them, adventurers! Clearly they will pay something above the cost of production, though the demand may well be insufficient to support an actual industry and/or market for the goods.

Thus the common in-game 'sell at 50%' sort of conception COULD be sustainable, sort of. Only if the goods sold by the PCs are pretty sparce though. A potion sold as a curio or a one-off special thing, yes. OTOH, it is MUCH more likely you can command at least the cost of production.

In my experience, PCs like to donate, build churches, orphanages, castles, keeps, towers, buy property in various towns and cities that are frequent places to visit, try to find a magic item, purchase the freedom of slaves, and on and on and on. Money is hugely important as a motive for most adventurers. It's used for far more than just how much per month to live at X level.

People like money, yes. OTOH IRL few people who are financially insecure do these sorts of things. Well, if they do they are fools. So maybe some adventurers behave that way, OTOH a lot of them probably won't.

 

[Maxperson]

Maybe, but markets generally tend to adjust to a balance. The main reason that would NOT happen is bad or unbalanced availability of information, etc.

So, for instance, a PC might be forced to sell his goods at 50% of what it would cost to make them, when he's not a true participant in the market and has restricted access/information. That is, some circumstance could create this situation. OTOH if there's really 'not much market for potions', then they really aren't valuable. Yet we KNOW they have a constituency who DOES value them, adventurers! Clearly they will pay something above the cost of production, though the demand may well be insufficient to support an actual industry and/or market for the goods.

Thus the common in-game 'sell at 50%' sort of conception COULD be sustainable, sort of. Only if the goods sold by the PCs are pretty sparce though. A potion sold as a curio or a one-off special thing, yes. OTOH, it is MUCH more likely you can command at least the cost of production.

Yes. You and I are on the same page here. Many of my comments were based on the presumptions put forth by @HammerMan who said that adventurers will have 10-50k in gold by 5th level(yeah, right) and/or retire as 3rd level spellcasters and get rich off of selling magic items. Under the presumption most adventurers are retired very early and there would be a surplus of created magic items and few remaining adventurers to buy them.

People like money, yes. OTOH IRL few people who are financially insecure do these sorts of things. Well, if they do they are fools. So maybe some adventurers behave that way, OTOH a lot of them probably won't.

I think most people with reliable financial sense are probably not going off to adventure in the first place.

Many others have personal goals that will be met by spending the money in various ways such as I described, so they're not necessarily examples of foolish spending.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes. You and I are on the same page here. Many of my comments were based on the presumptions put forth by @HammerMan who said that adventurers will have 10-50k in gold by 5th level(yeah, right) and/or retire as 3rd level spellcasters and get rich off of selling magic items. Under the presumption most adventurers are retired very early and there would be a surplus of created magic items and few remaining adventurers to buy them.

I think most people with reliable financial sense are probably not going off to adventure in the first place.

Many others have personal goals that will be met by spending the money in various ways such as I described, so they're not necessarily examples of foolish spending.

Not foolish if you have the means. My point is, if a guy with $5 million decides to build a $4.5 million luxury yacht, and has no reliable source of income, you wouldn't call him 'wise'. Sure, if he's got a $1 billion and regularly rakes in more, there's no such thing as foolish. You were using all these huge expenses to explain why adventurers are broke though, and I would just pointing out that the smart ones hoard their money and maybe invest in a nice potion shop...

And I don't really see why its not feasible for adventurers to normally only get 50gp for selling a potion, but the retail price of 100gp makes selling them profitable, albeit the market may be small. If said adventurer joins the Alchemy Guild (good luck with that) then he can get the needed license, and of course he'll need to rent a stall at the market (contracts run for a year, 500gp up front) etc. Well, now we know why Joe the Blade just sells his surplus potions for 50gp each... OTOH if he wants to retire and make money as a potion master, what's the issue? I never understood why that had to be somehow decreed a bad thing by the GM. No doubt Joe becomes an NPC at that point, or there's a LONG interlude in his adventuring career, whatever. At the end of that interlude he's slightly wealthier than before, but most of it is sunk into stuff that isn't very fungible, like his alchemy license and marketplace lease.

Anyway, we agree, it isn't that easy to just 'get rich', OTOH if you have some mad skills like potion brewing or spell casting, that might do it. I've always favored the sort of logic that says there really aren't adventurer types wandering around. Yeah, there may be a few NPC specialist guys that can do some of the same stuff, in their niche area, but your wizard is pretty much THE wizard, at least in most regions. Perhaps if he goes to the mythical Island of High Wizardry he'll be just some schmuck, but in his home town? Nope, he's that one guy who can cast a spell, pretty much... (there's that witch down the road, but don't look at her teeth too closely, or go near her place after dark).

 

[Maxperson]

Not foolish if you have the means. My point is, if a guy with $5 million decides to build a $4.5 million luxury yacht, and has no reliable source of income, you wouldn't call him 'wise'. Sure, if he's got a $1 billion and regularly rakes in more, there's no such thing as foolish. You were using all these huge expenses to explain why adventurers are broke though, and I would just pointing out that the smart ones hoard their money and maybe invest in a nice potion shop...

Not explain why they are broke, but rather why they are not retired.

I had a PC once who took his first biggish haul and opened up a shop that sold eclectic goods. I hired people to run it while we were away and paid well to inspire loyalty(less theft). They bought and sold items to make money, but I also used it to sell the magic items and goods that we acquired adventuring. I mean, why sell to a merchant for half-price when I could sell it through my store and get full price(minus shop expenses)?

And I don't really see why its not feasible for adventurers to normally only get 50gp for selling a potion, but the retail price of 100gp makes selling them profitable, albeit the market may be small. If said adventurer joins the Alchemy Guild (good luck with that) then he can get the needed license, and of course he'll need to rent a stall at the market (contracts run for a year, 500gp up front) etc. Well, now we know why Joe the Blade just sells his surplus potions for 50gp each... OTOH if he wants to retire and make money as a potion master, what's the issue? I never understood why that had to be somehow decreed a bad thing by the GM. No doubt Joe becomes an NPC at that point, or there's a LONG interlude in his adventuring career, whatever. At the end of that interlude he's slightly wealthier than before, but most of it is sunk into stuff that isn't very fungible, like his alchemy license and marketplace lease.

Again, we're on the same page here.

Anyway, we agree, it isn't that easy to just 'get rich', OTOH if you have some mad skills like potion brewing or spell casting, that might do it. I've always favored the sort of logic that says there really aren't adventurer types wandering around. Yeah, there may be a few NPC specialist guys that can do some of the same stuff, in their niche area, but your wizard is pretty much THE wizard, at least in most regions. Perhaps if he goes to the mythical Island of High Wizardry he'll be just some schmuck, but in his home town? Nope, he's that one guy who can cast a spell, pretty much... (there's that witch down the road, but don't look at her teeth too closely, or go near her place after dark).

Yeah. Spellcasters are fairly rare in my game. If the PCs go to the main temple in the entire Forgotten Realms for a major deity, the high priest will be a cleric with double digit levels(or the 5e stat block equivalent), and there will probably be 3-6 more clerics there of lower levels. A lesser major temple's high priest MIGHT have low double digit levels(or 5e stat block equivalent) and 1-3 lower clerics. A medium temple probably has 1 single digit level cleric and MAYBE 1 other cleric there. Shrines and lesser temples may not have a cleric at all. Acolyte background priests are 99% of the priesthood. Wizards are similarly limited in number, and sorcerers rarer than that since they are bloodline related.

 

[Lanefan]

That whole ploy of some 'quest giver' rolling out "AND I'll let you keep half the treasure!" always amused me. Like, how are you going to collect your half? You want to try to get that armed murder-hobo who's clearly higher level than you are (or why would you hire him) to give up even 1gp? Good luck! Same with taxes, just try to tax me, suckers! Its a conceit that makes exactly zero sense, pretty much ever.

This assumes the party is planning to burn bridges as fast as it meets them and never stay in the same realm for long; as having friends in high places is hella more useful than putting yourselves on a 'Wanted' poster.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, and all those numbers are nonsensical rubbish, too. So, lets imagine the market for potions, there are none because it is unprofitable to sell them at 'current prices'. So what exactly ARE these current prices, and how are they set? They sure aren't MARKET prices, because those are set by the law of supply and demand... We can imagine some 'overlord' who enforces certain prices, but then why do adventurers exist at all if he can just impose his will on them? He can obviously quite easily just take care of monsters, etc. without needing to put up with murder-hobos.

The whole concept is laughable. We could also just as easily deconstruct the whole cost of living argument. If a pleasantly secure income is 10gp per month, then 100gp per month is a 10x multiple on that. Clearly you can afford to employ several of these 10gp/month guys (or even less well-paid ones like peasants that might live on 5gp). This means you can enjoy the fruits of several people's labor at the 100gp/month level, which by any definition is certainly well-off!

Think of a major manor house or small castle along the lines of Downton Abbey. That place had dozens of people on staff, and that's before needing to worry about guards or security. There's also ongoing maintenance on the building and outbuildings, which can add up.

What Max didn't mention but maybe should have is that unless the manor house is in a big city town there's a good chance it and-or its surrounding lands will also generate some income - maybe not enough to offset expenses, but better than nothing.

Not every adventurer will want to go this route, of course; but for those that do it very much can be a drain on finances.