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<blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 8252054" data-attributes="member: 72555"><p>So, if you take the approach that magic items you can buy are no more "you pick" than the ones you find, then the gold buying magic items just produces more plot.</p><p></p><p>Finding someone to sell you, or make, a legendary X is an adventure in itself. The reward? You spend money and get the legendary X.</p><p></p><p>And maybe the spending of the money isn't "hand it over", but "I want Y", and you have to spend money to get Y, then deliver it to the person selling the legendary item.</p><p></p><p>Spending money to make money should be spending money to make adventure.</p><p></p><p>As an example, sailing ships used to be huge gambles. You bought it, and there was a decent chance it wouldn't come back from the trading journey. Your trading post gets threatened by orcs. The keep you made is on claimed land (by more than 1 party), and one or more of them demands fealty.</p><p></p><p>The engine shouldn't be "spend gold, get income". It should be "invest gold, get adventure".</p><p></p><p>That adventure in turn can generate gold.</p><p></p><p>Is this a bit of an naughty word thing to do as a DM? A goal is to turn the player's actions into adventure. And a safe ROI isn't adventure, nor does it match historical investment.</p><p></p><p>Investments that safely return even 1% per year don't exist prior to an industrial revolution by a dominant superpower. Because 1% per year ROI starting 4000 years ago is x192,972,369,947,315,104 - 1/5th of a billion billion.</p><p></p><p>Instead, the economy looks more like:</p><p>1) Hording wealth is expensive because you have to defend it.</p><p>2) You invest wealth in order to make it harder to steal.</p><p>3) If you invest 100 tonnes of gold now, and in 20 years you can extract 50 tonnes of gold from it, and it kept itself safe, score.</p><p></p><p>The rich where the people who owned land and had some kind of security that they could keep it. They spent their resources maintaining that security through any way they could. Produced wealth was spent soon after it was produced, not horded; first spent on attempting to maintain the land you had, and then spent on more security.</p><p></p><p>If you got extra security (troops) you spent it on attacking your neighbors to take their land before your neighbors did it to you. Eventually larger states formed, and you cooperated with your neighbors to attack people even further away. This also kept your peasant population down as it would quickly outpace the requirements to farm your land; having some die in wars means less mouths to feed.</p><p></p><p>Cities where dumping grounds for excess population, and filthy and disease ridden. They would generate wealth in easier to trade forms, so where valuable, but where generally population-sinks not sources; more people moved into them than moved out, and more people moved in than they grew. It was better than starving in the fields -- think of it as an alternative to shipping people off to die in wars. You send them to a city, where their death rates are similar, but you get wealth <em>without</em> it being quite as zero-sum.</p><p></p><p>It is only on the margins that investment opportunities that generate net profit come out, beyond the "produce food" -- almost all of the wealth is literally "food". That food gets horded by peasants who don't like starving, so isn't cheap to get even if you own the land, and they use the food to produce more peasants, which you as a ruler don't have a need for ... so you spend them in a city or in wars for stuff you might find useful, like more land or trade goods.</p><p></p><p>But that is just blather.</p><p></p><p>The main point is, you can frame it as spending money to make money for the PCs.</p><p></p><p>But the mechanics should be investing money to generate adventuring opportunities. And change the world.</p><p></p><p></p><p>For price? Naw, rarity isn't all that bad.</p><p></p><p>And yes, this means that item X which is worse than Y is cheaper. That only really matters <strong>if you have a magic mart</strong>.</p><p></p><p>I don't see why.</p><p></p><p>How much gold the PCs has varies, and the amount of gold you as a DM feel like you should be sucking out of them or giving to them when they sell stuff varies.</p><p></p><p>The idea of that range is to give the DM a ballpark of "lots" of money if you follow something vaguely like the DM treasure schedule. That really is all that is needed, for a DM, at least one not looking to have a magic mart.</p><p></p><p>For a player looking to magic mart, it is useless.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="NotAYakk, post: 8252054, member: 72555"] So, if you take the approach that magic items you can buy are no more "you pick" than the ones you find, then the gold buying magic items just produces more plot. Finding someone to sell you, or make, a legendary X is an adventure in itself. The reward? You spend money and get the legendary X. And maybe the spending of the money isn't "hand it over", but "I want Y", and you have to spend money to get Y, then deliver it to the person selling the legendary item. Spending money to make money should be spending money to make adventure. As an example, sailing ships used to be huge gambles. You bought it, and there was a decent chance it wouldn't come back from the trading journey. Your trading post gets threatened by orcs. The keep you made is on claimed land (by more than 1 party), and one or more of them demands fealty. The engine shouldn't be "spend gold, get income". It should be "invest gold, get adventure". That adventure in turn can generate gold. Is this a bit of an naughty word thing to do as a DM? A goal is to turn the player's actions into adventure. And a safe ROI isn't adventure, nor does it match historical investment. Investments that safely return even 1% per year don't exist prior to an industrial revolution by a dominant superpower. Because 1% per year ROI starting 4000 years ago is x192,972,369,947,315,104 - 1/5th of a billion billion. Instead, the economy looks more like: 1) Hording wealth is expensive because you have to defend it. 2) You invest wealth in order to make it harder to steal. 3) If you invest 100 tonnes of gold now, and in 20 years you can extract 50 tonnes of gold from it, and it kept itself safe, score. The rich where the people who owned land and had some kind of security that they could keep it. They spent their resources maintaining that security through any way they could. Produced wealth was spent soon after it was produced, not horded; first spent on attempting to maintain the land you had, and then spent on more security. If you got extra security (troops) you spent it on attacking your neighbors to take their land before your neighbors did it to you. Eventually larger states formed, and you cooperated with your neighbors to attack people even further away. This also kept your peasant population down as it would quickly outpace the requirements to farm your land; having some die in wars means less mouths to feed. Cities where dumping grounds for excess population, and filthy and disease ridden. They would generate wealth in easier to trade forms, so where valuable, but where generally population-sinks not sources; more people moved into them than moved out, and more people moved in than they grew. It was better than starving in the fields -- think of it as an alternative to shipping people off to die in wars. You send them to a city, where their death rates are similar, but you get wealth [I]without[/I] it being quite as zero-sum. It is only on the margins that investment opportunities that generate net profit come out, beyond the "produce food" -- almost all of the wealth is literally "food". That food gets horded by peasants who don't like starving, so isn't cheap to get even if you own the land, and they use the food to produce more peasants, which you as a ruler don't have a need for ... so you spend them in a city or in wars for stuff you might find useful, like more land or trade goods. But that is just blather. The main point is, you can frame it as spending money to make money for the PCs. But the mechanics should be investing money to generate adventuring opportunities. And change the world. For price? Naw, rarity isn't all that bad. And yes, this means that item X which is worse than Y is cheaper. That only really matters [b]if you have a magic mart[/b]. I don't see why. How much gold the PCs has varies, and the amount of gold you as a DM feel like you should be sucking out of them or giving to them when they sell stuff varies. The idea of that range is to give the DM a ballpark of "lots" of money if you follow something vaguely like the DM treasure schedule. That really is all that is needed, for a DM, at least one not looking to have a magic mart. For a player looking to magic mart, it is useless. [/QUOTE]
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