Selling loot (wealth advantage and time spent)

beaushinkle · 07-06-2023, 10:27 AM

The idea of the wealthy character keeping more of the coin has always confused me.

Here's the situation:

• The wealthy character can sell loot for 1.5x what it would have sold for
• The wealthy character is less powerful; thus less effective at acquiring loot
• The non-wealthy characters are more powerful; thus more effective at acquiring loot
• There are more non-wealthy characters than wealthy characters

Here's roughly how I think this plays out: 4 non-wealthy characters and a wealthy character go into a dungeon. They all risk their lives and pull out a 100g worth of treasure. The wealthy character can get the best price for it (60g instead of 40g).

The wealthy character might say "If I didn't have wealth, we would receive 40g, and you all would receive 8g. Instead, I have wealth and we receive 60g. I propose you each get 9g and I get the remaining 24g."

The archer could pipe up "I could have taken wealth as well but didn't, and as a result we earned more treasure for you to sell. Had I also been a Bard, we might have died or been unable to find some of the treasure we did".

The cleric could pipe up "I could have taken wealth as well but didn't..."

----

The more mercenary conversation looks like:

"If you don't give us our equal share, the four of us will forcibly take it from you."

Additionally, the wealth itself tends to be best spent on the non-wealthy; they probably spent the points on dungeon-useful areas rather than selling-things-for-more, and giving them better armor or a more powerful weapon or whatever is a force-multiplier.

The dynamic this creates is that money optimizers feel optimization pressure to delegate one of their members to be wealthy and that player is forever ~4 weapon skill behind all of the other ones (which is a massive difference).

If your table experiences this tension and players don't want to be mr moneybags but feel like someone has to because it's ridiculously effective, I advocate for removing the option and splitting the difference: stuff just sells for 50% instead of 40% or 60%. Has the advantage of easier mental math too.

07-06-2023, 10:27 AM	#15
beaushinkle Join Date: Jan 2022	Re: Selling loot (wealth advantage and time spent) The idea of the wealthy character keeping more of the coin has always confused me. Here's the situation: • The wealthy character can sell loot for 1.5x what it would have sold for • The wealthy character is less powerful; thus less effective at acquiring loot • The non-wealthy characters are more powerful; thus more effective at acquiring loot • There are more non-wealthy characters than wealthy characters Here's roughly how I think this plays out: 4 non-wealthy characters and a wealthy character go into a dungeon. They all risk their lives and pull out a 100g worth of treasure. The wealthy character can get the best price for it (60g instead of 40g). The wealthy character might say "If I didn't have wealth, we would receive 40g, and you all would receive 8g. Instead, I have wealth and we receive 60g. I propose you each get 9g and I get the remaining 24g." The archer could pipe up "I could have taken wealth as well but didn't, and as a result we earned more treasure for you to sell. Had I also been a Bard, we might have died or been unable to find some of the treasure we did". The cleric could pipe up "I could have taken wealth as well but didn't..." ---- The more mercenary conversation looks like: "If you don't give us our equal share, the four of us will forcibly take it from you." Additionally, the wealth itself tends to be best spent on the non-wealthy; they probably spent the points on dungeon-useful areas rather than selling-things-for-more, and giving them better armor or a more powerful weapon or whatever is a force-multiplier. The dynamic this creates is that money optimizers feel optimization pressure to delegate one of their members to be wealthy and that player is forever ~4 weapon skill behind all of the other ones (which is a massive difference). If your table experiences this tension and players don't want to be mr moneybags but feel like someone has to because it's ridiculously effective, I advocate for removing the option and splitting the difference: stuff just sells for 50% instead of 40% or 60%. Has the advantage of easier mental math too.