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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6578676" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Yeah, this is a good point, the parcel system is the proper lever for the acquisition of things. In fact the natural way to work it would be an SC with the resulting loot being whatever object it was that was desired, or at least the acquisition of the requisite 'ingredients', which could be combined with a ritual or some such thing. 4e was very insistent that all the PCs assets fall into its managed wealth paradigm. This was somewhat of a two-edged sword, but does work well for a game where the primary focus is on action-adventure and character assets are all pretty much things they will use to increase their character's power. </p><p></p><p>It tends to crumble a bit when you get into a more varied genre of play. If you have a little bit of say fortune building, maybe a group of characters that have a ship (which is an item of wealth) if they do a little trading on the side you can just run it as SCs with further treasure resulting, but if the party tries to focus entirely on being merchants, then the game simply has little to say about that, and the whole advancement system being tied in with wealth makes it awkward. Its hard to make a really compelling narrative in which acts of commercial greed result in XP gains and treasure parcels in an adventuring class. Nor are the mechanics present to support it, and the ones that do exist aren't really tuned to presenting that as a challenging endeavor. </p><p></p><p>Of course no other edition does it terribly well either. People will claim that 3.5 does, but its skill system and economic assumptions are so bonkers that you need to basically write a whole mini-game to make it work, which is really no better off than you are with 4e. 5e is even less helpful, its economic assumptions are the weakest of all, AFAICT as it insists on trying to take valuable items out of the economy entirely, which is nonsensical. Again, at least 4e has an SC system that allows some sort of framing of challenges that aren't combat or basic exploration related.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 6578676, member: 82106"] Yeah, this is a good point, the parcel system is the proper lever for the acquisition of things. In fact the natural way to work it would be an SC with the resulting loot being whatever object it was that was desired, or at least the acquisition of the requisite 'ingredients', which could be combined with a ritual or some such thing. 4e was very insistent that all the PCs assets fall into its managed wealth paradigm. This was somewhat of a two-edged sword, but does work well for a game where the primary focus is on action-adventure and character assets are all pretty much things they will use to increase their character's power. It tends to crumble a bit when you get into a more varied genre of play. If you have a little bit of say fortune building, maybe a group of characters that have a ship (which is an item of wealth) if they do a little trading on the side you can just run it as SCs with further treasure resulting, but if the party tries to focus entirely on being merchants, then the game simply has little to say about that, and the whole advancement system being tied in with wealth makes it awkward. Its hard to make a really compelling narrative in which acts of commercial greed result in XP gains and treasure parcels in an adventuring class. Nor are the mechanics present to support it, and the ones that do exist aren't really tuned to presenting that as a challenging endeavor. Of course no other edition does it terribly well either. People will claim that 3.5 does, but its skill system and economic assumptions are so bonkers that you need to basically write a whole mini-game to make it work, which is really no better off than you are with 4e. 5e is even less helpful, its economic assumptions are the weakest of all, AFAICT as it insists on trying to take valuable items out of the economy entirely, which is nonsensical. Again, at least 4e has an SC system that allows some sort of framing of challenges that aren't combat or basic exploration related. [/QUOTE]
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