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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 5590324" data-attributes="member: 19675">I won't disagree with that.Howso?In any FRPG- heck, nearly any RPG- wealth is used for one of 2 reasons: gaining in-combat advantages or gaining out of combat advantages (including stuff that's just for show: houses, cars, grownup toys of all kinds).  This is because PCs don't have 401(k)s.So, either your PCs are hoarding $$$ to save up for something they want, or they're spending it.  If there are no significant out-of-combat benefits to be purchased with wealth, then it will all get dumped into combat stuff.  But the thing is, spending on training has no impact on the 15MWD because that is a non-depletable resource, and buying gear just increases the quality or quantity of gear, not how you manage it.Just like SAN, wealth has little effect on the 15MWD.All that controls the 15MWD is: <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">What key resources you have that are expendable?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">How long does it take for you to replenish those resources?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">What happens during the time you replenish?</li> </ol>That's it.  Those are the only variables in the mental equation of whether a party starts operating on that kind of schedule, and the last one is the most important variable of all.  If you have few key resources that are expendable, you probably won't do the 15MWD.  If it takes too long to replenish, you probably won't do the 15MWD.But if the DM doesn't have some kind of consequence for "taking too long" to replenish your resources- if he "puts the world on pause" while you do so-then the first 2 variables become vanishingly less important.Ummm...no.What I'm saying is that as long as there are ANY significant expendable but rapidly renewable resources available to a party, and a GM does not keep the world moving while the party replenishes, then the temptation for and the possibility of the 15MWD is going to be present.For example, Doug talked about Wands- Wands are awesome- and he suggested replacing the entire Vancian system with them.  Great.But Wands then just become another form of ammo.  It doesn't eliminate the problem if the party can use their wealth to circumvent their limitations by buying them in large quantities OR, especially relevant to the 15MWD, the GM lets you go back to base and buy/create new ones while the adventure simply sits in stasis.Things like that are why I say this is not a system issue, but a playstyle issue.The existence of resources that run out and need to be replenished is probably going to be a fact of life in any remotely simulationist RPG.  Unless your Cowboys have "Hollywood Six-Guns", they'll need to track things like ammo, possibly also food and water.It is the "at leisure" part that creates the 15MWD.That doesn't contradict anything I've been saying.  It actually resonates with what I've been saying for years.Like I said upthread (and elsewhere), we don't see the 15MWD because our spellcasters rarely cast spells when a dagger thrust or crossbow bolt- or the front-line combatants- will get the job done.  They don't waste their "ammo": why obliterate a foe with disintigrate when the fighter and the rogue are carving him up?  Instead, hold your fire, on guard for the foe who has not yet showed up.Again, like I've been saying throughout the thread, that only happens with GM complicity.  If the helicopter can do that, reload, and find the pilot they were sent to rescue still in place with no more enemy forces coming in to replace those defeated earlier; if he's not suffering more from exposure, blood loss, animal predation or the like by dint of not being rescued, the blame for the 15MWD doesn't belong on the shoulders of the players but on the GM who is letting the scenario play out this way.But SAN doesn't affect that.  It is immaterial to the decision process.In most systems, SAN measures how nuts your PC is becoming from exposure to otherworldly events, emanations and entities.  When you're going out to stop "Kidthulhu", you won't decide whether to take a 15MWD based on your SAN because that has no way to be replenished in short enough of a time period to make any difference.  Your decision will be based on whether you have the stuff on hand to complete the adventure, because you either will or won't go crazy, and you have no real control over that.If your GM lets you simply go back to Chateau Outsmouth for a month to recover some SAN because, inexplicably, Kidthulhu has taken up sudoku puzzles to pass the time, putting his plans of reality devouring on hold, then yeah, SAN might be a factor.  But really, who runs that game?To put it differently, if you have gear, and you're sane, you're going to try to complete your mission.If you're sane, and you blow all your party's resources in the Contemplation Garden of Doom, are you going to advance into the Temple of Doom with nothing but your bare knuckles?  No, you're probably going to retreat to get more gear, if the GM lets you.  If he doesn't, though, you will advance.If you have gear but you're going coo-coo, you're still probably going to advance, not just because you're nuts (and don't care, on a certain level), but because you can still complete the mission.If you're borderline insane and have no gear, you may advance because, even though you may not believe you can complete the mission, you probably don't see any alternatives.  OTOH, you may skitter away in doomed, fatalistic despair.  Or you may decide to HELP Kidthulhu.  (Which all depends on how insanity is handled in the system by your GM.)What you WON'T do is go; "We need to retreat until I'm a little less crazy!"</blockquote>

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