11-22-2022, 07:50 AM | #21 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Re: D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $
Quote:
But the sell decision isn't the only interesting part of the money game. What to bring back to civilization to sell is also interesting. As you keep saying, the identification skills can fail, so if nobody knows whether that 12 lb. book is worth anything, the question of whether to leave it behind (and never know its value) or stick it in your backpack and take it back to town (and probably learn that it's junk, but maybe not) has no obvious best answer. Therefore it's interesting.[1] Do you optimize for hauling maximum amounts of loot back to town (wagons and oxen), or just small amounts of what you can carry in your backpack, like Indiana Jones? No obvious best answer. What do you do with the money you get? Hirelings? Scrolls and potions? Enchantments? More wagons? BTW you're assuming that the extra profit has to be split equally among the party so that the Wealthy PC gets no personal benefit from their points, but a more fun way to do it is to let them keep a portion of the extra. Selling a $10,000 sword for $10,000 instead of $4000 can yield an extra $2000 for the Wealthy PC, $2000 for everybody else (split), and $2000 to be spent by the Wealthy PC on behalf of the party (paut, Stones of Hindering, universal uncharged scrolls of Bless, etc.). Having control of the party gadget budget is both fair and fun, and a valid way to spend 20+ points. Last adventure (Ascent of the Leviathan) was underwater. My players had several scrolls, which they couldn't take with them. The money spent on those scrolls was mostly wasted (unless they reuse these PCs). Scroll buying is an interesting decision. Fire can burn not just scrolls but potions and many weapons too. If you have $20,000, should you buy stuff now and carry it, or save it to replace lost gear later? If you save it, will you hide it somewhere safe or carry it on your person? No obvious best answer there. In D&D 5E none of these questions are interesting. [1] Note that the book could also be interesting for reasons unrelated to its cash value. Maybe it has a carveout inside with a hidden magical weapon. Maybe it contains the genealogy of an NPC you wish to befriend. Maybe it's a cipher key for a treasure map you found earlier. Last edited by sjmdw45; 11-22-2022 at 08:58 AM. |
|
11-22-2022, 08:08 AM | #22 | |
Join Date: Jan 2022
|
Re: D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $
Quote:
|
|
11-22-2022, 08:51 AM | #23 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2022
|
Re: D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $
Quote:
I just... don't understand why we're doing this. As for the rest of the post, these are all decisions you have to make regardless of whether or not you have to identify mundane treasure. If you find The Lesser Kunsian Book of the Dead in a Dungeon, and are immediately able to tell that it's $500, 12lbs vs having a 95% chance to tell that it's $500, 12lbs and a 5% chance to tell that it's $4, 12lbs, we're still making a decision about whether or not to leave it (it's significantly less money-dense than copper coins), and we're still making a decision about whether or not we, as delvers, want to be bringing just our backpacks, or if we want to bring a wheelbarrow, or a horse+wagon. Knowing the value of items doesn't change that we have to figure out whether we want to spend our money on gear upgrades, hirelings, consumables, or wagons. Those remain real choices. Knowing the value of items also doesn't stop scrolls from being destroyed under water. Likewise, scrolls are still destroyed underwater in D&D. I'm not sure if the RAW provides specific guidance, but I don't think anyone would blink if a 5e DM warned folks that their scrolls would be getting or destroyed if brought under water. Quote:
So yeah; the players who just care about combat can skip it, and simply earn less treasure. Many won't. The same way that if you give MMORPG players a daily quest reward that incrementally increases their character power, they'll begrudgingly do it every day, bored out of their mind, simultaneously wishing that it just didn't exist so that they wouldn't have to. |
||
11-22-2022, 09:16 AM | #24 | |||||||
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Re: D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Again, what's your goal here? Quote:
If your players all want abilities like Extra Attack more than they want stuff you can buy with money, then they clearly don't value the stuff money can buy, and no one has to invest points in Wealth. IMO that's a mistake because e.g. uncharged universal scrolls of Bless are the only way to Bless the cleric without investing in a second cleric, but hey, you do you. In any case, if your players are "seeing who draws the short stick", I just want to reiterate that Wealth doesn't have to be a short stick. If your players make it a short stick by refusing to let the Wealthy player get any benefit from it, that's on them. No wonder nobody wants to be Wealthy if so. There's a solution if you're seeking solutions. If you're seeking something else like a change to the text of Exploits, then I can't help you. Last edited by sjmdw45; 11-22-2022 at 09:43 AM. |
|||||||
11-22-2022, 10:24 AM | #25 | ||||
Join Date: Jan 2022
|
Re: D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $
Quote:
Quote:
As in, compare:
In the first one, the GM has to do legwork to give a price in the case that the Religious Ritual roll fails. In the second case, that legwork is done by the author. This adds up for hundreds of items across an adventure. Quote:
This doesn't address my core complaint. If you have an appraiser system, you still have to tell players what they think the item is worth when they fail, and so you still need a misidentification price, which means the legwork still exists, and now we've created additional complexity in that players are now sometimes not trusting their own character's appraisals. So far, I haven't seen anyone refute that module authors providing the misidentified price would reduce legwork on the GM. In one of my responses to bocephus (who was off topic at this point), I linked a reddit thread where folks were folks were complaining/workshopping about buying/selling stuff in general, and discussing how different systems handle it. You interjected that this thread doesn't apply, and explained that DFRPG has a strong money mini game. At this point, I can either straight up ignore your post or engage, and explain how it does apply, further going off topic, because this relates now in basically no way to the original point that not listing the price of misidentified items creates extra legwork for the GM. I chose the second, and mildly regret it. So, what followed was an analysis of DFRPG's money mini-game, with the goal of arguing that the listed thread does, in fact, apply (since that was the core assertion being challenged). I argue that DFRPG's money mini game, RAW, is D&Ds with more steps. Players in D&D find an item and learn its value. Players in DFRPG find an item in learn its value. Players in D&D take the item and sell it at a shop. Players in DFRPG take the item and sell it at a shop. The core difference is that, GM side, in DFRPG sometimes we tell them (based on a probability dependent on a character stat), either the true number or a lower number for the value of the item. The player doesn't know which they're getting. Likewise, the value that items sell for in DFRPG are dependent on a roll based on a character stat. It's still fundamentally the same system. Items sometimes being sold for less than their true worth doesn't invalidate that reddit thread (the players would never know). Adding in an appraiser is homebrew, and thus doesn't invalidate that reddit thread. Including a bargaining system where you can sometimes sell individual items for 1.5x or sometimes 0.5x what you would have sold it doesn't invalidate that reddit thread. The rest of the money mini game between D&D and DFRPG are roughly equivalent: you probably can't carry the whole dungeon back to the shop in both systems, either due to fictional or mechanical constraints. Scrolls still get wet. Players still make interesting purchasing decisions about what magical items / equipment / consumables they want to buy with their money. More generally, I'm arguing that the added complexity buys us little and eats at precious table time, but agreed; that part is off topic. Quote:
As in, say that you've determined for the best way for the party to spend the wealth they just accrued is Strategy-X. Strategy-Y on the other hand allocates more of that purchasing power to items specifically for the wealthy player, and is overall a weaker and less successful allocation. Now this forces the players to play sub-optimally (ie, increase the chance their characters die) in order to appease the wealthy player. Yuck. Last edited by beaushinkle; 11-22-2022 at 10:48 AM. |
||||
11-22-2022, 10:43 AM | #26 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Re: D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $
Quote:
If you insist on choosing which wizards spells to cast as a group, disempowering the wizard player, don't expect to see many wizards in play. Wealth is no different. |
|
11-22-2022, 11:03 AM | #27 | |
Join Date: Jan 2022
|
Re: D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $
Quote:
My table generally just has "party wealth" then they buy the stuff the party needs most. If that means one player gets a whole bunch of upgrades first (because that's what's optimal in that game system), that's what happens. It's in everyone's interest because it keeps everyone alive. They've also experimented with splitting up wealth equitably each time: sell off some items for $10000, everyone gets $2500. This ultimately devolves into "party wealth", as they just loan each other money to buy what's best for the group. Each player can technically say no, but it doesn't usually happen. 4 players individually keeping track of money and equipment is also more annoying than 1 person/GM just saying "okay, 10000$ going into the treasury". This usually gets scrapped after a handful of sessions in favor of party wealth once the characters establish trust. In wealth-splitting with no loans, this gets really sub-optimal. You run into situations where multiple folks will be close to an item (and thus the party would be stronger for the next adventure if a loan was given), but they all just hold onto the money. Now, if one person can spend 10 character points in order to earn 1.5x loot for the party, what happens? In party wealth - nothing except that the character who spent 10 points now paid 10 character points to make the party wealthier. Thanks Fred! In wealth-splitting with loans, same thing. Wealth-splitting with no loans sounds like what you're imagining. How much of the extra does the wealthy-character receive? As in, say you brought back $20000 of treasure. An average wealth party sells that for 8000, and so 4 players each get $2000. If a Comfortable wealth character sells that treasure, the party brings in 12000. Do the other 3 still get $2k and the wealthy player gets $6k? That's the amount of money they would have gotten if they didn't have wealth. That's a lot of money. So much that the wealthy character probably passes (via gear power) the non-wealthy characters pretty quickly in any long-running campaign. So much that it might behoove the other characters to also buy wealth, which is ridiculous. Having two characters with wealth doesn't help at all but now because we're not equitably splitting up the money, each player is incentivized to waste points. Yuck. Last edited by beaushinkle; 11-22-2022 at 11:09 AM. |
|
11-22-2022, 12:22 PM | #28 |
Join Date: Jan 2022
|
Re: D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $
Worth pointing out that there's some pretty wild game theory going on when you attempt to split the wealth in any other way but evenly.
As in, say that Alice, Bob, Carol, and David are in a party. Alice sells a haul on behalf of the party and comes out with $1000. If Alice has full authority over the distribution, why doesn't Alice give herself all $1000? The only thing stopping this would be that she doesn't effectively have full authority. As in, the Bob, Carol, and David might not be able to vote in the moment, but they can certainly beat up Alice and take their $333. Which means that Bob, Carol, and David can effectively always vote on Alice's proposal of the split. Alice could propose that Alice, Bob, and Carol each get $333 and David gets nothing. Alice, Bob, and Carol each like this because they effectively get 33% more wealth than an even split. David obviously doesn't like it, but gets outvoted. If David tries to retaliate, he gets 3v1'd, which is tough. David is now probably very annoyed and isn't likely to keep delving. Alice could propose that they each get $250, and all seems well until one person decides that they ought to get a bigger share of the loot than the others. Maybe it's because they contributed more to acquiring the loot. Maybe it's because they contributed more to selling the loot at a high price. Maybe it's because they contributed more to the group's survival in the dungeon. Maybe it's because they contributed more to the group making it to the dungeon in the first place. Maybe ya'lls tables are interested in loot equity discussions: "what percentage of the loot does each character deserve?". Mine isn't, and so just splits loot evenly (when they aren't just sharing wealth). Last edited by beaushinkle; 11-22-2022 at 12:26 PM. |
11-22-2022, 12:26 PM | #29 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Re: D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $
Quote:
Even if 100% of the $10,000 from selling a $10,000 book is dedicated to boosting the party, someone still has to make the decision about whether to buy five more uncharged scrolls of Bless for $2000, or commission 14 paut potions for $1890 (delivery in two weeks), or hire a 125-point knight and equip him in plate armor for $400 a week plus $7500 for armor, or save towards a Penetrating enchantment for someone's sword. Who takes responsibility for those decisions? If it's genuinely a collective decision with no one taking special responsibility for it, why doesn't that happen for spellcasting too? Why isn't it a collective decision whether the Cleric picks up Power Investiture 6 and Sanctuary, or 4 more points of energy reserve? Why isn't it a collective decision whether the wizard should concentrate on Invisibility for everybody, or Darkvision + Resist Sound? If it is a collective decision then the guy who spent 20 points on Wealthy has no reason to complain compared to the guy who spent 200+ points on Darkvision-20 and Invisibility-20. They both benefit from party decisions and capabilities. Last edited by sjmdw45; 11-22-2022 at 12:42 PM. |
|
11-22-2022, 12:49 PM | #30 | |||
Join Date: Jan 2022
|
Re: D&D -> DFRPG: Gold to $
Quote:
In wealth-splitting-with-loans, folks buy their own stuff and ask for loans and other people write IOUs for stuff they can't afford. People attempt to talk each other out of purchases when someone spends their money on something stupid because it means that person has less money to loan for good stuff. So for example, in wealth sharing, folks will discuss whether they want to buy a bunch of paut potions, if they want to buy a hireling knight, or if they want to save up for penetrating for the barbarian's axe. In split-wealth-with-loans, the barbarian might say "hey i want to get penetrating for my axe; can ya'll save up to loan me money for that?" Quote:
Quote:
Some of the stuff that contributes to common success is more fun than others. I'm not going to be able to give you a definition here, and it's 100% subjective. If you have a player that wants to trade not-merchant-effectiveness for merchant-effectiveness, then I'm happy that DFRPG supports that for you. What I'm saying is that by including it in the game, a table full of not-merchants now feels like they have to draw short-sticks for who gets shoe-horned into spending points on merchant-stuff because it's absurdly rewarding. edit: In any case
That is what we're talking about, right? Last edited by beaushinkle; 11-22-2022 at 12:55 PM. |
|||
|
|