Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

And if no one wants to play rich guy? Are you going to strongarm someone into doing it? The person who pays good points for being rich will find ways to profit from it.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

Very much so. This is his main value to the party. Anybody who thinks it counts as "not pulling his weight" is welcome to pay for his own share of uncursings, lodgings, loot shipping, arrows, drinks, repairs to the inn after drinks . . . In my own experience running fantasy that bordered at times on DF, this was in fact what the rich PCs provided. Basic gear? Well, you could find that. But provisions, rooms, transportation, ammunition, tolls, etc.? It added up. The Very Wealthy patrician (who happened to be a Weapon Master, but so what?) bought the party out of all manner of tedium. It was this, not his fighting skills, that made his word the one most often listened to by the others; in effect, it led to his becoming the de facto leader.

A lot of players seem to forget that paying the $10,000 to hire the ship to the dungeon is as useful as healing people in the dungeon.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

Heck, the Wealthy Thief in the game I ran was explicitly the leader, because he was their major investor. He brought the oxcart, and the camp servants that made hanging around in the wilderness looking for Giants to fight much more tolerable.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

not under Whyte and Hans they not. They get penalizes for it. and if not makes Mr moneybages will if true DF fashion I've lost nothing. as my improvement does not relay on money money only makes it nicer. I've played under Stingy loot DM and I've played under Monety Hall DMs.

Wealth IS meant to be unfair to the those that do buy wealth. to paraphrase Kromm when he was talking about ATR Hes paid for X amount of point worth of unfairness.

Whyte, Hans your goals are great in modern Medieval Fantasy Role Playing... but it simply NOT DF.

Don't Compare Wealth to Healing, Healing the party doesn't give a Cleric an edge, it prevents him from losing his niche edge; and I don't mean by preventing the party from getting weaker, He's preventing annoying His God. if he A good god, then not healing the party is likey going to dilating a Pact.

If your playing a sinister cleric then not healing the party jeopardizes the mission you are on for your god against proble braking some Pact the proved you your power.

A Cleric Heals for the Same Reason the Knight obeys his Lord, the Monk abstains from world things, the Thief doesn't snitch... to avoid the bad stuff their concepts have built into them.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

If McMoneybags is doing all that for the Team, it is a very good argument for him getting a bigger share (by skimming the loot-to-cash). I think Hans and I were thinking that everyone pays for their own expenses, or when the whole party is involved, the party pays in equal shares.

With the metagame grief of Free Lunch Express dispelled, this McMoneybags sounds a lot like my McMoneybags character in a non-magic, non-loot oriented campaign. 'We need horses. Who amongst us doesn't have his own horse? No matter, stablemaster, war horses for everybody! *ka-chink*' In this kind of setup, McMoneybags is definitely pulling his own weight.

So just to be whimsical here... What is the collective wisdom on the 'what you could have gotten if you sold it yourself + 1 coin' -scheme by McMoneybags? In how many party would he have an unfortunate accident while dungeon delving? (Assuming everyone pays their own way, so he is not helping them out that way, either.) :)

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

I did misremember - it is "Blessed items" which may not work (or curse) "monster" PCs, not clerical magic in general. (See Monster PCs box in DF3.) Since Blessed items are the using the same "moral" power source, however, the conclusion still stands. (Alternately, the blessed items are not complicated enough to be good moral judges, and their makes use racism as a shorthand, which is equally old skule DF.)

Unless I'm wrong about "blessed items" implying a divine power source.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

Most players I know would sell stuff themselves rather than have Moneybags broker the transaction, purely out of spite. Of course, most of the players I know are unlikely to pull that kind of stunt, precisely because of that "frag 'em" attitude you allude to. As I pointed out in a Pyramid article some years back, smart people will charge adventurers as much as possible, knowing they've got loot; very smart people will moderate their greed, realizing that the adventurers got their loot because of a notable talent for extreme bloody violence.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

Yeah, "wealth" is one of those GURPS advantage names that causes problems by deviating significantly from it's common English usage, with a side order of being a combo (dis)ad that bundles several things that are commonly seen together in RL but often dissociated in heroes. It is going to continue to cause chaos and confusion (all hail Eris) until some of this changes.

You once mentioned that you considered renaming wealth in 4e. Too bad that fell through.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

If I were in that game, McMoneybags would likely mysteriously wake up one morning to find half of his loot missing.

It's a lot like giving a one-penny tip at a restaraunt. It's one thing if he just keeps all the largess to himself, but if he gives an insignificant amount extra deliberately - enough to show that he didn't forget it, but such a small amount it couldn't pay for a single dinner (you can't even buy a ration for $1!) - then I get upset:(

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

If the coin type were something useful, like an $80 gold coin, it would probably irritate my players but not enough to provoke interparty violence by itself.

If it was a copper piece or even a $4 silver on any sale worth less than about $4, I KNOW how they'd react, because most or all of my players play Warcraft, and they've ALL made violent comments about people who undercut other peoples (many gold piece) auctions by a copper. They all consider it disrespectful, childish, and sarcastic.

It's the kind of irritant that might actually lead to player-on-player pseudoviolence involving nerf weapons or empty plastic soda bottles.