How do you handle wealth?

[Dudemeister]

Hi folks,

ever since the days of AD&D it bugged me that wealth was handles clunky and madly inconsistent. It came to the point where we just got rid of wealth - which, after two years of gaming is also not satisfactory. Games like Cthulhu and Shadowrun showed a different approach and BRP seems to handle wealth similar.

But what about the the field experience? How is your table spending coins?

 

related: Anyone know a source for cheap fantasy coins?

[K Peterson]

I use abstract wealth levels as described in the BRP BGB for most of the campaigns I run. But I typically run CoC set in different eras so the accumulation of wealth isn't really a focus. Characters have the equipment and possessions that would be appropriate for their occupations and Credit Rating, and if they want to acquire something extravagant then it's usually a test of their Credit Rating skill to see if they're able to get it.

Every few years I'll run a fantasy campaign, but even then wealth and treasure are secondary to many other goals. 

[Sean_RDP]

Wealth accumulation really depends on the campaigns end goal. For a short game, obviously it is just pocket money. In an Epic campaign, something akin to LoTR, again it is pocket money or trade money, often carried in trade goods. For myself, wealth becomes important in a sand box style game because I do not want to limit the character's goals and accumulation of wealth is absolutely valid. In the old days of D&DB/X and AD&D becoming a lord by your own hand was part of play. This aspect carried over to other games as well, through play if not necessarily through specific rules.  Wealth accumulation can also a source of great adventure and intrigue, especially without modern banks and such. 

Where wealth accumulation causes major issues, IMHO is when the destabilizing effect of mercenaries spending (or hoarding) their gold is not felt. Additionally the purchase of game winning McGuffins just undercuts the social contract of the game. 

[Mankcam]

For fantasy settings (or pseudo-historic ancient through to late medieval) I prefer coinage (or trade goods) recorded as in the old school games. It makes it feel more meaniful, and helps get an idea of the value of things such as getting a sword forged.

The trick is not to hand out too much loot all the time, or it decreases its value in a setting - many old school games were guilty of this, and D&D remains at fault even in its current edition. If I was porting any coinage loot from a D&D scenario, I would recommend about a fifth of what the typical D&D scenario prescribes.

Bartering should also play a big role in these settings, especially outside of the urban centres.

For more recent era settings I would find this approach too clunky, and assign everything a wealth level, then request for a Credit Rating roll, +/- 10% per level different to their Status. That approach works best for major purposes. For smaller purchases I may just ask for Credit Ratings rolls if the wealth level is beyond their status, or alternatively hand wave everything, using Credit Rating as an indicator or guide as to whether something is acquired or not.

Seems to work fine

Edited March 25, 2016 by Mankcam

[K Peterson]

7 hours ago, Mankcam said:

The trick is not to hand out too much loot all the time, or it decreases its value in a setting - many old school games were guilty of this, and D&D remains at fault even in its current edition. If I was porting any coinage loot from a D&D scenario, I would recommend about a fifth of what the typical D&D scenario prescribes.

There's certainly less need of piles of loot if your experience system doesn't depend on it (XP = GP acquired), you're not paying out of pocket for an army of retainers, nor saving up to build a fortified stronghold. Or in the case of more modern D&D, you have magic shops in the setting with expensive toys for sale.

But, even in the case of old-school BRP, you're going to need to hand out some steady loot in RQ2 for characters to be able to shell out the cash for skill training, raising attributes, and paying back debts (Battle Magic learned from cults). Unless you plan to limit the growth of the characters.

So, yeah, IMO the need to nickle-and-dime loot comes down to the game's mechanical dependency on it. If training or debt costs are in the hundreds or thousands of coins, or you're playing more of a zero-to-hero-to-regional warlord style of campaign then tracking coins is important. I don't tend to run those kinds of campaigns, so abstraction works perfectly fine.

[Dudemeister]

Very brain lubing stuff to read. My next campaign will be an urban one. 

I'm thinking about the following.

The characters have a life style that determines what they can easily get. The expensive and mechanically important stuff will be based on abstract wealth points - represented by real coinage. (Scrolls, mastercrafted armor, special retainers, big bribes etc.)

Edited March 25, 2016 by Dudemeister

[soltakss]

Early on in a campaign, I like to use coins. However, as the campaign goes on and the PCs become more wealthy, I handwave coinage and use wealth levels, when I can be bothered.

My current group of PCs rarely ever buy things. I can't remember the last time they bought a Battle/Spirit/Common Magic spell and almost never need to buy equipment.

 

[sladethesniper]

I use coinage in almost all my games...if players cant feel the pinch of buying things, it has less emotional value in game.  Plus, I usually play street level games where keeping em poor is part of the genre.

Once players make it off the street, they still pay for things with cash, but there are other options such as favors, credit rating (which can go down), using other sources of funds such as your employer when doing things "on the clock" (for mercenaries or corporate types).  I have found resource management a good motivating factor for many of my players.

I also snagged the lifestyle upkeep cost from Shadowrun which forces PCs to know they have to make X amount every month just to maintain their standard of living.

-STS

[TRose]

I like abstract wealth here.

 I remember reading once that a Medieval Knight could go a whole year and not so much as touch a single coin and most trade was in barter till recently.

[Dudemeister]

8 hours ago, TRose said:

I remember reading once that a Medieval Knight could go a whole year and not so much as touch a single coin and most trade was in barter till recently.

The modern concept of money for every one is, well mordern.  On the other hand I'm not the biggest fan of "realistism" just for the sake of it. 

I am a firm believer that a fantasy world would have different weapons and armor meta, since most classic fantasy weapons are battlefield weapons, while most adventurers seem to need personal defense weapons and tactical arms.

[Akerbakk]

I prefer real numbers in game, though I rarely track expenses except when characters are poor or wealth matters in game. I never really grasped Credit Rating as a skill... It feels like something that is more background oriented than anything. It's too easy to keep equipment lists with actual prices.

Of course, abstract wealth really require bookkeeping at all...maybe I will give it a try.

[trystero]

1 hour ago, Akerbakk said:

I prefer real numbers in game, though I rarely track expenses except when characters are poor or wealth matters in game. I never really grasped Credit Rating as a skill... It feels like something that is more background oriented than anything. It's too easy to keep equipment lists with actual prices.

Of course, abstract wealth really require bookkeeping at all...maybe I will give it a try.

7th-edition Call of Cthulhu translates investigators' Credit Rating scores into specific dollar (or pound, etc.) amounts, but abstracts much of the accounting; you have a daily "spending level", and only track expenditures for days when you exceed it. Those larger expenditures come out of your "cash" pool (liquid assets), and if that runs dry you can convert "assets" into cash (though it will take you a while).

The system plays really well; it lets you say "I routinely have this quality/comfort level for my clothing/lodging/food/weapons/transport" without any bookkeeping at all, but you can still work in specific dollar figures for high-cost one-offs. In my current Horror on the Orient Express campaign, I have two very rich characters (a wealthy American from an old East Coast family, and a British lordling), and the only time we've really needed to track specific amounts was for an absolutely swingeing bribe they had to pay to a policeman — who had them over a barrel — to get out of Venice without being arrested for a series of grisly murders. They wouldn't be able to afford another such bribe at the moment, as they haven't yet had time to replenish their cash, but they can still afford daily luxuries like first-class train tickets, excellent hotel rooms, fine dining, etc.

I find this to be a very comfortable middle-ground between totally-abstract wealth on the one hand and dollar-by-dollar (or cent-by-cent) accounting on the other. As with many other CoC-7e changes, I'd love to see the new RuneQuest adopt a similar mechanic.

[Dudemeister]

I never miked the Credit Rating skill. It seems to work, but the feel is bot right. CoC7e seems to handle it as a compromise. While this will work well in the modern settings of 1920/1890, I don't think it will translate well to a more medieval setting. Like trystero, I hope to see futher medieval-flavored development in RQ.

[sladethesniper]

I think in earlier periods of history, Credit Rating would be changed to something like Social Class or Social Standing or Family Honor or some equivalent measure of apparent trustworthiness and visible wealth.

-STS

[soltakss]

Merrie England: Age of Chivalry split the Status skill into one for Social Standing, one for Wealth and one for Reputation, I think, although it has been a while since I wrote it. So, you could have a Poor Noble with a high Social Standing, low Wealth and whatever Reputation he had gained. It fitted in well with the BRP rules but added a little more flexibility.

Edited March 30, 2016 by soltakss

[K Peterson]

9 hours ago, sladethesniper said:

I think in earlier periods of history, Credit Rating would be changed to something like Social Class or Social Standing or Family Honor or some equivalent measure of apparent trustworthiness and visible wealth.

-STS

The BRP BGB uses Status in place of Credit Rating, with its skill level being tied into social class, base wealth rating and a cap on wealth rating. Cthulhu Dark Ages used it as well. 

[trystero]

1 hour ago, K Peterson said:

The BRP BGB uses Status in place of Credit Rating, with its skill level being tied into social class, base wealth rating and a cap on wealth rating. Cthulhu Dark Ages used it as well. 

The Cthulhu Through the Ages supplement for 7th-edition Call of Cthulhu also changes Credit Rating to Status in the Cthulhu Invictus (Roman), Cthulhu Dark Ages (medieval), and Mythic Iceland settings, and redefines what different levels mean in several of the settings.

[Chaot]

I've stopped caring about it, kind of, because I realized that as a GM the wealth level of the PCs doesn't stop me from presenting whatever challenges I want, it just changes their options and motivations.  When I'm a PC I find that I've been frustrated because I had some goals that required money to achieve and I never seems to get there.  So I keep that stuff pretty hand wavy.

At character generation I give them their starting money and then I give them an equipment list (usually it's the '...And A Ten Foot Pole' book from RoleMaster).  I tell them to take whatever they reasonably think their character would have.  I haven't had anyone be unreasonable yet and if it happens I'll just ask them to revise their list a little.  During a storyline (for lack of a better term) gameplay revolves around what's on the sheet and what the PCs can earn/find/steal/beg/borrow.  Between storylines, when there's a bunch of downtime of the characters, I ask how much they spend/make and how they do it.  Again, my players have been pretty reasonable.  They get to be empowered regarding their storyline and character and I get to take whatever they come up with and use it in game or not depending if it hooks me.

[Atgxtg]

I agree with Charot,

Wealth, in game, is only a problem if the GM lets it be. The problem usually arise because some GMs and RPGs tend to use money and items as a reward. If players suddenly get an influx of money, they could use it to buy better gear, which could "unbalance" a campaign that is designed around a fixed rate of progression. Giving starting characters a million gp in D&D would be a good example. With all that gold the players would be able to buy very powerful magical items  and pretty much walk all over the standard encounters for starting characters. That would typically result in an escalation problem as the GM ups the opposition to present a challenge, followed by the PCs looking to upgrade their gear, etc. etc.

 

If, however, the GM finds other things to focus the campaign on, money isn't that much of a problem. 

 

 

[Chaot]

I think that Wealth Levels and coin tracking are both reasonable approaches, it's just that's not what I''m into right now.  I could see using a more structured system in the future, especially if the game involved reconstructing an estate or something like that.

Side note, I like to watch new players pick gear and compare it to old players picking gear.  Not to generalize too much but It's usually shock followed by passing greed and then a real evaluation of what their character would likely have.  Once a player made a pirate.  I put the book in front of her and told her to outfit her character.  She was surprised and wanted to see how far she could push it so she said that she was taking a pirate ship.  I asked her how many crew members were on board.  She thought a minute and said she didn't want to start with the ship, she would work towards one in game.  I admit, I was a little disappointed she didn't take the ship.

[wombat1]

I tend to keep track of the cash.  I don't use little fantasy coins, as the numbers needed are still cost prohibitive.  I have used little paper money notes for a wild west game, they can be knocked together with any sort of art program quickly enough to look decent