Simpler Economics, reducing the costs. Help needed

[Sound of Azure]

Hello all,

I was going over some of my campaign material the other day and reading through the "rewards" section in the DMG.
I've realised that my ideas for the campaign don't really match up with the usual D&D amount of rewards. I've always found it hard to picture thousands of coins, or people carting it about.

I'm not trying to punish my players or deny them anything. I still want them to be well-off and be rewarded for their actions. They'll still get rewarded, it would just look like a lot less on paper.

With magical doo-dads having a different (and lesser) role in the campaign, what need is there for the vast amounts of gold that adventurers usually have in my game? They could buy land I guess, or ships and goods but I don't know if my players would be interested in that or not. I would prefer to de-emphasise the need for large amounts of coin- I want the money to have more value relative to items. It would possibly appear that items are extremely cheap, but there isn't much money, so it would even out (hopefully).

Has anyone done this before? Any tips on actually implementing something like this?
Please help me out!

 

[FrostedMini1337]

Forgive, for I am slow, but if I understand correctly, you want to give your players rewards (GP and Magic items), but instead of giving them these things (Because the campaign is low magic items and because hauling around large amounts of coins is lame), you'd like them to have different and more mundane rewards? So they would still have money and resources available to them, but not in coin form. My puny brain can't comprehend what this sentence means: "I want the money to have more value relative to items"

You mentioned ships and land. IME players find this sort of thing a lot cooler than you'd expect. Give them a ship or land as a reward for a quest. (This a bit of an issue if they are just dungeon delving, but even then, they can find the deed/writ/charter in the big treasure room or whatever). The cool thing here is it gives them cool stuff outside of combat to do, and gives you adventure hooks.

So now they have a ship/ or some land. The ship is cool because they can either use it go adventuring/pirating or put it to a more mundane use, most likely letting a merchant or trading company use it for trade for a set fee. If they have land, they can have people start farming it and giving them the excess and now they have a base. Then you can expand upon it. Maybe the PCs agree to do something else for the same noble/king. Next time he rewards them with exclusive trade contracts and another ship or he agrees to have hovels built on the land and elevates them to Lords or something.

This solves your ecnomics problem pretty nicely: not only do the PCs have wealth at their disposal (and ships and land don't devalue much if upkept), but these will actually slowly generate wealth for the PCs even if they take a very hands off approach to them, and it will only increase if they choose to get very hands on with it. On top of that, they can "borrow against" both of these assets. (If they need mroe cash than they have on hand, they can make promises of next years crops, or useage of shipping in lieu of actual cash)

And finally, if this whole thing is too passive and roleplay intensive, don't worry: it will most likely come back to combat eventually. When the PCs realize that they have a fleet of ships or hundreds of peasents at their command (or both), it's a matter of time before they turn to pirating or start itching at war or a rebellion. It's just what PC's do.

Hope that helps. If not, scold me and I'll try harder.

 

[Sound of Azure]

heh. I should learn to be clearer.

You did more or less get the idea and have made a lot of great suggestions, as well as easing my mind.

It really wouldn't surprise me if my PCs go marching up to the slightly hostile empire up north with an army, or go buccaneering. That would be pretty cool!

What I meant was this: (I'll do it point by point, so that I have a greater chance to actually make sense for once )

- I think PCs get too much money/valuables in contemporary games.
-my campaign won't feature many magic items
-magic items are pretty much made when a spirit blesses an item. They can be made, and traded for...but not with thousands upon thousands of GP.
-So the the PCs won't get much in the way of treasure
-But...I don't want the players feeling like they're not getting anything.
-So I want to reduce the coin value of everything in the game (eg long sword). The PCs won't have as much gold, but the gold they do have will buy a lot more.
-Rewards-wise you got my point exactly!


Hey, thanks for your thoughts. I have a bit more thinking to do, I reckon... but you have eased my mind a lot. Cheers!

 

[Sepulchrave II]

The easiest fix is to simply change all references in gold to silver - i.e. a longsword becomes 15sp instead of 15gp. Gold becomes rare. Magic (presumably) can't be bought anyway. This will also get you closer to the historical value of metals.

Enforce barter to reflect scarcity of coins (you want this longsword? nice saddle, you've got there...).

 

[Sound of Azure]

Not a bad idea, thanks Sepulchrave!

Magic will be able to be bought...but only direct magic- that is, spell casting. You could buy a magic item in theory, but you'd have to convince the spirit that inhabits said item to work with you.

Barter, eh? Great idea. The PCs are starting in one of the trade capitals of their region, so that should be great!

 

[FrostedMini1337]

Btw i have a history of not discenring peoples meanings.

This is a bit more intense, but if you want spellcasting to be rare you could go back to 1st Ed rules where everything had a material component, and so when the PCs run in a hidden cache of RareMoss and a Clove of Cantfinditnormallly it means a lot because the PC or NPCs can cast x obscure spells.

Or if you wanna work that in the magic item thing: X rare crap makes inhabiting items more easier, or helps in diplomcizing with said spirits, and thus finding it is helpful.

Or even more generally than that reward/give them acess to crap that hard/needed to get in the area. Reward them with water in the desert, whale blubber and furs in the artic, and information in the city. Players will be slightly amused and slightly annoyed until they find out the power of whatever they hold.

Final note: if you're running low magic items, have you looked in the mastercrafting rules from say d20 modern or AGOT campaign settings? They lend well to low magic settings.

 

[Nyaricus]

The easiest fix is to simply change all references in gold to silver - i.e. a longsword becomes 15sp instead of 15gp. Gold becomes rare. Magic (presumably) can't be bought anyway. This will also get you closer to the historical value of metals.

Enforce barter to reflect scarcity of coins (you want this longsword? nice saddle, you've got there...).

You basically stole the words out of my mouth

Bartering would indeed be much more common back in the day, and I might be tempted to go with gold=sp times 2. So a 15 gp longsword in D&D would be a 30 sp longsword in your campaign SoA. JMHO, but I think it'd work

 

[Sound of Azure]

Coool. Sounds good to me!

Hey, are you still doing your Amnian campaign in the Murann area?

 

[Conaill]

The easiest fix is to simply change all references in gold to silver - i.e. a longsword becomes 15sp instead of 15gp. Gold becomes rare. Magic (presumably) can't be bought anyway. This will also get you closer to the historical value of metals.

Note that this doesn't actually *do* anything. Silver becomes the new gold. Gold becomes the new platinum. And copper becomes the new silver.

So now instead of tens of thousands of gold pieces, the PCs will just be carrying thousands of gold pieces. Or tens of housands of silver pieces. And everybody else in the world will still be lucky if they can leave just a goldpiece or two to their children when they die...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Instead of magic items and treasure, award things like:

1) Contacts & Favors: In a world where magic items are rare, powerful institutions are likely to be among the likely hoarders of such power. That being the case, adventurers who do mighty deeds could earn the right to use such items on occasion...a free scrying, a free healing, perhaps even the use of a powerful weapon for a particular adventure. (Side benefit- fewer PCs specializing in a particular weapon, combat style or spellcasting tricks.)

Other contacts could be well placed spies, snitches, apothecaries, fences, or bartenders...

If you're a really good DM, you'll be able to use those contacts not just when they players ask to use them, but possibly in ways they don't expect.

Perhaps the young Romny girl they free from a dungeon and promises them she will help them in the future will do so when they least expect it... Perhaps by convincing her relatives to provide them with lodging in a far land, or forged papers of introduction, or even horses the likes of which few have ever seen, along with the message "Little Ishka thus repays your kindness..."

2) Political power & Influence/fame: Basically, you give the players a chance to shape the campaign world without killing stuff or let them earn a lifestyle that is the FRPG of a Hollywood celebrity.

"Hyreth the Troll-slayer? Your gold's no good here! You'll stay on the house, my good man! Only the best for you!"

"Hyreth- what say you on the matter of trading with the Dwarves of Dimmur Pass?"

3) Bonus Feats or other expanded abilities: Everyone likes tweeking their PCs. After one adventure in a campaign I ran a few years ago, my players inadvertently blew up a wizards tower (really, they had no choice) and everything was destroyed. No treasure...

But the eldritch energy released in the destruction changed each PC in a certain way. Think Inuyasha & the Sacred Jewel Shards, or how the Hulk or the Fantastic Four got their powers.

4) Rerolls. There are a lot of systems that do this.