D&D 5E What could 5E do to make wealth worthwhile?

[Older Beholder]

I once played a Fire Genasi, arcana cleric who had a goal to start a 'permanent torch' business using the continual flame spell to create his product in downtimes. So, I always had ruby dust to spend my gold on.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I suppose if your games are only about battles and adventures and you completely gloss over or aren't interested in anything between, and don't like to imagine what things look like, and don't have any players who like to make art for their characters or the party, and let people cast expensive spells for free, and just convert all your treasure into coins rather than admiring it, then yeah, you'll probably find your money just turning into an ever increasing number on your sheet. It just feels to me like choosing to combine not following some of the game rules with not engaging with the role-playing immersion the money is mostly there for, and then wondering why it's there. And that's fine, but that is why it's there.

Am I missing something obvious?

That the same basic point could have been made without sounding undeservedly condescending and pointlessly antagonistic.

Everyone gets the obvious. Everyone knows the basic facts. If someone is asking why water is wet, it is likely that they are really asking a more nuanced question than the tautology you could point out -- and if you want to actually move the discussion towards anything meaningful, trying to understand that point and speaking to it is more fruitful than pointing out the obvious.

Speaking more broadly (and less at quoted person in particular), it's probably useful to remember for all discussions on sites like this that you* are not the expert and the rest of the thread neophytes. Everyone is familiar with the game*, as well as much of the history of the game design. Most people are familiar with that one IP** you consider utterly important to the discussion. For discussions about fantasy, most everyone has read the Silmarillion. For discussions about combat realism, most everyone has X years of martial arts/fencing/HEMA/maybe even military service. We are each unique individuals, but in the typical subjects at hand, there is a trend towards uniform experience and casual expertise.
*the proverbial you, not anyone in particular
**current one or one being discussed, and likely many to most of the other versions.
***yes, even the less well known follow-up media

 

[Umbran]

I think everyone that wants magic items as this special thing that rarely gets in the player's hand is an idiot and a fool.

Mod Note:
Hey.
Rule #1 is "Keep it civil".
Calling people idiots and fools is not civil. So please stop, and treat folks with play preferences that don't match yours with more respect than this.

 

[Lanefan]

That none of WotC's campaign adventures support your suggestion at all.

That's largely because WotC's campaign adventures are designed to be somewhat setting-neutral (other than Strahd, which brings its own bespoke setting with it) and downtime activities are almost always quite setting-dependent; it's mostly during downtime that you interact with the non-adventuring part of said setting and the adventure writers have no way of knowing which setting you're using.

Which means, it's on the DM (and always has been, since day one!) to supply those bits that the published adventures are lacking.

 

[Lanefan]

My character is a block of stats with nice art yes--she does not have a preference for luxury food or need to live in a mansion, she'a fun concept combined with effective skills and abilities.. I don't really care about the world and only the gameplay experience is what I'm after, how do you make gold matter to me?

Not just gold, "how do I make anything in the setting matter to you?" would be the question.

When you say "only the gameplay experience is what I'm after", I'm guessing you're referring to a fairly specific subset* of the gaming experience in that downtime, setting exploration, and non-adventuring activities-interactions are part of the gameplay experience in general.

* - to wit, the part that involves actual adventuring, combat, problem-solving, and accrual of power via game-mechanical character development.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

That none of WotC's campaign adventures support your suggestion at all.

Good point, thanks!

That the same basic point could have been made without sounding undeservedly condescending and pointlessly antagonistic.

Sorry, I was being overly flippant. (Also, I haven't followed the thread, and I don't know what the state of the conversation is so far. I was mostly responding to the topic, and similar ones from the past.)

Here's what I want to convey:

(A) The codified rules of the game provide a use for wealth at low to mid levels in the form of maintenance. Food/lodging (or lifestyle expenses), NPC spellcasting services, expensive components, and to a lesser extent non-magical consumables like healer's kits and ammunition. At higher levels these do become a much smaller percentage of your adventuring income.

(B) D&D provides a vibrant world to immerse oneself in, through the PHB, DMG, MM, and published settings and supplements. Interacting with that world naturally can inspire all sorts of ways of using your money. I feel like not taking advantage of that is missing half of what D&D has to offer. There are other RPGs more focused on just the action and the adventure that skip and/or don't have 50 years worth of building up those elements to interact with. This is something you can only get from certain RPGs, and D&D is one of them.

However, as Matrix Sorcica brought up, what I was missing is that the official 5e campaign adventures provide little or no opportunity for using wealth to interact with (B).

I think there is a place for fast-paced action-focused adventures that don't really leave time for (B). I've created and run such things in the past, primarily when what I wanted to explore was the mechanics of the game rather than the other elements. But it is definitely a failure on 5e WotC's part to give us (B) in the sourcebooks, and then make basically all of the adventures they produce ignore it completely. (Unless otherwise noted, all references below will be to the 2014 books, since 2024 has taken a lot of this sort of thing out.)

1) WotC could encourage the usage of their wealth in their published adventures by...

-Making half or more of the adventures not be a race against the clock. Make it clear within the adventure (and if needed, as a directive for the DM to straight up tell their players before they start) that there will be pauses in the action and time to smell the roses.
-Put inspiring examples and activities in the adventures, preferably ones that reference the material in the sourcebooks. The section on lifestyle expenses in the PHB says on page 157, "Your lifestyle choice can have consequences. Maintaining a wealthy lifestyle might help you make contacts with the rich and powerful, though you run the risk of attracting thieves. Likewise, living frugally might help you avoid criminals, but you are unlikely to make powerful connections." Lots of adventures have the PCs working with the rich and powerful of the world. Put in potential interactions that differ (or only occur) if the PCs are maintaining certain lifestyle expenses. Ideally, these are custom outcomes, but they could also say that any checks to attempt to get members of the Waterdhavian nobility to do any of <a list of things> have Advantage if your party are maintaining an Aristocratic lifestyle, and Disadvantage if your party is not maintaining at least a Wealthy lifestyle, for example.
-MM page 174 talks about griffons as trained mounts (though it neglects to give us prices). An adventure could tell us that there is a location in the town that has a certain number of trained griffons for sale (and give some prices). Then make that a rumor the PCs are likely to overhear. Players can then go buy themselves griffons if they want. Adventures should avoiding making every such instance something they need for the adventure. It entirely defeats the intent of (B) above, if overhearing that there are griffon mounts immediately makes players think, "Looks like we'll have to fly in this adventure!" Rather, they should have the opportunity to buy the mounts because they want them, not because they have to have them. Making the rumor available fairly early, and the price steep so that they might have to save up and come back later, can help with this.
-DMG page 128 has (flawed, see below) rules about building strongholds. Another bit of rumor or news PCs could be likely to hear about is available real estate, whether already built, or available plots of land. Again, this shouldn't be required for the adventure, but it could be mentioned that owning and maintaining a manor (for example) can give someone the benefits of an aristocratic lifestyle quickly and in a visible way.

2) WotC could give wealth more attractive uses by...

-Going back to some of the great original ideas from the (2014) PHB and DMG, and smoothing out the flaws.
-The 2024 Bastion rules highly mechanize things, seeming to me to manage to give benefits that aren't terribly compatible with the general rules structure, while feeling overly constraining at the same time. The original 2014 DMG rules for strongholds and businesses are a better starting point, but they need tweaked. The numbers should be changed so that businesses are actually profitable. The stronghold building rules need cleaned up in general. And there should be pre-made "packages" that tell you what is included. For instance, there could be a manor, and tavern, and temple package. It tells you the cost in time and money to build, as well as any other less quantified requirements that probably need to be met (permission from authorities, etc), and ideally suggestions on what happens if you try to do it without meeting those requirements ("you just can't" isn't fun). It also gives you cost to just buy a pre-built one, if available. Then it tells you what sort of income you can expect, with both a default non-random number per time period, and a random income roll per time period that the DM can choose to use instead, which probably offers slightly better results overall, but has the chance of doing worse. It also tells you how many employees of various types you have, and what other resources are available. If you have a country estate, you likely have X number of horses available to you most of the time, and all the produce of a certain type of crop that you could wish for for personal use, in addition to Y number of guards, and a listing of various household staff and other resources. The rules should make it clear that all of these figures are approximate. You might be able to find or build a cheaper or more expensive one. You might have two rival chamberlains for some reason, or a host of servers at your tavern with their own mini-guild (or only one server who is heavily overworked, but you're having a hard time hiring more because of the rumors that your establishment is cursed.) There could be random tables for all sorts of fun things like this, and for goodness sake make the randomness representative. Most of the sorts random tables in 5e books past the core (and some in the core) would give an equal chance of a demi-god trying to claim ownership of your tavern as an ale shortage reducing revenue. Good random tables don't say "roll a d10" and have there be 10 equally likely results, but that's exactly what has been done starting with Xanathar's at the latest.
-I really liked the original magical item rules in the DMG. In 3e, 4e, and Pathfinder, the possession of magical +x items were assumed in the game's math, and they were treated as gear. You needed them, and they were easy to get. And in general, most magic items were that way. You could make or buy whatever you could afford, so it became part of your character build. 5e intentionally went a different direction and made magic items treasure. You couldn't necessarily choose which items you got. Randomness and effort became factors, in addition to reducing the number of items in general, and reducing the dependence on those +x's. (I should point out that, although magical items are described as "optional", that's really opt-out, rather than opt-in. The default assumption is rolling on the treasure table will provide a good number of random magical items. How many magical items of what power levels they provide are spelled out in XGtE on page 135. The published adventures also include magic items.)
I was going to go into detail on the magic item creation and purchasing rules and how they could be spruced up, but I think the 2024 DMG actually does an overall better job than any of the prior 5e material on it. The prices are way too low though, and some other stuff could be added, but I don't want to describe how to build a better magic item economy right now. The basic point, though, is that you can player-driven magic item purchase and creation be a thing while still keeping it as treasure rather than gear, if you carefully implement the rules in such a way as to support that. I would post my own "magic item economy" rules once I have them completed, but they rely so much on the nuances of my personal preferences, that I'm not sure whether other people would find them terribly useful.
-A full-on Birthright style domain management system with armies and such could give you something to use that money for.

 

[Okland]

Well, I know that I never seem to have enough money to buy and scribe all the spells I want. A proper wizard learns every spell he possible can. And keeps a backup spellbook.

Expensive components can add a reasonable cost too. Not just the consumed ones (though that can end up being one of the biggest expenses), but initially buying the reusable components. My 5th-level cleric spent almost all his money making sure he could cast every spell he had access to at least once. I didn't want to end up planning to prepare a different situational spell the next day, only to realize I don't have a costly component for it.

Also, while it shouldn't be an issue after low-level, the cost of living is a thing, and you should either be paying upkeep, or specifically paying for food and lodging.

I don't know if DMs are just skipping those costs, but if you are letting your party cast free revivify and never pay for food, well, that's not the game's fault. It has listed costs for those things for a reason.

That issue out of the way, assuming your group isn't just handwaving all the actual expenses the game includes, you move into more subjective playstyle territory.

My characters like nice stuff. They aren't just a block of statistics made to kill monsters. They are an imaginary person who decides to keep some of the jewelry and art objects they find because they like them. Even though we do have actual places you can buy magic items (nothing like 3e, and significantly more expensive than the cheap (and seemingly cheaper and cheaper as the product line progressed) 5e prices), those are competing with the other things we want. Vehicles, mounts. A fancy set of clothes or accessories. I had the hide of a young black dragon we slew turned into armor. No statistical benefit over non-magical armor, but it sure makes a statement and costs a lot more. Found a dwarven smith so I could make sure to get the quality work I wanted. We also got daggers made from teeth.

I mean, am I the only one who built and decked out all the manors in Skyrim's expansion? I do the same sorts of thing in D&D. Are there a lot of players who do that sort of thing in video games but don't in D&D? I find it at least as satisfying in D&D. Is it the fact that you don't get the built-in visuals provided, and you have to either find/make art or keep it in your imagination? Works for me. I regularly imagine that dragon armor with it glossy black scales, gold trim and red gemstones. My character might even not wear it when they want to avoid standing out so much.

When people talk about not having anything to spend money on, I just wonder how their games play, because I don't expect I'll ever run out of things to spend my imaginary money on in a game where I'm imagining living in a fantasy world.

I suppose if your games are only about battles and adventures and you completely gloss over or aren't interested in anything between, and don't like to imagine what things look like, and don't have any players who like to make art for their characters or the party, and let people cast expensive spells for free, and just convert all your treasure into coins rather than admiring it, then yeah, you'll probably find your money just turning into this increasing number on your sheet. It just feels to me like choosing to combine not following some of the game rules with not engaging with the role-playing immersion the money is mostly there for, and then wondering why it's there. And that's fine, but that is why it's there.

Am I missing something obvious?

I totally get where you're coming from. D&D's economy can feel so rich when you lean into the roleplay! My wizard’s always broke from scribing spells and crafting custom gear like a staff carved from an ancient oak I had enchanted. I love splurging on flavorful stuff too like commissioning a portrait of our party or buying a fancy cloak just for tavern nights. Components do add up, especially for big spells, and I appreciate DMs who track that, it grounds the world. I think some players skip the "life" costs because they focus on combat, but that’s missing half the fun. Like you, I’m always dreaming up new ways to spend gold to make my character feel alive. Maybe it’s just about encouraging folks to imagine their character’s lifestyle beyond the dungeon!

 

[Reynard]

That's largely because WotC's campaign adventures are designed to be somewhat setting-neutral

They are almost all set in the Forgotten Realms, with a tiny little sidebar suggesting maybe you could figure out how to use them in another setting. And most of them are pretty deeply tied to FR lore.

Also, I don't think downtime is particularly setting dependent. there are some settings that might make it hard (Spelljammer and Planescape have different assumptions about everything). What keeps the WotC campaigns from embracing downtime is that they are all quests with implied or explicit timelines. A campaign built around a quest is not going to leave a lot of room for downtime, unless some downtime activity is central to that quest.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They are almost all set in the Forgotten Realms, with a tiny little sidebar suggesting maybe you could figure out how to use them in another setting. And most of them are pretty deeply tied to FR lore.

Also, I don't think downtime is particularly setting dependent. there are some settings that might make it hard (Spelljammer and Planescape have different assumptions about everything). What keeps the WotC campaigns from embracing downtime is that they are all quests with implied or explicit timelines. A campaign built around a quest is not going to leave a lot of room for downtime, unless some downtime activity is central to that quest.

This a big part of why I avoid adventure paths. I always want downtime to be part of the campaign.

 

[Brotton Goodfellow]

Note: This includes 5E 2024.

It is pretty well agreed upon that monetary treasure and wealth does not have much use in 5E (especially compared to 3.x era games). So what could 5E do to make money matter? What would you like to see? What things could help motivate the going into the holes and killing the monsters and taking their stuff?

Make getting enough money an end goal. The TTRPG “Trophy” does this. Collect enough gold and your character retires. Now, you’re more likely to meet your demise, but it gives your character some drive.

I’m currently playing a 5e Dwarven noble fighter, who is looking to amass wealth to raise an army to usurp his corrupt brother from the position of clan chief. If I can collect $50,000 gp, I’ll retire the character.

Also: The downtime and lifestyle expenses aspects of the game can be leaned into more. Making long rests 7 days and having the players account for how their characters live during that time and what they do with their hard earned gold, is a great way to motivate them to get that bag. I’ve increased the prices for the different types of lifestyles and gave the wealthier ways of living mechanical bonuses to encourage using them. I also can’t stress how much fun downtime sessions can be. Letting the players blow off some steam in a settlement or get into shenanigans is great fun.