[MH] Creating gold with RPM

[valerio.crini]

Hi,
In my Monster Hunter in Renaissance Florence my player would like to create gold from nothing to foraging themselves thanks to ritual path magic. I praise this cleaver idea but I've some problems to create the ritual.
Say they want to create 10 lb gold (value should be $249,660 according to this)

I modeled this way:

• Path of Matter with greater effect (is gold not mud)
• create spell effect (8 energy)
• no added cost for weight under 10 lbs
• duration (say it must semi permanent - at least a month) +11 added energy

so cost should be (8+11) * 3= 57.
If my players find a cool way to add cool embellishments cost is reduced by 25% factor to a final 43.
It so so expensive, so with a 43 point they are able to become very very rich in a relative easy way right?
This smells to me so I must have done something wrong in the procedure, can you help me to sort this out?

[Varyon]

Without GM oversight, RPM - or indeed, many magic systems - can easily wreck the economy, or at least result in fabulously wealthy characters.

That said, there are some serious issues with what your players are attempting. First off, someone who suddenly shows up with a 10 lb lump of gold is going to be immediately suspicious, and anyone who pays in raw gold, rather than with established coinage or the like, is going to be similar. There are going to be questions about where this mysterious wealth came from - and if you've paid the proper taxes/tariffs on it - and there are likely to be thieves/opportunists trying to find out how much more gold the PC's are hauling around and steal it. If the PC's are able to navigate all this and trade in their gold for goods/money/services, once the month is up and literally all the gold they made - but only the gold they made - suddenly up and vanishes, there are likely to be a large number of rather irate people wanting to know what happened to their money, and fingers may be pointed (and whispers of witchcraft directed) at the PC's.

Note also we're ignoring the possibility of other mages in the world. If magic is known, casting Detect Magic (Lesser Sense Magic) on suspicious windfalls like this is going to be a common activity, and the PC's are likely to be in trouble when their gold glows with magic (and the later Greater Sense Magic reveals that, yeah, it was totally made with Create Matter). If magic is unknown, the other, secret mages nearby are going to be quite suspicious when they hear of the party's mysterious windfall and are going to come investigate. If (or, more likely, when) they figure out the party has been abusing magic in a manner that risks such exposure, they are likely to be quite upset.

If, after all that, the players are still going with their get-rich-quick scheme, it probably wouldn't be inappropriate to mess with the Create guidelines to have them apply to high-value raw materials - you have to make a skill roll to actually create the matter of interest, rather than some crude approximation (say, fool's gold). You can use any crafting skill that works with the material (so Jewelry would work for Gold) at +4, or simply use Path of Matter.

[Nereidalbel]

Your PCs are going to want a duration more like a year, really. Possibly longer, if they ever want to be able to visit a town or city more than once. And they should probably use a Control Matter effect to get something less suspicious than a 10lb lump, such as a few dozen nuggets of various sizes.

[VariousRen]

I'm not familiar with MH as a setting, is it a hidden magic setting or are people aware of the existence (and possible exploitation) of magic?

If the latter, I would say that gold would have little value unless it was backed by someone reputable. Depending on how common mages are, you'll have different degrees of precautions.

If mages are common as muck, expect "valuable" metals like gold and silver, and "precious" gemstones to be basically worthless. Currency would need to be backed by a government or large banking system, and I'd expect paper money to arise a little earlier than it did in our timeline.

If mages are rare, but people are worried about their effects, you would see storage houses and certified "old" gold and silver. Unless you can prove that your gold has been around longer than a year shopkeepers will be unwilling to take it. For a moderately small fee a reputable bank will take in your gold and hold it for a certain number of days to certify that it is not magic. Something may be possible where you give them your gold and collateral, they give you "old" gold on the spot so you can go shopping. Everything works out assuming you aren't trying to pass along bad gold.

All bets are off in a hidden magic setting though. At best I would say you charge the mage points for wealth if they continue to make use of this trick, because they have in effect given themselves more wealth (but once in a while, to finance an adventuring plot, I'd let slide).

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by valerio.crini

Hi,
In my Monster Hunter in Renaissance Florence my player would like to create gold from nothing to foraging themselves thanks to ritual path magic. I praise this cleaver idea but I've some problems to create the ritual.
Say they want to create 10 lb gold (value should be $249,660 according to this)

I modeled this way:

• Path of Matter with greater effect (is gold not mud)
• create spell effect (8 energy)
• no added cost for weight under 10 lbs
• duration (say it must semi permanent - at least a month) +11 added energy

so cost should be (8+11) * 3= 57.
If my players find a cool way to add cool embellishments cost is reduced by 25% factor to a final 43.
It so so expensive, so with a 43 point they are able to become very very rich in a relative easy way right?
This smells to me so I must have done something wrong in the procedure, can you help me to sort this out?

The big there here is this: The effect is not permanent. RPM is almost purely transient. So yeah, you got some gold until it disappears and the person you traded it to figures out they've been duped somehow. One of my players tried this once early on and I let him take it to its natural conclusion: the person he screwed chased him around for about 10 sessions and made his life hell. No one ever tried it again after that.

In general, RPM requires GM oversight. It is not a GMless system. Each spell is negotiated between the caster (player) and the GM. If he lets you make 10 lbs. of gold then I'd be VERY suspicious. Essentially, it takes GURPS's "Rule Zero" mantra to 11 and leaves it there. It even says it in the RPM book which always makes me boggle when the inevitable "I can destroy X!" "Do overpowered X!" in RPM. No, you can't. Not unless the GM says otherwise. Period. That's how it works.

[Andreas]

As others have mentioned, there will be countermeasures in place if magic is known and common. If magic is secret or very rare, being able to use magic should probably come with an expensive Unusual Background which pays for being able to pull of things like this.

Originally Posted by VariousRen

All bets are off in a hidden magic setting though. At best I would say you charge the mage points for wealth if they continue to make use of this trick, because they have in effect given themselves more wealth (but once in a while, to finance an adventuring plot, I'd let slide).

Why charge them for that? Would you also charge them for the Flight advantage if they regularly use magic to become capable of flight or for Innate Attack if they regularly use magic to throw fireballs?

[VariousRen]

Originally Posted by Andreas

As others have mentioned, there will be countermeasures in place if magic is known and common. If magic is secret or very rare, being able to use magic should probably come with an expensive Unusual Background which pays for being able to pull of things like this.

Why charge them for that? Would you also charge them for the Flight advantage if they regularly use magic to become capable of flight or for Innate Attack if they regularly use magic to throw fireballs?

Well consider this: If they are using magic to throw fireballs, and I put them a no magic zone, they are no longer throwing fireballs around. If they're flying and enter a no magic zone, they fall to the ground. If their pile of money enters a no magic zone it's still a pile of money.

The advantage of being able to summon wealth isn't that they can make money up when they need it, it's that they can amass it. If they make a habit of it, enough to have the connections, expectations, and trappings of higher levels of wealth, then they should purchase higher levels of wealth.

One of the points that I've noticed with GURPS is that you pay for what you get, not how you get it. Wealth gathered through magic is identical to wealth gathered through hard work or the lottery.

[Refplace]

Both the above replies are good.
A month pretty much guarantees the PCs are given the blame when it vanishes, even a year a large amount of gold in one place is going to be tracked back to the source. Remember this is theft, and possibly a large amount and repeatable so will make any who do it very high priority targets.

Sense Magic is too easy to use (even magery 0 will spot this on touch) and unless magic is super rare people will check at least high value items.

I recently read The Spellsong War where magic is uncommon, powerful casters very rare but everyone knows about magic.
The protagonist used her magic to pull gold from the earth and that would bypass many problems.

She used 3 spells.
Divination to find local sites where the spell would work best (ie mines or a river where people had panned for gold).
A spell to summon the gold from the earth and mold it into bars.
Finally a spell to transform the gold bars to coins.

All spells easily designed in RPM.
You can still cause inflation and people likely to be against you for doing it but that's good adventure fodder.

[VariousRen]

A magical touch stone seems like an interesting item in a place where magic is common. Place it against a piece of gold and it changes colour if it's magic. This could either be psudo-physics (The atoms of magictonium react to produce a temporary colour field.... in the flux capacitor.... or something), or a charm also made with RPM as well. There may even be a professional rivalry between those producing fake items, and those producing the charms to spot them.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

Well consider this: If they are using magic to throw fireballs, and I put them a no magic zone, they are no longer throwing fireballs around. If they're flying and enter a no magic zone, they fall to the ground. If their pile of money enters a no magic zone it's still a pile of money.

The advantage of being able to summon wealth isn't that they can make money up when they need it, it's that they can amass it. If they make a habit of it, enough to have the connections, expectations, and trappings of higher levels of wealth, then they should purchase higher levels of wealth.

One of the points that I've noticed with GURPS is that you pay for what you get, not how you get it. Wealth gathered through magic is identical to wealth gathered through hard work or the lottery.

Well, as far as I know, unlike the standard GURPS magic system, RPM does not have no mana zones. There is no implicit limitation of magic not working at all in certain areas.

Money being amassed like that is not necessarily a consequence of regularly conjuring gold. As long as they just use the gold for short term purchases, it just repeatedly gives them a temporary advantage. Just like throwing fireballs can repeatedly replicate the capabilities of someone with the Innate Attack advantage.