[DF] Healing up in Town

[Peter Knutsen]

Is there some factor, that I'm not aware of, which prevents the use of non-metagame mechanics from representing the attitude of the Temples of Goodness towards the PC party?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by martinl

IME in the source material healing is stupidly expensive for everyone, with varying amounts of charity. I am not objecting to a high base price, but the suggestion of fleecing heroic adventurers (PCs) specifically.

I don't think Kromm suggested fleecing heroic adventurers - only charging everyone the same prices. It's folks in the thread here that think it should be cheaper to resurrect peons.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Is there some factor, that I'm not aware of, which prevents the use of non-metagame mechanics from representing the attitude of the Temples of Goodness towards the PC party?

I don't think the original proposal had a separate attitude towards PCs over NPCs. I would expect any sort of game with "charity case" pricing would apply the lower prices to "poor people" not "NPCs", and rich NPCs would get charged just as much as rich PCs.

I suspect "poor people" would be restricted to "people well know to this temple so we know he's actually poor and not just a swindler" and possibly even "regular temple-goers who have tithed faithfully all their lives", depending on the temples policies and the local gods attitude towards outreach.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I don't think Kromm suggested fleecing heroic adventurers - only charging everyone the same prices. It's folks in the thread here that think it should be cheaper to resurrect peons.

Which is why I was surprised when he jumped in. However, I had gotten a bit to broad and vague with my arguments, so it was a fair cop. :)

[roguebfl]

Oh the locals don't pay for the individuals casting, and its not because they are fleecing the 'Noble' adventures, it's because the locals are tithing to the church, the local farms are keep the priest and acolytes fed (with the excess going to the needy) the Weaver is keeping them in robes (and the excess going to cloth the poor) etc.

To the unfaithful the tithing is like having the church on retainer so that when the need it you don't have to pay for the service rendered.

Those they pay for the serves will the Priest isn't being greedy the money get channeled into areas the locals can't provide you can't provide in enough quantities.

[Flameblade]

The best rationale that I can think of to describe how you might have the custom of charging adventurers more than peasants is actually quite simple, and was fairly influential throughout the 20th century in real life.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

Adventurers are much more able than peasants, sometimes several hundred character points more able. ;D


More seriously, they charge those prices because they gots bills to pay and adventurers aren't coming in for resurrections every day, doncha know.


...okay, maybe not that much more seriously.

[mlangsdorf]

The president (senior administrator) of my university gave a talk in which he pointed out the that the university deliberately and intentionally set its tuition at a point past what the average attendee could pay, but well within what the richer attendees could pay. Then it gave plenty of scholarships, grants, fee waivers, and small loans to the majority of students, funded by the richer students.

The pricing for healing spells might be geared toward fleecing the adventurers. Poor peasants are nominally charged the same rate, but get hardship discounts and generous payment plans.

[Kromm]

Yeah, and again . . . DF is more than in part based on old-school dungeon-crawl games from the 1970s and early 1980s. There, all prices in town were fixed, while loot hauls got progressively more ludicrous as the protagonist leveled up and delved deeper into ever-scarier dungeons with more lucrative rewards. What kept this from ruining the game was a deliberately unfair economic model:

1. Goods were generally priced so that what you could easily afford at any given time was too crappy even to consider using by the time you could afford it. All the money in the world couldn't buy anything really cool. You had to go delving for that.
   
   
2. Services were priced so high that only wealthy, high-level characters could hope to afford them. This typically included healing, item identification, and possibly stuff like item storage and/or repair. These things were obvious cash soaks for rich PCs.
   
   
3. If you died and were somehow brought back, you'd inevitably take a bath, financially speaking. This might be because the die/respawn mechanic took a flat percentage of your money or because resurrection costs were scaled to your level.

This is the model DF assumes. That's why the gear that has a price list in town mostly isn't all that impressive; why amazing artifacts frequently don't list prices and have to be found; and why you have to pay a lot of money to stay at an inn, charge a power item, or get healed in town. Why do this? It's true to a genre. That is, "Just because!"

This isn't the set of assumptions that GURPS normally uses, of course. It's specifically for emulating a particular genre. You'd definitely need to change it for a non-DF game that uses anything approaching sensible, realistic economic assumptions.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Why do this? It's true to a genre. That is, "Just because!"

I think this is the most understated assumption of DF. It's not just a combination of hack-and-slash and puzzle-solving. It's not just pits full of monsters. It's not just characters who specialize in niche tasks. It also involves a tacit agreement not to work through the implications. If you start to worry about how "Town" is supported, how PCs can might money with the skills/spells/abilities they've got instead of killing things and taking their stuff, why just about everywhere in the world has monster-infested tunnels under it, and what all of those monsters eat when they can't get hobbit, you're starting to play something else.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

It also involves a tacit agreement not to work through the implications.

Yes. This is why my replies here, in PM, and in e-mail acquire a slightly peevish tone when asked to justify something or show my math when it comes to DF. There is no justification beyond, "Man, that's how it was back in the day! I loved those games!" The DF series really isn't for gamers who want lovingly detailed settings and sensible economics and ecologies. It's pure candy.

[roguebfl]

To be fair many of us world builders got our training by answering just those questions for their players.