NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8507883" data-attributes="member: 16814">I didn't notice a joke? Regardless, if we can establish that some things aren't in question, then we're again just haggling over the details -- there's no strong premise statement to be made anymore, it's preference and thresholds.  If you allow that walking across a room is not in question, then we've allowed that some things aren't in question and so don't need rolls.  Now we're arguing over what questions might occur.  In your recent example to [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER], the doors that were locked but which you could persevere through eventually but no failure has any consequence except no progress, the need to make these checks -- ie, the question that they the PCs will be successful -- is one that individuals can answer only for themselves.  Personally, I don't like wasting table time saying, "nope, you can try again," until a value is reached.  To me, this is the dice equivalent of pixelbitching -- you have to get the right number on the RNG and this is like just waiting until the right sequence of words is put together to give an answer or the right pixel clicked.  The only thing being tested here is the players' patience, and I don't really care to test that.  You might, and this is fine, but a claim that there's some strong principle governing when rolls should be made is bunk -- we've already agreed that no principle applies for walking across a room.  Whether or not it does for opening a locked door is just haggling over the price.As for what they spend money on, I have two answers -- I don't care and I do care.  In the I don't care mode it's usually because I'm running a WotC AP and so murderhoboism is assumed as the default, not too much money is actually generated in the adventures, and I don't really care how much they have because putting pressure on it isn't a concern -- we're done with these characters as soon as the thin hooks in the adventure are complete.  In my own games, I simply make sure that the PCs are rooted in the gameworld.  Make lifestyle expenses matter.  PHB costs are for basic versions.  There's no haggling down prices just because you're nice -- I've worked retail and nice people get good service, but they don't get discounts.  Unless a merchant can afford a discount, or operates on a haggle basis (which means no fixed prices at all), then haggling is something you have to do more for than a winning smile and some charm.  Buy in bulk.  Be a patron.  Have a reputation such that selling to you is a benefit for the shopkeeper because they can say you shop here.  Basically, ground the PCs in the world and there's no end of things they can spend their money on -- all without opening a single magic shop.In my Sigil game, everything is for sale in Sigil.  The question is do you know someone willing to sell it, and at what price?  Here I tied access to who you knew, so the attitude of the factions towards you.  You could go to a faction and ask for access, and it was run using the NPC actions, with the faction attitude fixed.  Thing is, faction attitude was gonna be tied to your lifestyle expenses.   Improving faction attitudes required helping the factions -- not just making nice.  That often cost money, in that helping a faction either cost you to do a thing they wanted or you didn't earn while you were doing it.  I had PCs amass large amounts of coin -- a few 10ks at one point -- and they promptly bled it out getting access to advance what they wanted to do, to improve favor, or to buy something on the market they could access.Finally, you control how much money goes out to begin with.  If your players have too much money, there's only one person to blame for this.</blockquote>

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