Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

Whyte said 20 points in Wealth gives you 40 points in advantages as equipment... to which I said not likely (though, as Langy just said, looking at Wealth as an investment in future acquisitions, that can change given time).

Wealth can boost your abilities through equipment - there's no disputing that. As for "20 points in Wealth gives 20 points in niche abilities" - that largely depends on what the money is spent on, and how much time the character has to convert loot into more money. Like all things, inefficient spending can be wasteful, and in GURPS 20 points in X does not necessarily have equal effectiveness to 20 points in Y, especially when X & Y are situation dependent.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

If this is true, then the cost is unbalanced. The Wealthy character is getting something for nothing here.

But it isn't true. The whole point is that the Wealthy character does start off with lower niche-specific awesomeness. Wich is the same thing as saying that the Average Wealth character starts out with MORE niche-specific awesomeness, an advantage he can use to balance out the Wealthy caracter's long-term earning potential in some way. If he couldn't, it wouldn't be balanced, would it? One way would be to give the Wealthy character a half share (that he can sell for 100%) and keep a full share (that he can sell for 50%) for himself. Going to the ultimate extreme, the Wealthy character can go adventuring on his own among the goblins and collect the lesser loot the goblins have and sell it for 100% of its value while the non-Wealthy go adventuring among the hobgoblins and get the better loot they have there but only sell it for 50% of its value. But it's much more cost-effective for them to team up, bash the ogres, and get the even better loot there. Only, if the non-Wealthy guy helps the Wealthy guy get better loot, why shouldn't the Wealthy guy help the non-Wealthy guy get a better price?

That cuts both ways. A character with lower Wealth should be just as viable as as the character with high Wealth, but the way you're arguing, the high-Wealth character is more viable. Not only does he get the same share of the loot as the others, he also gets more for his share of the loot. Obviously this is not balanced.


Hans

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

As an example of 20 points in wealth making you fit a niche better, just look at a typical Fighter. 20 points in wealth is no where near enough to buy a really cool magic item, but it is enough to outfit your Fighter in some plate armor and give him a sword. Since he can't usually purchase DR directly, or at least not much of it, the Fighter-type gets a bunch of usefulness out of sinking some points into cash in order to get his plate mail. It's debatable if that's directly worth 20 points, but the future earnings potential certainly makes high-Wealth seem worth it.

On the other hand, it doesn't make high Wealth so awesome that everyone takes it. Just look at all the other characters who don't have high Wealth for proof of that.

Wrong. That's the way Wealth is balanced.

I'm not arguing that a high-Wealth character is more viable than a low-Wealth character. I'm arguing that they're equally viable, and the reason they're equally viable is because the high-Wealth character has some multiple of everyone else's amount of loot while the low-Wealth character has more raw skill. Loot gives you power, but it's rarely so much so that it makes you super-awesomely-powerful.

Your arguing for the Wealthy character only getting a half-share of the loot is like saying the Wealthy guy shouldn't be allowed to make use of his Wealth advantage. If he can only sell his loot for twice that of the other characters, his half-share of the loot is just going to wind up being worth one full share of the money. That's crap, because Wealth is all about having more money than the people without Wealth. That's how the advantage is designed and that's how it is balanced.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

He was responding to this statement:

"Unless, of course, Fighter 3 has a Huge Honking Flaming Sword of Death And Maiming which he bought with his Wealth. In which case he may be able to deal out more damage than either #1 or #2, making him more effective in his own way."

If he's more effective that #1 and #2, then he got more for the Wealth his CP bought him than #1 got for the niche-specific points he paid. Maybe not +40 vs. +20, but that really wasn't the salient part of Whyte's argument. If the Wealthy character got more niche-specific effectiveness AND a greater earning potential, then he got more than he paid for.


Hans

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

That's only true if the only niche you're quantifying is "Is he a Fighter?" Wealth gives him an extra niche, and like a Mixed-Profession character vs. a single Profession character, a character with multiple niches probably will be less effective at each niche... but he's now got two niches he's fulfilling. And in the case of Wealth, the one niche actually serves to boost the other niche (whatever it is, because better equipment boosts any other niche).


Of course it's not balanced. The one guy paid 30 points for Wealth, the other got -20 points back. There's 50 points of unbalancing there to make up for. That's made up for in two ways 1) the continued earning potential 2) The starting money (which makes one character less effective in his niche due to a complete lack of equipment, and the other more effective in his niche due to better equipment than the norm).

If the guy who got -20 points back doesn't like his lack of earning potential he can either a) filter all the loot through the other guy, on whatever terms they agree on or b) invest 50 points in Wealth. In case (a) this gives the guy who spent 50 more points on Wealth a leg up in the negotiations. Of course, if he's too much of a prick about it he may find negotiations just as harsh when he's stuck in a jail cell and needs the Thief to pick the lock, or when he needs healing and the Cleric is demanding a rather substantial donation.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

More effective in his own way. Context is important - each character gets to be more effective in some ways, else they somehow lost their niche. A character that's really good at dealing damage because of his Super Sword is going to be less effective at, say, capturing foes alive for interrogation.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

That's true if he is actually fulfilling the second niche, by fencing loot for the whole party. If he isn't, the second niche is totally irrelevant to the other players and he's really only fulfilling one -- and not as effectively as he could be.

What unbalancing? They're both worth 100 points (or whatever DF characters start out with). Assuming the rules work and the players are competent, they should be worth about the same to the party. So why should the Wealthy guy get more than one full share of the total earnings of the party? They're all in it together, and (assuming the above) they're all contributing equal value to the party.

Or supposed to, anyway.


Hans

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

If he isn't fencing loot for the whole party, he's an idiot. That said...

High Wealth means you have more money than other people. You're arguing that because the high Wealth guy has more money than other people but fewer niche skills, he shouldn't be allowed to keep on having more money than other people. That's just ridiculous.

Wealthy means you start with 5 times the cash of the rest of the party, and you should continue to have roughly five times the cash of the rest of the party else his advantage isn't actually an advantage at all and is just a lump on his character sheet similar to trading points for cash.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

Why does the guy that owns the factory get more out of it than the line worker? Because his wealth gives him more negotiating power. If the worker doesn't like the deal, there are other workers out there.

If you want to run a Dungeon Delving party like a Commune, where everyone contributes what they can and everyone gets an equal share, that's fine. In the Real World (TM) negotiations are far more complex than simple Communes. If the Wealthy character wants to negotiate a larger share of the loot for supplying Cool Toys, he can try to do so. And if the other characters don't like it they can walk away, and not get all the Cool Toys to go Dungeon Delving with.

Re: [DF] - Party wealth disparity
 

Because he's not earning his money by accompanying a group of treasure-hunters into a dungeon and fencing the stuff they get out of there.


Hans