D&D 4E Would this make 4e more fun or less fun?

[loseth]

Let’s pretend that two things were true:

1) The 4e economic system were exactly as easy/difficult for the DM to run as the 3.5 economic system.

2) The 4e economic were much more believable* from a verisimilitude standpoint.

* This is related to, but not the same as, being realistic.

If these two things were true, would that be a net improvement in how much fun D&D is? A net decrease? Or would it have no effect?

P.S. Please don’t vote based on whether you think these two things can be true at the same time (though feel free to comment in the thread)—for voting purposes, let’s just take the hypothetical/imaginary situation that they are both true.

 

[arscott]

Hmm... Does a more realistic economic system mean just as much magic item proliferation as existed in 3.x? Then less fun.

But assuming not, then I'm always in favor of greater verisimilitude--It increases suspension of disbelief, and therefore makes the game more fun.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Neither. I want something more-or-less balanced, so I can adapt it easily. Because Dark Sun economy is different from FR economy, which in turn is different from Eberron economy. And so on.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Jack99]

1) The 4e economic system were exactly as easy/difficult for the DM to run as the 3.5 economic system.

Was there an economic system in .?

 

[Pinotage]

More fun. I think part of the problem is that the core rulebooks, and indeed the supplements, never actually delved into this properly. Great books like a Magical Medieval Society were fantastic in this regard.

Creating a magical work that makes sense within the framework, and works for all the people - yes, that will be more fantastical and more fun since it's not just fantasy adventuring in a medieval works. It's adventuring in a magical world, that the core rulebooks never really captures sufficiently.

Pinotage

 

[small pumpkin man]

I voted for no change.

While I would like some hireling prices that weren't silly, it's not something I lose sleep over, and I've never had a problem with economic "system" or lack of one, so it's not something I really worry about.

-Edit, it might help if you described what you think the problems with the 3.x sytem are. Lack of supply and demand? Lack of proper changes to the world that magic & magic items would bring? or just crappy choices of prices?

 

[Cadfan]

I voted no change. Technically speaking, if you offer me 1) just as easy 2) and better, then yes, its an improvement. But the economic system is not a meaningful part of the game for me. I'm not a world-sim type DM. I don't even NEED an economic system. I just need some guideline on how buying and selling should work so that it happens quickly and goes away and we can get back to fighting monsters and taking their stuff.

 

[delericho]

If these two things were true, would that be a net improvement in how much fun D&D is? A net decrease? Or would it have no effect?

Probably no change. Maybe a very slight increase in fun.

P.S. Please don’t vote based on whether you think these two things can be true at the same time (though feel free to comment in the thread)—for voting purposes, let’s just take the hypothetical/imaginary situation that they are both true.

I don't think they can both be true at once. As with languages, a realistic, or even believeable, approach would require much more detail than is the case probably - different nations would have different coins of different values, with exchange rates that are not necessarily based purely on the face value of the coin, and so on and so forth. Different goods would have different values in different places, depending on availability of natural resources, technology levels, and reputations of local craftsman.

Basically, the whole thing becomes very complex very quickly, and so achieving #2 pretty much renders #1 impossible.

 

[loseth]

I-Edit, it might help if you described what you think the problems with the 3.x sytem are. Lack of supply and demand? Lack of proper changes to the world that magic & magic items would bring? or just crappy choices of prices?

I think I'd rather dodge that question, as I'm not really interested in exploring what I'd like the 4e economic system to have in order to achieve better verisimilitude. Rather, I'm hoping to find out what proportion of people would find better verisimilitude (assuming equal ease of use) in the D&D economic system to be more fun, independently of how that verisimilitude might be achieved.