12-22-2017, 03:31 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Alternate Wealth rules
The current wealth rules basically seem to be “The bard/thief sells stuff for everyone, taking whatever cut they want.”, which lands the poor face character between a rock and a hard place: either they paid (e.g.) [20] points and are no better off than the others, or they’re just asking for tensions within the group.
My suggestion is to make wealthy characters feel richer, instead. 1) Everyone sells at 40%. Reaction rolls, etc., still apply. 2) Wealth modifies prices of everything bought for yourself: 40% Very Wealthy 60% Wealthy 80% Comfortable 100% Average 130% Struggling 160% Poor 200% Dead Broke The difference can be from your estate covering some of it, paying alimony, getting out of taxes or your guild collecting outrageous fees, or the thug on your street going “Nice duds you have there, I think I’d like them” half the time. 3) You still pay $150 for cost of living, but it represents better or worse accommodations: A Very Wealthy character has $3,000/month living arrangements, with a mansion and servants, while a Dead Broke one is squatting in leaky abandoned buildings barely good enough to avoid penalties. No game effect either way, and servants certainly don’t follow into the dungeon. The goal is that Poor characters will tend to be poorly equipped, and rich characters will be richly equipped. The GM shouldn’t fret when the rich guy administers his healing potion to the poor one, but stop blatant abuse: “Your serfs heard you’re using their taxes to outfit the wizard and have roughed up the tax collector.” |
12-22-2017, 03:58 PM | #2 | |||
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Alternate Wealth rules
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12-22-2017, 07:56 PM | #3 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Alternate Wealth rules
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This feels like it'll work well in play, as a representation of how Wealth - specifically the lack of it and the lack of social standing that comes when you don't have it, especially in less egalitarian structures - is a constant drag on nearly everything. Oh, you're Dead Broke and want to buy a sword? That's $6,000 to you but your wealthier friend can get it for list price at $600, no fuss.
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12-22-2017, 09:48 PM | #4 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Alternate Wealth rules
I feel like if I did this the PCs would just have the connected character handle all transactions.
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12-22-2017, 10:43 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Alternate Wealth rules
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(I guess Bardface Moneybags would also handle selling, too, if reaction rolls matter for selling...) Good or bad, I don't know, but does that accurately represent the gist of the proposal?
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12-23-2017, 02:52 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Alternate Wealth rules
The problem with traditional Wealth is that it's a transient advantage in games where characters can reasonably gain large amounts of money after character creation. DF tries to fix that by turning it into a benefit for mercantile transactions, but that runs into a new problem: it's useful for someone in the party to have it, but being the sales-bot is probably even more boring than being the heal-bot, so you really want to convince someone else to do it.
There are two easy fixes for wealth. One is to simply not use it in games where PCs are expected to routinely gain large amounts of money. The other is to require PCs to buy wealth if they acquire significant money in play. |
12-23-2017, 06:21 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Alternate Wealth rules
This is the key part. You can’t have a buy-bot, because it’ll only work for their stuff. It doesn’t matter who buys stuff for the dead broke barbarian, the barbarian’s own wealth determines the price of the item.
A side advantage I haven’t mentioned is that barring absentee players, there is very little reason under the current rules not to have a single wealthier character, with every super poor. This version makes everyone’s Wealth matter for themselves, and nobody “paying points for the whole party”, which was really my initial motivation for coming up with it. I don’t do the disadvantage version in my campaign, so those values were just thrown out randomly and stand to be adjusted Douglas seems to prefer 1000% or 200% for Dead Broke). The rule doesn’t involve land management; that’s simply part of the background explanation. If you try to cheat by pretending stuff is for you, you’ll end up paying the difference eventually anyway. But giving you old sword to the barbarian after you get a new one ten sessions later is fine. |
12-23-2017, 09:44 AM | #8 |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: Alternate Wealth rules
To me, DFRPG is a game about teamwork, and wealth (as it currently works) contributes to that. I don't see any value to changing it to a purely selfish advantage.
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12-23-2017, 11:35 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dobbstown Sane Asylum
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Re: Alternate Wealth rules
The way I see it, everything that you buy is, to at least some degree, for the party. If the knight spends 30 points on ST, he's using it to benefit the party by killing monsters and soaking damage. If the cleric spends 30 points on ER, she's using it to heal and buff the group. And if the bard spends 30 points on Wealth, she's using it to buy and sell things efficiently -- and why not do that for the whole group?
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12-23-2017, 11:55 AM | #10 | ||
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Alternate Wealth rules
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Personally I just don't allow PCs to take actions (that aren't backstory) before the game starts, because this causes me to have an existential headache. Last edited by sir_pudding; 12-23-2017 at 12:00 PM. |
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