D&D 4E The 4e Economy

[beholdsa]

Haven't we had enough of trickle-down dragonomics?

I laughed quite heartily when I read this.

...I hope most people actually get the economics/politics reference...

 

[AffableVagrant]

So we'd get a table maybe as big as 20x20 that would fit a page, and then some modifiers that would move us up/down the rows or left/right the columns (think of the Leadership table as an example). The lists of modifiers could have maybe a dozen of them each. The content of each cell of the table is a % value that the DM rolls to let the players know if they found the item for sale (retry allowed only after 1 week).

That actually would be nearly perfect. All the tables and modifiers could fit onto my DM screen, no problem. It also allows players to metagame in a good way, because then they're thinking about finding cities with water access, without much political turmoil, where taxes are low, etc... and actually think about how they want to unload their valuables. "Better market for armor in town A than in town B, but it will take a week longer to get to A..." etc. Maybe the import/export entries into cities in Eberron and FR could acually adopt some crunch to this effect (example: Likelihood of finding large-sized weapons triples in Xen'drik) I might actually borrow that idea for my 3e games.

I like!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I must sound like a shill by now but the Expeditious Retreat Western Europe book had a good system for determining the difficulty of finding various items and altering their price as a result of difficulty. Their Silk Road book probably one-ups it but I dont have that one.

Yeah, the new edition of A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe is the 4E book I most want, frankly. Astonishingly good and useful book.

 

[gizmo33]

Anyone else with me on this one?

In general, yes, but I think the complexity of a completely realistic solution would unplayable. So I guess it's a matter of finding the sweetspot.