Economics is a big deal in Roleplaying games, no seriously! Particularly in original D&D where treasure was the primary source of Experience. Characters typically need thousands of experience to level which means they will be hauling in vast sums of gold, and that's a problem. Why? Well because cash is a resource, and too much cash trivializes some great adventures.
I read a wonderful book titled "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss earlier this year. The primary tension in the story was how much money the main character needed to survive and subsist and how difficult it was to come by. When he finally achieved some financial stability a lot of the tension dissipated, the very same tension that was driving the book forward and keeping you the reader enraptured. The clutch of poverty is a driving force in a good deal of fantasy and cinema ranging from Cugel to Conan or Sanjuro (Yōjinbō) to Zatoichi.
Let's take a look at a plotline in Zatoichi's Vengeance. A wandering Ronin returns to town seeking to buy the freedom of a selfless girl he fell in love with who is currently indebted to a scummy Brothel Owner. The Ronin is unable to pay for her freedom but he is willing to use his skills for the new boss in order to earn it. Naturally, the boss sends him to kill Zatoichi. If the wandering Ronin was as freakishly wealthy as your average above level-1 adventurer this never would have happened. The price of his love's freedom would be nothing more than a mere trifle, and that's a shame. So, the economy of exaggerated wealth hurts adventures.
It also hurts treasure. You see when your players routinely come across large sums of money, keep in mind that a gold piece could be a fortune to your average peasant, it devalues the money you are giving them. This leads to escalation where player's expect more from their chests and DM's are quick to oblige. Its why you see so many cheap and common magic items in newer editions, to pad out an otherwise boring treasure containing enough money to ruin a hamlet's economy. If instead gold pieces are few and far between then they become the primary source of excitement. If your players are fighting tooth and nail for every last scrap and coin they come across they will actually be overjoyed when they come across eye-widening riches. This takes the burden off the DM who is often pressured into putting something 'unique' in a treasure pile which more often than not is another light on the Magic Item christmas tree. This in turns allows your magic items to be unique and memorable and that's always a good thing.
Poverty really does work wonders. Perhaps this is why low-magic (or even low level) campaigns can be fun. Everything really is just so much bigger than you!
ReplyDeleteYes indeed! I want a king's ransom to actually feel like one, stumbling across one should be a monumental occasion for those adventuring vagabonds not merely another scratch and scribble on the equipment sheet.
DeleteI agree wholeheartedly, I always find low-level low-magic to be very exciting affairs.
Having to scrabble to make ends meet, or barter for what you need, does add another element to games.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, for many stories it is the raison d'etre for adventuring, to earn great sums of money you desperately need for your situation.
DeleteWhen your players start turning their noses up at a horde of copper or silver coins, then your game is suffering from run-away inflation.
ReplyDeleteI've played in games where the characters habitually ignored coins altogether, and +1 magical items where carried as spares, or to pay your bar tab. The character of a friend of mine bought 30,000 chickens to get rid of his loose change, as he reasoned that the chickens could walk so he didn't have to carry the coins around - he did have to hire a couple of chicken herders and, as I recall, a wondering tribe of Kobolds eventually rustled his chicken flock so that problem was solved.
Discovering treasure hordes that consist of trade items can be fun when players realize that they can swap a nice carpet for a night in an inn, and that a hat with the right sort of feather could be worth a couple of days' rations.
This is true in later editions where the lionshare of XP comes from beating up monsters but in the context of OD&D treasure constitutes the majority of your experience. Let's take the second level fighter for example, he needs 2035 XP to hit level 2, if we assume he got half of that from treasure then he has gotten 1000+ gold coins. That's already enough coinage to buy a suit of plate mail, a war horse, a fancy sword and more than enough left over, all of this at level 2. One of the things I wanted to talk about was how people dealt with this, such as switching to the silver standard or only giving XP for spending treasure (on non-gear) but I didn't have time yesterday.
DeleteThank you so much for reminding me of trade items! I need to go add some spices and silk to the lavish cultist' treasure pile.
I like having my characters loaded with coins and I do tend to forget to trade or sell items...lol...
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